Bird I

I think part of the reason I have such a difficult time updating my blog is because I'm overwhelmed with photos. I always want to sort through and post all of the related ones together. But then it feels like such a chore (given the number of photos I take) that I'm rarely able to follow through on a project.

So instead, I've decided to revert back to what I did when I first started this blog: just post one photo at a time. (Maybe more, if I can manage it, but not too many more.) That way, whenever I feel like blogging, I'll just choose a photo I deem decent-ish, do some small edits in GIMP, and upload. Quick enough not to feel like too much to handle (not that I really have any post-work obligations other than vegging out). Anyway, I'll try this out and see how it works out. Hopefully I'll be blogging more often!

Meanwhile, here's a photo of a bird for you:

love,

linda

April Instagrams

First of all, Happy Mother's Day, Mommy! <3 

You're a wonderful mom, I love you and hope you have a great day today. :)

So, the other day I had a brilliant idea for an insta-blog-post. (Because I suck at actually sorting and processing my photos for a proper post.) Now that I have an iPhone, I actually remember to take photos with it once in a while, and with Instagram that means they're all processed and ready to go, just sitting on my phone waiting for me to make a blog post out of it! (Ok fine, I guess it's not all that original of an idea, but whatever.)

Anyway, here's a peek at how I spent the month of April in Instagrams:

My first Instagram photo ever! I'd had my iPhone for a few days but kept forgetting to take it out and use it. Only remembered in this instance because of a couple of Korean tourist taking photos of Taipei 101. :P

So because my iPhone was new and I didn't really know how to use it, I accidentally took a picture of the ground when I meant to take a picture of something else. But, uh, people seemed to like it? Hahaha.

All-you-can-eat, cook-your-own Japanese BBQ with my high school friend Annie! :) It's so much fun when my friends visit Taipei.

Hey there, Hello Kitty, what are you doing in our hot pot?? (We ended up not eating her, haha. Too full!)

Miramar Ferris wheel with Annie! It was fun, I've never been up there at night!

Hill of tombs on my way to 基隆 (Keelung). So when I took this picture, I had no idea the Taiwanese consider it a bad idea to take pictures of tombs! Apparently they think you might accidentally capture a ghost with your camera, or you might anger the dead and become haunted. When my coworkers found out about my photo they were mildly freaked out, lol. But I don't see any ghost in my photo. Do you? (Maybe I should blame my recent cold on the wrath of ghosts! But it's still worth it because I really like this photo.)

These bottles are from Rebirth Cafe, where I went for lunch with my childhood friend Phoebe, who was in Taipei for an internship. It was fun and we had a long and very intellectual conversation, haha. Also, there were cats walking around at the cafe, including this tiny adorable kitten! I didn't get too close since I'm allergic (sometimes that doesn't stop me, though) and luckily I didn't start getting itchy eyes or a runny nose.

View from 彩虹橋 (Rainbow Bridge) on our way to 饒河夜市 (Raohe Night Market) one evening after playing badminton.

地熱谷 (Thermal Valley) in 北投 (Beitou). There was a lot of steam! Went there with high school friends Annie and Isabella, who both happened to be visiting Taiwan. After walking checking out a few sights around Beitou, we soaked in the outdoor hot springs. Very relaxing, but some of those pools were super hot! My favorite was the one with the massaging jets. :)

Mossy wall and steps from what used to be a fortress around... somewhere. Sorry, forgot the name since my friend took me. It looked cool though so I snapped a photo.

Wow, that was fast and painless. Got to take more photos with my iPhone! You'd think I'd have abandoned my DLSR in favor of my phone camera by now (as it seems a lot of people have), but no, I'm still lugging my camera with me everywhere. And usually I forget to snap photos with my phone for instant sharing, but I'm trying to remember to do that more. I have to say I still like taking pictures with my camera better, though.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed your Mother's Day, especially the moms out there! :)

with love,

linda

July Outing with Phoebe and Brandon

{In which Phoebe and Brandon act like old people and little kids}

So this was one of the items in my October poll, and it did get enough votes that I chose some photos and processed them. But then I never got around to actually posting them... oops. But here are the photos, at last! (Sorry you had to wait so long, Phoebe!)

(Also, let me know if there's anything in particular you want to see, either from my April Fools update post or the October post. I'm trying to get back into blogging and it'd be nice to have a few starting points. Otherwise it's kind of overwhelming.)

Anyway, way back in July, I went to the National Museum of History with Phoebe and Brandon to see the Picasso exhibit. It was fun; with my laughter and Brandon's voice, we got shushed like 3 times within the first 5 minutes (it was fine once we moved to a different room).

We made fun of a lot of paintings. I love that Picasso's art is so inherently mockable. (Kidding. Sort of. Ok fine, I'm really just not a fan of his style.)

Finally! An Update!

{In which I catch up on on five-and-a-half months of not blogging}

April Fools! There's actually no update.

Just kidding. (Though I'm sure you wouldn't have been surprised if that were the case.)

So... I have kind of been failing at this blogging thing. I'm always super conflicted when it comes to my blog because I have TONS of gorgeous photos to share, but then because there are so many I get overwhelmed and I fall behind and the guilt is too much and then I go LA LA LA I'M IGNORING MY BLOG.

But here I am attempting to give you a peek of what I've been doing when I haven't been blogging. It almost killed me to choose just ONE photo per month, but I knew I'd never get anything posted otherwise. In the future, I'd like to share more photos if possible, but considering my record... yeah. Don't hold your breath.

Links! Photos! Stuff!

{In which there is much randomness}

Ugh, I suck at updating now. Sorry. :( I can't believe I once posted every weekday! *is full of nostalgia for those long-ago happy days*

Anyway, I still have thousands of photos to sort through and process and upload, and you'd think that given how much time I've been holing up in my room lately I'd have more to show. But no, I've been taking advantage of my recent bout of anti-socialness to work on other projects. Like Camp NaNoWriMo, except I got stalled because I have this terrible habit of needing to have everything planned and outlined before I can write (left over from my days of writing one-draft English papers the night before they're due). Soooo I've been plotting (and reading about plotting) instead of writing, which is good for my sanity but not so great for my word count.

Since I'm here, I thought I'd share some random photos as well as awesome links I've come across lately and would love to discuss with someone. So go read these articles and tell me what you think!

Taipei Flora Expo Part II

{In which John and I are interviewed by a Taiwanese reporter}

Continued from Taipei Flora Expo Part I.

The photos above are from the Korean pavilion. For some reason the Taiwanese seem to hold some prejudice against Koreans. While we were there, a reporter and cameraman from Taiwanese TV station 民視 approached us (well, John, actually). Probably because there was no one else in the area.

Taipei Flora Expo Part I

{In which John and I go to the Flora Expo, inadvertently annoy a volunteer, and learn to pose like Taiwanese students}

So like, I was actually not planning on going to the Taipei International Flora Exposition.

I'd seen the ads everywhere since I arrived, but it didn't sound all that interesting to me. I don't like flowers enough to want to stand in lines to look at them (although I wouldn't mind if you want to buy me some! :P). My parents went to the Expo when they were in Taiwan over Thanksgiving break and weren't exactly impressed, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. Plus, I already got a photo with the entrance sign — good enough for me!

Chasing Pigeons

{In which there are photos of a cute boy}

Wow, that last post worked like a charm! After writing it I felt a lot more motivated to work on photos (no idea why) and spent hours on the photos this week. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with some of the ones that were giving me a lot of trouble, so I went back and fixed them. I was really relieved that they don't suck so much any more, even if I wasn't any closer to finishing. But that really helped me not to dread processing as much and gave me the push I needed to keep going. In fact, I made so much progress that I think you'll be able to see some of those photos by this weekend!

Death Valley

{In which I process a photo from 2008 instead of the thousands I should be working on now}

Photo taken on family vacation to Death Valley in 2008, with the Canon SD800 from Uncle Eric.

Roaming Taipei with Jack and Patrick

{In which we take photos all over Taipei}

February is shaping up to be a super packed month for me, what with New Years festivities, NTHU friends on winter break, and Brandon and Phoebe's wedding in two weeks (!!). I have tons and tons of photos and am slowly sorting/processing them, and wow it's a lot more time-consuming than I expected. Most of my posts in the near future will be photo diaries. But yeah, lots of exciting adventures! :D

Last Monday was my last day of break before returning to work, so Patrick came up from Taichung and hung out with Jack and me for a whole day. Our first stop was Jack's house, where Jack taught Patrick to fly a plane with the flight simulator while I napped or photographed stuff in Jack's room. Afterward, we went to 碧潭 (Bitan) for a stroll and for lunch before going to 美麗華 (Miramar) to ride the ferris wheel. After that, we snapped some photos of the 花博 (Flora Expo) entrance on our way to 士林夜市 (Shilin Night Market) for dinner and shopping. (It was super crowded there.) It was an awesome day of hanging out and running all over Taipei! Thanks for being great company, Jack and Patrick. :)

(I'm playing around with post-processing so that's why some of the photos look funky... I'm just starting out so I'm not great at it but I have lots of fun experimenting!)

Crabbing

I took this photo in Fall Semester 2009 with my Canon SD800 (a gift from my uncle. Thanks, Uncle Eric!). I went to San Francisco for a crabbing trip with friends, complete with giant nets and lots of guts as bait. The tiny crabs we caught were cute, but since we couldn't keep them unless they were a certain size, we would throw them back into the ocean. If the crab was unlucky, a seagull would swoop down and carry it off before it was safely back at the bottom of the bay (poor baby crab!).

We had a delicious crab dinner after we got back to Berkeley, thanks to the people who bought crabs for us from the local grocery store. Although we didn't have an amazing haul of seafood (we caught exactly two crabs of acceptable size), I had so much fun. That was an incredible day of hanging out with Berkeley ICA. You guys are amazing!

Swan Lake

{In which there are swans in a lake and a clip from a movie based on Swan Lake (no, not the one with Natalie Portman)}



Ah, the black swan. My mom's favorite bird. The photograph doesn't do it justice, but unfortunately I think it's the best of the bunch I have. Ah, well.

Seaport Sunset

Photo taken with cell phone, December 2009 at Seaport Village, San Diego. Currently my cell phone wallpaper (unfortunately that phone doesn't work in Taiwan, but I still use it as a notepad/watch/alarm clock/mp3 player/emergency camera).

Twig by Twig

Ok, I guess "twig" might not be the best word for the subject of my photograph. Or maybe it is. But I chose it because it reminds me of this beautiful poem:

Ars Poetica

by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

At the Berkeley Marina

My new camera is awesome and I love it to pieces, but I don't think using it means instant awesome photos. I've heard it's the person using it that matters, and while I know I'm definitely a beginner and still have a lot to learn, I like to flatter myself that I took decent photos even before I got a DSLR. So in addition to posts of recent photographs and events, I also want to dig through photos from the past and share a few every once in a while. It's a good way to revisit past events and see how I have and haven't changed in my photo-taking habits. I definitely regret not taking more photos. You can never have too many, in my opinion.

That photo above was taken with my Canon PowerShot SD800 (RIP, dear camera!) in spring 2010. Danny took Michelle and me to the Berkeley Marina, where we ate sandwiches from Bakesale Betty's and talked about God and deep spiritual things. And boys (haha). And relationships. And how messy those can get.

We sat a table at a beautiful spot between trees and the sea. I loved the texture of the old wooden table and the lichen that grew in the cracks. I couldn't resist taking lots and lots of photos, and I'm so glad I did. That was an amazing afternoon.