A Halloween Story

Halloween is my favorite holiday - and not just because it occurs a week after my birthday! To celebrate, I donned this lovely interpretation of "a wolf in sheep's clothing" (hat courtesy of my lovely friend Nina and shirt courtesy of my lovely roommate Liberty), baked pumpkin bread, watched The Others and drudged up this Halloween story I wrote sometime in my early high school days. And yes, going through all that old material was truly spooky.

You can also see some of my costumes past and other great costumes from SakuraCon!

Science Fiction Stories: The Observer (Part II)

Today I am sharing part two of The Observer, my serial science fiction story. Two weeks ago, I introduced Taligunge, the alien observer who comes to Earth, and in this second part, she continues on just that journey.


If you haven't read part one, I highly recommend you check it out right here. And, as always, feel free to let me know what suggestions you have for the next installment! Part two commences after the jump.

CED Round-Up: Bones, Cyborgs and Flowers

This week, I introduced a new artistic medium and harkened back to the old as well. Below, you'll find examples of my coding efforts, my writing, drawing in two ways, and my severe need to move my hands while watching TV. Enjoy!

Science Fiction Stories: The Observer (Part I)

Drumroll, please! Today, I am introducing first installment of my serial science fiction project, The Observer. As a writer, I have gravitated mostly towards science fiction in the past, and wanted to re-visit my love for it through producing content regularly. So, this serial fiction is coming to you in parts, just like your favorite TV shows. Enjoy this first section, and let me know what you think of it (and science fiction as a whole) in the comments! Also, I am accepting suggestions to use for the upcoming parts of the story. Leave those in the comments as well!

Taligunge tapped the side of her head reflexively. She prepared herself to receive a transmission that would never come – one that would tell her she was in the right place. Slinking out from a side alley, she surveyed her destination from across the street.

Creative Every Day (CED) Roundup

After listening to this great presentation by Nick Campbell on the "creative gap," I have decided to take one of his main points to heart and start creating a short project everyday. So, as of this Monday, I have been creating new work by the bucketloads (or, at least, once a day, everyday), and would love to share it! I hereby deem Thursdays as my new roundup day for all the creative things I've done for the week.

 Monday's project was to use a pen and grease pencil to create a drawing. This is what came out of it! Also, the weird lens flare was my camera having an awkward flash moment...

"Taligunge watched the man sift through the drawer; his hands lingered over bits of cloth, pieces of paper, all the little odds and ends she had collected from surveying at different meet ups and gatherings. His fingers on her possessions made a spark jump inside her."

Tuesday, I wrote about 250 words of my first serial fiction experiment. This is a teaser sentence from it, so expect more of the story on the blog in weeks to come!

Wednesday I decided to start using the mannequin I bought to do some creative Photoshop work. This is a work in progress cartoon figure that hopefully will be starring in some later work.

Interested in other creative projects I've done? Check out the DIY Interlude series to see both tutorials and works in progress, or my Project by Project series to see the final results.

A Hike is Not Just a Hike

I'm back! Taking a week away has cleared my head a bit and allowed me to do some much-needed research and have some much-needed life experiences. Awesome posts to come, but let's begin with a story for now: last week, I went hiking at Wallace Falls, so today I present you with a few photographs and a free-writing exercise about it. Enjoy!

Project x Project: Pressing the Record Button

A project that I have wanted to launch for a while, but have not yet dared to test out, is to read some of my work aloud and read them as podcast-like posts for this blog. Today I am taking the plunge. I will start with a story* that I wrote for a creative writing class I did last semester, since that seemed related to the previous post I put up about academics and creativity. Enjoy, and be sure to tell me how I did in the comments!

*This story will also be posted after the jump for people who choose to or can only read it rather than hear it. Yay!

Hair-story

I attended a conference about the social implications of hair - needless to say, I thought about it for a while.

Long hair was precious when I was young. From the bushy afro of my baby pictures grew a mane that writhed down my back and looped itself over my sloping shoulders. I was a tomboyish child who let leaves get stuck in my curls and let the dark black color of it bake in the summer sun. My hair was always frizzy, never flat.
For a child not indoctrinated into a love affair with dolls, brushing my hair was tantamount to the impossible. My knots had to be combed or cut out by force – first by my blond aunt who was a hairdresser and who sent suggestive combs back with me after each visit. On those occasions, I would squirm in the chair and bite my lip as the scissors came near my ears. Later, my mom tried to tame the beast in our dining room chairs that squeaked as she wrenched holes in my head laying out remonstrations. At that point, I realized that I had to take this into my own hands.
I refused my mother and asked for my dad’s stylist, who plunged me into the shortest haircut I’d had since 6th grade – I was then a junior in high school. With hair around my ears, I no longer was loathe to comb it, which used to take hours and was extremely frustrating.
Indeed, he attacked my curly hair and gave it style – though I had never coveted the time spent by my peers on “hair-epy,” I could now see that their locks were easier tamed than mine because of the constant war they had waged. With short hair, my image became younger (not exactly the best thing for a 16-year-old girl) and my face appeared rounder. But the trials of short curly black hair remained. There was no way to get it off your neck with a ponytail holder, my afro began to rise again in class photos, and I began to judge whether I was taken seriously with a spunky cut that frizzed out in all directions. The melody of regret arose.
But I had never enjoyed the process of growing it back out – why my hair was neither “here” nor “there” represented the times I was most prone to insecurity. So I kept cutting until I reached the wall.
The first time I straightened my hair was in senior year. I sat, trembling, in the salon chair and waited with trepidation. But after the ordeal of burning follicles and half my hair falling to the floor (or at least what looked like it), I peeked at the strange new face and… it looked good. It was long and soft; it wafted like all the natural straight hair that had been prized for centuries before. Needless to say that when I tried to go for this look at home, my head turned into a half-wavy rat’s nest, but there’s no need to talk about that. But straight hair felt like a betrayal.
As a darling child, the older women would lust after my natural curls – even as I screamed at cutting out the knots as if I were an unruly cat, I remembered their praise. With straight hair, I just wasn’t accurate. I looked more doll-like and ultra-femme than my nature warranted. But the compliments rolled in from peers: I was a beauty conformist.
It makes me wonder whether people enjoy conformity so much that, even when it is out of place, they applaud. I had (and still have) a very staunch response to hair dye (an emphatic “NO!”) because it screams out that plasticity is the way to go. I can’t abide by it. I wouldn’t be myself as a blond, brunette, or blue-headed person. Even though, I must admit, the last one has come to mind.
When I discovered conditioner washing, I thought it was a revolution for curly-haired girls (but it turns out I just came late to the party). No shampoo equals no frizz? Something led me to try it and I fell in love. There was no longer an excuse for me to twist up my curls or pick at them for hours with a fine-tooth comb that made it bubble up like a beehive. I felt unique.
These “hair revelations” led me down a lot of paths: the weird unkempt girl and the jungle child were there, but so were the poised femme and the secure experimenter. Hair never felt important in a larger context, but looking at all the time I spent wrestling with it says that may not be all true. Self-image is inextricably linked to hair in a way that you never thought possible.

What are your hair stories?

You might also be interested in opinion pieces like Discrimination and Mixed Metaphors, Single Sex Education for Women and Girls, and The South Asian Question in a New York Minute.
More writing and stories are also available for your reading pleasure.
You can also check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Pure Emotion

Paint with the wind. I don't want to talk about today, I don't want to talk about tomorrow, I don't want to talk about the past or the present or the future. All I want to talk about is you.
Call it conceited, call it a 'burst of passion,' call it what you will but I want to find you stroking the sheets so that we can play our dangerous game. So that we can forget our names and remember that we are only children, playing in the attic and wondering how we came to be.
Let's make it happen.
I don't want to sit down or stand up, I want to sprawl - I want to fly across paint-splattered walls and divulge myself to the greatest power I have yet found on Earth. Is that you? It could be. For I have fallen amoureuse, headlong into the soft undercurrent of your heartbeat. Is that you? Ticking away at my heartstrings, bearing down with kisses on my succulent nape. It could be the victim in me, but I want you to draw blood. Perhaps then you would understand.
I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about you.
Let's find you in the open landscape of blue crepe and feathers; the down blanket that you spread over us both has everything to do with your fair skin. Bring yourself to me, I want the challenge. I can say no or send you away but, for all eventualities, I have heard that you are one smooth talker and perhaps there is a liability issue at stake.
Let's find ourselves between powder blue sheets with nothing but our first names. Then maybe we'll have won.

(I don't want to have to think about anything today - I have spent my anger through venting and I have spent my tears. I want to fall in love with someone who will support me on my journey to find me, and maybe find themself in the spaces between. Right now, I am in the checkout line, waiting for the cashier to ring me up and send me on my way; out to the great blue yonder where I might cast my lot in another betting pool. Soon I will be saved, soon I will be saved, soon I will be saved. I am not a realist, nor an optimist, but pessimism has recently gotten me down. I turn off the newscast and forget that people exist.)

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Somehow, Someway

I know.
Sometimes it's completely wonderful to spend a weekend away from yourself. Away from all the little opinion pieces floating around in your head, narrating your life as if you were some sort of child and needed to be directed at every turn. Eat this, don't touch that, be careful! Things aren't so much different when you're on your own and trying to make it.
So sometimes, even though it's not really advisable, there's a period of time when I don't really care about the tiny so-not-gonna-happen crushes, the crusades towards victory over psychology homework and scholarship work. I let it all go.
Now, don't believe I go all crazy and start jumping into fires or something stupid like that. I'm a "party girl" without the booze or the cheap thrills. I like staying up late at night and talking to my roommate about things that will never happen to me. Sharing stories that aren't really mine - they just bounce around in my head and I put them to paper (kind of like I am now). Somewhere, in the world of fiction, a girl who is the complete opposite of me can run free and take over me. Mind, body and soul.
Dia hasn't come back for a while, she hasn't littered my texts with her boy-crazy, overly-hot insanity, but she is always lurking there. At the edge of my mind where people wouldn't expect a girl like me to reside. The brink where people often jump off. The clouded forest. The silent grey trees.
Here is where I stand today: a more serious vacation than I'd planned, taking time from the world of letters making up my worth and people telling me that I'm not really there. I have to learn to be original, and sometimes... that just won't work out. And so here, where I'm forced to be whoever I need to be, I have chosen.
I like myself enough to keep things rolling. And, so it seems, other people do too.
P.S. I'm revising my thoughts on fiction classes; if they're done right, they're fantastic.