Everyone stares when you walk in the room
They stare when you go
You've got so much control
How can anyone say 'no'

They rarely do, that's why you're you
And why you'll win
And I don't even miss you at all
No, no

I heart my fake glasses.

I used to think that people who wore fake glasses were dumb and pretentious. But hey, I don't consider myself neither dumb nor pretentious. I think stylish glasses look awesome on people - it adds a really interesting feature to their face, and it's an entirely new accessory to help define your style. I figure people who know me know I'm not pretentious or dumb, and people who don't know me will assume that they're real. And honestly, they make me look and feel smarter. I wear them when I give speeches in my communications class, or when I'm working on a really good idea for a project, and it kind of gives me more focused and intelligent vibes.

The college stereotype is that you end up living in your sweats, but it's kind of the opposite for me. Living with and hanging out with stylish people has kind of upped my sense of style and made me more conscious of what I wear. And I care less and less about what other people think. In high school, I would be too paranoid to even wear a casual dress to school. Now I can break out my fake glasses, shiny leggings, 3-inch cage heels without a second thought.

Not to class of course. There's stylish dressing, and then there's stylishly appropriate dressing. I've discovered that being stylish is not just about what you wear, but when you wear it. There's a girl in my dorm who wears her strappy heels and a shiny red dress with a black flared peacoat to class, and I don't think it looks good. Not because the dress or shoes are ugly; the fact that she wears it to class makes her look ridiculously out of place, and therefore unstylish in my mind. There's a time and place for every outfit, and if you break out your Sunday best for a Tuesday lecture, what will you have to wear on special occasions?

-Wendy

I'm not going to lie, I'm terrified and I don't want to leave yet.

^I got inspired by Michelle's Vanessa Carlton concert, and whipped out my burned copy of Be Not Nobody. I'd forgotten how good this album was - I wonder why I deleted it from my iTunes. And thankfully, "A Thousand Miles" has not been ruined for my by it being played in White Chicks.

So...I've been pretty much MIA from xanga this summer, besides the Warped Tour entry and my not-quite-sincere-just-making-an-entry-for-the-sake-of-having-an-entry for the 4th of July (although don't get me wrong, it was a fun day) I skipped prom, graduation, and all of my summer escapades. Oops.

Prom - was a blast. My whole philosophy of prom was very, very relaxed - I didn't really see it as more than an excuse to dress up and another night to hang with friends. So it was really easy to have a roll-with-the-punches kind of attitude. Corsage fell off? I didn't like it too much anyways. Hairdo fell apart? It looks better slightly tousled. Train of my dress being bothersome? I'll just hold it. The dress was free, why complain?
I loved my group - there was almost no prom-a, everyone knew/liked each other and we kept it relatively small/intimate, unlike other prom groups that were just a trainwreck and a half. Plus, we had the prom king and queen in our limo, holla!
We had, by far, the best prom soundtracks. Going there, we had our raunchy mix ("Ooooh, Sally. That Girl."), a white guy mix (Ska, pop-punk and country. Quote of the week, by Ryan D - "This music makes me want to marry my cousin."). And of course, our entire return trip was filled with Ryan and Jose's 80 minute loop of "What is Love". That was the highlight of prom. We were all shouting, "WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME, DON'T HURT ME, NO MORE" every single time it came on, and I was doing all the dramatic handwaves as I lipsynched the "whoaaaa oooh whoaaa!" parts with my water bottle/microphone. In the middle, Laurel shouted "Is anyone sick of this yet?" And no one was sick of it. It. Was. Awesome.
Lauren's house afterward was really chill. We ate Jose's burritos (food of the gods, I tell ya), played guitar hero, and chatted around the kitched table. Our mood was pretty much "Hey, are you tired?" "No, are you tired?" "No...LET'S STAY UP ALL NIGHT!!", which led some people to kind of go crazy - I have vague memories of people sumo wrestling and trying/failing to crush soda cans on their head. By 6 AM, we were all starting to nod off. I ended up sharing Lauren's sleeping bag with Jose and Alex Colvin and sleeping for 2 hours, where Alex proceeded to roll around to cuddle up with both me and Jose. Fun times.


Most diverse prom group?

Graduation - Oh boy. I don't know, I don't really have any really introspective, existential thoughts about high school ending, but it still kind of shocks me every time I think about how everything that's familiar to me will be gone in 14 days. I definitely ended my high school career on the right foot senior year - I had lots of fun times hanging around so many great people, I liked all of my teachers, I got good grades, I went on fantastic Winter and Spring Break trips...it was hard leaving it all in June. I kept a "cry count" near the end of the year, and I cried a total of eight times (well, I also counted tearing up-but-not-full-out-cries as well):
- writing my thank-you note to Mr. Siltanen
- reading my yearbook entry from Michelle (I forgot to tell you Michelle! Your yearbook entry made me tear up)
- Mr. Teixeira's goodbye to our class (his final words: "Please, please don't make these years the best years of your life. There's still so much out there to explore that high school is nothing compared to it.")
- Saying goodbye to Mr. Manno on the last day of school
- Saying goodbye to Mr. Teixeira the next day when I had him sign my book slip and yearbook
- Mr. Siltanen's speech during graduation
- GRADUATION. Oh boy, what a bawl-fest.
- Rereading Siltanen's speech the weekend after graduation
Although, if you want a real gauge of how sad I was...Saturday after grad night, I was feeling really down about high school ending. I tried reading and cleaning but nothing cured my melancholy. I thought "well, I'll just go to bed early tonight". I showered and turned on the TV, just to see what was on, and it was AMERICA'S  BEST DANCE CREW. My bad mood instantly flew out the window and I was just like "OMG AMERICA'S BEST DANCE CREW!!" hahaha. But after that I mellowed down to a sad, but calm acceptance of the end of high shool.

Well, that at least covers up until the end of June. Up next: SUMMER 2008.

-Wendy

My first festival concert! And I had a blast. I'm still on a bit of a concert high right now.

Me and Steph got off the Bart at the Embarcadero station and walked on down to the Piers where warped tour was.I love the Embarcadero area - it was a brilliantly sunny day, and there were farmer's markets and cool sculptures everywhere. We got to the area, walked around a bit, realized that Anberlin played at 10:30, and boosted on over to watch them play.



Second time watching them in concert. They are so good live. Even though it was one of the first shows of the day they still had lots of energy. I only really knew one of their songs, but it didn't really matter - it was still fun watching them.



I like this picture. He's glowing.

The one band I really, really wanted to see (and really, the only band where I knew more than one of their songs) was Relient K. They weren't on 'til 12, so Steph and I watched some other bands in passing:



The Maine. Their songs were pretty good, if not a bit typical of the Warped Tour scene. Quote of the week: the lead singer threw his empty soda can into the audience, and as everyone was clamoring to get it, he yelled "I HAVE HERPES! SPREAD THAT SHIT AROUND!" hahaha. And they played a cover of Akon's "I wanna love you" and actually made the song bearable. Bad ass.



RELIENT K!! We could have gotten better views if we came earlier, but oh well, the Akon cover was worth it and it was still an awesome, awesome show. Another quote of the week, courtesy of Matt Thiessen: "I was having a contest to see which one was more beautiful, the San Francisco landscape or the people of San Francisco, and you guys won." They played High of 75, which is one of my absolute favorites by them. He was rapping in between songs, which was pretty hilarious. While they were playing a new song from their next album, "The Bird and the B-sides", I saw a bee fly above the audience. There was a butterfly just fluttering by earlier as well, which was kind of surreal - to see something so delicate floating above our cramped, high-energy selves. I think it's a sign. Only at a Relient K gig. It was great.



Camwhoring after the RK set.



Story of the Year. Steph and I were borderline deaf and she was starting to get close to blacking out, so we opted to stay on the edge of the crowd this time. I didn't really know any of their songs and at one point I couldn't even see the stage, but it was still fun mindlessly yelling lyrics with Steph, haha.



Matt said they were going to have signings at the Kia tent later, but when we got there the line was really long and the Kia people wouldn't let us get in line. Silly corporate sponsorships. So we just came back later and caught them as they were walking out :) He said I was the first person to thank them for what they played, instead of telling them what they should have played.

I'm kind of spoiled when it comes to concerts - I've always been able to meet band members after shows. So Steph and I opted to meet as many people as possible instead of seeing more bands. We only had a few bands we really wanted to see anyways (although even watching the amount of bands that we saw was still worth the ticket price). We had a fair amount of time until the next band, so we bought merch, shared a frozen lemonade, met Anberlin (also really nice, even though the Alternative Press people wouldn't let us get pictures with them), and chilled by the fence next to the Bay. Pier 30 is such a perfect place for summer concerts - it was still blazing hot, but the ocean breeze cooled us down really well, and the view was so spectacular.

The last band we saw was Between the Trees. They were my favorite opening band when I saw Mae in April, so I was really excited to see them again.







They were awesome. They did all of their little idiosyncracies again - the funny way they checked their mics, the simultaneous headbanging, the bassist moving his head around and dancing around while playing. The singer was going all out with his singing. It was such a great live performance - "White Lines & Red Lights" was one of the highlights of the whole day.





Plus, besides Mae, they were the nicest band I've met. The bassist (the guy on the right of me) said he liked my sunglasses, haha.

There were no other bands we wanted to see after that, but we didn't want to leave. We took one more walk around all of the booths, then sat against the fence again, taking in our surroundings. Finally, we headed back to the BART station, stopping to get lemonade and sorbetto at this amazing gelateria in the Ferry Building. Their blood orange sorbetto is delicious - it actually tastes like fresh oranges.

And as a perfect end to the perfect day, Live 105 played "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse as Steph was driving me home. Epic.







All in all, it was the perfect way to kick off the first days of summer. Totally worth the sunburn and weird tanlines I now have.

-Wendy