Should ACCD have Permias?

Permias stands for Persatuan Mahasiswa Indonesia di Amerika Serikat and it is an organization that unites Indonesian students in US universities.

This might just came up as a random crazy idea at 3 am, that kind of idea that you happened to dig into after you finished a research for a project. This idea is merely triggered by those Chinese New Year event pictures hosted by Permias in some regions and schools. I joined a sub-organization of Permias in De Anza College, not as a core member though, but being a part of Permias itself would be even a greater honor.

Imagine the idea of teaming up with other members to establish an event, attending cultural nights, getting a chance to encounter the Indonesian Ambassador in the US, and attending nationwide conferences. Wouldn't that be nice?

The "Meh"-est Year: A pretty shitty reflection (Part 1)

Approaching the end of the year, I thought I should make a post dedicated to all the going-ons in 2013. 2013 has probably been the "meh"-est year out of all previous years I've had in US. I've been looking back and forth to the previous posts I wrote back in the 2010 up to 2012, and even before 2010, back before I went to study in the US. So I looked back at all the happy posts I did up to 2012, how I had so much fun, when YOLO was a main lifestyle - life's motto, more or less like Hakuna Matata.
Dang, I got to travel to so many places within those 2 years, got to try bunch of things, do bunch of stuff, went to 2 different yet most visited cities in US within a month of winter break, spent so much money on those trips, and all other good things. Before I led you guys to the next point, I went to community college for 2 years from 2010 and 2012. Yes, two freaking superb years of community college life. If you take a 2-year in community college and 2-year in a 4 year university education course, you'd definitely feel what I mean here.

The Toughest Day of the Week

Hey guys, I just wanted to share a quick story of how an ideal day should end. So the Packaging midterm was supposed to be due on Friday afternoon, complete with tight presentation and display boards to go along with the gazentas (that's what my professor refers to the items included in the packaging project). It's an individual project and everyone in the class had the freedom to choose what packaging or kit they wanted to make.
I decided I'd do something simple and relatable to Art Center community: making a finals week survival kit, mostly because I'm concerned by the fact that most Art Center students are often overwhelmed with their projects approaching the finals week that they neglect their hygiene and starve ourselves.

Two Ultimate Dumbness of the Week (Oh God, Why?)

Sometimes, at some points of our life, there are moments where you just want to hide your face and don't want to expose yourself to anyone. We just wanted to forget that ever happened. In my case, those kinds of moment happen to me in a week.

Yes, I made two silly mistakes in two consecutive days. Nothing really personal or serious though, so don't worry. Just pure dumbness hahaha.

Band saw and Laid

Hey guys,

Guess what, it's a long weekend! I won't have class on Monday, which is good. What makes it even better, the homework load is not as crazy as I thought. But I know I will regret for saying this in the latter.

This term, I'm taking the last required class for integrated studies, and that is Materials of Art and Design. Honestly, I'm not really fond in building and making things. Cutting, sawing, and carving are just not my thing, which explains why I never had any pottery class. However, the first two projects seemed to be a fun thing to do! The first project involves carving a name out of a 0.5 inch MDF wood using the band saw. Frankly though, I hate the earsplitting sound of the blade cutting through the material. That machine doesn't seem so friendly.

But I'm pretty fond of how it turns out!

What makes you...

This is what often happens in regular working days.
I only have two hours of sleep to get my assignment for the next day done My classmates pull an all-nighter to do the same thing for the same class
I constantly doze off during the critique My classmates completely stay awake during the critique
Seriously guys, what's your secret? Two barrels of Monster (or Redbull)? #jealous

Eric is Here!

Kids, what do we do two weeks before finals?

We...

This is probably one of the greatest guilty pleasure ever. Okay, this is the second greatest guilty pleasure after I lied to my high school faculty that I went to LA for a week to have an appointment with my future university.

The fact is, I went there for *duh* vacation.

Ideas are everywhere, literally..except...

These past few weeks, my roommate and I have been working profusely on our Design 2 midterm, which includes 6 different abstract compositions made into different formats of artwork (print, painting, installation, sculpture, 3D work). Basically, we need to convey the 4x4" mockups that I posted previously on this blog into a real artwork.

It's pretty hard to find ideas on what to do for these 6 compositions in color, like what materials to choose from and how you are going to execute them. The class professor suggested that the students should go out and do some activities to draw inspiration. For example, my roommate and I went to Orchard Supply Hardware to look for materials. The variety of materials the store has suddenly showered both of us with some ideas of materials and format to work on for this project.

Dots, lines, and tricks

I still don't have a chance to continue my North Sumatra story. Things have been quite hectic, particularly for one class. Yep, Design 2 has been energy and idea drenching for the past four weeks, where we all had to come up with 30 4"x4" abstract compositions. The requirements for each compositions vary, and so are the concepts.

Compositions: Symmetry, Asymmetry, Figure on Ground, Figure and Ground, Depth Gestallt, Pattern based on a decade (I chose 1920s), Unity by Diversity 

Color/Temperatures: Emphasis by Hue, Emphasis by Tint/Shades/Tones,
Emphasis by Saturation 

Concepts: Anomaly, Technology, Dynamic, Luxury (I screwed this one)

The Perks of Being in a Photography Class

So after collecting enough money (well, some of them are part of my parents' contribution), I finally got my first legit DSLR camera. I actually am a little hesitated to get it because my dad already got one but he kept it with him in Indonesia to fulfill his fondness in photography.

Since this term I'm taking photography class (and as mentioned by another photography professor that a graphic designer should be equipped with at least a good quality DSLR camera for photo references), I got one as well.

Transit is boring

Yeah, especially when you're not feeling hungry and you just don't feel like doing anything. Taipei's airport wifi is super crappy! Anyway, I feel so lame for not posting a lot in Indonesia. I got super occupied in Indonesia (not really), but yeah I got plans and outings, and basically on my second week of break, I took off to Medan for about a week for New Year. If the time allows, I'd really love to write the story. I need a non-art life to keep the balance of my art life. Art is good, which is why I love doing it so much and choose it as a field of study! But too much art can be a bit boring. I felt super unproductive in everything else except the field that I'm currently pursuing, graphic design, on my previous semester (no music, no writing, no dancing... I dedicated most of my time for art, and other than that, my spent body just decided to chill by watching movies). So hopefully, my next semester's workload allows me to spend some time in writing, and hopefully, freelance writing. Yeah, I was actually recruited to become weekly blogger for a notable online graphic design website, but due to previous semester's workload, it didn't last long.

Eyebags Eyebags

Hey guys!!

I finally got to post again! Glad finals are over, phiew. I'm going back to Indonesia today but I haven't done so much on packing. The thing is, I just finished my finals yesterday, on Saturday, whereas everyone has wrapped up on Friday. Sad ey?

Actually, I wrapped all my studio finals on Thursday, which is actually earlier than everyone else. My other friends still had a project critique up until Friday evening. However, sadly for us, graphic majors especially first termers, we all had to take a test for our online class. The test were open from Thursday to Saturday noon. As predicted, most of us weren't ready to take it early, so even some, including me, had to wait all the way to Saturday morning to take it.

Last week in community college....

The finals week is approaching, and here I am posting something on the blog (yeah right).

I just finished one final exam, for today. Well, you wouldn't call it an exam, as it was a critique for my color theory class final assignment. I worked my butt off on it until 4am, and when I thought I could wake up 3 hours later to attend French revision before its final exam, I overslept.

So, here I am, at the last week in community college before a whole new chapter starts within two months. It feels like it was yesterday when I first posted this.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Anyway, the week before, I attended ISV's last meeting of the quarter. As for me, it would be my very last ISV meeting or probably club meeting in my college, before hell-oh university! 

Last weekend, I already completed my very last volunteer activity, which is to paint visitors' (mostly children's) faces in a health organizational event. No pictures taken, sadly, but I had a great time doing my job that time. I had 0 experience in facepainting but after a short briefing (even without training), I pulled it off.

Got three precious goodies in a day!
Certificate for being the club member
Certificate of Appreciation for being Graphic Designer of the club
Starbucks gift card for being one of the highest volunteer hour achiever

Yay to those!!

Although it was the last meeting, fewer people came yet we had some special guests:

Susan, the club advisor, and Johnson, the 7th president of ISV who used to run the club a couple of years ago. Jessica (the current graphic designer, my successor), and I had a warm chat with Johnson where he shared who the graphic designer during his period and how she was like.

Presented by Bill, the former president whom I got to work with as a graphic designer last year

Presented by Johnson, the 7th president of ISV. So honored... :'D

The boys chillin'. lol

This is one of the reasons why I would definitely miss college. I just figured out that the university where I'm going to transfer to wouldn't have things like clubs as the student life will be 90% focused on their studies. No kidding. So ISV will certainly be missed. It's been a major part of my college life for over a year. I've seen the club progressing since January 2011 up until now, seeing new members popping up and perishing, generation after generation...

...well, I need to stop this before I sound like an old grannie any longer.

Well, anyway, thank you so much ISV for shaping me into what I am now, training me that at some points in life, we don't only need others' help, but others do need our help too. I hope the current and future members will commit to participating in the activities not solely for university application. 

Simply just have fun with it :)

Photos of the meeting are courtesy of:

~Eric Wong~

Go Aggie!!

This totally made my day.

Alhamdulillah.

God is good :)

However, I didn't get into UCLA, exactly like what I have anticipated.
Anyway, the admission decisions out today finally conclude months of journey of waiting for university acceptances. After series of pounding heartbeats, I can finally settle down and hopefully I'll be able to choose the right school to go to.

P.S: By the way, the new Blogger editor is annoying. Hopefully I'll get used to it soon >.<

Alhamdulillah :)

They say nothing is impossible
Before today, I didn't have faith in that statement
But today, it proves itself to be true

:) :) :)



Thank you God :)

よろしくね！ (Nice to meet you)

In the midst of uni applications and school hectic-ness, I felt a bit grateful due to this particular volunteer activity. For your info, I haven't participated in any volunteer events this quarter mainly because I had to skip them for other needs (TOEFL test, sudden stomachache on Saturday morning, etc).

Basically, the volunteer event this time didn't take place on Saturday unlike usual, instead, it took place three days in a row on weekdays. I could only attend two out of three sessions though. Basically, De Anza students signed up to interact with Japanese students from Kokusai Junior College in Japan who were on some sort of a field trip to US. We were supposed to give them "American experience" and share stories. Seeing that I learned Japanese for two years (I'm never good at it though), I considered this volunteer pretty much as a chance to finally apply what I have learned for two years in high school in real life.

~DAY 1~

I was quite surprised to see all the Kokusai students turned out to be all girls. They were simply outnumbered by DeAnza students, but that didn't reduce the fun. Anyway, after the icebreaker on the first day - Tuesday, February 21, 2012, Kokusai students and De Anza students had one-to-one conversation on the long table.

The icebreaker game - find someone who could provide answers of these given questions!


The Kokusai group was kind enough to give a souvenir to each De Anza volunteer
An authentic chopstick from Japan! I got the pink one luckily xD

I happened to sit across this cute girl named Airi. I managed to greet and introduce her in my super limited Japanese: "Hi, my name is Carissa. Nice to meet you!". She went "Sugoi!" then I continued in Japanese that I learned it back in high school. Sometimes, when she got caught up in explaining a word in English, she turned to Saki, who sat next to her and asked for a translation. かわいいですね：）

Remember when I said De Anza students should give the Japanese students an "American experience", apparently that wasn't what exactly happened in the end, because instead, it happened in a reverse way. Thing is, Airi asked if I liked Japanese music in the first place, and I couldn't help but to keep the conversation flowing. We ended up talking about J-pop musicians that were familiar to me, like Arashi, NEWS, and Hey!Say!JUMP (mostly Johnny's). On talking about Arashi, I told her my bias is Ninomiya Kazunari, especially after I saw him briefly act in Letters from Iwo Jima. Apparently Airi was a big, big, BIG fan of Sho Sakurai of Arashi and Yamada Ryosuke from Hey!Say!JUMP.

We went screaming, spazzing, fan girling or whatever you call it everytime we mentioned any Japanese artists that we both knew. Every after I mentioned names of Japanese artists I knew, Airi would turn to Saki and talk to her in Japanese, possibly telling her that "Hey this girl knows a lot about Japanese music! >///<". I could see Saki's surprise expression that came afterwards.

Maybe she was surprised I would know that MUCH Japanese artists. Even in the end, it turned out Airi and I were the loudest in the room, where everyone else was just having quiet, adequate conversation. Airi and I were just devoured in our own little fangirling realm.

But it wasn't until we reached the climax, where it was later revealed that we BOTH LOVED NISHIKIDO RYO. Holy...

That reminds me how long it's been since I last spazzed about Jpop. After all this time, I have been drowned quite a while in Kpop industry.

In addition, I also mentioned that my roommate, Elda, was a fan of Japanese culture. I told Airi that Elda introduced me a lot to Japanese stuff and contributed to enriching my Japanese vocabularies. Aww...wish she were there...

I got to bump into other Kokusai students and tried to greet them, again, in my poor Japanese (there's nothing wrong to try, is it? ^^"). They were very friendly and welcoming, though at some points, I was a bit intimidated with their regal looks. For instance, I met this particular Japanese student called Ai and I'm telling you she was super stylish and super tall. She was so sweet anyway :). I bumped into a lot more who mostly came from Saitama and Tokyo.

~DAY 2~

More De Anza volunteers participated this time, and the Kokusai students got even more outnumbered. I didn't quite talk a lot that day since my volunteer shift was short, about an hour or so (I had a class to catch earlier), and especially the new De Anza volunteers were given priority to have one-to-one conversation. So I went on to the side of the room and had a friendly chat with my fellow volunteer folks.

The highlight of the day was the presence of my playful Japanese friend from De Anza, Mona. We finally got to sit down for one-to-one conversation even though it was considerably short.

Mona and I shared conversations with Kate, a Korean-Japanese girl. Mona kinda served as a translator for me. From their conversation, I could hear a bit that Kate was surprised to know Mona was a Japanese, despite living in the US. Kate told Mona and I that she and the rest of the Kokusai students just went to LA the other day, where they got to visit Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, and Universal Studios Hollywood! Kate ecstatically shared her favorite ride of each theme park.

OMG, I was positively jealous with the students at that very second.

Luckily, I still got to greet some of the girls I met yesterday. When I met Airi again, she went: "Oh...(You're the one who likes) Ninomiya Kazunari!", I knew that Airi and other girls I met yesterday still remembered me :)

~DAY 3~

Day 3 wasn't exactly one of the sessions (I missed the actual Day 3 due to History exam), but it was by far the most impressive day out of all Kokusai volunteer days. It took place today, on Friday. I first heard that today's Kokusai meeting was exclusively for De Anza volunteers who came to all 3-days session (because that particular last Kokusai visit day in De Anza would involve lunch and chit chat), while I didn't. But my friend, Channon told me to just come along.

The format of today's meeting was different than any other sessions. Instead of having one-to-one conversation on a long table, the Kokusai students were free to roam around with De Anza students, sitting on the floor, and taking pictures in every corner of the room.

Seeing that Airi, Nozomi, and Haruka did Kpop dance covers previously, they apparently are avid Kpop fans. Airi excitedly scooted over to show Zoey and me videos of particularly Big Bang she keeps in her phone. She told me that her bias in the boyband is T.O.P and we even briefly got to sing 'High High' as performed by T.O.P and G-dragon.

Aside from Kpop, Airi showed me pictures of T.O.P and Chinen Yuri of Hey!Say!JUMP (since I told her before that I loved that boyband). We then briefly danced to Dreams Come True

At one point, I noticed some girls I met on the first day were practicing Kpop dance, like Girls' Generation's Gee and Mr. Taxi. I hesitatingly observed them and complimented their effort. When they figured out I could keep up with the dance's choreography, they instinctively went to their sensei and mentioned something about Girls' Generation to him. The sensei just came to us (the Kokusai girls, Zoey, and me), bringing his laptop over, and guess what he did...

He showed Gee's MV on his very own laptop.

And that was totally unexpected! XD

Yes, so it was revealed that the sensei was a SONE (Girls' Generation's fan), and he even claimed to favor Yoona as his bias of the group lol. That's just amazing! Then he excitedly showed a video of Airi, Haruka, Nozomi as well as other girls who were not on the Kokusai tour performing Gee's dance cover on an event (as well as Ai's drumming skill) to Zoey and me. Zoey and I were instantly mesmerized by the girls' talents! Zoey even took a chance to promote De Anza's very own Kpop dance club :)

The sensei soon encouraged Airi, Haruka, and Nozomi to re-enact the Gee dance they did in the video in front of everyone around the room. Before I knew it, they invited me to join the simple dance cover performance spectated by everyone in the room. I told them I never quite learned Gee's dance in depth, but they kept on encouraging me to join them so I did.

Yeah, I ended up dancing to a Kpop song - Gee - with Japanese girls. The experience was indescribable!

In the latter part of the meeting, we spotted the girls introducing Japanese game involving some sort of hit-and-defend method as you can see in the video below.



Zoey and I put some effort in trying out this game and much to my surprise, Zoey was a quick learner! I got beaten very often. She's so good at this XD


Channon and Kate


Me and Ami!


Saki looks fierce and cool at the same time, doesn't she?


Rock on!

Time flew so fast as we enjoyed our time. The Kokusai students needed to leave for their next destination, Stanford University. We hugged each other when they were just about to take off. They said they would be coming back next year to De Anza and expected to see me, but I would be then transferring to the university :(. "Then find me in Japan!" they said everytime I hugged them. Yes! I'd love to go to Japan and see them by any chance!

It's been such a pleasure to interact with them. The event has become simply more than just volunteer work but a chance to get together with these fantastic Japanese students and gain a priceless experience :)

By the way, the girls are leaving today back to Japan.
よいフライトを*! Wish to see you in another chance!



* : Have a nice flight!

Pictures are credit to:
Ami Matsumoto and Andy Nguyen

panda eyes

HIHIHIIII

I'm truly sorry that I've been missing for sooooo long. Wow that feels like ages, doesn't it? How are you guys doing so far? Hope everything goes well.

Well, first of all, Happy Super-Belated New Year. I know it's even meaningless to say so now seeing that we're entering the second month of the year already.

Anyway, onto a more serious business. It's sad for me to say that I'm not so sure if I can blog frequently like I did before for the next few weeks till two months. Well, as you guys may recall, I used to blog like crazy a couple of months ago before I stopped on around October for no reason. I wasn't really busy those days but it's just I had no muse in blogging -.-

I'm telling you why. There are three things:

1. I have TOEFL test in a matter of weeks and I have even barely touched the prep book...yet
   
   
2. I'm taking 2 arts classes this quarter. 3 units each. You say, oh it doesn't sound cos normally a class has 4-5 units. But seriously, the art projects are way more demanding that what the units are worth. So, lesson learned: never underestimate the amount of units.
   
   
3. In addition to the art classes, I'm taking 3 General Education classes. Each has more unit but strangely, less homework. But still, I need to put a lot of effort to them to get As :)
   
   
4. UNI APPLICATIONS...
   need to say more?
   I'm applying to bunch of universities and art schools now.
   

   ~Good stuff: I'm halfway to clearing up all my university applications. Yipee! I got two more tough applications to tough schools xD
   
   ~Bad stuff: Unlike normal universities where you can just submit your personal statements, transcripts, and everything in a flash, art schools require portfolio and sometimes one or TWO letters of recommendation. Even some schools require specific drawings. Quadruple the work? Definitely. But hopefully the results would turn out good *fingerscrossed*

Life after Christmas break was crazeeeeh.... I finished some of uni applications before the break but more coming afterwards! Hectic hectic hectic! Hopefully things would be settling down for real at around mid-March, cos that's when I estimate that my sources of hectic-ness will come to a stop. By then I'm sure to continue blogging like crazy and be even more productive in writing!

Well, I'm not saying I'm going to completely stop blogging. Between now and March, I'll probably post once a week if possible to keep this blog alive and running.

On the bright side, I'm bringing you some good news...

I definitely had a great time during the break and I would really love to share it to you guys. So hopefully I'll get to post the stories as soon as possible! Enthralling stories, cool pictures to come! Stay tuned!

By the way, check out this video.
How creepy that I see my mom figure in that guy.

"So skinny you need to eat more..." (yea right)

Jakarta Pt 5: School visit

Heya!!!
Finally I get to post something daily-related.
It's been a pain uploading all the pics, but it wasn't till I realized all the pics I've been uploading are HQ, forcing me to compress all files into smaller sizes.

On Friday a few weeks ago, I went to school to meet up with my dad who has an appointment with my former homeroom teacher - Mr B regarding the development of a new music club at school (too bad they established it right after I graduated).

Beforehand, my friend - Widya - and I did a little strolling around school grounds and reminisce our times. Pretty much like this. the school's been temporarily moved to a new location, since the old one where I used to attend was under reconstruction. But despite all of that, the whole school atmosphere still felt very familiar to me!

P.S: You might not find any pictures with me in it due to some bad-hair-day issue, except the last picture cos it looks much better than the rest.

Cafeteria. Barely changes.


The Locker remains the same. Unlike lockers in American school, my school's lockers are categorized into classes and teachers like to place exam results and graded assignments in there.


Some girls spotted doing some kind of after school activity.


MY. CLASS!
Too bad I couldn't get in. It's locked.


All classrooms are now unexceptionally equipped with an operating computer and infocus.
How awesome is that?


Widya poses as a civic education teacher. Yeah right.

Last but not least, I met up with my dad who was jamming with Mr B and some other teachers, like Mr Jemmy (who's singing below). Another friend of mine, Carmen, caught up with me and Widya and we all ended up singing to random songs that day! I was completely unprepared with the whole spontaneous jam session. I don't memorize most song lyrics and they only instinctively popped out of jam session. So I ended up looking up on my mobile's internet for lyrics. It loads darn slow. -_-

After the jam was over, my dad dropped me, Carmen, and Widya at PIM, where we strolled for a while before settling in Area 51 food court to have dinner.
So I decided to help myself with a bowl of Yoshinoya. It's quite a surprise itself that I finally got to taste this in Indonesia. I've always been wondering why Indonesians bother to form a really long line just to munch on this small-portioned beef bowl. It tastes good but it's not really my most favorite. I first recognized Yoshinoya back in US and the restaurant - I hate to say this - is only filled with a few people. Maybe that's because I live in a relatively small town with most people who are not fans of rice dishes.

(Image from http://sendokgarpu.com)

I gotta say this: Yoshinoya in Indonesia is darn good! It's actually as good as the one in US. Even better, Yoshinoya here has much cheaper price at the same portion as in US.
Before leaving, we took pictures using Carmen's iPad at...the toilet -_-

Oh dear chubby cheeks, please be thinner.
I'm going to love you even more if you do that ^^

From L A with ♥ pt. 5: When Science and Art Collide

Previously: What was interesting is, we all got to communicate with the Japanese lady who served us. Elda spoke some Japanese words fluently. Aymee also said a fluent “Arigatou gozaimasu.” I tried myself as well :). The lady was amazed by our amateur ability! Then we went back to the hotel and bought some Japanese snacks from the restaurant for our breakfast tomorrow. Thank you Universal Studios Hollywood for the wonderful experience!!!!!! XD

DAY 3: MARCH 28, 2011

After an exhausting day at Universal Studios, we moved on to another adventurous day the next day. No more theme park and playing around, because it's time to get a little serious since we were going to deal with education...a bit.

According to our schedule, we were supposed to spend all day in Pasadena for campuses visits. We woke up in the morning to munch on our snacks we bought yesterday as breakfasts. Elda was scheduled to join a campus tour on California Institute of Technology or abbreviated as Caltech at 10 am, meanwhile Aymee would have a campus tour in Pasadena Art Center at around 1-ish.

Elda and I took off first from our hotel at around 9. Aymee was going to catch up with us later in Pasadena, that means she had to find out the direction to Pasadena all by herself. Since Elda and I didn't know how far it would be to Pasadena, taking off an hour before the appointment was quite a risk, especially we were a bit lost in searching for Little Tokyo's Metro station.

Good thing we quickly found it, it was no biggie, and we also got the direction to get to Pasadena.

Just a little bit about Pasadena, it was a city 11 miles from Downtown LA. Compared to LA, Pasadena was less crowded, tourist-friendly, and it got a friendlier, more comfortable vibe. After switching train in Union Station, Elda and I went straight to Pasadena and got off at Del Mar station.

After relying ourselves on the essential Mr. Google Map at our hands, we took a bus down the main road of Pasadena and got off when the GPS told us to.

Apparently, the institution was located not by the side of the crowded main street of Pasadena. We had to explore into the depth of a peaceful neighborhood. Seriously, it was really the subtlest atmosphere I could ever feel from a neighborhood so far in the US, which reminds me of my neighborhood in Jakarta.

The campus itself sort of blends in with the neighborhood since there were no giant signs saying “Caltech” or whatsoever. How we eventually got our way to the Admission office is considerably funny.

First we bumped into a neatly dressed guy who donned a pair of sunglasses. I was like “This must be a Caltech student.” Elda approached him and asked him whether he knew where the Admission office was. The guy told Elda that he had no idea, to which Elda replied. “I thought you were a Caltech student.” Then the guy went. “Oh no, not yet.”

Ooookkaaayyy....sounds someone appears to be confident. Judged from the appearance, this guymay have qualified to become a Caltech student.

The admission office didn't seem to appear no matter how many times we had circled the campus area. By coincidence, we stumbled upon the tour group that we decided to join. No one would notice anyway.

This building reminds me of Palace of Versailles

The pond that faces the court. I love the arches along the hallway.

Japanese Garden much?

Basically the tour involved visiting the campus grounds and especially the dorms. The dorm part left the biggest impression in mind as we visited one of the dorms. We got to take a glimpse of the dorm rooms. What's even more shocking is, we discovered lines of math, chemistry, physics formula scribbled on some dorm rooms' doors.

Too bad I have no pictures of those formulas.

It looked like they just threw a party over the weekend because almost all the decoration was still intact, some decoration was torn down already though. The tour guide, who is a student herself, explained mostly about the social activities and parties each dorm liked having.

The campus tour.

From Elda's observation, since Caltech is somewhat a notable school of science, a lot of people might figure out that it was a serious school. Students fully focused on their studies without bothering to socialize. So that's why the tour guide heavily emphasized about the parties part. I totally agree with Elda's thought though.

The tour ended in the Admission office that we didn't find in the first place. It turns out to be a building that resembled an old, haunted house looking building. I mean, really, when we stepped inside and went upstairs, I could feel the wooden floor beneath me created an eerie cracking sound. Seen from its look in the outside, people could have mistaken it as an ordinary old house.

Yep, above is the admission building I told you earlier.

I don't know about the house below whether it's one of Caltech buildings or not, since it's located right next to the Admission building. Seen from the homey feeling, I'll just consider it as a house then.

Elda got to buy a Caltech shirt just before we left. Elda and I also took a picture in front of a small Caltech logo in one of the buildings.

After we were done with the tour at around 1 pm, we managed to get to Old Pasadena aka Pasadena Downtown, to meet up with Aymee who just arrived. Together, we found a pizza parlor where we had lunch.

Pepperoni pizza for three!

As soon as we finished, we quickly caught a bus to Pasadena Art Center. We only had an hour to go there before the tour began.

Apparently the campus was located up on a hill in a secluded area of Pasadena. When we got there, we aimed to go to the Admission office but somehow – again – we got lost. At first we didn't know which building we had to go. The bus dropped us off in a side of a building but we weren't sure if the Admission was located in that building.

We kind of anticipated that Pasadena Art Center would consist of many buildings just like a common American campus was (Caltech too). But after surrounding the campus and asked bunch of people that told us to go to the front desk to ask where the Admission office was (sounds complicated huh?), we finally – again – stumbled upon the tour in the campus gallery.

Apparently the building we spotted earlier when we got off the bus IS the one and only building. It was unique how the building stretches horizontally like a giant black rectangular box, with only two storeys. Everything is in there: the classes, gallery, admission office, bookstore, etc.

In contrast of our visit to Caltech, the tour guide somehow emphasized how seriousness became a positive quality of the school, saying that the school encouraged all students to be devote into the works. I guess, in contrast of Caltech, a lot of people might assume that art students were relatively relax compared to those who study science or social studies.

As an art student, I am interested to apply to this school.

One of the artwork in front of the gallery. Soooo cute!

Outside the gallery

After the tour was done, we visited the bookstore and it was hella awesome! Seriously I may not be into a fine art a lot, but I do some drawings. I mean, the bookstore provides a gazillion number of art materials!!! It has the completest copic marker collection I've ever seen, mannequins, painting blades with ranging sizes, various kinds of oil painting...for someone who is really into fine art, he or she should be willing to spend days in this not-so-big bookstore.

Anyway, we decided to leave though, since we had to catch up with shopping and dinner time too. We returned to Old Pasadena. We strolled a bit to some clothing store like Forever 21. Since spring was approaching, I bought myself a set of spring clothes consisting of tank top and cardigan.

After a little bit of stroll, we realized it was time to have dinner. The sky wasn't completely dark but it was already 7 o'clock. And apparently it took us long before we decided where to have dinner.

The Yelp and Urbanspoon applications offered quite a lot of choices. I already asked my friend, Vania (who formerly resided in Pasadena), to recommend some good restaurants down the street of Pasadena. The problem is, we were craving for a lot of things. We were considering to go to a Himalayan restaurant but the location wasn't so convincing. We also had to turn down some offers due to the high price.

In the end, we were torn between going to Gyukaku (Japanese food) and Buca di Beppo (Italian food). They were located side by side, which made everything even more complicated. I kind of suggested that since we already had Japanese food two days in a row, why didn't we just eat Italian food? So we eventually had dinner in Buca di Beppo.

Calamari for appetizer!!

Ravioli as the main course. Excuse the low quality picture. This is apparently the best one I can take.

It was getting late when we finished our dinner, that we had to catch a train back to Downtown LA.

Actually there was nothing special with the train station, it was just we decided to kill time while waiting for the train to arrive.

And played head-wrestling on the train

We arrived at our hotel in Little Tokyo at around 9-ish. Before that, we scooted over to the computer in the business center to look for directions to UCLA, Simpang Asia (Indonesian restaurant), Koreatown, and Hollywood, which would be our destination for tomorrow!

That's not the end of the story. Elda and I woke Aymee up when the clock struck 12. Yep, it's Aymee's Birthday!!!!! Aymee was already asleep but Elda and I managed to be awake, and when it was time, we surrounded Aymee and sang Happy Birthday! XD

It's gonna be a looooong day tomorrow!!!!

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