Best of Wordpress
In 2009, I…
- Celebrated the dawn of the new year with hundreds of architecture students from all parts of the nation, in one grand ballroom in Denver
- Talked to MC Hammer at the Crunchies after party in SF City Hall
- Watched Obama’s inauguration with thousands of other students and teachers on Sproul Plaza
- Learned from the best studio instructor I’ve ever had at Cal (and sometimes pulled too many all-nighters in studio)
- Spoke at the ITASA West Coast Conference at USC and the Midwest Conference at UIUC and met some of the most creative folks in film, music, and literature
- Graduated a full year early and spent graduation day in San Francisco with ninjas instead
- Biked fifteen miles around downtown Chicago and along Lake Michigan on LSD—Lake Shore Drive
- Nearly “died” after a fourteen hour flight then a sixteen hour layover in Hong Kong before getting pseudo-H1N1 in Kaohsiung, seeing a doctor in Tainan, and interning in Taipei before fully recovering
- Had the most amazing time in Taiwan by myself: fell in love with Taipei, experienced an earthquake, lived through Typhoon Morokot, and fell in love with high-tech homes
- Got up close and personal with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Spent lazy days on private beaches with hermit crabs in Brunei Darussalam
- Shopped all day in Singapore, watched the sunset from up above, and hit up the Night Safari while the night was still young
- Wandered around Bangkok, Thailand for ten days (watching thunderstorms, catching roaches, and eating chocolate buffets)
- Took the steep peaktram all the way to the top of Hong Kong and then watched the Symphony of Lights at night in Kawloon along the Victoria Harbour
- Utilized the down-time at home revamping websites, entering in small contests and volunteering at conferences, partying networking with geeks at Dropbox and AirBnB offices, and really partying on Halloween with a bunch of art students
- Went back to Taiwan and spent some quality time with my grandma in Tainan and grandpa in Kaohsiung
- Checked out Hangzhou and Shanghai, China where I traveled by foot and buses, trains, metros, and even a boat—then decided that I couldn’t work there
- Seriously considered staying in Taipei (for a book project), especially since I was having a blast (minus the incredibly difficult job search)…then came home to family and dog on Christmas Eve after too much brain wracking.
Best of Tumblr
“So the day AFTER the bloomin’ polls close, I find your blog. And yes, I have gone through most of them on the Weblog award site, and YES I would have voted for you hands down. No one else touches this blog. The Bloggess was close. Boobs Injuries and Dr. Pepper close too. But yours is BY FAR the funniest thing that I have read tonight” —MMIAF fan (when we entered in the weblog awards)
Me: God, it’s so embarrassing when people introduce us as, “These are the girls who uhh… created My Mom is a Fob.”
Teresa: Yeah, well, I’m sure that’s how Eric Nakagawa felt when people first introduced him as the guy who invented I Can Has Cheezburger.
—True that.
“Please be strategic with the use of people, plants, sky, and any other representational devices in your drawings. More is definitely not better in this instance, and the presence of each should be understood relative to the specific subject of the drawing. I am imposing a class limit of 2 guitar players so please get together and determine who gets to use them…” —Studio instructor via email (you know, cben’s stock vector ppl)
“They have used 321072 CPU Secs since Feb 20th and the next highest user is at 91152 CPU Secs.” —Bluehost explaining why our account got suspended
“gang – generally a good start today, with the exception of those of you who either made hella ugly drawings, forgot to make sure the idea resided in the drawing, forget to make a drawing, and/or any combination of the aforementioned issues.” —Studio instructor via email
Jeff’s walking me back to my apt when it’s only sprinkling lightly…
Jeff: When I tweeted, it really was sunny this morning
THAT INSTANT SECOND, it starts pouring like there’s no tomorrow.
—Jinx’d.
“Don’t show off your age! Don’t you know the everage of facebook users’ age is under 36. I’m 88 yrs old in my youtube account.” —Mom’s #1 post on dad’s fb wall
“Serena told Audrey that they got attacked by fob parents and oversea fob relatives” —Mom’s #2 post on dad’s fb wall
Calvin: damn 4.3 MB/s from east bay to fremont. and ~2ms ping.
me: depending on you EECS kids to create me some floo powder/chimney transportation to get me back home to Fremont that fast
Calvin: consult with your local quantum physicist first. probably wouldn’t want us to write it; can you imagine all the bugs and stuff?
me: guess I wouldn’t want be stuck in some infinite loop in another dimension, thanks to 5am coding.
Calvin: i know right? and not just infinite loops, but can you imagine packet loss?
me: k, you lost me there.
—Linode branched off into nodes of thought
“That’s what we call preemptive sabotage.” —Frank, in response to this MDIAF post
“I particularly like this goal for the conference: 2) celebrate Taiwanese American creativity, which gives you reason and inspiration to creatively work on your project while in attendance, which will give me cause to celebrate.” —Studio instructor via email. aka, “get your shit done young lady, I don’t care.” (while I was giving a workshop at USC)
Frank: even if you had no access to any tech
Frank: you’d still find a way
Frank: you’d macgyver some like way to get it to post based off smoke signals or something
Frank: change the way everything works
Frank: no you’d invent some telepathic way to update
—on my tweeting/tumbling
“Hi Serena, how’s your graduation ceremony? Did you get chance to contact with aunty Wen? If there is anything I can do for you, let me know. I wish your asian journey this summer can enrich your Serenastyle.” —Alvin’s super cute mom
“brb dying” —commenter on MDIAF
“stll alive! Good, then, eat, drink, sleep and go to class tomorrow.” —Mom via Twitter DM
“dearest socialmedia geek, you won’t win this rhyme, don’t worry when you meet the bum i’ll give you tequila and lime” —Jenny during the most epic rhyming exchange in Twitter history
“I think, you better go travel together, she is waiting for me to go back so she doen’t have to take that resiponsibity, Ama is old fashion, you haven’t learn woman self-defance, you didn’t carry a gun or any thing that can protect yourself, I think, most importantly, Ama think you don’t have a boy that we trust be your body guard.” —Mom on why I shouldn’t stay in Taipei
Jeff: ur mom msged me again
me: whatd she say this time T_T
Jeff: she offered to send me vitamins and protein powder
Jeff: i said i already have a lot of vitamins from my own mom
Jeff: and then she messaged again
Jeff: “how about protein powder add to frozen fruit, milk in the blender? Donuts and pizza late at night is not too healthy though. -a fob mom”
—More dots than normal
“爸爸, 你聽得懂他[gps]在講什麼嗎?” —Ines, age 4
“小事不做大事難成” —Yenting, age 4
“There’s something metaphorical about the move from “F.O.B.” to “fob.” A fob, after all, is a length of chain tied to a watch, allowing you to readily draw it forth; it’s an omnipresent link to something precious — something that always tells you what time it is…And, conscious or not, that’s the vision of immigrant parents depicted in Teresa and Serena Wu’s sites: Frank, sweet, special fob. Loyal, loving, giving fob. The tie that binds us and reminds us. An organic — or should I say, “okeni” — connection to a culture only half our own.” —Jeff Yang, An Accent on Love
Aretha: You know what’s LAAAVA?
Me: (thinking that she had said “lover” in a teasing manner) No…why don’t you tell me?
Aretha: Guess!
Me: I don’t know! You can explain.
Aretha: (sighs as if I were retarded) IT’S RED STUFF IN A VOLCANO!
Me: OHHH.
Aretha: You know how it’s made? It’s so hot inside the volcano that rocks melt and come out.
—Proof that my three-year-old cousin knows more than a typical five-year-old
“Job searching is like really bad dating, even worse since you have to write a thank you letter afterwards, and get enough courage to try again the next day. As Randy Pausch said “Brick walls are there for a reason, they let us prove how badly we want something.” Appropriate for an architecture graduate, no?” —Leslie
In summary, I spent a lot of time on MMIAF/MDIAF and in studio.
Best of Flickr
© Serena Wu 2009 (:
New Year’s Resolutions
- Improve my health. I’m sure getting sick 6x this year is uncommon, even with the H1N1 virus (which I did not really get) and all the traveling I did. To start off, I’m going to try to eat healthier by sticking to my green smoothies and avoiding canned tomatoes, non-organic potatoes, farmed salmon, apples, and all things soy (soymilk, tofu, soybean oil). This will be difficult since I used to eat a lot of soy for protein and drink soymilk in replacement of milk, since I’m lactose intolerant. Now that I’m back home in Fremont, I’m also going to run Canyon Heights and Lake Elizabeth more often, and hike Mission Peak a few more times.
- Improve my photography skills. As Ben says, it’s not enough to “just take pretty pictures”. I keep thinking that I’m still an amateur because I have and amateur camera and only a macro lens (in addition to the stock lens), but I’m going to try to push that notion away and work on developing my own aesthetic and make something out of my greatest hobby. Perhaps I’ll try to get some photos published in small, local magazines or do more photoshoots for friends, and maybe work my way up to weddings once my friends start getting hitched! To start off, I’d like to shoot much more often with people who are also into photography (and hopefully learn from them while having fun)!
- Get started on some sort of career path. So I run a few blogs, have a few book deals, and do some freelance design work…but what’s in store for me? Architecture is impossible to get into right now; so is product design (since I don’t have a product design portfolio); and so is graphic design (since I don’t have a graphic design degree and never learned about typography and such). Web design, I can only do front-end HTML/CSS stuff and usually modify existing templates and Wordpress themes for simplicity’s sake. However, I really like 3-D design work and design research/testing. What else can I do though? I can build physical and CAD/3D models, research information and observe/interview people, draw out ideas quickly, utilize social media and SEO tools effectively, take pictures and edit them…I just don’t know where to start, what specific skill to refine, and how to get that first fitting job. 2009 was a year of rejections…2010 will be a year of recovery and opportunities taken.
I’m being reasonably realistic…although having a boyfriend would be nice as well. “Mending and building friendships/relationships” would be my fourth resolution. That would improve my emotional health, I’d have more people to shoot or shoot with, and someone might even hook me up with my first real job! Perfect.
