fool's gold

It's been a busy week finishing up all my work so I can finally get on to studying for finals. I can't believe that in 2 weeks I'll be
 officially halfway through with college... that's crazy. I've never felt more confused, and the fact that time won't slow down isn't helping much. Anyways, I've got some posts in the works, but before that... it's been weeks since I've been able to put some love onto my nails, so obviously when I finally get the chance I'm gonna shower them with gold. Using the foil sheets that came in this Ciaté kit, there's so much to do with this! Sometimes less is more, just a touch of gold can make your nails look like a million bucks (no pun intended... ok, well sort of).

:)

Ciaté || Cream Soda

no pressure there

Soon, I'll be calling New York my new home. Well, I'll be calling Long Island my temporary home if I'm going to get technical,

 but it doesn't provide a very good hook into this post I don't think. The real story is that I've been accepted into a summer internship at Brookhaven National Lab. It's considered a pretty competitive internship and receiving an offer is pretty prestigious, but that kind of just makes me feel worse about myself and scared about how I'll really stack up to everyone else there. I mean, they only know me from my application and a few essays, they don't know me like I do, and I can't really think I'm up to parr with the rest of the people that received spots, but by some miracle I made it this far in life, so I suppose I gotta keep going, which means that I will be staying up in New York for 10 weeks this summer. I'll be working with a top notch biochemical engineer (no pressure there) studying biofuel atomization (yeah, no pressure at all considering I don't even know what that is) in the field of sustainable energy. I think it'll be cool and interesting, and I'm happy that I'm sort of maybe doing something productive for my future. Who knows what this summer will bring?

 Probably lots of new and different posts... there's lots changing in the near future! At least for a little while.
:)

negative space

Hiya! It's been a few days since my last post so I figured I might as well do something with my life.Thing is, I'm on spring break 

and have been taking a break from the internet for a few days to focus on hanging out with my family and taking some time to myself. So, this post is one from my nail archives: an oldie, but goodie! I thought this would be a nice design because spring is here, so it's expected that you're supposed to break out the pastels and bright colors, but I think in a world that looks like that, a little edge is the perfect statement. Using tape is the perfect tool for creating sharp edges for your nail design, but make sure to take off some of the adhesive using the back of your hand so that the polish you put the tape over doesn't come off. That's the true evil, ruining nail designs since day one... don't fall for it! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post and in the meantime, hopefully I can start getting my brain back into the swing of things.

:)

let's talk about: dermals

Last October, I thought about doing something fun and different. I have wanted a tattoo for as long as I could remember,

 but me being terrified of my parents and what they would say, I didn't entertain idea that for very long, if I must say. Maybe I'll get a piercing, that'll be fun! But I'd never thought about the idea of a piercing other than on the ears or belly button or anything, which I didn't want. Whatever I decided to get was going to be different and something that I could have a little fun with. And that's where I found what dermals really were. Basically a mix between a piercing and implant, it's a single point piercing that becomes home to an anchor with the piercing on the surface. Microdermals can pretty much be put wherever you want (although there are some places that are better than others for healing and convenience purposes). So last October, after several weeks of thinking it over (do your research!!!), I got my first dermal. Dermals have a higher rejection rate than a typical piercing so I decided to wait to see how one did before I got more. It turned out fine, so in January, I got 2 more. Together, they go down the back of my neck vertically in decreasing size. There's a picture below, although I'm not too big of a fan of the photo because it's hard to take a photo yourself of something you can't directly see (ps. the bottom one was sad). You can't see them when my hair is down so it's a nice, subtle surprise, which is exactly what I wanted. It's turned out to go relatively smoothly, although there is the small snag every now and then. Warning: this may sound gross, but I've also accidentally ripped them out a couple times, but have had no problem putting them back in. Overall, they're still in the healing process, which takes a long time, but it hasn't been too big of a problem and I'm in love with them! Have any questions? Feel free to ask! :)

blood orange? it's fucking red!

Remember kids, don't be pretentious today! 

The weather's slowly warming up and I think that calls for some festivities! I wore these nails a few weeks ago for Chinese 

New Year because I couldn't find enough red in my wardrobe. I love wearing edgy nails or making use of my dark polishes, but 

when you're closet consists of nothing but black, I think I can spare some color on my fingers. This is predominantly a red nail with rich gold half moons and a fun rhinestone. A quick and easy way to create perfect half moon designs is using paper hole punch reinforcements. You know when you have looseleaf paper in your 3 ring binder and one of them breaks? And you use those stickers to patch up the hole? Yeah, they can have a double duty with your homework and your nails. I also just used some tape to create the stripes extending from the half moons and a red rhinestone over the gold for some added sparkle. This design works well with any color combination 

and is great when you need a quick manicure that looks like you've spent hours on.

     

caution: hell week ahead

Boy, oh boy is this week going to be hectic! Art midterm evaluations Tuesday, Organic test and 5 page seminar paper about aliens due Thursday, a Chinese exam Friday, and a Neuroscience exam the following Monday... not to mention my mandatory advising session Thursday morning, which means I have to basically have the rest of my college life planned out by then so I can know what classes I need to start taking ASAP! At least the weather's calling for rain these days so I won't be tempted by the much needed nice weather, as if that's the only thing I am going to miss out on these next few days. Comfy jeans and a sweater will most likely be my go to choices this week. Anyone else out there preparing for test-pocalypses... we will get through this!

    

getup || forever 21

homework || neuroscience, seminar, organic chemistry :(

doodle

SUKI WATERHOUSE

Model. Actress. Gorgeous human being. You may know her from Burberry campaigns or the Divergent film series (if you're not familiar with her work, you may know her as Bradley Cooper's gf). This was my most recent portrait drawing. I drew it last August and it's been the newest portrait sketch that I thought was good enough to be shown in public so I thought it would be my first art post. Before this semester, I'd never taken an art class apart from the basic art requirements in elementary and middle school. I always enjoyed graphite pencil sketches more than colors and whatnot, so I thought I'd never really find the point of an art class, but boy was I wrong! I'm in my first class of art this semester and it's taught me so much that I can't explain what I learned exactly, but I learned stuff and I'm still learning! I've been so focused on science classes that would help me get to medical school. If I had free space in high school or college, it was filled with more AP and science courses, but sometimes it's good to do something different. You'll never know where it'll take you. Keep in touch for more throwback doodles and current projects. :)

suki waterhouse

sunday funday

A DAY OF CAFES

Yesterday, some friends and I decided to check out a couple local coffee shops in our city that have gotten a lot of hype from students around my university. 

First stop: Urban Standard. It's a pretty chill coffee shop downtown known for its decor and donuts, its actually a really great place for studying or meeting up with a few friends for a nice chat. I ate a chicken salad sandwich, which might be one of the best chicken salad sandwiches I've ever eaten, with a lemon-herb vinaigrette pasta salad side. I also got a Macchiato and a red velvet cupcake, and had a bite of a donut. All were very delicious! We ended up sitting and chatting for hours! I loved the atmosphere of this little city gem and if it was a little closer to my campus I'd be there all day, everyday, so I guess it's pretty good it's not really within walking distance because at least I won't get fat from eating all those donuts!

 Second Stop: Thirstea. The city's long awaited bubble tea joint! Personally, I would have loved to see HK-style milk tea on the menu, but that's just my Asian-ness getting too picky, so I stuck with the similar Thai milk tea with bubbles. This place was pretty cool. It was far from campus and hidden away from the main street, but hey I'm not complaining! The shop come equipped with loads of games to play while you sip your tea. My friends and I played Apples to Apples for a little too long, and we can't wait to go back and bring even more people to the party haha. Basically, this little tea house was worth the wait :)

nude 'tude

The trend is nude nails.

And I'm in love! If done tastefully they can make your hands look instantly refined in an elegant fashion. Nudes are great if you're looking to elongate accidentally chewed off nails (I know, my nails aren't chewed off... but you get the point!). Not to mention they can help hide dry cuticles (excuse mine, the picture is blown up I cant help it). The hard part is finding a color that you can fall in love with every time, and the idea is that you don't have to find a color similar to your skin's color, but just to find a color similar to your skin tone. I have light-medium skin tone so I went with a color that was closer to the lighter spectrum (best to not go too many shades darker or lighter), but I strayed from the basic browns and went for a polish with a slightly violet undertone in it, because they are complementary colors to the yellow undertones in my skin. If you want to get into color theory, violet and yellow are opposite each other on the color wheel, so they'll mute each other out, preventing my skin from looking too warm (red/orange) or too cool (blue/violet). Meeting all the requirements, this polish is still in the nude category, but it's definitely not one of those colors that I'll be getting tired of soon!

Julep || Lorenzana

i applied a base, 2 coats of polish, and a top coat