Hey, tout le monde. I've been inspired by Aida and Alberto to update all of you on my life, which is somewhat selfish of me, but also very cathartic.

Overall, I've been good. My classes are strange and wonderful. The best one is Intro to Theatermaking, where we have to put on pieces of theater each class (they can't be called mere scenes, and they're not presentations. It's oh so dramatic). My group's final presentation is 'Pest in Buda' from Heiner Muller's "HamletMachine": http://www.galerie-raskolnikow.de/paddavis/pages/Hamlet2.html

Our final stage directions are "The actor playing Hamlet steps into the armor, splits with the ax the heads of Marx, Lenin, Mao. Snow. Ice Age." So postmodern.

Extracurriculars: I told myself I wouldn't become a theater major, but theater here is just so good. I finished a student-written show a few weeks ago called "Your Mom is a Social Construct," dealing with expectations and women. I wrote three pieces for it; it was the first time I've had other people perform my writing. (Exciting!)
I've also been cast in a 20-minute senior film project. My role: WOMAN. SHYES...stardom!! Fame! I'm also going to try and PA a shoot for a film called "Fades With Age" over winter break (free food and shelter in the city? Tiiight).

Actually, I'm not just doing theater/film-related things. I'm also part of Squirm, the erotica magazine. We helped with Rocky Horror, brought a professional dominatrix to campus, and held porn screenings. It's good fun.

Oh, I'm also an art model (it's my campus job - $10 an hour. Easy prostitution). The first job of my life. But then again, I'm also a Theatrical Journeyman (I build sets for the drama department)(more theater), which is the best job I could have ever hoped for. You know all of those job descriptions? "Requires creative problem solving, teamwork, etc, etc." Mine actually DOES, though. I love going to work every day and screwing something together or hauling bricks or sawing through iron pipes. It's empowering.

Ahem. In terms of love lives, since the others described theirs:
There's this really adorable boy who looks like a baby bird. Or a leprechaun. He's blond with a little beard, and he's my height (tiny boy), and he has green tattoos up his arms. He's on the quidditch team. I see him EVERYWHERE, and every time I want to go up and introduce myself, I get so nervous my stomach hurts. So instead of talking to him in real life, I found him on facebook (I'M SO CREEPY), bwahahaha. So now not only do I know his name, I also know where he lives, his phone number, and the fact that he's a Hufflepuff. He has pictures of himself cuddling his baby cousins. BAHHHH.

That's all, I suppose. My finals are basically over. (I still have nightmares about Art History.) Life is good, good, good. There's snow on the ground. I bought myself a bass (my dream of starting a band with my sister shall finally be realized!! We'll be like Coco Rosie, but less hot and more Asian). I've been doing artwork; I'm actually still thinking of reapplying to art school later. No major life decisions have been made, though. I'll keep you updated if they are.

Ok, ok! Bye! Update us, you guys.
Love,
Grace

TIME FOR FABULOSITY!

Wow kids. It's been a while.

Finals are here and it's time for procrastination. Gotta love it. :) So, let me update you kids on my life, organized by topic.

First of all, an announcement. If you haven't talked about it with me or seen stuff about it on my facebook, LJ, or something, I wanted to let you all know that I identify as queer and some other stuff I don't wanna prattle on and on about. Basically, I'm a big dyke, hahaha. ^_^ I didn't really talk about this at TASP because I didn't feel it was really anyone's business, unless I was actively interested in someone, plus the opportunity never truly came up. I wasn't going to deny it or ignore the question if it came up, but I just wasn't going to volunteer the information out of the blue. How long have I known? For years. Don't think this is a random whim, mkay? Now that that's out of the way, we can continue. :)

Academics:

My classes this semester were: Intensive Portuguese (double-credit), Intro to Ethnic Studies, Intro to Linguistic Anthropology, and Bodies Out of Bounds (a Gender & Sexuality Studies course about when bodies move beyond what is seen as "normal" and yada yada--so good!). They were all very cool and eye-opening. My Intro to ES teacher was a GOD. I love him. Alas, I have no chance with him--he's gay. My heart weepeth. =P Now finals are drawing to a close and I only have two papers left. I have an A in Ethnic Studies and an A in Portuguese (I think). Anthro might be a B or something? Not sure. I kinda slacked on the midterm and this final paper might not be the best shit ever either, lol. Ah well. BOOB, as I affectionately call it, it a toss-up. I participate in class constantly and I got an A on my first paper, but some of my homework was late, and I have no idea how I did on my in-class final. And I still have a paper to write for that class, due on...Monday? Sunday?

Friends:

SO many cool people. I'm the biggest social butterfly you'll ever meet, I think. It's kind of ridiculous, lol. I know a ton of people, and it's pretty sweet. Some of my closest friends now are people I kind of (or REALLY) disliked at the beginning, so I'm glad I gave them a chance. :) My friends are all over the map, ethnicity/gender/sexuality/age/year-wise. C'est cool. ^_^ Sadly, however, I've seen a bunch of kids leave because of depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and other such stuff. It's really jarring.

TASPer contact:

I've hung out with Joy Liu and David Harmon a few times. :) I encourage you all to visit Providence, dammit, and come see me. Whenever I go to Boston, I'll look you Harvard kids up. :P And I miss my Grace-Pie, sooooo yeah. I've thought about ALL of you at some point, and it's been really nice to remember our days at the Cornell branch house. I wear my TASP shirt often. :) I think I'm gonna go visit Miranda from WashU at Wesleyan next semester, as well as visit Harvard, and some other places. YOU SHOULD DO THE SAME! :P

Thanksgiving:

Went to a friend's mother's house in New York and went to her dad's NJ home area to meet her friends. Had my first White Castle experience. Met her family, on both sides, and had a nice, chill Thanksgiving.

Clubs & Miscellaneous Activities:

The naked donut run? Totally happened, though I was too busy to go. SexPowerGod? Went and party-managed. It was fun, but insane. Some people got huge ego-boosts, while others suffered blows to their self-esteem when no one asked them to dance. It was hilarious and interesting, and I dressed up like a sex goddess, so it was great. Starf*ck, which is the second semester dance-party like SPG, will be co-coordinated by me. :) OH, THE POWER! lol. I'm part of the Queer Alliance and some of its subgroups (the Dance Committee & Girl's Night Out), The Next Thing (a group for queer people of color), CityGirls (a middle-school mentorship program), and I volunteer at the Third World Center. I'm on the steering committee for Caribbean Heritage Week right now, and I'm probably gonna be involved in the same shiz for the PR Heritage Week, Latino History Month, and some other related activities. I go to WORD! (the spoken word group) sometimes, and I wanna be part of a frat called Zeta Delta Xi. Yes, me, frats, WHAT? Well, it's a co-ed frat full of cool cats and queer kids, soooo...I love it. :D I'm gonna rush and hopefully pledge. But enough of EC's--this is beginning to sound like a college app. ;)

Love-Life:

I liked this cute Jewish kid from South Africa at the beginning of the semester and he seemed to like me back, but that suddenly disintegrated a few days after it began, so I mourned for a day, then got over it. Then I was mildly curious about a boy and one of my friends said she was obsessed with him. AWKWARD. lol. So...I have a few people on my Tops list (mwahaha, remember the top 5 lists!?), but they're all girls at the moment. Let's see how that goes. ^_^ Thanks to my personality, outfits, and dance moves, I've gotten mad props and respect from a lot of them, so, lol, hopefully that helps me in my pursuits. ;) In fact, I'm not really interested in men right now.:/


I'm really glad I'm at Brown, because it's so liberating. I can be myself. :) Everything is awesome. I'm glad to go home on the 18th, but just so I can see some people and chill out, sans stress, for a while...but I'm already excited to return in january. =) My hair is still changing colors, and it's gonna undergo a full dye-job in February, so be on the lookout for that. ^^ I love you all, and I hope to see some of you soon! <3

A brief update

Hello!

It's four in the morning here (in Gambier, Ohio for all of you that don't know) and I am seriously procrastinating instead of studying for my finals as I should.

Its been so long since, I've seen/heard/talked to so many of you. In fact, I think the last person I've seen in at least 8 months has been Diya. It's strange how time passes, but C'est la vie I suppose.

So let me fill you in on how things are here. I am at Kenyon which is amazing. The people here are really laid back, very artsy, kind of hipsterish, but very nice. There is almost no diversity which took a lot (and is still taking) a bit of getting used to. But I think I am faring well. I ran for student council and I am the president of my class which is very exciting.

In my class there are about 460 of us which is pretty small but very nice. I would say that I know about 3/4 of the people in my class and its really nice to walk into someone you know wherever you go.

Life back home is....interesting.

I came out to my mom this past summer and there were a lot of theatrics. It was the most emotionally and mentally draining experience I've gone through. We had stopped talking for about 2 and a half months, but I think that things are slowly starting to return to the way they once were.

I decided to check the blog because as I was procrastinating I decided to look at old TASP pics on facebook. It stirred up so many memories and emotions, it was really incredible. That summer was so precious and its strange how now it all just sort of seems like one big blur in retrospect. Yet I love how seeing one picture can take you exactly back to that moment and you can remember how you felt and who was around you. I suggest you all do it.

Hmm, what else. My love life is sort of lackluster. The Quentin thing got much more confusing and then I decided to leave that alone. There have been a few prospects here but not much more than that. Classes are good, but the people are so much better. I'm happy here. It was really weird, when I went home for thanksgiving break I felt oddly out of place back at home. When I came back to kenyon I kept catching myself almost calling it home. Did that happen to any of you guys?

I would love to hear how your college experience is going. If you happen to be perusing the blog please write a little post, it wont take any longer than 5 or 6 minutes.

Alright, well this stream of concioussness has gone on long enough. I think I'm gonna either try to study more or go to bed.

This is Alberto, and I'm out.

P.S. I still love all of you guys even if I don't talk to you regularly :)