Graduation

I can't believe it already came and passed.

It all happened so fast; one day we were at Knott's having tons of fun riding roller coasters, the next day we were at practice in the hot sun, and then suddenly we had our caps and gowns, walking into the stadium with our friends and family all there to see us on our big day.

It was just so sudden: I felt like I hadn't been preparing myself for it for the last four years. I felt like it was just another day, but at the same time it felt like I was on top of the world. Honestly at one point during the ceremony, sitting in my cap and gown, I looked to my left and right. I saw some of my closest friends. I looked across to the other seats, and saw the rest of my friends. I looked to the teachers and staff and the administration, and saw my mentors. I looked to the stands, saw my amazing girlfriend. I looked further in the stands, picked out my family: my brother, my parents, my aunts, my cousins, and even my grandma. Everyone was here to support me and celebrate me. And it was nice to feel that loved.

Sure high school wasn't much of a challenge for me. or most of my friends. But it sure as hell matured us. I honestly loved Tustin High and all that it had to offer. My time spent there differed dramatically, from the classroom, to the locker room, to the parties, to the dance floors, to the principal's office. All of these experiences were drastically diverse, and all of them left positive impressions on me.

I may head to Stanford next year and be underprepared in some aspects. My studying habits may be lacking, for I was not challenged enough in high school. My etiquette might be rough, for that wasn't a priority at Tustin. My experience in some things might be limited, for honestly Tustin is a poor school and doesn't offer all the high tech and costly things other schools does. But I know that I will be able to handle adversity and diversity with ease. I know I will be able to look at a problem, and solve it for myself by myself. I know I will strive independently. I know I will have the drive to succeed. And I know I can hang, I can chill. Tustin didn't give me everything, but it gave me the right things.

I gave a speech at reflections, I want to share it for it says somewhat how I feel about Tustin:

"Tustin High has more to offer than what I initially assumed. Tustin, at least for me, has broken many of the presumptions that others and I made about high school and this school in specifics. I simply would like to share these misconceptions.
Coming into Tustin, I assumed high school would be like it was in the movies. Cliques here and there: segregating the students and the lifestyles. I was convinced that groups would be separated throughout the school, with little or no interaction between them.
I came to Tustin and found a campus open to everyone, and a student body open to those around them. For some reason, Tustin High has this ability to be chill, to not care about the so-called 'divisions' in the student body. Tustin High is a school where one can float around campus during lunch and not feel isolated, alienated, or forcibly divided from the rest of the body. This relaxed mentality and openness allows for the students to feel comfortable on campus. At Tustin, a student can feel at ease.

Over the years I think our class has taken this quality for granted; I know I have. I didn’t even know that other schools were actually like what was depicted by Hollywood in the movies. I thought that Hollywood depictions of high school were just simple fiction or drastic hyperbole. But as I spoke to friends at other schools I learned the sad truth: that not every school was like Tustin.

As I continued at Tustin, people would often ask me where I was attending high school. I obviously would answer, 'Tustin High.'

I noticed that many people up the hill or over in Irvine would kind of wrinkle their noses at the name of my school, our school. I noticed they would sort of frown upon it. As if Tustin were unsafe, or as if this school didn’t breed success. As if Tustin was the poor ineffective school, the school where those without the money to live in the hills or the gated communities attended.

After four years here, I can say that that snobby attitude is unjustified and in fact is simply wrong.

Tustin may not have the best physical campus in Tustin, but that is not indicative of the strength this school possesses. I do not need to elaborate on why this is true. Simply look at the staff at this school, to help nurture young minds and help them find direction. Look at the sports programs, which foster talent and make it skill. Look at the alumni list, which is full of successful individuals. Finally, look at this class. Look at the class of 2011. This class showcases all that Tustin has to offer, academics, the arts, music, sports, anything that you would want to see in a high school: you can see in this class.

Tustin’s diversity and acceptance as well as its strict commitment to excellence have helped this class tremendously. And as we leave this school and head to our individual futures, whether that be college, trade school, or straight into the work force, our class of 2011 can know that this school, Tustin High, has shaped us to be the people we are today, and the successes that we will be in the years to come.

Once a Tiller, Always a Tiller."

Graduation was a time of hugs and goodbyes, a time of tears and smiles. I honestly will probably never ever see most of my peers from that class again, save maybe for a reunion. And there is a good chance that I may not see my close close friends ever again either, which is quite saddening.

I am young and excited, filled with adrenaline and testosterone moving a mile a minute, not stopping.

Graduation gave me the chills, and even thinking about it now I really have trouble thinking this is all happening. It may be because it really hasn't hit me yet. I don't think I fully comprehend the meaning behind it all yet. Not sure if I ever will. But parts of it will hit me. When my friends move off to college before I, maybe it will hit me. When I wake up in my dorm, alone and disoriented, it may hit me.

Or possibly, it may never hit me.

I know little about this new life I am living, I have barely started it. And it doesn't seem much different from high school for I have been with my friends the whole time. Whether I like it or not, it has happened and I will have to leave Tustin behind soon enough.

Tustin has been good to me, and the possibilities of this new life ahead of me are so vast and spectacular. But shit, I am going to miss high school.

Thanks Class of 2011,

I will miss you.

Stencil Project

I have been blogging forever about my addiction to and love for street art.

So when Mrs. Willoughby assigned our Lit class with a small senior presentation that represents in some way who I am or what I enjoy doing I instantly thought:
"Time lapse stencil"

So, here it is



I will briefly explain what I did.

Ok so I took an idea that I had for a stencil before. I took a picture offline of a child soldier who I believe is Viet or Cambodian. Either way it makes a good image and a good statement.

I took it into Gimp2.0 and erased the excess off the image. Then using the threshold and tweaking it a bit I made the stencil-like image.

Printed it.

Cut it.
The cut was difficult, this picture has a lot of hanging white which in stencil terms means a lot of annoying figuring out how to cut it. So that was difficult but I think it came out quite nicely.
To get that shot of me actually cutting the stencil I used the clamp with the camera (featured at the end of the film) and pointed it down towards myself. The cutting actually took around 45 minutes, but with the help of iMovie I made it only a little above 2 minutes. So me cutting it is actually at 40x speed.

One little funny thing to mention is if you notice while I am cutting the head of the boy, the blade falls out and I have to put it back in. It only lasts a few seconds on the video but you can see if you watch closely.

I then sprayed the stencil. Wanted to get video of that but just didnt have time.

Actually the video editing was very fun and difficult as well. Gave some examples of stencil art or street art for reference. Those with a keen eye may catch that I took the picture of the boy with the green shirt stencil in Venice. Added some chill music (Flying Lotus and Teebs). Added titles.

Voila.

I gave the stencil to Willoughby, I think she liked it.

Finally

Done with the Italy posts.

Italy was an amazing trip, in an amazing place, with amazing friends.

Viva Italia.

Padua

Padua was the city we had been staying in for the last few days of our trip.

All of our time we spent in Venice and Verona we actually had a hotel in Padua and rode a train or bused to the location we were headed to that day.

Our hotel in Padua was unique, to say the least.
It was an art-deco style hotel: meaning the entire hotel was supposed to have some sort of artistic influence throughout it. But really it just ended up meaning it had crazy weird paintings in it, like a lot of weird paintings.

Apparently the owner's wife or daughter or someone was artistic(-ish) and drew/painted all the pieces in the hotel.

Unfortunately all of these pieces were really weird. The majority of them were naked women paintings. This is alright, in its own way. Yet these paintings were not simple paintings, but more like sculpture paintings. They were basically paintings using random objects put together into the shape of a woman.

In the room that Conner and I shared for example, it was a naked woman made mostly out of plastic sea shells. I mean it was just weird.

I was just glad I wasn't in the room where the doll was in. Every room had a different painting, and one of the rooms was very unique. It was a black canvas with a small creepy doll glued to the center of it. Just hanging there on the wall. I doubt I would hav slept if I had that room.

The city of Padua was itself a very cool city in my opinion. Very laidback-ish.

We were allowed to enter the prestigious and illustrious church, the Sanctuary of St. Anthony of Padua. This is semi-coincidental for me. For my confirmation, I was required to choose a saint and write a report about him/her. I chose St. Anthony of Padua, and then there I was: standing in the Sanctuary of St. Anthony in Padua, Italy. Quite extraordinary actually.

The church was crazy. Super elaborate, and with so many relics in it as well. Just a lot and lot of relics and sanctuaries and crazy paintings and frescos. It was the coolest church I have been to. Probably because technically I was in a branch of the Vatican. Apparently as soon as I entered the doors to the church I entered Vatican property and officially left the state of Italy. So that was pretty fun, if not to do then at least to say.

One amazing part of that church was that they had preserved and kept pieces of St. Anthony and put them on display. There were pieces of his Jaw, his Larynx, his teeth, and his Tongue. They just looked all shriveled up and disgusting but nevertheless they were interesting pieces. They also had his tunics and some of his original manuscripts and such.

When we left the church we went through he city. The city looks very Italian, but not too grand or elaborate. Just kinda "basic" Italian I would say. Still pretty cool I would say.

While we were there the university students were protesting. The university students are notoriously vocal and active in politics and they were fed up with the inability to acquire jobs in the market after leaving and graduating from university. So they went to the streets, holding banners and yelling into microphones. It was quite interesting, and not only university students supported them. Old and young supported their movement against the government. (On a side-note, it seemed everyone in Italy despised Berlusconi.)
After seeing the protest, we saw another form of public involvement. A man with a little footstool was standing in the street, asking people as they walked by questions and asking them to answer the questions by standing on the footstool. This eventually became a whole forum, a whole little interaction and discussion of random people in the street. It got quite passionate, and I did not know what it was about. I eventually learned that they were all arguing about the university students, and whether or not they had a valid point about the jobs. They were to stand on the stool and speak their opinions. Some said yes, some said no (I could tell by their demeanor). The whole nature of the discussion was amazing though. Everyone was respecting one another, and everyone was listening to one another and then debting about their opinions. I was just so entranced by it cause I felt that this sort of thing 1) would not randomly be started in the US 2) not go as smoothly in the US. So I enjoyed that part very much.

I ended up, on the last day in Italy, trying non-Italian food. I had heard that the middle-eastern food in Italy was delicious, but for most of the trip I sought the autentic Italian food. But this time I did not want simply another pizza or another panini or pasta. I wanted something new! So I tried a delicious kabob place, and it blew my mind. I was glad I did so.

There was quite a bit of interesting graffiti in Padua. For some reason there was a lot of anti-Nazi stuff on the walls, specifically things that said "Death to Nazis" and "No Nazi zone" in Italian on the walls. There was also an artist who drew these long colorful humanoids with very long and dull features, interesting stuff. Probably my favorite was some artist who was writing interesting sayings throughout the city in English. For example: one said "Don't look back into the sun." And another said "It's not easy to make a name for yourself." I found these quite interesting.

Padua was where I had my last gelato. So sad. 

Verona

Verona was a strange city.

Verona is the infamous setting of the best known love story in the world: Romeo and Juliet. So it had some important aspects.

We came in to the city by bus. Saw a lot of rivers and castle like buildings, but none of that large importance. Mainly we saw large buildings we didnt know the name of or purpose of, but we knew they looked pretty. And old. Which was ok with all of us, we were tired and it was kinda cold.

We walked through Verona. We ran across these giant old Roman walls and even a colosseum type structure. We also encountered Roman ruins that the city itself had been built on top of. In fact, what we consider the floor of the city was sitting approximately 20 feet above the ground on supports hiding the Roman ruins below. Quite interesting.

It rained in Verona, and even looked as if it was snowing at one point. A lovely twist to our trip.

We went to the famous Juliet balcony, where Romeo professed his love from below to the beautiful Juliet above. It was kind of interesting to see, but really it was more of a tourist thing.

I did get to write on the wall outside the building, which is found covered in the names of love-bound couples and groups everywhere. In fact, the wall is so covered in spots you cant distinguish names or writings, just colors.

I wrote blacApps on the wall, just for good measure.

Verona got boring quickly. This was unfortunate, but in fact it ended up being relaxing. There wasnt much to do in the city and it was very very cold so when we got free time we sat around in cafes drinking coffee and bonding with our friends. Ended up not being too bad; but really, how bad can hanging out with some friends in Italy be?

*Cackle Cackle*

Sorry.

Ok I havent been blogging in forever.

Reason: Too busy with everything.

Bad news: Still have to finish Italy posts.

Good news: So much has been going on I have a lot to write about.

Stay tuned.