what feelings sound like

i am suddenly taken back to mid-october. it is a saturday morning and the sun has just risen. i am driving through my home town with my dad, taking in his wise thoughts and peaceful presence. we were on the topic of hardships in life, one of many deep conversations we enjoy sharing. and as i watched the sun radiate through the branches of the trees alined along the road, my father voiced a thought that has stuck in me like no other idea. almost as a concluding reflection he spoke over the music and said, "life can be hard sometimes. that's why music is so good". .. maybe it is because i love music so much that i appreciated what he had said. but then i really thought about it. music is good when we can relate, when we can feel something. music is good when the lyrics speak to us, when the words are so chillingly accountable we get goosebumps. that's what he meant. music is so good because when life gets hard, we turn on that one song and we finally feel understood. maybe we don't necessarily find the answers in music, but i think we find peace. listening to words, swearing they were written for us, seem to help calm the troubled emotions. and for those two and a half minutes or however long it may be, music is what makes us feel whole again. music is what makes us feel limitless and never-ending, taking away our confined state of mind. music is what triggers the surplus of emotions. music is what feelings sound like.
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since i'm on the subject of music, here are some of my favorite musicians/bands at the moment :
one: coldplay .. there are no words to describe how much i love coldplay. their music is the soundtrack to my life. jk jk .. but really. i saw them this past summer in concert. i swear it changed my life. oh and chris martin has the best dance moves.

two: wold gang .. i saw this band open for coldplay and they were so amazing. i also had the pleasure of seeing them on their headline tour. besides being some of the nicest guys, their music is incredible. very dreamy and very fun.

three: ellie goulding .. first of all i wish i could rock that semi-buzz hair-do thing that she has/had. i first came across ellie when i was in israel. her music video for "lights" was one of the only english videos on the television. i am in love with her sound.

four: the royal concept .. these lovely swedes opened for wolf gang on their past tour. and they sure do know how to put on a good performance. they have the coolest sound.

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i just realized none of these are american musicians .. i'm american .. awkward.

xx

my heart is happy

i always find myself missing home more when i have to leave it. don't get me wrong, i love living on my own and figuring things out my own way. because finding our true selves is the most important part of life i think. and it is found when we are young and adventurous, and with eyes full of stars. it is always encouraging to travel home and know that my family supports the desires i have for my life. during this thanksgiving i was reminded of how lucky i am to have people in my life who know me deeply and make my heart immensely happy. i am grateful for my father, whose faith and hope has given me a new sense of reason. his humble and optimistic nature has inspired every good thing i have every written. i am grateful for my mother because her constant love and endless encouragement goes beyond anything i could ever fathom. her beauty and kindness overcomes any sight and feeling i've ever known. if there is any substantial purpose to why i have never given up on the things i love, my parents are the reason. i am thankful that they enrich my soul with encouraging dreams but keep my mind in tune with the reality of things. i am also grateful for my siblings, who all have given me a reason to smile even in my darkest moments. it is such a joy to have spent a few days with them. my favorite moment this past week was two nights ago. we all went for a walk around the neighborhood and looked at the stars. it was so incredibly peaceful. i was happy to have spent that certain moment with them. it is so comforting to know that i always have people to go to when i am lost. and it wasn't until i left again that i realized how much i do miss them when i'm away. they are all such wonderful and beautiful people, inside and out.

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this past week i saw quite a few movies, but my favorite was steven spielberg's lincoln. it was the best movie i've seen this year. daniel day-lewis' performance as abraham lincoln was one of the greatest i've ever seen. he is one of my favorite actors, especially since his film, there will be blood. this is partly off topic, but his acceptance speeches for his performance in there will be blood are still some of my favorites. i have a thing with actors and their acceptance speeches. for instance, christopher plummer had the best acceptance speeches of the past awards season in my opinion. i love lincoln not only for it's phenomenal casting, but also because it's cinematography was so great. the silhouette shots of lewis were my favorite. it's movies like this that make me excited about aspiring to be a filmmaker. i hope to one day make films that are loved just as i love this movie. if you have not seen lincoln, i highly recommend going to see it. you will not be disappointed.

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i'm off to finish my studio work . hope your week is lovely 

xx

austin texas

so this past weekend was super fun. i went to austin to visit with some high school friends and it was so lovely to catch up with them. i've been to austin once or twice but we did lots of tourist-like stuff so i got the full austin effect this time. we went to dinner at the restaurant called oasis and it overlooked lake travis. the drive to oasis was really curvy and through the mountains/hills. it reminded me of the family drives to our old lake house years ago. .. i am suddenly missing that place now .. anyways the food was so yummy and there was a fireplace and a christmas tree so we got our take of awkward christmas photos. we spent lots of time on south congress and we walked through the bizarre (that's the name of it i think). it was full of street-like vendors and some of the stuff was really cool. lots of homemade jewelry, leather bags, and fun trinkets. i got some neat austin coasters and i am so in love with them. i personally think they're too awesome to use as coasters, so i might keep them on my desk for decoration :). we also walked through an antique bookstore and a huge costume boutique which was super fun. if you are ever in austin i highly recommend eating at hopdoddy because it is the tastiest burger joint ever. oh and i hear their milkshakes are great too, but i always forget to get one when i go! my friends took me to a lot of the picture spots in austin which was probably the best part. i'm a sucker for a fun/cool picture. and leave it to the capital to have the prettiest murals and wall art. love it! we also snuck inside the hotel that ryan gosling is apparently staying at while he is filming his movie. well we didn't really sneak in because the gate was wide open and it looked incredibly inviting. unfortunately he wasn't there, but there was a 'i lost my boyfriend, ryan gosling' sign right outside the hotel. so funny. i also experienced my first ever real rock concert. it was so awesome. the band, bright lights social hour, was so rock and roll, it was crazy. apparently they opened for aerosmith, woah. i will honestly be shocked if they don't make it big one day. i also watched another local band perform. they go by the name of wild child and their song real estate is currently on replay. it is one of my new favorite songs. you should look it up, right now. .. i love weekends when i can leave where i am and explore a city with people i love.

hope you all have a lovely thanksgiving break .. cheers

life lately

i do not how to start one of these and make it sound good and catchy .. so i'm just gonna start talking .. ok. .. if i could describe my life lately with one word i think it would be 'wandering'. Not that i mean i have no idea where my place is, more that my mind is jumping in so many different directions. this is a good thing and a not so good thing. i am a natural day dreamer so it's not out of the ordinary to find myself thinking about something while doing something else. in fact i enjoy my dreamy-ness. i don't think i'd be such a devoted writer if i wasn't. i often find myself thinking about that one line from that one song that, at the moment, speaks volumes to me, and even how it has unconsciously forced me to think of how it relates to me and what i've experienced. if you are ever so interested, this song is easily from ellie goulding's halcyon album or wolf gang's suego faults records or (almost always) coldplay. i find it funny how music tends to be the only thing that seems to ever understand. like it was written exactly for me to help me through whatever it is i am struggling with. in fact, taylor swift's fearless and speak now albums were that for me in high school. i enjoy music and other things most when they make me feel something and make me feel it deeply. maybe that's why i obsessively day dream about writing. because a story is always better and more meaningful when it makes you feel strongly in a certain way. christopher nolan is that way for me. my favorite moments in the dark knight, inception, and the dark knight rises are when batman and cobb face their darkest hour and everything is all sad and gloomy. and for the longest time i could never figure out why i enjoyed those moments above all others. maybe because these characters in these stories acquired something i didn't. they possessed a level of hurt and pain caused from some sort of heartbreak. i had no idea what it was like to feel what they did. that was until my grandmother passed away and then i truly understood what it meant to loose someone i loved. and then i felt relatable to these fictional characters. strangely enough, i learned about myself from them. i learned that i am drawn to these sad moments because it is when an individual is facing their darkest hour that their strongest moments become reality. if there's anything of value that i have learned in this life, it is how miraculous an individual's strength becomes after they face something truly heartbreaking. it's funny how strong you learn you are when being strong is the only option you have. and i think that's why i love christopher nolan's work so much. seeing how strong a person can stand after feeling completely defeated, it's quite inspiring i think. .. strange how my wandering mind can take me this deep into a topic. .. blehh anyways .. i enjoy my wandering especially at this point in my life. i have the freedom to do and be whatever i choose. and that is something to be thankful for. my meandering thoughts have taken me places i don't think i could of imagined a few years back. and my hope is that my passion-driven brain will bring me to even better places. there far better things ahead than anything we leave behind, right? .. but of course there is such a downside to this mind of mine. i have been struggling lately trying to stay focused on each day at a time. because i know what i want to do and how i need to do it, i feel very wasteful and insufficient facing moments, days, even weeks when there is not much that i can contribute to. it is hard for me to live one day at a time without wondering about the future and thinking about the past. patience, patience, patience .. this will be the death of me.

oh i went to see wolf gang in concert this past weekend and had the best time. there music is very dream-like to me .. i love it so much.
xx

greetings

hello there blog peoples.

i am so ecstatic to be blogging. i am a writer, so it only seems natural for me to have one of these. as my roommate would say, "welcome to the blogosphere" ..  and i am so pumped to be here. fair warning: the majority of my blogging will have something to do with writing, photography, music, or film. when i think about what life is to me, those four things can basically define it. in all realness it is music and film and photographs and written words that have given me direction and understanding. and i would love to have a career involving those things. right now i am pursuing videography in music. cross your fingers some band picks me up! coldplay maybe?? ..  i hope to be a screenwriter one day. i also hope to become bff's with christopher nolan and ewan mcgregor. a girl can dream right? ..  anyways stay tuned, for i will be blogging (hopefully) much more.

peace my people
xx


to keep you content until my next post, here is a picture of a panda .. cheers