HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's Eve: Calamari & chips at Virtue, then Chinese food & funfetti cake at Eric's. I couldn't have asked for a better way to end a fantastic year. 2012, you were damn good to me.

photos via pinkrobotboogaloo and tarafirma

eating, drinking, and being merry

We're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fcking Kaye!

That time I was a panda

This Halloween I learned that it will always be cold in my corner at Society Fair, even when I'm wearing a panda snuggie situation. Society Fair is a freezer, Virtue is a furnace. Damn near stripped in the walk-in.

Photo via pinkrobotboogaloo

Ready, set, WALK

 

 

 

 

 

Racing for the cure with the AVT crew!
Props to Mariam (and probably Alex) for their time of 36 minutes! You go!
and props to Steph for this post's title because that's what she said when they blew the whistle.
Walked (ok, ran a little bit but that was only to find our friends or to avoid the rude anti-abortion protestors) like we meant it!

Arlington Earth Week Community Fair poster

I like this one more than the Fairfax concert poster.
Need to fix: widow on last paragraph and make address a couple pt sizes smaller. wait on feedback for orange type.

Mason Earth Week Concert

11x17 poster

napkin holder insert

This is your mission, should you choose to accept it: Design a poster for the opening ceremony of residence halls Whitetop and Rogers. Fun and creative. Earth Week 2012, free food from Everlasting Life, OH YEAH WE NEED THIS IN TWO DAYS. 

just kidding, I had a little over a week to do this one. The two days thing is for the Arlington campus poster. 

.....hooray/I GOT THIS.

Wednesday evening

sounds like: the lemonade mix cd that Stephanie made me two years ago. It contains all kinds of wonderful songs by The Ink Spots, Nat King Cole, Pomplamoose, Doris Day, and Django. 

tastes like: roasted eggplant with balsamic vinegar over raw kale, green tea, and fresh ginger/apple/carrot juice. 

feels like: It should not have been 70 degrees on the first day of February. Reading Sartre's No Exit with a warm winter breeze through my open window which should be mildly depressing but is oddly pleasant. The music and breeze makes up for the "I'm stuck in hell's waiting room with two people I hate" existentialism. 

smells like: vanilla perfume, fresh laundry, and the promise of cold weather in the air. 

photo via Sandra Juto

I go where there is food.

me: I'm going to a super bowl party on Sunday in Ashburn.
Pa: vina, do you even know who's playing in the super bowl?
me: .....no, but the food will be good.

last year's super bowl

Monday afternoon

sounds like: Bon Iver. I've been playing the Bon Iver album since July. It's just so good. I can't even describe to you how amazing/relaxed I feel and how productive I am when I listen to this album. Any music that can make me, the one with all the blogs and the procrastination skillz, productive is good music. It's snowing heavily, I've got coq au vin simmering on the stove, and I'm playing Bon Iver? If that doesn't say winter then I don't know what does. 

tastes like: peach black tea that I bought in Savannah, iced coffee, hot oatmeal, and (though I haven't had it yet) coq au vin. It's also a good day to bake something. Maybe a tart tatin or some kind of cinnamon coffee cake.

feels like: winter contentment and thick socks. 

smells like: chicken/rosemary/wine simmering on the stove, that crisp in the snowy air, and soon-to-be cinnamon in the oven. 

photo by The Blue Hour

totally twenty eleven

2011 was an amazing year: I ate shrimp & grits in Charleston and picked peaches in Maryland. We drank alcoholic slushies on the streets of Savannah and went ghost hunting in Harper's Ferry. Four of my good friends got married and I had the honor of being a bridesmaid for one of them. There were epic blanket forts, fog art installation pieces, and Belgian waffle parties. I saw Bon Iver, The Rosebuds, Childish Gambino, sosupersam, Walk The Moon, and Fitz and the Tantrums live. I missed a bus to New York but rode a trolley in Georgia. I photographed the ocean from the top of a lighthouse on Long Beach Island, ate roasted brussel sprouts and banana pudding in Richmond, and baked gingerbread men at an ugly Christmas sweater party. 

 This year has pretty much been perfect. 2012, you have some big shoes to fill.

(and I totally used Justin's beautiful face as the thumbnail so I would get more hits on the video. No shame). 

Oh look, it is 2012 now. I should probably hurry up and recap 2011.

hey, at least I'm not doing it it in August or some mess like that.