YOSYO - Fall Part Two

A continuation of YOSYO - Fall Semester! You only senior year once… Week of Oct 29th: Penn-Princeton! The longest non-tradition Penn has ever held! Penn kids have long held up the “tradition” of taking busses up to Princeton for our “rivalry.” The awkward part is that Princeton doesn’t consider this a rivalry at all! In fact, they were on break during the game so no students were even there hahah. It was a ton of fun, though, and I’m glad I finally made it up my senior year.

 Week of Nov 5th: Greek Conference! I’m part of an amazing Christian fellowship on campus called Greek InterVarsity. It’s specifically for sorority and fraternity members and has some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Through Greek IV, I’ve become closer with my own sisters in Chi Omega and have been able to meet so many more people in the Greek system that I never would have encountered before. It’s something I’ve valued so much during my time at Penn. This fall was another Annual Greek Conference up in the Poconos with other Greek IV chapters in the Northeast! Week of Nov. 12th: I didn’t leave campus, admittedly, but that’s because Thanksgiving was right around the corner…and it was CHISINO! I was so excited to be able to attend (and help work) Chisino’s 2nd Annual Chisino charity event for Make-A-Wish foundation (I was abroad last year when they started it). We were able to help buy a new computer for Make-A-Wish child, Ryan. Much better quality photos of the event here. Week of Nov. 19th: Thanksgiving with my cousins up in Rochester - the Lees! Some more here. Unfortunately, the last few weeks of a semester are always filled with cramming for finals and projects so there is never much time to escape campus. But I have to say, I did a pretty decent job of enjoying Philly and beyond last semester! More on the Spring Semester soon.

YOSYO - Fall Part One

When I first heard YOLO (You Only Live Once), it was pretty stupid. But then it became funny in an ironic way. Then came YOSYO (You Only Senior Year Once), and that was pretty stupid too. But then the undeniable truth of it started weighing down. I’m unbelievably grateful to have a wonderful job opportunity after graduation in my favorite city (New York, New York - although I’d totally welcome a job transfer to London hahah). As many gains as next year will bring me, the truth is that entering the world of professionalism does bring a few losses here and there. For example, I can’t wear my favorite Urban Outfitter’s Smush nailpolish with an Essie No Place Like Chrome fourth nail accent (so punny!). And I probably will shy away from my quirky owl earrings. I definitely can’t wear my ridiculous beanie from Brussels with a giant red snowball on top because a) it will mess up all that professional hair and b) it looks ridiculous in any given circumstance. Worst of all, I can’t die the back strands of my hair dark blue or purple. Never mind the fact that I really only had that urge once I realized I couldn’t do it in a year…but still.

I literally almost printed this picture out of Selena Gomez (aka a Disney princess who was also dating JBiebs #intouchwiththetweens) to give to my hair dresser before my friends kindly informed me, “Uh..I don’t think that would match well with your JCrew outfits..” Truth.

 Most of all, though, is realizing that in a short 4 months, I’ll be leaving Philly behind. And despite only being in Manhattan for two summers and London for one semester, I know the both of those cities far better than I know Philly. That’s why, this year I decided I had to leave campus at least once a week. While I didn’t get a chance to document the first semester, I’m determined to document my last. To catch up for lost time, though, last semester I was able to go to: 

Week of Aug 27th & Sept 3rd: Everywhere with the Brits! All over DC, NY and Philly!
Week of Sept 10th: Double event! First went to Frankford Hall , a modern Biergarten by Steven Starr, with some then-new friends and now-regular friends! While everyone got gigantic pints, I happily enjoyed some Spicy Bratwurst. Also, note how tan I was. I’ll get back to that one day….

(Photo Credit: Chloe S.)
Then somehow got roped into seeing this dude called…Bon Iver? I actually barely knew him when I went to the concert, but was a huge fan by the time I left. The live performance was so spectacular! At one point I realized: “I brought my Venture Capital homework to a hipster concert…does that make me ironic?”

Week of Sept 17th: Went downtown to get a new and dashing haircut! Also went on Baltimore Dollar Stroll which I don’t have pictures of, but was pretty awesome. Essentially all these restaurants along Baltimore sell little items/samples for $1 each. It’s a great idea in bringing the community together

Week of Sept 24th: Mid-Autumn Festival in ChinaTown! I can’t find the pictures we took from this, but surprisingly Matt of all people introduced us to an amazing hand-drawn noodle restaurant: Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House. Phenomenal! I highly recommend it. 
Week of Oct 1st: Greek IV Apple Picking! One of the best events we’ve done so far. As a California kid, the only thing I had ever picked was persimmons or strawberries. Actually, I can’t tell if maybe that’s just a sheltered kid thing… But this weekend, I got to meet ALLY. One of the coolest girls ever, and I’m seriously so blessed to know her. Girl just randomly signed up for our event and is now helping us plan events behind the scene!

Week of Oct. 8th: Sad, sad week. I got horribly sick, died, and missed a thousand events including Restaurant Week, the free students’ Philly Orchestra concert, a date to the Lil Pop Shop, and a Chi O Seniors’ Happy Hour.
Week of Oct. 15th: Fall Break! Amy and I went to Boston/Cambridge to see Maegan, Tsuki, Becca, and the Head of the Charles Regatta! We awkwardly became temporary members of the Kansas crew team during their lunch at Quincy Market when their entire team sat around us too hahah. and then I visited Kelsey up in the Bronx.

Week of Oct. 22nd: Homecoming weekend! I decided this weekend of all weekends, I didn’t exactly need to leave campus. We had a great game vs Brown. Sad fact is I had to Google that because I  couldn’t remember hahah

To be continued…

[Blip] We're going to SEA!

Well, yes, we’ll be traveling over lots of ocean I’m sure…but we officially booked our flights to South East Asia! 3 weeks of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and my dad’s homeland of Malaysia!!! Seriously can’t wait. This is the last hurrah, folks. 

Note: I’m labeling all teeny posts “blips” a la Jezebel’s blog. Pretty sure my tags are longer than my post..

Basic Exposure + Shallow Depth of Field

oDespite this being my last semester of college, I decided to up my courses to 6 so that I could fit in Digital Photography! I figured:
A) I’m already paying a million dollars for a college education
B) I would probably pay for a photography class at SOME point in my life, therefore..
C) Why not make the most of what I’m already paying and have a phenomenal professor as well? 
I’ve only been in the course for about 3-4 weeks now, but I’m still extremely happy that I decided to take it! We’ve just begun learning the technical aspects behind photography such as the Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. While I can’t explain it nearly as well as my professor does, over winter break I did find a pretty useful tutorial online for beginners who know nothing about photography: It’s Overflowing by Aimee.

The main thing we’ve been learning, though, is that “we’re all slaves to light” as our professor says hahah. But it’s true! It’s all about finding different combinations of aperture/shutter speed/and ISO to make sure that your photos are “metered” in the middle like so:

If you’re too far on the + side, you’re overexposed and your photos have too much light. Note how the “Chobani” lettering on the back two yogurts are barely visible. 
 

If you’re on the - side, you’re underexposed and too dark. Note how you can barely see the lovely faces of my cousins as they gleefully pop champagne in our hotel hahah. I’m still struggling with this, actually, since it’s very difficult to shoot indoors.  

The larger your aperture is (aka the smaller your FStop is), the more light comes in. The longer your shutter speed (the longer your shutter stays open), the more light comes in. And the higher the ISO, the more sensitive your sensor is to light. 

It starts getting tricky, though, because if your shutter speed is longer than 1/60th of a second, they might start coming out blurry. And if your ISO is too high, say above 800, then your photos start looking grainy. This photo was taken at a very high ISO since the lighting was so dim.
 
However, if you look closer, the photo looks very grainy as if you can see all the “dots.” I’m actually not sure how good this example will turn out since this is just tumblr..

The thing that I like playing with the most, though, is Aperture. The FStop is actually the denominator of a fraction that represents the diameter of your lens opening. So an FStop of 3.5 means the diameter is 1/3.5. An FStop of 11 means the diameter is 1/11 which is significantly smaller. Therefore, a smaller FStop = a larger aperture. Confusing, I know! This diagram helps:

The cool part is being able to capture a shallow depth of field versus a large depth of field. SDOF is for when you have a foreground/midground/background and can focus on just one, but have everything else softened or blurry. This is useful for close-ups and making your subject really obvious. LDOF is when everything is in focus. This is useful for capturing texture, architecture, etc. I’m still getting the hang of LDOF, but here are some examples I took in NY of shallow depth of field:

Note how the “Honey” sticker is clear and visible in the first jar, but the rest of the background is blurry.

Again, the snout of this pig at Eataly is sharp and in focus, but the rest of its features and the signs behind it are blurred out.

I’m still learning, but hopefully I can post some more photographs as I gain more knowledge! I’m still getting the hang of large depth of field as well as capturing and blurring motion, too.