Los Angeles Country Museum of Art (LACMA)

Mood: Stressed
Playing: Enchanted-Adam Young (The only thing that would make this song better is if he replaced "Taylor" with Audrey." I'm not hinting or anything, of course...)
Sorry about yesterday's post. I was just feeling stressed and losing hope, but I realized, I just need to toughen up and accept what's thrown at me, so without further adieu, here I go! Over Spring Break, I made it to LA twice! The second time around I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is a collection of 9 museums housing all different types of art. I truly doubt that you wouldn't be able to find one museum that you like considering they have everything from Persian to Contemporary to European Impressionist art. It truly is an incredible museum because it has pieces by such great artists like Picasso, Pisarro, Warhol, and Monet! When I saw the Warhols, I was mind blown! At first, I wasn't expecting to take too many pictures, but I ended up with over 40! Unfortunately, I had to cut it down and now have 18, which shall be divided into two posts!

At first, the main thing I was going to see was the Urban Light sculpture by Chris Burden. I like old fashioned street lamps like these because they have this wonderfully whimsical, magical aura to them.

I took some great photos of it, I think, because you get to really see all the different styles of lamps used. I like taking closeups of things like this, but I never know where to post the photos because I doubt my blog readers want 20 photos of the same thing.

I went into the main building with the Modern Art, European Art, and Persian Art. I saw this sculpture and I love it. It reminds me of Star Wars and of tripods. I liked walking underneath it and walking around it. While in this building, I found a French family. At least, I'm assuming they were French. I followed them hoping to hear some French because my French teacher encourages us to try to talk to people in French, so I figured, she'd be impressed when I told her that I spoke French over Spring Break! It was quite a comical sight, really. I was stalking a frightened European family, while some college-age Asian Teeny Bopper stalked me. I wonder why he was following me out of all people...MAYBE HE WANTED TO PRACTICE ENGLISH THE WAY I WANTED TO PRACTICE FRENCH?

This painting made me laugh. I mean really, how can a painting of Spam go wrong? Especially, a painting with flying Spam?

Some modern art leaves me confused, like the painting on the right. Doesn't it remind you of the dress sprayed with paint at Alexander McQueen?

I can't remember the name of this exhibit, but it's only here for a limited time. I like the semi-transparent sheets that helped break up the exhibit. Without them, I have a feeling, it would've been overwhelming!

This was the Museum of Contemporary Art and was definitely my favorite! (The Asian Teeny Bopper guy followed me there. He followed me to 3 different museums...If he's reading this, hey! How's life? We should become friends!) I loved the long escalator and the killer view of Hollywood at the top floor. The elevator was huge! In fact the week before, they had a bar in the elevator! I wish I was there!

At the American Art building, I had to take a break and sat down at this lovely table that looked as if it had been built out of hard candy. I looked straight up and got a great picture of the stores. Harry Potter moving stairs, anyone, eh? Or am I the only one that is full of geeky references? Expect a second post, eventually! I really hope you like it, when I share these things with you!
Oh by the way, we're playing basketball in class and the girls have special rules against guys. If a group of girls play a group of guys, we get 1 point if we hit the rim and 2 points if we make the basket. Yesterday, in class, this guy named Kevin had the ball, so I smiled sweetly and asked him, "Can I have the ball, please?" He replied, "You really want the ball?" So I said, "Yes!" And guess what? He gave me the ball and I made a basket! His team still won, 10-9. I made 6/9 points! Today Andrew and Matthew were guarding me at the half court line, so I stood there dribbling for awhile and Matthew stepped aside to guard Hyeajoon, so I ran straight forward and made a basket!

Are you excited for the royal wedding? I heard that there's no school/work in the United Kingdom!

Exposition Park (In LA)

Mood: Calm
Playing: Yes, Yes, We're Magicians-The Crookes (If you haven't checked out the Burberry Acoustic videos, you should.)
Yesterday, I went to Los Angeles to go visit Exposition Park. I think you're more familiar with Exposition Park than you may think. The rose garden at Exposition Park is the one in the 3OH!3 "Starstrukk" music video. Haha, do I amaze you with my random knowledge of music videos? If not, well I should amaze you...Anyways, I went for several reasons yesterday. I'm on Spring Break and I love Los Angeles!

I went to the Museum of Natural History because it's all about animals and who doesn't love animals? I used to visit this museum a lot, when I was little and had no homework. Now, I'm lucky to get out of my town on weekends because of all my homework. (Yes, I'm looking at you Evolution Project and History Day!)

The Discovery Room is pretty legit to hang out in, even though it was designed for little kids. They have these random animal heads on the walls along with fish and animals in cages. I always wondered what they did with the rest of the body of those deer. Do they eat it? Even if they do, the fur should still be left to make the body part of the figure. Or does the fur become a fur coat?

I told you they had fish and tons of them. I always wondered how they preserved these fish because wouldn't they rot away? I understand furry critters, but not fish. Watch, it's probably a model made of plastic and they laugh at the people like me, who think they're real...

Sorry for the dark photo. My camera was acting up and flash only made it worse. On the bright side, look how amazing the architecture of the museum is! It's like the European structures that I love so much. They should build more buildings like this, like the old theatres I used to go to in England. Unfortunately, I know that's not going to happen because it's more expensive and we lack the artisans that used to do this type of work.

The science museum nearby is pretty incredible too. I love the structure outside with all the gold balls hanging on strings outside. In this post, you get to see the geeky side of me that's a sucker for good architectural feats. Wow, I really do need a life, huh? Even my Geometry teacher thinks I don't have a life. After we take tests, he always holds extra credit opportunities after school, where you help him grade the tests. He always says, "You can either spend your time after school with your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever you kids are into nowadays or you can spend your afternoon with me!" I always stay for the extra credit and one time, he just looked at me and said, "It's ok that you don't have a boyfriend to hang out with, Audrey." Sadly, he's one of my favorite teachers along with my epic French teacher...

This question is so unrelated to this post, but whatever. Do you have a celebrity crush? If so, who is it?

Tina's Birthday Party Had Great Food As Usual

Mood: Proud
Playing: The Ghost of You-My Chemical Romance
Today I finally took my fitness tests! I showed up at school 2 hours before school started and I hopefully passed all my tests. I did 10 push-ups, 25 crunches, trunk lift, and I ran a mile in 9:50! The mile was pretty good for me, but for the crunches and push-ups, I know I could have done more, but the coaches told me to stop. Also, on my flexibility test I did really good on it. My score was 16, when most people scored 10-12. When I first showed up, I was freaking out because there were over 30 guys there and I was the only girl! Lucky for me, quite a few girls showed up and I actually found one to be friends with. I wish I remembered her name, so I could thank her for really pushing me to keep on running the mile! Haha, most of you don't want to hear about my athletic achievements, no matter how low they are! I want to share with you Tina's birthday party! It was so much fun and we did some pretty unusual stuff!

She has two pet turtles and I love them. Vivian and I just watched them for the longest time. I think Tina and her her brother, Kent, named them Kame-Kun and Kame-Chan. Basically, he turtle and she turtle!

Tina, Hyeajoon, Maggie, Tiffany, Vivian, Kimmie, Kent, and I all helped cook up our dinners and some food for a game we played. What you do is make a whole bunch of one type of food and put something nasty, like wasabi, in one of them. Then everyone sits in a circle and grabs one. You have no idea, who got the nasty one, until everyone bites into their's! So much fun to play and to prepare! Here you can see, Hyeajoon chopping up cabbage for our dumplings!

Our dumplings were 3 parts cabbage and 1 part pork. Obviously, we had too much cabbage, but it was still tasty! No one wanted to mix the meat and cabbage, so they forced me to do it! What wimps! (Just kidding!) With the leftover meat, we made meatballs. The bad dumplings had wasabi in them and the bad meatballs had garlic in them, but I personally love garlic!

The best tasting thing we made were these puff pastry things. The good ones had chocolate surrounded by whipped cream and the bad ones had wasabi instead of chocolate. You should've seen Kimmie and Maggie's faces, when they bit into their's!

Tiffany's dad made Tina a birthday cake/pie because Tiffany and Maggie were supposed to make it, but they were too busy. It was so tasty. They called it a cake, but it tasted more like a pie to me. Almost like an almond pie. It was so good.

We did other things other than eat. We played badminton, which I'm really bad at, so Tiffany taught me how to serve and Kent played against me. Then we played tennis, so Kent taught Tiffany, Kimmie, Maggie, and me how to play. Tina already knew how, so she crushed us with her pro skills. I really like playing tennis! It's so much fun and some of my friends have offered to teach me. I hope Andrew and Sagiv will help me learn!

Have you ever tried something out and realized you love it?