I was able to sleep for an extra fifteen minutes since I had already planned out what to wear the previous night. I got ready really fast, and as usual, I just slouched around for about twenty minutes until we left the house at around 8:50-ish. Then I realized  I forgot my phone so my dad made a turn and I got down to get it. I secretly kept on my shoes as I went upstairs and across the living room and hopefully my mom didn’t notice when she got home. It still feels all wrong to wear shoes inside of a house, especially because of the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

The rain was still pouring as Meredith arrived at our meeting spot and we set off for the Art Director’s Club in the city. We spent the ride mostly in silence as she read Scarlet Letter and I listened to my sad, sad, MP3 player. The ride went by pretty quickly and without much traffic.

There, we got some breakfast and took our seats. I had two pastry thingies and some fruit, while Meredith took fruit and bagels. The lady they invited this time was a creative director from Random House publishing. During her entire presentation, it seemed as if she was trying to persuade us to purchase her books, but I have to admit that she came across as a lot more professional than the graphic-designing-creative-director-turned-teacher they brought in on the first day. She showed us a variety of book covers that featured a different targeted age group. Fortunately, the woman didn’t take too much time talking, although I was still bored nonetheless. I managed to braid my hair two different ways and then release it and repeat, but maybe I just braid fast.

The assignment for the workshop was to create a sequential piece of artwork that had a minimum of eight panels. On the thumbnail worksheet, I thought about things that were easy to draw and what else would come to mind but trees? Somehow, during the presentation, Meredith had this revolutionary idea of making a chicken turn into an octopus for her story. I won’t say what I drew ‘cus it’ll spoil someone’s birthday gift. ;] Regardless, one of the directors of the program started photographing my work without me knowing and I got all nervous and started making useless lines on the side and small talk with Meredith. I didn’t know if I was supposed to keep on drawing or say anything to him while he took pictures. While we were drawing, someone pointed out that it started snowing and everyone looked up and gasped in disbelief. The snow only got harder if anything, throughout the day. Anyways, to be honest, I was pretty pleased with how my panels came out, even though I didn’t get to finish each of them as much as I would have liked. The lady from the publishing company pointed mine out at the end and I just said random bullshit that came to my mind.

Neriel met us at Woorjip on W32nd Street. At first, Meredith and I had difficulty finding the restaurant since it was hidden behind the scaffolding, but we found it anyways. Inside, Neriel was already there and we just sat around for about ten minutes or so before deciding to order food anyways and Eve can join us when she gets here. Neriel and I both got udon but he also got an order of spicy dumplings and Meredith got bulgogi and rice.

Eve managed to arrive a bit before we finished eating. My mom called near the end and she was asking how I was going to go home, so I just agreed with whatever she said since it was easier - but then she made this comment where she said, “don’t say okay.” That kind of caught me offguard, cus I wanted to say “okay” to her comment.

(From Meredith’s Camera)

After we were done eating and took a pic, it was time to head back out into the terrible weather again. On the way to the train, Meredith realized that it was starting to hail. HAIL, not even rain or snow, and Neriel went home earlier - hopefully to do his homework >:l. I didn’t realize how cold my fingers were until I tried texting while walking and holding an umbrella at the same time. We only took the train for about a stop and then we walked the rest of the way to Kinokuniya. We couldn’t find it initially and asked Eve to locate it on her phone, but by the time she took it out, we accidentally stumbled upon it. In the doorway, they had these little bags for umbrellas. After dealing with that, we just went inside.

There were a lot of books on tattoos. One in particular called Russian Criminal Tattoos, which Eve was tempted to get. Upstairs was a bunch of manga/anime stuff and the cafe. The cafe had such good lighting it would’ve been a waste if we didn’t camwhore. It went…okay. Oh, and Eve got a riceball which she had difficulty opening.

After sitting for a  bit, we walked down to the basement where all the stationary things were. I found a really nice sketchbook, but I remained indecisive about buying it until the very end. It was $10, which was pretty decent for the amount and quality of paper I was getting. The pens and pencils were so expensive. When my mom goes back to Malaysia, I’m going to ask her to get me a bunch. And all the stickersssss. Too bad I don’t have a use for them though.

When we were sitting in the cafe, we looked across the street at the bunch of little store-like things. Even though the weather was shit, we still wanted to explore a bit. By the time we got to the fountain, I suggested to Meredith that we throw a coin in there - sort of like a wishing fountain thing. Right when I finished talking, both of us a saw a flash of lightning and before we could comment on it, we heard a massive roll of thunder. The three of us ran off the fountain area, but then returned thinking we should make the most out of this opportunity in the weather. Meredith asked a lady to take a picture of us in the rain by the fountain.

(From Meredith’s Camera)

From there, we caught the N train, then the R train home. We played a meat version of picnic which went like:

anchovies, beef, cold cuts, deer, eel, fish, gorilla meat, honeyed ham, iguana sauce, jook meat, kobe beef, lamb chops, meat, nuggets, octopus, pastrami, quail, roast beef, salmon, turkey

For a couple of them, we had to change since we kept naming strange items, such as lion meat for L. We caught the s79 back and Eve pulled out this rechargeable hand warming thing. It was so warm and it actually worked. Hopefully, it does recharge and it isn’t some ghetto scam.

Some lady and her kids on the train I thought were cute. lololol…

When we got off the bus, Meredith and I walked down a bit to meet her dad who picked us up. At her house, I didn’t know if I should take off my shoes: 1) My socks were wet, too. 2) My dad was supposed to be here soon and they would’ve been a pain to put back on. Luckily, I didn’t cus right when I unlaced them my dad called. 

I thought he was mad, but he wasn’t. The day was so good - the weather only made it more exciting, although I was sliding everywhere and I felt like I was going to fall with every step I took. We experienced basically every kind of precipitation there was. Every kind of normal precipitation anyways. When I took off my shoes at home, I realized how cold my feet were because the tiled floors felt warm for the first time.