A Houdini Complex

Hullo internet,

My name is Natalie and I am trying out blogging because I am trying to write and publish a book. I have been part of the blogging community for about four years and tried to blog about things during high school. It didn't really work. I had difficulties with the blogging concept because I didn't have a laptop and  I was busy with IB, music, and trying to get into college. So, now that I am past one milestone, meaning I am in college, working on an undergraduate degree, and know that I am able to function in society on my own, I think taking on a blog is a little easier. I will give a low down on what I am trying to do.

I am at a University. I am in my second year, working on a bachelor's degree in music education so far, and am in summer semester, working as a full time student with twelve credits. I am from California but chose to go to school in Utah. I am also employed as a salesperson. I like to write, take pictures in my crappy camera, and spend too much time on tumblr. I would like to visit the world, I love pixar, I love disney with a passion, I love to draw on top of everything, I buy too much notebooks and books because I like the idea of writing. Then on top of it all, I love spending time looking at creative people in hopes that I can learn myself. I do like to find graphics and gifs of things I like to watch and find them for myself and share it to the world. I like to hang out in my room, be very introverted on my own time, spending time in my guilty pleasures with music, slack my time with practice with my instruments, organize my time neatly with school, friends, and work.

It is my endless pursuit to write everything down on a piece of paper and look at the organization; achieve things one at a time and cross them off with a pen. I enjoy listening to things from the nineties and remember the good old days with cartoon network, old-fashioned things like bags and stuff you can't find yourself, and travel across countries.

But I will try to post often. Nearly everyday unless I find stuff I like or feel obligated to write it out. Maybe even mention my sorority duties to you because I am part of one. But I know what you're thinking, oh man she's in a sorority what an airhead, but I am in a band service sorority where we actually help the community. We do not get out much. But I do do more things in the college years. I think this might help bring out what I know and realize these moments are pretty fun in my lifetime. There was a quote that haunts my thoughts every now and then.

"We often never appreciate the value of a true moment, until it becomes a memory."-Tumblr

I think that this blog could record the important things, values, and such I like to do. I went back to this blog profile to realize I have matured in a way that doesn't make me bashful about myself. I like to think that I can me more a nerd than I could ever admit four years ago. I think I am more outgoing than I was in that short amount of time. I think things through, most of the time, and can show off how great or not things are going in my life. I like recording things down for people and I will try to show great moments in the "journey". More of an odyssey because it took forever to finish that book and isn't life the longest journey of all. Metaphorically, I will record what is my "present".

I got to return home in June after living in Utah for almost a year now. I returned in early June, welcomed back graciously by my siblings, and returned to the comforts of unlimited food and sleep. I am maintaining online classes while I stay here. I have done lots of things already. I went to Sonoma State University which is a nice school. I would recommend if I got to choose again if you want to go into the medical field. Then I visited a nice, quaint town called Petaluma that was very reminiscent of San Francisco with its heavy breeze and very trendy, hipster-esque vibe that screams rebellion and free spirit. With its winding roads, rolling hills, and people treating sidewalks like a runway.

It was great to visit, I went to this used bookstore where I found two books, one a science fiction novel, called Dead Harvest, great read, and The Prestige, the reason the film exists, excited to read it. But the reason why I mention this is because I was also listening in to around six authors, local sort of, and they were talking about their novels, why they wrote them, and how it works for their process of writing. It was very inspiring to hear them talk about it. I agreed and disagreed about many things. It also made me think through what I wanted to do and decide what I wanted in my own novel. I would do this instead of that. It made me think of why I am writing and what I want to do. I thought through that I want to show issues that I think are important and all these things that have influenced me into this one work. I thought back and forth about certain events and characters of my novel that were very significant to what happened.

But I had to leave halfway through their conference (?). The reason I left is that I had to go off with my family to go to Starbucks because we all had to use their bathroom. Public restrooms are annoying but then we went off to this restaurant, a Japanese little thing, called Hiro's Japanese Place. We ate so much stuff at this place, eating real Japanese food because it was owned by a Japanese man. We saw him walking down the dining room, back and forth while we ate just as it opened. We also saw this little girl, who was called Liz because I heard the mom call to her, who kept staring at my sister Emily. She was adorable, making it more memorable as we finally left back home.

Later, I went to my favorite music store in the whole universe. It is called Amoeba and it is a great resource of music memorabilia, dvds, cds, records, LPs, and posters for really good prices. There is so much stuff that accumulates in this store that there is a basement that holds all the cds in its collections. I love going to this store because it has so much more. Even though we are going into a digital age, I recommend going Amoeba in case you enjoy old time favorites. If you are in the San Francisco area, go to this store and you will not be unsatisfied. I go to this store every few years and have never left empty. though in this trip, I almost did until I found the animated movies. (I found The Iron Giant (Special Edition) and Treasure Planet; both great films for really good reduced prices like 4 bucks.) It is located very close to UC Berkeley on Telegraph Street where all these different multicultural stuff that makes California exciting. When we managed to get away from Amoeba, my family and I went to this cute, high end looking restaurant called Henri's and ate so much. I had this delicious panini that made me gorge forever.

Afterwards, I have been relaxing. Yesterday, I ran for the first time in a long time and worked out. All of which kicked my ass and made me sore today. I have been trying to recover for now as I prepare for the rest of my time. In fact, yesterday was my most productive day in the whole summer because I woke up at 6 am, read a book, worked on online classes, went to the store, worked out, ran, and stayed up till eleven until I collapsed. But now I am waiting to have fun in Santa Cruz and hope to write more in this blog.