At least, I did.

I used to be a voracious reader. I was the kid that had a flashlight hidden under her pillow and piles of books hidden under her bed, until one day she upgraded to a bed that had a hidden compartment in the headboard (I know, I was so cool) so her current books hid there instead. I was the kid that would have her textbook on the table and a book in her lap and end up getting spanked because of it. I was the kid that had so many books her bookcase couldn't hold them, so she took up the shelves in the DVD cases and in her parents' office. I loved reading. I loved fantastical stories where I could escape and go on adventures with other people; I loved traveling through history on the magic tree house and solving mysteries with the Boxcar Children and fighting the Yeerks with the Animorphs and learning magic spells with Harry Potter.

I still read in high school, but my focus was forced to shift and I read classic literature with my English classes and SAT prep books (I know, how sad) in my sophomore and junior years. I remember loving Brave New World especially, even though I hated it when I had read it a few years prior, and I painted a scene from The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, the beautiful scene on the ocean when he's looking at a girl who has seaweed tangled on her leg, and I enjoyed them but I could never read them as passionately as I had read young adult fiction before because the language never flowed as easily for me. When I could I stole time to read books like The Other Boleyn Girl and Harry Potter (for the millionth time) and at some point I read all of Twilight once and decided it wasn't worth picking up ever again. I fell in love and then out of love with John Green's work. I read The Art of Racing in the Rain and fell in love with the idea of dogs even though at the time I was still scared of them. I read Go Ask Alice and became even more vehemently against drugs.

Books had always been my solace.

When I got to MIT, I stopped reading. I can probably count the number of books I've read out of class on one hand, and even for class I only read a few - the study of architecture is so much more about being hands on than reading literature about other people's works, so the only books I read were for the random humanities classes that I undertook for fun.

And I forgot how to read for fun. I felt so obligated to read books that were "for adults", books that were classic literature and books that were self-help and books that were not categorized as "young adult" because those books were for high schoolers and I was going to be an adult. I felt like I had to be reading short poems and stories with some kind of hidden deeper meaning that I had to figure out and biographies and nonfiction books and all these books that I didn't find interesting because ultimately I have always been a child at heart and I will always want to lose myself in fantastical worlds.

Whenever I go to a bookstore I look at everything that I want to buy and then walk away because I feel like I should be reading something of more importance, but really, what is of more importance anyway? Every well written fiction book has some kind of moral of the story, some kind of reflection on today's society, some hidden thoughts and ideas that only the most committed readers will go and parse through to find. Just look at the huge Harry Potter community - the book series that was written for children and yet somehow, nine years later, adults and children alike are still reading and finding details that Jo hid in her words and recognizing parallels between the Wizarding world and our own boring Muggle world.

I like books that tell me stories and books that I want to go back to constantly so I can read between the lines, not books where I have to spend eons of time trying to understand what it is the author is even trying to say.

When I was in New York my friend Alyssa told me about her reading challenge, where she wanted to read 30 books in 2016. I was intrigued, but kind of scared because it's been so long since I've last picked up a book. I asked her what she thought a good number might be to pick up on, and she said to start with an easy number. We settled on 15.

15.

15 year old me would've scoffed at that number. 15 books in a whole year? 15 books in 366 days? That's about a book every 24 days. That's a pathetic number of books.

20 year old me is wondering if I will even have the time to read 15 books this year. I would love to be able to read 15 books. I would love to be able to read 20, 30, 40 books, but will I have the time? Will I have the energy?

The thing about college is that my brain is so tired from classes that I don't want to spend the brainpower digesting words on a page. It's why I started watching so much TV. Interpreting the body language and having people talk at me is so much easier.

Since I wanted to begin reading again, I decided to start tracking everything I was reading and watching. As in movies and tv shows. I have yet to begin tracking youtube videos because quite frankly, it would be rather embarrassing.

As of yet, I have finished two books (and many more tv episodes than that). If I can manage to read 2 or more books a month, I will be quite pleased, although I am currently working on a French Tintin book that is taking longer than expected because, well, it's in French. I plan on writing a recap blog post once a month or once every two months for what I've been reading and watching, and perhaps that will keep me more on track?

Cross your fingers for me.

Do you like to read in your free time, or are you mainly a tv/movie kind of person? Do you have any book recommendations you think I should read, given what I've said I enjoy reading? Let me know!

Every January of a new year, I like to reflect on the past year. Especially now that I'm going into my last semester at MIT - yes guys, I'm graduating in June and I am all sorts of excited! - it seems like a very appropriate time to be reflecting on not just the last year but also my time here at MIT.

Is there anything I would've done differently?

1. Would I still have come to MIT?

Sometimes I feel really resentful of being at MIT, which I then follow up with feeling really ashamed for it - how many people dream about coming here? There have been multiple times where I have thought back to my senior year of high school and which colleges I could have gone to - I could've gone to McGill, probably still have had a good time without being as ridiculously stressed all the time and possibly had better job prospects just because the application pool in Canada is quite a bit smaller.

But would I have come out with as many stories and would I have been as strong and resilient as I am now? Probably not.

Was it worth it?

I don't know.

I tell myself the friends and the connections that I have now are certainly worth it, but frankly I don't quite know. I have endured the lowest moments of my life so far here, and it really sucked. On the other side of things, would I appreciate the sanity that my friends offered me as much had I not endured those moments?

2. Would I still have studied Architecture?

For the first three years at MIT, I never questioned my choice to study architecture. MIT has a wonderful architecture program. The majority of our professors really do care, our studios are interesting, we're required to take classes outside of architecture design in order to have a more well rounded education. I have learned so much about iterative design and about problem solving and I have exercised my spatial reasoning ability to the max. I have been praised for my work fairly consistently and been asked to be part of the archives every studio semester, without fail. I have a ridiculous work ethic - my professor for my last studio said that often I would make life harder for myself in order to create more beautiful work - and I am efficient and organized enough to do more complex work and be part of more clubs than many of my peers and still sleep.

And yet, this past semester, I began to question that choice.

Architecture at MIT doesn't seem very employable. Just go check out the career fair - every company is looking for course 2s (Mechanical Engineers) or course 6s (EECS). It's disheartening, although the types of companies that come to the career fair aren't necessarily the same as the ones I want to work for. At least, that's what I told myself, time and time again, until this year when I actually began to look for a job so that I could, well, be employed after graduation. Since I'm looking primarily in non-Architecture fields such as UI/UX design and product design, it feels like maybe I should've studied something different. When I first came to MIT, I truly believed that Architecture was the only major that fit my abilities and the only one I could've succeeded in, but now I have no doubt that I could've done well in other disciplines as well.

I suppose if anything, Architecture really helped hone my self-confidence.

I think if I could do it again, I might try to double major - I formed bonds with so many people and learned so much in Architecture that I can't imagine giving that up, but there's still so much that I'm curious about in other disciplines that I just didn't really have the time - or make the time - for.

I'm trying to do that now, since I'm done with studios, but I'm running out of time.

3. Would I have handled my social life differently?

To be completely honest, I don't really have much of a social life. I don't like to go out and I don't like to party because I prefer the comfort and the quietude of my room. Pretty much the extent of my socializing with my friends - who I love, by the way - includes eating things, making things to eat (and then eating those things), and watching something on Hulu or Netflix. Despite my reluctance to go out and party with them, I think they still love me and appreciate me - and certainly I would not have survived MIT without them. (Thanks guys. I love you and you mean the world to me.)

I do think that some extent of my reluctance to go out with my friends was financial - I just didn't want to spend the money - and I think if I went back I would be less hesitant to do things with them and more willing to spend the money for a nice meal or for drinks. I think I missed out on a lot of time because I was too much of a scrooge, and that's the main thing that I'm trying to improve on this year. I have to keep telling myself that it's okay to spend small change on small happinesses.

The other part of my social life comes from the groups I am part of on campus - my dance group, ADT, and Dramashop.

One thing for sure - I would've joined ADT much earlier instead of waiting until sophomore spring. I have always regretted not getting more time to spend with some of my choreographers - I have a massive girl crush on one of my choreographers my first semester, which was also the semester she graduated. It was very sad. I also have varying levels of girl crushes on most of my choreographers. I can't help it. They're all so cute and so talented.

Apart from that, ADT was also my solace away from the craziness of studios and Architecture. It was a place I could escape because literally no one else in ADT was Architecture Design and everyone was focused on learning the dances. There were some days at MIT where I got out of bed solely for ADT, and I couldn't be more grateful for having a group of people like that there for me, whether they know it or not.

4. Are there any resources I didn't take advantage of at MIT?

Yes. So many yes's. MIT has so many resources and cool things for students to do and I really didn't take advantage of any of it, and I regret it so much. The main resource that I should've taken advantage of - and didn't - is MIT's MISTI program.

MISTI is basically a program where you tell MIT where you want to go in the world and they find you an internship and pay for you to go there. It's a program where you travel abroad. For free.

I know. I know! Anyone who knows me knows that I love traveling - I've been to 18 countries and I want to go to more and also all of them again because there's so much more still to explore - and MISTI would've been perfect for me. The only problem is that, apart from Israel, I think, you have to know the language of the country, and at the time I didn't try hard enough to figure out how to take French with my schedule. I am taking French now, and I could theoretically still do MISTI for this coming summer... but I'm kind of planning a Europe backpacking trip anyway.

5. Are there any ways you would've chosen to spend your free time differently?

I've always been a crafter and a maker. When I was little I used to collect our empty toilet paper rolls and kleenex boxes because I wanted to make things out of them - to the point where I had filled an entire cupboard with these useless boxes. My dad finally threw them out after I went to high school, and I'm pretty sure I threw a fit.

When I was in high school I picked up crocheting, and that really blossomed at MIT. Crocheting was an easy, mindless, fast project that I could do when I was too stressed out to focus, and I could make all these cute toys with them! It was a lot of fun, and I could do it in my bed. But when I spent all my free time crocheting and knitting - things I could do in my bed - I stopped painting.

I'm trying to pick it back up. I still see so many more colors in everything, and I still have an eye for color and design and layout. Skills like that, things you're born with, you don't lose. But I'm rusty. I'm less comfortable that I used to be with a brush and a canvas, and I'm less accurate in my sketches than I used to be. It's depressing! I used to be fairly good and now I'm not satisfied with almost everything I paint or draw.

There isn't really a good traditional arts program at MIT and without classes forcing me to exercise those abilities, I let them slide. Now I have to spend more time working to regain those abilities - I wish I hadn't stopped painting in the first place, but I think it'll be like riding a bike. A little rusty at first, but it'll come back with some practice.

Is there anything you would've done differently last year or in the past few years? Let me know!

This is the last installment of my Christmas blog posts, with a grand finale in New York City!

This is the view we had at the remote place we stopped at for lunch. This is also pretty much the constant view on the road - green, hilly, incredible.

We got these weird grape-like fruits that Hera couldn't stop eating! They were really good and sweet but the skin was rough and Hera said the skin hurt her tongue...

Me on the big swing suspended in mid air! You can see the fog in the back that hindered our view.

Aaaand Hera's turn! (Actually, she went first.) She looks so tiny!

For lunch, we ended up going to a nearby hotel's cafe. The food was ridiculously overpriced even for American standards (let alone Ecuadorian standards) but the view was incredible. By this time the fog had cleared up, so the sun was shining and we could see the entire city in the valley below.

Ugh how can a place be so pretty??

More prettiness.

For the rest of the afternoon we ended up walking around the town and bought some candy and some fruit, as well as two bags of coffee beans (one for us, one for my friends). We noticed something interesting during our roaming - when we were buying fruit, one of the women at the stall was taking out the trash. Not five minutes later, the garbage truck had come and picked it up, and the woman was hauling the trash can back into the stall. This doesn't sound really notable, but we had noticed prior that all of the areas we had gone to - even the really poor areas in the Amazon - were really clean. That type of timing and on schedule-ness is pretty much nonexistent in America (yes, I'm thinking of you and your piled up garbage bags, New York City). I remember just feeling really impressed by it.

The last picture I got of Quito - everything is so colorful!

Our first day in New York was the 30th, and we spent it napping and recovering from our red eyes. For New Year's Eve, however, we went out to Times Square in the early afternoon to catch the 1pm show of Aladdin, on Broadway!

The view from Empire State!

I really enjoy watching TED talks because I can hear from inspiring people about a huge range of different topics, from architecture and self-assembly (one of my previous professor gave two talks on his 4D printing projects, watch them here) to self-confidence and health. I thought I could start a series on this blog about the different TED talks that I've watched and enjoyed while also perhaps putting in a little bit of my own input in. After all, I think part of the reason TED talks are so accessible is to help promote conversations.

A few days ago, I ended up watching a bunch of talks about health, food, and dieting. Part of the reason is because my roommate started taking a Food Anthropology class at MIT and shared this New York Times article with me. It discusses the relationship America has with food in comparison to other countries, namely France, and how that relationship is incredibly unhealthy. And with the New Year (I know, it's February, but the year is still fairly new! We're only like 30-something days in) there's obviously a huge wave of people dieting (again) and exercising (again).

To be honest, I've tried this whole dieting thing and exercising thing and I personally think I love food a little bit too much and hate exercise a little bit too much (or I'm just lazy) for it to work. I starved myself for a long time in high school - that didn't work (and it was unhealthy! Don't do it!). I also ran in high school, but no matter how much I ran (I was running 2-3 times a week) and how much water I drank, once I got off the treadmill I would get so dizzy I would have to sit down. Apparently running doesn't suit me.

I found this TED talk called "Why Dieting Doesn't Work", given by Sandra Aamodt:

While the science behind it is interesting, I already knew most of the information she was talking about. I was intrigued, however, by her concept of "mindful eating", which was also something - while not named - that was kind of discussed in the New York Times article. Mindful eating, as how I understand it, is basically taking the time to understand your body and the signals your body gives you. In that way, you let your body govern your eating patterns: eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full - don't keep those chips on hand to much on when your body doesn't need it! Obviously, this would be a long process because it goes against the whole 3-large-meals-a-day convenience. I thought, however, that I might try it - I've been trying to find ways to curb my sweet and savory cravings, not particularly in an effort to lose weight (although that would be awesome) but more because my constant cravings are kind of just annoying.

Things that I've learned so far:

1. My body either doesn't need very much food at all or I'm very bad at recognizing hunger signals. On Wednesday, I ate breakfast and only got hungry at around dinner time, but then I was starving by bed time (I slept it off).

2. 3 large meals a day is infinitely more convenient. In fact, my classes just happen to be structured so that it allows the time for those 3 large meals, with my "lunch time" to be an hour or so following my "breakfast time". I have a 1-5 class 3 out of 5 days of the week, which means while I would usually be getting hungry for a snack at around 3 pm (I eat breakfast at 10, and that holds me over for a pretty long time), I can't, so today I had to eat when I wasn't hungry to avoid the hunger in the middle of class, which kind of defeats the point of the whole mindful eating thing. On the other hand, because I spent a good amount of time this afternoon running around Boston, I became ridiculously hungry at 4. (I had a very early dinner.)

3. My savory cravings are ever present. They have always been ever present. The last time they were curbed, it was because I ate dinner at Yume wo Katare (in Porter Square) and the sodium levels and fat content of the ramen were so high I literally wasn't hungry until two days later.

4. Dried Mangoes have become my pecking snack: when I start to get a little bit hungry, I have a couple and drink some water and then I'm miraculously not hungry anymore. Dried mangoes are magic.

5. I no longer crave Twizzlers, which is good. I also no longer crave Swedish Fish or Sour Patch Kids. I think I will probably forever crave Lindt truffles. Mmm. Lindt truffles.

Obviously I don't expect to see changes after only doing this for a few days - I can't hope to understand my body so soon, and I'm unsure if my lacks of appetite and hunger are because my body doesn't actually need the food or because I've messed up my cues for hunger because I starved myself once not so long ago (again, don't do this. It's bad. Food is beautiful.) But I hope that as the semester progresses, I will come to understand my body more and become a healthier person through mindful eating.

And you know, the next time I come across a Lindt truffle and eat it, maybe I won't have to beat myself up over it.

What are your biggest cravings? What do you think about mindful eating? Let me know!

One of the big things I wanted to work on this IAP was decluttering my life. Before I left for Christmas Break, I realized that somehow over the past 6 and a half years (boarding school + college) of being in the States, I had accumulated a ridiculous amount of stuff: clothes, makeup, art supplies, pens.... and it was overwhelming.

So last weekend, I finally sat down and went through all my makeup. At some point in high school, I had gotten super into playing around with makeup (I did my final AP Painting and Drawing concentration on theatrical makeup! Examples can be seen in the photography section of my portfolio, and the artistic recreations in the studio art section) and because of that, had palettes and shadows and lipsticks just lying around waiting to be used, and since they were ridiculous bright colors, they really were just collecting dust. I ended up piling everything on the floor, sorting everything into categories (eyes, cheeks, powders, lips, etc), tossing all the stuff that had expired, and gave away most of the stuff I didn't use to my friends. After doing so, I felt awesome, and it's pretty refreshing to be able to reach into my little plastic drawers and pinpoint exactly what I want quickly and efficiently in the morning when I'm slapping my face on.

Hi, I'm Cecile and I have (had!) a problem. This is most of the stuff I had, sorted in piles on the floor! I'm proud to say that I've reduced it by more than 50%

Today, I decided I should tackle my closet. I ended up sorting everything into 3 piles: keep, refashion, and donate. I just spent an hour and a half going through every item in my closet, trying things on, making my roommate help me decide (I put on my corset - I got it for a Bellatrix costume back in high school - for her to thank her for helping me), and throwing things into their respective piles. I now have two full plastic bags ready to bring to Goodwill, full of free tshirts and jackets and sweaters and things that I just have outgrown and/or don't wear. Hopefully they will find better homes.

I then also reorganized all my t-shirts and tank-tops by folding them and stacking them vertically, which helps me see all the items at once. (I usually keep my shirts folded like this, it just slowly deteriorates as the semester goes.) Hopefully this way I can show approximately equal amounts of love to all my clothes, instead of always reaching for that "They see me rolling, they hatin" narwhal t-shirt from the last career fair that's always on the top of the pile.

look at all my neatly folded tshirts! cross your fingers and hope it stays like that. Can you spot the narwhal t?

Lastly, I have a small pile of clothes chilling on the floor that will end up being refashioned. For those of you who don't know, I have a sewing machine that I traded my airline points for, and I've been learning how to sew with it. Look for a bunch of DIYs soon!

I've always been a bit of a hoarder - why throw something away when I paid money for it, right?? - but I've found that decluttering has really helped with my mental state - I guess living in a disordered room can lead to having a disordered mind. I'm also just kind of super OCD sometimes, so having everything in my environment super neat is really helpful. My next decluttering project is to go through all my pens and just throw stuff out.

How do you feel about decluttering, or are you secretly a hoarder too?

One of the most memorable things my best friend, Lydia, ever told me was during a discussion about what we thought our greatest strengths and weaknesses were. I came up short - didn't know what to say - not because I thought I had none of either, but because I didn't feel like an answer such as "art" and "English" and other academia would suffice or even be appropriate. Sure, I'm pretty good at a few hobbies like drawing and I'm decent at math, but I'm not exceptional at anything, I felt. At the same time, I don't really think I suck butt at anything in particular either. Except maybe music. I've never been good at music. Oh and sports. Sports can go die in a hole.

And then Lydia delivered this gem: "Your greatest strength is your capability to love." She said she'd never met anyone who could love so many people so much, and often right off the bat too. It brought us back to how we had met - two quiet little freshman at a new school during a day full of icebreakers, and I went up to her because we were both standing alone (and she looked friendly! and pretty!) and somehow that developed into the friendship we have today.

Okay guys, I know. I kind of maybe totally 100% forgot about this blog and disappeared into the depths of crazy college life (what life? I mean studio) and I'm sorry.

Over break and the beginning of January, I took some time to revamp the blog, got rid of the Whim of the Week / Coffee Buzz categories because I decided I didn't want to constrain myself to specific things to write about on specific days, and now I think I'm ready to plunge myself back into the blogging scene. I guess I can't really promise super consistent content - I know once classes start back up, I will get sucked into the studio vortex (again) whether I want to or not - but I'll try! For now, I'm trying to get into a Tuesday/Thursday weekly schedule.

So here goes nothing.

Let me know what you think about the blog revamp! Also, does anyone have any New Year's Resolutions they want to share?