Green tea: face mask? (A girly post)

I'm a big fan of the cheap, natural-ingredient, do-it-yourself home facial washes and masks. It all started when I looked for makeup tips and found this article that changed my pimply, adolescent life on how to make your own aspirin mask. The aspirin mask worked amazing wonders for me, and since my skin isn't very dry, I could use it about twice a week without needing additional moisturizers. There's some kind of acid in the aspirin that kills acne like mad. It's pretty sweet.

Then I took Ricebunny's advice once again for her coffee grind mask, which smelled really, really, really good. It was more of a morning face wash than anything else, but I liked it.

So tonight I wanted to make a big pot of green tea. Then I had the crazy idea to make a face mask out of the green tea grinds. Because, hey, green tea is supposed to have all this healthy stuff in it, right? And be good-smelling and have anti-oxidants (what the hell ARE those, anyway?) so I went for it.

Firstly, MY TEAPOT I PAINTED FINALLY GOT OUT OF THE POTTERY KILN and into my dorm! I was so excited!
I painted fire on the bottom to keep the tea warm.... ;-)
What I did was I slit the tea bag and poured the grinds into the water to make it infuse better. It did taste great, but was kind of stupid because that technique is used with full-leaf tea and not the kind that's grinded up into little bits in a bag. So I had all these grinds sitting at the bottom and no strainer.
Then, after drinking all the tea...
I took the grains at the bottom, mixed them with a dollop of honey (as a moisturizer, seeing as I wasn't sure how the tea would work out) and slathered it on my face. I did take a picture of my face with the mask on it, but my roommates were making fun of how I looked so I'm not gonna put it up and embarass myself further. Washed it off after about six or seven minutes.

Verdict: My face felt really, really, really really SOFT. And looked kinda glowy, which is nice. I attribute the softness to the honey but the tea probably helped a lot. It was pretty sweet (and a good excuse to drink a whole pot o' tea)


I'd like to think I have pretty good skin for someone my age... right?

In other news, I have been craving Ten Thousand Waves, hot springs (because, as you should know by now, I have few indulgences other than spa treatments; I adore the idea), Santa Fe... just a girly getaway with my mom, which I think would be really fun for us both. Also it is so damn cold here... brr... spring will be much appreciated. I'm gonna have a Central Park classy ladies tea party picnic and be SO happy to peruse the city in skirts when it gets warmer.


...but really this whole post was just so I could show off my newly painted teapot.


P.S. I should totally work at a spa like Jen's because I dig that whole scene so very hard. Maybe one day I will have my own spa... and serve everyone tea out of my badass teapot.

Thoughts as of late

1. I really need to get on the ball here and write another school blog. I just hate how I have to be all clean-cut and act like I'm desperately trying to attract incoming freshmen. Moreso I hate sounding like I'm trying to tell people to do something.

2. Clearly it's very mature to pretend someone you spent a good chunk of your adolescent life with never existed. Obviously I'm the immature one for remembering and learning from the experience. Yeah, it's much better just to pretend like it never happened. Clearly.

3. It's cold as balls. Is it EVER going to be spring? There are Easter decorations in the grocery store and there's a blizzard outside.

Because of the intense cold, I've been craving a beach vacation, which is usually so unlike me.

An incredibly superficial post (because there's too much deep stuff on my mind to share)

I am usually the most thrifty person when it comes to shopping; I don't like spending a lot of money. But my latest purchase is from Urban Outfitters and I shipped them back to Texas (because I do not trust the mail system in my building. It's hellish)

I indulged myself. It may have been wrong, but I think both are worthy purchases.
The first is a flower headband because I think it's really pretty and I'd want to wear this while drinking tea in some cute shop or something.

The second...a pair of loud, soft, ear-covering headphones that also look very very cute, in my opinion. Big headphones are coming back into the indie-crowd, and, well, I fly a lot-- these will come in SO handy on airplanes to drown out other noises. The little ipod earphones end up hurting your ears after a while!
Yay teh cuteness. Posh.

This was a ridiculously superficial post. It's an escape. I've been immersed in deep thinking. Spiritual, relationship... it's a whole bunch of stuff filling my brain. Also my brain is covered in cold sickness. That doesn't help. Curse you, foul headcold-cough-virus spreading everywhere on Manhattan!

Which is more natural to the human being, Eastern or Western philosophy?

When their mother is out of their sight, to the baby, she doesn't exist. Eastern thought

As the child grows up, he learns that she actually does "exist" when out of his sight. Western thought

The baby cannot tell at an early age if things are different from one another. Eastern thought

He grows up to place labels on objects, and label feelings and people. Western thought

He is taught that family is important and should make other people happy. Eastern thought

He is taught that the individual is more important and should want for things to accentuate his individualism. Western thought


I love my Buddhism and Beatniks class. Although we brought up today that we weren't being taught anything about Bongos and I joked that we were only getting 2/3rds of what we were promised upon signing up for the class. In all actuality I don't care. The reading material is excellent.

Hedgehogs? ...Wait, what?

I'm writing a play. They say you should write what you know... well, life imitates art, as they also say. There are lots of embellishments, and a whole lot of truth. I hope others find the dark comedy in my life; I'll try and help by making it interesting with a more interesting plot.

My play is called either :Seekers" or "Landslide Birds," but of course both are just ideas. Be excited!

It will include (tentatively...)

-soldiers
-airplanes
-voice acting
-romance
-war
-religion
-eastern philosophy
-drugs
-sex (just kidding. I couldn't write that with a straight face)
and
-deep discussions over the occurrence of wild hedgehogs in the Afghanistan countryside.

Peace.

A response to Trish (and a selfish indulgence all the same)

1: How do you envision your life five years from now?

Five years from now, I will be one year graduated from college, won't I? Hmmm... By then I either hope to be on a year-long tour seeing the world/country, or in some sort of artistic endeavor that pays the bills, but in all actuality I see myself working a day job as some low-paid intern for a network somewhere while auditioning my brains out in all my spare time. That, and living in an apartment with responsible roommates and a pet rabbit, and taking lots of walks, and writing lots, and cooking even more.


2: Tell the interwebs about your Aha! moment. Every actor has one. What was yours?

"Aha" moment? Hm... this one's tricky. I've never considered this before. Maybe I haven't had mine yet. But if I did, I think it would be in acting class sophomore year of high school with Eric Porter. I only think this might be my "aha" moment because for some reason, I could never seem to shake this from my memory. Anyway, we were all watching this senior kid who had instructions to enter the scene as if he had discovered a hole in his slipper before the entrance. He couldn't seem to understand; he would enter walking and then look down and see the hole. He didn't get it. I was dumbfounded that no one else seemed to understand either. It struck me then that I seemed to be the only one there who could grasp that the characters had an important and vast history any time before and after they are onstage, and that things actually happen to them before they enter a scene.

I don't really think I've had a real moment yet. I've had plenty of "WTF THIS CAREER SUCKS IT'S SO UNFAIR" moments, though...


3: Would you rather be interviewed by James Lipton, Oprah, Katie Couric, Joan Rivers, David Letterman or Diane Sawyer? Why?

David Letterman, because I think his show is quite entertaining and it would be fun to be on one of those night shows with a big audience. :) ALSO, I would most like to be on Jay Leno and play with lots of exotic baby animals, but sadly that was not one of the choices...


4: You are, in my opinion, living a very exciting time in your life. Do you feel like you live in the moment? Do you feel like you're able to enjoy and appreciate your experience?

Right now I feel like I'm not living in the moment as much as I should be. But then again, I feel like "living in the moment" means getting shwasted partying with the theater majors, which, I mean, is fun and all, don't get me wrong, I love most of my fellow studenten, but... then again it could mean going to auditons 24/7, which was my initial goal in moving to New York, which I'm not, and I don't know how and that bugs me... I'm not sure how I'm supposed to live up to each and every moment, like I'm not snagging something I should be. I'm not sure what I'm doing and I don't quite know what to get out of it... This is probably not the answer you were looking for at all... but in a way I guess it's good that I'm considering this. How on earth do I get the most out of what I have?

5: Of all the artists (and by 'artists' I mean actors, singers, writers, painters, et al) who have ever lived, whose career do you hope yours most emulates?
JULIE TAYMORE. Culmination of all things creative: designer, director, moviemaker. I want her career.



And thus Frosty, there you have it. These were probably much more depressing and long-winded than you were looking for, but they were very good questions and did a good job of catching me off guard.

P.S. WHO GAVE ME A "WTF" RATING??

P.P.S. Oh yeah, the whole point. If you let me know you want to do this interview too, then I make five questions specifically for you and you fill them out yourself. It's like a smarty artistic interview.


AND IF I GET ONE MORE 'WTF' RATING I AM TOTALLY TAKING THOSE OFF. I'm very hurt :(

Student blogger

When I sent in my app to become a Pace student blogger, it hadn't occurred to me that I couldn't reuse my personal blogs as my student blogs.

Case in point: my Mario post.

Which, by the way, I am totally disappointed in everyone who reads this because I received zero comments on my last post, which I thought was relatively entertaining. It had screen captures and everything, I mean, come on people.