My first festival concert! And I had a blast. I'm still on a bit of a concert high right now.

Me and Steph got off the Bart at the Embarcadero station and walked on down to the Piers where warped tour was.I love the Embarcadero area - it was a brilliantly sunny day, and there were farmer's markets and cool sculptures everywhere. We got to the area, walked around a bit, realized that Anberlin played at 10:30, and boosted on over to watch them play.



Second time watching them in concert. They are so good live. Even though it was one of the first shows of the day they still had lots of energy. I only really knew one of their songs, but it didn't really matter - it was still fun watching them.



I like this picture. He's glowing.

The one band I really, really wanted to see (and really, the only band where I knew more than one of their songs) was Relient K. They weren't on 'til 12, so Steph and I watched some other bands in passing:



The Maine. Their songs were pretty good, if not a bit typical of the Warped Tour scene. Quote of the week: the lead singer threw his empty soda can into the audience, and as everyone was clamoring to get it, he yelled "I HAVE HERPES! SPREAD THAT SHIT AROUND!" hahaha. And they played a cover of Akon's "I wanna love you" and actually made the song bearable. Bad ass.



RELIENT K!! We could have gotten better views if we came earlier, but oh well, the Akon cover was worth it and it was still an awesome, awesome show. Another quote of the week, courtesy of Matt Thiessen: "I was having a contest to see which one was more beautiful, the San Francisco landscape or the people of San Francisco, and you guys won." They played High of 75, which is one of my absolute favorites by them. He was rapping in between songs, which was pretty hilarious. While they were playing a new song from their next album, "The Bird and the B-sides", I saw a bee fly above the audience. There was a butterfly just fluttering by earlier as well, which was kind of surreal - to see something so delicate floating above our cramped, high-energy selves. I think it's a sign. Only at a Relient K gig. It was great.



Camwhoring after the RK set.



Story of the Year. Steph and I were borderline deaf and she was starting to get close to blacking out, so we opted to stay on the edge of the crowd this time. I didn't really know any of their songs and at one point I couldn't even see the stage, but it was still fun mindlessly yelling lyrics with Steph, haha.



Matt said they were going to have signings at the Kia tent later, but when we got there the line was really long and the Kia people wouldn't let us get in line. Silly corporate sponsorships. So we just came back later and caught them as they were walking out :) He said I was the first person to thank them for what they played, instead of telling them what they should have played.

I'm kind of spoiled when it comes to concerts - I've always been able to meet band members after shows. So Steph and I opted to meet as many people as possible instead of seeing more bands. We only had a few bands we really wanted to see anyways (although even watching the amount of bands that we saw was still worth the ticket price). We had a fair amount of time until the next band, so we bought merch, shared a frozen lemonade, met Anberlin (also really nice, even though the Alternative Press people wouldn't let us get pictures with them), and chilled by the fence next to the Bay. Pier 30 is such a perfect place for summer concerts - it was still blazing hot, but the ocean breeze cooled us down really well, and the view was so spectacular.

The last band we saw was Between the Trees. They were my favorite opening band when I saw Mae in April, so I was really excited to see them again.







They were awesome. They did all of their little idiosyncracies again - the funny way they checked their mics, the simultaneous headbanging, the bassist moving his head around and dancing around while playing. The singer was going all out with his singing. It was such a great live performance - "White Lines & Red Lights" was one of the highlights of the whole day.





Plus, besides Mae, they were the nicest band I've met. The bassist (the guy on the right of me) said he liked my sunglasses, haha.

There were no other bands we wanted to see after that, but we didn't want to leave. We took one more walk around all of the booths, then sat against the fence again, taking in our surroundings. Finally, we headed back to the BART station, stopping to get lemonade and sorbetto at this amazing gelateria in the Ferry Building. Their blood orange sorbetto is delicious - it actually tastes like fresh oranges.

And as a perfect end to the perfect day, Live 105 played "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse as Steph was driving me home. Epic.







All in all, it was the perfect way to kick off the first days of summer. Totally worth the sunburn and weird tanlines I now have.

-Wendy

Prom.

:)

More later.

Whenever I receive a relatively large amount of money, I always envision myself saving it all for a good investment. For example, when I had around $70 left on my free gift card from the Spring Break travel company, or when I still had about $100 left of my Tap Dancing Christmas Tree money, I thought I would save it and buy something like a new digital camera or a new ipod. And then I just spend it all on stuff. Clothes I didn't really need, impluse buys in the candy aisle at Walgreen's, postage for packages I don't even remember sending...it all adds up. We watched this video in government about the disgusting amount of money people spend on material objects, and as much as I want to say that I don't do that, I might actually be one of those people. Gross.
Although I am proud of the fact that I have almost everything I need for prom and, so far,  have spent less than $100 for it all:
dress and purse - Shelley's old prom gear
alterations - altered by my mom
shoes - yay for floor-length dresses where you can't really see the shoes anyways!
nails and makeup - oh please, like I'm going to pay for something I can easily do myself?
limo and tickets - Matt, thank you for being so kind and paying for it.

I'll still need (well, not necessarily NEED - it's not like I'm being forced to buy stuff or even attend prom) jewelry, corsage/boutinnere, and dinner, but I'm good other than that. Take that, spoiled girls who waste $500+ dollars on ugly dresses and bad tans and complain, "Omg! Prom is like, so expensive!"
On a slightly unrelated note, I really hope they play "Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna at prom. Best dancey song around, yes/no?

-Wendy

^I didn't like this version of Such Great Heights at first, but after only listening to this and not listening to the original for a while, I prefer the Iron&Wine version now - the Postal Service one now just seems too...upbeat.

APs are upon us. I think I'm much more relaxed about it than in the years past - I had a mini-breakdown last year before the APUSH exam, and I spent all of my lunches + after school in Ms. Turpins class frantically reviewing everything for AP Euro. Afterwards I would just skip the rest of the day because the exams just took so much out of me. Now, I just look over review sheets the night before, and it's back to class when they're done, like nothing ever happened. I guess with just one AP, all my energy was concentrated on that, whereas now it's more spread out over everything. I still would prefer not to fail any of them (although a good English Lit grade seems further and further away, seeing as it's tomorrow and I still have zero idea on how to analyze a poem.)

At first, I was complaining that hey, I'm supposed to be a second semester senior. Those AP people are cruel to make us actually work all the way until May. But now that I think about it, I think still needing to work all this time has been benficial. If I had no AP classes, I would just be GONE from January onwards, and I would have been so bored. AP's have kept me productive, and hey, after AP's are gone I still have all this time up until September when I go to Cal Poly.

I was making a list of movies that I want to watch yesterday:
-The Notebook
-Fight Club
-Zoolander
-27 Dresses
-Grindhouse/Planet Terror

I have a pretty broad taste in movies, I think.

-Wendy-

Happy belated Earth Day! I celebrated by carrying my eco-friendly tote and ordering a reusable SIGG water bottle online, thus stopping my use of plastic bottles. I've always been relatively environmental, but I'm pretty sure APES has taken me to a higher level of ecological consciousness. It pains me when people throw away recyclables like Starbucks cup holders and cardboard packaging. We watched An Inconvenient Truth today and I got all worried again about how fucked we are if global warming continues.

Quote of the week: Mr. Siltanen saying "Ain't nothin' but a G thang" and "Hannah Montana what!?" when debating whether the 80's or the 90's were better. Mr. Siltanen is such an awesome teacher. I've really been getting into AP Gov lately - I think I'm making up for my hatred/indifference towards it during the 1st semester.

Everything will work out in the end.

-Wendy