summer mint

// ipod case - eBay // earrings - forever 21 // cardigan - american eagle // necklace - juicy couture // high low skirt - forever 21 //

Seems to be the 'it' color of the season if I'm not too out of the loop with current trends. I love it regardless. Only thing I'm missing is Essie Mint Candle Apple nail polish I put somewhere in the room where I have not unpacked all my stuff from school yet. I know the color is supposed to be summary so it'd be redundant to mention, but there's also something calming the color. Yet again I'm not sure if it's because of the color itself or because it's been marketed so much that I'm surrounded by it so that I have no choice but to feel good about it. Truth is, I'm so surrounded by it, I'm feeling just the slightest bit of sickness towards it. Oh well! I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

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Have a wonderful day!

-Chelle

beautiful as butterflies

Recently a couple friends and I went to a sort-of-local butterfly garden. Although it wasn't as big as we expected, it was as pretty as we expected. All the butterflies were beautiful; moths too, even though slightly creeping ones sleeping in the shadows (like the one in the last picture below). Nonetheless we were reminded of how fearfully delicate these painfully beautiful creatures are.

I asked myself, 'what would it be like to be as beautiful as a butterfly'? I always thought of myself as a bit incomplete, or a bit unready for life and whatever it had to throw at me. But sometimes (or most of the time) you don't have a choice. A caterpillar will become a pupa whether it likes to or not because its life depends on it. Just as we have to change whether we like it or not. Our lives, our growth depends on it. We owe it to ourselves. People often admire the butterfly, but seldom acknowledge the work the caterpillar had to put into becoming one; and only to live for a few weeks as something so beautiful. And the point of being a butterfly - in my opinion, is for the creature to fly, to soar, to live. A butterfly needs its wings to suvive and to thrive. Being beautiful is only the icing on the cake; unnecessary, but something to appreciate.

Dreaming, staring, admiring beauty, in a cynical point of view, is a trivial and useless thing. But it's part of what makes life worth living - to see, hear, feel beautiful things. Caterpillars don't become beautiful butterflies for others to admire them. They do so for themselves. They need to in order to survive. I think that's something we humans need to think about more. How beauty is only skin deep at times, and beauty is something we should practice in ourselves for ourselves. For us, beauty is not a means of survival, but something we can do for ourselves to make mere surviving into fully thriving. Whatever we each define as beautiful is what we deserve for ourselves; the wings we picture for ourselves that we must earn through the means we must believe in ourselves to overcome. Even if we are not as beautiful as butterflies, we deserve to give ourselves the chance to try.

“I think humans might be like butterflies; people die every day without many other people knowing about them, seeing their colors, hearing their stories... and when humans are broken, they're like broken butterfly wings; suddenly there are so many beauties that are seen in different ways, so many thoughts and visions and possibilities that form, which couldn't form when the person wasn't broken! So it is not a very sad thing to be broken, after all! It's during the times of being broken, that you have all the opportunities to become things unforgettable! Just like the broken butterfly wing that I found, which has given me so many thoughts, in so many ways, has shown me so many words, and imaginations! But butterflies need to know, that it doesn't matter at all if the whole world saw their colors or not! But what matters is that they flew, they glided, they hovered, they saw, they felt, and they knew! And they loved the ones whom they flew with! And that is an existence worthwhile!” 
― C. JoyBell C.

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Have a wonderful, beautiful day!

-Chelle

Chapter 22

I could not have asked for a better end to senior year! This type of perfect can not be planned.

Not studying effectively during our final finals week. I'm actually going to miss our tech suite study sessions and maybe even the all-nighters. #wpiproblems

Packing up our emmense amount of stuff to move out of the dorms & kissing senior year good BYE! (Still wish we had a bonfire to burn all our old homework and exams, though) #chemengproblems

Celebrating mommy's birthday with some shopping and a delicious dinner at China Pearl. #ilovemymotherlikenoother

Surprise mail from someone I miss very much! #iceice

Endless excuses to eat more food (especially the 5 straight days of bacon during senior week)! #foodaddicts

Great happy hour birthday dinner at Sole :D And some yummy surprise pastries from some dear friends <3

Besides the excessive amount of eating, attempts at sleeping, and obsessive picture-taking, I'm glad all the seniors got to spend some time together before graduation. It's a little sad when you have to think about how everyone is going in different directions at various distances. But somehow we had the ability to hold back the tears and held our head up high when handed ours diplomas. I think it's at that point that we were so firm in our connection with one another that the fear of leaving is nothing compared to the future we know we'll have with one another. And also the confidence we have within ourselves that in the end, we'll be okay.

And it's a beautiful, empowering feeling; to know that even though we'll be miles, even continents apart, that our friends will always remain our friends and in the mean time, we can take care of ourselves. As it is cliche to say: so ends the chapter of our undergraduate careers, but unfolds the next. We are powerless to stop time, but we are all-powerful in our own paths on continuing along with time. 

The past four years have been a struggle, but everything was worth it in the end. The self-battles, maintaining  the "work hard, play hard" balance, the dreaded 8am classes, the infamous all-nighters (and late-night take-out snacks), the people we've encountered, the places we've been, the material we've crammed into our poor minds, all the experiences were worth it in the end; every single one of them. It's like everything was so unbelievably fantastic that it was all just a dream. We all grew so much in our little cocoons that were our little undergraduate careers.

If there's anything I've learned, it's that I could not have asked for more in my life. So I'll continue not asking. I'll work hard, spend time with those who matter, live and just appreciate it all. Most importantly, I'll take life one day at a time. Because that's all we get in the end, an accumulations of days; to enjoy the present. I stepped onto WPI campus for the first time in August 2009, and before I could even realize, I was already stepping off in May 2013. The days became weeks, became months, became years. The days don't pause for anyone and post-graduation life is no exception. The real world awaits, but the dream continues, one day at a time.

"When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first?" 

-Bill Cosby

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Have a beautiful, amazing day!

-Chelle