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greetings !

05.28.2026

i turned 25 this weekend :) and what a road it’s been. my family all got together for the first time in a year or so and my mom made my favorite cake. it’s finally been nice enough outside to swap my winter clothes for my summer cottons in storage, so a good hand wash was in order for the vintage.

hi thank you! <33

violins specifically have a tradition of being made out of maple with a spruce top. spruce soundboards are pretty standard across most stringed instruments for acoustic reasons, so while maple may be substituted for another wood, the spruce top is almost always a constant. the look of the wood and the acoustic qualities are equally important for selling violins, so the standard choice of wood that balances both would be norway spruce and norway maple. (species, not location)

maple in general is known to have a distinct figure to the wood that violin makers call “flamed,” which, when quarter sawn, looks like iridescent stripes that are made more vibrant with translucent varnishes. norway maple is known to have this figuring as well as the most desirable acoustic qualities for classical violin standards. (violas, cellos, and basses are less standard than violins are, and may substitute other woods like beech, poplar, or willow for backs, and plywood for basses.)

as for the spruce, the ideal is a relatively tight grain with little discoloration in the growth rings. having between 5-10 growth rings per cm ish can usually guarantee that the arched top of the violin will be able to withstand the pressure of the strings while also vibrating well if, made correctly. this means the tree must be allowed to age and the wood used should be from closer to the center of the tree, where the rings are tightest. the minerals in the groundwater can also cause discoloration in the wood, which has little to do with sound but could make the instrument harder to sell.

the best tonewood is harvested at the new moon iirc, from areas where they receive balanced sunlight on all sides and the trees are close enough together that they are forced into growing straight up without forming branches until the canopy. this means that any tree cut down has an effect on the quality of the wood surrounding it, so harvesters are very mindful about when and where they cut trees in any given forest.

04.08.26

what’s upppppp hi guys. it’s april and it snowed yesterday in boston. so that’s something that’s going on, climate change wise.

i finished this sweater i started on valentine’s day, so obviously i had to come here and show it off. but besides knitting, i’ve just been putting in the hours at work, making mistakes, pushing through, learning from them and moving on. setbacks and errors can be demoralizing, but at the end of the day it’s the recovery and redirect that matters. or so i’m telling myself.

in other news, the movie i was an extra in (the drama!) came out last week!!!! my friends and i got some substantial screen time, it was crazy sitting in the theater as a group and watching ourselves show up in the background of such an incredible movie.

fingers crossed the next few weeks are on the upswing for me, please and thank you.

03.22.2026

work and play

03.16.2026

i had a good week. a better week. top five for sure. i finally found a chinese teahouse in the city, (they serve aged oolongs!!!!) we watched BU win their hockey east prelim, (a certain sharks-rostered, olympic medalist alum was there) we went to the sharks @ bruins game, (eklund is a madman) i reached an important checkpoint in my current work assignment, (closed box iykyk) and this weekend i’m playing a live score to a silent film screening. (hitchcock) all this and sunlight when i leave work at 5… bright days ahead.