My name is Elsa. Media new & old, studying the Internets, and talking to people are my jam.

Check out my work at http://elsak.im

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March 31
Yawnlog: The Future of Sleep. Are you getting enough sleep? I have been, until tonight. I’ve become increasingly excited about a project called Yawnlog (@yawnlog). It’s not just a sleep tracker (tapping into our nerd-love for personal data), it’s a social sleep tracker. So that means you can check out how I’m doing on sleep by looking at my public profile. I’m going to go into sleep debt tonight… so that graph is going to look pretty dramatic tomorrow. Like, American Economy circa NOW dramatic. Ooo. I went there. I’m also on a boat. So check it out, if you’re interested! For some reason, we got written up in the New York Times. Pretty crazy, considering that the site was conceived and created during a 24-hour-hackathon! It’s still a small endeavor, and pretty much all the effort we put into developing and PR-ing this site (I’m working on PR) will recycle back to nourish the future projects of our sweet group of Interweb-lovin’ nerds, Hello Silo (@hellosilo). Our next step is to integrate the site with Twitter, so that you can tweet in your hours of sleepytime. Oh, and that sheep up there is PJ… our cute fluffy 01010101 mascot. So, tell me… did you get enough sleep last night? Your dreams… were they a bit… crazy?

Yawnlog: The Future of Sleep.

Are you getting enough sleep? I have been, until tonight. I’ve become increasingly excited about a project called Yawnlog (@yawnlog). It’s not just a sleep tracker (tapping into our nerd-love for personal data), it’s a social sleep tracker. So that means you can check out how I’m doing on sleep by looking at my public profile. I’m going to go into sleep debt tonight… so that graph is going to look pretty dramatic tomorrow. Like, American Economy circa NOW dramatic. Ooo. I went there. I’m also on a boat.

So check it out, if you’re interested! For some reason, we got written up in the New York Times. Pretty crazy, considering that the site was conceived and created during a 24-hour-hackathon! It’s still a small endeavor, and pretty much all the effort we put into developing and PR-ing this site (I’m working on PR) will recycle back to nourish the future projects of our sweet group of Interweb-lovin’ nerds, Hello Silo (@hellosilo). Our next step is to integrate the site with Twitter, so that you can tweet in your hours of sleepytime.

Oh, and that sheep up there is PJ… our cute fluffy 01010101 mascot.

So, tell me… did you get enough sleep last night? Your dreams… were they a bit… crazy?

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February 17
I just posted a few of The Windmill Club shirts on Rumplo, because the designs are sick. I’m hoping that they get some love from the design-saavy tee-obsessives floating around in interspace. Click above and check it out! Leave a comment or fave one if you fancy the work. I also recommend taking a look at The Windmill Club’s site. Kevin aka Burlington blogs regularly, and it’s always good stuff. Especially if you’re a visual nut/optical whore like us.

I just posted a few of The Windmill Club shirts on Rumplo, because the designs are sick. I’m hoping that they get some love from the design-saavy tee-obsessives floating around in interspace. Click above and check it out! Leave a comment or fave one if you fancy the work.

I also recommend taking a look at The Windmill Club’s site. Kevin aka Burlington blogs regularly, and it’s always good stuff. Especially if you’re a visual nut/optical whore like us.

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February 12
I had the pleasure of planning and baking for the Master’s Open House on Sunday - desserts only, which are my specialty, as far as food-making goes. We combined it with the Coffeehouse, so Samir, Jue, and Caitria performed to guests drinking coffee or one of 5 teas, and snacking from our desserts and crepe selection in the Masters’ lovely home. I was really pleased with how it came out - we could have had more crepes, but I learned a lot about serving a crowd. Clockwise, starting at the top: No-bake Cherry Cheesecake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies White Chocolate Chip Cranberry Cookies Mint Brownies Toasted Flour Squeeze Cookies (center) Berry Challah Pudding, a recipe devised by my sister, the little genius/food hooligan

I had the pleasure of planning and baking for the Master’s Open House on Sunday - desserts only, which are my specialty, as far as food-making goes. We combined it with the Coffeehouse, so Samir, Jue, and Caitria performed to guests drinking coffee or one of 5 teas, and snacking from our desserts and crepe selection in the Masters’ lovely home. I was really pleased with how it came out - we could have had more crepes, but I learned a lot about serving a crowd.

Clockwise, starting at the top:

No-bake Cherry Cheesecake

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

White Chocolate Chip Cranberry Cookies

Mint Brownies

Toasted Flour Squeeze Cookies

(center) Berry Challah Pudding, a recipe devised by my sister, the little genius/food hooligan

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January 19
Jue Wang

Jue Wang

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November 9
Jesse chats up the crowd at Mather Coffehouse no. 2… Thanks to everyone who came out! Let us know if you want to perform next time.

Jesse chats up the crowd at Mather Coffehouse no. 2… Thanks to everyone who came out! Let us know if you want to perform next time.

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October 19

Printed in The Harvard Crimson on October 23, 2008

Britney’s music videos are like an ever-rotating menu of fantasies, but after ten years of Britney (“…Baby One More Time” was released in October 1998) our star is running out of fetishes to cop. After seeing Brit as a schoolgirl, chair dancer, flight attendant, spy, and anime character, her new video for “Womanizer” features the only thing left: the Ugly One. Yes, Britney as “office girl” is actually so ugly in a black bob wig, librarian glasses, and bright red lips that you can almost hear her saying, “these shoes rule.” Dear Lord, she’s run through so many sexual types that she now must resort to making ugliness itself into a fetish. Oh, and to remind us that she’s actually the hottest minx to ever grace a TV screen, the shots of Ugly Britney cut vigorously back and forth from shots of Britney in a sauna, completely naked—and oh so shiny.

“Womanizer” is an interesting video, however, and not because it has a confusing plot that director Joseph Kahn admits to be a redo of the vid for “Toxic.” It’s interesting because it suggests that if you really want to hurt a guy’s feelings, all you have to do is dance at him, really hard.

So maybe dancing can be revenge. But revenge itself is a timeworn plot for a woman’s tale (e.g. “Kill Bill”). Similarly, Britney and her music videos are like a comfortable old sock. They feature familiar imagery: the car chase? Any Mitsubishi ad. A man’s chest glistening in a shower? Gillette. Hotel room? Ikea. But that’s why we keep on lovin’ Brit. We can buy or sell her sexuality as a memory that accompanies any shiny car or anime or spy unitard, and feel warm and fuzzy inside for doing it. From Brit, ‘fetishized,’ ‘sexy,’ and ‘sold’ are three words that mean the same thing. And that means we’re all allowed to sell ourselves as really freaking sexy too — even if we’re actually really freaking ugly.

(for some reason, the video link isn’t working. Click here or copy and paste this address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-23EToh43M).

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September 10
I'm on the Alt Weeklies front page!

I wrote a piece on ROFLThing: LOL, WTF, and OIC at ROFLThing for the East Bay Express and it made Alt Weeklies as well as a front page preview for the Express! I’m pumped, figuring I dreamed of getting on Alt Weeklies at the beginning of the summer when I started reading pieces off of it. I’m hoping this will push me on as I begin writing my thesis…

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September 1
From the back cover: Presidential candidate John McCain has long sought a running mate to call his own. His campaign kept quiet as they silently searched, even though McCain pleaded and begged them to tell him who his VP would be. Then one night, McCain puts an ad in the paper, asking for a vice-president, and he receives a letter from one Sarah Louise Heath Palin, of Alaska. Papa McCain and his campaign write back. His campaign manager asks if she sings. The campaign members fear that she will not stay, and when she goes off to town alone, young campaign manager—whose VP died during a snowmobiling accident—is stricken with the fear that she has gone for good. But she returns with colored pencils to illustrate for them the beauty of Alaska, and to explain that, though she misses her home, “the truth of it is I would miss you more.” The tale gently explores themes of political abandonment, political loss and political love. “An exquisite, sometimes painfully touching political tale; particularly when we learn how Sarah loathes polar bears because they mauled her mother.” -The New York Times “A book that is filled with wisdom, gentle humor and the practical concerns necessary for a satisfying run for president. Terse writing and poetic rhythm flow to create a tender story about the fragile beginnings of a presidential team in its quest for 8 more years of Republican governance.” -School Library Journal Art credit for Sarah, Palin and Tall: Idea: Elsa Kim Art: Nick Wong

From the back cover:

Presidential candidate John McCain has long sought a running mate to call his own. His campaign kept quiet as they silently searched, even though McCain pleaded and begged them to tell him who his VP would be. Then one night, McCain puts an ad in the paper, asking for a vice-president, and he receives a letter from one Sarah Louise Heath Palin, of Alaska. Papa McCain and his campaign write back. His campaign manager asks if she sings.

The campaign members fear that she will not stay, and when she goes off to town alone, young campaign manager—whose VP died during a snowmobiling accident—is stricken with the fear that she has gone for good. But she returns with colored pencils to illustrate for them the beauty of Alaska, and to explain that, though she misses her home, “the truth of it is I would miss you more.” The tale gently explores themes of political abandonment, political loss and political love.

“An exquisite, sometimes painfully touching political tale; particularly when we learn how Sarah loathes polar bears because they mauled her mother.”

-The New York Times

“A book that is filled with wisdom, gentle humor and the practical concerns necessary for a satisfying run for president. Terse writing and poetic rhythm flow to create a tender story about the fragile beginnings of a presidential team in its quest for 8 more years of Republican governance.”

-School Library Journal

Art credit for Sarah, Palin and Tall:

Idea: Elsa Kim

Art: Nick Wong

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May 8
ROFLCon: the article

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February 28
My interview with Michel Gondry

Here’s the link to the final version that came out last week in the arts section of the Crimson. Enyoy!

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