Ex-graffiti artist Steve Powers is returning to Philadelphia to work on “Love Letter“, a 20-block mural project that is being installed with the help of local youth who are being taught sign design and mechanics by Steve. The piece was conceived as a “love letter spanning 50 walls and roof tops to be painted in West Philadelphia facing the Market-Frankford Elevated train. The letter is meant for one with meaning for all, and in a larger sense, will be for West Philly from West Philly.”

Even cooler, the project is a collaboration with the Mural Arts Program which is one of the largest civic art initiatives in the nation. The program has produced over 2,800 murals and educated over 20,000 underserved youth in Philadelphia. The founding executive director, Jane Golden, is a lecturer at Penn, and students of her class get to work on an actual mural in the city which is awesome except that the registrar hates me and I have failed twice already to get into the class.

Above is the message I received upon entering my new room/home for the year.

As is the case for most of you, school has either started or is starting soon. For me, school starts today…

We’ll see how this blog fares, but hopefully I can maintain it while things start to kick up.

Snowball fight in the Quad

Peaceful side of the Quad

Locust Walk. The school hung up those snowflake light things.

Our LOVE sign

Stay tuned for the following post is going to be redunkulous. (once I finish preparing the photos)

The Kohalition looking slick after our client presentations. Counterclockwise from bottom left: Zack, Lisa, Chris, Atthena (our TA), Jeewon, Liz (our client’s community relations person), Amanuel, Sean (our client), Alex, me, Melanie, Lee.

Here’s a little bit about our team.
Zack – “What the Peter Drucker!! Get out of my office!”

Lisa – “I love this team!! i hate myself…”

Chris – Chris is actually insane. Stay away from her. she pinches.

Atthena – Sweetest TA of all.

Jeewon – Pledging + Mgmt = almost died.

Amanuel – Black.

Alex – Randomist kid ever. Maybe because he’s always high.

Melanie – Future beat-boxer of America or Cayman.

Lee – Mask and Wig Krunker

Front of UNI.

We started a Marketing Club at UNI to help promote the event. Here are them kids. Luckily I wore some Bape that day.

Our event flyer. This was my baby.

So throughout the 2-3 month period our team basically went nuts. We had snack-selling fundraisers, tshirt fundraisers, raffle fundraisers, corporate sponsors, food donations, venue sponsorship, flyers, handouts, printed tickets, decorations, 12+ performers, 3 DJs, team shirts, crazy nights, lots of stories, zack yang, and much more. The event went off really well, a lot of people showed up, we raised around $1000, the performances were really well done, and people had a good time. Even the principal at UNI showed up and broke it down (sort of).

The back of our handout flyers with a list of all our performers.

The Kohalition posing with our many sponsors. Counterclockwise from bottom left: Big Red, AMan, MC Tag, Yi Yi, El Quest, A Bad, G1, jSUN, Daddy Yanks (not pictured: Z-Dawg)

Pimpin our Krew shirts after the event.

So much thanks to the Kohalition for an eventful, crazed, mad, enraged, funnyfull first semester. This sadly is the end of the first semester recap. A semester that was dazzling and much insane.

Photos of winter break in Catalina Island and such to come. Peace out from THE KREW.

During the first few weeks of school, Penn’s 40 million a cappella groups had tryouts. Being a lover of singing and being a big loser, I tried out for 30 million. I managed to get callbacks to all 30 million, including Penn Masala, an all-indian group. (I also made callbacks for Penn Dhamaka, an all-indian male dancing group. Nice.) Finally after a painful two weeks, I received work that I made it into Chord on Blues, Counterparts, Off the Beat, and Pennsylvania-Six 5000. Of course, coming from a billion years of choir and of listening to college acappella, I flipped out about getting into Off the Beat and knew that was it for sure. However, after spending a week with both Penn-Six and Off the Beat, I realized how different things were from what I expected. I found myself enjoying my time at Penn-Six more and that Off the Beat, although dope, was not exactly what I wanted. So PennSix it is.

Last semester, we had our fall show which brought in about 700 people. We also had our 25th anniversary and 70+ alums actually returned for the festivities. It was pretty amazing to see all these people and actually hear them sing the songs that we listen to on old albums and meet the people behind the voices.

We had multiple gigs throughout the semester, and we went on a roadtrip to New York and Boston to sing for some rich Penn alum’s birthday.

With the birthday boy. From left to right: guy not in Penn-Six, Lix, Brock (me), Grubbs, Lechter, old man, Stan, Chex/Ward, Cletus, Lingus (on bended knee), Jiggy, Tiger Woods (Nigel).

Please note:

40 million = 12ish

30 million = 7

a billion = 11

700 = 700+

70+ = 70-

Penn-Six = worst group ever

some of the beauties who attended. in actuality, nick only attended the ride to and from the tweeter center because he’s just madly in love with his magical elixir.

gym class heroes – listen to them


The Starting Line

All-American Rejects

amazingly hot

see the rest of the pictures HERE

beautifully expensive

just holding this thing is beast

whoop

Second semester started today, but I have not yet finished my college recap as I had hoped. Almost done though with probably a couple more entries left. Current semester schedule is just lovely:

• Legal Studies 101
• Math for less stupids
• Computer Science 121
• Computer Science 260
• Business and Public Policy 250 – Managerial Economics
• Writing Seminar – Performers and Critics

Second semester will hopefully be a semester for redemption. More recap to come…

i think it translates to “bra water”

how cute

and of course, no night is complete until connie gets to take a picture with some random black guy

see the rest of the pictures HERE

• management 100 – just like the apprentice but much worse
• intro to engineering – wow.
• computer science 120 – kicked my butt
• math for stupids – thanks mrs. unland
• econ 010 – thanks connie

I also got a new computer, Thinkpad Z61t.

super sexy

wallpaper by sister

updates to be continued…