Lucky Llama chai tea late, no foam. Voodoo Donuts, Portland Oregon. Matt Moore surf shop. Aviator Nation sweats, Lulu Lemon top, and a Nike fuel band. Not wearing my glasses… probably walking around barefoot outside Botheen Dorm. This, or micro-shorts and a backwards trucker hat, were my uniform for 4 years of high school.I used to “manage” the boys lacrosse teams. That is to say, I would take pictures, blog, and bake treats instead of actually doing a sport myself, junior and senior year. I was very proud of my work, especially after the parents of one of the international students reached out to thank me for blogging about the games because they never got to see their son play lacrosse otherwise. They call it Sunset Bench for a reason. I always loved this photo. I took it on the school bus into town one day. The window and the bridge made it look like a film roll to me. Almost everyday, for at least two year at boarding school I would run the three miles from campus into Carpinteria, and three miles back. The road was beautiful. A steep downhill to start, then on long flat through the avocado fields, past the little produce cart. I will always love the smell of eucalyptus. So apparently all the cool kids used to go here to poke smot and hook up… I just liked going on walks.I took this on Senior Prank Night after sneaking in with Shutaro Kobayashi and Matthew Firestone for a late night swim… my Wildfox bikini mysteriously disappeared that night.How cute is my mommy at my graduation? My legacy… puns.
Not featured: red velvet cupcakes from Crush Cakes. A carrier tray of thai iced teas from Siam Elephant. A filet mignon from Sly’s. A Jack’s bagel eaten at the back of the dinning hall on a Sunday morning. Studying in the library with Ya’kuana… or forcing her to accompany me to the pool on weekends so I could tan in a Brazilian cut bikini bottom. Me failing the swim test and having to take lessons with Joshua Yaro. Bonning. Mrs. Arango. Mr. Pouye. The view from school house. The hoedown. 25 House. Transition House. etc. etc. etc.
For my 21st birthday Sage and I went to Las Vegas. Sage and I thought this photo was hilarious because our white shorts made it look like we were wearing diapers.
I love this photo of little Sophie, holding hands with an Aboriginal girl in Australia. Not only am I wearing the most ridiculous outfit (my mom let me dress myself as a child) but, having no memory or anecdotes to suggest otherwise, I like to think of this as evidence for how children are born nondiscriminatory. While I can’t speak for the other little girl, it appears that I didn’t notice or care about our differences, all I saw was a potential friend to play with, and seized the opportunity.
In high school a student names Brock from Adelaide, Australia came to stay for awhile. I showed him the picture and told him about how my dad still played didgeridoo for us on occasion, etc. He proceeded to tell me about how terrible the discriminating against native Aboriginal people was, and it forever changed how I saw this photo.
On a totally separate note: My dad’s favorite memory from Sydney was when he tried to order a martini, and they responded they were “all out of martini.”
When I was in college I had the opportunity to travel to the Philippines with my friend Izzara, who was from Cebu. Our friendship started with one of those small world moments; it turned out that she knew one of my old friends Shuta from boarding school, and she had gone to boarding school where my cousin Nicola went (Suffield Academy, in CT), and after this discovery we became quick friends over curly fries with mustard. She invited me to come visit her over Winter Break, so after a quick trip through Amsterdam with my two older siblings, Sage and Gentry, and an even quicker stop in London for New Years with my mom, I flew to Manilla. It was a very exciting trip, especially because I knew nothing about the Philippines before going. I ate baby eel at a Spanish restaurant and learned about historical Spanish occupation of the Philippines, and how that was why it was a predominantly catholic country. I ate balut (fertalized duck egg) from a street cart. I ate freshly caught uni straight from the ocean on a catamaran. We attended Sinulog Festival, swam with whale sharks.
I didn’t get any great photos of myself with said whale sharks, but I did have the scare of my life while trying.
Before they take you out in the canoes, there is a mandatory training video which basically just entailed threats of imprisonment if you touched the whale sharks. It brought to mind the story of that American tourist that got caned in Singapore. Izzara had also cautioned me early on about the way things worked in the Philippines; for example, if a driver struck a pedestrian the incentive structure was such that it made more sense (fiscally speaking) to back up and finish the job and pay for a funeral, than to call an ambulance and risk paying the medical bills.
Anyhow I signed on the dotted line and slid my snorkeling gear into place. Having only been snorkeling once or twice before, I was struggling with a foggy mask, treading water, and preoccupied with my underwater camera gear. I was admiring a baby whale shark in front of me when my fin makes contact with something hard. Before I even have time to register that I had kicked a whale shark, that despite their massive size can apparently sneak up from under you, a set of brawny arm lifts me fully out of the water in a single motion, and deposits me brusquely back in the canoe. I don’t even remember what he said because sheer panic had started to over take me, third world prison bars flashing behind my eyes, but I know that it was curt, like “watch out,” but that I also wasn’t in trouble — thank heavens!
Sophie's External Brain 