Saturday, December 4, 2010

Update #3

-To start things off with, SNOW!!!


As you can see by the crappy photo I took out of my window, it's been snowing since last night and now the world is all happy and white.

-I ordered my first pizza today (big milestone, I know). Medium cheese pizza with bacon. Essentially, a bacon pizza. The bacon pizza was a half hour late, which made me a little annoyed at first, but then super happy because I didn't have to pay for it! :D
Three happiest words ever?
Free. Bacon. Pizza.

-I will start a game of Vampire: The Requiem with some friends I met through NaNoWriMo. My creepy qualities now have an outlet. Be afraid.

-After a little bit of deliberation with the other officers of my guild, we have decided that I am now one of two leaders of the group we have on WoW. I have responsibilities now. Fear them.

-If I don't finish four design projects by Tuesday, I fail the course. But no pressure, right? Right?!

-Thanksgiving break was fun. I sat back, and relaxed, and spent quality time with the pets. I came home with some new nail polish and lots of cat hair because that likes to stick to my wool coat. It was nice to not work for a week.

-I dropped my drawing class because I really couldn't handle it anymore. The professor is like the white version of Morpheus from The Matrix, and as cool as that sounds, it isn't. I'd have my brain turned upside down at 9 in the morning and then a half hour after the class ended, I'd walk into yet another class still confused. I'm under too much pressure for that. Also, I don't think I'm really into drawing anyway, I didn't really need those extra 3 credits, and it was just an extra class worth of homework I had to do. So no more drawing.

-I failed at NaNoWriMo, but I knew I would. I have too much homework to devote any time to writing a novel. Still, I'm glad that I at least tried.

-Did I mention it snowed?

Thursday, November 4, 2010

NaNo!

It's November again, and you know what that means! My hopes and dreams of writing a novel have risen again, despite failures too numerous to count and the pile of homework I'm drowning in. Last year, I only lasted five days but still got 10k words written. This year I'm starting from scratch with an idea I never really entertained before.

The idea?

There were some elves who were at war with some other people, and they were all pretty and lived in an enchanted forest. Some random person decided to curse said elves and Voila! The Drow were born!
Now, this year is going to be a little bit different than last year. Rather than deleting things I got wrong, I'm going to jump a line or two and rewrite them. Why? To show the process of writing and what goes through my head while I'm doing these things. Because honestly, as long as I've been writing stuff, I still don't know what I'm thinking.

Anyway, I doubt that I'll win this year, but at least it'll be entertaining! Wish me luck!

Edit: Changed my mind! Instead of elves, I'm going to write about another idea I had forever ago, but never did anything with. Should still be fun. Also, I'm adding in a little word count widget so you can see how far I am. :D

Friday, October 8, 2010

Update on the Make Up Addiction

Remember how I said I'd never want another lipstick after Cherries in the Snow? I lied. I have since bought Wild Orchid and Really Red. They're both Revlons, though, so I guess I sort of stayed on track. Maybe.

Wild Orchid is a bright fuchsia pearl, which means that not only is it seriously bright pink, it also has an iridescent flash of purple/blue. Is that awesome or what?

Really Red is a matte, which means not shiny. Remember how awesome I said I looked in red lipstick? Multiply that by 10 for mattes.

I've also gotten four nail polishes: Orly Lunar Eclipse, OPI Catch Me in Your Net, some sparkly red from Walmart that's nice to look at but impossible to apply, and a tiny pink Color Club that I can't remember the name of. I'm also running out of the only topcoat I have that doesn't make my Cherries in the Snow puff up with bubbles. I cries a sad cry.

On another note, my birthday's on monday! Whoo! I'll be turning 19, I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a coat for my birthday (which will be awesome since New York is really cold), but the rest of my wishlist consists of nail polish. No computer games. Nail polish.

I'm not entirely sure how that makes me feel. >.>

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Disobedient Neurons

For any who might be wondering...

-NO, I haven't done my laundry yet. Bite me.
-YES, I am almost entirely out of food, but I'm sure I can survive on pancakes and oatmeal. I will find a way to the grocery store eventually.
-NO, I haven't been very social lately. Wanna know why? I'm not social!
-Also, I have not received my textbook in the mail, no I don't know which mailbox is mine yet, that extra money I spent was on nail polish, and the coat I like is this one but I'm still open to suggestions.

Rawr.

And the reasons for most of these? My brain's on vacation. I've sunken into this odd mindset of being capable of doing one responsible thing per day. For example: I wrote out a daily schedule for my homework. I told myself that I would stick to this and I'm going to be a responsible little nerd and get all of my late work done so that I can actually focus on the homework that's due this week. And then I was all warm and glowy from this responsible making of the schedule, and my brain decided that was enough for the day.

Or like yesterday, I sat down to do my design homework. I put in my headphones to keep me focused (and then proceeded to watch old Stargate SG-1 episodes for a couple hours), then got out my art supplies and cut paper to the right size for my project. And I was like, "The paper is the right size now! Woohoo!" And my brain was like, "Yeah, I'm done."

So it took a coffee break. Until this morning.

If anybody still reads this blog and knows anything about getting my neurons to function against their will, please help?

P.S. You know that design project? It's due today. Ha ha haaa....*facepalm*

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Happy School Year (sorta)!

Actually, school started a couple weeks ago but I was too lazy to write anything. I am now in my second semester of college! Whoo! My classes this semester are English Lit, Art History, Design 2, Drawing 2, and Color and Concept Development. Yeah. Four art classes, and no math. Somehow, even with my total inability to comprehend numbers, I think a math may have been easier.

I'm realizing that one of the things I like most about college is the professors. Not just their teaching styles, but that they have really vibrant personalities. To get this across, I shall do some impersonations. Some of these are less impersonations than they are straight up quotes.

-English: "So by a count of hands, who thinks the main character got what he deserved? Who thinks he didn't? Who doesn't give a shit?" People actually raised their hands on the last one. xP

-Art History: "A fetish object is something that a person gives power to. I could carry this mint around in my pocket for good luck and be like that guy from Lord of the Rings with My Preciou-" *cracksmash* "Oops, I dropped it."

-Design: *gives an hour and a half long demonstration on how to mix water with gouache*

-Drawing: "But where is your mind? If I smash open your head, will I find one? How does the weight of the second floor get down to the first floor? Can you see the energy? Then how do you know it's there?"

-Colors: "Colors aren't real. You see, if I put this this piece of paper on top of that one, it changes. And if I put the same color on top of another one, it changes again. And if I put a darker one underneath the bottom one, it gives the illusion of space. Okay?" Meanwhile, the students' minds are doing backflips trying to figure out why this works.

Sometimes I think that English and Colors are more like Psychology classes, and Drawing is more like Physics. I'm pretty sure that what I'm paying these people to do at this point is to tie my brain into knots every Thursday. I don't know what's real after my Drawing class. It's like the freaking Matrix. o.o

In addition to that, there's my dorm. Somehow I lucked out and the only room that was available to me this semester was a single. This means that when the roommates are loud, I can close my door and read in peace. It also means that I have privacy, lots more space to do things and not feel claustrophobic in, and nobody is telling me that I'm a dirty, lazy person who brings food into her room and leaves it there. Please to kindly ignore the two-day old cheese on my desk.

My roommates are nice, which is a big improvement over last semester when half of them ignored me and the other half yelled at me because there was fuzz on the carpet. They're loud and frequently (if not daily) invite friends over and then become even louder, but this is not as much of a problem because I have a door.

Precious door.

...my preeecious.
*hug*

Saturday, August 7, 2010

An Ordinary Day

Hunter and I woke up early today to make venison jerky for the trip up to a cabin in a couple days. My mom yelled at us because she thought we'd been up all night and was convinced we were lying. We mixed up the marinade for the jerky while fending off the cat, who liked the smell of venison but wouldn't eat the scrap I gave him. I took a nap after that.

A little bit after I woke up, we took the pets to be boarded for the trip. One of the people there was neurotic and shouted whatever she said. I don't think either of the pets or I will like her. Too loud. The other person there offered Hunter a job. He'll probably take it. After we left the boarding place, we went to Big Lots to look for floaty things to play with in the water. We didn't find any because they'd replaced it all with school supplies. The make up selection there was crap, but I did get a soda. My mom still wanted to look for floaty things, so we went to Walgreen's. I stayed in the make up isle and looked at the nail polish, but the colors I liked were too expensive (7 bucks for Sally Hansen? Seriously?). As they were leaving, I found a nice selection of cheaper ones, including a nice duochrome blue. They walked out without telling me, and I had to run after them.

At 4:00, Hunter took out the strips of marinated venison and set them out on racks. I didn't do it because I can't stand touching raw meat. Once it was quiet again, I turned on the TV and started watching Pride & Prejudice. At some point, I had the random urge to go outside. I took a walk down to the end of the street and found that the grassy area was all covered in caterpillars. I watched them for a while, then I went back. On the way back, I realized that walking on asphalt with bare feet is not the most comfortable thing in the world.

Once I was back, I walked around on the soft, smooth tile in the kitchen. I wanted to keep watching my movie, but Hunter had changed the channel. I went upstairs to my room, and Mom yelled at me to do something. I couldn't understand her very well, but at this point I didn't care what she was saying so I ignored her.

Now it's 6:00 and she's calling me again. Probably for dinner. Dinner is plain pasta with a few meatballs, which is hardly ever satisfying. Meanwhile, the house is filling up with the smell of the jerky that is getting harder and harder not to eat.

Yay, life.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lotsa Reds

This summer, I suddenly fell in love with nail polish and lipstick. I have no idea why it popped up like this, but I think it's here to stay. Nail polish was first.

I think, actually, this love of having pretty colors on my nails started with those fake things I had. Sure, I couldn't do much with my hands while I wore them, but they were long, colorful, and pretty. And now that the damage from getting the things has finally grown out, go figure that my nails are long and pretty. So I needed colors.

And that's when I discovered that the only nail polish I knew I owned was a pink that had gotten so thick it was annoying, and the materials to give myself a French manicure (which I suck at doing, by the way. Even with the stickers). This lead me to go searching...into the closet. Specifically, my mom's closet because I know there's a ton of old make up lurking in there.

And that's where I found this beauty:

Cherries in the Snow. The name could not be more fitting. It is literally cherry red, in all the brights and darks. We bought cherries not long after I found this, and I confused my fingers for the fruit. Seriously cherry red.

At that point, I was satisfied on the nail polish front, but I still wanted lipstick. I'd gotten it into my head that for whatever reason, I needed something bright. Maybe it's because I'm sick of being shy or something, or because I swoon for the classiness in those photos of old movie stars with the wavy hair, and the pale skin, and the bright red lipstick.

Fast forward a week. I'm sick of red. I want blue. I've been tagging along on every trip to anywhere that sells nail polish and sneaking off to the make up section to look for it. On one such trip to the make up section, I passed the Revlon area. Because I am spontaneously in love with all things Revlon as well (Don't ask. No clue.), I stopped to look at the lipsticks.

LO AND BEHOLD! I found this:
Cherries in the Snow. It has a lipstick. I begged. It was bought. I tried it on in the car. This is red. Holy fairies of lipstick, this is RED. It's red, and fuchsia, and oh so bright. It's perfect. As long as Revlon makes this, I will never want another lipstick.

Did I mention that it looks awesome on me? It does. No photos for now though, because it's in the other room and I have a kitten on my lap. Just suffice to say, I look good in red.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Weekly Roundup #2

Well, it's maintenance day on WoW which means I'm not going to have much to do until 2pm, and nothing has happened that was spectacular enough to get its own blog post, so here's another weekly roundup.

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-If role players wrote movie scripts, we'd all be rich.
Okay, maybe not all of us, but a pretty good number. On Saturday, the officers of my guild (including me) held a private meeting to discuss matters that had to do with the rest of the members. It started off that way, at least. Before we knew it, the Captain went absolutely nuts thanks to previous plots and a convenient voice in her head. The conversation (and duel!) lasted for several hours and I ended up going to sleep after 3 in the morning. We were all on the edges of our seats. Those eating salad forgot to chew. There were many Star Wars references. Here's a sample:

Those two people you can just barely see behind the gigantic wall of text are Lanica and Jovanna. The ones that are easier to see are Astera and me.

Even though it was WAY past our bedtimes and hardly any of us could focus (you should have seen our Out of Character chatting while this was going on) due to lack of sleep, the entire scene was epic. We all pretty much agreed, if Sterling were a movie, we would all be rich and have many awards.

-Sleep is good.
Last night is the only night in a week or so that I got more than 4-5 hours of sleep, and that's because I went to sleep at 1am instead of 3...or 4, or 6. Sure it was worth it. All those hours I wasn't sleeping, I was doing stuff like that screenshot up there ^. I've definitely been exhausted, though. I wouldn't have missed all that awesome role playing for the world, but I really wish it could have taken place before midnight. I stayed up anyway, though. Diligently. Let nobody say that I don't take my fun seriously.

-Poor kitteh got snipped. :(
Jack the kitty got neutered yesterday. Poor Jack. He hid in the back of a closet after he got home and now he's medicated up the wazoo. Such is the life of quadrupeds.

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That's pretty much all I've got this week. Yay, excitement! Maybe next week there'll be something for me to do away from the computer screen. >.>

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Interwebs Roundup #1

I figure that since I spend most of my time on the internet, I should probably write about things that happen there too. Thus, I have decided that every once in a while, I'll give an update on the fun/interesting/somewhat bizarre things I have found while wandering through the great expanses of the interwebs.

First up, TKB Trading.

At first glance, it looks sort of odd and professional-ish, but after looking through the site for a while, I realized that it has lots of potential for fun. Lots. TKB Trading sells everything you need and more to make your own make up. It even has free recipes. Making your own make up. Store quality, or better. Is that cool or what? I think it would be awesome to get a group of friends together and have a mad scientist party or something.

The bad news? Since TKB is a wholesaler, they have $15 minimum for purchases. That, combined with how addictive it will probably be once I actually make something, means that if I start buying from this place I will probably have no money left for food. :(


Tea is yummy. Personally, I prefer fruity herbal teas, but pretty much everything is good. Well, almost. What I didn't realize for a while is that the regular tea that comes in bags and is sold in grocery stores is very crappy quality. How do you tell? Aside from wherever the little leaves may come from, the point is that they're little. They're dust; crushed up little bits. Crushed up little bits is not tea, it is the leftovers of tea. It's whatever was left at the bottom of the barrel when they cleared out the other stuff. You know, the good stuff.

Good news! Adagio sells the good stuff. Whole leaves, petals, and berries. It's more expensive (In most cases, $2 for a sample, $7 for a full size, $20-ish for the supergimongous), but you can really taste the difference. I bought three samples a couple weeks ago: Masala Chai, Berry Blues, and Sour Apple.
The Chai is tasty black tea with cloves and some other various spices. In fact, whole cloves take up about as much of the sample bag as the actual tea leaves. You could probably use the stuff to season something. After some experimenting, I found out that it's best at 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup, with the water microwaved for two minutes. It's a smooth and very aromatic tea, and you can really taste the cloves and cinnamon. I'm not a huge fan of chai in general, but it's good stuff.
Berry Blues is my personal favorite. It has hibiscus petals, apple chunks, and blueberries. Yep. Whole berries. It's tart and sweet, and when you're done steeping it you can eat the apple chunks. They're tasty. I'm definitely ordering the regular size of this because my sample is almost gone.
I'm not a fan of the Sour Apple. It's too tart, and that's pretty much all I can taste. The name is definitely fitting. Then again, I might have put too much of the tea in my make-it-yourself bag. Apparently loose leaf tea is finicky that way. It's still not my favorite.

3. Killing your guildmates is fun. :D

One of the other officers in my guild on WoW thinks that we should try doing more PvP (Player vs. Player) combat. This would be nice, except for one little hitch: While she and her girlfriend may be awesome at PvP, the rest of us aren't very good. To solve this problem, I suggested we gather once a week to beat each other into bloody pulps in the name of hands-on learning.

It works. As we fight each other, we learn our own and each other's weaknesses and improve on them. If we keep this up, we'll be a force to reckon with. Either that, or sad little puddles on the ground. Unfortunately, a few hours after we started (Way to tell it was successful: it lasted two hours longer than I planned), some Horde showed up and killed all of us for the fun of it. We realized that if we want to keep this up (and we do), we're going to have to keep changing our fighting spot. Otherwise we'll have weekly ganking sessions instead of practice.

And that's it for the weekly roundup! I'll try to post another next week.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Summer Update!

Yay, summer!

I know I haven't posted in a while. That's for a few reasons, and for once my laziness is not one of them. The most important reason is that I was getting a lot of unwanted attention for a while, to the point of harassment and maybe even cyberstalking. Seriously. No embellishment. I looked up the legal definitions of both, and this fit. I stopped posting on most of the websites I normally visit because I'm pretty certain this guy read everything and I didn't want him having normal updates on my life. Thankfully, he seems to have backed off. If you are he, please stop reading this and leave.

...

Is he gone? Kay.

Other than those issues, I've actually been having a nice summer. Alright, other than those issues, and a REALLY BAD sunburn, I've been having a nice summer. Stupid UV rays. Now I have a weird tan. >.>

I went to the beach with some friends I haven't seen in a while (possibly a year or two), and had lots of fun there. We spent a few hours diving into waves, feeding cheese puffs to the seagulls and trying to swim up to a pelican we named Larry. After we left, we went to Sonic and I discovered two unfortunate things: 1 - I was redder than a lobster. All of us were, actually. We were probably the whitest people on the beach when we got there. 2 - They smoked. Icky.

The next week was full of pain because of my stupid sunburn.

Since then, the only contact I've had with things outside my house has been WoW, and going to see Killers with my mom. I am now craving human contact, and seriously wishing I could run over to Washington because half my available friends live there. Stupid geographical issues.

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In other news (meaning things that are not stupid and/or complaint worthy) I've sort of spontaneously developed a love of nail polish and bright red lipstick. Problem? I lack nail polish and bright red lipstick. I only have one of each. *grumble*

Okay, maybe it is complaint worthy.

Darn!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Photo Gallery

I've got this new friend named Vince. He saw me dancing that one day, said hi to me in the hall the next day, and we've been running into each other all over the place ever since. We ran into each other again yesterday and started talking, and since we're both art fanatics he invited me to go to this photography presentation tonight. I thought it sounded pretty fun, so I went.

I didn't think I'd ever heard of this photographer before, so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even remember his name until I got into the room for the presentation and it was projected onto a screen. The photographer we went to see was Stephen Wilkes. In case you didn't know, Stephen Wilkes is the guy who took that Verizon network photo with the tons of people in it. Yeah, him.

He showed us some pictures he took in China many years ago, then some very nice photos he took in Ellis Island, and some more recent ones in China, and many, many more. He even had some portraits of horses. And with all of the photos he showed us, he told us the story of when and why he took them. How his assistant thought he saw a ghost in the measles ward in Ellis Island, and his guerilla tactic of snapping shots in China because the government there didn't want pictures being taken. When he got to his advertising work, he pointed to a box-like thing toward the back of one of the photos he took for IBM and said, "You see that little cart there? There's a funny story about that. It was the police, and they were coming to arrest me for taking pictures." Most of the things he showed us are on his website, but there were a few he said that he hadn't published anywhere yet.

Photography became about five times more interesting. That isn't the only presentation that will be there, either. Annie Leibovitz is coming to give one next week, and Vince and I are planning to go to that one too. Hopefully we can get there early enough to get seats.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Springtime!

This is gonna be a long one because I have a lot to catch up on. There's been a lot going on, but I've been busy, and lazy, and procrastinating. The stuff that's been happening has been happening since it was sunny, so I'm going to go all the way back to about...

-April Fool's Day (Told you there was a lot) - It was the second day that week that it had been nice, and sunny, and warm out. I had to go draw a landscape for my drawing class, and figured what better place was there to draw a landscape than outside? So I went walking around campus in the glorious sunlight with my sketchbooks. I had just gotten past the first building when I started to hear drums. I went to go investigate and found four guys playing some bongo drums between the Whitney building and the student center. People were gathered all around the area watching them and talking, and some people had actually gotten out into the middle and started dancing. It looked like lots of fun. So I got out my pencils and started to sketch them (not as easy as it sounds, since everybody was moving). As I was drawing, the idea of getting up there with them seemed more and more fun. The last bit of my sketch was drawn in kind of a hurry, and when I was done I put everything on some steps where I could keep an eye on it, took off my shoes, and started dancing.

To bongo drums.

On concrete.

In front of total strangers.

Go me?

When I started dancing, the others who had sat down to catch their breath got back up. I knew people were watching, but it really didn't seem to matter. A few minutes later, this cute little girl joined in and she said my skirt was pretty. :D
I'm not sure when the drummers finally stopped, but when they did I sat down on the steps pretty well worn out, and only then did I realize that dancing barefoot on concrete was maybe not the best idea. Why? Huge blisters had formed all over my feet. D:

Needless to say, the walk back across campus to my dorm was pretty interesting, with an emphasis on "interesting" and not so much on "pretty".

-That Friday (I shall title thee, "Adorable Little Kids".) - I woke up at 7 and debated for a good, long time whether or not I should go to my drawing class because the blisters on my feet still hurt like crazy. In the end, I did go because I didn't want to miss class just for being a wimp. Although, for the record I will say that I am not a wimp and those blisters hurt REALLY BAD.

Class was pretty normal, except that my professor decided that since it was sunny out, we could all go outside and draw random things, and that this would be our assignment for the week. I hobbled out and found a nice patch of flowers. There were some bees, but they seemed to be ignoring me, so I returned the favor. I had gotten to about the fourth flower when this group of little kids (with some chaperones) came walking around to look at all the wonderful outdoor-ness that the quad had to offer. On their way back to the building, they stopped to look at the flowers and, since I was there, me.

"Hey, what's she doing? Is she drawing?"

"Can we go see?"

"Not over here, there are bees."

*gasp* "Bees?"

I smiled and kept on sketching while they went around the scary bees and came up behind me to watch. My fold-up kit of art supplies was unfolded so that all of my pencils, and micron pens, and other such things were visible and they stared at it like it was the most amazing thing they'd seen all week.

*glances over my shoulder* "How does she do that?"

"Those are pretty flowers."

"Why do you have so many pencils?"

"What are the pens for?"

"Can you draw a bee?"

"Can you draw one on a flower?"

So. Flipping. Cute. I gave them a demonstration of what all the pencils and pens did, and why they were different, and then I drew some bees for them, and they all looked happy. By the time their chaperones (teachers? Babysitters? No idea.) took them back inside, they were all talking about drawing things. If I made them all enthusiastic about art, then I can consider that my good deed for the month.

-Easter - I had planned on sitting around doing nothing for Easter, since I really don't know anybody here, and the people I do know are either my roommates or friends that aren't close enough to do things with on Easter. Fortunately, one of my roommates (Kishma) knows a very nice person (Anita) who invited us to her family Easter thingy.

We left at two, then went around Anita's yard hiding plastic eggs for...

Guess?

More cute kids!

And then we went around with the family and watched them scamper all over the place looking for them. Once they found the last of the elusive eggs, everybody went inside to chat idly and snack on cheese. Yay, cheese! There was gorgonzola, and camembert, and brie, and three other types that I don't quite remember. And of course, they put the cheese platter right in front of me and I was a very happy camper.

After the cheese, we played Life. We didn't get very far because dinner was ready soon after that. Dinner was ham with a tasty raisin sauce, sweet potatoes, salad, and surprisingly nothing that I didn't like. We ate, and talked, and then talked for a while after that. And after the talking, there was cake. Yay, cake! Two cakes, actually. One was regular white cake shaped like a rabbit's head, and the other was a blackberry clove cake with buttercream frosting. I had the second one. I'm still kicking myself because I didn't ask for the recipe. That was an awesome cake.

After the cake, there was more talking, mostly with one of the kids, whose name I cannot remember because I'm bad at that. We learned that she's going through regular middle school frustrations with annoying boys and twits who think they know it all. We also learned that she doesn't like Disney movies/shows except for the older ones that I grew up with, and she is also not a fan of Twilight. I commend this.

It was her parents who took us home, and I was glad that they did when they did. Otherwise, I may have been tempted to eat more cake, and at that point I really should not have had room for more food.

-Last Friday - My ever-entertaining drawing professor wanted us to try drawing figures again and was about to get up on the little platform in the middle of the room when he decided that I would be fun to draw. So I perched on a stool in the center of class with my legs up to my chest for twenty minutes while people drew me. Some of the drawings turned out really well, and I kind of wish that I could have copies of them.

-Today!- The art club has a bake sale today! One of my friends in my design class made some goodies for it, and after we left class, she bought one for me. :D We parted ways and as I walked across the bridge, I noticed something else: a hot dog stand for another club! Well hey, there's lunch! So I went back to my dorm to get some money. Leslie wanted to come with me, so she did and she bought as much as her arms could carry. I got two scones and a hot dog. I'm pretty happy. And while this hasn't been the whole day yet, I think it's safe to say that any day that starts out with cookies cannot be a bad day.

Monday, March 15, 2010

I can't think of a title, so this is what you get.

Before I say anything else, many congrats to Kate on being married! The wedding was awesome!

- - - - - - -

I apologize in advance for any typos. One of the many nice things that Kate did during her wedding weekend (thank you!) was arrange for several of us to get manicures and pedicures. I got some pretty, pretty fake nails, and it's practically impossible to type with the things.

I've been thinking about what I posted in my Change List, about the things I want to work on the most. A couple are in the personality department (not being shy, along with something I'm not quite ready for people to know yet) and the other is that little mention of never having written a novel. I think I'll explain the last one first.

I love writing. It has always been a passion of mine. Literally, always. I've been weaving stories together in my head for as long as I can remember, and thanks to my bizarre memory I can remember all the way back to my second birthday. Or was it third? Either way, there was a tasty Dalmatian cake involved and I've been inventing random tales pretty much as long as I've had conscious thought. Most of them are little wisps of things. Blurbs. Scenes. Individual characters that have nowhere to go. There is one story, however, that has been building up in my head since the late years of middle school and it's dying to get out.
It's an amazing story. Sometimes I go through all of the things involved and surprise myself with the sheer size of this world I've created. I know exactly how I'll arrange the novels (yes, more than one. It'll take that many to get the whole thing down) if I ever get around to writing them. I've invented races, and cultures, and landscapes that blow my own mind. It needs to get down on paper. The story needs to be told. But everytime I go to write it, my mind freezes. I have to find some way to work through that because this is truly epic, and all the imaginative people out there deserve to see it too. Really. Epic. Think Lord of the Rings + Avatar + H. P. Lovecraft with a nice heavy dash of me thrown in. If you would like a tiny sample (very tiny) go to my deviantART gallery. The things in the Adalus and Karr section take place in that world.

But enough with the thing I want to do. Here's something I've done. I told that shy little part of me to shut up and scram, and I went out and danced for several hours. In front of my parents. I think I shocked a lot of people, because they kept coming up to me afterwards to tell me that I'm a good dancer and that there were even more people talking about me. Letting that little bit of me have free reign without being held back and then having people give me the very opposite of strange looks felt good.
I think that's the way I'm going to go about things. A little bit at a time, slowly easing into it. That's the way I'm going to go with that other secret thing, too. I do want people to know about that, but not yet. I'll build up to it. I think if there's less of a shock when I do say it, or if people figure it out on their own, it'll be less stressful for everybody, especially me. But this is one of those secrets that really shouldn't have to be secret, it just happens to be controversial and I happen to be shy. And I'll leave you with that hint before I completely give it away before I'm ready to.



Alright, not quite. I deserve commendations for typing all of this with plastic thingies glued to the ends of my fingers! That was hard!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Playing Around

It's 11:30 and everybody's settled in. Abby, Becca, and Kim are off doing whatever it is they do late at night. Kishma and I are doing homework in our room. Leslie is taking a shower in the bathroom across the hall.


All of a sudden, the general friend of the dorm, Meghan opens up our door and says, "Are you guys going to need to leave the room anytime soon?"


Why, we ask?


She holds up some rope.

"I'm trapping Leslie in the bathroom."


I may be dead tired and have an early class in the morning, but something tells me this will be worth staying up for.


Tee hee.

- - - - - -


So we wait for about ten minutes, and sure enough, we begin to hear a thunk....thunk, thunk.


"Hey!"


"....Is there something wrong with the door?"


Thunk, thunk.


We let her out after about five minutes and everybody had a good laugh. Yay for random midnight pranks!

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Change List

Over the last couple of months that I've been in school, I've noticed that the way I live, dress, act, and even eat have been fairly boring at best. I've just kind of been going with the flow of things and not really acting like me at all. That's just not fun, and if there's one thing that I definitely stand by, it's that life should be fun, or at least enjoyable. So here are the changes I would like to make. This list is mostly for me, as a reminder because most likely I will sink back into the flow if there isn't a list, but you few readers may find it entertaining as well. Maybe you'll even help me stay on track. ;)

-Clothes:
It's not that I dress badly or anything, but the clothes that I wear have never really been my style. They've just been convenient and comfortable. For example, did you know that I'm not a fan of jeans? I'd much rather wear skirts on any occasion, but because it wasn't immediately attainable, I never got around to it. I am an enormous girly girl. I love skirts, and dresses, and frill. But I never wear them. I want to put more effort into the things I wear so that they're actually something that reflects me, rather than just being whatever was clean and handy.
But there's an elegant side to that, too. I'm a sucker for Victorian styles. In fact, one of my favorite clothing styles is Steampunk, which is pretty much dressing as if you lived in a Victorian-type setting with advanced steam technology, and you make your own kitschy jewelry and such. Corsets, pocket watches, top hats, and those awesome Victorian vests and coats are all common. It's elegance with a very subtle edge, sci-fi with an unexpected dash of class. I love this stuff. Why have I never gotten into it? I don't know.
And on that note, I'd love to get a plain little corset to wear on an everyday basis under clothes and such. Not for tight lacing because we all know I'm the last person who would ever need that, but for the feel of the thing, and the sleek shape it makes, and because I have horrible posture. Having them on feels like I'm wearing a hug. I love the shape they make. It's so smooth and streamlined, or hourglassy in a way that makes fluffy skirts look even fluffier. And wearing one makes me not slouch, which means less back pain for me. The downside? They're expensive as all get out. :(

-Craftiness:
I love art, and making things, and fiddling around with my hands. Everybody who knows me knows this. I want to make things more often. Things I can use, and wear, and sell. I want to make awesome jewelry and sell it online, to finally figure out how to sew and make something awesome, to redesign all of my spaces with things that I made. I want to sit back and look at the things that I made with my own time and effort, and feel that wave of accomplishment that comes with it. I want to be able to say, "This is mine. I made it, and somebody else loves it as much as I do."
Getting a little money from the online sales would also be a big plus.

-Natural Stuff:
I don't want to sound like one of those nuts who absolutely must have everything organic with no exceptions, but the idea of using synthetics, and chemicals, and such does bug me. It's why I don't like to take medicine or painkillers unless I absolutely have to. I just don't like the idea of having artificial crap in my system messing around with the way I work. This applies to food, lotion, hair care, and pretty much anything that can be absorbed into me somehow. It just gives me the heebie jeebies. Also, as it turns out, most of the things I use with this stuff in it can be made with things you can buy at a grocery store, and making them is actually pretty fun. Smells better too. :D
Go figure that food is good for the outside of your body as well as the inside. Did you know that rubbing olive oil into your hair gets rid of split ends? There are actually professional companies that will bottle oil with bunches of other crap to be put on your hair, but it smells horrible and doesn't work nearly as well as plain old EVOO. You can also pour a little into some sugar for a home made sugar scrub. And there are thousands of other things that work pretty similarly. They smell better, cost less, and have fewer things that are probably carcinogens. Where's the downside there?
Also, it may sound pretty hippie-ish, but I'm a big believer in aromatherapy and drinking tea instead of taking medicines for small things. Obviously for the big things I'll grumble and take the medicine, but for stuff like colds or sore throats, tea is a much tastier alternative. Licorice soothes sore throats, ginger is good for upset stomachs, chamomile and vanilla calm me down, peppermint wakes me up, and there are nifty vitamins and antioxidants in all of it.
Food is probably the biggest thing, though. Lately, I've been living off of frozen foods and junk food, and your average college noms. There's nothing good for me there. I want to make food that's actually going to do good things for me. That, and I'm getting pretty sick of canned soup.
So with all of these good things and preferences, why have I never gotten around to switching from expensive chemical thingies? Because I'm lazy? That really isn't much of an excuse.

-Personality:
I'm certainly not saying that I want to change my personality, but I've noticed that it isn't exactly showing up. I'm shy. I hate that. And because I'm shy, I don't do or say things that I want to. I don't sing, or laugh when things are randomly amusing, or jump into the snow just because it seems fun. Intellectually, I know that nothing bad will happen. Sure I'll get strange looks, but I've never been bothered by that before. And when I put it like that, there really is no reason for me to be shy anyway. I need to quit being afraid, because being afraid to be yourself is pretty pathetic.
Also, I need to quit being so lazy. Laziness is an excuse. It's why I procrastinate, and don't do schoolwork, and why I've never finished writing a novel. It drives me insane every time I don't do something just because "I was lazy." I miss out on so many things because "I'm lazy," and I'm really starting to feel the downside of missing them. It needs to stop.

So those are the things I want to work on changing. The way I dress, the things I make, the things I use, and the way I act. Will I be able to change them? Only time will tell.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Surprise!

Today is Kishma's 20th birthday. I was kinda worried about finding something to do for her, because if you live in the same room with somebody, you should probably do something for their birthday.

Well, as it turns out, I didn't really have to. Last night at midnight, Leslie snuck me out of the room and into the kitchen where a mini midnight surprise party had been put together by Abby, Becca, and their friend Meghan.

When we lured Kishma out of the room, she was met with a wall covered in chocolate kisses and happy birthday posters, and when she walked down the hallway into the kitchen, we all sang the birthday song and had ice cream cake.

We didn't stay up for very long, but I'm kind of grateful for that. I have another early class today. At least it's an hour later than normal.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

When the Weather Outside is Frightful...

Today I had an 8am class. A have a few of those, actually. For these classes, I like to wake up around 6:30 because I take forever to wake up, and I don't like to rush. I set my cell phone alarm, put it next to my pillow and doze off peacefully, knowing that I will not be happy in the morning.

Today I was a little bit more rested than usual because today I woke up at 8:15. "Oh crap," I thought. Then I turned on my computer and checked the weather. It was 26 degrees. Normally around here that isn't too bad unless it's windy. So I looked out the window, and my thoughts were somewhere along the line of "....#$%@#%@!"

Blizzard.

Also, my morning class on Wednesdays is Design, which means I have to carry my portfolio and walk all the way across campus.

I had a fun morning.

Monday, February 1, 2010

The Good, the Bad, and My Poor, Poor Eardrums

I started college last week, which is awesome. It's in upstate New York and very much freezing, but I'm slowly getting used to that. Even my class schedule probably won't take long to remember.

Getting used to roommates, however, is another story. Now, for the mostpart they're fairly nice. I've got five roommates: Abby, Becca, and Kim have their own single rooms (the lucky people, they are), and I'm in a triple room with Leslie and Kishma. Abby and Becca keep to themselves most of the time. I'm starting to like Kim, but I don't see her much.

My issue is mostly with Leslie and Kishma. They're nice people, don't get me wrong. They're fun to be around most of the time, too. Kishma is from somewhere in the Caribbean, I think. She has the accent too, which is pretty cool. I'm not sure where Leslie is from, but she's hispanic and also has an accent.
In the daytime, they're generally alright, with a few exceptions. Kishma doesn't seem to understand the concept of "peace and quiet", and insists on blasting islandy music on an endless loop during every moment that has the potential to be relaxing (HEADPHONES, WOMAN! HEADPHONES!). Leslie laughs a lot and is amused by tiny things. She also goes grocery shopping every other day like it's the most exciting thing she could ever do. I don't think she's ever been left to her own devices before.
At night is when it really gets bad. Right as I'm about to go to sleep, they get hyper. Or worse, while I'm asleep. Last night, they ran rampant around the suite, shouting and taking pictures of their new pajamas. Why, I have no clue, but it was at least 1 AM, and they woke me up doing it. When they realized I'd woken up, they weren't apologetic at all, in fact they got louder. Thankfully my only class today was at 3. But tonight, right as I was about to sleep, Kishma came into the room and started yelling over her cell phone. She wasn't in an argument. She was having a normal conversation about her English class and calculus book, but at the volume of a jet engine. It is now 12:30 and I don't dare go in there at the risk of destroying my eardrums.

I have to wake up at 6:30 for class tomorrow.

Help meee!