2013

I debated making a new year's post, and I ultimately decided for it. I am making no promises on how good it is.

I started this blog a year ago as an "extension of my YouTube account". My main resolution for 2013 was to vlog -- and I'd say I did pretty well with it! I recorded vlogs during Katsucon and Otakon (though I skipped Anime USA, aka Chillcon), as well as a bunch of videos with my friends which I have since made private. I don't think I'm at that point yet where I can sit down with my camera at home and just talk. That's what everyone pictures for the word "vlogging". I'd love to start, eventually, but I think there are still some things I need to improve on before I can vlog in a "traditional" sense.

I also wanted to become better at cosplay and blog more. The cosplay thing is still up in the air -- it's not like there's any point where you can say "I'm perfect at cosplaying and there's no way I can improve". Even if my cosplays haven't improved, I can say I'm more confident with my cosplays. At first cosplaying was a little nerve-wracking, but by Anime USA I could say I was completely at ease while riding the Metro in a green wig with lines drawn all over my face and wearing a hoodie with a Cheshire cat-like face painted on it. Going to cons and cosplaying has definitely improved my self-confidence, and I hope that will continue even further in 2014. I did okay with blogging this year but I definitely could have done better.

A smaller resolution I made for this year was to record good things that happened every day. I found the inspiration through tumblr -- the idea was to write something good that happened on a slip of paper and put it into a jar or container, and then at the end of the year open it up and see how many positive things happened over the course of the year. I decided to do it in a more organized way and on a daily basis:

I'm really glad I decided to start the journal, because it's a good way for me to look back and figure out what I did each day without having to blog about it. Some of the entries aren't very long, and there are a lot of repeats, but I have managed to find at least a small good thing about every day this year. It's a really positive way to keep track of the year! I'd totally recommend it (or some other similar version) to try during 2014. 

For 2014, I think I'm going to keep the same resolutions. They're still things I want to work on, and there's no reason to change something that's working. I'd also like to add:

• keeping my room better organized because I absolutely sucked at that this year
• eating a little healthier because I tend to eat all of the unhealthy food in the house first
• not being so lazy because I'm sure I can accomplish a lot more in 2014 if I just suck it up and do something instead of sitting around on tumblr all day

Anyway, I think that 2013 turned out really well for me, and I hope 2014 is even more so. 

Books I've Read -- Dec.

I keep telling myself I'm going to keep up with these posts as I read the books, and then I push writing it off until the end of the month.

The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, finished 12/5. The Awakening kind of ... fell flat for me. I mean, the first book did too for the most part, but I was at least somewhat interested in what was going to happen next. I don't want to say The Awakening fell into a cliche, because I can't exactly pinpoint it, but it wasn't exactly new and exciting for me. I guess there's a re-occurring theme regarding the supernatural and the bad guys trying to capture and lie to the kids. However I am still in the minority for this and at least one of the book bloggers I follow really enjoyed it. And really, it's not a horrible book, it's just not a totally interesting one for me. I'm probably not going to finish the series.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, finished 12/17. (Ironically, this book has the same Goodreads rating as The Awakening.) Most of my friends starting reading this series back in middle school. I didn't. I had no idea what to pick up from the library (AGAIN), and then one of my friends pointed out the series. So I decided to give it a try. And I'm glad! I really liked The Lightning Thief. It kind of reminded me of the few episodes I've seen of American Dragon: Jake Long because they both deal with mythology, but of course they're totally different mediums and focus on different aspects. I liked the narration and how things were explained -- I have almost no background knowledge on Greek mythology. Anyway, I'm hoping to pick up the second book as soon as I can get my hands on a copy of it.

Asunder by Jodi Meadows, finished 12/20. I didn't plan on reading Asunder, but I just needed to have a book in my hands. I thought Incarnate was just okay -- not great, but not terrible, either. I liked how Incarnate was something new for me with the concepts of reincarnation. I read it over a year ago, so I really can't talk much about that. However, I didn't like how Asunder focused so much on the romance. (Incarnate probably did that too, and I just don't remember.) I felt like there was a lot of action that could've been happening, but a lot of the book was just focused on Ana's (as well as some other characters') seemingly mixed feelings for Sam. So, if you start Asunder looking for romance book, then you might enjoy it. I apparently just don't like romance books.

I'm posting this a little bit early because I don't think I'll finish my library books by the time the month ends. I picked books off the shelf at random and I'm having a hard time focusing on the words when I could be on tumblr instead...

Otakon Vlog Reflections

My photography teacher is always telling us to write reflections about how our assignments turned out so we can figure out where we went wrong and how we might be able to fix it in the future. As I'm going through and finishing the last half of my Otakon 2013 vlogs, I'm noticing some problems, and I figured I could talk about it! I'm at a loss for what to blog about right now.

I recorded my Otakon videos with a new camcorder I had bought this spring. I had recorded my Katsucon videos with my digital camera, but I wanted something that would take "better" video, as well as avoid having to switch between the photo / video options. Unfortunately, the camcorder is bulkier than my digital camera, and because of that I didn't use it as much as I probably would have with the digital camera. I'm still trying to find settings on the camcorder that work for me, but as of right now I haven't found how to make the quality better without making everything on my computer run slow while trying to use that footage.

It was also harder to get things in the frame while recording with the camcorder. It had a hand strap, but that made it hard to turn the camera around to my face. The camcorder is also heavier than the digital camera so I had trouble holding it up high enough while I was recording. I ended up cutting off my friends' faces a lot...

My camcorder does have a better zoom to it and doesn't have dust in the lens (as of yet) like my digital camera does. It can also take pictures while you're recording, and often takes them automatically every few minutes, though those usually aren't the best. (All of them somehow made us look bad ...)

This point isn't related to the camera issue, but with time management of sorts. I didn't really vlog while we were doing things. A majority of the video I have is while we're sitting down and resting between going to panels or Artist Alley / Dealer's and photoshoots. I'm not sure how much of this could be avoided, because I know at least Anime USA had a policy against photo / video recording in their Dealer's Hall last year. I'll have to look into that for Katsucon.

So, ways that I can improve for Katsucon 2014:

• Aim -- getting everything in the shot is good
• Vlogging more -- hopefully not just when we're sitting down and resting. I'd love to get more "action" video, or at least give a recap of what I did. 
• Content -- more talking! I need to get better at talking while I'm vlogging. 

Of course, I'll probably come up with more later, especially as it gets closer to Valentine's weekend. I'm already excited for Katsucon and it's still about two months off! I'm not sure how I'm going to bide my time until then. 

Williamsburg VA

The weekend of Nov 15 - 17, I went with my family down to Williamsburg! It was a week-long stay for my parents' anniversary, but my grandparents and I also went down for the weekend.

This post is really photo-heavy, so read more cut:

Results of NaNo

I can't believe it's December already! November kind of went by in a blur since I was trying to win NaNo. And I did! My final word count was 70, 415 words.

Once I hit 50,000 words on the 20th, I kind of lost motivation. I validated my word count a few days later and it jumped about 100 words. Then, at 8pm on the 30th, I decided I wanted to get up to 70k. Which meant writing it in four hours. And I did it in three and a half. I'm so amazed at how much I was able to write in that amount of time -- and it also left me pretty mentally tired. I can promise you about 98% of what I wrote on the 30th was crap. 

However, that rush on the last day helped me come up with a better plot for when I re-write my novel. The last scene I wrote introduced a new character on a whim and I decided that I want to continue with that rather than just let that scene go. 

Also, based on the amount of scenes I wrote on just two of the characters, I've decided to make my novel focus more on them. They're fun to write and I usually imagine scenarios or conversations between them when I should be paying attention to class. (It's more fun, anyway.) 

TL; DR I won NaNo for the first time and I'm so proud of how much I accomplished. 

Attempts at Fashion

I'm really bad at dressing up. In fact, any time I'm required to "dress nice", it turns into a fiasco. Being a girl means all of my "nice clothes" involve skirts or dresses -- neither of which I really like. I never really sit very ladylike, and that obviously does not mix well with skirts. That said, I've been working a little bit to improve my wardrobe so I'm not always wearing jeans and a graphic tee.

I wore this to go see Frozen on Nov 27! It was the only clean outfit I had;; It was really cute, but it was snowing when we walked out of the theater, and I wasn't prepared for the cold weather! D:

I wore this to our Thanksgiving dinner. It was kind of formal, and I ended up changing at least four times before we left the house. I'm really bad with finding things that match. I really like the skirt!

I'm hoping to go shopping for more winter-friendly outfits soon that look as cute as these. Wish me luck! 

(I experimented a lot with the HTML format of the post -- I'm really grateful for codecademy! And the sites Google gives me when I search how to put text and images side by side.)

Books I've read -- Oct. & Nov.

I'm just going to skip all of the books I've read between May and September. I don't remember enough of them to give more than vague descriptions.

Anyway, here's a read-more cut:

Artemis Fowl series

Instead of posting about the books I've read in the past four months (I don't remember enough of them to give good reviews), I'm going to write about the books I've read recently!

I first read the Artemis Fowl books back in elementary school. I first encountered it through my cousin, who was really into the series at the time. I don't think I read them in order though;; And neither did she. We had a copy of the first book up at our great-grandparents' house one time and I sat down and cracked the code that ran along the bottom of the book. It was fun! It was kind of hard but it was a good kind of challenge. (The messages along the bottom of the book weren't all that interesting, though.) Anyway, I checked out the first book today for the first time in years and I'm going to see if I can do it again :)

If you don't know, the Artemis Fowl series is about a boy genius (Artemis), his butler (aka Butler, I'm not kidding), and how they get wrapped up in all sorts of mythological stuff. The series starts out with Artemis kidnapping a fairy for a ransom. And he's 12. Amazing, right? It only gets better from there.

This whole "revival" of sorts for me was out of desperation. I needed a book to read from the library but I couldn't find one that interested me enough -- I've read through most of the books in our school library that fall into categories that interest me. I was running out of time to pick, so I went and grabbed Time Paradox because I knew I liked the series. I don't think I had read it before. It was a little confusing at first to jump into the series mid-way after so long, but luckily it wasn't that difficult to get caught up.

After Time Paradox, I read The Atlantis Complex and The Last Guardian. I have to say that they were super interesting as a continuation of a book series I'd read when I was younger. It was so cool to see how Artemis had developed over the course of the series, or even between what I remembered from the first few books and what I was reading.

The end of the series was also really surprising! It was kind of sad to think that there wouldn't be more books, but I'm also happy with how the ending was written. I think it was better than Allegiant, even though you could draw similarities between both of them.

I also had to go back and fix my headcanons for the series. I know that I found the comic book so against what I had pictured in my own head that I wouldn't read them. (I want to go back and read them now, but I'm not sure where to find them OTL) I always seem to forget that Holly is supposed to have really short hair, among other things.

On an unrelated note, I ended up solving those puzzle games Cracker Barrel has at every table because I had just finished The Last Guardian and wanted to prove I could be even half as smart as Artemis. It definitely took a few tries to get it, but I actually did win once!

TL;DR I really liked reading the Artemis Fowl series and I hope I'm going to enjoy it just as much while re-reading it.

NaNoWriMo 2013

National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNo) is a fun challenge: write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. The goal is to write about 1,667 words a day to reach 50k by the 30th.

This is my third year attempting it -- the previous two didn't go so well;; However, I used those to figure out what I did wrong and how I could fix it. As of the 17th, I had 42,186 words! It's definitely going much better. A lot of that is because I went ahead and planned my novel (Aperture) throughout September and October. "Pantsing" is actually pretty hard! I always lost motivation. It helps that I have computer access this year, too.

NaNo is super fun, especially when you have writing buddies! My school has a NaNo Club so we meet on Mondays at lunch (aka today) and talk about writing, or even whatever else we want to. It can be pretty hard once the new excitement wears off, but I think the bragging rights of completion is cool. I've been working super hard this November because of a challenge Marissa Meyer proposed -- you can win prizes if you write more than her. It's also a lot easier to write more than needed when you're working towards a goal.

Word counts so far! It's so fun to watch it go up :) 

I'm definitely working more on Aperture than I would have without the pressure of reaching word count (and beating Marissa Meyer), which is nice! I made sure not to write any scenes of the story before the month started so I wouldn't run out of scenes, but at this point I'm running a little low on ideas. And that can actually be a good thing -- while the scenes I'm writing are pretty bad, I'm learning more about the characters and they're growing even more than they have during the planning stages.

I've also been asked if I'm going to publish them, as a book or online. I was originally going to update my work every day on tumblr, but I didn't have internet access the first weekend of the month, and there was also concern that the official word count would raise a flag if it found a copy of it on the internet. I probably won't publish it as a book. That's a lot of stress and extra work I'd rather not go through. I'll go back and fix it up, and then post it by chapters / scenes onto tumblr. It's something I'm doing for fun, so I don't want to "taint" that with the effort of trying to make money off of it.

Anyway, I'll try to remember to post about the outcome of NaNo in December!

Alaska Trip Photos pt. 2

Here are the photos from my iPod: 

Alaska Trip Photos

I wanted to upload my photos from our trip to Alaska to a site that I could access from school -- the ones taken with my iPod are mostly on tumblr, but sadly our network blocks the site though I agree with the block. So here's everything I have. Jump break because there are a ton of photos:

5.21 updates

I had a few posts planned out in my head, and of course I totally forgot them by the time I sat down to actually write them. Go figure. So I'm just going to talk about a few things that are on my mind and hope that suffices.

So within the past week or so, I've recorded a lot of video. About two hours based on my really rough calculation. Theoretically good, right? I have stuff to put into videos and make them interesting. But all this video is bothering me and is more of a hindrance than anything. I use my vlogs as a way to remember things, but since I'm posting them on YouTube I also want them to be interesting. And I try to trim them down in order to keep my own attention, since I tend to have a hard time re-watching my own videos during the editing process. The problem is finding the line between keeping things interesting and making the video really disjointed in order to get it to a reasonable time. I'm afraid of making things confusing by cutting out parts of conversations, but they're also not all that interesting to watch... So yeah big dilemma there.

Saturday, Chris and I went on a "hike" in a nearby ... park? Nature reserve? Big wooded area with trails. I took over an hour of video, keeping the camera running almost the entire time we were in the woods. Mainly because I was scared of what would happen if I turned it off. (I do not like being that isolated, and there were deer and probably tons of other animals out there.) But how do I cut that down to something anybody can sit through? That's a lot. ＿ﾉ乙(､ﾝ､)_     And I don't look all that good in some of the video I recorded on Sunday, so I'm cutting that part out too. If I can ever cut last Tuesday's video to under five minutes.
--> TL; DR The more video I have to edit into vlogs, the less I want to do any of it.

On another note, I also decided on a Chimecho gijinka for Otakon. It might be a little difficult (and kind of expensive, considering) but I'm excited for it because Chimecho is one of my favorite pokemon and is an essential on my team in two games.

School ends in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to the summer. I'm still hoping to do the "no Internet for (x amount of time)" project, and also doing vlogs where I sit down with a non-moving camera and talk at it about whatever topic I can find. Easier to edit because background isn't moving. And also I'm going to find a way to sell most of my manga, trade them with someone, or stick them in a tumblr giveaway. Because I could really use the shelf space for something more useful. Like my growing collection of Happy Meal toys.

5.9 Cosplay Plans

Let me make a post about cosplay! So I can organize my thoughts.

I'm still trying to figure out what my cosplays are for Otakon. I know I want to cosplay a Flareon gijinka, but other than that I don't really have any ideas. The main problem is the weather -- it's going to be super hot in Baltimore in the middle of August. So I'm wary of any cosplays that are a considerable amount of clothes. And it kind of rules out the cosplays I already have.

I just realized I could easily do an Ash Ketchum cosplay easily if I get guy's shorts instead of jeans and maybe go for a black tank top instead of a t-shirt.

Ok so that's two cosplays. I can't think of any more that are fairly easy. Oh well. I'm planning to make a skirt for Flareon, which is going to be my first time fully making an article of clothing. Usually I just buy something and modify it. It shouldn't be all that hard, but I also need to make (or find) shorts to wear underneath it. Or I could try making shorts instead of a skirt. Plaid shorts, though? Maybe I can find some at a thrift store.

This post was kind of pointless because I didn't accomplish much. But my tentative cosplays for Otakon are:

• Flareon gijinka
• Ash Ketchum (slightly modified so I don't die of heatstroke)

Books I've Read -- April

So I'm trying something a little different this time. Instead of updating a blog post each time I finish a book, I took notes in a little notebook and I'm going to try and write all of my reviews based on what I wrote. Hopefully this'll still make sense.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, finished 4/2. I have a strange relationship with the HP books. Many of the people I know love and followed the books and movies as they came out, but I've avoided them for the most part until recently. And I like the series, but it's not a favorite. I can see why people love it to bits. I've also seen bits and pieces of the movies and understand some of the scenes from what I've caught on tumblr or family watching the movie, so I anticipate what's coming up and it's not as fun for me to read.
--> TL; DR I like Chamber of Secrets but I finished it mainly to have something to do during a long car ride.

Where She Went by Gayle Forman, finished 4/9. WSW is a good continuation of If I Stay. Both are written with more reflection than action, which works better for If I Stay than Where She Went. Adam tended to split up the action, and it made it hard to read in more than one shot (because it's hard to read during class but I do it anyway). It actually gave me a lot of feels, too, because they had so much they wanted to say to each other but neither of them really wanted to take that leap of faith. The ending was perfect, though.
--> TL; DR Lots of mushy romance.

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint, finished 4/10. I checked it out on a whim from school because it stood out from the books it was near and had a pretty interesting summary. And I liked it. It's not entirely plausible, but it still worked nicely. (And I think it also segued my fall into the Danny Phantom fandom OTL) The character relationships worked really well together, although maybe a little too much? Everything tied up nicely in the end, which is nice, but it's also a pretty definitive end to everything.
--> TL; DR This is the kind of stuff I daydream about.

Princesses of Iowa by M. Molly Backes, finished 4/15. I loved the realistic aspect of Princesses of Iowa. The narration sounded like a teenager, the characters sounded like humans (and were totally frustrating), and the characters were multi-dimensional. The characters didn't have this whole life-changing revelation by the end of the book, but that's not really how life works, right? Most people continue being who they are (even if they suck) and then there are a few people that decide to change their life. I also sympathized with Paige even though I probably wouldn't have for a different book.
--> TL; DR "OH MY GOD ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE SUCH JERKS AT SOME POINT" (why did I even write that in my notebook)

Famous by Todd Strasser, finished 4/16.  Famous is a quick read -- I finished it in a day. And didn't really like it. Lots of character archetypes and general stereotypes, the plot wasn't organized at all and the perspective jumped around a lot, and there wasn't even much change in the characters. Also, the ending could be predicted but also made me think "why would you do that."
--> TL; DR I don't think it was written well.

Breathe by Sarah Crossan, finished 4/18. Breathe kind of fell short of what I expected. The plot seemed to build up strangely, and I also had a hard time differentiating between Alina and Bea for at least the first half of the book. Also, a bunch of things randomly tie together and the plot built up a little strangely. It started out really slow at first, and then sped up quicker than I think it should have. The characters in the book seem to have flawed reasoning.
--> TL; DR I liked the premise but I think it could have been written better.

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison, finished 4/23. I had a hard time with The Butterfly Clues because it's out of my normal genres and I didn't understand Lo's compulsive habits. Lo was a pretty interesting character though, being kind of predictable but also really spontaneous at times. Towards the middle I was really wondering where the story was going. The end was surprising for me, though.
--> TL; DR You'd probably like it more if you like thriller / suspense books.

Ask The Passengers by A.S. King, finished 4/25. I'm not sure how to review this. I really liked it, but I also want to talk about my issues with the characters. I liked the narration and how the "sending love to airplanes" worked, but the other characters were pushy and mean and Astrid didn't do anything about it. I wished she stood up for herself more, although I can see why she would be scared to.
--> TL; DR It's cute but the characters tick me off some.

Jars of Glass by Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler, finished 4/29. I have to admit I picked the book because of the title and cover. And I don't regret that. The book is kind of depressing, or at least sad. There are things that aren't explained well or only hinted at until close to the end. It'd be nice to know earlier in the story but it also adds to the plot so I'm not sure what I think about it.
--> TL; DR Not a pick-me-up, but still interesting.

I did it! They probably kind of suck, though. My eloquence needs improvement.

Cleaning My Room

I have a tendency to let crap in my room build up until it's hard to do anything in my room because you have to step over / search through / avoid piles of stuff everywhere. So the other day I got off early from work and decided to tackle the mess I call mi dormitorio.

Before

I also found a bunch of college letters.

A Pokemon card was the closest thing I had to a ruler. Shhh.

After

My dresser ended up a little more cluttered because I have a bunch of stuff to put there and not much space to use. 

But yeah! My room is a lot nicer and more usable now. 

4.20 Shopping

Mom and I went to a community yard sale and a huge book sale today. I got a peacoat, 403 Pokemon cards (assuming the seller counted them correctly), 3 Pokemon books, a Pokemon RBY game guide, a Pokemon VHS, 3 Peter Pan-related books, a Japanese grammar book, a Stravaganza book, The Secret Garden, 2 Sailor Moon movie VHS, and Sky High on DVD. 

All of this for under $30. 

This was the second time we did this -- the first time was a year ago. I don't remember if both were on the same day or not. Anyway, the yard sale was interesting. I was resigned to not buying anything until Mom pointed out the coat. I wasn't going to get it, but then I found a dollar on the ground. Fate. So I went and bought the coat. And they were also selling the Pokemon cards, so I bought those. I'm really happy about that because I got Lugia, Mewtwo, and Celebi cards (which are rare) for $2. The other 400 cards were $4, which is amazing because I could've gotten a booster pack with 10 cards from Target for about the same price. Most of them were cards I already have or have ones similar to, but there were 31 cards I needed. That doesn't seem like it doesn't recuperate the costs much, but it does considering how much new cards cost. 

The book sale was fun. It's really big and it covers three school gyms. One of them was mostly children's books. So I spent most of my time in there. There was a mom and her son who were looking for Pokemon and Magic Tree House books, so I handed them the ones I could find. Both of them seemed really happy about that. The son also misplaced a toy and I was able to give it back to them. So that was nice. I'm really happy that I found the books I did. And that I found Sky High. I've been wanting to re-watch it for a while, since I've only seen it once in theaters, but I don't like "cheating" by watching it on the internet. It's still shrink wrapped too. 

As of now I'm going to try and save my money. I'm tempted to buy the Animal Crossing 3DS in a few months, but I also would like a new camera / camcorder and possibly an external hard drive, and also to save up for Otakon. And that's obviously not all possible at the same time. If I save all my money it's more feasible, I think. 

Matryoshka Hoodie How-to

For once I remembered to document the steps I took in making a cosplay! Surprise! This is for the face on the hood of my Matryoshka Gumi hoodie. Only one side is painted, but that's enough for a tutorial, right? I used this one from deviantart when painting my yellow Matryoshka hoodie, but for the red one I went from memory.

Materials: white and black paint, a small paintbrush and a wider paintbrush.
--> Note: I used acrylic paint. It works, but the face on my yellow hoodie is starting to crack a little. I don't really like fabric paint but that's probably a better idea.

First, I painted the white circle for the eye and the black crescent for the mouth. I think I free-handed this one, but it's a good idea to trace the pattern on in pencil. 

Then I added another layer of paint to make it darker. 

Then I added in the details. This is after one more layer of paint. The eye looks pretty good, but obviously it takes a few layers to make the teeth look nice. 

I think this is a couple more layers of paint. Not sure how many. 

But anyway, it's fairly easy to make! Just a little tedious because it requires more than one layer of paint and waiting for paint to dry can be agonizing. For me, at least.

Books I've Read -- March

More of the books I've blown through read when there were other things I should have been doing!

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr, finished 3/1. This book is pretty realistic. It's not like that "one issue at a time" kind of thing. Everything just kinda blew up and Sam had to deal with it, much on her own. Which was more sad stuff than I really like handling in a book. (Ironic, really.) There's not really much else I have to say about it.
--> TL; DR Kinda sad but also somewhat eye-opening?

Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman, finished 3/2. I knew about Hacking Harvard for a few years; I avoided it because it was in the hands of a kid I didn't like. Petty, I know. But I wasn't really missing much. Hacking Harvard actually bugged me. It wasn't very believable (although I've overlooked that before, so no huge deal) and then at one point the perspective switched from third to first person and I got mad and wanted to throw the book. It was pretty uncalled for and I dunno, I just had problems with the book.
--> TL;DR I did not like.

Endure by Carrie Jones, finished 3/4. I liked the Need series. It was pretty cool. I have memories reading one of the books (I'm gonna guess Need) during a vacation, so it always had a pretty nice connotation in my head. Zara was also a nice character; she was good to a fault, and I liked that. She put others before herself and even though things screwed up she was willing to go through the effort to fix it. The love triangle is kind of iffy, although interesting. In Endure especially.
--> TL; DR I liked it but I may be a little biased.

The Story of Us by Deb Caletti, finished 3/9. Reading TSoU after a bunch of depressing books was actually a really good idea. It's fluffy but in a very good way. I could talk about how much that made me like it, but there'd be some major spoilers so I'll just leave it at this. The dynamic of Cricket's extended family also reminded me of my own. So there was that aspect of things being faintly familiar. Oh, and I also liked how it only showed Cricket's side of the emails. It bugged me a little bit at first, but then I realized it's actually kind of nice, in the sense that you're allowed to infer things.
--> TL; DR A very nice kind of fluffy.

Fox and Phoenix by Beth Bernobich, finished 3/10. Fox and Phoenix kind of fell flat for me. A lot of things weren't explained (like how did Kai even meet Lian? And anybody care to explain their "street rat" background?) and that really bothered me. Some stories can throw you into the plot and explain later, but Fox and Phoenix didn't even try that much to explain. There is apparently a short story prequel that explains it, but that would've been nice to know before reading...
--> TL; DR If the book is a sequel / continuation of something, tell me, dangit!

City of Swords by Mary Hoffman, finished 3/11. Let me start this off by saying I am completely biased: I love the Stravaganza series and I've been wanting this book since my birthday (when it was published) so to find it six months later in the library made it the best book out of the trip. Anyway, I loved City of Swords. There are a few things that can be irking, like the beginning or some of the details, but the book is also more marketed towards kids, which excuses them in my mind. I like all of the action and the potential "all hell breaking loose" stakes. And yes, as the 6th book in the series it's a little bit repetitive of the other ones, but again: it's a kid's book. Also, there were things related to recent news (but I won't spoil them), as well as my own life. And I liked that at some points there were lines that screamed to me that something was going to happen and then something else did instead.
--> TL;DR I LOVED. Although I am biased.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, finished 3/12. AatFK has been sitting on the top of my goodreads to-read list since I made the account. Only on the account that it was one of the books I could've read for summer homework for English class (although I picked The Adoration of Jenna Fox instead). So finally I decided to deprive it of its #1 spot. And it falls along the same line of The Story of Us: very fluffy, but following some depressing books and reader's block it was a very nice way to recover. It was my school book so it took me longer to read than otherwise. The same thing seems to happen a few times, though. Love triangle, friendship problems, school sucking, such things.
--> TL; DR Good for if you need a fluffy romantic book with little plot and lots of romantic mushy stuff.


Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George, no exact finish day. I picked Princess of Glass from the library simply to have something to read. I didn't really like Princess of the Midnight Ball. (On an unrelated note, both books had sand in the library dust jackets. I thought it was glitter as part of the book cover until someone pointed out it was sand.) Glass was better than Midnight Ball for me, although I'm not entirely sure why. I didn't even realize it was supposed to be a retelling of Cinderella until about halfway through the book -- I guess that's just because I'm used to the Disney version. It was a pretty good deviation from what I was expecting. It just kind of... lacked a "wow" factor for me.
--> TL;DR It was ok.

Matched by Ally Condie, finished 3/14. I'd been looking forward to reading Matched for a while, and it sat pretty high up on my to-read list until I was able to find a copy at my school library. And it kind of fell short. I liked it at first; I liked how the background details to the story were set up. However, they're very similar to The Giver. Almost identical. So by establishing that within the first chapter or so, I knew how their society worked. That's not a good thing, though -- why would you want a book that is extremely similar to another, more well-known one? The characters were pretty flat, and while they did grow and get better over the story, they were still kind of boring. And there's that "obligatory love triangle" going on. And there wasn't any action. The entire plot revolved around the love story.
--> TL;DR The Giver with a teenage girl and a love triangle. Did not like.

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke, finished 3/20. Not really sure what I was looking forward to reading in this book. I checked it out because it was on my to-read list. And even at that point, I thought "this doesn't look like something I'd add," but I needed books to read. Whatever small expectations I did have, they were thrown out the window. TAC to me was very far from the goodreads description. I probably wouldn't have finished it if I wasn't desperate for books to read. It seemed all over the place for me -- maybe because I didn't understand the setting or culture, but also because the action jumped from one thing to another pretty suddenly. A lot of people on goodreads seemed to like the book; I was one of the ones that didn't.
--> TL;DR I was confused through most of the book while reading it.

Shades of Earth by Beth Revis, finished 3/22. My ratings for the Across the Universe series has gotten better as the books progressed -- Shades of Earth being my favorite. The first two books were very depressing for me, because I felt really bad for Amy. And some of the shipborns drove me crazy. The series definitely went out with a bang. I can't go into detail without spoiling, but those plot twists, man. I actually asked my friend to spoil some for me because I needed to know what was going on. I think what made SoE my favorite was that there were all these "lol nope, whatever you were thinking about this situation was WRONG" moments. When I got to the end of the book I really wanted to throw it, but in a good way, if that makes sense. The last few plot twists hit me so hard it solidified itself as my favorite in the series.
--> TL;DR Read the first two books before this one so things make sense, but SoE was awesome.

Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King and E. Aster Bunnymund and the Battle of the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core by William Joyce, both finished 3/31. These books are totally out of my reading level, I know. The age range on the cover is 7 - 11 years old. But I loved the movie Rise of the Guardians, so I wanted to read the books that it was based off of. And they were so incredibly cute! The stories are so creative and interesting. They're very different from the RotG movie but it does add some good insight. I haven't had time to sit down and read Toothiana's book yet.
--> TL;DR If you liked Rise of the Guardians, READ THESE.

I really need to post these on time.

4.7 Update

Sorry! It's been a really long time since I posted. I've been pretty busy recently, and never had the time or attention span to sit down and write something. (Remind me to update my tumblr as well.) But I have a few touches to add to my BIR March, as well as at least two posts regarding cosplay. I'll be at the DC Cherry Blossom Parade and Street Festival on Saturday. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures. And if everything goes well I should have more posts up this week.

Books I've Read -- Feb.

Welcome to a new blog series I started! (Wow that sounds bad;; ) Anyway I have a hard time keeping track of the books I read since there are so many, so trying to write reviews is an attempt to make that better. And to get my thoughts out. I tried to write the reviews that I'd like to check before reading the books, because I also don't want things to be spoiled for me before I get to the end. That being said, I tried to keep things spoiler-free but if you would rather be on the safe side, stick to the TL;DR's. Anyway, enjoy!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia, finished 2/4. So I had conflicting feelings about the book at first. I saw the trailer while on vacation, learned the movie was coming out soon, and checked it out from my school library. Most of my friends that had already read it gave it good reviews (except for one, but she's an oddball anyway.) I was pre-warned about the romance, which really isn't my sort of thing. Anyway! I felt like the book took a long time to get really interesting -- the first half is pretty much the boy being "omg I love the new girl" and everyone else is like "no you don't get it that's a really bad idea you're gonna get everyone killed" and he's still like "but I love you!" -- Every time someone asked what Beautiful Creatures was about, I said that. No lie. But after the middle things did pick up and the ending was actually pretty interesting, even though it was kind of a ... "nice" ending? My one friend tried to ruin the book for me while I was about to finish it. I kind of threw a fit at lunch, because she was like "did he die yet?" and I got really mad because I jumped to conclusions until she pointed out the cover says someone dies and she didn't reveal anything.
--> TL;DR it was ok. Kinda long, but the ending was good. Let's see how the movie turns out.

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier, finished 2/4. Ruby Red was in a halfway position between "ok" and "good". I liked it, but it didn't really compare. The characters got on my nerves sometimes and a lot of things weren't explained very well or not fully, especially some of the character's relationships or even the chronograph. The hazy background might be on account of it being part of a trilogy, but more explanation about the Guardians or even Lucy and Paul would've really been nice. And Gideon seemed like he couldn't make up his mind about a few things. I'm not sure whether I'm going to read Sapphire Blue or Emerald Green, either from the "meh" review from a friend or the chance of finding it at the library. If I can find it, sure, but I'm not all that excited to read it anyway.
--> TL;DR I think the pretty cover and the time travel made my expectations too high.

The Obsidian Blade by Pete Hautman, finished 2/6. I saw this book in my school library, and when I saw it at the public library I automatically checked it out. The plot I imagined after reading the cover flap was a lot different than what it actually was, and I was kind of disappointed by that. It reminded me a lot of Interworld, and that book I really only checked out because I found money tucked under the flap. (Since I took it, I felt obligated to at least read the book in return.) The plot of Obsidian Blade ended up getting kind of confusing and once Tucker walked through the portals there was a lot of stuff being introduced and not enough explanation for me.
--> TL;DR I keep trying to convince myself I like sci-fi when I really don't.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman, finished 2/7. I'm not even sure if I entirely thought out what the book was going to be about before I decided to read it. Usually I try to stay away from sad books. When I really started reading the book and thought about it I was afraid that it was going to be really depressing, but I was surprised. It really wasn't. A lot of the book was just her reminiscing. When I got to about the last 15 pages I was panicking because I still didn't have a feel for what she would decide to do in the end, if she would rather be with her immediate family or her boyfriend and her extended family, but I'm happy with how it turned out. It was a small book too and it didn't take me all that long to read.
--> TL;DR I didn't expect to like If I Stay but I did.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, finished 2/11. Same thing as If I Stay; I'm not sure I thought this out all the way. I'm pretty sure the deciding factor was the sparkly cover. It was kind of hard to read the book, because I never had to deal with the feelings Lia had but know people that have with similar problems. During a lot of the book I wanted to say "why aren't you making things better for yourself?" but on the other hand I knew that it wasn't easy to do that. Lia seeing Cassie really bugged me because I didn't know if it was a hallucination from her anorexia, as a reaction to her death, or if it was somehow real in some sense. But I finished the book, so it's obviously not that bad.
--> TL;DR Wintergirls frustrated me but it was still an ok book.

Legend by Marie Lu, finished 2/12. I held back on reading it for a while because for some reason I assumed it was a book in the same league as Twilight in terms of size. So I was really surprised when it wasn't. At first the book was just ok, but then once June and Day met it got really interesting for me. I finished in a day. (Ha. Pun.) There were enough plot twists that it was interesting, but I feel like a few things were almost cliche, like Metias in general. A lot of times I was wondering what the Colonies is like, because the Republic is obviously a country wholly involved in war but the Colonies seem like they aren't. So I'm hoping to learn more about the Colonies in the next books.
--> TL;DR I liked it. Good balance of plot and action in my opinion.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, finished 2/12. THIS BOOK. HOLY COW. I've been waiting for it since reading Cinder back in May, and it didn't disappoint. At all. I bought it 2/2 because who doesn't jump at the chance to buy things early? But I paced myself reading it because I waited to so long and I didn't want to rush through it just to have to wait until Cress next year. So many plot twists, too! And to be honest I didn't see much of the "Little Red Riding Hood" theme until one point where Scarlet, her grandmere, and Wolf were in the same room. At that point I realized how much the book paralleled the story, but at the same time it was an entirely different entity. Scarlet's grandfather and Wolf's background made me go "WHOA" and stop reading for a few moments to just process it. And I never expected to have a sliver of sympathy for Queen Levana, too, even after what she did to Earth. Totally looking forward to Cress now!
--> TL; DR I LOVED IT. TO BITS. BEST $17 EVER SPENT.

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury, finished 2/12. I don't think that date's correct, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, Wrapped was better than I expected when I started. I really liked the fact that Agnes knew so many languages, and even though her determination was kind of irritating because of the decisions she made it's still respectable. She could have taken the easy path and left the whole mystery in other people's hands, or even decide not to tangle herself in the first place, but she didn't and stuck to it even when things got kind of difficult. She didn't even seem to consider giving up. And that's really respectable when the odds were against her in a couple different ways. Her potential fiancee was surprising too, with his courting and then SURPRISE he's not at all who anybody thinks he is. And I liked that she still had feelings for Caedmon even though I feel like someone else in her position would've been like "ew peasant" or something along that line. Because, really, who would willingly give up money and position (aka marrying Showalter) to spend time with a museum boy?
--> TL: DR It was fluffy but not too overly romantic, and the plot was ok too. It's apparently not historically accurate, though.

Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins, finished 2/19. I decided to read this book because I couldn't find any others in the school library that I wanted to read. I didn't even like Hex Hall all that much. And to be honest I don't remember much of the book, since I read 99% of it the week before Katsucon.
--> TL; DR I have no clue why I keep picking books out of this genre, they all bug me with their "supernatural forbidden romance" stuff. Not cool.

Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin, finished 2/20. I'm starting to notice a trend with books that in retrospect look nothing like books I'd usually pick off the library shelves... Anyway! Masque of the Red Death was kind of depressing, though I really should expect nothing less considering it deals with plague. And I really like how Araby didn't fall into the stereotypical love triangle at first, even though it was possible. She didn't just fall head over heels for both boys, but instead was more cautious and actually seemed to think things out about her love?
--> TL; DR It's good as long as you're fine with depressing-ish stuff. And steampunk.

Every Day by David Levithan, finished 2/21. There's not really much I have to say about Every Day. It was good, but to me it was also pretty simple. It's the same stuff happening in slightly different circumstances, if that makes sense. A wakes up in a different place every day and tries his best to meet up with Rhiannon. Sometimes it works, and sometimes A screws things up for the person he's currently in the body of. So that kind of annoyed me, how he broke his own rule in order to put his own needs ahead.
--> TL; DR It's good if you're in the "love at first sight" and "love conquers anything" boats.

Hallowed by Cynthia Hand, finished 2/24. I thought Unearthly was pretty good. The beginning of Hallowed  drove me crazy, though. I didn't like how Clara was blatantly disobeying everything. Her reasoning was to be with Tucker, but to me it seemed like she was doing it just to spite everything. Once there were a couple plot twists, though, I lost my "Clara you're dumb" mentality. It gets kind of sad. Boundless sounds kind of cool too but I don't know when the library will have it.
--> TL; DR If you can stick through at least the first 50 or so pages, I promise it gets better.

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier, finished 2/25. So when I showed my friends Team Human, their response was pretty much "eww Twilight-esque crap." But Team Human really isn't. It's funny. It may not be the best book, but it was amusing to read. And it didn't take too long, either.
--> TL; DR It pokes fun at Twilight (at least I think it's supposed to) and I like it that way.

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund, finished 2/28. I kind of have conflicting feelings about FDStS. (I'm lazy at typing, ok?) And since I finished this book about two weeks ago I don't remember all of what makes me feel that way. I think it was just the characters in general. Elliott and Kai's relationship bugged me because they refused to communicate. The background of the Reduction isn't explained much, either, which I think would have been nice to know other than "we screwed up with genetic modification".
--> TL; DR It's ok but it's not like "oh wow". Just kind of something to read.

(Also this post was scheduled to post 3/1 but it didn't?? And I'm sorry about that.)

Obligatory Katsucon post -- video

This should probably have some sort of formal introduction but I can't think of anything right now;; Anyway, I'm just gonna throw in links to my vlogs from the convention and update this post as they're uploaded to YouTube sometime within the next few weeks.

Teaser video! (Funny, Blogger wouldn't let me choose it through my own videos but once I searched for it, it came right up...)

Katsucon 2013 pt 1: CON TIME

Katsucon 2013 pt 2: Mt Dew Jitters

Katsucon 2013 pt 3: Saturday

Katsucon 2013 pt 4: whut

Katsucon 2013 pt 5: "But Manga!"

Katsuon 2013 pt 6: The End

Thanks for watching my videos! 

Obligatory Katsucon Post -- text

I'm going to break this up into a few different pieces: text, videos, and photos. Because otherwise I think the post would be way too long and unmanageable. This way, if you only want to look at one aspect, you don't have to sift through the other bits.

Let me start this off by saying how much I love Katsucon. Katsu 17 was my first convention, and each year I've gone it's been better. I've practically been looking forward to this year's convention since last year, since I knew it was a definite even if Otakon fell through. I've had a running countdown since probably about September, when katsucon.org still said "200+ days until Katsucon 19". It ran simultaneously with my AUSA countdown. Every time I hear Lights by Ellie Goulding, I can't help but think about all of the awesome videography by acksonl or MLZstudios, which has gotten through post-con depression and boosted my motivation to work on cosplay.

This was the first time I've been to Katsucon all weekend. I think that was what helped make it my favorite. We didn't get to the Gaylord on Friday until sometime in the afternoon, but we stayed until at least 10pm. Saturday we got there earlier and therefore didn't stay as long, and Sunday we left by 3.

I really only cosplayed on Saturday. Friday I wore my fem!Green Oak to school, but the wig was giving me grief and I took it off to replace it with a Gumi wig I bought. Saturday I was trainer!Jack Frost and it was really fun because it was the first time I was asked for pictures, and I was in a little bit of the Pokemon photoshoot. Sunday I wore my Gumi wig along with my yellow Matryoshka hoodie.

I ran into a few people I knew, including my friend Kaylee from tumblr and a girl that sits next to me in Spanish class. I got to meet a lot of my sempais,  including: uberwren, minomotu, dejavudea, the-guardian-of-fun, and missmurrka. It turned me into a bundle of nerves and jitters, but it was totally worth it! Also considering all the ROTG artwork I was able to buy at the con. I spent $400, and a good majority of it went to the Artist Alley. I don't know how much I spent on each specific AA thing, but from the dealer's: $35 Gumi wig, $15 Lapras plushie, $20 grab bag, $16 for two manga, $15 Rilakkuma plushie, and $54 kigurumi.

The only downside to the weekend was the little run-in we had with BBYO, which is in no way as bad as other people had it. Saturday my friend and I took up chairs near the bathrooms at the end of one of their hallways, because we were waiting for my family to come back and park in the garage. The security guards didn't bother us even though we were sitting right in front of them. However, once we exited and tried to come back in they made us turn around and go through the main entrance -- which was a little annoying, considering I was wearing my Jack cosplay and my feet were freezing. We had walked through that hallway when arriving there in the morning and nobody gave us any hassle. They also wouldn't let us through it to the garage that evening, and on the gazebo level they forced us to walk through the crowded Katsu side of the open area even though there was nobody in front of the ballroom on their side and nobody was guarding it on the other side of the gazebo. We ended up getting disoriented on our way out. Other than that, though, I didn't have any problem with the other convention that ran the same time as Katsucon did.

I haven't had any con depression yet, but I think that's because I'm so happy with how Katsucon turned out to be. I have absolutely no regrets. The closest thing I've had to con depression was hating having to go back to school this morning.

Long story short, I had a super awesome time at Katsucon 19! I'll work on the other two posts as soon as I get around to processing the pictures and video I took.

2.18 update

Katsucon ended yesterday, and I've gotta say it was my favorite convention so far. It was my first time going all weekend (the last two times were only for Saturday) and it was tons of fun! I got to meet a lot of my sempais from tumblr and buy a lot of artwork from the Artist Alley. Today I'm processing through the pictures and video that I took over the weekend, so hopefully I can make a "post-Katsu review" within the next few days.

2.3 -- Books I'm Reading

I decided to post here about the books I'm reading as well, along with cosplays and vlog stuff. I kind of have a hard time keeping track of everything that I read;; I'll probably make a monthly post with the books I've read and reviews, but I wanted to make a post with the books I'm currently reading and what I think.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi: I chose the book because of the interesting premise. To be honest, I don't think I noticed the "possible romance" aspect when I checked it out -- I've only read up to the point where Nailer meets the girl, so I don't really know if they really do fall in love or whatever. But I'm having a hard time reading it and I'm not entirely sure why. The writing is really good, but I think it might be the depressing reality of the world and how it could theoretically happen in the future. So if I didn't have a problem with getting upset over reading depressing stuff, I'd probably think the book was great.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer: I was really lucky in finding a copy at B&N on Saturday, considering the publication date is Feb 5. (I'm not really sure what happened there, but who can pass up a chance like that?) I've been waiting for it since I read Cinder back in May. And I've gotta say, it hasn't disappointed at all. Following Meyer's twitter is really a treat, too! It made the wait up to getting the book agonizing but fun at the same time.

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier: I'm not very far into this book, either. I really liked the premise of Ruby Red too, because I really like the concept of time travel. It's good so far, but I have a small issue with how Gwen deals with a problem. (It apparently should go away, based off the goodreads page.) Hopefully it'll be a really good book.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia: I finally decided to check the book out after seeing the trailer for the movie on tv one night. Many of my friends have read it already, with mostly positive reviews. It's a pretty thick book, though, and I only read it in school so it's taken me a lot longer to read than other books. It's an ok book so far. Up until the middle it bothered me because of Ethan's blind stupidity. Past the middle more characters got involved in what was happening so it both picked up and relied less solely on Ethan's decisions.

And those are the books I currently have bookmarks in! Usually I try to limit myself to one school and one public library book, but I started another public book and bought Scarlet, so I got carried away;; Here's my goodreads page if you want to see it. There are links to my read, currently-reading, and to-read shelves on the page.

On another note, I'm hoping to catch up on vlog companions and make another cosplay post. And maybe one on Katsucon if I find enough to write on.

1.27 -- cosplay update

This morning I tried to work with the pants I bought yesterday, but I figured it was too much work than it was worth. I pretty much would have needed to take the entire thing apart at the hems and re-sew it, and even then it wasn't guaranteed that it would work like I hoped. So instead, I went to AC Moore and bought Rit fabric dye in Cocoa Brown and dyed the original pants I bought for Jack.

The color came out better than I expected, so I'm really happy with the results! My hands are stained slightly brown because I was too impatient to track down latex gloves, but it should wash off in a few days. 

We also went to a consignment store today and I tried on a few pants to see if I could avoid using dye (because of the whole turning-my-hands-colors issue.) I took a picture of two I considered, but they were either not the exact color or not the right fit. :L The sweatshirt is my mockup one; I really like wearing it around the house and out places, even if it probably gets some strange looks.

Yeah, my hands look strange. I also painted more frost onto the staff, so it looks a little bit better. And cooler, in my opinion. Hopefully sometime this week I'll work mutilating the pants, and I'm hoping to add glitter to the frost on the sweatshirt. 

1.26 -- cosplay

Today we went to a thrift store and I found better pants for my Jack Frost cosplay, so I decided to compare my cosplay to the mock-up pieces I have. Sorry for the quality, I took all the pictures with my iPod.

The sweatshirt on the right was the first one I tried to make, but the dye didn't work out as well as I hoped so I've been using it as an everyday sweatshirt instead. The one on the left was ordered off Amazon in Royal Blue and turned out a lot better than the first one. 

The pants on the left are corduroy pants I bought from Target when I bought the white sweatshirt (that later turned periwinkle). The darker ones I just bought today. They still need to be modified a lot, though. 

The pants need to be tighter both around the legs and waist, because they're loose on me;; 

My gijinka Audino for a group cosplay from Black Adventures I'm hoping to do with my friends. I was originally going to by a cream-colored dress of some sort, but looking through my closet I realized that I have clothes that work just fine. I like how the pants look, but they're actually for a different cosplay and the skirt is closer to the look I was going for. I also forgot that I bought a white scarf for this cosplay as well;; 

I decided I'm probably going to wear fem!Green Oak to Katsu instead of my Matryoshka outfit. It looks really good, and all I have to worry about is finding shoes for it. The outfit is also entirely re-used, either from buying the pieces second-hand or from cosplays that I'm not using. I tried on the skirt for the heck of it but I don't like how it looked. 

So, my current lineup for Katsu is Jack Frost, gijinka Audino, and fem!Green Oak. None of them are 100% complete in the way that I'd like them to be, but I need to focus on Jack because it's the least done... 

intro

Hi guys! For one of my new year's resolutions, I decided to start vlogging. I'm hoping to use this blog as an extension of my youtube account by writing a commentary to the videos I upload. I don't know how it's going to go, but please bear with me! I'd love to hear feedback if you have any. :)