Summer

   Class is out for the summer! I took a summer course and completed it. Hooray! Now I have until August 25th to fuck around and save money for school stuff.

Going back to school has been one of the most daunting things I've done while living here in CA. 

I haven't been in a classroom since 2007. I'm well into my 20s now (turning 27 soon, gross) and admittedly, deciding to go back to school has been a challenge for me mentally, more than anything. 

When you're somebody who doesn't like to leave the comforts of her room because she fears conversation with strangers or compliments that last more than 7 seconds, going into a new atmosphere like college is horrifying.
I missed out on two semesters because I was scared as fuk to go down there and talk to anyone. I got as far as applying, but then I would have to attend orientation-- and I couldn't bring myself to go. I didn't know where anything would be, I look weird and stick out too much, so being late was just an immediate no or die, I had no idea what the campus was like, or where to park, or where anything was, who to talk to, what buildings were what. I would have to go inside somewhere and ask someone to point me in the direction of something and just.... no. no no no no no no nonoooooooo. NO. I couldn't. The website was.... sort of helpful. Perhaps I was reading into things too much, and wasn't realizing how simple everything could have been-- but it was scary to me.

Finally, once I understood how registering classes worked (via an appointment based on first come first served) I got the only class I was interested in, because the two other classes I needed for my major were filled. Lauren was a huge help through this. She showed me how to navigate through the catalogs and how to look up classes, and professors. How to organize and schedule around what I needed to do. And Fett was the one who kept telling me not to whimp out. I would whine to him when I felt stressed about walking around the campus. The very idea of being there, alone, feeling lost and clueless, destroyed me internally. He would tell me I'd be fine and... he was right. 

He printed out a map of the campus for me, and I went to orientation. This got me priority registration for the Fall semester, and I continued with the summer term for the credits.

Literally this during any free time I had.

Summer class was 4 days a week. It was tough;

Getting up for class at 5AM Monday through Thursday, then going in to work until 10PM, and having your days off to be utilized for study time.... 

We had 2 quizzes every week, and we would go over a chapter every day. The longer chapters took a class and a portion of the following day, but it was very fast paced. This, plus the commute there from where I live is 45 minutes. On a really good morning I can get there in 35-40 minutes. But the drive home was always grueling. BUT.... I did it. and it only motivates me to keep going! It feels really good to be back in school. Thankfully, I have a lot of support, and I don't want to let anyone down-- mostly myself. I want to be a homeowner some day. And have a career. And be able to provide for myself, and maybe my two cats. And drain dead people. And I'd like to retire and go on an ikea shopping spree so that I can make my house look like the houses I build in the Sims 2.

As far as money stuff goes, my work has a tuition reimbursement plan, as well as getting approved for FAFSA, and my parents are helping me. I told them it would be the greatest birthday gift I could ever receive. Thankfully.. I THINK I'll be covered. As long as I take advantage of my work's tuition reimbursement... I'll be okay. 

Fett has been doing little things here and there to keep me feeling... like a person and not a study robot. A few weeks ago he took us to the Merry-Go-Round in Griffith Park again. The first time he brought us here we weren't able to go on it because neither one of us had cash! This time he planned ahead, and for those moments we drove down the winding roads of the park until we dismounted our noble steeds.. I felt at peace. 

There was one evening I remember where I worked, but didn't have class, and had the evening to myself. I had no thing to study for yet, and just melted away into a blissful meh in my tub.

I got groceries and myself myself dinner. Prepared myself a bubble bath, brought in my netbook, set up netflix, grabbed my manga, my food, and just .... meeeehhhhhhhh....
best. feeling. in the world.

F A L L    semester will be a little different. 

I hope... I did the right thing. I'm taking two classes that were pre-requisites until the start of the Fall. Not entirely sure why they changed them, but the new pre-requisites require pre-requisites, which I had no idea about. This is something I will have to talk to a counselor about, and plea my case. It's not like I have all the time and money in the world to take every class I need ever, so hopefully this will still get me into my program. 

Everyone's at San Diego Comic Con this weekend. Jeez. Even my boss! haha.

Oh and for fun.. sometimes I like to sing when I'm happy. I have a massive range. It's a little weird because my voice is so... high pitched naturally. So, I recorded a verse from "Once upon a dream", in the fashion and key that Lana Del Ray sang it! 

My squee at the end gets cut off :( but this day I was really happy ^_^

And and and.... 

Yesterday I went out to lunch with Ponies. I haven't seen him in a while, and my school is sort of close to where he works, so we met up at Veggie Grill and chatted and stuff. 

Ponies, she says hi. :3

And then last night Fett treated us to dinner at a gorgeous restaraunt in Beverly Hills called Il Cielo.

The funny thing is that before him, romantic dates and dinners, or chivalrous trips and scenic spots were just not a reality. And I was content with that because I had no clue what that was like. 

Fett has spoiled me, and I think he especially enjoys it because it's like dragging an illiterate 4 year old child through Toon Town every time he does.  This was in honor of my going back to school and finishing my class for the first time in ... 7 years. 

 He made reservations for us.
We got there and they did the fancy valet parking thing that I still think is incredibly nuts. I didn't grow up with that so... someone else taking your car and parking it for you is just... outlandish to me lol. I feel like a slave driver when the attendant opens the door for me.

 We were seated in the patio area. It was illuminated with hundreds of little lights accenting the vines that completely covered all of the walls. The tables were all lit by pretty little dim candles and set with wine glasses. We were super fancy and drank water.

 Eventually he went with the Bass, and I went with the clam linguini. I love me some seafood! ^^

 Our waiter was awesome. He brought over Fett's plate. The whole fish kinda threw me off a little, I wasn't expecting it to be so... whole.

But he literally deboned it right in front of us. It was a whole little ... thing they do. Was kind of impressive.

 You can see the fish on his plate here after it was deboned.

 They also served black metal fish.

 Dessert was soooo good!!

He went with the La Passione and I picked Panna Cotta

 Those things that are sticking out of the pudding are rose petals coated in sugar.

We ate rose petals. 

Rose petals. because nothing else in the world would be more romantic than eating fucking rose petals.

With vanilla bean pudding.

It went really well together surprisingly. Who the hell thinks up of this shit?

It was a lovely dinner. ^_^

And then last night we went back to his place and went for a swim in his pool. :D

Life is gurd. but watch it make a nasty turn for the worse just because .... I always anticipate bad things to happen when my life is going well. That's certainly something that never disappoints, ha. 

This weekend I'm going to meet up with a photographer friend to do a thing. And then Fett and I are doing things next week. Yay for planning stuff out! 

The more stuff I have going on the less attractive spontaneity is to me. YAY :D

kay. I go.

Sleepies. 

kbye.

Anime Expo 2014

  There's a massive pile of clean laundry on my bed that has been untouched for 3 days.

Guess what I'm doing instead?

Yuh. I'm here, writing. About Anime Expo.
Was gonna get cereal, but that's fine. I'll starve. It's okay.

SO.

Hey guise!

Where do we begin?
Anime Expo is a 4 day event, starting on Thursday and bleeding into Sunday, gradually becoming less saturated. This is a massive con. It's probably one of my favorites, with Comikaze being my first.

Last year I had the awesome opportunity to accompany Lauren to Anime Expo and was guided through the other end of the spectrum-- the industry side. There, she introduced me to many of her colleagues, invited me to post con industry thingies, and wouldn't ya know it, I even got a kiss from Vic Mignona. I got it strictly on Eric Vale's behalf, though. It was the right thing to do.

THIS year, I was there with Fett, wandering the halls like awkward nomads like pros.
We attended Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this year. Only this year the lines were incredibly dumb.
They were incredibly dumb because attendance was 80k. Last year it was 60k.

We totally didn't get our badges prior to the con. We just showed up and waited in the pre-registration line for like an hour and a half to get in. Saw lots of neat cosplay though. Also, very awkward.

F R I D A Y | -  d a y  II

We got there around noon and found parking-- luckily!
It was here that Fett transformed into Tingle. I envy him so much for how little time his character requires. He got into his suit, and I did his make up.
Fett was in cosplay- I was not.
The lines weren't labeled very well because of all the people the staff had to organize, but eventually we figured it out. A staff member directed us to the pre-registration line with a simple "by the 3 palm trees"

We waited in line, and finally got in around 2:15.

My cosplay at Comikaze proved to be a bit of a hassle to maneuver around with because of the length of the gown, so I opted to wear it just one day for this event. 

We didn't necessarily do anything in particular, other than wander around and get stopped a lot because of Fett's cosplay.

This was us on Friday.

We ran into the issue of where to get food. As some of you may have read, a thing that I look forward to at cons is the mexican taco stand. For SOME ungodly reason, there wasn't one there this year. They also did away with the Starbucks stand and replaced it with some hippy coffee shit. This threw me off like you wouldn't believe, lol. Eventually I settled for chicken strips and fries.

 You guise remember Mr. Flower?!

He was there too! In a mask, of course. What else? haha

It was good to run into him! I'm sure I'll also see him again during HHN when Lauren and I go back :D

 Friday, as well as Saturday, we spent the majority of our time in the halls where most cosplayers were hanging out. Not so much on the vendor floor. We'd stop in there for maybe a quick stroll then quickly find ourselves back in the South Hall. 

One of the things I really enjoy about cons is seeing the cosplay and creative designs people come up with to manifest their favorite characters. A doubly cool thing is that Fett is the same way. We'll go for the experience, which for us personally is seeing all the different types of cosplay.. and maybe some loot, but mostly for the cosplay.

 I love her. She makes the best, most accurate Snow White.

 SO. GOOD.

 D'awwww it's Kent :B

We always run into each other ^_^

 So many ladies wanted selfies with Tingle! haha :P

 Chel was there with Anthony! 

Remember at Long Beach Comic Expo I posted a photo of a Big Daddy and a Little Sister? That was them :3 This time they came as Elizabeth with a Song Bird. I was like ommmmmghaaad.

 IT'S. SONGBIRD.

WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT SONGBIRD

 OH MY GOD LOOK WHO I FOUND.

NEVER EVER EVER HAVE I SEEN A RE-DEAD COSPLAY. 

Her costume was simple but still brilliant. She was a favorite of mine. This was really cool. I hated those fuckers in OoT.

 We found D-Piddy! Haha. Not surprisingly, he was trolling as Luigi with a shell and his Death Stare. 

 We went to go say hi and he told us about some stuff that happened, but I was just glad to have found him. He was filming in that particular area for that day because it was so crowded and he had his little Go-Kart. The video is hilarious.

If you're unfamiliar with why he went with this... please see below, lol.

S A T U R D A Y |  d a y III

GOD.

This was probably one of the most stressful mornings I've had in a long time. All due because of my cosplay. Funny story; 

 This time around I decided to go a different approach with her bandages. She's bandaged the fuck out. Each of her fingers are even bandaged individually, and last time I had a lot of trouble keeping the gauze in place. It would slide off entirely or just not stay wrapped for very long, or unravel, and it looked ghetto and ugly. So, now, I used self adhesive gauze that smelled like a corpse, as well as a white morph suit to wear underneath. This was for the purpose of fastening the gauze to the suit as an additional reinforcement so it wouldn't undo, or even shift. 

That Friday night I got the genius idea of pre-wrapping my suit to save some time the next morning. So, I put on the morph suit, and Fett spent a good amount of time wrapping both my arms entirely. 

We fastened the gauze with safety pins. Everything looked good. The only issue now was what to do when I had to piss. So he cut out a thing for me, lmao. That was fun.

And then cut out the neck because her gown has a specific cut around her neck. WE WERE GOOD TO GO, RIGHT? Sure.

We gently pulled off the sleeves, gauze in place and everything. Set it aside for tomorrow, and went to bed.

The next morning, I got up at 8, did her make-up, put on the wefts of hair, reapplied the white strands on the side, and then went to go put on the morph suit.

GUESS WHAT. MY ARMS WOULDN'T FIT. Like a dumbass, I thought this was a good idea. yeah, it wasn't. It felt like trying to slide on a really really really tight glove. It just was not. Working. At all.

We were both frustrated-- me because plans were disrupted, him because of the time he put into doing this last night. So... he undid all the wrapping :(

I put on the morph suit properly, and he wrapped everything again from the beginning. This set us back significantly. It sucked. Was pretty bummed about that, but... I guess we learned a thing or two about this. Next time I won't make as many mistakes with this as I did this time around. Thankfully the gauze was really cheap. 

Then when I put on the gown, it seemed off. Like, it wouldn't sit right on my shoulders, so he had to safety pin it to my morph suit. But my morph suit kept shifting around because of how it was cut around my neck. Guess how frustrated I was. 

So was he. We just wanted to get going.

Finally we leave.

Could not find parking to save our lives. So we ended up going to this wonky little hole in the wall public parking thing with a dirt road by an underpass that was gated off, lol. Fortunately, we weren't the only ones who were desperate.

The guy that told us where to park had us squeeze into this stupid little spot at the very end of the alley, right next to barbed wire. Good times.

Again, it took Fett like 15 minutes to get ready, right there. I did his make up and we were ready to go.

We got there just before 2-- just in time for the Legend of Zelda meet up!

 My favorite Ganon!!! He had Gerudos with him this time--- so cuuuuute ^_^

 ACURATE YOUNG LINK IS ACURATE. 

THAT DEKU SHIELD THO

For the integrity of .... this entry.. I'll just say right now that I personally couldn't take any photos from Saturday. There were only a few, which were the select few that Fett captured for me.

Some of these are from Friday, still.

Most of the ones he captured you'll be able to tell... because he's a little obsessed with Kingdom Hearts. Ha!

Saturday was the most crowded day in the world. Oh my god. We didn't even touch the show floor. Nope.
Wait, just kidding. I think we strolled through there like... ONCE. And then we were like fuck this, lets go back out to the floor.

 boobs.

 SO. CUTE.

 This was from when we went into the cosplay lounge to take a little break and ran into Chel and Anthony. They were assembling his Songbird suit and on their way to Masquerade things. 

Unfortunately, we didn't go tot he Masquerade. It was a separate event, with a separate fee, that we were very separated from.

First time seeing a Chef cosplayer. Really funny :P

 Saw these two again! I loooove theeeemmmm look at Professor Chaaaooossss

so cuuuuute ^__^

 WINNING.

YES.

 This group was really obnoxious. 

Especially the girl that appears to be getting choked. I wanted to fall on her head, but by throwing a chair at face to get her to shut up.

This was captured by a super talented photographer; Doug Stidham.

Took my breath away!
Go lookit lookit lookit! He's done a lot of cool shit. He shot Doug Bradley :O

Yeah. Remember that one time I totally kissed Pinhead?

 utilizing chopsticks for consumption: not the easiest task on the planet.

My thumb and thumb ass muscle got a crazy ouchie work out in the 15 minutes it took to eat that, lol.

CAN YOU NOT.

HOKAY. I GUESS.

Bois who came to me for photos I sort of wanted to involve them in her pose. 

Frankie's monster would hold her hand, or her arm, before she'd look at him like CAN YOU NOT DO THAT PLEASE STAHP

Some of them would do it, some wouldn't. He didn't. lol :P

I need to find a way to bring my hair in more!
There were so many compliments on my cosplay, but all I ever see are flaws! Haha

It was still really cool to see people be a little surprised to find a Bride there. It is Anime Expo, which is awesome. I love finding new Manga to pick up, and seeing all the stuff imported from Japan, but it's also branched out to much more than Japanese culture. Which can be cool, apparently. 

We ended our very long Saturday with the one and only panel we cared to attend; the Hentai voice-over panel. It began at 10:30. We got in line around 8. Yeah...

Thankfully though there wasn't much else going on, other than the club loung thing, but they didn't allow bags or backpacks of any kind so we were left with virtually nothing to do. We grabbed some ice cream and went to make ourselves comfortable. 

It was exactly what you'd imagine. They'd play Hentai with subtitles, and invite volunteers to come up and do the voices for them. Hilarious and awkward. So many boners. Of course there were the girls that indulged in their 5 minutes of fame, but the highlights imo were the people who made fun of the whole thing :D 

It was a great panel. I'm glad we decided to attend it!

S U N D A Y |  d a y  IV

We went as civilians and finally got there at a reasonable time. We also decided that Sunday would be shopping day! 

 I was really close to buying that. Fett was my voice of reason and talked me out of it. I'm pretty glad he did

 Sunday was significantly less crazy, as to be expected. Much less people in cosplay, and pretty much everyone wanted to do some shopping, or just didn't attend the last day.

 :DDD

We didn't buy a whole ton of stuff, but it was still nice to finally be able to chill and just walk around and look at what the vendors had, especially in Artist Alley. This year though everything was focused on Sailor Moon. I almost wish I didn't grow out of it, but I did =\

This is what I left with. A Lon Lon Milk candle (smells like sweet vanilla milk) first volume of Petite Cossette manga, and the first volume of the new Holic. I read through those so fast lol, ugh.

 

my boobies are ghosties cuz you can barely see em! hee!

best shirt ever!

Fett ended up getting a mountable Hyrulian sword replica and a tshirt.

We were pretty happy. 

We also ran into Jarod (South Park cosplayer, Jenkins the Griefer) but didn't get any photos this time around. It was remarkable that he managed to have the motivation to even attend, in spite of what he's experiencing. More props to him. It's always good to see him either way. 

We split around 5ish-- just from being beat and tired, and hungry, and sleepy and sore, and ugh. 

It was an awesome weekend. I was in my element with someone else who is just as awkward as me, socially, and we enjoyed it at a comfortable pace. Hooray! 

I had class the next morning, plus work. A harsh reality to come home to. Ohhhh well.

Next cons? So far it's only looking like

• Comikaze
• Long Beach Comic Con
• Son of Monsterpalooza

Those will all hit around the same time around October/September.
I have another cosplay I'll be working on that I'm hoping to debut at Comikaze, but no promises. If not, Son of Monsterpalooza. It'd be more appropriate there anyway. Let's just say she's another classic horror character. ;)

Hint: not Bride of Chucky.... ew. tacky. (not even classic)


K i have to be up for class at 5am. GOOD NIGHT!