Hey, guys, I just wanted to remind everyone that the RSVP date is coming up Nov. 30 if you want to participate in the SECRET SANTA gift exchange at the gathering! So far, the list of participants is:

Ryoko
Yami
Neko
Michele
Jess
Sani
Mousegirl
Scott
Aya
Erica

If you would like to participate, I need to know as soon as possible so I can send out who you'll be getting a present for. I will be sending around a questionnaire (within the week) to help your Secret Santa find something you'll like, so please keep an eye out for that. I should be able to tell you who you're getting a gift for by this Friday. :)

In addition, it'd be useful to know what exactly everybody's bringing to THE POTLUCK. As of now, I only know that Ryoko and Yami are bringing plates and napkins, and Michele is making cupcakes. We still need people bringing:

Plasticware
Cups
Drinks (soda, water, whatever)
Chips (and other snack food)
Food (more like a 'main course' type dish)
...and anything else you guys would like to have.

Please sign up to bring something! If everybody brings an item to share, there will be more food for everybody in return, so please do your best. I'll be bringing a cake and probably a case of water. :D

Also, we have some pretty awesome prizes for the cosplay contest, so work on your holiday costumes, guys~ XD It'll be awesome seeing everyone! ♥

I thiiink that's it for now, but more updates will be posted as needed, so keep an eye out! ^^

~Tora

Woo, con time! XD So PMX was amazing! I haven't had such a fun and actually relaxing and de-stressifying con in a while. The week or so before it was pretty awful, but the con itself was so great and it pretty much made everything better! It was sooooo much fun! Anywho, if anyone is interested in the excessively detailed details~ CON REPORT TIME!

( Cut for detailed con funtimes~ )

So overall, I had a wonderful time at PMX. I loved my cosplays, my roommates, and the fact that it was so laid-back and relaxing. It was a great con and I had an incredible weekend. Thanks so much to everyone who made it such! You know who you are and I love you all~ ♥

...and to anyone who bothered to read all of that, internet cookies for you. :3

PMX is tomorrow and I don't know what possessed me to try making a new costume for a con that takes place during the school year. Actually, I intended to make it over the summer, but of course, my incurable procrastinating nature took over and here I am, at 7am the day before the con, having not slept at all last night or looked at the material for my Japanese exam. Priorities? What are those? My hands are covered in glue and paint, the TV lounge I'm working in is a disaster area and the cleaning staff keep giving me and Reinna weird looks, and I'm hungry. At least the dining hall opens for breakfast early on weekdays...

In any case, i figure listing all the things I have done will make me feel better so here goes.

( Some slightly incoherent cosplay ranting goes here )
In other news, a random lady wandered into the TV lounge/cosplay zone about an hour ago and I'm not sure if she's homeless or what, but she is currently sleeping in a corner and snoring. Strange.

Anywho, back to torturing myself sewing now... I need a new hobby.

So I started school again last week, but the best part is that I've only had two days of classes so far since, for some inexplicable nonsensical reason, UC classes started on Thursday.

( Stuff I did last week~ )

Fun times, I tell you, fun times. I love my friends~

...in less than a week, and I'm so not prepared. I need to pack and order texts and... and...

Blargh.

 Jacking this from sani_caranza because I am easily amused and impressionable.

List the first ten fandoms that come to mind. Your friends will comment with the character from each series that they think you are most like. No favorites (...unless it's legit)!

1. Fullmetal Alchemist
2. Avatar
3. Harry Potter
4. Death Note
5. Princess Tutu
6. Soul Eater
7. Naruto
8. InuYasha
9. Ouran High
10. Demon Diary

Skip the series' you don't know. :3  Or don't, and amuse me.  In fact, that sounds better.

 So…. I went to the beach yesterday with  sani_caranza , konishii , lyceeangel , evanae , itsukayume , and  tsubasa_rose ! It was an awesome, all-girls day full of awesomeness and win!

You are all amazing and wonderful people and I adore you! <3333

( Blah blah DETAILS XD )

 

Planning for ALA.... but not writing anything. Well, actually, I just posted a journal I didn't mean to and didn't know how to erase it so I changed it to this.

I'm a moron, yes, I know. 

I might edit this into REAL ALA planning tomorrow.

So after all the panicking and scrambling to finish costumes, AX is finally over and done with. Overall, it was alright and pretty much what I expected of AX. I still don't like the location but... whatever. We made the best of what we had to work with and I had an overall pretty good time so yay. ^^ DAY 0:  For the record, I never go to Day 0... so stop calling me to ask if I'm there, people! I'm not! And if someday, some-con I am, I will call you. ^^;;  I actually spent day zero in a panic, trying to finish my costumes and such. I spent the night at sani_caranza's house, but didn't end up getting there until after 6pm because my mother needed me to watch my brother--and I had lots of last-minute errands to run. So after packing in a hurry, stressing over forgetting stuff, stopping by 5 different stores to pick up supplies, food, and more trim, I finally made my way over to Sani's house, went to church with her and her family, then sewed and hot-glued like a crazy cosplayer, resulting in a lovely night of 4 hours of sleep! And the only reason I got even that was because I realized I forgot to buy some buttons I needed and also ran out of trim, so I couldn't work on my costumes...thus, sleep was the back up plan. >.>


DAY 1:  After running to Jo-Ann's to pick up my much-needed buttons and trim, we left at about noon and we WOULD have been to AX by 1-ish, but... Her parents drove us there, and as soon as we exited the freeway to get to our hotel, we hit massive traffic. Turns out there was a robbery nearby and the entire area for several blocks was surrounded by cops letting nobody through. It was revolting. It took us another hour to get to our hotel--an hour for what should have been a 5-minute drive. Stupid robber or whatever he was. To jail with him! D<

Well, once all that was done, however, we moved into our room, reseved by  lyceeangel who got there the night before. By this point, I was hot, exhausted, and rather annoyed, so I didn't even feel like cosplaying. Not like most of my costumes were even finished anyway. So I ended up just wearing a light blue yukata  with my Kallen wig and wandering around like that. I got my badge, went to the artist alley (where I spent far too much money on amazing arts >< ) and ran into friends and acquaintances. When we went back to the hotel, we went swimming and then  kikyouluver ended up staying in our hotel room. She,  konishii, and I stayed up really late sewing and got next to no sleep...


DAY 2: Avatar day! Because of the stupid Zuko scar make-up that takes forever to put on, I dragged myself out of bed earlier than I usually would, destroyed my face with a bunch of liquid latex and Ben Nye make-up palletes, put on my lovely million-layered Zuko, and headed off with Sani as Ty Lee and Lyceeangel as Prisoner-version Suki (her brother was prisoner Hakoda). I actually had a lot of fun in this costume. We found a really good Avatar group consisting of Azula, Suki, and Mai and took some pictures with them. As soon as we decided to take a few pictures, however, suddenly half the convention showed up asking for photos... as did an Avatar Cabbage Salesman who joined our epic group of win. We weren't able to move from our spot for over a half-hour. It was awesome but tiring. 

After exchanging emails with our new buddies, we went on a quest to locate our other friends, who were doing a Yu Gi Oh! photoshoot in some remote area that took us a bit to find--and I was soooo hot in all those freaking layers! In any case, the Yu Gi Oh! group were awesome, we hung out, ate some ice cream, etc etc. I swear, the ice cream men around AX must have gotten rich by the end of the weekend! It was hot and everyone was buying it. XD I had 3 or 4 myself. 

After Avatar, Sani had to work the Funimation booth, so I was going to cosplay Code Geass with Kikyouluver, my Lelouch. So I went back to the hotel to finish up my Kallen costume real quick and put it on... AND IT FAILED. Not only was the wig refusing to be styled, the freaking costume fell apart. My machine was being rebellious and not sewing through the vinyl, so I'd used a high-temperature hot glue gun to put the trim and straps on--and apparently, it didn't work. The straps started snapping open and coming unglued, as did some of the trim, and did I mention the wig was being a total jerk?! After about an hour of trying to put the damn thing on, I finally just lost it and started taking it off. I was really upset. Stef (kikyouluver) and I ended up taking some really quick pictures in the hallway outside our hotel room, where I had to hold half my costume on in carefully arranged poses, and that was that. After the tiny and ridiculously lame photoshoot, I gladly ripped the stupid thing off and shoved it behind my suitcase so I wouldn't have to look at the epic failure for the rest of the con. Afterwards, I was really pissed off annoyed and disappointed about all the sleepless time I spent apparantly for nothing, and was really out of it for a few hours. I moped  lounged in the hotel room and watched Ghost Stories until Sani and Lyceeangel came back so we could change into our Sailor Scouts. 

Once we changed, we went back to the con center sometime between 10pm and 11pm  to take a photoshoot with Eurobeat King, and it turns out there were some incredible Transformers cosplayers there. Not only did we do our photoshoot with EBK, we got to pose with the Transformers too, and even ended up finding a random Mars cosplayer to take some pictures with us. We hung around for a while, were asked for a zillion pictures, and fought Venom and some Bleach characters. All in all, the Senshi group epicness made up for the utter fail of Kallen, but I'm still rather irritated it failed most miserably didn't work out. 

After that, I had to finish my D'Eon coat and Konishii had to finish her Syaoran dress--yes, dress. She was cosplaying from the Sleeping Beauty episode. XD Itsuka also came over to help her and we in turn helped Itsuka buff her Lord Knight armor. I ended up going to bed earlier than planned since I couldn't find my D'Eon buttons and got an okay amount of sleep that night.

Oh, and at some point, Noel shared with us his brilliant plan to cut the stupid shuttle-pass wristbands (only a maximum of 4 were issued per room) in half so that more people could have "one" since it looked like they were just folded inside our badge holders. The brilliantness worked! I had no problems shuttle-riding and Noel is awesome. XD


DAY 3: For the beginning of the day, I helped Konishii and Itsuka into their CCS cosplay, then was too lazy to cosplay myself and accompanied them dressed in normie attire, helping carry Konishii's giant dress and being a bodyguard-thing. We wandered around a bit, met up with Sani, then I wandered around with Lyceeangel who was cosplaying Selphie. She was adorable! After that, I took a short photoshoot of Stef and Aya's Pandora Hearts cosplays and then Stef and I changed into Le Chevalier D'Eon.

At least my D'Eon costume turned out pretty well. Stef and I went to the dealer hall then did a short shoot with EBK and just wandered around the con for a while. Only a few people knew what anime we were from, but we were asked for pictures anyway, so it works. ^^; A Spanish newspaper even took our picture! (El Mundo, I think...?)  We headed back to the hotel around dusk, along with Konishii, and I changed into Mercury with the intent of going back to the convention to join Sani and Lycee who were in their Sailor Senshi cosplay, but we had wanted to go swimming, so they just ended up coming back to the hotel to take a few quick photos together before we changed into bathing suits and went to the pool... but it was closed. It said it closed at 10pm, but everyone insisted that if we were quiet, we could go in after hours. Turns out that plan was a no-go and we had a party in the bathtub instead. I didn't know 5 people could fit in a bathtub, but apparently they can. 

Afterwards, we ordered pizza and chicken wings, then went on a walk around the hotel a bit until the food was delivered. I hung out with Lycee and Stef and we talked. It ws fun and mostly relaxing. We went on a quest for the rumored 24-hour mini-mart in the hotel, but didn't succeed in finding it. When the food arrived, we all rejoiced in finally having something warm (and greasy) to eat, then finally went to bed  sometime between 3 and 4am. 

DAY 4: Lycee is amazing and got us late check-out, so we didn't have to leave the room until 2pm. Thus, she and I cosplayed as Mello and Near and went to the dealer hall during the late morning. I bought Death the Kid merchendise (oh, and the Princess Tutu DVD box set!) and then we shared a smoothie and made friends with the people at the table next to us. They were really nice and gave us free pins. ^^ After that, we took a quick photoshoot with Sojian and then checked out. Cosplayers have way too much crap! It took 6 of us three trips to get everything down. My dad then picked Sani and me up, and we went to Little Tokyo to have a late lunch around 3pm since Sani and I were sick of eating junk food. I had something called Toban Yaki and it was delicious. X3

After my dad dropped Sani off, he went on ahead since I'd left my car at her house and I stayed for about half an hour before heading back home. I was so tired! I opened the window and blasted rock music to keep myself alert, but I got home fine. I just had to concentrate a little harder than usual and blink a lot because my eyes kept getting really dry... And that's it! Now I'm home and instead of sleeping like I really should be, I just spent an hour writing this. Afterwards, I'll be going on Discedo (the RP I recently joined) and geeking out because even amidst the hectic conness, I actually still missed it. Yes, I'm a nerd. It's hopeless. 

In any case, if anyone bothered to read this overly-detailed thing, it's over now! Rejoice!

Pictures from the con will be up soon on my DA. And now I'm off to be a geeky person and then maybe finally sleep at some point tonight. If anyone tries to call me before 2pm tomorrow, don't expect me to pick up. Ciao~

 ...is tomorrow. Well, actually, today, considering it's 3 in the morning. But of course I'm note really planning to sleep, so that's fine.

Costume update as of now:

Forget the costumes that needed minor repairs and snaps and such. I'm leaving Mercury as is and safety pinning anything that needed snaps. Zuko still needs a bit of fixing on the embroidery, but I'll do that at the con. As I said, Mello's done. Thank God.

D'EON: I finally hemmed the sleeves and put the trim on them. I just need to redo the collar and sew on the buttons...which might wait for the con. Or I'll sew them in the car (if I'm not passed out in exhaustion)

KALLEN: Almost done, actually (and mostly hot glued together)! Made the damn thing in 2 days. Stupid vinyl, stupid trim, stupid Kallen. Asdkfjoireogjio!!! >< OH! OH! And I realized when I got to Julia's (I'm here tonight since her dad's giving us both a ride in the morning) that I DIDN'T GET BUTTONS FOR KALLEN. *slams head into wall repeatedly* So even if I DO get to sleep tonight, I'll be waking up early to go to Jo-Ann's to buy some because I'm a MORON. GAAAAAHHHH!!!! *sob*

Ugh. I think that's it.

All in all, I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO AX! Precon madness is what's killing me though.... 

AX, I have come to battle you in all my ghetto cosplay glory~

 CRAPCRAPCRAP IS IT REALLY ON THURSDAY? 3 DAYS AWAY???!!!

I am royally screwed. *SIGH* And I've also chosen the worst possbile timing to be...er...really geeky. LOL I've joined an LJ RP (yeah, yeah, shut up, I know I'm a geek!) and it's... addicting. It's also been VERY bad for my cosplay-making. 

Anywho, here's a quick run-down:

PLANNED COSTUMES: (in no particular order for wearing)

• Mello -- 100% complete, thank God. Bringing him for the ever-wonderful lyceeangel, who is my very own Near. :3
  
• Zuko -- 99% complete. I just need to fix up the trim a little and borrow swords from a friend. 
• Mercury -- 87% complete. I need to put snaps and hooks in the collar and skirt, make the choker, and put the bows (which are already made) on. I also need to make the earrings...
• D'Eon -- 90% complete. I need to fix the trim on the collar and put some on the sleeves, which still need to be hemmed. I also need new socks, but I'll be buying those so yeah... 
• Kallen -- 2% complete. 98% NOT STARTED. Crrrraaaaaaaaapppp!!!!!!! *shoots self* Why am I a procrastinating MORON!? All I have is the materials and the crappy pattern I made from some scrap cloth... *sob*

Guh. I think that's it costume-wise. Other AX matters:
-driving up with sani_caranza and possibly konishii 
-rooming in the Westin Bonaventure with lyceeangel and her brother, sani_caranza , konishii , and three others. It's gonna be packed but fun~!

I'm not sure what I'm wearing which day, so if anyone in my groups knows what we're doing, please tell me. lol
Oh, also, to my awesome roomies: I'll bring a case of water, so that's covered.

GAAAAAHHHH!!!! PLEASE WAIT FOR ME TO FINISH MY COSTUMES BEFORE YOU ARRIVE, AX! NO FAIR!

Well, I'm gonna go eat dinner now because my mom made some awesome Bulgarian beef dish and I'm hungry~ Nom!
...somebody stall AX for me, please. 

<3

 Done with school.

That is all.

So I had my Japanese language and Japanese history finals today. It was a very Japanese day. In any case... I THINK I DID REALLY WELL ON THEM. Well, I think I did really well on the language one and I hope I did really well in history since I wrote a helluva lot and filled up two freaking blue books. There was a short essay and long essay, but no one told us exactly how long or how short... so I just wrote everything I knew. The short one was 4 pages and the long one 7. So yeah, I'd better get a good grade!

In other news, I'm a moron who fails at LJ but Sani_Caranza just told me how to put in different icons... so I did! Study no Jutsu. Because that's what I'm doing (except for the half hour I just spent making a random and not that great Kidd icon... lol)

Well, I should actually keep this short because, as my friend Reinna likes to put it, I need to "study like a mofo" and cramcramcram for my outrageously ridiculous English final. It's basically English history masquarading as an English literature class. Grr. I'm off to memorize dates that I will forget right after the final, and basically not further my education in the least. Thanks a lot, English 10A. I have learned absolutely nothing in your class. Thanks a whole freaking lot.

OMG I GET TO GO HOME TOMORROW. ....back to Hemet. Oh, goody. I get to do nothing but sit in a tiny boring town which occasionally smells like cows and...SEW. I need to sew. At least my friend Duo will be there. AND I GET TO VISIT SANI ON THURSDAY. Gah, I can't keep thinking about other things or I'll stop caring about my fake English final more than I already stopped caring... which, incidentally, would be bad, I think. 

So off I go. Really. I'm going now. I'm hungry... I took a nap instead of eating today. I should eat. I'm gonna go, then I'm gonna eat, and then I'm gonna study. And not play RO. I will not. Nope. Well, maybe for an hour... 

GAAAAH! I'M LEAVING.

It is now about 5:30am. And this is not an unusual time for me to be up studying (and apparently at times not studying in order to be online...) judging by my sleeping habits for the last 2 or 3 weeks. Since about a week before family, I think I have seen the sun rise on a regular basis. The results of this feat are that I have no adapted to a schedule where I nap during the day and have become completely nocturnal. I wonder what will happen when finals are over...

Guh. Finals. I have 2 on Monday: Japanese (language) 3 and Japanese History 9. On Tuesday, I have English 10A.
I feel pretty confident about J3, and the oral exam portion is record-at-home, so that won't be too hard at least. I knew most of the grammar points in the class to begin with and a lot of the vocabulary, apparently including much that the class hadn't learned, judging by some of the looks my classmates give me when we chat. The kanji I'm not quite as solid on, so I still need to review that, but that's pretty much the only thing I really need to focus on for that class.
History 9 is a little tougher, but the final consists of 2 essays and we received 13 prompts, of which the professor said he'd choose about 6. Thus, we get 3 options for each essay, and the questions will be the same as in the study guide, so I'm fairly confident about that final too.
Now then. English. Apparently, instead of actually analyzing works and writing in-class essays and all the kinds of things I expected of an English class, my final is actually going to consist entirely of dates. I have to memorize the birth and death dates of all the authors we studied, when each major work was published, where the author grew up and what political standing he/she had, and all of the history of England between the time of Chaucer and Milton. Hmmm.... I must have accidentally enrolled in another history class. My bad. You know, this would have been all well and good if we'd actually focused on any of this crap in class. But we haven't. We haven't gone over the history, except very briefly when it was necessary to understand the text. So why exactly is the final like this? It is a mystery. And because I am a friendless child, I don't know anybody to ask. Ah, well. So be it then. I give up on getting an A in that class. Perhaps I can manage a B.

College has destroyed the personal standards I used to hold myself too. I have become an apathetic delinquent who stays up all night eating Spaghettios and Hershey's Milk and Cookies bars lamenting the fact that I am the only one of my (non-UCLA) friends still in school. Oh, cruel world. I just want it to be over!

And I missed lyceeangel's birthday party because of stupid school! Her first birthday party ever! T_T I'm sorry, lyceeangel! I loooooove youuuuuu!!!! I'd much rather have been at your party than melting under 100 degree stage lights wishing the soprano behind me would follow dynamic markings instead of having a shouting contest with everyone around her.

Oh, yeah. I had a concert with the UCLA Chorale tonight (well, last night, since it's now morning). We sang Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" and it was long. And tiring. I had a decent time, but there were some glitches, which is always really annoying. There was a part where the soprano soloist totally botched the tempo, so the choir couldn't come in... and we didn't. It was rather funny, since at intermission everyone was like, "Hmm, so how'd you guys like the part where we didn't sing for those two measures where we were kind of supposed to?" Yep. It was annoying. But it really wasn't our fault, and "echoing" the soloist when she was in a retarded tempo wouldn't have sounded good anyway, so it was very good nobody sang. Ooh, but two of my best friends, Duo and Christina came all the way from Hemet to be at my concert, so that was awesome! ^^

Speaking of choir and in order to waste more time and make my journal longer (perhaps to make up for the fact that I fail at updating journals?) apparently the UCLA chorale is on YouTube! lol

Go listen!

Well, that's probably enough time wasted. Back to pretending my English class is a history class. ><

Accidental post I don't know how to erase. Stupid LJ.

 Because it's totally characteristic of me to be up at 5am, I may as well do something with my time that's not very productive, as usual. 
I'm finished with my D'eon vest though (except hemming the bottom, that is), so that was a pretty good accompishment. I also did some of my Japanese homework. Go me. : )

Tomorrow is the SoCal Spring Gathering! (well, today actually....oh well)
I've also just noticed I'm using rather a lot of paranthetical clauses in this journal. Hmm... Not that it matters, I suppose. 
In any case, this is my first journal, made of fail, but I just wanted to put it out there seeing as I've had an LJ for a rather long time now and have yet to post a journal. Of course, that makes the fact that I have an online JOURNAL account a bit useless, so here I am writing one. Again, go me.

I've run out of things to say, other than 'Yay, SoCal gathering!' and 'Onoz! Fanime!'

Perhaps I will go to sleep now. I'm actually exhausted, I've barely slept this week, and yet I'm still up and wasting my time on the internet. I wonder if it's possible to eventually just get so accustomed to lack of sleep, you don't even have to sleep anymore! I should try it.... it would be very useful, actually. One is expected to waste at least a quarter of the day on sleep, so that's a whole day gained if you don't sleep for four days. Wow, what a brilliant plan! I'm a genius. : 3