3月のライオン

I have no idea what's going on here, but it's so CUTE.

Wasting Time
It's 4:45pm and I'm sort of wasting time, trying to find a way to spend the next half-hour. I'm beginning to feel sleepy; it may be the jet lag. I have a book though, and maybe I can get partway through it.

Writing
Did some mana-typing. Did not manage to do very much mana-sorting for characters beyond the basic mana types, but hey, I made progress after a few weeks of block! This calls for a celebration. ♥

Meme from fujiwara_san that I finally have time for:

OTPs in less than ten words words. Take your best guess.
01. "And then...?"
"And then we have tea, of course." [YonShi; pureuda]

02. "It's okay to move slowly, I'll be here beside you."

03. "You're blind if you can't see how I've changed."

04. "I'm sorry I wasn't before, but I'm here now."

05. "I'm in love with you, don't push me away now."

06. "Could we have had a happy ending, despite it all?"

07. "It doesn't matter what they say, I'll stay with him."

08. "I hope he looks like you."

09. "Time... it's a funny but cruel thing, isn't it?"

10. "Does this mean I have to stop loving him now?"

Meme from lalagirl208: ( Most likely tl;dr stuff about writing )

Пришёл значится мне апрельский номер, хым.. Ну чё, рад! :) Ещё сколько-то подожду и таки сделаю кучу отаку-фотографий, но чёрт, никак до этого не доходит.

Читаю. Тут моя мама как всегда интересуется, а что это тебе пришло? Ну я даю ей в руки журнал.. Она листает и говорит, как в общем-то и раньше: что я в детство впал, мол, смотрю картинки всяких девочек, в то время, как мне уже папой для таких девочек надо бы быть. Нда.. -_-

Не знаю, в курсе ли она, что ну скажем половина этих игр, с которых персонажи там взяты, имеют рейтинг 18+. Может, нет, ну и славно. А может и знает, на полке с играми на них наклейки соответствующие.

Whatever.

З.ы. Таки добил первый сезон Хигураши. Понравилось.

Distractions
Spent the morning doing everything but writing, apparently. DDR (bah I fail even at three steps), food (aoyagi is a wonderful cook!), and LJ itself. Though the f-list has calmed down (everyone's at work, I guess).

Writing
I have re-written some things that needed to be rearranged for PW. Antihistamines are a good thing! *loves on aoyagi for thinking of them* My head has cleared, as has my nose, and now I can think. I also got some semblance of enough sleep! *writes*

Random
And as doumeki has to study, I get to keep the PC! <3 This is good, because I have an Excel sheet to work on to lay out the new mana specialities ...

ETA: Whoops, no going out. We won't be able to get back in if we do, since apparently we don't have any keys ...

My dog Doogie, who is the inspiration for my username, has been sick for a while. He hadn't been eating well. We thought it was because he had to get his back teeth removed -- they got terribly infected, but that was just wishful thinking. Two weeks ago we took him to the vet, and he weighed only 23 pounds. He's a border collie, so there was no way he should weigh only 23 pounds. Looking at him, he seemed fine, but when you petted him, he felt like nothing but bones. He got bloodwork done, and his protein levels were insanely low -- his body was no longer producing it. He had a liver infection basically, but nothing really to explain what was going on. His whole body was out of whack. When they did an ultrasound, the vet discovered a tumor in his small intestine. He had to have surgery to have it removed. Basically, they would take apart his small intestine, remove the mass, and put it all back together. We decided for Thursday, the 15th of May, well yesterday actually. Only thing is he was so frail and weak. He had stopped eating all together on Monday. He just refused all food, so we had to give him this vitamin and nutrient filled water my mom had made. He had his surgery yesterday, and the vet said it had gone well. But they wanted to keep him till Tuesday, or even longer, to make sure there was no internal bleeding or leakage.

My sister and I were trying to decide where we were going to put him when we brought him home. How we would feed him. Who was going to sleep with him. Damn. This morning the vet called. Doogie died sometime after 7:00 am. I didn't get to say goodbye. We were going to go on Saturday to see him. Damn. I know he was old, almost 13, but we've had him since I was 14 years old, and I never wanted to think about him dying. I have three dogs now -- Cutiepie, Pinpon, and Princess. Princess is also 13. They grew up together. It's going to be so weird going into the garage and not see him. He loved to be petted. He would go up to you and stay there, scratch you, lick you, and snuggle his head into your leg till you touched him.

Since Murakami's 8ft tall figure of a boy jerking off a lasso of spooge just sold for $15 million (I mean, where the hell would you put that), I thought I would mention some less pricey and rather tame options that are coming up in the near future...

+Yamato's Air Gear Ringo as Hentai Kamen (this is so wrong in so many ways, but the sculpting looks better than most of the dirty figures aimed at fanboys; it gets points for being simultaneously pandering and badass... I'll ignore the whole mask part.)
+Megahouse's POP One Piece Chibi Sanji
+BEAT's 1/8 Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
+Enix's Soul Eater Maka+Soul (I hope they do one for Death the Kid, his obsessive-compulsive tendencies hit way close to home.)

Denver, CO
Denver's airport is huge! I got here safely last night, but by that time I'd been up 24 hours straight, and I was not very coherent. Met chaineddove who picked me up from the airport, and then at the apartment I also met aoyagi and doumeki. Lots of PDA went on, hehe, but there was much DDR-ing, Youtubing, brain-breaking, and pizza. [ETA: In case people don't know, Shan makes the BEST tea ever. *sips, happy*]

Sleep
I crashed after 30 hours, but of course jetlag and exhaustion fought with each other. I managed, on and off, about 6 hours of sleep, so I think I'm pretty-much well-adjusted now? Ish.

Today
First, hang out with aoyagi and doumeki in the morning until aoyagi heads off to work. Then doumeki and I will probably end up just keeping each other company until I head out to wait for ellipsesbandit. She'll be driving me to Promenade over in Westminster, CO, and we'll be meeting up with link621. There will be dinner and general hanging out, and finally link621 will drive me back here. I can't wait--so much fun!

ETA: Meme
Tagged by epigrammist: ( Twenty Questions )

HAD A HORRIBLE COMMUTE STOP BURNING FUCKING HOT STOP BROKEN BUS AIRCON STOP LIME KIND ENOUGH TO SEND RAIN FROM SOUTH STOP LOTS OF FUCKING RAIN STOP WHERE IS THE FINALE STOP SUPERNATURAL YOU'RE THE ONLY THING I WANT
STOP

AND MAYBE SWEET AND SOUR PORK FULL STOP

Oh, Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke... *wants to hug him and comfort him so badly*

Watching yaoi anime is like watching shounen anime except for the fact that you should really be older than...17? to watch it.



Junjou Romantica 6! Hiroki and Nowaki shouldn't angst over the 4 year difference in their age so much. The Romantica couple has like 10 years between them and the Terrorist couple has 20 or so years. Maybe I'm rounding up too much. In this episode Hiroki attacks Nowaki with books. Nowaki throw up his invisible shield to prevent himself from getting hurt. Did we really need the clashing of cymbals to add to the drama? I thought 24 episodes was alot, but episode 6 ends volume 2 of the manga. So at that rate, it'll end with volume 8? Maybe the Christmas story?

(1) Yay California!

(2) It's really the wrong season for stews, but given that it's been a bit cooler than usual, I made and enjoyed eating this chicken and leek casserole. The next time I make it I may try taking the skin off the pieces to reduce the fat a bit, but it's probably not all that necessary; the only other fat in the recipe is from a bit of olive oil used in browning. Note: I don't own a proper casserole dish, so I just did the prep in a pan, transferred everything into a baking dish, and then covered with aluminum foil. Seemed to work just fine.

(3) I am rewatching seasons 1 and 2 of Avatar right now. The first episodes still feel quite clunky, but the show does find its footing by the end of season 1. ( Some spoilers )

POINT FORM Y/Y, i.e. I have a bunch of little things to say and absolutely no way to string them together!

→ New Death Cab for Cutie CD out, saljdflhasjdfa DO WANT. They haven't had new stuff for like 3 years, this sounds awesome, from what I can tell anyway~ 30-second iTunes previews seem too short all of a sudden. I want to buy itttttt, maybe over the weekend!

→ AP Psych exam actually went pretty well, thanks for all your support guys ♥ I know I'm such a whiner under stress, 'cause other people have way more stuff to deal with right now and hardly seem to stress over it on LJ, so I really appreciate all of you being so nice to me considering~ xD

→ In Animation today three of us were drawing each others' original characters 8D It was like a big RL art trade, haha! One of my friends drew me an older version of my Kaelan character (I have the concept in my sketchbook of him, in the future he's around 21 and drives a Vespa so you can tell I really only made him for fangirl fodder xDD) and it looks so amazing *A* And I drew one of her European-style characters, we're going to colour each one over the weekend :D It'll be fun!

→ and OMG in a week today my Animation class & the AP Studio Art class across the hall are all going to the art gallery for the pop culture exhibit ♥ It looks pretty darn amazing, can't wait! It'll be a good coincidental, near-birthday funfest, hahaha. Speaking of art, orz sorry I didn't go to the meeting today Ahra, what did I miss? D: Was keeping Sam company during horrible caf duty and helping Alba with Barron's in the caf;;;

→ yay new Office and LOST tonight ♥ Looking forward to it all week, wheee~~ Too bad one of them is a finale, but it should be good, yeah? And I'm all caught up with LOST, even if I prolly won't watch this new one tonight, but it'll make good conversation 8)

→ orz it feels like I haven't made an icon post in forever :| I feed off the satisfaction I get from doing that, srsly. Let's see.. *checks icon folder* lolokay I have 111 icons but that includes stuff that I can't post 'cause of icontests :( so it'd really be like 80. BUT WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT are the graphics I owe to people orz. So if I owe you any graphics, art, anything from recent memes, PLEASE COMMENT HERE so I don't forget, 'kay? xDDD I have a vague idea of who I owe stuff to (as well as the birthdays, I'm totally on top of that), but I really don't want to miss anyone. It'd be great if you could link to the thread too if you have it please :3

→ askldjfldhash THANKS AGAIN rabanastre for all the awesome Muse, I love this song and all the live stuff, woooow ♥

→ lol this is the dumbest point ever but I figured out how to make the tags show up on this layout 8DDD BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. It was bugging me for so long :')

→ augh I fail, I got the notification too D: Sorry for not saying earlier but Happy birthday prettyinpistol~~~! Hope you had a good one! My usual graphics offer goes out, anything you want ♥

Okay I think that's it for now :3 Adding more later if I remember lawl. Have a good night everyone~~

All of a sudden the temperatures exploded. Woke this morning to unbelievable HEEEAT. After months of huddling in warm jackets, yeah, whoa there.

So now I'm hiding inside the school building, which despite lack of AC is probably the coolest place on the grounds. I'm not sure how the place manages to stay cool even in the hottest weather. Must be the feng shui. XP

- - -

So I finally caved in and started playing FE3 (after finishing a super easy game of the GBA remake of FFII -- which I keep wanting to talk about but keep forgetting to). Why? Because of all the pretty Camus/Nina fanart I was finding...

Camus/Nina being THE original FE knight/lady pairing, of course. Hehehe.

That said, Camus only shows up in like what, two chapters in the entire first book (which is the remake of FE1). But still. I'm playing. Mostly because it's really easy and my brain needs a break. By really easy I mean like somewhere around Lyndis's route, hard mode. Maybe a bit harder, but not even as hard as FE8 on normal mode. That is, reaaaaally easy. I mean seriously, you can heal from anywhere on the map... (the "physic" staff or whatever doesn't have a range in this game)... There's a warp staff that also has no range... The thieves drop ALL their loot, not just the most recent one... I keep striking criticals all the time... (Quite a few) characters recruit themselves (that is, they start out as enemy units but don't attack you, and in fact come up to talk to you by themselves)... The desert chapter had a freaking path to the castle... etc. (I think FE6 and 7 win hands down in terms of hardest desert chapters ever, because of the sheer amount of enemies + sandstorm i.e. limited vision + buried items. Especially 6, where you have a TIME LIMIT if you want the best ending, which I guess is true of 7 too, but I can't remember the requirements for that.)

Of course, the graphics suck, the music is annoying, and character development? What character development? I'm not even sure there's much of a plot here. XP It's pretty linear, anyway.

But I'm playing for Camus/Nina. Who never even show up in the same chapter except I think probably twice? (Nina's not even playable in this game. Though I hear she is in FE2?) But they do have a surprisingly nuanced (but probably underdeveloped) story, which is what I'm interested in... Yes, I read spoilers. I always read game spoilers. NOT THAT THIS GAME HAS ALL THAT MUCH TO SPOIL

And okay, I admit, also for this random sniper named George who I'm not sure I know anything about except that he's pretty. And badass. And also for Abel, who's so pimp he gets TWO pegasus knight sisters. TWO. (I have no idea. I haven't played far enough, but apparently there's more "development" of this in book two?????? But anyway I was looking up character profiles at the FE museum site and he has support bonuses with both the eldest and the youngest. LOL.)

This marks yet another game in which I prefer the green knight to the red knight. (Kent, you're special. <3) Hmmmm. I say "prefer" but mostly I like them all fairly equally -- with the exception of FE6 where I don't like either of them much at all (my knight usage in that game is pretty much limited to Noah and Percival except in the beginning, when I use Lance to support with Clarine...) And I'm not really sure there is a standard red/green pair for 5 (though I haven't played far enough yet, I think there's only one "social knight" in that game -- the red/green pair maaaaay be the two "lance knights" who join later on though -- but at any rate Leaf doesn't start out with a red/green pair like in the other games).

Anyway, I'm also beginning to realize that there's also this "black knight" archetype in the series: Camus in 1-3, Eltoshan and Aless in 4 (and sort of by extension, 5), Percival in 6... i.e. the "badass blond knight in black with funky sense of honor/duty" character. The black knights rule. Too bad 7 and 8 don't have one. XP I guess Seth is kind of a cross between the Jeigan/black knight archetypes... but still. It's a bit of a stretch.

Mmmkay. Time for class.

Random
How do you make sure you're stopped for interrogation and questioning before they let you board the plane? Travel on two Malaysian passports. My US visa matches an old passport, and it's good for ten years. My Malaysian passport is good for five, and they don't renew--you have to get a new one made. I've never been questioned so many times in my travels! Sounding educated and being an Asian female is very helpful--the immigration officers aren't mean or harsh.

The Advantages Of One's Accent
As soon as I open my mouth and immigration officers hear the Brit/Yank/generic not-Western-but-still-Western semi-educated accent, their treatment of me becomes a little friendlier. It also helps that I smile and do the female-at-your-mercy act, I guess. ^_^;;; Brit I met on the plane actually complimented me on my accent. Wonder if I should do another sample/recording--I don't get any work right now, and if my accent has changed, maybe a new demo will reflect the changes.

Spam Spam Spam
Don't mind the ten thousand messages--I'll get on a plane soon enough, and once I reach my final destination I'll be too busy to post to LJ. ^_^

Writing
Still no mojo. Maybe it's the jetlag or sleeping pills. I don't know anymore.

Random Bits
Pop tarts for a dollar-fifty, ouch. But at least now I have sugar. I'm surfing on adrenaline! The sleeping pills didn't take because I only got 3 hours of sleep (most of it broken). I just can't sleep upright!

Blogging
Did I say I wasn't going to be updating much? Er. Heh. ^_^;;;;; I have nothing else to do except write, and my mental muses are either still drugged or uncooperative ...

Travelling
PDX has free wi-fi and power outlets! I'm going to be here for a 6-hour layover, so this is heaven. I love Portland already! My first purchase on American soil was a Wendy's egg and cheese muffin set. ^_^;;; If this is indicative of anything, I'm going to be a blimp when I get home. Met a really cool person on the plane (details on RL blog). Slept 3 hours sitting straight up--I now have a horrible crick in my neck! *winces*

Requests
ontogenesis, cienna, koramay, kevinsensei, anyone else in Tokyo I forgot to mention ... Do you want anything from the USA? I forgot to ask before leaving, sorry. ^_^;;;;; Any snacks/food I can grab for you before I go back to Japan?

Writing
I didn't get much done on the plane. Guess who had ink pens that leaked all over her hands? I didn't remember that the pressure would kill the pens. Go me! ^_^;;;

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I had fresh blueberries for the first time in my life. It was bliss.

My flight back home got canceled so I had to stay over at my cousin's attic for the night. There were dead bees.

(I've been gone a while -- mostly due to a. being lazy b. work c. travel)

In L.A. I've been here less than a day and already there were tears on my end. I think I was just frustrated and tired. But I do resent my father for being a critical a-hole who expects me to respect him, prostrate myself before him, mold to his desires, etc. NO THANK YOU. But I sobered up after two minutes or so; my tactic to get through the summer a-okay is too keep as cool a head as possible and just... chill.

Vacation @ Casey's was terrible/horrible--her mom's a psychopathic bitch who kicked us out for not doing dishes (though she never really enforced it? I just kept out of her sight after that episode)--and I never wanna go there again. There's actually more to this story involving issues re: domestic abuse etc. and a letter of apology on her behalf to me, but I don't see the point in relating it.

Sent in my application today. To reward myself for not punching my dad in the face, I played around with new makeup I got recently (viz., this [tea rose] and this [dusk pink]). I especially <3 the blush; I've been looking for a good one. Ahh, I need some retail therapy. ATM I've pretty much quenched my desire for dresses ahahaha, but omg Sephora here I come.

Beta-ing
Being at the airport with an internet terminal that's actually on full power and connected is love! ♥ The time has flown by without my noticing. I managed to give moonsliver some comments (though not as detailed as I would have liked; I'm not anywhere near full-beta mode right now) and I'm current on my f-list too. Ah, how wonderful.

So Near, Yet So Far
I'm seeing the waiting lounge fill with people around me. I wanted to buy some food from the shop nearby, but I don't want to pack up my things, and the shop is just far enough that I can't just leave my things on the bench while I get myself some munchies. I know this is Japan, but I can't. For one thing, it's an airport and most of the people around me aren't Japanese. For another, just putting expensive equipment on a seat and walking off? I have never done this and still would never do it. There's a large gap between casual and foolhardy. But I want munchies. *sighs, has eaten all her provisions*

Unconcerned Global Citizen
CNN was showing coverage of the earthquake, and I listened with one ear (as most of us are wont to do in airport lounges). It's just like September 11 all over again--the same news, over and over and over again. I guess it's just a lack of information, but still, one can't help but feel one has to choose between being a depressed global citizen, or a self-absorbed frog happily sitting in a well.

Getting Cut Off
There are irritated babies and children, and there are annoyed parents and other passengers. Oh dear. I hope this baby is not near me and sleeps throughout the flight, or I may seriously consider taking a double dose of sleeping pills early. Writing won't get done in this sort of noise--too much stray energy.

Writing
Actually, if I'm honest, I can't get any writing done. There are too many people around me, and I just can't write when surrounded by people. I'm too in,terested in them. I'm also getting a little wound-up from all the nervous energy everyone else seems to be emitting. (Why oh why do people work themselves up before a flight? They end up making the mellow ones of us all worked-up too ...) In any case, blogging is a yes, writing is a no. It's almost boarding time--I'll pack up and just go.

Wanderlust
The next post I make will be from the USA. I'm so excited! o(^_^)o Well, except for that kid in the boarding line who's just decided to become hysterical ... Uh-oh. *sighs, contemplates loud music*