A Shot in the Dark

I decided a while back that it was high time for me to make a seperate journal (art_of_caladwen</lj> ) for all my artistic endevors where I'll be posting updates for on-going costume projects (such as cosplay for Sakuracon & Kumoricon), sketches, icons and anything else I happen to make.

Check it out, and friend away if you want to keep updated!

::OMGFLAIL::




GUH.

::PUDDLE OF GOO::

.....

A-hem.

How did I not see this before?!?!? Why haven't I seen copious icons with this?

As I'm sure some of you know; my upper back - right between the spine and shoulder-blades - had been bugging me for a few months, mostly on the right side. (I suspect this was from taking some hard falls in Aikido.) Usually it just felt like there was a tricky spot that needed to be popped, but I could never stretch or twist enough to quite get it. So I finally went to the chiropractor on monday - first time too! Turns out I had a few ribs "out" on that side, and one or two higher up and on the left that I'd thought was just muscle soreness. He took care of it pretty quick, since I could show him right where it was and popped everything back into place.

My chiropractor is really awesome, funny, easy to talk to and pretty young. Also, his nickname is "Doc Bones". We were already in the office when my mom told me this - nearly had a loud Fan!Squee moment right there, but was able to content myself with a huge smirk. It made my fangirl heart very happy. Will from now on be referring to him solely as Bones. He shares an office with a colleague of his - also fairly young - was sorely tempted to ask if his name was Jim.

I Have a follow-up appointment with Bones tomorrow because as I was leaving the house to go to see him my bedspread tried to murder me. I fell on the tile floor and banged up my left elbow and tailbone.

Note: after taking said fall, and after BonesChiropractor prodding at your back, try to avoid lugging a backpack full of textbooks around the next day. It tends create sharp pain in your back if you don't hold perfectly still.

Damn you brain!

Why is it that whenever I have copious amounts of schoolwork my creative urges are at the highest? I'm stuck doing five sections of math today, correcting most of my german homework for the term, doing the current german assignment, and doing some work for mom if I can/when I need a break from homework. I really want to be working on sewing projects (any one of about 50 projects I've started or have in mind), or drawing, or painting (really want to do some Kirk/McCoy stuff for inell), or going dancing, or aikido... GAH

OH, RIGHT. Procrastinator Extraordinaire.

I need someone around to GIbbs Slap me when I get off track.

10. Financial Aid.
9. German Prof.
8. Public Transportation.
7. Strange family living situation.
6. No job - supposed to be looking for one.
5. Figuring out what I'm doing next semester/rest of year/next year depending on: financial aid, job/money status, dates/costs of study abroad/foreign study options.
4. Identity Crises.
3. Make up homework.
2. Tests.
1. My easily distracted and constantly procrastinating self making all of the above harder and more difficult then they should be.

Post a comment saying "Resistance is futile" on this entry if you want me to ask you 5 questions. Take those questions, answer them in a post on your own journal and do the same to your friends.

1. What was the first fandom you really got into, and what was it about that fandom that pulled you in?
Actual online Fandom? Very close between Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. However, lotr has to win out as my first love – it’s been a part of my life since I was 5 (or was it 7?) and my dad read my older brother and I The Hobbit, followed by the holy Trilogy. I then read the trilogy myself the summer I turned 12. I never got terribly involved in the usual fandom-y things, being something of a purist, but I still follow the costume boards now and again. Also, I could never really get into the serious!fic, but the crack!fic and wonderfully silly AU… that’s another matter entirely. ^_^
Ooh, what pulled me in? Other than being raised with this stuff and Tolkien being a god? It's the original epic fantasy story of modern western culture! Plus I'm a sucker for pretty costumes, magical nature and amazing music. Actually, I think the movie started those particular obsessions. Or, rather brought them out of the woodwork - I don't think I ever grew out of playing dress-up. Or ever will. :D

2. If you were in this icon instead of Envy, what would it say (i.e. aside from the traditional awesome (which you are made of), what are you made of)?

::sighs and grumbles about having to self describe:: To be perfectly honest  I am made of indecision, procrastination and usually ill-timed artistic inspiration. :P

 
3. Who was your first celebrity crush?

Oooh, boy. ::Ponders.Hard.:: Do character crushes count if I was too young to really follow the actors themselves?  If so; Tom Paris(Robert Duncan McNeill) from Star Trek Voyager. He was funny, young, cute and a rebel – what’s not to like? ::wiki’s Voyager:: ::boggles:: And, uh, I was like 5 when it first aired. LOLZ. I remember clearly being supper excited and watching the premier with the whole family. In my defense, that show lasted 7 seasons, so I was almost 12 when it ended.   

4. What's your biggest goal right now?

Biggest immediate goal: Survive the term and figure out what I’m doing the rest of the year/next year based on financial aid, dates of possible study abroad/foreign study options, and job status. I know, lamesauce, but it’s true.  I’ve got lots of other goals, including but not limited to: getting my ass back to aikido and generally being more active, finding a part-time job that doesn’t kill me dead, getting better at time-management, and the always underlying (but recently more prominent) problem/issue/struggle/thing of figuring out who am and reconciling that with upbringing, family and friends, but most of all myself, and being comfortable and confident with that.

5. I feel like the last question should be something completely random: If you were a dalek, who would you EX-TER-MIN-ATE first? Describe your meeting and their eventual extermination in detail for extra credit. :D

My current German Prof, who is made of Utter and Complete FAIL.  I would roll into the classroom in the middle of our second year class, announce that she is going to be EXTERMINATED because of her complete FAIL at teaching and comprehension of “flexibility.”  (All in Deutsch, natürlich. EXTERMINIEREN!!!) I’d ZAP her, there would be a shocked silence, and then Sasha would mutter “Thank god, now Caralee can teach second year.” The whole class would crack up, agree AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING.

-FIN

That last bit was extremely therapeutic, thank you Simon.

( FUCK )

I need a better Angry!Icon. Replace 'people' with 'brains.'

• I went in and talked to the financial aid people yesterday after my classes. I will be getting the grant! Paper Work is just taking forever (up to another month until it's all processed) and tuition is due today. Fortunately I'm getting a very temporary loan from my parents until I get my reimbursement check from school. 
• I think I'm going to do aikido on days I don't have school. I am way to exhausted if I try to do it all in one go, absolutely dead the next day. Which is really bad on Wednesdays because that is Homework Day. Also, it's getting dark rather early and the bike I am using has no light on it. Gah, this is why I don't like Fall and Winter that much; its dark and gloomy way too much of the time, when it's not fully dark its raining, overcast, cold and downright miserable. Right. Shutting up.
• Ok, I lied. It's not that I despise Fall and Winter, just the many many days where it never really gets light out. I absolutely love getting all bundled up and going for walks on sunny, crisp fall days with the bright leaves and invigorating chill to the air. It's refreshing on so many levels, and I know the gigantuous amounts of rain we get is why its so green (which I love), I just wish that the rain and gloom wouldn't just sweep in and hover over us for months at a time.
• On a less brooding note I've decided that I really need to break out my German book from last year along with all the papers and homework. I really need a review on so much of this stuff, it's not even funny. Oh gender pronouns... you take far too long to figure out in my head. Must go over German grammar, word order and general WTF-ery. 
• Living - for all tense and purposes - alone in a big empty house for most of the week is kind of depressing. I NEED PEOPLE. I'm a very touchy-feelly, cuddly, hang all over you type of person. I should not live alone. Someone come stay with me!!!! The combination of Empty House, Weather, School and School Induced Early Mornings  make for a very listless and sad Josie. Anime and talking to friends does tend to help. Mainly it is quite, which is nice until you realize it's an empty and deserted quite, not the refreshing peaceful quite of busy content people.
• I really meant for this to be a Look, My Life Is Not As Crazy As It Was Yesterday, Hurrah! kind of post, but I seem to have failed a bit. Perhaps later I will be in a better mood.

Well, school thus far has been...interesting.

That is to say, I have to get up at Oh God, It's Not Even Light Out O'clock, so that I can catch the Oh Shit It's Crowded Bus full of Wilson HS and PCC students, so that I can be at campus for my Oh Hell No, It's Way Too Early For Math Math class, have ten minutes to get All The Way Across Campus to my Lets Look At A Bunch of Old Slides of Paeleolithic Cave Paintings class with my rather amusing Prof  Who Pings The Gaydar, then have ten minutes to get to my Thank God It's Only Two Hours of German with my Professor Who Doesn't Know The Meaning Of  Projecting Your Voice, or Coming Up With Creative Ways To Explain Things. Yes, I realize this is a 200 level class, however, you can't really expect any of us to learn anything when all you do is stand up there and mumble at us in Unintelligible German. Then I get to either take the bus back home, again with the Wilson students (hurah for horrible timing) and have the rest of my afternoon and evening free to do homework and whatever else, or take the shuttle which can drop me off at 28th & Hawthorne at about 3:35, find a café to do homework in until Aikido and then bike (if I have taken the trouble of stashing it overnight the day before) or walk home to collapse, rehydrate and find myself some food. 

Oh, but wait, it gets even better. Tomorrow I get to spend however long it takes talking to people in the business office about my financial aid or lack as of yet thereof, to figure out if it's going to be late - in which case I'll need to ask dad to temporarily pay my tuition - or if I'm not going to be getting any financial aid at all, and if that's the deal then I'll have to drop all of my classes because I have no money. Not just "I don't have the money needed to pay for school" but rather "I have no money at all seeing as how I am currently unemployed."

Well, back to the homework then.

I am having one of the dorkiest not-at-con-or-around-Ellen/Simon moments in my life right now. Swear to God. 

I started watching FMA Brotherhood tonight and partway through episode 5(?) Lust and Envy are talking - the subs read "The Fullmetal Brat...." What I hear is most definitely "chibi-san." LOL. So I decide that it needed to be written down somewhere. Just to confuse the hell out of future historians and archivists I decided that I should write it down on the closest  paper on hand; Mine Deutsche Hausaufgaben arbeite papier (my German homework assignment sheet). And then I drew a crappy Enraged!Edo-kun, because that's what he does when anyone ever says anything about his height.

Anyway, when I finish the episode I figure I should start on my German homework - writing a paragraph biography about a classmate we interviewed. So I'm looking up words I need and etymology and language being the fascinating and rabbit-hole inducing subjects that they are I wind up at "to have the blues." ------> "Melancholisch sein."  

(If anyone is interested the path through the rabbit hole dictionary was: Now/Jetzt --> Mintunter (sometimes) --> Zuweilen (another word for sometimes). At which point they also had listed "at times melancholy" --> Zuweilen melancholisch." --> Melancholisch sein" Yay linguistics!)
 
This really cracked me up guys - I love it when my completely separate foreign interests collide.  Especially when it's twice in a very short time frame.  Especially especially when it's the same two both times. ^_^  ie, I've been watching far to much anime, bbc, scifi from the 60's and classes have started up again. My Inner Dorks have meshed, transformed and created.......

Über Geek Josie of the First Order.
All hail the Dorkdom, that which we all live in and pay homage to in various quite, I'm Not Insane, Just Really Really Amused At Something That Would Be Entirely Over Your Head kind of way. Why yes, I *am* made of awesome.

.....

Good, me too.

Right: Cosplay for Kumoricon 2009 = Success!

 

It was all a little hectic right up to the end (as always). But I managed, and it turned out looking wonderful, if I do say so myself. :)

( Pics! )

 

In short: It was lots of fun, but I didn’t really like having it at the Hilton. I liked having the con over by Lloyd much better, in part because, if in doubt, there was always something going on at the park. That and there wasn’t twelve million different areas, in two different buildings, on no less than five floors where events were going on. /rant

In addition to the half-week preceding con wherein Simon and Kira were over at my house for costume-y workshop stuffs, half of the following week was spent most enjoyably at Simon’s with him and Kira while the rest of my family was gone. Ah, that. My family moved. I didn’t.

Explanation/how this whole thing works: Monday and Tuesday I am at our Portland house all by my lonesome. Sometime Wednesday morning dad comes back so he can sleep and go to work out in Gresham for the rest of the week. Friday afternoon/Saturday morning Mum, Emm and Josh come in to town from the Carlton house (Way out past Newberg), and we are all here for the weekend, then everyone else leaves Sunday night. Repeat.

Yep, that’s my life right now. Well, that and job hunting, prepping for the new term of college (still at PCC this year), and leaning to bike places. Yeah, the van went with them, I am carless.

I feel like I’ve got a million different things that need doing before next week, but whenever I think of how much I still have to do my motivation goes down the drain. ::le sigh::  Ghaaah. Crazy life is CRAZY. And full of oddness and change and I really oughtn’t to live alone yet. I need someone to bug me and tell me that yes, it is morning and yes, I *do* have to get out of bed. This is going to be baadd on Tuesdays. I have to get up at six or before on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can take trimet to PCC Sylvaina for my 8 fucking 30 math class. >.<

I’ll let you guys know how this all works out…

I just realized that I have exactly four weeks to get the entirety* of my cosplay project done.
*well, 99% of it. Most of the fabric has been purchased, and I've planned out how it's all going to work, now I just have to do it.

Shit.

I = Empress of Procrastination.

Well, the next four weeks will be interesting, no doubt. This will be my first time working with knits/lycra/spandex type stuff, and I've gotten some good tips from some online friends (Thanks Pansy and Gini!) so it should come together alright. ::knocks on wood::

Also my dear friend silmerin  -whom I miss greatly- has gone and left me all by my lonesome and will be gone in Missippi for the next ten months. I will be bereft without my dance/concert/aikido/con-going buddy. (Yes aerlalaith  I know you'll be here until the end of the month (right??) but after that...) 

In other news I'll be leaving in six hours to go primitive!camping up on Broken Top (Mt. Bachelor area) so I ought to get some sleep now.

ETA: Oh, Emmaly is going to Kumoricon with me this year! I'm so excited for her, she's going to have so much fun... And we'll get to corrupt her more than she already is! I  paid for her badge for her birthday, and mum and dad are going to pay me back for fabric and food costs incurred (will also be picking her up from the con sooner than myself). It'll be fun. ^_^

So this morning I had my first Aikido lesson! I was the only person there for beginners class, and Lin was really nice, so that helped. I was actually kind of nervous - I am when trying new things, especially physical things. I just don't do them very often. I mean, I started do Ballroom Dance in January, but that was ok because there was a whole room full of people who didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Also, I had on nice clothes. Today I was in Sakuracon PJ pants and a baggy T-shirt. Not the best look for me. And then a whole bunch of people started showing up for the basics class. Oh well.  I have a Gi now! It's kind of huge. I hear they shrink though, so that's good. I also have two pairs of Gi pants and a Hakama from Lin Sempi to mend. (yay money!) Turns out my mending jobs will cover at least the cost of my Gi, so not a bad trade off at all. Then there are a few other people's Gis that I've fixed, and they already have worn holes in them - re-patching time!
Am also going swing dancing tonight with Ellen, which I'm looking forward to because we haven't gone in a few weeks. Then on Sunday we're going to Melena's Dance and doing a demo with our Salsa class. It'll be... interesting. But that's ok, I've done a demo before, and it was the first half of the routine we all know now, so it shouldn't be that bad. I hope. But! It will mean that I'll have been dancing three day in a row, which is a Good Thing. I keep telling myself that I need to be more active, and look, I am!
So new week I'll have Aikido on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Salsa class on Friday before Melena hosts a dance, and probably going to the College Ballroom Night on Saturday. Maybe. I'll have to see what my family is planning on doing that night, and who else would be interested in going dancing on the 4th. 

Oh! I also figured out who I'm cosplaying for Kumoricon! Re-l (Lil? Real? Gah, I've seen it spelt all three ways!) Mayer from Ergo Proxy:

(Look! It's a *girl*!)

I'm excited about this. There is a waistcoat involved in this costume. ^__^
Ooh, speaking of Kumoricon, guess what I got in the mail today?? Yes, that's right - I got my Badge!!! ::Happy Dance:: It's an actual plastic card with shinyness on it, not a slip of paper & a sticker. 
I'm going to go crank up the music and do some gi mending now.

Today was a Good Day.
I got a full 8+ hours of sleep last night and woke up at about 9ish and actually got a whole bunch of stuff done before noon. Imagine that.  So Chris moved out on Sunday and that very night Josh got a bunch of his stuff moved from the middle room, largeish room shaped area upstairs to the basement area where Chris was. Emmaly and I now have an art studio, for lack of a better term, set up between our rooms now. Josh hadn't gotten all of his things out of the room so we just stuck everything into some boxes and put them downstairs, cleaned like crazy (vacuumed, swept, cleaned windows -inside and out- and scrubbed walls). After that we got the swing machine (and associated bits and bobs), along with my dress form moved into it. We also put up a whole shit load of (mostly my) artwork up on the walls along with some mini corkboard squares above the sewing machine for costume project references and notes.
Also cleaned up downstairs, drove up to Safeway for noodles, whipped up some chocolate cookie dough, baked a casserole for my dinner guests, and put the cookies in the oven after dinner.  
After my friends went home Emm and I sat down and I finished watching the second season of Code Geass (OMG SO AMAZING), and read the last installment of Two Men & A Motorbike, which was FANTASTIC. ::<3's inell ::

So I've spent a good half of the day helping my older brother and his friend move out and into their new place. It's been interesting. It feels more like a Saturday than a Sunday. Yesterday I spent pretty much just reading New!Trek fic. A lot of it. Also, eating chocolate (Y HALLO THAR PERIOD) curled up on the couch with my laptop and enjoying having the house to myself for a little while longer before mum got back with the little devils.
My older brother is leaving me alone with the crazies. ::headdesk:: My little pets siblings are so excited to have him going, and yeah, some aspects of it are going to be nice, but I'll still miss him. Like just being able to go downstairs and just chill with him for a bit and get away from the hyper puppieness that my siblings can be. Anyway, I'll still see him, just not as much, and now the parental units will be wondering when I'm going to be finding a place of my own, on top of the 'get your own car already!' prodding they've been doing. Well, I've got to have some money to get a car with before I can even start looking for one. And to be able to save money I've got to have more than 12.5 hours of work a week.( I love my job. I love my job. Wait, I love having a job. I love having a job....) I will start actively searching for a job. I will stop at places and ask if they are hiring, if yes, I will get an application, fill it out and turn it in soon. /self affirmation

Also, I have a ton of projects and goals I want to accomplish this summer, but I haven't really been doing any of those. I have a really bad habit of only doing what needs to be done, and getting that done later rather than sooner. I procrastinate very badly, and I'm lazy. But I'm also very creative, and I'll go and start a project, but unless it has a deadline, it won't really get done - if I'm doing it just 'because' or one of those 'just for me' kind of projects, I'll sit down and plan, get the fabric or whatever supplies I need, maybe start with it, or get it almost all put together, but it's the finishing it, and not just throwing it together and calling it good that I tend to do. I'm a lazy artist. I need to improve my work ethic and get things done when I say they need to get done. :: le sigh::

I got to hang out with an awesome group of my friends on Thursday night. I met up with Will at 5pm at Lloyd and we chatted until Simon showed up, then we caught the MAX out to Beaverton TC and walked over to Uwajimaya. After Hannah and Ellen got there we went out for dinner, and good times were had by all. Some things however, should only be said at home, late at night and when everyone is too out of it to care. We should not be allowed in public.::facepalm::
On the drive back to Portland we decided that we were going to make cookies, cake or some such. Went to Simon's house, walked to the park, bought some cookie-making supplies at Safeway and got  back to Simon's where he made us all amazing vegan chocolate chip cookies <3!
I think anyone who saw us at all that night thought we were all high on something, but astonishingly, none of us were. Well, Simon had some caffeine earlier in the day and I think all of us had some Mochi ice cream, but sugar alone shouldn’t have done that to us. I guess we're just a bunch of crazy people when you get us all together. ^__^

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

So my next-door neighbors hosted a neighborhood yard sale today - which was really more of a neighborhood swap. And I got a sewing machine!!! My very own Singer, and for only five dollars too! It needs a tune up, which can get a little spendy, but that's still way cheaper than get a new, or even used one from a store. I was pretty happy with it. Hopefully it will end up working well for me for several years to come. Oh! So when everyone was pretty much done for the day when of our neighbors shows up with several paper grocery bags full of socks. From Sock Dreams. Practically new - his girlfriend works there and I guess is the model for like 90% of their stuff. He just said whoever wanted could have them. So Emm and I grabbed a bunch of them, including some Gryffindor-colored knee-highs I had to fight Emm over - I won. To be fair she got all of the Harry Potter books except the 6th for like $2.
I've also been reading Bloodhound - I'l probably finish that tonight. Oh, and I've been working on making artisan bread.
Good day. Even though I meant to go out job searching. ::shrug:: Oh well, I can do that tomorrow, and next week. I'll have a lot of time then. The bastards that call themselves management are only giving me 12 1/2 hours.

 

 

Give it about another hour and I'll be done with my first year of college.
Wow.
This year seems to have gone by supper fast. It feels like I just graduated high school, but just a couple of days ago some of my younger friends graduated.  I would say I feel old now, but I know that's just stupid, I'm not even 21 yet.
Anyway, just my dance final to go now, everything else went ok. I think.

In retrospect it may have not been the best idea academically to take all of saturday and sunday right before finals off to drive out of country for a concert. BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT.

Still all supper happy about that. I suspect I will be for some time. XD

I'm also thinking that I may upgrade to a paid account. I think I really want the icons. Sadly I have no room for Nu!Trek icons, nor for any Patrick Wolf. Ok, that's not true, I could delete some, but I just did an icon revamp. I don't feel like doing it again.

 Also, I think I'm going to change my journal layout.
 

fljksdhgdljkghorwnfv...WAS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!



Guh...




Y HALLO THAR BUM SHOT!

OMG GLITTER!


D'aawwwww,  look at that face.  He is so adorable . . .




 

It was *so* worth driving all the way up to Vancouver BC (even though I had to drive all the way up and all the way back since Ellen doesn't drive). There are no words to properly express how awesome the whole concert was, how cute, sexy and adorable Patrick (and all the other bands & band members - but mostly Patrick) was. THE WHOLE NIGHT WAS MADE OF SO MUCH WIN.

. . .

I am still "high on Patrick" as my mum put it when I got home and was squeeing all over the place like the mad woman I am and OMG HE HELD MY HAND FOR LIKE FIVE SECONDS AND PULLED ME TOWARDS HIM WHILE BEING INCREDIBLY SEXY.(I think that was while he was singing Tristan?)

Anyway, if you want to see all of the pics go check out my facebook...