A few thoughts before I sleep

I'm trying to tire myself out by not sleeping because Vegas.

Having a few thoughts on Anime Expo right now.

The point of Anime Expo is for me to hang out with my boyfriend, and thus I don't want to wear cosplay Kuroyukihime because she's such a pain to wear and I want to move around easily and watch movies and not get bumped and stopped.

So no Kuroyukihime.

I want to pick up a cosplay from Oreimo because my boyfriend likes the series and the clothes are easy to move around in. Maybe Kirino? Meruru? Kuroneko?

Not sure right now. I have a week for the wigs and other cosplay supplies after Vegas.

Today I had a short date to San Francisco to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. I'm pretty much done eating for the day because I ate so much, but it was a glorious experience that I forgot to take a picture of.

We attempted to walk off lunch by going to Japantown, and I got to look around the much hyped Liz Lisa store and sort of felt... like I wasn't fashionable or young enough to wear anything in there. But more, I felt out of my environment. I don't do well with cute. I like cute things, but generally the biggest problem I have with cute is that it's not black, it doesn't look clean or post apocalyptic or minimalist to me, and I'm overall just not comfortable dressed that way. I'm perfectly sure that it looks fine on me, but I don't think it's my look.

It's kind of the reason why I don't dress hyper feminine with soft pinks and ruffles. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with my femininity, but I just don't feel feminine wearing those things. I feel like I'm dressing much younger than I look, and that I look dumb wearing so many frills and so much pastel and not showing off my waistline.

Kind of a weird thought, because I have felt this way since high school. When will I ever be able to comfortably wear cute J fashion and K fashion clothes? Probably never, because I just don't have that young, cute image of myself in my brain and I feel uncomfortable trying to fit that image.

I appreciate cute fashion. I just don't feel comfortable wearing it myself, I honestly do wish I can pull it off and feel comfortable in it, but I'm okay with keeping to my current style... which I guess is no style right now.

Cute gyaru girls, stay cute. I love appreciating and respecting your cute and high maintenance style.

I guess I should break out from my jeans-tshirt-hoodie rut right now and attempt to look a little more presentable when I go out. This look is getting kind of old.

Vacation Planning

Today was mostly running errands and going shopping for my Vegas trip next week.

I tried on this dress at Express and I have to say: I really like purple, and I love maxi dresses. For some reason I naturally turn to royal blue, indigo, or purples and it's probably because it works with my skin and hair coloring. I want to buy a hat and some cute sandals, but overall turned up empty-handed. I'll probably end up making my maxi dress from some lightweight cotton indigo fabric my boyfriend gave me a few months back. 

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not because EDC week is a huge pain with all the people and traffic and inflated prices. I don't like seeing girls under 21 walking around in bras, tutus, and fluffies and I definitely don't like seeing guys with their bro tanks. In general, I'm just hating hard on all the rave bandwagoners, especially since when I was in high school it was considered way uncool to listen to electronica.

Although, it is nice that electronica is easier to access now. I guess I have to stop being grumpy and actually enjoy it being mainstream. But I swear, if I hear people keep talking about how they need to get fit for EDC or their next rave, I might lose it because I'm so tired of hearing about it. Plus you're all reminding me that I need to lose 20 pounds for my Double H cosplay with my friend, who weighs waaaaaaaay less than me at the same height.

My friends and I have been doing some light planning for Vegas, and they want to hit up a new nightclub called Hakkasan. Doing a quick look-over on the reviews kind of made me feel wary of the place. It's not gorgeous, you can smoke in an enclosed space, no in and out privileges, and you *have* to pay for a small bottle of water at $10?! It already doesn't impress me. The prices definitely don't help.

Whatever though. If I learned anything about Vegas, your experience is determined by how much money you spend, how much everyone gambles and their outcome, how much alcohol you drink without getting kicked out, and what you eat. Oh, and your company.

Probably the most significant part of my day was getting Costco pizza, then finding out they got our order wrong. It's my fault that I never check on the pie, but the half cheese-half combo mistake they gave us was pretty good. I forgot what a plain cheese pizza tasted like, and Costco's was nothing short of fabulous. We ate a good three quarters of the entire pie, and I'm pretty sure that the cheese pizza was the first to go. 

Back to Black

Today I dyed my hair black because I was sick of having faded red-purple hair. I actually wanted to go red, but I realized that since it's summer and I'm going to Vegas next week, the red will bleed when I sweat and swim and just exist so black was a more sensible choice. Usually you go lighter in the summer and darker in the winter.... but seeing that my natural hair color is black anyways, I'm sure going darker won't affect me at all. Black for someone who naturally has black hair is seasonless.

I spent most of today playing League of Legends. I'm still not very good. In fact, I pretty much stink, but I think I can squeeze in a few kills and assists against other players on ARAM. When it first came out, I wasn't too keen on playing and got pretty mad when my boyfriend went on a LoL binge. So ironic that I'm getting into it around the time I'm getting back into cosplay. It's actually pretty darn fun, especially when you get better. Which I guess I am.... but I still really stink and I have no idea what I'm doing. 

I do notice that I tend to go for melee characters. Maybe I should try range?

My mom made spaghetti for dinner and I think I have a problem with eating too much wheat products. The past few days I felt nauseous and I have been eating way too much wheat products like pasta and bread. Time to cut back. 

What's Up

I haven't blogged and I probably should change that.

I guess I'll start with today.

I sold one of my cosplays, which I find really surprising. I never thought that it would sell, and frankly I thought I priced it high. I don't think of this as a viable job because after figuring everything out, I made less than minimum wage, and I don't think it would have sold if I priced it MUCH higher than what ready made costumes were selling for.

Maybe I should have priced it much higher?

Eh, now if I really wanted to, I can redo it? It would go much faster and come out better. 

The reason why I sold it though was because I thought it was full of bad memories and I didn't want to hold on to any of it. I would rather build a new cosplay and partner with a new person than hold onto this one. It's too bad we never got to get a shoot for it, but it's not like I can't make it again. 

Let's talk about something more recent.

I think one of the best feelings is feeling full. My boyfriend and I decided that today was a good day to randomly eat an entire pepperoni Hot-N-Ready together, followed by a large Foster's Freeze vanilla malt. The result? A nap. It was really nice. 

No more doing that though. Time to start cooking and taking care of my diet. 

But.... burgers and fries and hot dogs. ;_;

Word Vomit

Just a few thoughts before I go to sleep.

This year I'm pursuing all my hobbies that I abandoned after high school. I feel like my life has stabilized enough and I have enough control in my life where I feel like I deserve to have my own life, my own hobbies, and my own happiness. It took me a lot of last year to realize that I don't need to schedule everything around another person, and that it's okay for me to have time for myself, and even have my own friends and hang out with them.

I feel more like myself. An individual human being. A person. Happier. 

With that said, I'm back into cosplaying. I'm also working out regularly and eating things I want to eat and I feel good about myself. I feel more comfortable around guys and I'm relearning how to interact with them without feeling funny about it. All these things are big deals to me because after I got into a relationship, so many things happened that I ended up feeling uncomfortable about doing the things I liked doing and had to focus on everything else. 

Behold! This is what 2013 looks like so far! $70 worth of fabric! Most of the expenses came from the bridal satin, which was $6 a yard and I got 5 of them. Original price $15/yard because there was a HUGE sale going on. Of course I got as much material as I thought I needed at the time! I still have a few odds and ends to buy, but otherwise I bought the bulk of needed supplies. I even got to order wigs from Taobao, since I lucked out and my friend was doing a Taobao order for SakuraCon. No more having to order from eBay!

I want to keep my cosplay budget under $200 for now. 

So... what am I working on?

Sinon from Gun Gale Online/Sword Art Online

Kuroyukihime from Accel World

I roped one of my good friends to cosplay with me, since my boyfriend seems to not want to do it so much. 

Chiyuri from Accel World

I also found out that Chiyuri and Kuroyukihime have another outfit... which makes me really want to try this eventually, since we already have the wigs!

Kirito from Gun Gale Online/ Sword Art Online

Super excited! 

Interviews and makeup

Came back from an internship interview today! It was for the company that I thought I was rejected after the phone interview, so yay! FINALLY. The interview went well. I have no idea if "this interview is just a formality" means I got the internship or what. I'm just excited that it went well.

Makeup for the interview. I figured that since the company is considered a tech company, I could get away with not wearing a suit. I wore black flats (borrowed from my sister... they're so cute I am considering buying my own pair that looks similar), black knee length pencil skirt, white collared shirt, and a tan argyle sweater. Hair in a low bun, and minimal eye makeup (as in, highlight powder under brows). I just have on some tinted moisturizer, blush, tinted lip balm, and filled in my brows.

To be honest, I'm not crazy about wearing eye makeup to interviews, especially as a monolidder. Unless I'm working retail, most of the time I'm not wearing much eye makeup... if at all. My glasses do all the work! I spend lots of time picking out interesting frames, since I wear them daily. Since I favor bold frames, I find that wearing the typical slightly smoked eye competes with the frames a little bit and ends up not looking clean cut. 

Which brings me to another point: I'm not really a huge fan of wearing a smokey eye to an interview, even if that is standard and it looks really pretty for monolids. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not for me because I personally just feel uncomfortable with it. Most of the time I'm not satisfied with how it turned out, and if I twiddle with it too much... all of the sudden it looks too much. It just brings too much unnecessary stress to the interview preparation, so I don't bother. Anyways, I don't think it's detrimental to have simple, clean makeup and wear simple, clean, professional clothing to interviews, unless you're interviewing in a field that's heavily involved with makeup. 

Anyways, my dog is at the vet today for her checkup and she pooped EVERYWHERE because she KNEW she was going to the vet. I always thought that it was funny that Garfield and Odie hated going to the vet, but I never thought that it was based on anything real.

Molly! Can't wait to see you!