Malindachan's journal

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! :3
I donated my hair to Locks of Love over break.  It's now shorter than I've ever had it, but it's so much easier to deal with.  When I left the salon, my hair looked like a cross between Alice from Twilight and Selphie from FFVIII.....but when I style it at home, it's a bit more tame.  I really like how it looks; I even got lots of compliments already (one person even said I looked sophisticated XD).

As far as classes are going, things are pretty hectic.  Thankfully my Nintendo Wii helps me with the stress, lol.  I recently got the new Tales of Symphonia game; It's not even close to being as good as the original Symphonia or Tales of the Abyss, but it keeps me entertained. (and Johnny Yong bosch and Laura Baily voice the main two roles!  Both of them are awesome).

I've got 2 tests this week, 3 more tests next week, and then FINALS! *dies*  And most of my finals are comprehensive (bleh)

I'm going to limit the amount of time I spend online until winter break starts.  However, over break, I'm going to be spending most of my time making cosplays or working on my portfolio that I need to have ready for my BFA review in the spring.  If I'm not accepted into the animation program, I have to wait a WHOLE extra year before I can apply again.  It's a very competitive program, so I've been a little worried as of late.

Meanwhile, a little bird showed me this today: http://community.livejournal.com/fandomsecrets/222396.html?page=11#comments
(scroll down to #150)

This community must really like me or something.  I already shared my thoughts on the community itself, but I figured I'd post the link here to see what you guys thought.  It gave me a good laugh.

As soon as I call school "unstressfull", I get loaded with papers and tests....D:
I got my Art History paper completed finally, but it took me forever.  It's kinda strange - it seems like most of my peers say they have problems keeping up with math classes but they do fairly well with English classes or writing papers........I'm the complete opposite.  I always have problems trying to put what I want to say into text, and even then, I still have to worry about grammer and all that other fun stuff.  Not to mention I'm easily distracted, hehe...
I also did some last minute "projects" for our dorm floor.  Our RA is a good friend of mine, and since she knows I'm an art major, she asked me if I could help out with our floor T-shirts and the halloween decorations.  I don't mind helping out, but it was a little bit stressfull..... (on the bright side, I'm done now, and she seems happy with what I contributed :3  I just wish I had some more time so I didn't feel like they were just thrown together at the last minute......because they kinda were....XD)
So now I'm left with a paper and 2 tests next week.

Today was kinda "bleh."  I got some more work done, but I had to do some of it in bed because I've been feeling a bit under the weather.  I'm feeling a bit better now that I got some more rest though, so it might have just been the stress and lack of sleep.

In cosplay news, I finished the bunny plushie for my Hunny cosplay! :3  Other than that, not too much is going on.  My RA needs help making a trenchcoat for halloween, but I need to go to the fabric store and get some more thread before I can finish it (it shouldn't take too long to complete).

lol, so much for "creating a livejournal so I won't spam so many journals on DA" XD

Things have been really looking up for me this semester.  School hasn't been as stressful (I actually LIKE my classes....except maybe Political Science....*dies*)

Since our Anime club will sometimes do writing and artist workshops, I proposed doing a cosplay workshop (and our council said they'd be happy if I led one! :3), so I'm pumped about it.  I went home this last weekend and picked up some misc. materials to bring as visuals for that.  We're also having a cosplay contest at our club's halloween party this year, and I'm excited about wearing Haou Judai to that one ^__^ (I love any excuse to cosplay, lol).

My next convention will be Izumicon in Oklahoma City!  I don't know what time I'll be arriving due to my afternoon chemestry lecture, but hopefully there won't be a test or anything so I can just miss that class and leave in the morning.  Friday evening is going to be the Ouran Host Club tea party, and I'm supposed to be their Hunni (with Kyle going as my Mori ^^)!  That Satruday, I'll be Fai in the morning and early afternoon, and then Yusei in the late afternoon and evening.  I'm actually going to be one of the masquerade judges Saturday evening, so it'll be a different sort of convention experience for me (normally I'll be all stressed about getting in line early to turn in entry forms, figuring out what to do when I walk on stage, etc).  Yusei and Fai are already complete, but I still have to work on Hunni before I'm ready for the convention.  I was originally planning on bringing Yami instead of Yusei to this convention, but Kyle says he's going to get his Jack Atlas cosplay done in time for the con (so I changed my mind).

After that, I'll be making plans for Anime St. Louis and possibly Ikkicon! :3

In other news.....our cosplay group is on Nicovideo? o.O
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4700914 (for those with a nicovideo account)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm4700914 (for those who don't have an account)

I already posted this on my DA, but I'll go ahead and post it here too:

seven years....it SOUNDS like a long period of time, but today it doesn't FEEL like it. What happened on 9/11 seven years ago still remains fresh in my mind; it's a day I'll never forget.

I was in the 8th grade, sitting in my gym class when it happened. Our assistant principal came in and told us that the World Trade Center was hit by two planes. We were all in shock...not knowing what to think of the situation. It was hard to continue the day normally. Some teachers would go through the lessons rather quickly and then turn on the news to see the latest updates, and I would see the towers being hit and collapsing over and over again. Even though the footage was just replays of what happened, it was horrifying to watch every single time. There was lots of smoke and fire, people running in the streets, being coated with debris and ash. You could see tiny figures of people who would jump from the floors they were trapped on. To them, that was their only option unless they wanted to burn alive or suffocate. Just imagining what it would be like on one of those floors as the tower collapsed on itself...and this was happening to thousands of people.

When I got home from school, I was glued to the TV. I saw the same footage I saw at school, President Bush's speech, and the reactions of people from other countries. What really hurt was seeing the people overseas that were rejoicing for what happened to America. Being the sheltered kid I was, I didn't realize that some countries hated us so much. So many innocents died, and they were celebrating it. I know our country has a dark side that I'm not proud of, but that doesn't mean everyone here is a bad person. We have flaws, but we also know how to work together and help each other dispite our differences.

Which leads to the one good thing that happened after 9/11: the unification of our country. The tragity didn't impact just the people who died - it effected EVERYONE in this country. People lost husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbours, etc...if you lost a loved one, you were affected. If you KNEW someone who lost a loved one, you were affected. Even if you didn't have any relation with someone who died that day, you were still wanting to reach out and help. Seeing our country work together was one of the most amazing things I ever witnessed. I only wish that we were able to do it at all times (and without a tragity to trigger it).

I come from the central part of the US; I had never traveled to the east coast except for a couple family trips to Florida. A few years after 9/11, I finally got to visit New York City when I was on a High School Orchestra trip. Seeing Ground Zero brough tears to my eyes as the memories of 9/11 resurfaced. The whole area where the twin towers stood was blocked by a fence, but I could still see the cross that was created from the debris. My group visited many fire stations, including the one that stood right next to Ground Zero. On the walls and garage doors of the stations were plaques with names of the Fire Fighters that died during 9/11. We even got to see the neighboring fire station's engine as it left to go on duty - there was a mural of the American flag on the side of it.

Today, I am reminded once again of all the emotions I felt seven years ago. Our country has nearly returned to the state it was before the attack, but at the same time, we haven't forgotten. United we stand. God Bless America.

So I actually got off work early today and I've been working on my Haou Judai cosplay.  Hope to get it done within the next couple weeks!

And I finally put up some new videos and photos, but I still have some more to work on...(I want to put together some photo slideshows from our Yugioh photoshoot)

Oh, and I found out today that apparently I get an allergic reaction to chigger bites or something....I couldn't figure out what these bug bites on my legs were until I showed them to my dad!  I almost thought I had bed bugs or something because they didn't match up with anything else when I was researching on google.  So yeah, my dad says they're just chigger bites (and I get a bad reaction from them like he does...great....)

Wow, what a weekend. So my roomate came and spent the night on thursday, and we recorded "the skit that never was" on Friday (I actually was able to get everyone together for it!). Hopefully I'll get the video for that done today - all I'll say right now is that seeing me lip-sync to a deep voice is very strange but amusing at the same time XD (but I'm never going to do it again....). After that, we (Seto, Yami, Bakura, and Malik) drove up to St. Louis and spent the night at my mom's house so we could be up and ready Saturday morning for a big Yugioh photoshoot. There are 4 Yugioh cosplayers in the St. Louis area (Yugi, Ryou, Joey, and Mokuba), and we got together and took photos at Forest Park. After photos were done, we went to Applebees in cosplay and then took a break at the St. Louis Zoo (which was next to the park).
The Zoo was a funny experience...we got stopped by security because of a misunderstanding....let's just say that people can be judgemental, and one of these judgemental people saw our appearances, and thought "OMG, look at what those kids are wearing! They must be troublemakers!" and complained to security. We seriously didn't do anything wrong - we just wanted to take a break from the photos and the Zoo was right there. We explained our situation to the security guards, and they left us alone. Other than that, the Zoo was great, even though we didn't get to stay for very long (it was starting to get really hot....). We got stopped several times for pictures, and a bunch of little kids were pointing out, "look mom, YU-GI-OH!". There was even a zoo mascot guy dressed up as an Eagle, who had a fanspaz and wanted his picture with us. Apparently he's attending a Yugioh tournament next weekend, and we wished him luck! XD We also got stopped for pictures by a few Zoo staff and a traveler from Japan who recognized us.  After the shoot, we hung out for a while at Yugi's house so we could share photos.  After we got back to my mom's house, I did a quick change into my Yusei cosplay and got a few shots on my mom's boyfriend's motorcycle (we got some shots of Malik on it too! XD).  One day, I still want to get a shot next to one of those life-sized D-wheels, but who knows if that'll ever happen...

So yeah, now we're back in town and back to our normal lives. College starts back up in a few weeks, and I've swamped with cosplays, organizing photos, and making video edits. Hopefully I'll have stuff up on youtube and Deviantart very soon.

wow, I actually made an account! o,0

I was always too lazy to make one, but I figure it'd be good to have so I don't spam my watcher's inboxes with journals on Deviantart. 


So I actually made some cosplay progress today!  I'll have the next few days off work, so hopefully I'll get a lot done so Haou Judai will be ready for AnimeFest.