Cleaning Reveals an Anxiety Monster

Day Fifty-nine/Sixty:

Here is my semi-organized closet shelf.

My room is very tiny, although it is very easy to mess up. I felt the urge to clean the room or at least tidy some areas including the closet which was a pit to begin with. I don’t even have that many clothes, but it was a sight for sore eyes (if you don’t mind me using that cliche). Mainly rearranging the shelves and hangers led to cleaning off my make-shift desk, doing a couple loads of laundry, and changing the sheets on my bed. After about a couple hours of cleaning, I went to grab the beast I have for a vacuum and was very unsatisfied. First off, the hose was unhooked (which I realized later) so the carpet wasn’t really being cleaned thoroughly and the machine was so heavy I could barely push it. I think its time to look into a new vacuum. I did find some nice mementos I have been given over the years, including a candle set, a box to hold sand and seashells, and a painted pot I did back in 5th grade.

My little anxiety monster for Speech class, the Forgetful Stumbler.

I celebrated the extra day this month with my first Speech class. We all drew these “anxiety monsters” of who we turn into when we get nervous when speaking in front of people. I drew a little girl with question marks for eyes and a speech bubble with some stutters and blank phrases. I call her the Forgetful Stumbler, since she sometimes will forget an important phrase when talking or mix up her facts. Many people had similar designs, since there are quite a few common fears everyone shares about public speaking. Now for a college class, it would not be shocking that the first class would involve us presenting a short introduction speech. I was nervous since I tend to talk fast to try to fit all my of my speech under the time limit, but sometimes I’ll talk too fast and be under the minimum. Overall, I found my first speech successful.

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First Date with J~kun ♥

Day Fifty-seven/Fifty-eight:

After about less than a month of video chatting and text messages, J kun asked me if I would like to go to the movies after my club meeting. I was super surprised but happy since I had been wanting to ask him out for a while I just hadn’t gotten the courage to ask him via a text. I spent the majority of Sunday looking at movies that were playing, trying to find a time that would not be too late for me to get back home (even though I don’t have a curfew). I suggested This Means War, a romantic comedy/action movie. After finally picking a time and which theater I went through my closet trying to find something cute. This was my first date after all, so I wanted to look super cute. I chose a blue dress that I was originally going to wear to the Career Fair at my school last month.

I also forgot to mention that I was being interviewed for a position as an ambassador at school which turned out to be the same day as the date. Also, J-kun is currently an ambassador, so he was also going to be asking me questions. So here I am trying to focus on answering the questions to the best of my ability, and while he’s asking me questions part of me starts to get nervous since I’m thinking about the date we’ll be having after the interview. I focused myself and was able to impress the other ambassadors and get the open position.

After my club meeting we left the school together in his car, while his friend joked the movie I selected was a chick flick. Crossing my fingers, I hoped there would be something in the movie that wouldn’t bore him. Luckily, This Means War was actually pretty good and wasn’t too much of a chick flick in my opinion. We had dinner before hand at one of the local restaurants. He ordered a small panini while I ordered a healthy chicken Caesar salad. I didn’t realize that the salad was going to be giant, so I looked like a pig when the food came. He smiled and started telling me some stories while I was eating (since he finished early). After the movie we got some ice cream and when we finally got to my house he walked me to the door. He gave me a quick kiss and hug and suggested we video chat when he got home. I really had a great time on our date. ♥

Enjoying a Cake Followed by a Swim

Day Fifty-five/Fifty-six:

Here was the cover of the birthday card I did for my grandma. Do you like the bear tracks at the bottom? (She likes bears).

My dad wanted to celebrate my grandma’s birthday this week since next week my sister and I will be busy with school. I’m technically not on break, but my finals were this week so after I completed my English final I had a little break. I was also in charge of drivingto my grandma’s house, to breakfast, back to her house, and then on the way home from her house. I don’t have a license yet (I really never found a need to learn how to drive), so my dad had to sit in the front seat the whole time while I was driving with the permit. My dad likes to tell me that I should be getting off at an exit right as the exit lane appears. My poor sister in the back seat probably got a little car sick. But, I should be given a little credit. My dad’s car is a large white SUV which is very hard to maneuver since I’m only 5’4″.

A delicious waffle stuffed with Granny Smith apples, topped with cinnamon and hot apple syrup.

My grandma picked a sweet little restaurant to have breakfast at. I ordered an apple waffle with Granny Smith apples topped with cinnamon and hot apple syrup. It was good till the last bite. After breakfast, my dad worked on fixing my grandma’s water pump for her pool. It took a while, but she suggested we go out to see this movie she had seen which was really good. We went to The Artist, which is filmed in black-and-white and is for the majority of the movie a silent film accompanied by the orchestra’s music. Plus there wasn’t too much of the screens where you had to read what they were saying. You could almost just picture what they were doing by their reactions to each other. The main character finds out that silent films are being replaced with talkies and he tries to figure out how he can cope (the movie takes place from 1929 to 1932). Its a really amazing movie, and if you can I would definitely recommend watching it.

My grandma really liked my card I drew for her. It was a birthday cake with “Happy Birthday” with bites out of the cake and letters.Since my grandma loves bears I tried to create a bear theme, with bear tracks leading to a “party bear” that had eaten some of her cake. She thought the card was really adorable. By the time we packed up to go home it was super dark outside, but my dad says I need to get more night practice in before I take the driving test. I also found out that with my dad’s car I have been high-beaming people instead of just turning on the lights. Whoops. His car isn’t the latest greatest, but I forget sometimes which lever or button does what.

Here's the movie I saw (I just took a pic of the movie poster). 🙂

The final score of Scrabble was 202 to 192. My sister beat me by 10 points. 😦

Today I went lap swimming. It’s been so long since I’ve gotten up early to go swim, but it felt nice after a break of it. I packed my team swim bag and walked up to the pool this morning. I was a little nervous since its usually crowded and there’s always a cute life guard on duty. When I got there (which was a little after the lap swim session started) I found that all the lanes had at least one person in them. I was going to swim in one lane towards the far right when I realized it was a guy at least in his 20s swimming pretty fast. So I moved down to a lane with 2 women swimming. They obviously didn’t know how to share the lanes, so I zig zagged while swimming. It was pretty funny. Soon one of the ladies left and I was able to have my own half of the lane. I swam for about an hour until I saw a cute guy with bright orange/red hair looking for an empty lane. I realized it was the younger brother of one my high school classmates. I recognized him since I had gone to a boy’s swim practice and he was also on the JV team. Along with the other boys, he was having trouble putting every effort into swimming. I was able to help them figure out that within that last length of the pool you swim you have to go all out. My JV coach was happy I came to the practice and gave me a hug. So since the boy’s swim season is still going I thought he cold use the lane more than I did.

I swam a total of 1300 meters (26 laps). And with a pool that is only 25 meters for one length, I had to swim 2 lengths to equal a lap.
So in an hour I was able to go back and forth 2600 times. That might sound amazing, although that is nothing for a swim team. I still felt accomplished today. 🙂

A Surprise Hidden Among a Flower

Day Fifty-three/ Fifty-four:

So I’ve been obsessing over ordering and finally opening the Adobe design package that I needed for my classes. Well when I got the package I ran into my room and placed it by the bed, with the idea of “I’ll be installing the programs tonight.” I would smile and leave the package waiting to be opened. Of course something would happen that would distract me or eat up my time that I would be unable to sit long enough to be able to fully install the programs.

Here's one of the surprise gifts from Adobe! Sweet! 😀

Well I finally opened the package the other day. I was so happy since as a little thank you for the purchase I also had two gifts inside the package. I was wondering why the package was bigger than the software. I received a small Adobe portable stereo and a sleeve (which sadly doesn’t fit my laptop). Still I am very happy that there was an extra surprise. 🙂 Although, when I opened the software to start the download I saw a bright yellow paper telling me to get a code before I installed the product.

I guess I will be prolonging the download process.

I’ve also started another anime. Well more like restarting it, since I had begun reading the manga a couple of years ago, but they were still writing it at the time I think. The anime has been dubbed with English voice actors and I’m just happy that I recognize some of them (ex. Vic Mignogna and Chris Patton). I’m watching The Wallflower which is about a goth girl who gets stuck with four handsome guys. The guys have to teach her how to be a lady or they’ll have to pay 3x the rent. Sounds crazy huh? I’ve just finished the first half of the series via the anime, while I’m trying to read the manga on the side. I find it funny when I rent the volumes from my library and they send me 1 and 5, but 2-4 don’t become available until after I leave the library.

Reworking a Design

Day Fifty-two:

I’ve been designing the calendars for the club I’m involved in for a little over 2 months. I’m still new to making sure I meet all the requirements and keep the presentation up to the school’s standards. I found out that there was actually a template that I could have been using the last 2 months, so I’m making sure that March will be the best yet.

I was working on designing some flyers for the events since the person who is usually in charge of flyers had to take care of family matters. I tried focusing on designing one of the flyers for my event over the weekend. The first design was simple, boring, and really didn’t have any pizazz to it. When I placed it in the presentation, it just looked horrible. I would not want to say “Hey I made that flyer you’re looking at.”

I thought about what I could do to improve the design. Sure I had an image, but it really was static. No solid design flow or pleasing colors. And with a plain white background you can’t tell where it starts and ends on a white background slide. What was that yellow blob I was trying to make? A sun? Looks like an orange according to my sister. What about that make-shift pot holding the marigold clip art?

I needed to refocus and rework this design. This is my event, I need to be proud of the flyer I made to advertise it as well.

So I sat back down, reopened the file in Publisher and reworked the design. I added a texture to the flower pot, created a spring “flower” border, and deleted that silly orange while changing the text color of “Spring Equinox” from blue to the orange color. Comparing the two designs side by side I am definitely proud of the second one.

The first design is on the left, and the redesigned (and final design) is on the right.

TV Marathons and Nintendogs

Day Fifty/ Fifty-one:

Here's Comett with a "hidden" present we found on the walk. Screenshot taken by me of Nintendogs (copyright Nintendo, 2006)

I haven’t played my Nintendogs in a while.  I have one of the older versions that you can still play on the older DS systems. I have a Chihuahua version which my sister got since the majority of the dogs on that version are hers. The one I was playing on was the Lab version, even though I chose to only own 3 shiba inus. They are very sweet and I have one with black fur, one with white fur, and one with orange fur. Their names are Starr, Comett, and  Sunsett respectively. I haven’t really “completed” the game, but its still a fun laid back game that I play from time to time. I was looking at the copyright date on the game and I’m pretty sure it said 2006. To think how far Nintendogs has come since then.

Here's Sunsett on a walk (she brought a present). 🙂 Screenshot taken by me of Nintendogs (copyright Nintendo, 2006)

They all have the same personality types, although Comett is a boy so he is usually more mellow than Starr and Sunsett. They usually fight over who gets to cuddle up to Comett. The game is basically daily care including feeding, washing, and walking the pets. Its optional to train them to compete in competitions, though they are the main form of income if you want to buy items in the shop (including dog food). Starr and Comett are farther along in the competitions than Sunsett, though she is working her way on catching up. I don’t know if they still make the 2006 version, but its still a sweet version of the game.

I found out that there was a Dance Moms marathon on so it was hard to not watch the series, but actually get some work done. I was working on the monthly calendar for the club, though the screaming of Abby Lee and the super skinny girls who bend so their feet can touch their head. It looks very painful. The series is very addicting, and for some reason once I start watching it I can’t stop. I don’t know what I find so amusing, but maybe I’m just rooting for them to be able to perform the routine perfectly even though they’ve only known it for less than a week.

Sketching

Day Forty-eight/Forty-nine:

I’ve finished two anime series this year (Peach Girl and Rumbling Hearts).  Are the series just so short that I can finish them within a couple weekends?

Its probably due to the fact that they are under 50 episodes each. I’m feeling disappointed with shojo anime lately (both were shojo genres). I’m not saying that I was expecting or looking for the happy ending, but the realistic ending for Rumbling Hearts was depressing.

A mix of strawberries and bananas with a chocolate drizzle eaten by chopsticks. 🙂

Without giving away any spoilers, I found Rumbling Hearts plot line a little predictable. A girl loves a guy, they go out for a while and then tragedy strikes and the life they knew would never be the same. Yes, a cliche, but it basically describes the story. The best friend goes astray and the leading man starts to fall apart without the girl in his life. Its sad to say, but I wasn’t surprised at the ending. The tragedy obviously broke the relationship up too far for it to ever be repaired. My sister and I were simply glad when it was over.

So I’ve been in a sketching mood lately. I’m trying to improve my portrait style sketches. One time I did a sketch of me although my eyes were so large it was uncomfortable. I was trying to attempt to finish a sketch I had started earlier of a friend. He saw the birthday card I did for J-kun and asked if I could draw him sometime. He sent me a picture of him with a crooked smile in a plaid shirt. My first attempt was a little silly, so I literally erased his head (leaving his eyes, nose, and mouth) to make the tilted angle of his head not so dramatic. Due to his crooked smile and my sideways drawing style, it was a little tricky, but my final version was much better in my opinion.

I attempted to draw another pic of J-kun, this time more than just his head and shoulders. It turned out pretty decent and he liked that I gave him kind of a “cartoon” feel. I’m glad he liked it. 🙂