Monday, December 31, 2012

This year ...

A quick recap of the big things that happened this year!

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO MAKE THEM BIGGER!

January: In which I decided to start the photo-a-day challenge! I'm really glad I did, since I was able to chronicle everything that happened this year! In January, I got to meet Justin loads and we celebrated our second anniversary (:

February: omgah Pullip pictures! I was trying to show them off since many of you didn't know that I even had them! Haha! That didn't last longer than this month, unfortunately. A new community market opened up by my house and now I always have a place to buy macarons!

March: I went to Honolulu for my spring break along with my family! Best vacation in a long time! I also started to make tiny star bracelets for the dolls! I also received my second Blythe at the end of this month! I had one before (CCC) but we didn't bond. I thought it was time to try again, and I'm so glad I did! 

April: More Blythe goodness! Spent more days hanging out in the backyard and on the elliptical! Went to my brother's second gamelan concert & got in touch with my native side :P

May: My birthmonth! Mom and Dad bought me the most beautiful diamond cross necklace for my birthday - something I've wanted for a while now! Also caught photos of crescent-shaped shadows from the solar eclipse! Our friend also left her dog with us because she had to move!

June: I started my internship at Merck this month, woo!! It was a wonderful experience - I would love to go back next year! Summer pretty much consisted of that. But in the meantime, my mom got Justin a job in the same building in which she works, so he got to spend A LOT of time with us! 

July: Fireworks were watched with my uncle's family. We did lots of family things this year, which is nice! Got my first big package from Lati as well - I had a lot of trouble carrying the box upstairs :P For EVC, we also started our summer sessions at houses with pools! Also indulged in tooooo many cupcakes!

August: Best part of this month = Disneyland trip!! We got to spend 3 magical days there, and it was amazing! The park really just gets better as I grow older (; Also attended a wedding - Stanley and Lia had their ceremony at GKI and then we had lunch at Maggiano's. 

September: An old friend of mine came back to the states to visit! I also went to the Philippines with Justin - our first trip together! It was a really short trip, but it was really fun! Those of you who know me in real life know I LOVE learning about different cultures! 

October: More awesome Blythe occurrences including the awesome bento hat made by Maggi! Spent a lot of my free time playing Pokemon Black and White 2! Oops!

November: We suddenly have a fourth dog .. Loki's original owner moved away and could not take him with her. We only went up to SF to meet him, but her roommate ended up dumping him on us! ): Poor guy! I also finally got my kigurumi after wanting one for more than 2.5 years! Along with that, I started to shop like CRAZY this month LOL.

December: In which I went even more retail crazy and scooped up lots of Disney stuff + work my kigurumi a lot more. Also got a sewing machine for Christmas, which is a great explanation for the mess on my desk right now! Great news - I finished my 366 photos project!! :D 

All in all, a really hard year filled with lots of trials .. But I have loads more to be thankful for. I feel like I get closer to my family as time goes by, which is unique in our modern culture! I absolutely love my dogs & doll hobby and can't imagine life without them. I'm so thankful that I also met so many wonderful people this year through church events, this doll hobby, and through classes! I hope anyone reading this will have a wonderful new year as well! 


Sunday, December 30, 2012

Sewing Progress!

One more post for tonight (: Mom and Dad got me a gorgeous computerized Brother sewing machine for Christmas, so naturally I've been working on sewing! I started with Blythe rather than Lati Yellow because of the size factor. My hands cramped up so easily at the beginning!

This one was my second attempt - I made it specifically for Scylla, who's supposed to be my sea monster (will be transformed later on by the fabulous Obvious Zebra once she's clear ^^). I think I'm gonna try to keep doing the cool patterns on the hem of these dresses since IDK when else I'm going to use them?? Makes it a bit different, too, even though you don't see it right away. The small details are fun sometimes!
DSC_8680 copy 361/366: Second Attempt!

An attempt with buttons:
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And here are all my girls wearing their new Auryealis couture ^__^
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They always stay right next to me on my desk and keep me company while I'm studying. I'm going to have to find another place to store all my sewing materials, fabric, and the machine when school starts. Right now, my desk is covered in fabric scraps, thread, etc. x__x; 

Global Winter Wonderland!

Global Winter Wonderland (+2)

Went to Global Winter Wonderland with my parents last night. It was freezing, but with groupon, we got tickets for $9 each :D Sadly, my brother's in St. Louis right now so he couldn't make it T__T;; Maybe next weekend. It was pretty cool to see all the pretty lanterns!

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The weird thing about the event was that it had so much Chinese themes to it O_O Some of the lanterns hung on trees were the traditional red Chinese lanterns (these were over dinosaurs, mind you!) and gourds ... GOURDS?!?! And the main headliner was the Peking Opera featuring the story of the Monkey King. Hehe. 


But look at these cute panda lanterns :DD Of course I took pics with them being named Amanda and all .. Sadly I didn't like any of the pictures that had ME in them LOOOOOL.



The one thing I told myself I had to get was a funnel cake *pictured above. It was yummy for the first 3-4 bites, then it got really gross really quickly x__x;; lol. They also had lots of food from around the world in the food court, including Greek food and Indian, mmmm ((: I got chicken masala garlic fries. YUMMM! Anyways! It was a pretty cool Christmas-y park (: I'd love to go again next year if they change up their lanterns again!

Monday, December 17, 2012

Holiday Busy-ness!

As always, I'm busy during the holidays with offline stuff ^__^; It's funny because lots of the time I'm just sitting in the family room being bored .. And yet I just don't feel like going up to my laptop hah. So I'm always completely out of the loop of everyone's lives around this time! Oops!

This time of year has been hard for me for the past 4 years, starting with problems with old church friends and all this not knowing the meaning of my life anymore. You see, I'm a very passionate person. When something makes sense to me, I will stick with it/to it with all my heart. But at the same time, my passions can be fleeting! I have gone through so many different musical instruments because I just *stopped liking piano* or *suddenly had the urge to learn guitar* lol.

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I always look back at my past during this time of the year, and for the past few years, I have felt like I really don't deserve to be happy, even at Christmas. There is one big incident and many smaller ones linked to it that I really regret. And I never talk about it anymore because my brother blames me and makes me feel worse when I talk to him about it, my parents don't know enough about it, and my boyfriend is not the best because he was friends with this person that I had a problem with. I almost broke up with him over it because when we were fighting, he stuck with his friend and completely ignored my calls and texts. Worst thing he ever did lol =_= Anyways. Holiday season is always a struggle for me, which is why I suddenly become a bit absent |:

I'm glad to be home and not have anything to do, but when I'm not in school, I just feel like the days are so wasted - I'm not learning anything, not really doing anything, just eating and sleeping, etc :P I can't wait til January rolls around!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

That time of the year when ..

I start getting busy in life off the computer and I have no idea what all my online friends are up to x_x! I find that when my parents are off work for long vacations (anything over 2 days constitutes as long for them lol), they end up doing crazy projects around the house. For example, over the summer, we re-did almost our whole backyard/garden area. And that was a LOT of hard work x_x I should post a picture of my backyard sometime, it's crazyyy. This week, we repainted the kitchen, did some touch ups here and there, cleaned our fume hood x_x Oh, did I mention I adopted another dog last weekend? :P It's been crazy!

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Around this time, I also start feeling like I can't do anything. Yay for SAD! I'm feeling overwhelmed already with having to meet up with old friends, making Christmas presents, cleaning the house/my room, etc.! The most productive thing I did all weekend was make iced sugar cookies. I mean, they don't look amazing, but at least I've got a recipe down for both cookie and icing. If only I could find my Christmas cookie cutters .. I have ALL the other 60+ cutters - just not my Christmas ones! They must be in their own box somewhere else!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

typing away in class ..

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I had a crazy mail day Friday of last week, and I'm guessing I'm getting more stuff in the mail todayyyy! Scylla - my new factory Blythe pictured above - was among the new arrivals. She's going to be my sea monster (I mean, her name probably gives it away lol).

I started to sew more this past month after Justin started going out more and more. I feel like it's really different between us now, and my sadness has made me lazy to do things online. He joined a club and the dance crew within that club, plus he has his senior project to work on. He doesn't need to study - he's just one of those smart people =__=; So he goes out 4 times a week and sometimes he leaves at 6PM and doesn't come back at 2AM. So I've been lonely. My closest friends live 40+ minutes away from me so I can't really just hang out with them. That's what sucks about being a commuter student, I guess? Anyways, this should explain my absence from Flickr.

Oh yeah - I started that paragraph saying I started to sew lol. I finally figured out my sewing machine for good. So hopefully after I draft a few patterns, I'll get something going. I can't afford Blythe fashion. I won't buy something more than $15 for myself .. why would I buy a dress that can fit in the palm of my hand for more? ^___^;; So I'll be making attempts at making doll clothes myself. Will also start working on Christmas gifts. I'm thinking about making some hand/pocket warmers? (: Now I just need to find cherry pits!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

More arrivals!

All these photos are up on Flickr, but I wanted to have them all together here as well xD As you can see, I got my Wizard of Oz order from Lati finally! Well, I really can't complain. They came earlier than I had expected! I went to pick them up from the post office on Tuesday morning and had to bear with leaving them in the trunk for 10 hours before getting to play with them because of my classes xD

I'm really happy with this release! All the girls I've seen on Flickr are really beautiful as well! I haven't examined their bodies closely, but no complaints so far :D I got a gray skin tinman Lea and with Lami! I couldn't resist those elf ears!

304/366: One more in comments

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+1 baldy in comments

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I think I've got their names as well. My Lami is named Circe. I love that name and I've seen it a couple times when looking for good witch names :P And my Lea is named Aspen for the tree that has heart-shaped leaves. I was trying to find a metal-related name for her, but then thought about the tinman's character. Although he didn't have a heart by the time he reconstructed his body from metals, he was still always the most compassionate and considerate of the group. So I started looking for heart-related names and found Aspen :D It works perfectly because the tinman was also a woodsman! I'm soooo cleverrr hahah! 

Sunday, October 28, 2012

I laugh it off, but it really hurts inside.

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The other day, I told Justin I wanted to die. He didn't really respond, so I guess he didn't really understand what I meant. Maybe it was my fault trying to unload my feelings on a boy :P

I really do feel like such a failure, though. I'm in the biology program at my school, and although it shouldn't be this hard, I'm struggling in every class. I love biology - I LOVE learning all the different parts that make the world work. I love being able to explain phenomena around me. But apparently, I'm not good at showcasing this knowledge on tests /: I've been planning on applying for the Biotechnology minor (I've actually been telling people I'm minoring in biotech already ..). One of the requirements was an internship, and I NAILED that part. Last summer, I was at Genentech working in the clean rooms in large scale production. This summer, I landed an internship at Merck working with antibodies and their effects on CHO cells. I feel like I have more lab experience than most of my peers ..

The only problem is I don't have the grades. I need a 2.0 average in the required Biotechnology classes (12 out of the many options - I had to take almost all of them for my Biology degree anyways). I got a D in ochem. The WORST grade I have ever gotten, and in such a critical class, too! I also have some C-s and currently, my GPA is just under a 2.0 in those classes /: So, even though I already did what people consider the hard part - the internship - I still may not be able to get the minor because of my grades.

I have never felt so unhappy in my life as I did these past three years. Although that's how long I've known Justin, I would be lying if I said things were just amazing in my life. He's a great aspect of my life, but even he isn't enough to deter my negative feelings. I just have been going downhill and getting worse in everything - school, taming my emotions, keeping friends, controlling my weight, etc. I just wish that there was an easy remedy for this negativity, but I'm always finding myself in a rut every now and then! I don't really know what I'm doing wrong .. I don't feel like I've been doing anything differently, although my environment has changed (I was at my "prime" in high school where I served on the ministry teams). I just wish I could be happy again ):

Sorry for the negative post, everyone. I just had to let it out /:

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Halloween

Candy Broomsticks

I never get into the whole Halloween season until like .. the week of ._.; I guess I'm just weird like that haha. There's going to be a fall festival at my church this Wednesday, and I was really planning on going until I learned that my dad will be out of town this week. Which means it'll just be me, mom, and the three dogs =__= I think if we left the dogs at home alone, they'd be really stressed out with all the trick-or-treaters coming around. So sadly, I can't go )':

But! Justin and I are gonna have a movie night with - what else - The Nightmare Before Christmas :D And now I have these guys to watch it with:

300/366: All ready for Halloween!

Too bad I don't have a Sally!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Late Night Arrival!

I had been expecting my Francoise Ananassa for a while now. She was held up in New York from last Monday to this Monday with a bunch of other Francoises!! Postal nightmare! :P Anyways, I checked the tracking yesterday during class and it showed that a notice had been left. I sort of expected that - I'm never home for the mail, so I always get those slips! )': I don't get home til 8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so when I get home, the last thing I think about is mail.

I found out when my night time alarm for pills didn't go off that I'd left my phone in my car. (Who else besides me misplaces their phones a lot? I feel like it's been happening to me every week lol! =__=) I went outside at 10:30PM last night to get my phone and decided to check the mail. Lo and behold, there was a big box inside, and within that box, Francoise Ananassa! :D 

Francoise

She is so cute and tiny! And look - she even fits some Lati Yellow dresses! Most of mine are a bit big for her, but they still work n__n Yay, that means I don't need to invest in a whole new wardrobe haha. 

298/366: Wubba Wednesday!

Monday, October 22, 2012

Fun with Mod Podge

via Ten June
Loving all the mosaic mod podge art featured here at Ten June. I think I might try something like this soon. I have a bunch of canvases left over from my painting class, so why not? (: Although, that reminds me! I do have to work on my Nightmare Before Christmas painting that I started last spring, haha. I'm still just on the background! O___O;;

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Sushi hat!

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Have you all seen this wonderful hat by Maggi (Kawaii Kandy)? :D I had this commissioned just a while ago and Maggi did such an amazing job on it! I had asked for a bento/sushi-inspired hat with at least an octopus hot dog! Eventually, I got greedy and asked for the salmon nigiri and tamago as well. The onigiri was a complete surprise to me, hehe! When she sent me pictures of this hat, I was just amazed! I had been having a really bad day, and on top of that, I was getting sick (ugh!). So this hat couldn't have come at a perfect time! I knew it would be perfect for Astrid! ^__^!!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

I met a new girl & I'm in love!

I admit that I splurged a while back when I pre-ordered both Slow Nimes and Francoise Ananana-whatever her name is. I was feeling horrible that night, and I guess I'm one of those suckers for retail therapy :P Except mine involves the interwebs + paypal. Two creations that I think I would be so much better without haha (not really!!!). When I explored the threads on BK and posts on Flickr, I discovered that there wasn't so much love for Slow Nimes.

Honestly what drew me to her was her outfit, which was such a nice-looking stock outfit for Blythe (no offense, Takara, but you guys need some more stylists!). But seeing all the negative comments about her face, I felt like I'd made a mistake in pre-ordering her just then x_x;

But then she arrived yesterday after a grueling two-week wait. And honestly, I couldn't be happier with her!
Slow Nimes is here!
I grabbed the box as soon as the mail person left it just because .. I mean, who wouldn't be excited to get a package, right? I was waiting for my Francoise (still am!) and had expected her to arrive first because of the shipping methods they were sent by. But when I saw the box had come from Otacute, I was a bit disappointed at first .. Until I decided to open her shipper box and saw that face through the plastic window!
289/366: I decided to unbox her. She's so beautiful! But her hair is sooooo greasy!
Long story short, I had expected to try to sell her but then thought to myself, "No one even likes her! Who would buy her?!?" I'm glad I had a moment of naughtiness and opened her box, because I haven't been this excited about a dolly's arrival in sooooooo long! :D 


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She now goes by Olivia. Don't you think she looks like an Olivia? lol :P She has also inspired me to attempt sewing again. I made her a skirt just now! But .. more on that later. I definitely will NOT be showing off my attempts at creating doll clothes for a long time until I get it down lol! 

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

This is super late, but .....

Oops! Here's the rest of my blog concerning my trip to the Philippines (:

Day 3:

The morning of our third day there, Mrs. Nubla's mom and sister (Auntie Carol) came over to meet us for our trip to Pagsanjan. I had a wonderful time there, but wish I'd brought sunblock. I've still got my farmer's tan to remind me T___T! We got hats in our package deal, though! Good investment! At least my face wasn't sunburned!



Justin and I went in one boat and his mom, auntie and grandma were in the other. We had two "drivers" each, who worked so hard while I just sat there on my bum, haha! The trip took like an hour upstream, and the boaters even had to pull us over rocks and such! I would never be able to do that :P


I wish the boaters didn't keep asking for tips, though! Would've been great if Justin didn't tell them that I only speak English, too .. The entire time after they found out, they kept trying to communicate with me in their broken English and I found it sooooo awkward! xD Anyways, when we got to the falls, Mrs. Nubla asked if we wanted to go underneath them. We were wondering why everyone else on our raft was wearing hard hats .. Apparently a Korean guy came here once and died because a rock fell on him from the top of the falls! If we'd known that earlier, we would've worn hard hats, too! x______x;;;;;




 After that, we went to lunch .. at Jollibee, of course, hehehe. Their pies are so cute there! Anyways. We stopped by another place to pick up some sandals made of the river lilies there, but I was still not in the shopping mood yet. We spent the rest of the afternoon recuperating and just rested.

Day 4:

In the morning, we set off for Tagaytay, a wonderfully lush and green area! The drive up was pretty nice. I attempted to take photos of the nice pineapple fields all around, but failed miserably because of all the little houses dotting the road!



It was a gorgeous mountaintop! Loved how green everything was here. And because it was at a higher altitude, it wasn't so hot. We saw a few market stalls, which, by the way, are my favorite places to shop. I wish we could've gone to more of these outdoor markets, which my people call "pasar." It's the best place to buy stuff, haha. The malls are too pristine imo :'P There was a guy selling inflatable dolphins, too! I REALLLYYYYY wanted one, but my room is seriously bursting-at-the-seams full.


After our short visit to Tagaytay, we went to Justin's grandma's house in Paranaque. Everyone from his mom's side was there! :D It was a really nice lunch. Sister Mary (his grandma's sister, who's a real nun!) prayed for us and mentioned me in her pre-lunch prayer. I felt so special! At the end of the visit, she also gave me a keychain that had a medal with a dove on it. Awesome! I felt bad that everyone had to go to such lengths to find something that I could eat .. vegetables, fish, etc. :P But I was super full that day! We kept on eating and eating! After one meal came another, then another .. O_O It was crazy!




The highlight of that day would have to be the fish spa! After lunch (and the three meriendas), we went to the local fish spa that Auntie Gina frequents (: At first, the fish eating the dead skin cells on my skin felt so prickly! And we were only supposed to soak our feet in there for 20-ish minutes, but there were 6 of us and it ended up taking a lot longer.




The doctor fish (I have no idea why they're named that!) in my tank were the medium sized ones. Mr. and Mrs. Nubla directly next to me had the biggest fish!! It was a bit freaky how big they were, lol! The leg massage after the soak felt so nice, too! I guess soaking and exfoliating did make my skin softer for about a day :P

Day 5:

On day 5, we went into the city to take a walking tour. We ended up in Intramuros for a tour on a kalesa! It was super cool :D I was scared going on the kalesa at first because it only had one axle and would tip depending where the weight was shifted, haha! The horses in the Philippines are a lot smaller, too! Poor thing, having to cart us around town! Intramuros was pretty cool, too, because we finally got to be walking around outdoors. I started to cough near the end of our trip there, though, because I wasn't used to all the smog from the cars x__x!




We visited a lovely church (but I didn't catch the name)! We pretty much sped through it, though, because the tour rate was based on time haha. It had a really, really nice courtyard, though :D Loved the gardens there!



There was also a park-like area honoring Ruiz (?). There was a place that had 14 cannons, which were used for attacking invaders coming from the ocean. The area around Intramuros, which is a city now, used to be just water! Interesting!




After the tour, we went to the Mall of Asia because it was so close (woo!). I was feeling like shopping that day and I ended up with a few new pairs of shoes, hairclips, and random cell phone charms which are wayyyy too big to actually put on my cell phone haha! And when we came home to Los Banos, I even got to take a ride in a tricycle with Eggar! WOOOOOO!



Day 6:

The early part of that day was spent on packing and going to the supermarket to buy snacks. I wish we'd gone earlier so that I could've tried out the snacks first .. That way I would've known which snacks to stop up on! For instance, the granny goose chips that we got were DELICIOUS, but I only got two bags T__T! Lame!

Justin's parents took us to a hot spring as well, which was more like a giant pool. There were rocks on the bottom of the spring, though, and water was flowing straight into the pool. It was really interesting in the water because it would alternate between hot and cool water! Also, there were doctor fish swimming around with you at the same time :D Too bad none of them were helping me get rid of my dead skin cells, lol! It started to rain after we got out, and we could see the doctor fish coming up to the surface of the water to get some air! There were also people getting full body massages by the side of the spring, but it looked a bit gross to me because of all the algae xD

Later that night, Justin's parents took us out to dinner! So sweet! We went to Isdaan, which is subtitled "the floating restaurant!" It wasn't like the Jumbo floating restaurant in Hong Kong. It reminded me of when we went to the mountains to eat in Indonesia as well.




They had a normal outdoor restaurant area but also little bungalows above water where you could eat. The whole floor connecting everything was made of bamboo reeds, and the decorations were everywhere.



The dinner was pretty good as well. I ate so much that night, hehe. Also got lots of photo opportunities. Too bad it was dark and I didn't have a flash diffuser!



They had all sorts of random characters there, like Superman and Batman, Mickey and Minnie, Goofy, a trashcan meant to look like a stack of fries and a hamburger .. O_O; Strange things, haha. I bet if we came during the day or on a not-so-rainy night, we could've seen more. Still, there were lots of places to take pictures, lol.





It was a very nice meal and a wonderful close to our short journey! I can't wait to go back to the Philippines. The people there were so friendly and always smiling and making jokes about everything! (: Great place to visit!