Move along, nothing to see here, I just need to get some bi-monthly drawing angst off my chest...

I have hit a very frustrating wall style-wise, where I've realized that I've picked up all these really bad habits that I must now try to break myself out of arrrrgh whyyy. I think it's partly because over this semester, I've had the opportunity to do a fair amount of life drawing, and I think I've improved in a lot of not-so-apparent ways - more in the areas of how I think about drawing, or approach a drawing, and artsty stuff like that but now it's created this lopsided feeling, where I feel like I can't draw anything without direct observation, and anything in a more cartoony style is just kind of... confused and shitty looking.

Ahh but no worries, this happens all the time. Hopefully now that I've got a bit more of a handle on this college thing, I can find more time to play around with cartoony doodles in my spare time, and try to slap myself out of doing everything the same way. The same grossly anatomically incorrect way

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas/Chanukah/Festivus/Ramadan/winter break ETC!

I wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to Jip Pruden, who gave me a subscription to DA this year! I was so surprised! What a thoughtful and awesome xmas present. Hoorayyyy!! HEE HEE JUST LOOKIT THAT LITTLE ASTERISK NEXT TO MY NAME.

All right, back to the consuming of too many sugary pastries and dancing around the living room in my new wintry clothes! So relived that I won't have to worry about freezing to death when I have to go back to New York

SO? IS IT CHREEESTMAS YET!?!?!!?!!?!

I have a complaint to lodge with the world. There is no reason that a runny nose and a cough should be so incapacitating. One would think that one could just go about one's business as usual, just not quite so comfortably, perhaps. But NO. I can assure you that it is absolutely impossible to get any homework done when one has to keep stopping every two seconds to stench the flow of one's nose/make more tea/cough into one's arm/fail to cough into one's arm and end up turning the apartment into even more of a biohazard than it already is.

...this led me to discover last night that indeed, the only thing I could possibly accomplish in this state was to watch more Fullmetal Alchemist. So I did. Thus I am now two episodes away from the end of the (original) series, and it's DESTROYING MY SOULLLLLLLL. Now I'm supposed to concentrate on homework though BOTH the profuse running of my nose AND the haze of shock and suspense and... beautiful tastiness that FMA has plunged my mind into? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. There's only so much I can handle. ...Though I guess it's about time I actually did something useful with myself after the past few days of lying around using up the world's supply of kleenex and trying to find ways around megavideo's time limit.

SO THIS IS... とうかこうかん！？

I cannot even believe what I have done in the past few weeks. I think that I've died and ascended to nerdvana. (I think it's like in Narnia, where they all die in a train crash but don't find out until the end of the book? Was there a subway accident recently that I should be aware of?)

Because I can't actually find the words to speak about these things in detail, here is a list. I so adore lists.

- Harry and the Potters in Brooklyn (with MC Kreacher, who I had never heard of before and who is TOTALLY AWESOME.) SO RAD. They signed my grock poster. lsfjlsfljljs.
- John Krasinski at his film "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men." So, first of all, we were in the front row, so he stood about three feet away from us :3 and he was really funny and smart and stuff. ...AND THREE FEET AWAY FROM US. But though we may have had ulterior fangirl motives for attending, the film itself was really really intense and awesome.
- I went to my first convention, Animefest. ...mind= blown. Bought lots of geeky shit (but not enough if you ask me.) OH but the best thing there was this LOST GROCK BAND, "the Others." I got all their CDs, they're awesome. OH YEAH AND I HAPPENED TO SELL OUT OF ALL MY COPIES OF LAMPLIGHTER. ...well. I brought three. BUT I SOLD MY COMIC AT A CONVENTION. THAT'S RIGHT BITCHES
- Howard Shore at Barnes & Noble for a CD signing. ...if Howard Shore didn't completely change your life and elevate your soul to heretofore untapped levels of emotion, then, I don't know. Think of someone who did and then you will understand how much we were freaking out. He signed my complete recordings of ROTK and my sheet music! And he said "nice, well-worn copies..." or something like that. ohmygosh.*
- Next up was Billy Boyd's "Beecake" at Joe's Pub. This I honestly can't talk about without breaking down into so much capslock that your screens will shatter. Suffice it to say that the following things happened: 1) We saw Elijah Wood there as well. 2) We had awesome seats. 3) Beecake was pretty jammin' and awesome. 4) Howard Shore was also there, which means that my BFF Meg and I were in the *same room* as Billy Boyd, Elijah Wood, and Howard Shore AT THE SAME TIME. This goes so far beyond any of my wildest dreams, it's unspeakable. 5) Billy Boyd signed my CD. And touched me. And we got a picture with him. And I shook his hand.
- Finally we got to see the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack performed life to film at Radio City Music Hall. Basically, if you asked me to design the most wonderful event possible, that is what I would have come up with. It was incredible. Can't wait for Two Towers next year... yes? 8D
- BUT NO IT'S NOT OVER YET. We then proceeded to see Tolkien's original notes/manuscripts at Fordham University. ...I can only really describe what this felt like my making really inappropriate religious analogies, like, imagine seeing doodles on the back of menus that Jesus did, or something. That is what it was like for me. I am who I am ok.

SO YEAH. THERE WAS THAT, THAT HAPPENED.
In other news it suddenly got dayum cold. And so dry that the skin on my palms is peeling off D:


*also at this event the coincidence to end all coincidences happened. In fact, it goes so far beyond "coincidence" or "small world!" that I just don't know what to call it. The woman working behind the counter who sold us our complete recordings sets turned out to have recently transferred from the B&N at Kahala Mall! And she'd worked at Agnes's Portuguese Bakery as well! So we were all excited and hugged, etc, etc, Hawai'i is one beeg ohana, and so on. Then later it started to bug me how familiar she had seemed - and I found out that SHE WAS THE MODEL FOR EYE CANDY: [link] AND THAT OTHER ONE: [link] So... in a city of millions of people, at some really nerdy composer signing event, I run straight into the woman on whom the picture I won a Scholastic Art & Writing award for was based, which helped me get into the school I am currently attending which is the REASON I'm in New York and able to run into her in the first place. .....I don't even know what to say about this. I start thinking "oh, it's such a cool story," and then I start actually considering the odds, and I kinda need to sit down.