Holy shit.  Got an A where I wasn't expecting one. I mean, usually I don't post about grades, I just.  What the shnikies.

Oh, and, hope folks are having a nice and special time wherever they are, whatever they're doing - I suspect most of my friendslist are celebrators of Christmas, but even so.  Let's enjoy the scent of the season.  Nom nom capitalist joy.

Christmas was a little bit small this year, but considering my main present is plane tickets to Hawaii, I'm not complaining!

But more physical manifestations of giving:

- Gift cards to Borders and Barnes and Noble
- The World Ends With You
- A nice silk Persian area rug from Mom
- various small bits and bobs, including good socks

I was honestly more preoccupied with whether or not my family would like my gifts to them, because I have anxiety in that way. Still gunning for a PS3 for graduation, but Heather has a 360 that we can play FFXIII on when the time comes.

Merry Christmas guys! :D
imma get over my emo and try to enjoy today!



yay~ Christmas Special~ :D

I helped decorate the tree. XD

Merry Christmas everyone~!!!

And thank you crazyloststar, queenvera and dogosan for your holiday cards, they were all so full of cheer and lovely and impressive~ XO ♥

P.S. one photo from the Sweden x Finland santa theme shoot is up!

Bawwww, paid account expired. It is interesting to see which six of my icons LJ decided to give me access to.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Livejournal Folk. :D

Ahhh I am so excited for this! Ooku~~~<3<3<3
and Ninooooo~<3<3<3 I am thrilled, my two hobbies (manga and arashi) are merging into one >:D *shot*
I am admittedly scheptical tho. . . 1) it's a japanese movie 2) Nino a Yoshinaga Fumi character?! 3) it's a japanese movie

"And also boys love in the men’s palace that no women admitted. Ninomiya’s fans can’t sit still for a moment."
(O-o;;;;;) WAIT WAT? . . . why I don't remember BL in Ooku but okay (~_~;;;) lol, thank you?

I really do hope it pans out well, Nino sure is busy tho (O-o) this and Gantz.



aaaaand Happy Birthday Aiba-chan<3 haha(@_@) drew this at 8:00am in the morning;;;

So. It's been sweat, blood, and tears. And it still needs editing like whoa.

But I've finished the rough draft of something. :D 57k, roughly! I estimate it will be ~70K once I go back and add in a few scenes that are wanting, and some exposition to make for easier reading. I'm just wallowing in being proud of myself for a little bit.

My New Year's Resolution is to be slower to anger. If it's someone who cares about me, then we should meet each other with patience. If it is someone who isn't worth my time, then they aren't worth my anger either.

...

In completely unrelated news, today marked my first time driving on the highway. And getting cut off! Twice! Then I hit the curb on my parking job because I was freaking out, but otherwise the sister reports that I did quite well. Other than the poor curb.

Grades are in! A-, A-, A, B+. My GPA is stuck firmly at a 3.6, though I hope to get it up to a 3.7 or 3.8 next semester if I really work at it.

Got caught in that snowstorm down here, and the power was out from Friday until yesterday evening. We spent Sunday night in a hotel, because blech and cold and blech. But it came back on as we were driving into my sister's town! Her school still canceled tomorrow, so we're heading back a day early.

I am super bad at puzzles! But with the aid of a flashlight I made it to the third book of Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy. It's so...fluffy. It's an emo fantasy romance novel. AND I ENJOY IT. Mmm, brain goo.

Went out with my brother and dad today~

First marukai (the faaar one)~ ate a bunch of osechi samples (~_~;;) haha. Marukai<3

Ate at Hanamaru~ It was good (*_*) omg who knew, also it was surprisingly nice and big inside<3 THE SASHIMI WAS OMG. SASHIMI<3 It came with the teishoku, there was hamachi, maguro and katsuo, nom nom best sashimi I had in a long time (=____=)<3lol, the sushi chef kept talking to my dad (^^;;;) apparently he even gives him free omake dishes sometimes (O_O;;;)

Then Nijiya~ they had curry paaaan, yay! I bought one it was good (>3<)/ also bought THIS. GOGO NO KOCHA PATISSIER APPLE DARJEELING AU LAIT<3<3<3　うめええええ〜！！テンション上がる〜〜〜！！ omg. buy it.

Went to Shirokiya~ whoa, it was really different (O_O) . . . that whole new area on the second floor, and the book off section;;; I really like the new crafty section tho~ OMG SO CUTE (>__<) I am tempted to buy one of those bead kits~ adorable~ In the book off I spazed about Arashi playing and freaked my brother out (@_@) then chibikaen came and spazed wih me~ lol, what a coincidence. Sorry I couldn't talk longer (>___<;;;) Then my dad and I tried to go to Gap after this, but the traffic on the other side of the mall was just so bad we decided to leave (=_=)

Soooo~ after a quick trip to Nippon Video, we headed back to the apartment~ and I forced Arashi clips on my brother, who was nice and watched them with me XD Dinner was good, my dad made butter shoyu salmon with tokyo negi, sliced cucumber and pear salad, and a stewed takenoko and katsuo dish. it was good :3

*sigh* hawaii is awesome.
I have some side projects lined up to work on for the rest of the break ^_^ *excited*

Like the rest of the East Coast, New York City is getting its fair share of snow.  Met up with eva_kasumi in midtown for dinner at our favorite ramen place so we could have our traditional look-see at the Saks "Carol of the Bells" light and music display.  Seeing it through all the flurries was truly fantastic, and the odd little sensation of "won't be here next year" wasn't the final toll bell ring I'd sort of dreaded on the inside.  There'll be other years. 

Got to talking about old television shows with strangers on the subway. Unresolved question, folks: Ginger or Mary Ann?  Also got to see a proposal at the Rockefeller ice rink - those are always nice to catch. I wonder if you can sit somewhere the live long day and count how many you get, and whether anyone's ever been stood up by two proposals in the same lap.

Sort of delighted by the depth of the weather.  

Feeling a little more up on top of things than I was feeling during the last posts, but... it's this holiday haunting of extra thinks and thoughts.  Been reading a lot of basic feminist literature, I guess, and when you get into that, and you already agree with it, it just makes you upset.  Not in a bad way, maybe, or at least not in the worst way, where you just feel knee-deep and going under, but profoundly sad, and itchy.  In the skull, down to the sternum, and down even deeper.

I thoroughly enjoy Christmas as a celebration of the good will of capitalism.  I don't presume to say what anyone else enjoys it as, but that's the song I'm taking home from pictures painted in grocery store windows.

Merry any and every, peeps.

Turned in my essay last night, so finals are OFFICIALLY over! yaaay~<3<3
Finally have some time to watch arashi clips relax. . .

もちろん、大ちゃんで〜す。似てますかね？

他のメンバーも描きたいな〜ニノとか。

Last exam on the 23rd. God willing, the last sit-down exam of my college career, given the proliferation of seminars on the horizon.

It's that frighteningly cold time of year, when wearing gloves makes a mountain of a difference.

Missed out on a chance to run out and meet a truly amazing person I met on the internet, who was about an hour and a half of train rides to the east. Regretting it now, a bit, but glad I was here tonight to field for eva_kasumi  in the midst of a computer virus scare. Everything looks fine now, but it's nice to be there for someone just like they've been there for you, in whatever little ways you can.

She got me another Pikmin. Lacking eyelids, it cannot help but stare, from its perch on the bookshelf above my bed. I shall never again be clean.

Meandering back and forth with the thesis. Adviser has yet to email with her critique, which I guess means I don't actually have to be thinking about it just yet.  Doing it anyway. Being about home, it's a lot of stuff that hits close.

Still enjoying The Mentalist. 

Also writing steampunk!Arthurian, though that's come down to just-shy-of-200-word emote-porn vignettes. Maybe one day I'll even figure out the romance novel, and then I'll be set to... eat and feed my hypothetical cats for the rest of my life.

Just a bunch of thoughts while coming up on the end of the year. This is the time when I read a lot of webcomics and manga as a form of procrastination (A Family Man for the former, Uzumaki for the latter - both incredibly interesting, for entirely different reasons. I don't recommend Uzumaki for the easily squicked.)

I wish I had more time to do art, and to write, and that I could feel less like an obese leech on society's tender, guarded underbelly whenever I indulged in either. It's nice to take joy in creating, and I... I encourage NaNo, and things like it, because I think everyone deserves to do what makes them happy, because everyone deserves to be happy, but while I love these things, and they're fun, and they're fantastic, I always feel like such a privileged little louse for putting so much time and effort into either.  My time is precious, and there's a fucking lot of other things I could be doing with it.  But instead of giving of my time, my effort, my thoughts and energy, I just take it all for myself.  That's a little hurtful.  I wish I were less selfish, so that I would feel less bad about being the me life granted me the strange luck to be.

But, still, I dunno.  I love lamp.  It's a good time to be alive.

Done!

Whether or not the conclusion is victory remains to be seen.

Tomorrow we are driving down to the excitement that is West Virgina, where I'm staying with my sister until the 24th, when we drive back up for Christmas. She has wireless!

Then, on the 29th, I'm on my way to the airport so that the ladybean and I can be off to her homestate of warmth on the 30th. Wireless also available!

I get back on the 15th, but Dad and I are going to chill in NYC for a couple of days if anyone is around who wants to hang out. THEN BACK TO SCHOOL.

For my last semester.

Eep.

Things that are bad for my blood pressure: internet discussions on feminism.

HOW DARE WE ACCUSE MEN OF HORRIBLE THINGS.