I got a new haircut last week with some stylish new bangs, yay! AND I decided to dye my hair today...nothing permanent, just a little something that will wash out in a month. Either way my hair is very auburn colored right now and it's also surprisingly shiny. Hurray for new looks!

Anyway, besides changing my look, I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, mostly clothes for BJDs, and I just recently made some tiny plush bunnies, mostly to be toys for BJDs, but they could be people toys too. The bunnies aren't online yet, but they will be hopefully by sometime tomorrow....heh, I guess I should also be mentioning that I am doing all of this sewing to sell. Anyway if you are interested in any of my craft goods, just keep an eye on my doll and craft blog.

I set up a new blog dedicated to BJDs and crafting. I include crafting with it mainly because I craft doll clothes and toys, so I thought it would marry well. Anyway it goes without saying that I will blog about BJDs and crafts there, and I also plan to sell some of my crafts there as well. As it is, I have already listed some boys SD13 size T-shirts and plan to list two more other shirts tonight. Also my Aloha Bunny has been re-listed. Here be the link:

http://www.genkigirl.com/dollyblog/

I'm still waiting for my new doll to arrive, according to Fedex tracking, she is in transit and will be delivered tomorrow. I think if she is delivered tommorrow that it will probably be late in the afternoon. I can't wait to get her! I want to sew some cute skirts!

Soooo, I ordered my first MSD sized girl today!!! There were several reasons for this seemingly sudden order however. First of all, because the Asleep Eidolon MSD girls are on sale now at Mint on Card, they are waaaay too cheap right now not to consider them. Also they are running a special promotion, so I will get a free t-shirt and a pair of free glass eyes with my order too. The other factors are that I have been wanting a girl doll for a while now, and I haven't been making very good progress on my OOAK bjd. Finally, I had saved all of my comic book and advert monies, so I could afford it. Though now, although I am excited at the prospects of getting a new toy to sew for, I also realize that I made myself decidedly poor(er). XD

Anyway if anyone is interested, I ordered the Asleep Eidolon Yara doll. Which you can check out here:
http://www.mintoncardinc.com/dolls/item_details.php?BJD=531&name=Yara+(Girl+Version)&cat=27

I plan to put a strawberry blond or possibly a long redhead wig on her when she arrives. I also ordered some 16mm green eyes since I hear that they work better than the default 14mm eyes you get with the doll. I admit I went a little hog wild too and ordered an outfit and shoes. Mint on Card's stuff is very reasonable though, and they are nearby (in MI), so shipping isn't as hard on you.

This doll is also kind of a gift to myself since I went through some tough shizz lately. The tough shizz isn't over though, and I won't say now what it is until the situation is resolved. Suffice to say only my family knows what the situation is right now.

My sweet Juliet is gone. When I was sad or lonely, I would go hug my Juliet. Her fur was so soft, and she would think it was a game and lick my face, then with a bounce she would bring me her one of her favorite toys to play. Right now all I want to do is hug my Juliet, but I can't because she is not here. She was beyond special, and I just don't know how another dog could possibly live up to her good name. Juliet was the best of all dogs, she was perfect in every way, and now that she is gone, there is an emptiness that won't go away.

Juliet is pretty sick right now, and the vet hasn't determined exactly what it is yet. She is retaining water so much that her belly is bulbous, and the inflation of her belly has made it hard for her to move, not to mention there is pain if you touch her belly. During the last trip to the vet, he sent us home with a diuretic to try and see if it gets rid of the fluid, so then he could get a good xray of her lower organs to see what might be going on. Her heart and lungs are fine, and really this just came on all of the sudden. I am hoping whatever it is can be solved. Her blood tests do not indicate cancer or anything.

So now I'm worried and depressed. I don't want to lose my dog, the one that I found abandoned as a puppy and convinced my parents to take in. Juliet has always been my buddy, and the thought of losing her now when so many other things are going wrong just seems unbearable. I just want my Juliet to be healthy again so we can have many enjoyable spring and summer evening walks. You just don't know how much comfort she gives me and my family.

So I just finished watching the last part of the 2008 Masterpiece Classic rendition of Sense and Sensibility. Of course I pretty much adore most any film version of Jane Austen's novels, and with each new movie adds new visions and ideas. It's very fun to compare your favorites and perhaps envision what it might be like if the best parts of every movie were to come together. So I shall compare the Masterpiece Classic version to Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility.

One of the things in the forefront of my mind is that Masterpiece version totally included Willoughby's drunken visit during Marianne's illness. Though it seemed a little less drunk, but of course Willoughby was none the less disheveled and ill mannered. I didn't understand why it was cut out of the Emma Thompson movie, because I felt that the scene in particular let us fully see Willoughby's disgusting nature. Sure we are previously appalled to find out about Willoughby's seduction and abandonment of Colonel Brandon's young ward, but hearing Willoughby's own words on the matter rather puts the last nail in his coffin. Also on the topic of Willoughby, this movie made him out to be more wicked than the Emma Thompson version. We get hints along the way of his sinister side, which wouldn't have been Austen's intention, as we are meant to be surprised that the charming Willoughby turns out to be a rake. This movie takes that surprise away with it's foreshadowing, but on the other hand we are treated to a scene of creative license where Colonel Brandon duels Willoughby.

The other thing that struck me in the Masterpiece version is that I find the actor who played Edward Ferrars much more handsome and endearing than Hugh Grant's Edward Ferrars. This new Edward Ferrars seems much more intelligent behind his shyness, and less so much a bumbler as Hugh Grant's Edward. In fact I would say this was a better portrayal of Edward, since just because one is shy doesn't mean they bumble about and allow themselves to be easily lead. Either way it has put Edward's character into a much more agreeable light for me, since previously he was not on my list of favorite Austen Heroes.

So now that I have compared one hero, I should also compare the two Colonel Brandons. I will say that I prefer Alan Rickman's Colonel Brandon, but mostly for shallow reasons as I found him more attractive than the other actor. I did enjoy all of the extra Colonel Brandon scenes in the new movie though. He had the added duel scene, the falconry scene, and other inconsequential bits.

In the end there are pluses and minuses to both films, but I would be happy to have both in my collection. In fact I may have to order the Masterpiece DVD soon as it also includes the new version of Persuasion, which I must say looks very tasty, and Persuasion is my second favorite Jane Austen novel behind Pride and Prejudice.

Well, I best be off to bed, I am already staying up too late and I have to go back to the salt mines bright and early in the morning. XP

Lately I've been prone to becoming ill, what with my working with children who are little germ vectors. Because of this I have been spending much of my weekends as of late resting and minding my health, especially now considering things are coming to a head with my lessons and I need to be there to guide my students so they create great works which I can photograph for my portfolio. Of course resting and minding one's health is rather boring without a diversion, so I have been watching more television as of late, and I have also taken up reading Georgette Heyer novels.

I discovered Georgette Heyer when I came across some book reviews of hers on the Jane Austen's World blog. The reviews were good of course and the story summaries interesting, not to mention they are all romances set in the Regency period in England. Well I shouldn't say all of them, because whereas she wrote mostly Regency romance, she also wrote a handful of historical fiction as well as suspense/mystery novels. Anyway I just finished reading her "Reluctant Widow", which while a Regency romance, is also very much a mystery novel as well. A bit of intrigue unfolds involving French spies, and the selling of Duke Wellington's secrets to Bonaparte. Last weekend I read Frederica, which involved no intrigue, but certainly had its misadventures of Frederica's two younger brothers who were always getting into the wildest of scrapes. In short Georgette Heyer's novels will have things you would never find in a Jane Austen novel, such as heroines like Elizabeth Bennet on steroids, strange mysteries, little brothers who steal away on a hot air balloon, or episodes involving Marley-esque family dogs. I would say though that after exhausting all of Austen, her novels prove to be a good read, and certainly satisfy the want for more Regency romance! Of course there is also Fanny Burney and Anne Radcliffe to look up too who were contemporaries of Austen. I am glad for the fact though that Georgette Heyer was quite a prolific writer and wrote nearly 40 romances. I shouldn't exhaust all of those any time soon, and most thankfully a lot of her novels are now being reprinted what with the surge of the Jane Austen fandom in recent years.

The only things that bothers me a little about Heyer's novels is that so far from what I have read there just isn't enough courtship for my tastes, and the hero and the heroine usually come together at the very end. For example with Pride and Prejudice we are made quite aware of Mr. Darcy's growing regard for Elizabeth all throughout the novel, and although Elizabeth has been soured against him in the beginning, you can tell that she enjoyed some of their witty exchanges. In any case it felt as if the relationship had been slowly cultivated throughout the novel, but of the two Heyer books I read there is less so much of this relationship building....at least from my point of view. Either way it is nothing that would put me off from reading her books, and I have heard that some of her other titles are more romantic so we shall see.

Recently my school has offered the entire Adobe Creative Suite for download for FREE, this includes Flash, CS3 and so on. Of course it's a huge file, so I've been having to download the dmgs in increments. Each packet is 512MB, and takes around 22 minutes or so to download. Right now I'm working on the 4th part before I go to bed. After this I have 6 more parts to go though! It will be worth it though, but it sure is going to fill up my HD when everything is all said and done.

Flash has always interested me, and I've tinkered in it before, but never made anything worthwhile enough to show. Basically my first animation was of a bunny peeking out from behind a bush and going back down again, wooo, yeah....I know, exciting.... However I realize the power of flash to create simple games. I've always been interested in the idea of creating a visual novel/otome game, and I think Flash would be one way to do it. If you model it after visual novel style games like Hiiro no Kakera or Comic Garden, you can create your static background and stock poses of the characters to get you through a lot of dialogue. Of course you would still need to make all of the special CGs. I have a otome game storyline I think would be fun to pursue, but I already have so many other creative projects to work on.

My problem is that I get ideas faster than I can make those ideas reality. To be honest I really feel I am slow at drawing. I can't get as many comic pages done as other people. Part of it may be that I am too fussy. I will sometimes draw, erase, re-draw, and repeat this process over if I feel the expression or pose isn't just so. I really belted out the drawings in drawing class last semester though. I think sometimes when I sit down to draw Patches, something inside me freezes up, and I think it's related to the fact that I feel I have to get everything perfect, even though it is never perfect despite my best efforts.

Lately though, I've mostly felt like writing. I think this is partly due to the fact that it is relaxing and I feel I really need to get my lazy out before I have to start student teaching. Also writing, like reading is a fantasy get-away, and I guess I want to escape right now to avoid worrying about student teaching. Believe you me, if I weren't playing videos like a mindless goon or losing myself in writing, I would definitely have a belly-ache from worrying over it. In fact talking about it right now is probably already too much talking about it, so I should probably just shut up.

Ending on a lighter note though....Today I was researching Regency fashions and to a lesser extent Rococo fashions for some story ideas I have. In the process I came across this Jane Austen dedicated blog that has tons of resources in it for the life and times of Regency England among other Jane related things. Here is the link for all of you Janeites:

http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/

There are also some book reviews on there for books by modern day authors, but set in Regency England. The reviews seemed pretty good, and I can't get enough Jane myself, so I might have to check some of them out to get my period fiction fix.

This year I don't feel I have too much to resolve to do. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does this mean then that I must be content? Well, probably not entirely, but what I would like to do or need to do should just be done, and no resolution is really needed. Either way I will list a couple things I would like to do.

I would like to lose 5 pounds by February 14th. Really I wouldn't mind losing more, but I gained five pounds since Halloween from all of the cookies and candies lying about, so I'd like to get back to my usual weight. I didn't select February 14th for any particular reason other than it would be an easy date to remember.

I would like to say that I will sketch every day, or update my comic more, but I realize that starting Monday I begin my student teaching that will continue until graduation in May. So the next four months will be long, hard and grueling, as I will essentially be working in the capacity of a full time teacher. So really, I feel I should just resolve to do my best with student teaching, relax as much as I can, and take care of my health more than anything.

So maybe I should just adopt a theme....Come what may, I'll still keep on the middle way.

I decided to sign myself up on Twitter. I thought it could potentially be fun, and perhaps useful. Among other mundane things, I plan to use to it post my progress on my comic in the hope that people will stop bothering me about updates, and when they might come. Anyway if anyone else is signed up, let me know. I'm only following one person so far. ^^;

Here be my profile page:
http://twitter.com/Tsukiyono

Do any of my peeps have the game? Plan to get the game? I'm looking to exchange friend codes, have wild fishing parties and exchange fruits. XD

So I practically called this election did I not? :D The only state I was wrong by was Missouri. I did just as good as that Rove guy who was off by one, saying Indiana would go McCain. Indiana so turned blue, but for some odd reason CNN is reluctant to turn us and North Carolina blue. It's totally a done deal though, let me assure you! By the time Indiana turned blue last night McCain had already conceded and Obama gave his victory speech, so the election was mostly a done deal by then, but it's like a sort of personal victory for me that Obama won Indiana and I had to stay up until NBC flipped us blue.

Life is good.

That is my plan for today. :) I just got back from taking my Art History exam this morning, and so far I have accomplished the eating portion of my plan. Now I am going to wait until about 1pm to hit the polls as when I drove by my polling place on the way home it looked like there was a pretty good lunch crowd starting. After I finish voting I will just do whatever the hell I want to do for the rest of the day! This probably means I'll be playing Hiiro no Kakera (which I've been blogging about in my GameBlog), and when I feel I need a break from all that kanji I will continue with my drawing project.

You know I feel really good about today. When I left the campus garage this morning on my way in to class I came face to face with someone wearing an Obama Biden shirt with their logo of the sun rising over the hills. I take that as a sign that things will go well. :3

EDIT: I have now taken care of the voting portion of my day! Now all that's left is to be merry. :D

Today on this Halloween where I wish adults could still trick or treat, I will partake of a Reese's peanut butter cup and probably watch the marathon of the Ghost Hunters on sci-fi until I'm too creeped out to sleep. XD They are going to have a live show starting at 7pm (EST) tonight and going until 2am. They are going to be exploring the old Fort Delaware which I'm sure will interest my cousins in PA ;). I guess you will also be able to get on AIM or something and send messages to them while they are doing their thing. I wonder how many "look out behind you!" type of messages they will get, lol. To be honest though I don't find this show really creepy unless they get some footage of an unexplained humanoid shadow walking around.

I present to thee, the Calvinball quiz.....

Your result for How good of a Calvinball player are you?...

Your Grade= A+ Good knowledge and excellent strategy!

Take How good of a Calvinball player are you? at HelloQuizzy

I took this art quiz, but I'm not sure where the quiz giver gets their ideas from. Although I do like impressionism, it certainly isn't my favorite movement. Their image sampling is a bit shallow in this regard, and there is a real deficit of contemporary works in relation to all the pieces by dead guys. I mean why not throw in some Rothko for example. Now those are some minimal and expressionistic works even the visually illiterate masses can appreciate because of the way the color resonates.

Haha, I must already be in a bad mood today to critique a quiz. Anyway here is the quiz, take it to pass the time if you wish:

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

EDIT: "People that like Impressionist paintings may not alway be what is deemed socially acceptable." XD Pffft, dumbass, thee most socially acceptable, plain, boring and average Jane loves impressionism because it's so frickin' decorative and will match their couch. (9_9) OK, this quiz is now just deemed really stupid, I should have just got up and cleaned my room instead.

So, my brother and I like to keep track of the polls and play around with the electoral map calculator on CNN's website. This map is how I call the election today according to the poll numbers I've gone over. Of course Missouri and North Carolina are probably really too close to call, but I was being optimistic and placing them in Obama's camp.

Now you may be thinking, "What? You're crazy saying Indiana's going to go blue!", and maybe there is some optimism there as well, BUT the point is that CNN's polls are old and the most recent polls done by local media have indicated that things are a little more neck and neck than they seem. As it stands, WISH-TV's polling has the two candidates at 46 and 46, granted their polls probably only extend through central Indiana. However the South Bend polls, which would be a sampling of northern Indiana say it's 46/45. On top of this Obama is going to visit our state AGAIN, which indicates to me that he and his campaign team really believe they can turn this state. What with Obama's lead in Ohio getting larger when just a week or so ago McCain had a short lead, I'm beginning to feel really positive about things. :3

It's been a while since I've made a proper journal entry here. I ended up coming down with a really bad sinus infection that seriously took me out for a week, and it took me another full week to really recover from. Seriously that first week back to school, I would just get tired walking from the parking garage into class. I missed so many classes and it's been a bit of a struggle to catch up, but I think I've made it. I still have some sinus issues, but I'm hoping that continuing to use my nasal spray and drinking plenty of fluids will get me cleared out.

I'm in the middle of judging the first fanart contest for Patches. I really didn't get as many entries as I would have liked, so I imagine that must be a sign that I don't really have the fanbase for it yet. As it is I don't plan on holding another contest for some time.

I am really wore out this semester, which I think is what helped lead to my getting sick. Until I became sick, I didn't have any time to pursue any leisure activities, save for television watching and that could only be done because I could multitask and work on my drawings for class while I casually watched. When I became sick, I spent my days in bed playing video games, and it felt really good to be able to play games again and just have fun for the sake of fun even though I was sick.

I decided then that I'm not going to push myself the rest of this semester to try to get comic work done. I already have so much classwork to do that I don't need the extra weight of feeling like I need to get comic work done too. From now on all of my free time I am going to spend doing something relaxing. It may be that in a couple weeks I may want to work on my comic, and it will be relaxing, but right now it's just stress, and I need a chance to get away.

Speaking of getting away, I need to get my butt to class. XP

I'm tired, headachey and have a sore throat today, :p I kind of don't feel like driving back into school this afternoon for my drawing class. I'm leaning towards staying home and lounging in bed because today is just a work day, AND we are doing collage work, so the last thing I feel like doing is lugging around a metric buttload of drawing supplies when I feel crappy. I really wish I could get my hands on a copy of Tree of Tranquility today, because I could totally lie in bed and play, but since it shipped today I doubt any stores will have it until tomorrow, which is usually how things have worked for other games in the past. Still though I am going to need more lozenges, so if I go get lozenges I can at least have a look at Target's video game section.

I'm feeling all lackluster today again. I feel bored, but at the same time I just don't want to do anything. I must be in a slump... :( I've got an Art History test on Tuesday I've marginally studied for. I feel like I know everything already because I mean I already know about Pollock, Rothko, Warhol and etc....but at the same time I feel I've lulled myself into a false sense of security. I'll have to do some more reading and note reviewing this afternoon I suppose. Of course drawing is another pain in my backside, but I won't go into that again.

Maybe I'll just go do some shopping this afternoon. I need new socks anyway and I have to get my food supplies in for the rest of the week....ho-hum...