Random unrelated updates
Hi everybody. I realized today that a lot has happened since I last posted, so I'd better update. Sorry it's going to be a little disjointed.
First, I don't think I talked about Ohayocon, because a couple people asked me about it in letters. I did make it this year, with my second Princess Ai costume, and had a great time! (For pics of the costume, they are posted here: http://www.cosplay.com/costume/404358/ and here: http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h90/aerielle27/More%20Ai%20pics/. All were taken by the fabulous Phil Didion. ^_^) My friends and I agreed that the skits/masquerade/amvs were better this year than the last, but we were very disappointed with the selection in the dealer's room. Prices were waaay up for even the smallest figures, and I'd been hoping to pick up some things that I had thought would be easy to find--a Haruhi and/or a Vocaloid Miku. Sure, they were there, but it wasn't the right pose or the right outfit, or it just wasn't worth the money for that tiny size, or whatever. I did get some manga I had been looking for, but not even close to all of it, and had to order the rest on Amazon. I'm still trying to round out my Tramps Like Us/Kimi wa Pet collection, and I guess since it's Tokyopop, the volumes I have found for sale online are at least $40+. >.<
I also had hoped to track down the person I'd commissioned a drawing from a year ago, but she wasn't there. I e-mailed her once to see if she was making any progress on it, and she said she had just cleared up her queue and would get started soon, and then heard nothing more from her, and that was over six months ago. I don't want to spam her email or anything, but I'm starting to wonder if that was $70 I'm just not going to get back.
Anyway, since then I've been working on some regular(?) clothes, but I've purchased patterns and fabric and have started planning next year's costume, Asellus from SaGa Frontier. http://images.wikia.com/romancingsaga/images/e/ec/Asellus.jpg Since it's from an old game, and one that was never as popular as, say, Zelda or Final Fantasy, I am not sure how well it will be received at Ohayocon, but I prefer to do unique costumes. Then, when someone does recognize it, it feels really special. I also hope to do Blue and Emelia from the same game at some point. I recently got the urge to do Yuna's wedding dress in the future as well, perhaps for the Ball, if I ever go.
Work at the library is going well. I'm starting to know how to do things and when they need to be done without being guided through it, so I feel a bit more secure and a bit more useful. The only thing I still have some trouble with is knowing how to handle specific customer issues, especially when it comes to items they've damaged badly enough that it has to be billed to their account. I also just have days where I get really tired of people and I just want the day to end so I can go home and not have to be nice to anyone anymore. But at least I usually feel that what I am doing is important, if only in a small way. It feels really good when someone asks for something and I know exactly where to find it.
I think I'll feel even better when I've worked out exactly what to take back and forth to work with me, and what to carry it all in. For now I have this really awkward three-different-bags-for-three-different-sets-of-things system that I'm getting tired of, so I'm going to custom-make a big tote bag that'll hold everything in just the right way, and then I'll just have that. And then once I have my own car and I don't have to get dropped off and picked up all the time, I'll be just fine.
Speaking of, I don't know what the usual car-shopping time frame is, but this car thing has been going on for almost a month now, and it's driving me crazy. Part of the problem is that I know nothing about cars and I need my dad to go shopping with me, and he's only available on the weekend, and I'm only available for half of it because of church and work. The other thing is we were, um, interrupted a few weeks ago, but I'll get to that later. Anyway, after test driving a handful of cars, so far my top choices are the Chevy Sonic Hatchback, the Toyota Yaris, and the Honda Fit. I know I asked everyone what they'd recommend, and this is pretty much outside everyone's suggestions, save for the fact that I'm looking at Hondas and Toyotas in general. I'm buying new, if only to narrow down my options. Otherwise we'd be shopping for years. I was really thinking I'd want a sedan, but the hatchbacks have been a lot better for visibility, which is one of my big issues with driving. But, with all the time spent in between driving these things, plus not really liking driving in general and hoping that'll get better if I could just get the perfect car for me, it's really hard for me to make a decision.
And then in the midst of all this, my aunt--the one who was sick, I think I mentioned her--passed away two weeks ago, so we went to Pittsburgh for the funeral. This one was a lot harder than my grandfather's, because though we knew this was going to happen eventually, she was still young, and she had suffered so much, and with my cousin, her son, still rudderless at this point, there's a lot of...unresolved stuff left in her wake. This was the second death in our family in the past few months, so it's been especially hard for people who knew both of them well. I didn't know my aunt as well as they did, but being around them made their grief spread to me, at least while I was there, and now I'm not sure how to feel about it, because once I came home my life continued as usual. I think it's helped my dad, though, now that it's over, because before this he spent months worrying about her and getting her to settle all her affairs before she passed. From here, hopefully we can start moving forward again, and no one else in either of my families will be in any trouble anytime soon.
I'm starting to miss Japanese again, because aside from J-pop and anime, I'm not doing much with it lately. I hope that when/if my life calms down again, I can try to keep studying it in some way or another, just to keep that running through my brain. I also miss that old feeling of enthusiasm I had for devoting myself to a single subject, back when I was fully immersed in my major. Now, in the real world with a million things to do, I feel like my energies are spread rather thin. I wish I had more time.
Is there such a thing as a compulsive obsession with knowing and experiencing everything? Because I think I might have it. Every time I tell myself, "Okay, one book/movie/CD at a time, you can't read/watch/listen to them all in a week," I still end up borrowing piles of each, and try to finish them all at once, and it becomes another thing to do rather than a thing to enjoy. And somehow I manage to get through it all, and then I do it all over again. I think maybe I want to convince myself it can still be like it was when I was a kid, I'd come home from school and have complete and total free time in which to lose myself in this stuff, and life was good. But it just doesn't happen that way anymore for some reason.
...And this is why I don't want to date.
It's been a mild winter here in Ohio, and spring is already here to terrorize my allergies once again. Not looking forward to summer and the new swarm of mutant mosquitoes that are sure to be out to eat me. If I had a choice, I'd stay inside from now until October.