We are shining stars

WHY IS THERE A NEW CHAPTER OUT I'M SO CONFUSED.

( But... happy? I guess?? )


P.S. so on Saturday my sis was caller number 7 to 102.7 Fresh FM and won tickets to the NYC premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (PART 2!!), and then on Monday we totally fucking WENT to that premiere, baby, we went there and we SAW that movie, dudes. We saw the shit out of it. AND IT WAS AMAAAAAAAZINNNG and I really should just do a whole separate post on that but it was one of those things where I just have so many ~feelings~ about it that I'm not really sure how to put it into words. But probably maybe I will make a post about it in a day or so with pictures and lots of capslocking about how HOLY SHIT I WAS IN THE SAME ROOM WITH RUPERT GRINT EVEN THOUGH THERE WERE LIKE A THOUSAND OTHER PEOPLE THERE, *FAINT*. For now, though, I just had to mention it because it would be pretty ridiculous if the most interesting thing that has happened to me in like years just came and went and the next day all I posted about was KHR.

Though in fairness, seriously! WHY IS IT OUT ON A TUESDAY. ?? Well, whatever.

Hello, everyone! Today I am going to treat you all to my baby sis's rendition of that timeless Grimm classic, Little Red Riding Hood.


"Once upon a time, there was Little Red Riding Hood. And she was only like THIS tall. And the wolf was like, WHOA, THIS TALL! And then, Little Red Riding Hood was picking some blueberries and some apples, and then she sang a song about, 'Doodle doodle doo, I’m going to my grandma’s house! Doodle doodle doo, doodle doodle doo~.' And then she was finally there.

And then, so… 'But Grandma, what big ears you have! But Grandma, what big eyes you have! But Grandma, what big ears you have! But Grandma… what big teeth you have!'

'Better to EAT YOU!!'

And so they run and run. And so, and so, there came… WONDER PETS… I mean, this giant man, too, was going to hit the big bad wolf, he was like, FIFTEEN TALL, that big man, and so, and so, and so he slapped him, and then he ran away—'WAIT UP, THREE LITTLE PIGS!'

And so they gave all the food to the grandma, and had a good sleep, and THE END."


I don't know about anyone else, but I think it is a decided improvement on the original.

...Minus the "adventures from" part, I guess. Hmm.

Continuing with this meme! So smilypie asked me, post about what you do for a living/your everyday life? And I apologize in advance if this post puts anyone to sleep, because the answer is... not much. XD

To start, let me tell you a tale about young Makeste! FLASHBACK TO ABOUT SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS AGO. So there she was, going into college for the first time, and like many innocent new young adults, she was uncertain about her future! So she sought advice from friends and family about what she should major in. In turn, she got a lot of questions like, "Well, what do you like to do? What are you good at?" And for her, there was really only one answer that came to mind: "Writing, I guess."

Now it just so happened that Makeste had several aunts and friends-of-friends who had been communication/journalism majors in college. So upon hearing that she liked to write, the prevalent response was, "YOU SHOULD MAJOR IN COMMUNICATIONS." And having no better ideas, she complied.

FAST FORWARD TO A FEW YEARS LATER! A semester or so before graduation, Makeste came to several disturbing realizations: One, that even though she enjoyed writing for her own pleasure, it turns out that even a task you enjoy can become frustrating and burdensome if you are forced to do it on someone else's terms. Two, even though she was good at journalism, she sort of hated it! (The writing part I can handle; it's the research and interviewing that drive me nuts--and funnily enough, IT TURNS OUT THAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, GASP.) Three, the employment market for new journalism graduates was quickly drying up thanks to the long and agonizingly drawn-out death of the newspaper industry. And four, it was too late to change her major and still graduate relatively debt-free (I was lucky enough to get a full scholarship to my school, but only for the expected four years). So! Faced with these harsh new realities, a few months later a rather dejected Makeste left school with a BA in Communication and pretty much no idea what the hell to do with it. XD

So to make a long story short, for the past three years I've pretty much just been working part-time, go-nowhere telemarketing and customer service jobs, and working as a lifeguard during the summer (i.e., right now). I actually don't mind lifeguarding all that much; it's not too difficult or stressful, I get to spend a lot of time outdoors as opposed to in a cubicle, and while the pay's not as good, the people are generally friendlier. But I'm only doing that until Labor Day, and after that it'll be back to the other stuff until I finally find something better/more permanent. Which I will be making a more serious effort to do this time around, because by this point I'm kind of starting to feel like a loser who's completely wasting all of her education. ;;

ANYWAY. As for the "everyday life" part, when I'm not working and/or online, my other main activity is karate, which I train in several days a week. I got my black belt back in 2001, and have been promoted twice since (most recently last May, when I earned my third-degree black belt), so nowadays I'm an instructor too; I even teach a kobudo class on Wednesday nights (I just got back from that, actually), which I love because I like teaching and because it's fucking awesome, okay. And that's more or less how I feel about karate in general. I love it and when I'm in the dojo I feel confident and at ease in a way I rarely do elsewhere in my life. And it's not something I talk about all that often because when I do, most people don't really know what to say aside from "wow, a black belt, please don't kick my butt, haha", but that's all right. XD


Anyway... so that's more or less it, I guess. Or at least this is where I'll stop, before this post starts running long and people really do start falling asleep. TOMORROW I WILL POST ABOUT CLOTHES! Unless KHR 303 comes out, in which case that will take priority (you guys, have you seen that cover page? I DID NOT KNOW THEY MADE TSUNAS THAT HOT).

HERE WE GO AGAIN.

1. THE RP USERNAME MeME

2. From makemegray:

If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new question.
Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you. While there is a risk that disobeying this part of the meme will result in CRIPPLING GUILT, it's a chance I'm willing to take.

( I HEREBY TAG ANYONE WHO FEELS LIKE GETTIN' TAGGED. )

3. And because daigranon posted a character meme (MY WEAKNESS!1)...

Pick from any of my fandoms and ask me to answer the following:

Favorite character:
Least Favorite Character:
Character with the best hair:
Character with the best eyes:
Character I'd most want to kiss:
Character I'd most likely screw:
Character I'd make lunch:
Character I'd go singing in the rain with:
Character I'd go shopping with:
Character I'd go dancing with:
Character I'd take over the world with:
Character I'd most want to cosplay as:
Favorite Pairing:
Favorite Yaoi pairing:
Favorite Yuri pairing:

Guys this meme is my destiny. 8(

WHY WILL IT NOT STOP SNOWING.

ETA: I SHOVELED THIS BARELY AN HOUR AGO, COME ON.

Quick update post!

1) Sorry for being scarce (i.e. completely absent) for the past week. Over the weekend one of my so-called SIBLINGS felt the need to infect my person with an organism which proceeded to hijack my perfectly healthy cells and co-opt them into virus-producing factories. I did take some offense to this but was ultimately unable to do much about it, except complain a lot and take some Vitamin C. So anyway, the short of it is that I've been sick and it was one of those things where every time I sat down at the computer, I was like, "...but I am le tired," and that was that. :/

So instead I've spent the past few days watching Buffy and Angel and reading (the Bartimaeus trilogy, which is incredibly awesome btw) and stuff. I will hopefully get to catching up with replies and posts before too long; sorry for the delay. ;;


2) Happy belated Birthday to caddles and jote_jote! Hope you both had fun. o/


3) A rambly post about KHR 275 will hopefully be posted sometime tomorrow-ish. I haven't read it yet, since I like to do the write-ups simultaneously. But as I presume it contains more Rock God Fairy Princess Fireworks Byakuran, I can't imagine how it could possibly let me down.


4) ...I had a fourth thing but it evaporated...! Because now all my stupid brain can think is, "Oh yeah, tee hee. Byakuran." Damn it.

There we were, three of us twenty-somethings, all running around balancing our rakes on the tips of our fingers, while four-year-old baby sis (apparently the mature one) watched in great amusement. Oh man. We are such grown-ups. Grown-ups with talent.

But I am actually making this post for a different reason! So a few days ago, when as some of you may recall, I was in the midst of some subtle and tasteful fangirling over a certain character and his awesome awesomeness, nilly_chan said she perhaps might color a certain awesomely awesome page, and I said I perhaps might make a post fangirling her own awesome awesometasticness if she did.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, she totally fucking did.

THREE.

FUCKING.

TIMES.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE IT'S PRETTY DAMN AWESOME.

nilly_chan, I SHOULD TELL YOU I HAVE WORSHIPPED YOUR COLORING EVER SINCE YOU POSTED THIS INCREDIBLY SEXY IMAGE OF RAPIST!BYAKURAN. YOU HAVE AMAZING TALENT AND WHENEVER YOU COLOR SOMETHING NEW I GET ALL EXCITED CUZ I KNOW IT'S GONNA BE AWESOME. AND LO AND BEHOLD, IT ALWAYS IS.

BUT THIS! THIS TAKES THE CAKE.

The shading is smooth and pretty as heck, and the flame effects on the bow kick ass. The background is FIERY AND EPIC and even though it's simple, it totally makes the whole pic like ten times more badass. GOKUDERA IS HOT AND HAS A PURPLE SHIRT, AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I LOVE THAT PURPLE SHIRT SO MUCH, BUT I REALLY, REALLY DO. And in perhaps the biggest testament to the pic's awesomness, Storm Primo is somehow even sexier than he was before, which means he's basically nothing short of breathtaking. That haiiiiir and those eyyyyyes, omg. *_* I could just stare at that sexy bastard all day.

So yeah. I can't think of anything else to say, partly because I'M STILL BUSY OGGLING, but anyway, this pretty much covers it. nilly_chan, IT TOTALLY ROCKS AND YOU ARE MADE OF WIIIIIINNNN.

Also, congrats on finishing that essay. \o/

1. ( I had a weird dream last night... )


2. You know, it's not like I've been thrilled with the GOP lately as it is (especially with all of the ongoing health care BS), but this is really sinking to a new level of ridiculousness. "OH MY GOD THE PRESIDENT'S TELLING CHILDREN TO STAY IN SCHOOL AND WORK HARD--SOMEBODY STOP HIM!!" Frankly, this is completely baffling to me. There is nothing insidious about telling kids to study hard and try their best in school. Yet inexplicably, pretty much the unanimous GOP response is "OMG SOCIALISM!!1" Some of the people in the comments section for that article are even talking about keeping their children home from school tomorrow. Good idea, keep your kid at home on the first day of school just so her impressionable young mind isn't warped by the evil President's agenda. BRILLIANT.

The text of the speech has been released (PDF is here), and it's actually pretty good as far as these things go. Anyway, sorry; I don't usually rant about political things in this journal, but that's really been eating away at my patience for the last couple of days. THIS IS WHY STEWART AND COLBERT NEED TO COME OFF OF HIATUS ALREADY. I need people to make fun of this stuff so that I don't go insane. XD


3. HAPPY LABOR DAY, ALL. I'M GOING TO GO TO THE PARK WITH MY BABY SIS AND PLAY ON THE SWINGS LIKE THE SIX-YEAR-OLD I AM.

[whine] Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece have been up on OneManga since last night and the KHR RAW isn't even out yet. DOES NO ONE CARE THAT YAMAMOTO IS HAVING AN EPIC FIGHT? [/whine]

Anyway, this is actually just a post to say 1) sorry for being MIA all week (I will catch up with my flist and finish replying to all the comments in my last post eventually XD), and 2) as it is the fourth of July weekend, I will continue to be scarce until Monday-ish, probably. (It doesn't help that I've also been trying to get a jump on my KHR Undercover fic, so that's eating up whatever spare time I do have. XD)

BUT HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND, EVERYBODY. ♥

ETA: ALSO, before I forget again--Happy (belated XD) Birthday to dtn, and Happy (early XD) Birthday to talklikeazombie!

I JUST GOT BACK FROM JAPAN DAY IN CENTRAL PARK, and I got three yo-yos on my first try yo-yo fishing (but the lady only let me keep one XD), and my sister and I kicked ass in a chopstick game where two teams raced each other transporting small objects (peas, dry pasta, hair ties, erasers, etc.) from one bowl to another with chopsticks, and I made a shirt with ORIGAMI, and ate some gyoza and gyudon with rice, and saw Naruto and Inuyasha and Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and saw Princess Peach hanging out with ITACHI for some reason that I can't fathom but am now endlessly curious of. IT WAS FUN~

Now I am going to see Up because I am Pixar's bitch. And then I'm going to come back and post rambly things about KHR. THE END.

ETA: I love everything. But especially Pixar. I WAS HIDING UNDER YOUR PORCH BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.