New blog!

I'm going to be moving to another blog! The URL for this one is a bit long and cumbersome, and I want something easily accessible to anyone that wants to read it. So if you're reading what I'm writing here and want to continue to follow me, please go over to

http://roseclear.blogspot.com

and meet me there!

One of those quotes to remember.

"Your dreams deserve better than a half-hearted effort. Meet your goals with a weak handshake and they'll soon be waving you goodbye. Since you probably don't want to look back on a life full of "almost made it" memories, it's time for total commitment. Leave it all on the field, don't hold anything back. Is there anything more satisfying than pouring out your entire being, straddling the cliff, reaching your total limit, then looking up and realizing that oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-really-did-it? And is there anything more tragic than failing and realizing you could have done more? If you feel "tuned out" of your current life, that's okay. Make your first goal to build a life that you can get "in"-to. Then don't look back. Make every day count and live purposefully, live energetically, live completely."

Oh, la de freaking da.

Half of the time, I don't know what to write here. I write so much in my LiveJournal that it kind of overwhelms me and I'm not much one for repeating myself in two different blogging spaces online. But my LiveJournal is more on the private side, that's something that hasn't changed since I started using one, so at least it's still a nice, quiet place to write. I still have friends there who trust me and who I can trust, and really that makes me feel a lot better about using it than I admit to myself. It's nice to have that kind of comfort and privacy.

Anime Matsuri is the weekend after this coming one and I think I'm starting to get a little bit addicted and attached to being around my friends as often as I have been in these past couple of months. Dallas isn't far away but since I don't exactly have free access to a car, I don't get to travel as much as I would like. Hopefully that will change soon, but for now I'm just glad that almost everyone will be making it down to the Woodlands to hang out. We'll have a great time!

I think, oddly, that's about all for now. I'm still recovering from being sick and so I'm a little under the weather, but I really love writing over here so I wanted to come over and post something up! Hope everyone's doing well!

Easter weekend.

I'm really looking forward to Easter weekend, partially because of the convention and also because it means it's a holiday weekend. There's something special about the holidays, about knowing that there isn't any pressure to have to go in to work - the store's closed on Easter Sunday - and that we can just sit back and take a little time off. Of course, I'll be out in the Woodlands if all goes well but that's all par for the course. I love being out at conventions and seeing everyone, getting to spend time just catching up and having fun. It's nice to have close friends that live in the Dallas area because it's only about four hours away for them, and for me when I go up there. Candice is supposed to come out to the convention with me, and Saturday night Cat will be driving up. I know Jesse will be there, and hopefully Mike will make it, too. I'm just really looking forward to seeing everyone. It's funny that you don't notice how much you miss your friends until you don't get to see them for about a month. Granted, that isn't too long of a time but I got spoiled at All Con by having everyone around. :)

That's about it for right now. I'm going to head home from school and see what the rest of the day brings!

Unlimited - my future is unlimited.

"And I've just had a vision just like a prophecy.
I know it sounds truly crazy,
and true, the vision's hazy -
but I swear, someday I'll be
flying so high - defying gravity."

Shine On

I came back just the other day from one of the most amazing weekends I've had in awhile, something filled with more spontaneous actions and ups and downs than I've let myself get involved in, and I actually think I came back better for it. It's a little bit amazing what going out and trying new things can do for a person's mindset. I was used to staying inside and keeping to myself, not really going out and putting myself into situations with groups of people, and this weekend was something completely out of my comfort zone. I owe a lot to Candice for being so fantastic from the beginning until the end. She's a great friend, and even though there are ups and downs we've just known each other too long to cut each other much slack. She isn't afraid to tell me when she thinks I'm being one way, I'm not afraid to counter her, etc. etc. and still we've just known each other for too long and been through too much to not work through it together. It's comforting to have a friend like that.

I'm not sure what I'll do today. I'm not much for going out and delving into the world of green, but St. Patrick's is today and there's going to be a good deal of partying going on in there today. I'll probably take the less than exciting take on the day and keep it all close to home, but I'm still feeling pretty good. It's weird and I know this post is disjointed, but I'm actually feeling better about things than I have in a long time.

Spring Break '09

And not quite the conventional way of spending it, either! Instead of hitting the beaches or going to someplace warm, Candice and I are packing up her car tonight and heading up to Dallas where the high temperature is expected at sixty-eight degrees and we might be facing some chilly rainfall. She prefers to drive in the wee hours of the early morning, so we're aiming for a three a.m. departure time, and I think that might actually end up happening. Everything is just about ready to go, and I only need to decide if I should lighten my duffel bag by one pair of shoes or not. The plus? I'll have a more comfortable pair of flats to shuffle around in. The down side? Heavier duffel bag. But at the same time, Candice's car has plenty of room in it so I think I'll end up erring on the side of caution and going on the heavier side.

Yes, I am that much of a girl, thank you for asking!

I'm in my night class right now, and we're discussing Apple's wonderful piece of software known as Compressor and all of the lovely things it can do and get away with. I love Compressor - I'm not really sure where I'd be in my realm of editing without it. Converting that much Doctor Who from .avi format to .mov would not have been easy without it. Granted, there are other ways of doing that but Compressor gives a nice, crisp output and I'd rather go with something like that instead of cutting corners and have to worry about the output. Compressor is also going to offer an option in the near future to output to Blu Ray format, and that makes the geeky part of my heart swell up. I still lack a Blu Ray player and television that will play that kind of format but I think it's only a matter of time before I change that up and join the higher definition realm.

I really am looking forward to this weekend. The trip is coming at an excellent time, with midterms nothing other than a memory and an overall sense of accomplishment in my heart because that's what comes with feeling a job has been well done. I won't know the result of my law and ethics test until after the break, but I walked away from it happier than I thought I would feel so that has to be a definite plus.

On another note, Janine and I think that we should try and bottle up our professor's energy. This man has a great personality, and he's just so full of life. Every time I get to take one of his classes I feel lucky for the chance. He teaches us so much, and he really cares about what he's teaching. That's hard to come by in college.

I think I'll go ahead and close this out here. More about the trip will be coming soon!

As part of my All Con preparations I had to find a pair of large gold hoop earrings since Rose Tyler has a loving affliction for them. I found a pair that I liked and they arrived today, much to my overwhelming relief. Whenever convention time gets close and I have to order something, I always worry that I might have waited too long and it won't make it on time. But this time I was lucky! At the very least it'll remind me to not let things go until the last minute. Still, I think the outfits will look great. My mother and I were shopping a few weeks back and she found a blue zippered jacket that looked nicely close to the "New Earth" one, and while I don't have the time, resources or skill to sew the purple shirt I found one in the same blue colour as the jacket to wear underneath. It's a quick job but it'll do the trick for the convention. I do have to admit that I'm probably looking the most forward to the season four getup.

Last night I made it over to Candice's place after getting off of work at six. Chances were I could have stayed later but I was exhausted after an eight hour shift and a headache was building behind my eyes. My mother had a wonderful dinner made when I got home so eating did help, but the headache kept on nagging. I just kind of sprawled out on Candice's couch and kept her company for awhile while she worked on costuming and things like that. Sometimes it's just nice to relax and take it easy.

Tonight was a different kind from that, mostly with staying at home (albeit happily!) and texting with Kate while watching tonight's episode of House M.D. The show has its incredible ups and downs - not just in characterization but in writing, too - but I've still been too adoring of it for too long to give it up. Whatever ends up happening, I think I'll be watching until its time on Fox runs out.

The rest of this week will be a little trying - I have another test in my law and ethics class on Wednesday and a couple of assignments due for advanced editing - but after that we're hitting the road and going up to Dallas. It's going to be outrageous amounts of fun.

Working and onward.

I've said it before and I'll gladly say it again - I'm so impossibly ready for a vacation. I can't wait for Candice to come over in a little less than two weeks so we can load up her car and head up to Dallas for a chance to just get out and have some fun at a convention for awhile. I've got three really fantastic costumes that I get to wear, and I'm really looking forward to that. I love the chance to have some fun, and this is going to be a well deserved vacation.

I could write on and babble about work over the past few days, but the truth is it won't do any good. I've cried too many tears over this job and while I'm glad for the fact that I have one in these impossibly hard economic times, I don't like the way I'm being treated by some of the people at work. And I don't know, sometimes I keep getting the implication that there might well be a kind of discrimination happening there, but I don't want to go that far and go down that road. The truth is that I'm just trying to hang on and keep myself intact and in one piece until the end of this semester at school. Because after that, the world is going to open itself up to me and I just have to make sure that I can graduate and get on out there to explore it.

I had plans to write a lot more than this but I'm exhausted, and after I finish up this episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit I'm going to get into bed and have a nice, long sleep.

Lacking a subject line.

There's something nice about having a blog, maybe because they're more open and less worrisome in terms of what we can and can't say freely. A blog really just is one of those open corners of the Internet, where we can do and say whatever we want. I'm going to make much better use of this and roseclear.net from now on. At any rate, I'll definitely write here when, as I have today, I forget to bring my notebook to campus to write in longhand. This is a nice, close second option.

I've been doing a lot of recreational reading because it's one of those things I never had as much time to do until recently. The Beekeeper's Apprentice is what I've recently completed and I loved it so much that I firmly believe I'll read it again. It's the kind of book that all mystery novels should ambition and aspire to be, something easy to follow but completely complex and complicated in itself. I can't think of a person unfamiliar with Sherlock Holmes, and the idea of Mary Russell being able to run alongside him with so little as breaking an intellectual sweat just adds a depth to the story. I love the idea of someone being able to filter another, created character into the classic Holmes world and actually do it well, to the point of which the joining is seamless and we're left to wonder just how Holmes survived without Russell, and vice versa.

Now I'm reading a book simply titled Steampunk which is a collection of stories from the mentioned genre. Candice opened the door to the steampunk world for me last year just prior to Dragon Con, but I had no idea just what I was walking into until I became completely infatuated. There's something entrancing about a world that runs parallel to ours in many ways, from classifaction to opportunity, but holds a different basis and background that's completely conceivable. I'm looking forward to the chance for immersing myself in that kind of fantasy, in something not quite science fiction but in a classification of its own. Two other books of a similar nature are on my shelf now and I'm beginning to think I'll always have stacks of novels waiting for me on dresser tops and desks because the shelf doesn't exist which is large enough to hold all of my reading ambitions.

I'm putting forth a productive nature now and working on a review sheet for an upcoming test - maybe two weeks away - in my law and ethics class while waiting for my InDesign trial to finish downloading. I've become more accustomed to working on my own time instead of in class, and most often when we're given classroom time to do an assignment I slip out of the back and find a quiet place to do the work on my own. For some reason, that's much more fulfilling and productive to me than trying to concentrate in a classroom setting.

All Con is right around two weeks away, and I couldn't be more excited.

Steampunk and the Academy Awards

The two things aren't quite related, but at the same time they absolutely, one hundred percent are. Because tonight I'm spending my time at Candice's place, relaxed and sprawled out on her couch, playing some Warcraft and watching the Academy Awards. Before, we were working on things for All Con since we only have maybe two and a half weeks to get it all together and get out there. But the truth is, I think it's going to be plenty of time and I can't wait to get there. I just really can't wait. It's so nice to be able to go to a convetnion with a good friend, sit back and just enjoy it, costumes and all.

This time, I'll have three outfits, one of which is a quick, last minute one that wouldn't have happened without my mother's keen eye when we were out shopping and Candice's mother willing to ruch something for me. It really wouldn't work out that easily, but I'm finding out that I have some really great friends in my life that have no trouble helping me out and working with me on these kinds of things. It's going to be a great, fantastic weekend, and I can't wait to get up there and see everyone again.

I'm also, for the first time, entering the All Con AMV contest. Working with anime and video game footage felt like touching back on something that was a beautiful part of my past. It was somewhere for me to start and enjoy actually doing something that I never had thought was possible before. I remember when I was younger that I would write out song lyrics and beside them, in another shade of ink, write out what I wanted to see happen during those lyrics. It was a beginning, I just didn't even know it yet.

But it's a good night. It's a very good night.

The Dark Knight

I came home from work, fell asleep for a couple of hours, and woke up to spend some time with Candice when she came over here. We watched the Dark Knight and I tried to get her set up with her own Twitter account, with little success. I can't quite remember what I had to do to set up mine, but at least tomorrow we'll tackle the setup and she'll be able to post to hers the way I do to mine. I also fiddled with my layout here and have a whole slew of links and whatnot to show off the video work that I've done. The Viddler account (oddly enough, it makes me think of the Riddler from Batman, something I didn't think of until now) is hopefully going to have all of the videos I've done there and in one place, but that will take some time to upload. And I know at the end it will be worth it to see them all in one place, but that might take most of tomorrow.

My fingers are crossed for not having to work tomorrow, as I have an on call shift for tomorrow evening and really would like to have the whole day off. Kim pretty much promised me that I won't have to worry about it, but I hate to become too completely optimistic and then end up having to go in. Still, the silver lining is that if I do have to go in, it will be extra money.

I'm going to get some sleep and then spend tomorrow doing as many things as possible that make me happy. It's funny how I can feel comfortable and not at the same time, content and confused, curious and completely relaxed. I think that sometimes life just brings us unexpected things, and we don't always know what to make of them until they're upon us. But then again, that's just more of what life is about, and it's what makes things so much more exciting.

New year, new blog!

Camie and Jake came to visit and have dinner with us tonight and she was kind enough to show me the blog she has started of their family. It reminded me that I have this one, too, and so I thought it might be a good idea to see about starting it up and just see what happens here.

I have a lot to say and I never really know where to begin to say it. So many things have happened and changed over the past months, and even the year, and it just seems like anything I tried to write down and say wouldn't be adequate enough to describe it. But I'm going to try, and I'm going to see where this takes me and what ends up happening.

Happy New Year to anyone that's reading this now, and I'll write again soon!