FanimeCon 2014

Hey everyone!

So this past weekend, I went to FanimeCon 2014 which was incredibly fun and exciting. So much happened in so few days, so let me just go over everything day by day. I'll start with Day Zero (aka Thursday) since that's really when the excitement and festivities began.

Day Zero:
      Unfortunately, this day was still a school day for me. However, I had two midterms and a cancelled class so it was easy enough to leave by noon to get in line for tickets. Now having stood in line for at least an hour before, I was well prepared for LineCon, the unofficial convention named just for the infuriating line. I had brought my laptop and a few books to make sure I wasn't bored silly in line. I met up with my friend Alan beforehand in order to save money and carpool. However, once we got to the convention center, LineCon only lasted six minutes. Those six minutes were spent walking through the ropes to get to registration. Seriously, there was no line. That never ever happens at Fanime. It was absolutely astounding. So we left to hang out at school with the rest of the Stormblades. We got back to school at 1:30 to chill with Evan who was just hanging out after lunch. When Andy and Kenji made it out of class at 3:30, Alan and I mentioned that the line was amazingly short. So I drove Andy, Alan, and Evan around downtown San Jose so that Andy could grab his badge too. We made it back to Andy's car around 4:10 so he had time to spare to get to work that day. Hoang, Alan, Evan and I all hung out at school a bit longer before we agreed to go home briefly to grab dinner before meeting to see X-Men: Days of Future Past. After seeing the movie at midnight, we hung out until around 3am when I drove to Alan's house, where I planned to stay in order to carpool for Fanime.

Day One:
      I made it to Alan's house easily enough, though Apple Maps took me a convoluted route. I waited until Alan made it back from dropping off two different people who also went to the movies with the group to grab my stuff from the truck of my car. We both waited until Andy got there and somehow managed to stay up til around 5am before we finally slept. We woke up around 10am in order to get to a panel at 11. But Andy is not a morning person at all, so we ended up getting out the door by around 11. Whoops. We got to Fanime and decided that the pane wasn't at the top of our list and decided to grab some lunch. There was gyros truck down the road between where we parked and the Con that smelled phenomenal when we walked past it the first time, so I suggested we grab something there. Alan had never had gyros before and while the gyros were good, they weren't great. Alan and Andy loved them though and wanted to come back every day. The rest of the day was mostly relaxed and we only went to one or two panels, but for the most part we spent the day exploring the Convention Center, the Dealer's Hall, and the Artist's Alley. We went back to Alan's to grab a bite to eat for dinner and also to grab something warmer for me and more comfortable for Andy before we headed back to hit the "Nerd Courting" panel. "Nerd Courting" was exactly what it sounded like; the speaker, Adam, talked about the difficulties of being a nerd and trying to make romantic connections. The best part in my opinion, besides Adam's credibility, was the fact that most of the panel was Adam answering questions. So it wasn't a bunch of things that everyone already understood and knew, it was real questions that applied to our own lives. I won't repeat a lot of what happened in the panel, because quite frankly it was on a very personal level. However, a few examples included questions about why it's worthwhile to even ask a girl or guy out, what you have to lose, what kinds of relationships are healthy. And the one that really got me, cause I thought it was just a girl thing or something: creating an imagined relationship with someone you just met. Adam mentioned that at the beginning and one guy came up to ask where he'd gotten it from since this guy in particular claimed not to. Adam had people raise their hands if they did ad nearly everyone in the audience did. I definitely feel a little less weird for doing it now. We went back to Alan's after the panel finished, that is around midnight, planned when to get up for the next day and crashed.

Day Two:
      We got up early this day. Kind of. Okay so here's what happened: we planned to wake up around 7:30 to get ready and get to a panel by 9, also figuring there'd be a line for it. Problem? Andy slept until around 8:15. And he took the longest to get ready because he was cosplaying Eren from Attack on Titan. Don't know what that is? Here's a side-by-side comparison from anime to real life:

Those straps man. Those took a while. So we made it to the con by 9:10. Good thing the panel was going on for a little while. Fortunately, there were still seats when we finally arrived. The panel was for SNK aka Attack on Titan, so it was an appropriate choice of cosplay despite the fact that it took a while. The panel was an entertaining collection of improv games done in character by the panelists. The three of us who went all enjoyed the panel and had the chance to talk with some of them afterwards. Of course it helped that I knew one of the panelists. We hit lunch at Johnny Rockets before heading to an SNK gathering. Andy joined in the fun of the photos while I enjoyed the serenity of the park. Two much older gentleman sat down on a park bench next to me to ask what on earth was happening. I explained enthusiastically about Fanime and the cosplay community. We laughed a little since they both said they'd lived in the area for 35 years and had no idea what it was. They thought it was an LGBT march when in fact this was the 20th anniversary year of FanimeCon. At that point, a friend I'd met at Rocky Horror, Craig, was walking by in a Doctor Whooves Cosplay minus the tail and ears. I called out to say hi, excused myself from the gentlemen at the park bench and walked with Craig toward the area where the SNK gathering had migrated to. Alan had gone to meet with his brother by that time, so I had just planned to continue watching the gathering shenanigans. Craig and I caught up briefly, before he went to change out of the incredibly warm trench coat he was wearing to something much more comfortable to roam the rest of the con. Finally, after the SNK gathering was over and Alan had rejoined us, we met up with Evan, cosplaying the 10th Doctor, as well as Hoang, Lauren, and Michael. Sadly, I don't think we got a group shot, though I did get some of them individually. 

Evan and his "sonic screwdriver". 

Michael and Godzilla, photo credits: Hoang Nguyen 

We ended up walking around the floor since the people we met up with didn't have passes and found a cardboard tardis set up down the hall. Evan managed to get pictures with at least 15 different groups of cosplayers all wanting to get a picture with a doctor. Eventually, we all decided there really wasn't anything else we needed to stay for and headed to Alan's place to watch a movie. Movie of choice? Mulan, of course! Though there was quite a bit of debate over which movie to watch. The movie ended and Evan, Hoang, Michael, and Lauren all decided to go home. Andy, Alan, and I continued the movies though with Naussica of the Valley of the Wind. I fell asleep unfortunately, though I woke up at the end. Good thing I've seen the movie before. All of us were exhausted and headed to bed once it was over. 

Day Three:

      Ah Sunday morning. We had to wake up a bit early because Andy wanted to see Chantral Strand, a guest of honor at Fanime. While they headed to their panel, I had to drop off some black and white ball stuff in my cousin's hotel room and shower. We planned to go to the speed dating event, but the line was wayyyy too full. So I met up with Andy after the panel while Alan went to find a girl he had met earlier. Andy and I hung out until we ran into an unsuccessful Alan. We grabbed lunch and before Alan and Andy went to a signing by the voice actress from earlier. Meanwhile, I went to get my Black and White Ball stuff because I wanted to make sure I could grab it in time. First time, no luck. So I went back down to meet the guys after the autograph line. I went back up to the hotel with them. Second time, still no luck. Finally, we were wandering around the floor when the guys discovered that a cosplayers they love, Vampy, was at Fanime. It became a mad dash to find her. Somehow we all separated, so I went to the hotel room for the third time. Finally! I managed to grab the ball stuff. Aka, my dress. I came out of the hotel victorious, then wondered where in the heck everyone was. I managed to find Andy next to a motorcycle decked out to look a bit like Senketsu from Kill la Kill. He was getting pictures of some of the cosplayers posing on the bike as well as discussing the bike itself with the owner. After a while, the bike owner left with the motorcycle and we wandered around to continue to find Vampy. Eventually, Alan and another guy we know, Jesus, caught up with us and helped us look. Alan was the one who won the race and we all ran over to greet her. 

Me and VampyBitMe!!

Then I changed into my Ball dress and put my stuff in Alan's car. I went to grab my phone when I realized that oh snap. I left it in the bathroom at the Fairmont. I ran back as fast as I could and discovered the security had it. I got it back, thank goodness and headed to the ball. Andy and Alan went their own way in the meantime. I danced with plenty of different folks, most of them completely terrible, but they definitely made it amusing. Except for when I was elbowed in the face. Not so fun. I started feeling really sick though, so I left the ball and called them to tell them I was out. They came and found me at the Fairmont, feeling slightly better, but not enough to move. We went back to Alan's, charged our phones, I changed into something way more comfortable and we headed back to fanime. We ended up playing BS, where thanks to my lunch bunch's training I won about four out of six times. Then we headed out to the rave. Alan and I ended up leaving early because we weren't really into it and just played speed until 4 am. Andy stayed until it shut down at four. Then we watched some amvs and watched Wolf Children. We ended up leaving around 6:30 in the morning. I drove my car back home so I could go to a doctor's appointment later and ended up crashing until about 10 am. 

Day Four:

      Alright. I'm separating here cause this is when my Monday really began. I got up and ran to my cousin's hotel room because I had accidentally left some shower stuff in her room. I went to the dealers hall, bought some cool ear cuffs and headed back to my car to go to my doctors appointment. Then I headed back to hang out with Alan and Andy some more. We ended up hanging out until around 7 pm, getting dinner and having an unofficial photo shoot for Andy who was in his SNK gear. We ended the day hanging out at Hoang's place getting another dinner. 

Guys, I'm not going to lie, it took me four days to write this post. Everything kept blurring together. I had to ask Alan twice what happened which days. It was a lot of fun though. At the end of our time at the convention center, the three of us who had stuck together the whole time got a picture in front of the con center. 

Andy, Alan, and I

I have a post for you guys hopefully coming up tomorrow, so stay posted. How was your Memorial Day weekend? Let me know!

With Love, 

PolarBearMoose <3

Pretty Girls

Hello readers,

Yesterday, I gave a friend of mine, HN, a ride home. This happens a lot and normally, we sing along to my Disney CD's. This time though, we discussed various experiences we'd had with things like prom or dating in high school. And since I was helping him run some errands too by stopping at craft stores and BevMo, the conversation lasted a bit longer than it normally would. What normally happens, when we sing Disney, is we sit and sing one more song before he leaves my car and I drive home. But since yesterday was so different, we sat outside my car, drinking sodas we'd picked up at BevMo and continued talking. I'll leave out the personal bits, but when I have conversations with him, it tends to get deep to a point that some of it, I want to share with others. So without further ado, a summary of the conversation:

We started out by talking about experiences with prom. In high school, he was apparently that guy that everyone loves and anyone who rejected him was shunned by others in his school. He now wishes he had done something about that because it's not something he thinks is okay. He didn't end up going to prom with a few people because he didn't want to lead any of his friends on or give them the wrong impression by doing a big asking, although now he views prom as just another preparation for when people get married, which is a big deal really. There was more than that, but I don't want to over step on how much I say. Then, I told him about some of my prom experiences. Now my school didn't have prom. We called it JSB, or Junior-Senior Banquet. I talked about how I went completely by myself to both Winter Formal and Prom my junior year of high school and why. I told him about some of the people I dated that contributed to these events and even some of the people who I had crushes on. After we had gotten out of the car, he gave me a hug and we sat to talk more. Slight but important tangent, there was this guy named Brad Henning who spoke at my high school once. He talked about a lot of things, but there is one thing in particular that came to mind during my conversation with HN. Brad Henning talks about pretty girls. No, not pretty, beautiful. Beautiful girls tend to be the ones who boys are intimidated by. The ones who people won't ask out because they think she's out of their league, meanwhile, she thinks she's worthless because no one expresses interest. So she lowers her standards and gets labelled as desperate or unworthy. Jokingly, I told HN that my theory was that people didn't express interest because I'm too pretty. So what do I really tell myself? Someday I'll find someone. Right now, I'm not looking. I don't want to look. I'm transferring schools in another year and I refuse to go long distance. What did I used to tell myself? Even after hearing Brad Henning speak? I'm not pretty. I'm not what guys find attractive.

The point of this isn't really about my thoughts about myself though. The point of this comes from encouraging things you hear from friends. Toward the end of my conversation with HN, he mentioned that when he first saw me, he thought I was kind of cute in a nerdy platonic way and that a lot of mutual male friends felt the same. I'll admit, I'd been feeling pretty low earlier this week. And that made my day. I've heard it from other people too and haven't believed it. I still don't know if I do. I tell myself I'm not looking because deep down, I still believe that I'm not pretty. Even if other people tell me I am.  But it's not true. And it's not true for you either. You are beautiful, because you are an imperfect human. You make mistakes just like everyone else, but if you are reading this, then you have survived every mistake you've made. And you've survived the mistakes of others too. Your mistakes and your flaws, the things that you think no one could or will ever love are some of the things that make you who you are. And you, all of you, are beautiful.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Summer Vacation

Hello Readers!

I don't know about many of you, but every time I go on Facebook, my Newsfeed is filled with folks talking about their finals and how close they are to done with either high school or the year they're in at college. These lucky ducks who must be on the semester system or something keep talking about how they're done or close to done and meanwhile, I keep thinking, Man, I wish I were done. I'll celebrate when I get to the end of June. I keep having to remind myself that while yes, I am only half-way done, the plans I have for summer will have been worth the wait. There are a couple of things that I know for sure are happening and a few that I won't know until dates are settled. One that is definitely happening: A family friend is getting married! We're flying to Seattle for their wedding in August. Another one is Disneyland. I will be Disneybounding, also in August, though I'm not entirely sure which characters yet. Rapunzel is on my list though for sure.

Man, it feels like summer already. It doesn't feel like it's only week six. Ugh. Time has flown by though. I have my first midterm test of the quarter next week, although there's a midterm project that's due Thursday. It's strange thinking about summer too, because I now have two different groups and while I want to spend as much time as possible with both, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Speaking of plays, we had one of those group projects i mentioned before due in class today. We were performing a content-less scene. It was definitely a new experience for me since I was the director of the group, but I liked how my group worked. And the only real criticism the professor had was about one actor's pacing, so I'd say the whole thing went really well.

I'm writing this while waiting for one of my classes to start and I have to say, it's getting a little easier every day. I don't mean classes and I don't mean how busy I've been. I mean it's getting easier to wake up in the morning and not have the same face-to-face support that I had from my Lunch Bunch. It's getting easier to make friends. It's getting easier to be myself. I'm getting better at this stuff everyday. It's getting easier to open up with people. And when I do stumble, it's getting easier to get back up. I feel less afraid to make mistakes. I know that this whole paragraph is a tad bit random, but oh well.

If you're still in school, how's it going? Happy to be ending the year soon?

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Mother's Day

Hello Readers!

I realize I'm a day late, but yesterday was Mother's Day so let's talk about that today. First though, happy Mother's Day to all the moms! Now that that's been said, let's continue. My mom loves when we go out to brunch for Mother's Day. Of course, my grandma enjoys it too, but Mother's Day is one of the few days of the year, besides birthdays that we go out to a restaurant to eat. In this case, we went to this mansion turned hotel for brunch. We used to go to the Ramada Inn because they served a Mother's Day brunch, but when they stopped doing that, we had to find a new place. I think we've finally settled on this place though. It seems like in past years this place hasn't really had a whole lot of food options, which is strange because they have a fairly large selection of food. This year though, the food was pretty amazing.

Slight tangent, but I swear it's related. So there was this commercial playing for Mother's Day that I think was supposed to be for Hallmark, but I didn't really pay attention to that part. This family though, a father and daughter, were baking cupcakes and making them look like dirt to put in flower pots with flowers. I thought it was super cute, so I wanted to make some for the moms that are in my life. Especially since they all like flowers. So last week, I rushed out with a friend of mine, E, who was just bored and agreed to go with me. He actually ended up driving too. I needed to get everything early, because Mrs. I's birthday was last and since I had class on the same day, I wanted to bring her the cupcake flower thing a day early. So after rushing like crazy, I made it to the school where she works. I was scared that she'd left early, so I ran around all over the place looking for her when finally, I found her in the copy room. I managed to surprise her with both being there and the cupcake. Apparently though, she had been having a bad day and visiting her had made her day. I'm really glad that I had the chance to get there while she was there. It made my day to see her brighten up. But then I had to hang on to the cupcakes for a few days until I could prep them on Sunday.

So Sunday morning, I woke up to go to church with my mom and grandma. I went into the teen group mainly because I hadn't see them in a while. I found out that two friends of mine, M and his wife T, are moving back to Brazil. M is a year away from getting a Master's degree, but he's moving to help his dad expand the family business. I found out that a goodbye party will probably be held for them in a week or so.

Anyways though, after church, we all went out to brunch. After that we came home and gave gifts to my mom and grandma.

How was your Mother's Day weekend? What did you do to celebrate?

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

PS, I caved and finally made an Instagram. Find me as OriginalPolarBearMoose. I'll add a link to the side bar soon.

Group Projects

Hello readers,

I swear this is the quarter of group projects. It's seriously a good thing that I only have three classes this quarter rather than five because every single class I have has had group projects for the past three weeks in a row. For those of you who enjoy group projects, great for you! I am not one of those people though. Firstly, group projects are difficult because you have to find time outside of class to meet and discuss and work together.

One group I'm working with (thank goodness it's due today and it'll be the last day I work with them) is formed of nice people, but it's one of the more difficult groups I've ever worked with. One is always working and is a little flaky for showing up and doing work. The other speaks minimal English. He's sweet and hard-working, but the constant checking in about whether something is good or not is a tad bit annoying. I'm not a supervisor, I'm a partner in this project. Figure it out. Please. It's an English writing class and you clearly had the skills to be placed in the class, so use them.

In Theathre Appreciation, we have two group projects. One due Tuesday, the other due May 27th. With entirely different groups. Actually, both these projects sound fun. I just wish we had more time to work on them. Especially the one due Tuesday.

And in Psych, there's yet another group project. At least I actually know the people in this group a bit better and like them. We'll see what happens, but I actually really like this group and I'm hoping that it all works out alright. What happened with this class is that we chose our lab groups at the beginning of the quarter. I had taken a class with one of them previously, but the other three I didn't know at all. We chose names for our groups once we formed them. Most of us are pretty nerdy and are parts of the same fandoms. Because of that we're the Browncoats. There's another group in the class that's the Avengers too. Good times.

But seriously, I think this is the only time that I've actually been really happy that I am not working or taking five classes, because I have no idea how I'd get any of this group stuff done if I were working or taking more classes.

How do you feel about group projects? Hope you all are having a great Thursday!

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Mexico and More!

 Hey guys and gals!

So I know it's been a while, and I'm super sorry about that. I had a whole timeline planned about when I was going to blog again. But, on the plus side, except for test days, I am hoping to be able to blog a lot more.

Since I haven't blogged since before I left for Mexico, let me start with that.

Back in the middle of April, I went on this phenomenal trip to Tecate, Mexico. Technically, the name of the town we actually worked in is called Los Girasoles which means "The Sunflowers". All the streets in the village are named after different flowers. I actually didn't know that part until last year. But cool, right? But now you're wondering, what on earth were you doing there? At least if you don't know me personally that is. But let me answer that question anyways! We build houses for various families who don't have a home. The high school I graduated from organizes the whole trip and this year was the 26th annual trip and they were celebrating the 300th house built. We built 18 homes in various sites, so really we were celebrating a few more than 300, but still. That's an impressive amount of homes built! Oh yeah, did I mention we do it in three and a half days? Our site was lucky enough to have quite a few children running around. Some might view this as a bad thing, but I love when there are kids there. The kids that actually belonged to the family we were building for were named Pedro and Heidi (or Katie, I actually had a debate about this with someone). But there were plenty of other kids around. The names I remember are Chris, Gordito, and Alejandro. Here's the funny thing about Chris though, I remember him from my freshman year. He was the only kid around my site that year. He's grown up quite a bit though and spent the entirety of our work days pointing to various people and suggesting that they ought to date. Not knowing how to explain that I had graduated, I ended up telling him that I was very viejo or old and that the people he was pointing to were very joven or young whenever he suggested a relationship between myself and any of the students on the trip. We finished the house and celebrated with ice cream after three and a half long hard days. But every moment was worth it.

Since then, I honestly haven't done much. Which probably contributed to my lack of blogging recently. Although I did see Spiderman 2 on Saturday. That was pretty cool. I won't give spoilers, but I thought the movie was great.

FYI, I'll be going to Fanime in just a couple weeks, so be prepared for some serious cosplay photos in the various different things I update. Meaning, if you want to see this stuff, you ought to check out my photo tumblr. I will for sure be posting at least one picture from Fanime almost everyday of memorial day weekend. Also, there's deviant where I'll be posting cosplay photos and there's 500px.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3