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Before I forget, a happy Towel Day and Glorious 25th of May to all. And if you don't know what the second is, take this as a little shove go to and read a Discworld book, they're quite good. I will have my gigantic lilac towel with me today, and I may re-read Night Watch tonight if I have time.

So, Ada is just about as done as she's going to be for this con, I think. I may put the straps on her shoes, but I'm thinking I'm going to totally go over those again later, so I may just wait. Oh, and if anyone knows where I could get two or three yards of two-inch wide black velvet ribbon, I haven't been able to find any. White Mage Yuna is oh so close to being done - I just need to do a little stiching on the boot uppers and then glue them to the base shoes, but I did that stupid 'forgetting the thread I needed in the sewing room' thing again, so it'll have to wait. On summoner Yuna, I'm just going through and doing all the little tiny things I've got left - I think the only real big one is the staff, which I need to buy gold paint for to finish off tomorrow. And augh, I forgot how bad epoxy smells.

Also, if you haven't already, give me an opinion, because as we all know, I am horribly indecisive and can't make up my own mind.

More cosplay updates! I got the cuffs and most of the hood done on white mage Yuna - I was thwarted in finishing the hood by the fact that I left the spool of thread I needed in the sewing room, and didn't realize it until my mom had gone to bed (the sewing room is off her bedroom). This means that I have assorted hemming and the boots left on that, pretty much. I also discovered that the white wrap top for summoner Yuna I made waaaay back a year and a half ago is actually salvagable, so it just needs a little hemming along the bottom edges. I also finally finished the edges of the top bit of the staff for that, so it mostly just needs to be painted gold and then attached to the handle bit. The lining for Ada is sewn together, and now needs to be sewn in, and then I have to put in the grommets for the lacing in the back.

It's not a question of whether I can do this or not, it's how crazy I'm going to be when I'm done. I also passed my lifeguard recert, which is good, because it means I can keep my job, yaaaay. And I'll make another big sparkley KH2 post sometime soon, because it is wonderful special crack, and has been my reward system to myself - sew some, play some KH2.

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I kept forgetting - I'm not going to AX. I realised that while I do have the money, I'm going off to college on the other side of the continent in the fall, and thus should be responsible about my savings account, particularly as I'm not working full-time this summer. On the AB front, I'm going to keep the hotel room, whoever needs space can have it, and I'll just figure out cost-splitting after, I think. Costume-wise, I'm thinking Summoner Yuna, half-finished Ada (I'm not going to have time for all the accesories), and vol. 11 yukata!Tatsumi, because it's comfy and hasn't been worn to any cons yet.

As far as things being done on costumes - I got all the little semi-circles sewn on to the overrobe of WM Yuna, which leaves the cuffs, hood, boots, and front insert. The only one of those that'll take more than an hour or two is the hood, I think, which has more little fiddly bits. I've almost finished all the painting on Ada, though, and I may just sit down and do the rest before going to bed. Didn't get a chance to work on summoner Yuna, although there isn't much left to be done, but I did finally order the wig. Hopefully it will be here in time.

One quick largely spoiler-free KH2 note - Auron is the win. Now I crave Auron fic, and will probably go start re-reading Legendary Guardian.

So I went out and spent too much money this afternoon. As a result, I now have lots of cosplay supplies, including a black string bikini top, OMG, and thus have no excuse for not spending all of my free day tomorrow working on stuff. On the plus side, this means that Summoner Yuna is almost finished, and White Mage Yuna is starting to actually look like White Mage Yuna. Now I'm practically up to all the little fiddly hand-sewing bits. Which I could probably machine-sew, but they'd look like crap, probably. Note to self, which others are free to remind me of should I forget it: no commissions, ever, not even for friends. Unless they agree to the 'it gets done when I get around to it' clause, and even then, only if they're friends I know won't get annoyed by said clause.

Anyway. My other spending was on a birthday pressent for Jesse, which will be in the mail...uh...when I get around to it, which is my timeline for almost everything at the moment (Mara, make me post as Satsuki tomorrow. I keep saying I'll do it and then forgetting until it's two am and I don't have the brainpower to do it). And I finally caved and bought Kingdom Hearts II with some of the money I got for graduation, because I have no shame. I spent my free time this afternoon (and evening, and early morning) playing, and thus, have ( some begining thoughts (warning, spoilers through the first trip to Hollow Bastion) )

So, I'm officially a high school graduate. The whole ceremony was very nice, not too overdone or underdone, as my dad put it. Almost started crying during some of the student speeches, which were really great, but managed not to. My gown was way too narrow in the shoulders and thus looked a bit silly, but I've decided the whole purpose of academic regalia is possibly to make the wearer look as silly as possible. The highter you go, the sillier looking it gets. Mrs. Ferrell came too, which was nice. We went out to eat at the Outback Steakhouse afterwards, and I made myself entirely stuffed on some rather excellent baby back ribs.

I don't think the whole thing has really sunk in yet, to be honest. I'm really tired today, so nothing is really registering.

So, this morning was my firearms class - aside from the early start, it ended up being tons of fun. I got to shoot two different .22 revolvers, a .22 semi-auto handgun, a 12-gauge semi-auto shotgun, a 20-gauge break-action over-under shotgun, a few different kinds of .22 bolt-action rifles, a .22 semi-auto rifle, and a turn-of-the-century.38-40 lever-action Winchester rifle.

A few observations, which may also help various writer-friends reading this (part of the reason I took the class was because I was trying to write a gun-fight on S_F and realized I had no idea what the hell I was talking about):

-Shotguns have a lot of kick, more than I expected - I'm going to have a nice bruise on my shoulder, I think. They're also both the loudest, and hands-down the heaviest of all the types.
-Conversely, rifles have a lot less kick than I had expected, even the .38. The weight varied a lot, with the semi-auto, which was all synthetic being the lightest, and one of the old .22s with a big wood stock being the heaviest.
-The .38, for some reason, was tons of fun to fire.
-The revolvers had less kick than the semi-autos, probably because they were heavier, and didn't have the slide going back. My aim was a lot better with the revolvers, and I think that was why.
-Apparently side-by-side double-barrel shotguns are generally the most expensive type, because the barrels have to be hand-aligned.

First, because the all of two Academy kids reading this are probably wondering where the hell I was Friday - apparently I utterly fail at life, and either my alarm clock didn't go off, or I slept right through it until it turned itself off, and by the time I awoke, it was half-way through Microbio. So with the only class left being the one I hate, I just didn't bother coming in at all.

Instead, I have been sitting around re-igniting my on-again, off-again love affair with Harry Potter, or, more accurately, one Remus John Lupin. Because he's really my main draw in the series, and I think that probably deserves a post all to itself, about me, and him, and brown, and all sorts of weird introspective things. It's sort of a cyclic thing - looking at my old entries, my last bout of HP-fannishness was actually about a year ago.

In between the HP-stuff, I have also been playing lots of RE4, mostly because I have just under two weeks before I get it back, and I didn't want to work on my paper for history (still don't, which is why I'm writing this. Gonna be up late tomorrow, probably). Main complaints about the PS2 version - the sound quality is poor, and the load times are terrible, particularly as the GC version had basically none. There's some weirdness with item rarity, too. Stuff that was really common to pick up in the GC version, like handgun ammo, is now a lot harder to find, but certain things that were really rare show up more commonly, like magnum ammo. More positive feelings will probably come when I get to all the shiny extras, probably later this week - I'm right before the Krauser boss fight right now.

An aside, the above two things (HP and RE4) lead to really strange dreams, in which Skuld is an evil sorcercess and I'm trying to keep these stone tablet-things away from her, and there is a great deal of nice landscaping and big old stone buildings, and possibly a pond with alligators in it. And I totally haven't wrapped my brain around only having two days of classes left in high school. But I have decided where I'm going next year - UBC.

Haven't been around much, I know. It's the end of the year, so things have been finals, my community service, and playing RE4 because I have to give it back by graduation (more on that later). Senior project stuff is now entirely done and out of my hands, which just leaves the community service, two finals, and one paper. My dad and brother are gone this weekend at Coachella in CA - lucky them. My dad was also bugging me about getting a job with more hours this summer. I'm..uncertain. I know it's a good idea, but this is my last summer vacation before college and the real world, I'd kind of like to just kick back and enjoy it. Further consideration is needed, I think.

On the AX front...I'd really like to go, because it seems like I'm nearly the only person who isn't, but I'm looking at $300 for plane tickets alone, plus reg, hotel, and food, which is probably another $200+, which is all money I don't really have. Something to think about, though.

And proving I'm a huge geek, I totally had a dream last night I was cosplaying Rufus and had managed to find a Tseng to join me in my madness, although I dunno who it was. We were laughing about something...don't remember much else.

Yeah, finally got around to uploading a bunch of photos.

-The most awesome cake ever (tasty, too)
-Me looking cool (when do I _not_ look cool? Don't answer that.)
-Blue hair, front view
-Blue hair, side view
-Blue hair, top view (you can see where it didn't take on my roots)
-I go to the nerdiest school ever.
-Prom outfit!
-With my dad (and I totally just found Burning Chrome because of this photo. Been looking for it all week)
-The cheese log. Love the cheese log. Fear the cheese log
-With my lovely date, Mara <3
-Sephiroth. I look, uh, really scary in this. And possibly not in a good way
-Now I just look stoned.

I also have the group photo we had taken at prom, which looks great, but I need to scan it still.