A Picture Story

So, at Brooks this past week, we had to do a sort of stop motion picture story.  It didn't have to be as fast transitions as I did, but I quickly learned the bare basics of Final Cut Pro to make it look the way it does.  I couldn't have it more than 3 minutes and didn't want to cut it short, so it ended up being 2:30 minutes with some cut stuff.  Next time I want to make one without limitations.  :)  So, I had my best guy friend Eddie (his real name is Edward) come out and model for me, which was really awesome because he is 5+ hours away from Santa Barbara, and he was my "Alice" and my "Wonderland" was a Disco Inferno in one of the studios.  hahaha.  We played loud upbeat music to get everyone into the mood and I took the pictures from the floor.  XD  I love how it turned out.  I bought poster board and paint and we created 2 of the panels in the background and then the other 2 pieces were just really cool types of paper.  The music is also kinda fun to talk about.  The first song is a song called Alice by the artist Pogo.  This guy takes sounds from specific movies and makes whole songs from JUST sounds from the movies!  He's done ones for movies such as Hook, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original and better!), Alice, Mary Poppins, Up, Terminator 2, and so forth.  Here is his youtube page.  http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron
The little ping sound is a tribute to my all time favorite band m-flo because they use it in their albums often.  Plus it was a really cool sound to signify his arrival to the Disco Inferno!  And the final song is by the ever awesome and dance inducing Electric Six.  :D  btw, I only realized till after I finished the movie that Disco Inferno is a name of a 50 Cent song.  XD  oops.  and I thought I was being creative.  That's what I get for not knowing most of the hip-hop era's song titles.  lol.  Well, anyways, I hope you enjoy my video!!!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=310699256757


please let me know if you cannot view this. youtube wouldn't upload my video correctly. =/

He Qi Crystal Designs

note, I noticed that this layout doesn't highlight clickable links!  So the links have numbers by them.  :)

Last month I checked out another little jewelry blog.  This time I found the girl was living in Davis! (about 45 mins from where I live, and a lot of my friends go to school) And I fell in love with these pretty feather-esque earrings.  In her blog, she said they were one of a kind and she had a blue/silver version, and then a purple/gold version.  I figured I'd go with the blue/silver so it could go with another piece I have.....  ^_~  I also noticed that she was the only jewelry blog using the vitrial medium color (at the time) and so I had to get her Alice series necklace.  :)  Plus, the jewel was 18cm and I like bigger crystals.  =P  Her service was extremely quick and it was at my house the day after I got the tracking number.  Lisa's work is very beautiful and recently she's been doing more unique pieces.  I am in love with her beautiful necklaces and earrings.  I love this piece (1) in particular.  :)  These are also stunning pieces(2) (she has 3 different colors of this necklace).  And these are a pair of her more super unique earrings (3).  I had a great experience with He Qi and am definitely looking to buy from her, as soon as I start being more decisive with what I want to buy.  Online shopping is a gift and a curse.  One, I like having unique things and looks, but at the same time, I want to get everything!  hahaha.

Please visit her online shop! (4) You will not be disappointed.  :D

The feather earrings

the Alice Necklace

oh, and I am simply writing this because I love her work and want to spread the love.  :)

The Happiest Place on Earth

My happiest place on Earth is definitely Disneyland.  The first time I went to Disneyland, I was 3 months old.  XD  My dad is part of this Disney group called NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) and we used to go to conventions a lot.  A lot of the artwork in my house are Disney cells from various movies and old collectables that my dad has found over the years.  I remember going to Disneyland a lot when I was growing up (at least 2-3x a year) and it is about a 6 hour drive from where my family lives.  Everyone in my classes knew me as the Disney girl and everyone looks to me to know the Disney trivia.  XD  Going to Disneyland now, makes me nostalgic and remember the fond memories I have of going with family and friends.  I used to hate roller coaster types, but now I am obsessed.  hahaha.  I think my favorite Disneyland ride is probably Indiana Jones.  Or perhaps Big Thunder Mountain.  I also REALLY like Haunted Mansion at Halloween till Christmas because it is Nightmare Before Christmas themed.  Some of my favorites growing up where Alice in Wonderland and the Submarine ride (now the sub ride is Nemo themed and is super cute!!).

I went over Super Bowl Sunday to Disneyland and shot my photo assignment there.  We had to do pans (where the subject is sharp, but the background blurry), blurs (the subject blurry, background sharp) and depth of field (having the background out of focus).

Pan shot/ can't you just feel the motion?

Blur shot/ teacup mayhem!

Selective Focus/ I LOVE the expression on the guy's face.  This is when he was flipping the girl during the parade.  :)

I also really like these things that are called "circles of confusion."  My teacher is really into them and likes to point them out every time he sees them.  =P

Lights look like this when you open the lens opening VERY wide and keep the back out of focus.  These look really cool right?  Here are a few other pictures that I really like the way they turned out.

A little bit of Disney magic.  :D  

Submarine view  ^_^

It might be a little hard to tell, but that's a girl there.  :)  this is while the teacup was spinning.

This was hard because the only light on her face was from the back of her camera.

The carousel spinning.  :)

Anytime I go to Disneyland I love taking pictures and trying to make the things in Disneyland look less recognizable.  Can anyone tell where this is (this was taken with film and printed in a darkroom)?  It's one of my favorite places to go in the world!  :)  Disneyland is a place that will always make me happy, and I hope that when I have kids, I will be able to give them amazing memories at this place too.  ^_^

The Alice Hype

>Fashion and Alice always go hand in hand<

So with the upcoming Alice in Wonderland movie, the "alice hype" is on the rise again!  I notice that it comes and goes every once in awhile, but now that Tim Burton is putting his twist on the story, I bet it will stick around for a lot longer.  Growing up I always loved watching the Alice in Wonderland (disney version of course) and wanting to go to wonderland.  haha.  I always wanted my own moneraths.  XD  They were super cool how they made an arrow to have her follow the path.  A lot of the people I talk to say that the movie scared them when they were growing up, but I found the movie always entertaining.  I loved the singing and would sing along with a lot of the songs.  XD  I think my favorite parts of that movie were the scene in Tulgey Wood and the Walrus and the Carpenter song.  For some weird reason.

I remember when I was in middle school, before the latest thing were it's "cool" to own a Mac (I grew up with them my whole life) I saw a game called American McGee's Alice that you could actually play with a Mac computer!  Many game fans know that mac's are never really game friendly.  Anyways, at that age, I thought it looked really scary and something my parents would have not let me play.  :(  So I never got a chance to play the game.  Apparently it is out of print and SUPER hard to find.  People are selling it on ebay and amazon for $120+!!!!  =O  Looking back now, I think this would be an awesome game to play!  The storyline is that Alice is a teen, and all her family is killed in a tragic fire.  She ends up being schizophrenic and Wonderland is suffering because of it.  She has to go back to save Wonderland.  Everything in Wonderland is a bit twisted because of her new personality, which makes it sound all the more devious.  I've tried a lot of different ways to get to play the game, but no such luck yet.  Maybe someday they will remake the game now with the even bigger Alice following that is to come this year.

A few years ago I stumbled across a book called The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.  In this trilogy, it starts off in Wonderland where we find out there is a girl named Alyss Heart.  She is a young girl with a very strong imagination and her parents are the rulers of Wonderland.  Her mother is the most powerful imagination expert in the kingdom, but she has a sister named Redd who was banished because she was into using dark imagination.  The premise of the book is that Wonderland is real, and (without spoiling things) Alyss ends up in England were a man named Lewis Carroll is the only man to listen to her life story (everyone else just laughs and tells her to grow up) and eventually writes the book Alice in Wonderland.  Young Alyss is furious that her story was completely botched and begins to slowly forget her past.  The series is 3 books and has a comic called Hatter M.  What is really cool is that Frank Beddor takes ALL the Alice characters and puts twists on them.  For instance, the wise tutor of Alyss is Bibwit Harte (if you re-arrange the letters it is White Rabbit) and the commander of the royal guard is Hatter Madigan (the mad hatter).  The Cheshire Cat is actually a humanoid assassin and Redd is scheming to steal Alyss's rightful place as future queen.  This series was super clever and I hear they are planning to make a movie soon.  :D  Unfortunately I think the movie will be overshadowed by the Tim Burton version and people might call copycat.

In the line of movies, Marilyn Manson is directing a movie called Phantasmagoria that is loosely an Alice story.  Apparently it is a movie about Lewis Carroll and the part of him will be played by Manson himself.  I think the movie is supposed to be about how Carroll is going mad in his home and is seeing visions of a girl named Alice.  Sure Marilyn Manson is considered weird and rightly so, but I recently saw an interview he did and he is actually quite an intelligent person.  I am VERY interested in this movie and can't wait to see what he comes up with.

All in all, Alice fever has swept up again, but I think people will always have a fascination with weird stuff like Wonderland.  Sure there are a lot who like it for the acid-trip type experience and what they can do with drugs, but for some it's just childhood.  I own a SUPER old copy of the original Alice and Through the Looking Glass books, and I am starting to read them now.  I've always wanted to be an Alice for Halloween, but it's hard to find a normal looking one without being too slutty.  XD For now,  I'll stick to my nice DSK Wonderland bracelet.  haha.  This story will always have a close place in my heart, and no matter how popular this series is going to get (it can't get any worse than twilight  XD) I will stick by it.  :)  Anyone else a big Alice in Wonderland fan?  Anyone else waiting for the new movie to come out?

♥ DSK Jewelry

So, one of the whole reasons I decided to start writing this blog, was because of a girl named Bubbi and a "little" jewelry blog called DSK.  I was looking for cool things to do with my hair, and came across Bubbi's videos and website off Youtube.  I thought her hairstyling was super cute, and I tried to copy some (with little success, since my hair is the complete opposite of typical smooth asian hair).  Then I saw a video she had on her page titled DSK Jewelry..and me, loving anything sparkly, I had to check it out.  I instantly fell in love with a lot of the pieces I saw and I had to get my hands on some.  So I started saving up my money and the first piece I was able to buy was the Bubbi necklace.  Purple is one of my favorite colors, and that dark blue heart crystal went so well with it.  :)  For the past 2 months, I have been on this buying spree of DSK things.  The pictures are small, cause the X-Large size wouldn't fit on my blog section.  =/  but I swear that they look amazing in the original format.  Just click on them to see them in high definition

My interactions with Stephanie have always been excellent and she has always answered my e-mails in speedy fashion.  I like reading about her big move to Seattle and getting used to living there.  I know I will be feeling some of the same feelings once I start going to Brook's at the beginning of January.  I admire Stephanie a lot for doing this amazing jewelry business.  It's not hard to tell that a LOT of people buy her stuff, and she is constantly busy with tons of orders, especially with the holiday season!  Doing something you love is the dream.  It's nice to see that you can be successful with something you love to do.  :D

So this post is mainly to show my DSK jewelry haul.  I can't help it.  I have 7 pieces from her, in a very short span of time... XD  It is a very good thing I have a job again.  So first off,

The Bubbi Necklace
Isn't it so pretty?  I love the deep blue and purple together.  2 of my favorite colors.  Plus the heart link  chain is also very cute and unique.

Purple Haze heart earrings
Purple happens to be my favorite color.  And anything sparkly is a good thing.  =)

Purple Haze/Golden Shadow Pegasus
So, when I saw the picture of this on Steph's blog, I thought the heart looked a bit more pink.  And being new to the site, I didn't put two and two together to realize that PH stood for purple haze.  XD  The actual stock color is called Light Vitrail.  It's purple, but occasionally, it has a green-ish tinge to it.  I would love to get a single siam red heart to interchange with this necklace, but that will have to wait.  I love the shapes of this necklace and get compliments on it often.

AB Baller
I could not help myself.  It's a huge heart crystal...and the sparkle on this baby is amazing.  I thought I would want to wear this on a longer chain, but I really like how it looks on the 18" heart chain.  I love walking outside with this thing because it sparkles like no other.  :)  I did notice though, if you want the blue color to come out more, you need to have it behind a white color.  With skin tones, the yellow is more prominent.

Key to Wonderland
Steph always makes beautiful bracelets.  And they're one of a kind to add to the value.  She posted at one point that she wanted to make an Alice in Wonderland themed one, and I knew that I wanted to get that one.  Alice has always been one of my favorite Disney movies, and I like the book a lot.  When she posted the bracelet, I didn't think I would have the money to buy it quick enough, but no one snagged it up.  So finally, after saving for a bit, I bought the bracelet.  The only problem I have with it, is that the clasp is super small.  I always have to ask for help to put it on.  But the charms are beautiful, and the colors are pretty neutral so it goes with a lot of things.  And of course, it sparkles.  Definitely a wonderful piece that I was able to pick up.

Big Daddy Peridot Stars
I've always been a fan of stars.  I used to want to be an astronomer when I was younger, and I have star motifs all over the place.  I decided on the bigger studs and in green, since I do not have much green jewelry.

Black Diamond Crystal Balls
I am always attracted to silvery-gunmetal type tones.  So when I saw the crystal balls in black diamond I definitely hoped they would stay in stock.  Thankfully no one had picked them up before me and I was able to snag them.  I get many compliments that they're super sparkly and eye catching.

Steph continues to make amazing work, and is currently working on making an official store page and even a store front!  wow what an amazing person.   To do something that you love and be super successful at it in less than a year is amazing.  I'm hoping that the offical web page won't take away from the personal side of it.  But I know it will make it much easier for Steph to continue doing so much for her fans.  :)  I wish her the best of luck, and I hope you guys find happiness in her jewelry too!

New Home

*Edit* and thanks to mr/ms anonymous comment who said my blogs are getting a bit better.  i hope to please!  thanks for the feedback.  I like hearing about how people think about this blog and the things I put time into.

So, I finally moved into my new place in Santa Barbara, CA!!  (actually it's in Goleta, but eh, details.  XD) It's this nice 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment in the middle of all the shops/food, which is perfect for me cause I love to food and for some weird reason, grocery stores.  :)  The place is nice, and our neighbors seems really good too.  I have 2 other girls living with me, but actually, we had one other girl, but she decided super last minute that Brook's was not for her.  So she moved out super quick and now we're 3.  Now I have an empty bed next to me and lots of closet space.  And since we're part of a housing company with Brook's we don't have to pay extra since we lost a girl.  I like the layout of my things and we've been starting to get a lot of more personal things like art and stuff for the walls.  They're looking a little white and boring lately.  >_<  Today I made my first meal on my own.  I tried my mom's teriyaki chicken recipe and it was a huge hit.  :)  Should have made a bit more rice and even though I'm not really a salad person, I ate quite a bit.

The first week of school starts on Monday, and I have classes from 10:15am-1:00pm for Photo 111A (the beginning class) and then 1:30pm-4:15pm for a environmental science class for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  On three Fridays there are scheduled photo shoots, but other than that it will just be work, work, work.  2 months of crazy living will be starting soon.  We have to live in this R&R housing for at least June, but hopefully I will make good enough friends that I can move to a cheaper and better place.  :D
I'm far away from my friends, but I've been branching out and making a lot of new ones.  The feeling for me is that great friends can never be replaced.  And I know I will be going back to see them.  :)  But all in all, I can't wait to get started on my photo career and get out there and do what I love.  ^_^  2010 is going to be crazy!

a year of happiness :D

Man, 2009 went by in a flash.  Loved, lost, and learned to be happy through it all.  :)  The beginning of the year was a hard one.  But I made new friends and got to be more outgoing.  Summer '09 was one of the best I've had yet, and I became super close with my best guy friend over the course of the year.  ^_^  I've had to say goodbye to one of my best friends (her family moved out to Wisconsin) and hopefully we will see her again, and then another one of my best friends is now 6 months pregnant!  ah, that time in my life already?  XD

I made the executive decision to start my education at the Brook's Institute of Photography and will begin on January 8th.  For those who don't know what brooks is, it is a very famous photography school in beautiful Santa Barbara, CA.

 It's a 3 year, year-round program and by the end I will have a BFA.  :D  Not sure what my main focus will be (I wanna keep an open mind), but I love fashion photography and people photography (making them kinda artsy and all that stuff).  My parents used to want me to get a degree in Japanese (my first passion), but then I realize that to be a language major you should really start off at your four year, I decided I would continue to work on Japanese on my own (I've taken 6 years of Japanese).  I would love to live there for a year or so and just learn the language that way.  I know most of it, it's just the flow of it now.  Who knows what these next 3 years will bring me.  If all goes as planned I will be done Dec. 22, 2012.   :)  I'm ready to get out there and do stuff.  2 years at a junior college was good, and I got to be on nor-cal's team for the US Kendo championships in exchange and was able to feel confident with my kendo.  I will miss my friends from that the most.  And just the experience of being in it.  I hope to practice down in Santa Barbara someday and get back into it.

Since not many people know what it is, Kendo is a Japanese martial art that is sorta like fencing.  Except that it has MUCH more contact than the fencing that many people are used to seeing on TV.   You have headgear, a protective body armor and wrist guards.  You can hit an opponent at the head, wrist, body, (and for experienced players) the neck.  Your kiai (or yelling) is essential to scoring points also.  The idea is that you are making your opponent fear you by vocalizing.  haha.  I am told that my kiai is intimidating and I am usually very loud.  I like to help raise the spirits of my team mates when we have really hard and strenuous practices.  Here's a video of what a kendo match typically looks like.  These guys are the top of the world, so they're a different league, but it's the general idea.  haha.  Maybe someday I'll get a video of me on Youtube, but until then....




This is what I love to do.  I have been doing it since I started high school, which now would be...6 1/2 years now.  :)  I hope that you guys also have something that you're passionate about and love to still due today.  My life is about to take some crazy turns and I am hoping for the best.  :)  And I know most people will want to make resolutions like always, but I know that I won't go through with it.  I love my Dr. Pepper too much.  (I wish I could give up soda)  hahaha.  Good luck to you guys in your 2010 endeavors too.  :D

 "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance in the rain."