Oh, hey Kristina.

Hello, 2012.

2012-01-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

Well, we're only 3 days into 2012, but the year has already been good to me.

To recap, 2011 ended in the best way possible - with countless parties. I had my 24th birthday party on Tuesday, which included a trip to Sky High, the warehouse full of trampolines and foam here in Seattle, plus an evening of dancing and drinking in footy pajamas back at my place.

Friday, Forest had another one of his famous "secret parties", which ended up being a complex version of Mafia involving camera feeds and robots and being trapped in the Matrix.

Saturday was the official New Year's Eve party at Tara and Alexander's apartment, with confetti, fondue, a hilarious drink menu and a wall with our tweets from the night being projected onto it. My favorite part of the evening was when six of us decided to go on an adventure to the sauna on the second floor, making ourselves stay there until someone from the party saw our rescue tweets on the wall -- at the same moment Freddie was apparently showing everyone something on YouTube so NOBODY was paying attention to the tweet wall. Our "HELP WE'RE TRAPPED IN THE SAUNA" tweets went unnoticed for who knows how long - we came back to the party later sweaty and feeling like we'd just gotten ourselves into some sort of horrible Jumanji type game, haha.

Ringing in 2012 was a sort of cleansing experience for me. Not only did I get to leave a lot of old baggage back in 2011, but it felt incredibly right to be celebrating the new year with these amazing people who've showed me over the past six months that Seattle really is my home. I am not going to deny that texting with some of my LA friends over the course of the night didn't feel good, though. I'm glad I can have the best of both worlds, still. I'm so fortunate to have friends all over the world. :)

2012 has been as such: Sunday Justin and I played WoW and watched the Twilight Zone marathon all day. I know I should have jumped right into my new list of responsibilities for 2012, but I really just felt like I deserved one more day of "holiday vacation", and what better way to spend it, really? Then on Monday, the day was completely Job Hunters. I met with Liz, Forest and Tara to work out some business stuff and set some dates for final casting, set building, etc. Then we went to this awesome meetup for people involved in the Seattle web series community, which was even better than we could have expected. Everyone is so welcoming and nice and fun - we really couldn't ask to be joining into a better group of people.

I have more work to do today (as with every day for the rest of my life, probably) so I am going to leave you with an incredibly nerdy conversation I had with Justin yesterday that made me laugh.

Justin: I cleaned up a lot of junk in my WoW character's bank. You know dreadnettle, light leather, horcruxes, the usual.

Me: How many horcruxes?

Justin: Well, my character has killed over 5000 people. But it's not my horcrux, I was just holding it for a friend.

Me: I was only checking to see how many more are still out there. Sounds like we have a lot of work to do.

Justin: I wish that were the case. If we had to destroy horcruxes, I would have my wand and be out the door in a heartbeat.

Justin: My issue is, I don't embody the archetypal literary hero because they must first refuse the call to adventure, but be thrust into it. I would jump into adventure at the drop of a hat.

Me: That just means something would go terribly, terribly wrong before you succeed... to aid plot conflict.

Justin: You mean like that part of the movie where everything is at its worst? Those parts make me sad.

Me: Yeah, that has to be your life though. Good story-telling requires it.

Justin: Thanks. :(

Then in deciding what to track this year at the bottom of my blog, I made the mistake of... asking for help.

Me: What should I track on my blog this year? Last year was flights.. the year before was Chipotle burritos.

Justin: hmm. burrito flights???

Me: Sigh. Why do I even ask you things.

Any suggestions for things to track this year? I was thinking of listing the book I'm currently reading, but it's not a particularly creative or exciting idea, plus it might be embarrassing if I get really busy and am reading the same book for months.. haha. Let me know your ideas in the comments, and also, tell me how you spent your first day of 2012!

Mushy Christmas thoughts.

2011-12-25T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sitting at my parents' house, in my old-bedroom-now-converted-into-a-spare-room. I can hear Christmas music wafting in from the kitchen, as well as the clanging of metal and glass as my parents put away the last of the fancy Christmas dishes. We just finished a delicious brunch of blueberry waffles and mini quiches. I made the quiches. I love quiche.

Somehow I got out of dishes by saying "I think I'm going to write a Christmas blog." I have no idea how that worked. Apparently if I say things like that with enough authority, they actually sound legit. So with my mother's approval ("blog away, Tina"), I am going to try to wrap up the feelings stirring in me from the holidays going on and the end of the year so closely on the horizon.

This year has been a shaky one. I know that in the grand scheme of things, I have a wonderful life and I am very fortunate in pretty much every aspect of my existence. I am thankful every single day that I have a caring, fun family, amazing friends in all parts of the world, and I get to do the things I love for a living. But that doesn't mean I can't have difficult stuff going on sometimes. At the start of this year, I wasn't in a very good place. I don't need to dwell on the specifics - instead, today, as I look back on everything that's happened since this time last year - I want to climb up on my roof and scream as loud as I can about how much better things are.

I really am truly happy right now. I've made a lot of life changes.. from deciding to stay in Seattle and getting involved in things here, to making a bunch of new friends in my town, to letting go of some people who were holding me back. From all the little changes I've had to make to take care of my vocal nodes, to trying to jump back into writing, to starting to learn to cook a bit so I can eat more healthily, I'm feeling so great about the direction I'm going. Everything bad that happens to us in life will get better with time and healing, and I feel so relieved to be able to revel in really feeling whole right now.

I'm excited for what the new year will bring - ever since I got involved in the amazing Internet communities I'm a part of, I have been blown away year after year that each one seems even more incredible than the last. I have a good feeling that 2012 is going to follow that trend.

Christmas at home had been nice. I know many families go to their grandparent's house or share the day with a whole slew of aunts and uncles and cousins, but my extended family all lives quite far away. While we do make it a point to see them in the summer, Christmas has always been a time just for my Mom, Dad, brother and myself. Each year is fairly similar to the one before it, but that's why it's special. We only have each other out here when it comes to family, so I cherish the moments we have together, opening gifts, making/eating food, going to church (despite my own beliefs) and playing cards.

I got a lovely pile of gifts including a Kindle Touch, the game Catch Phrase, a bunch of candles, an Urban Decay eyeshadow palette, Kermit footy pajamas and a gorgeous jade necklace my Mom bought me in China (among other things). It's kind of nice to be a bit older and more mature around Christmastime.. it was always so stressful when I was younger, always getting hung up on the gifts. I remember fretting over my wish list, worrying my friends would get better presents or things I didn't think of - that all seems so silly now. I almost prefer giving gifts to receiving them now; seeing the looks on people's faces when I manage to get them exactly what they wanted is seriously the best.

My favorite gift I gave this year was a Jayne hat (from Firefly) to my dad. We really bonded over that show a few years back, and he loved the episode when Jayne's mom sent him the dorky orange hat. I've been waiting to see my dad crack up when he opened that gift for months. My favorite gift I received was from my brother Nick - he installed a stereo in my car all by himself. He's been working on it out in the garage all weekend. It means a lot that he'd put that much labor into a gift for me. :)

The necklace from my mom, as well, is very special. She picked it out for me at the Jade factory in China, and it's supposed to bring happiness and love into my life. I'm a little worried this means she's wishing for some grandkids, haha, but unfortunately for her it's going to be a good long while before that's on the table. Like, after I meet a boy, specifically. #foreveralone

I know a lot of my blog posts recently have been sort of mushy I-love-my-life type ramblings, but I'm just so, so happy with how things have changed for me. It wasn't that long ago when I felt like it was going to be impossible to turn things around, and I'm just amazed with how easy it ended up being. I think the obstacles and choices in our life really do happen for a reason, and I'm glad to be right here, exactly where I am.

This might be my last blog post of the year (maybe not though, I might need to do one of those stereotypical go-through-the-months posts) but at the very least, I'm positive I'm not flying anywhere else in 2011.

So for the last time...

Flights taken: 26 (not bad for one year!)

December funtimes and parties.

2011-12-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

Life is so exciting right now. December in general is always a total blast, but this year seems even more excitingly off the wall, probably because I am more involved in my own city than I ever have been before.

Thursday I went to the Child's Play Charity Auction -- this was a big fancy event for local nerds to come together and try to raise money for Penny Arcade's awesome charity that gets games and toys for bed-ridden and sick kids in hospitals nation-wide. I wont say a ton, because this is actually going to be the topic of my Project4Awesome video this year, but I am so glad I went to the event. Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade ran the live auction, which was hilarious, and I met a lot of really great people. Plus, seeing that many nerds dressed in their fanciest clothes is always a neat experience.

Yesterday Liz and I watched the special holiday episode of Community, and it was so good that once it ended, we literally just went back and watched it a second time. This is a big deal for me to say, as a huge fan of music episodes of non-musical shows... but it might have stolen first place for best musical episode of a show ever. At the very least it's tied for first with Buffy.

It could just be that I'm emotional about it being the last episode they're airing for awhile, as we've now entered the much despised Community hiatus. NBC wouldn't know a good thing if it aired weekly on Thursdays on their own channel. ...wait.

Last night I went to the Cheezburger Network Holiday party with the rest of the Know Your Meme team. There were free drinks and free food and I discovered this amazing beer that was red and fruity and called Lindemans Framboise. It didn't even taste like beer at all, which instantly makes it my favorite kind of beer.

The party was at the Tap House down in Seattle, which is this incredible bar with something like 160 beers on tap. The funny thing is, the after-party for the Child's Play Auction was also at the Tap House (though the Bellevue branch) so it's been a beer-filled week for me. Good thing I know my tricks, like the Framboise and various ciders, since I'm not really a beer person at all.

Then we had a little game's night at my house after the Cheezburger party, where we played a lot of games that actually only ended up being fun once we revised the rules ourselves. There will be a video about this, but using the cards from Dixit, we created an epic tale about a powerful sorcerer, a bearded child, the search for a key, an illegitimate baby, the betrayal of a divisive mistress and the death of a poor heroic slum kid. I don't even know.

I'm actually very, very glad I don't have any plans today, because it's the first time in a long time that I get to just catch up on my TV shows and play some WoW. I can't wait. :D

Flights taken: 26

Post NaNoWriMo wrap-up.

2011-12-01T17:19:00.000-08:00

It's funny to me that the day after I finish NaNoWriMo, the first thing I think is, "Ooh! I should write a blog post!"

But here I am. I guess if there's one thing to be said about my life, it's that I never really tired of writing. Oh sure, I get sick of writing certain THINGS, but never of writing itself.

So, the last three days were spent in a sort of NaNo-psychosis. I hit 50,000 words on Monday. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, I proceeded to write 16,000 more words on top of that, because I am a crazy person, and I knew I would hate myself if I didn't finish my story and get to write the neat little "the end" before calling it a month and saying goodbye to NaNoWriMo for another year. Ended with 66,360, which is my longest novel yet, in 6 years.

So Liz and I stocked up on energy drinks and fast food (I'm not proud) and we converted our living room into a sort of crazy-person's den. And we wrote. So much.

Last night when we finished around 9:30PM, our friends caught wind and they barely even gave us a choice - they tweeted immediately, "we're coming over". It was partially so they could take us out to celebrate, but partially because Liz and I have both been so anti-social lately and they were just as thrilled as we were that it was over.

Anyway, we were both so unshowered and crazy and cave-person-like that we BOLTED to our rooms to make ourselves presentable to the outside world. Once our friends got here we walked down to a local bar and had a lovely, lovely carefree evening celebrating our novelly accomplishments. My friend Molly took this picture of Liz and I to commemorate the occasion.

It's nice, being done. NaNoWriMo is an event I would never skip out on, because the experience is so character building and you learn so much about yourself and your limits, but man is it hard. It's nice to know I have 11 more months until I need to think about it again, though I do plan on going back and doing a little editing on this one, unlike most previous years.

It's also nice having such awesome friends to celebrate these kinds of accomplishments with. I'm really looking forward to December; there's always so many great parties and events and get-togethers, and I really need that this month. I spent a LOT of time alone writing during the last 30 days, guys. A lot.

I got a new laptop on Black Friday and I am currently playing around with it and setting everything up, so I think this will be the end of this blog post. Happy December, everyone!

Flights taken: 26

Things I am thankful for.

2011-11-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

I really should be hopping in the shower, packing my bag, and heading down to my parents house right now, but before I set the gears in motion for my day, I wanted to stop, take a moment, and think about what I am actually thankful for this year.

Thanksgiving is kind of a silly holiday if you actually think about it. You have to eat the exact same foods every single year, there's the whole madness with Christmas shopping starting the next morning, and really - we should be thankful for the things we have YEAR ROUND. But there's something special and beautiful about tradition. It's because we eat the same food each year that makes it that much more delicious. It's getting caught up in ridiculous Black Friday shopping and parades put on by corporations that reminds us that we're human. It's taking a day or a weekend to slow down and spend time with the people we love that really reminds us that we have things to be thankful for.

So I love Thanksgiving, I love my family, and I love the friends I have in my life that have become my second family since I moved out of my parents' house.

Here are the things I am thankful for this year:

Candles that smell like pumpkin and cinnamon rolls and cupcakes.
Our web series Kickstarter doing so well and getting such great reception.
Deciding not to move to LA so things like this web series can happen.
Being glad every single day I decided not to move to LA.
Knowing some of my best friends live down there but that they'll always be there for me, regardless of how often we see each other.
NaNoWriMo being a constant driving motivator in my life.
NaNoWriMo almost being over.
Colin coming home for Thanksgiving and getting to spend time with him.
Liz and I getting to live together after 4 years in different cities.
My mom getting to travel and swapping stories with her about foreign countries.
My brother getting an awesome job and starting his post high-school education.
My dad and I always having the exact same taste in TV and always having a new show to talk about.
No matter how busy our lives get, Eia always being the best best friend a girl could ask for.
All the stuffing leftovers I'm going to get to eat this weekend.

I hope you guys all have a great Thanksgiving, or if you're not from America, then a great.. you know, whatever. Have a great week. Haha. I'm heading home now to see my lovely family. :)

Flights taken: 26

Two new very exciting projects!

2011-11-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

Bet you didn't think you'd get TWO blog posts from me this month, did you?

While I have been fraught with a month-long condition of constant non-negotiable guilt with NaNoWriMo on my shoulders (literally every moment I spend not writing is spent at least partially in guilt), I have also been bursting at the seams with the preparation of exciting projects I couldn't talk about publicly yet. And if you know anything abut me, you know how much I love talking about exciting projects.

Anyway, this blog post is in honor of the fact that I can now openly speak about not one but TWO of the secrets I've been stealthily keeping from you guys. One being the new channel "Answerly" I'm a part of with Hayley Hoover and Joseph Birdsong (we'll be answering your questions and giving our tips and advice weekly about various topics; mine is nerd and gaming). This is awesome and exciting and not in the slightest any sort of replacement for previous collab channels we may have been part of. This is an entirely new project, one I am incredibly pumped about. I'll be posting every Friday. :)

The second exciting secret, however, is a bit more relevant to you guys, as you're a part of what inspired it in the first place. It's no secret that Hayley and I are both absolutely in love with our blog readers and favor you above all other people on the Internet, haha. I am happy to announce that my second secret project also involves her, and that we are launching a website today that hosts information about the NEW BOOK WE WERE GOING TO WRITE THAT ALSO INCLUDES YOU.

The book is going to be called Less Than Three: Stories about Love, Like, and the Internet. You can find out more of the details on our website, but the main exciting part is that it's going to be a compilation of short stories and we're hoping at least a few of you out there (if not lots of you) consider yourself writers enough to want to submit a short story of your own to the collection. We haven't announced this on YouTube or twitter or anything yet, so know that as our faithful and loyal blog readers, we made sure YOU were the first to know about this project. Because we like you and stuff. We'll be taking submissions until the end of January and releasing the book during the summer of 2012. I'm so nervous and excited to be announcing this. :D

Anyway, I have another 2,000 or so words to write today for NaNoWriMo, so that's all for now. But please, if you're interested, check out Answerly and check out the Less Than Three website; we're very excited about both these new projects and we hope you guys like them too!

Flights taken: 26

Playing "Dread".

2011-11-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

I've been avoiding this blog like the plague so I have enough energy to hit my word count goals each day for NaNoWriMo, and I am happy to announce that I am currently exactly on track, hovering around 15,000 words on day 9. Today I am feeling a little bit burnt out on my novel though, so even though I've only written about a thousand words today, I am taking some time off to work on.... other writing projects, all evening. I hate myself.

I wanted to write up a little review of the game I played last night with my friends Tara, Alexander, Forest, Justin and Liz. The game was called "Dread", and was run by our other friend Michael. It was essentially a tabletop role-playing game, but instead of using dice to determine our actions, we used a Jenga set. Depending on what your character wanted to do, you had to pull Jenga pieces. If the tower collapsed while you were up, your character died. It definitely made for a much more intense, pressure-filled game.

Before we played, Michael sent out a series of different questions to each of us to help us build our characters. He made sure to add that instead of creating characters designed to win, we should just create really interesting, dynamic characters. This is how I ended up on a survival based camping trip as a spoiled, rich sorority girl who hates mud. I went into the game thinking my character was going to be the absolute least likely to survive, regardless of where the campaign led us.

The funny thing about role-playing games, though, is that you really never can predict where it's going to go. Despite my character's lack of survival skills, the fact that she slept with their guide (which pissed off a lot of the other campers), and her main concern being that she get home in time for a big frat party, somehow she managed to be the one who pulled off a majority of the most badass things that happened.

She was the one who doused the woods in moonshine to start a forest fire to make a signal to try and contact nearby planes. She was the one who thought to get the crazy werewolf conspiracy theorist to fashion one of her gaudy silver rings into a makeshift knuckle-knife. She was the one who noticed the oncoming wolf in the first place, having to flash everyone (in game) to get their attention (because they were all fighting over some stupid drama). She was the one who ended up mostly defenseless, on the opposite side of the wolf as everyone else, deciding to run forward and stab the wolf in the eye to try and catch it off guard. And in the end, she was one of the only three characters who survived, having killed the wolf and proven better in Jenga than the three losing players.

In the end, it doesn't really matter if you live or die, because everyone got to experience the whole game and it was fun either way. There's something extremely satisfying, though, being a relatively "stupid" character and proving to be the most useful, despite what people assumed by stereotyping at the beginning of the game.

Some highlights from the game include:
-Alexander playing a character that spent most of the game drinking the moonshine that had been smuggled along by Justin's character, and after awhile starting to hallucinate. At one point, he thought he was killing the wolf in a valiant act to save everyone, but in fact was repeatedly stabbing a tree.

-Liz playing a socially awkward character who had met our camping guide online and had lied about her appearance, saying she was tall and blonde. When we got on the trip, the guide mistook his online lover for MY character, since her fake description fit what my character looked like, which is why she in turn ended up sleeping with the guide.

-The body of the guide mysteriously disappearing in the night, and Tara and Liz's characters being upset that the boy's characters weren't keeping good enough watch. Finding out later the boys were the ones who actually dumped the body in the river, for fear of him turning into a werewolf.

We had such a blast playing Dread; I am super lucky that my friends are all such creative and fun people as well, or else a game like this wouldn't be nearly as exciting. Not to mention we went all out, eating hot dogs and making microwave s'mores to really get in the camping mindset. I can't wait to play again. :)

Flights taken: 26

HALLOWEEN!! The best.

2011-10-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

I am the happiest girl. :D

And that's saying something, because I have a headache on top of being sick. But last night was our infamous Halloween party and it didn't disappoint. A bunch of people came over earlier to help set up, but as usual (and as it should be) the boys ended up setting up while the girls got into our My Little Pony costumes. I know we already did this at BlizzCon, but it was really fun to have another group of ponies together, this time including Twilight Sparkle, Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom (as well as our Pinkie Pie, Spike and Apple Jack).

Oh, speaking of Apple Jack - Ariana SURPRISED US AND SHOWED UP AT OUR PARTY. So, a few weeks ago we made the Facebook invite for the party and added Ariana on principle since she was a large part of last year's epic Mammoth Caves party. She obviously lives in LA now but we gave her a lot of crap about making a trip up for it; we spent a good week or two collectively trying to peer pressure her into doing it. She brushed us off and eventually we gave up trying (it is a long way to travel for a party I guess).

But then last night (man the timing was perfect) Liz and Eia and I headed out to the store to buy some more party snacks and drink mixers and in the mean time, Ariana showed up at our house (sufficiently surprising Justin). Then when we got back, I had a nose blowing emergency and ran upstairs, leaving Eia and Liz to have their own discovering-of-Ariana experience. The funniest part is, before coming back downstairs, I had tweeted "Mammoth Caves Halloween Party COMMENCE!"

I walked in the living room and took in all the awesome lights and decorations (the boys did a great job), then wandered into the dining room where everyone else was standing. I saw the boys finishing up with the table cloths and then I saw all the girls huddled in the corner and then I did this sort of double take because even though after BlizzCon I am pretty used to seeing Ariana in her Apple Jack costume, I suddenly realized she was IN MY DINING ROOM and not in LA where I thought she was and I definitely let out an expletive or two when I put it all together. Her mom's birthday was also this week, so it made the trip easy for her to justify taking. I was so happy. I can't believe she kept that a secret from all of us. Incredible.

There was lots of hugging and jumping around and incredulous-ness and then it was a REAL Mammoth Caves Party. The whole night was so fun and perfect. Our old roommate Tyler who moved to San Francisco whom we all adored happened to be in town as well so he came to the party too, which was just the icing on the cake. We had so many great people there, and good music to dance to and jello in the shape of a brain to eat and spoons to balance on our noses... every ache and pain in my head and sinus region is totally worth it because last night was so great.

Halloween is already my favorite holiday, but when you're surrounded by that many amazing friends (and my little brother came too!) it just makes you realized what a great place you're at in life. I'm really glad I have managed to find the best of both worlds -- good friends and amazing times here at home, and indescribable and life-changing experiences and people all over the world.

I'm kind of partied out though, even though it's only the 29th. The rest of my Halloween weekend might consist of watching movies like Halloweentown and Hocus Pocus on my couch.

Flights taken: 26

BLIZZCON and Disneyland.

2011-10-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

I feel like this is way too much to try to cram into one blog post about BlizzCon, but here I go attempting to do so anyway.

Thursday: I flew down to LA with Justin, Ariana picked us up at the airport, and then we headed to EchoBase briefly to pick up Erinn and Aaron. The plan was to go immediately down to Anaheim to check into our hotel, pick up our BlizzCon registration, and hit up the WoWHead pre-party.

The line for registration was out-the-door long, but chatting in line and feeling the building anticipation made the time go quickly. This was where the joke "Black Shirt Con" started, I believe, on account of 80% of the people in attendance wearing black shirts. I think that gives a pretty good picture of what this convention was like. We met a guy in line who was wearing a My Little Pony shirt; he definitely approved of the costumes we told him we were wearing the next day.

The swag bags were awesome. The main gift was a model Tyrael from Diablo, a WoW authenticator, and an assortment of other little fun things I can't be bothered to go rifle through my bag to remember. After we go our bags we stuffed them in a friends' car and headed out to the party. Almost immediately Jason and I recognized TradeChat and said hi to her; I was surprised she recognized me as well and would not stop telling me how much she wished she could have my voice. Guess she hasn't heard about the nodes, har har (that was a terrible joke, I'm crying inwardly). We wandered around a bit more, saw Felicia Day sitting at a table surrounded by weird creepo lurking fans (I really did want to try to say hi to her, but not under those circumstances) and then chose to leave the party early in favor of hanging out with Hank Green (who also happened to be in Anaheim at the same time as us).

We kind of made it an early night (well, if you can consider 1-2am "early"; this was a convention) because we wanted to get up early to put on our costumes and see the opening ceremony.

Friday: The morning was a hurricane of tights, makeup, wigs, costume pieces and fighting over the bathroom mirror. We have a guild on the WoW servers called "Friendship is Magic" and all of our characters have My Little Pony related names, so we decided to dress accordingly for the first day of BlizzCon. In the order pictured down below, Aaron was Soarin' from the Wonderbolts, Justin was Spike, I was Pinkie Pie, Ariana was Applejack and Erinn was Rainbow Dash.

For the most part, everyone really loved our costumes. We even met a little girl dressed as Twilight Sparkle, which was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. We had one or two hardcore BlizzCon attendees give us a little attitude about dressing in non Blizzard attire, but I didn't really care at all. It's called imagination, Black-Shirt. Get some.

Anyway, the first day of BlizzCon was totally awesome. We got to watch a bunch of panels on the new WoW expansion "Mists of Pandaria" (which, as cheesy as martial arts pandas is, sounds really cool). We played the demo (super fun even though we only got 20 minutes - I tried out the new race/class combo Pandaren Monk), we tried to open the prize chests at this one booth with the "epic loot keys" that came in our swag bags, and we attempted to play this bean bag throwing game at the Jinx booth but failed miserably (aside from Justin and Austin who won TEN TIME IN A ROW and won 50% off coupons at Jinx!). We got our pictures taken at the green screen photo booth (ponies in Azeroth!) and Erinn and I got a picture with Tink and Clara from the guild and we found this big mountain thing that looked like the Aggro Crag and we took pictures there too.

Having been to PAX Prime and Emerald City Comic Con, I was a little more prepared for a convention of this magnitude, but the whole thing was still just so incredible to take in. There were rows and rows of computers out on the floor for demo-playing, people milling about everywhere, and booths bigger than anything I've ever seen at previous conventions. Not to mention the attendance level was somewhere in the twenty thousands. WoW feels like such a solitary game when you're alone in your bedroom -- it was amazing to me to be walking around this convention hall seeing the THOUSANDS of people I probably pass in-game as well that only appear to be computers there.

That night we partied in our hotel room a bit but found ourselves pretty exhausted after our first day at the con. I can't even tell you how awesome it felt to take our costumes off as well... eight hours of wearing a long curly wig while walking up and down a gigantic room all day is enough to make anyone crazy.

Saturday: I will admit, we slept in really late the second day of the con. We made our way back to convention center at our leisure, knowing we had plenty of time to hit up all the things we'd missed the day before. We waited in line a while to spin the NVIDIA wheel to try to win prizes (we didn't get anything good) and played the demo again (this time I switched it up and went Pandaren Mage) but spent most of the day just wandering around trying to make sure we didn't miss anything. We finally ran into other friends we knew there and saw their amazing cosplay (Joey and Meghan looked awesome in their tabards and armor, Katers17 had a seriously mind-blowing Priest costume, Jimmy was rocking a murloc suit) and managed to snag pictures with both Bladezz (from the Guild) and Felicia Day. Pretty pumped about that.

The con ended with a Foo Fighters concert, which was great, despite not being able to get in the main room and having to watch it from an overflow stage on the big monitors. I didn't really mind though, because it meant we got to sit down and relax for the concert rather than being jostled around in the crowded see of black-shirts.

Also, some crazy WoW-themed death metal band opened for the Foo Fighters, so we had a grand old time head banging and making fun of their lyrics (example: "it's time to raise some hell" followed by some head banging). Their closing song was called "I AM MURLOC" and consisted of basically all screaming. Pretty great. And by great I mean.. well, you know. Something different.

That night we went and hung in Hank's "Governor's Suite" again, which was a nice way to end the event. He was there scoping things out for VidCon (which is being held in the same space as BlizzCon was) and was given a room much too big for just him, so we were happy to come take up space in it for awhile. When your friends live all over the country, you get to see each other so little -- it's really nice when these freak coincidences happen where you randomly end up in the same city with free time and get to hang out. :)

Later on, we spent our last night in our crappy hotel with our crappy pillows. This group of people has spent so much of the last few years together in hotels though, it's hard to complain. Hotels just feel a little like home, crappy or not.

Sunday: We went to Disneyland. There isn't a ton to report, as it was a pretty standard Disneyland day. Haunted Mansion was The Nightmare Before Christmas themed, which is my favorite, and Justin, Aaron and Erinn got to see World of Color for the first time. They added a little section to World of Color to promote the fourth Pirates movie, and it includes that bit with the mermaid who apparently looks like me. I have to admit, with the image being projected on water like that, it DID kind of look like me. So. That was kind of fun.

I also got to ride the new Little Mermaid ride in DCA as well as the new Star Tours which was incredible. The day was a success, in short.

After Disney we said our goodbyes and only Justin and I continued on to Ariana's apartment. Tyler came to hang out with us, which was nice as it's always a pleasure to see him. The next morning literally all we did was watch the My Little Pony Halloween special, eat breakfast and watch Ariana play WoW (we didn't bring our laptops). It was really nice to have a day to just... relax. Three days of a convention, flying, and a day at Disneyland is taxing on the body, haha.

Since coming home from BlizzCon I've played a lot of WoW, but that's to be expected I suppose. Blizzard knows how to get people excited about their games. I'm so glad we were all able to go, not only because it was a total blast because it really did break up the terrifyingly large span of time we may have to go between seeing each other again. I actually don't know when my next trip is to see my friends, and that always makes me a little uneasy. At least we can run dugeons together. :)

Flights taken: 26

Emma Stone and Dungeoning.

2011-10-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a fun couple of days.

First of all, yesterday we discovered a bar within walking distance to my house house called "Booze and Burritos". I don't think it get better than that, really. Then last night I ran a dungeon (on WoW) with Justin, Liz, Ariana and Erinn, which was so much fun and really took me back to early last year when the Echo Base boys and I would run dungeons together nearly every night. That's definitely one of my favorite aspects of the game, and it was so nice to have a group of friends together (over skype and in person) working together to accomplish an end.

It got me even more pumped for BLIZZCON, which is this weekend. I've been making plans with Ariana, Justin, Erinn, Aaron, Jason; all my WoW friends will be together this weekend and it's going to be such a blast and I just can't wait. On top of all that, it'll be the first time I've been to LA since JULY, which is kind of strange for me. I was in LA almost every month for awhile there, so it is going to feel really nice to be back with all of my friends for the weekend.

After our dungeoning last night I ended up chatting with Ariana one skype for a good hour or so, and it really made me realize how much I miss a lot of the people down there. I still know I made the right decision to stay in Seattle, but man will it be nice to visit again.

Yesterday I went to this Seattle Blogger Luncheon with Tara and met a lot of really nice local bloggers as well as some great people from New York City who'd flown in for the event. I got there extremely early so I just went inside and decided to make friends with whoever had also arrived early. I ended up chatting with the three ladies hosting the lunch, and one of them said to me, "You know who you remind me of, even though I only met you thirty seconds ago?"
I shook my head no; she continued, "Emma Stone. You have her same energy and kind of a similar face."
At this, I cracked up and told them, "You know, I got that a little after Superbad and Zombieland just based on our looks, but I got it a TON more after Easy A because I'm actually a video blogger too."

The didn't know that I made videos (as it was a blogger lunch and most people were there representing written blogs); so the whole thing was pretty funny. But being compared to Emma Stone is a huge compliment, so I have to say it was a good first impression. Especially since I went to this semi-professional event with pink hair.

Anyway, today I need to film a video and finish packing and try desperately to get my main WoW character at least to level 70 so I don't feel like a TOTAL n00b at BlizzCon, so I should go.

Flights taken: 24

Pink pink pink.

2011-10-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

Geez. How has it already been a week since I last blogged. Time sure flies when it's not BEDA.

So, yesterday I dyed my hair pink. It's funny because first I was going to dye it for my Pinkie Pie Costume. Then I found this awesome wig so I decided not to. Then I started wishing I could dye it anyway, just for fun, for a little while, to say I had. Manic Panic dye isn't supposed to last very long (a month tops) so, on a whim Saturday, I bought their regular pink dye and went for it.

Liz helped me do it, and after the whole process, my hair was BARELY tinged pink. There were a few streaks where it was obvious, but overall the dye hadn't really taken. I was bummed.

Sunday I went back and bought Manic Panic's "hot hot pink", which is a bit more fuchsia. I did it again, this time leaving the dye on longer as well.

Oh my god.

My hair is PINK. Like really pink. And I think it looks awesome, but a lot of people have started warning me (despite everyone else's complaints that Manic Panic fades super quickly) that it also can sometimes stain hair and leave a tinge... for a very long time.

Soooo... we'll see. I like it right now; I think it's fun, it'll make the videos I post during the pink dye stage a little more exciting looking, and everyone should play around with dyeing their hair at least once. But now I have my fingers crossed that it fades and washes out normally (like half the people out there say it does) instead of leaving me slightly pink for months and months (like the other half insist it does). I can't really afford to have pink hair THAT long due to other obligations in my life, but I'll sort it out as the time comes. I'm sure there are other options for getting it out if I need to.

Right now I am just going to enjoy it. :D

I thought I'd give an update on further World of Warcraft DJing. Last night I played a bit with Liz and Justin, and these are the songs that came up:

-While questing, and since Liz is kind of new to WoW, she kept asking us to clarify which quest we were on so she could make sure she was tracking it on her screen. One of the quests was called "Bear Necessities", so obviously I played the song of the same name from Jungle Book.

-Liz plays a hunter which has the ability to tame beasts to become her new companion. Justin was explaining to her how to do it, reminding her she needs to make sure to "tame it, not kill the beast". Naturally, on came "Kill the Beast!" from Beauty and the Beast.

-When we were back in Azure Watch (turning in completed quests), we discovered that Liz and I both have the problem of accepting new ones without actually reading what they are. Earlier Liz accepted one that turned her into a female blood elf (as a disguise) for some specific quest and me and Justin both made fun of her for looking silly for 15 minutes. Later, the joke was on me when we BOTH accidentally accepted the quest (again) but my character was turned into a male blood elf. Fittingly, I played Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman".

Flights taken: 24

GeekGirlCon, Halloween, Disney on Ice.

2011-10-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

Busy busy busy busy busy.

Last week was hectic because it was Justin's birthday, this weekend was hectic because it was GeekGirlCon, this week is going to be hectic because I have loads of meetings and things to do -- but I can't tell you how happy I am to see my life starting to fall back into its normal rhythm. Summer is amazing and fun and some of the best parts of the year, but I am such a project-oriented person that this is my favorite part of what I do, right here. Shoving all my little projects into the free crevices of each week.

Interesting things going on:

1. I bought tickets to Disney on Ice. This is funny to me for a few reasons. First of all, I haven't been to Disney on Ice since I was 6-7. Eia and I got to talking about it a few years ago, and it had sort of been this joke we've had, always mentioning to each other how much we wanted to go. We hadn't brought it up in awhile though, until the other day. Justin was asking me vague spoiler-y questions about the supposed Christmas present he's getting me, though all I can deduce is that it's some event in February of next year. Our conversation then went as such:

Justin: You'll never guess what it is.
‪Me: ‬ ‪Is it Disney on Ice?‬
Me: I hope it's Disney on Ice.
Justin: ‬ ‪It's not, but thanks, now anything I get you will be compared to Disney on Ice.
Justin: Now I cant get you anything‬.
Me: ‬ ‪hahahhahahhaa‬.

I then proceeded to see if Disney on Ice is even a thing anymore (it is) and if they are showing anywhere near me anytime soon (they are) and that explains how my friends and I will probably be the only people without children of our own with us at TOY STORY 3 DISNEY ON ICE next month. Life is awesome.

2. GeekGirlCon was amazing. I don't think I have the energy to do a full write-up (it was a long weekend) but I'll try to touch on the highlights.

There were so many amazing panels. I went to a lot of writing panels (YA Authors, Writing in Real Life [with a job, kids, other priorities, etc.], Writing Urban Fantasy), one on running your own geeky business, and a particularly awesome and relevant panel on Women in Web Series.

I also spoke on a panel called "Killing Cattiness and Creating Community" with such inspiring people as Bonnie Burton and Marian Call (along with a bunch of others). I met authors (large and small) and made friends with some guys at a vendor room booth who kept trying to convince Liz and I to join their DnD campaign; I bought new dice and painted my own pewter miniature and saw a lot of really, really awesome cosplay.

One of the highlights of my weekend was getting an @reply on twitter from Jane Espenson (TV writer who's worked on Buffy and Firefly [among many others] and is writing the new web series Husbands) which is hands down every geek writer's dream, haha.

I was a total nerd and took notes at the good panels, which I am really excited to go back and look over, since most of it is really inspiring stuff about freelancing and motivating yourself to write and pretty much all the things I am trying to do every single day already. I love seeing such a motivated and bustling geek community here in Seattle and I was thrilled to have been part of GeekGirlCon.

3. I'm working on redecorating my bedroom a bit. I don't know if anyone REALLY cares about this, but on YouTube I let you guys into my bedroom on a weekly basis so it feels like I am changing a much larger part of my identity than I really am.

I might write more about this process along the way, but it started last week when I exchanged my brightly colored rainbow bedspread of the last three years for a stylish black comforter with little curly-q designs on it. I also began organizing the plethora of "things" I have collected over the span of my life on the shelves that line the right side of my room. I want to do a great deal of "cleaning out" as well as acquiring some more grown-up furniture "investments", as well as updating my wall decor. It's going to be fun. I like this kind of stuff. :)

4. Halloween prep. My friends and I get way, way too into Halloween around here, so I've been working on my costume for the last two months already. Yesterday I went shopping with Liz and Tara to help them find some key pieces for their costumes, and overall I am just really excited for Halloween parties and pictures and the general spooky time of the year. It's just the best.

I have a long, long to-do list today, so I think this blog post ends here.

Flights taken: 24

Travel DJ.

2011-10-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's really, really nice to be home.

I've only been home less than a week but I already feel the comforting rhythm of my life falling back into place. Maybe I'm weird, but I love waking up early in the morning (earlier than most of my housemates), looking over my planner for the day, getting a bunch of work done in my room (I work the best between 8am-1pm, weirdly), planning out my videos, scheduling meetings and video shoots, etc. Obviously traveling is a much different kind of exciting, but this home-time stuff is fun in a way I can't really explain. I feel so fortunate to get to be doing what I love. :)

But! That's not what I meant to write about. I wanted to talk about World of Warcraft, today.

I played a lot of WoW last year; I used to stay up until 3 AM all the time running dungeons with my housemate Justin as well as a bunch of our LA friends (Jason, Alex, Luke; whoever was online really). However, we all got busy early in the year and my account has sat frozen since... January. Right after Cataclysm came out.

After the craziness of my summer died down though (and excitement for BlizzCon started to build), I found myself with a little bit more spare time than usual -- and I reactivated my account. I don't regret that decision. WoW is FUN, okay?

The whole point of this World of Warcraft narrative is to give a little back-story as to what I'm about to blog about.

So, for those who've never played WoW, one of the elements of the game is that you have to travel around Azeroth in real time. So, when moving from continent to continent, city to city, you have to use regular modes of transportation (unless you use portals or teleportation, but that's a whole different story). Basically you either have to take a train, or ride a boat, or run, or fly. And depending on where you're going, this can take a long time. Sometimes like 5-10 minutes, if you're traveling far enough.

The point is, when I play WoW, generally I am playing with my housemate Justin and he's usually in my room with me. I have double monitors on my computer (like a big 'ol nerd) and sometimes I really geek out over having a second screen to play around on while we're doing boring traveling stuff on my other screen. So lately I have taken to DJ-ing our travel time. Which obviously annoys the crap out of Justin.

My current songs are as thus:

When we are running, I play No Doubt's "Running":
"Running, running
As fast as we can
Do you think we'll make it?"

When Justin is flying in his bird form, I play Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle":
"I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I'm free"

When I am flying on my carpet mount, I play Aladdin's "A Whole New World":
"Over, sideways and under
On a magic carpet ride
A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming"

The reason this is so funny to me (and not funny to Justin) is that traveling happens quite often, so if I am feeling particularly clever, we hear these songs... all the time. Multiple times a day. In fact, I've taken to just queuing them up on YouTube before we even start playing, lately, hahaha. It just never gets old (to me). But then again, one of my life missions (and duty as a good housemate) is to annoy Justin as often as possible, so that works out.

Now I just need to think of a good song to play when we're flying on my two-seater rocket mount and I'll be set. Any good song suggestions about rocket ships?

Flights taken: 24

Afflicted with boring dreams.

2011-09-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I do this thing where I just sort of dream about reality. I mean, I have cool dreams too, all the time, but sometimes my dreams just stupidly mimic reality.

Like when I first started playing World of Warcraft, I started having dreams about running through the woods and killing wolves. But not even in a sweet real life way; it was in a pixelated-computer-game sort of way. Or when I worked at the TNT fireworks stand, I had countless dreams where I was just working at a register, checking out Bottle Rocket after Climbing Panda, offering people extra punks and bagging pop-its. And don't even get me started on the types of dreams I have when I start playing too much Tetris. There are few dreams less interesting than a whole night-time expanse of falling geometric shapes. Let me tell you.

The worst reality-based dream I ever had happened at my grandma's house a few summers ago. I had just taken a red-eye flight to North Dakota, and exhausted upon arrival, I took a little nap in my grandma's bedroom before doing anything else. In my dream, I was just sleeping in my grandma's room. The only reason I knew that it was a dream and not just me never actually falling asleep was because in the dream, I got up and put a blanket over myself because I was cold. When I woke up for real a bit later, there was no blanket over me. And I was still cold. Stupidest dream ever.

So keeping with this annoying habit, last night I dreamt I was grocery shopping. Like - just grocery shopping. I was walking around my usual Safeway, picking all the items I actually need in real life (bread, deli-meat, cheese, milk, yogurt, etc.). I woke up and realized I didn't actually do any of that shopping, and now I'm annoyed because it just means I have to do it all over again. And I hate doing the exact same things more than once. That's why I am awful at side-scroller video games.

The worst part is that now, since I bought all the fixin's for sandwiches in my dream, all I really want right now is a sandwich. But I can't make myself a sandwich, because all I have is dream-bread. Dream-cheese. Dream-sliced-ham.

Guess I better go to the store. Sigh.

Flights taken: 24

East Coast Adventure: Part 3

2011-09-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

I fell a little behind in blogging about my trip because I ended up correct in my assumption that I was going to be sick. I haven't been sick in about 7 months which has been really nice, but let me tell you, blog readers -- being sick on vacation is the WORST. There's no medicine anywhere, you can't lie around in bed all day, and flying with a cold is one of the most miserable experiences a person will ever have.

But. I braved it all for Lauren and Matt, and I am happy to report that their wedding was one of the most magical, beautiful events I have ever been to.

The soon-to-be-newlyweds picked Eia and I up on Friday morning and took us over to the hotel. It was kind of nice to get there a bit early; we got to have lunch with Lauren and Matt and chat with them for awhile before everyone else started showing up and things started getting really crazy. Eventually all the bridesmaids had shown up so we checked into our hotel room and got dressed up for the rehearsal dinner. That was a lovely event in itself; we heard embarrassing stories about Matt from his dad and then Nina and Sammy and I had an eating contest because the food was so good and there was so much of it.

Then we went back to the hotel and practiced all the wedding march walking in formalities, headed upstairs, and went to bed kind of early. Lauren stayed in our room since it's bad luck and all that for the bride and groom to see each other the morning of the wedding.

Sure as all hell, Saturday morning I woke up feeling like absolute crap. I dragged myself out of bed about ten minutes before we needed to head down for hair and makeup, and even though they did transform my sick face into a work of bridesmaid worthy art -- the makeup artist had to keep touching up around my nose every hour or so up until we did pictures.

Lauren looked completely stunning. I kind of wish other people got to see her transformation like we did... she was wearing this adorable little bridal robe while she got ready, and most of the morning her hair was up in these ridiculous rollers. We had a good laugh about the idea of her just walking down the aisle with her hair still up in them rather than finishing the hairstyle. But when the seven of us girls emerged from our dressing room, sure, the bridesmaids looked great, but Lauren was just drop dead gorgeous.

Pictures took awhile, as usual with weddings, and then the ceremony breezed by. We did start by marching out to an orchestral version of the Zelda theme, so as far as weddings go, it was off to a good start. Sammy and I teared up a bit when Melissa Anelli got onstage to do a reading from Harry Potter -- in turn we caught Matt's eye and made him start to sniffle. I don't think I've ever smiled as hard as when I stood up there behind two of my best friends and watched them marry each other. Really. For as sick as I was feeling, it was one of the best moments of my life.

The reception was amazing. Everyone looked so lovely -- Rosi, Eia, Sarah, Hayley, Alex, Mike, Sam -- all my best friends were there and we ate food and toasted to Matt and Lauren and danced the night away. It was like a conference, but classier, and somehow even more meaningful. The night was just perfect. Matt and Lauren ended the night by letting us all come up and hang out in their suite for a few hours (a hotel room party -- it really was a con) which was completely out of order for a normal wedding but fit so perfectly for this wedding.

I spent most of the evening just chatting with all my beautiful friends, and then we had a bit of a fiveawesomegirl snuggle on the couch. I can't believe one of the five of us is married. We were such little girls when we started that channel and now look at us! Marrying off Miss Tuesday. It makes me a little emotional even thinking about it.

We've all come so far in this whole internet lifestyle we've created. Watching Lauren and Matt get married to each other just made it feel all the more real, especially since they asked me to stand up there with them as a bridesmaid. It really is real for us. I would never trade this life in for anything.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, but still nice. We rode back to PA with Sam and her family, napped most of the afternoon, and then watched a terrible movie together called "Youth in Revolt". The next morning we slept in until at least noon and then watched another, better movie together called "Going The Distance" (Sam and I were wigging out the whole movie because it's about long distance relationships and it was a little too close to home for both of us, even though we thought it was a great movie) and then we went to the airport. The journey home was rather.. bad.. but I'm home now, so I survived, and that's all that matters.

It was a fantastic week. I'm still smiling. I love my friends so much and I feel so happy to know them. :)

Flights taken: 24

East Coast Adventure: Part 2

2011-09-23T09:15:00.001-07:00

I haven't been sick in a long time and I've been really proud of myself for keeping up that streak, but I woke up this morning with one of those annoying pre-runny nose sniffles, and I am really nervous about it. I don't want to be a sniffly bridesmaid. I have to look pretty for Lauren ALL DAY tomorrow and nobody looks pretty with a red nose.

I'm going to try to happy-thoughts it away - that works, right? I'll mind over matter the crap out of this runny nose. In the mean time, let me tell you about yesterday.

Eia and I woke up kind of late again (don't judge us) and took the NJ Transit to what we thought was going to be Penn Station. Halfway there, however, they informed us that due to a power outage, no NJ lines were going into NYC and that we were going to Hoboken. Um. Okay. Hoboken. Cool. Luckily it was easy enough to transfer to a Path train back into the city, but it set us back at least another half an hour on our journey into the city.

When we finally got to the right station, Eia and I stepped out into the street and did that sort of spin-around-in-awe-now-we're-in-a-giant-city thing, taking in all the people and sights and buildings and smells. Not quite sure where we were exactly, we walked a few blocks before ducking into a little boutique and doing a bit of random shopping. I think clothes are the best souvenir, really, because then every time you wear them, you think about the good time you had there on that particular trip.

Anyway, shopping bags in hand, we continued to wander in the general direction of Time Square. Along the way we stopped in various other stores (including the Strand bookstore and a giant Forever 21) and we ate lunch in a "Goodburger (Home of the Goodburger)", which we couldn't figure out if it was affiliated with the Nickeldeon sketch/movie or not.

We ran into some interesting people as we ventured around too, including a bum on the street who asked me, "Can you help me get to Hawaii?" to which I replied saucily, "Can you help me get to Hawaii?" I quite enjoyed his retort, which was, "I asked you first!" We also saw a really frail old man on the subway who I'm fairly certain was blind singing for tips, and the whole situation was hilarious because he was singing, "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy..." I can guarantee no one on that subway wanted his body. Haha.

We met up with Robyn a bit later and headed to Time Square (after doing the standard nerdy tourist picture in front of all the flashing lights) because it was time to see "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" ... with Dan Radcliffe! This was one of the things we were most excited to do on this trip, and I'm so glad we were able to get tickets. The show was incredible. The choreography was amazing, the sets were stunning, the costumes were perfect and all the actors were just fabulous. I was so blown away by Dan. He had so much character on that stage, his dancing was flawless, and he just played such a lovable leading man. I'm really happy for him and his broadway career, and I hope I get a chance to see him in more shows.

We went to the stage door after the show (come on, of course we did) and managed to get him to sign both our playbills; Eia got to touch his hand (lucky duck) but I was filming the whole thing, so I'm not too jealous. He was so sweet to his fans, which made me really happy. This was my first time ever meeting a big Potter star (aside from Scarlet and Evanna at Leaky) and it's just really nice to know that they haven't become jaded or anything.

Waiting to meet Dan after the show was pretty fun in itself -- I haven't ever really gotten the chance to wait in line and fangirl over meeting anyone like that before, so Eia and I just soaked the whole thing up. We made friends with another girl who was waiting with a Harry Potter book in hand -- after a few seconds, though, her eyes widened and she asked me if I was Kristina Horner, which was kind of cute. Then another girl behind us recognized me as well and even had ME sign her playbill, which just felt really, really wrong. I'm sure the people who were standing around us were thinking "who the crap is this person?" Embarrassing.

I loved the whole experience, though. The musical, I mean. I had a difficult time convincing my brain that we were actually seeing Dan in person, the guy who played Harry Potter - that he was in the same room as us and playing a different character. But it was so amazing and fun and I'm so glad we could go. :D

After the show, we literally ran into Alex Carpenter on the street. I mean, he knew where we were, so it wasn't that huge of a coincidence, but it still felt pretty funny to be walking around a big foreign city where we know pretty much no-one, and then to just see our good friend standing on the corner. He was with some other friends of ours (Becca, Mary Beth and Nikki) and so we decided to hang out a bit longer in the city, rather than taking the early train back in. It's actually been kind of a long time since I got to hang with Alex, so we had a very fun evening. We ate food at Junior's (I tried a potato pancake! And ate strawberry shortcake cheesecake!) and had an appletini and we ran around and the whole evening was just a nice way to end a really lovely day.

Eia and I made friends with one of the ticket guys on the way back to New Jersey that night, so we spent most of our long train ride being silly with him. He was trying to teach us how to read the complicated pink ticket sheets but we weren't having it. I told him I thought the part that said "CENTS" meant you could add on a scratch-n-sniff option. He laughed at us.

I'm having so much fun here, and the wedding hasn't even started. Lauren and Matt are actually on their way right now to pick us up, so the good times are REALLY about to begin. :D

Flights taken: 23

East Coast Adventure: Part 1

2011-09-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'd actually almost forgotten how much easier it is to blog while you're traveling. It's so funny; while I was home these last couple of weeks, despite all the good times I was having, nothing seemed quite noteworthy enough to warrant a blog post. But as Eia and I have been running all around the East coast the past few days, my head has just been spinning trying to keep track of everything I want to write about. It's taken me right back to the BEDA mindset, in a really good way.

Anyway, our trip! We're currently in New Jersey, though we didn't begin here. Two days ago, the two of us hopped on a flight to Philly. As much as I was mentally resisting the idea of enjoying another flight whatsoever, it was pretty alright. We spent the first leg going through old pictures on my computer, and the second leg (after a layover in Chicago) was spent playing Peggle on my iPad with Eia watching and rooting me on over my shoulder. Peggle is my airplane game. I only ever play it when I'm flying, so it's kind of a little treat I give myself when I do have to take another obnoxious flight somewhere.

We landed in Philly around midnight and then took a cab to our friend Robyn's house. On the way there we realized we had no idea what Robyn's living situation was, and were pleasantly surprised to find out that she lives in the most adorable house of all time. Everything is ornately decorated with things like leather chairs and old books and antique knick-knacks. I especially enjoyed the pull string toilet and claw-footed bathtub. I was tickled by the European-ness of the house (separate spigots for hot and cold water is always a dead giveaway) since it's something I just never get to see except for when I'm IN European countries.

Even though it was incredibly later when we arrived, our girliness took over and we stayed up much, much later than would normally be acceptable, drinking tea out of a fancy tea-set, eating macarons and gelato, and generally girling out and chatting well into the night. So late that when we finally stumbled out of bed at 2pm the next day, I was only a little ashamed. I never do that! I'm always an early riser! I'm blaming the new timezone.

Robyn took us on the trolley (how adorable; I still can't get over it) and we headed into a more central part of Philly to go to the Reading Terminal Market. It was filled to the seams with all of these great little stands selling food, bakery items, books, jewelry; really anything you could think of. We marveled at the different options, wandering for at least thirty minutes before deciding on something(s) to buy. I ended up with a fried macaroni and cheese ball, a hunk of cornbread and half a turkey/stuffing/cranberry sandwich (not to mention a bunch of jams and pumpkin butter from the Amish stand to take home for later). And that's not even counting the red velvet and oatmeal whoopee pies I took to go, as well as the cookies that were given to me by a girl at one of the bakeries who recognized me from ALL CAPS, hehe. So, it was kind of a food day. You know. Know big deal.

The only negative part of the day was that I was carrying around my favorite black cardigan, and then suddenly I wasn't. The place was such a maze of vendors that I didn't know how to begin looking for it, so, defeated, I just sort of said a mental goodbye to it and went back slightly shivering in the autumn rain sans any sort of jacket.

Completely stuffed, we took the trolley back. I grabbed another jacket from my suitcase (this time with a hood) and we set off despite the drizzles to the big old Victorian graveyard behind Robyn's house. The three of us spent the next hour or so wandering aimlessly through the cracked and aging headstones, reading the names aloud to each other and wondering what the people were like, since many of them died back in the 1800s. We investigated particularly strange collections of graves in fenced off family plots and ones nearly hidden over the years from trees growing and overtaking their spots. The saddest ones were the graves so weathered you couldn't even read who they were for anymore, or the ones that had fallen over with time and age, now lying face-down for all eternity. Or the ones with crying baby angel statues atop the headstone, with etched in lifespans that couldn't have been more than a few years, or in the most tragic cases, a few weeks or days.

After sufficiently weirding ourselves out, we rushed back on to the trolley to go to a wine and cheese bar Robyn loves called Tria, where we indulged in various delicious bruschetta and cheese selections, referring to them as the "sexy pillow one" or the "dark and sultry red", going off the descriptions rather than attempting the pronunciation of the real names. We had the best girly time there, albeit having to cut it short to race back in time to meet with our friend Colin and his girlfriend Mel who were coming to pick us up.

We got back just in time (okay, maybe a few minutes late) and since our friends were hungry, Robyn showed us a bit around U Penn in a search of food. We ended up going to this cute old tavern of which the name has escaped me. Since we were kind of stuffed from all this cheese, we girls just ordered drinks (hot toddies, which I wasn't a particularly large fan of) and desserts (bread pudding and ice cream, which I was a HUGE fan of). It was nice catching up with Colin and meeting his girlfriend (since he moved away from us we never really get to experience his new life at all, since our only reunions are generally back home in Seattle) and she was lovely. Eventually it was time to go (as we still had kind of a long drive back to New Jersey that night) so we said our goodbyes to Robyn and hopped in the car.

That brings us to now, where Eia and I are being the world's laziest people sitting here in Colin's living room (he and all his roommates are at work). Eia's currently in the shower though, so we are attempting to get our day started. Colin left us the information for two train routes to get into NYC this morning, and when Eia's alarm went off at 10 AM this morning, we both made the executive decision to take the later train (no discussion was necessary). We are still kind of running on West Coast time, so I feel a little better about our extremely embarrassing sleep schedule while we've been here.

We have tickets to see Dan Radcliffe in How To Succeed in Business tonight, so I suppose it is time to get a move on if we want to get in any NYC shopping time as well. :)

Flights taken: 23

Catching up on the end of Summer.

2011-09-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I gave myself a nice long break of nearly two weeks from blogging, but it just doesn't feel right letting it sit unattended for as long as I have. So here I am. Catching up.

Things I have been up to since I last blogged:

1. Dropping everything and doing outrageously summer-related things. The weather was so, SO nice last week that while I was attempting to be good and start to get my regular life routine back on track here at home, it just wasn't happening. Wednesday Liz and I went out with her mom on their boat, Friday we grabbed our friend Colin as well and went out with my dad on my boat, and Sunday.. wait for it. Liz and Justin and I went to WILD WAVES.

For those of you who don't live around here, Wild Waves/Enchated Village is our themes park/water park duo, and it's amazing, but most people don't really go past middle school. Why this is, I couldn't tell you, because it is SO MUCH FUN, still, at age 23. It was the last day the park was open of the year and the temperature was somewhere around a high of 85 or something, which was just... glorious. We spent most of the day in the wave pool (naturally the best part) but we also waited in a 45 minute line to go down a water slide that lasted about 30 seconds (humans are bizarre) but it was kind of worth it because all three of us got to share one giant four-seater tube. We spent the rest of the day eating dippin' dots, riding roller coasters and lying out in the sun, saying our final farewells to the last warm day of summer.

2. Attempting to get back in the swing of things. It's been kind of tough, I'll be honest. Since I returned from North Dakota, one of my best friends (Liz) moved into one of the empty rooms in my house. Simply put, we've just been having a lot of fun. There have been card and game nights, TV-watching, video-game playing, general good-time-having and shopping/eating out/etc. I know things will start to settle down, but when you're constantly on the go all summer and then you come home and you're living with three of your good friends, life tends to stay pretty hectic.

3. Starting new projects. Come on, you know me. I can never let my life stay the same for too long. I can't really delve too deeply into any of the new things I am doing quite yet, but I'm in the planning stages for all of them and they're all pretty exciting.

4. Filming a music video. I spent all of yesterday filming with my roommate Gabe and friend David. This particular music video is a surprise, so I'm not going to spoil what it's about yet, but I'll tell you it's coming out in early November. Yesterday we filmed a lot of slow-mo running and yelling, hiked to the middle of a forest and out to a lighthouse on a beach, and got kicked out of a graveyard (who knew filming there would disrespect the dead? xD). We're about halfway done with filming and I am very excited about this video. I haven't gotten to do a lot of music-related stuff at all lately, so it's nice to sort of return to that briefly. And no, I promise, I didn't have to sing for this project. At least not recently.

5. Preparing for Halloween. I'm aware that it's only September, but my roommates and I get really overly excited for the holiday. We always throw a big awesome Halloween party at our house (fun fact: at least one decoration from each Halloween party gets left up each year, giving our house a slightly spooky vibe year round. This explains the black cat on the mantle and the red "spider webs" that adorn the painting above the couch), so naturally our costumes need to go above and beyond. A bunch of us are teaming up and dressing as ponies from MLP this year, so I've been feverishly working on my Pinkie Pie costume. It's gonna be great.

Next week is Lauren and Matt's wedding (!!!) in which I am a bridesmaid (!!!) so after getting a bunch of my other work done today that's going to become my primary focus. I can't wait. Not that I am in any particular rush to hop on another flight, but seriously. How often do you get to see two of your best friends marry each other?

Flights taken: 22

On being a Hufflepuff.

2011-09-06T10:32:00.001-07:00

As many of you probably know, I did my Pottermore sorting last week, and while I've boasted a proud Slytherin for the last 8 years or so, I was in fact sorted into Hufflepuff.

I know a lot of people are saying "It's just a test on a website it's not a big deal" but for one, this test was written by J.K. Rowling herself, and moreover, we'll be representing these houses for the next 2-3 years as more books are released and we play through the remainder of Pottermore. It's also been suggested to me that I start a new account when the beta is over and try to get Slytherin, but to me, that's very outside the spirit of Harry Potter and being sorted at all. Students at Hogwarts don't just get to defer their first year, come back the next year, and get sorted again. You get sorted once. And that's your house.

So I'm a Hufflepuff.

People used to ask me all the time why I thought I was a Slytherin at all. They said, "but you're so nice!" or "you're not evil at all!" But, just because a lot of evil does come out of Slytherin doesn't mean everyone who gets sorted there is inherently so. I was (and still am) a huge believer in the good that could come out of Slytherin house, with the right personality type. I think it's easy to fall into a more crooked lifestyle in Slytherin, but that the strong willed could avoid that.

I always thought I was a Slytherin because there's a certain level of narcissism you need to have to be a vlogger, an artist, a writer, or a creator in general. To be a successful artist, you need to truly believe you're worthy of creating things that deserve to be seen by others, or, in the case of a vlogger, you need to think you're awesome enough to justify basing your whole career around talking about yourself. All the time.

I assumed I had to be a Slytherin, because I definitely have a lot of those qualities. But as Dumbledore said, it's "our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities". A lot of the time, I use the online power I have to connect with people, to talk with fans about their lives, to entertain others, to help with charity -- I guess I had always seen myself as a Slytherin based on what I do because I didn't even notice the very innate Hufflepuff qualities I actually possess in how I act.

So, the whole sorting experience was very interesting for me. Secretly, I always felt kind of split between Slytherin and Hufflepuff (though I never made that common knowledge!) but - I thought the nature of my job and relatively narcissistic lifestyle condemned me to being a Slytherin. I know I have a lot of the cunning and ambition and drive-for-personal-success of a Slytherin, but at the end of the day I care about people way too much to step over them or use them to get what I want. I could never sit back in the Slytherin common room listening to my peers talking about how they cut corners and made things happen for themselves the easy way -- I would much rather be proud of the hard work I put in the honest way. That's something that's only really been made clear to me in the last couple years, though.

So while I loved playing a Slytherin onstage these past 7-8 years, and while I know the Sorting Hat would probably lean a bit toward Slytherin with me just like it did with Harry -- when I saw that Hufflepuff crest on my Pottermore quiz, I knew deep down it was time to embrace who I truly am. And now, I'm really okay with it.

Besides, for as much crap as Hufflepuff House gets, I am really proud to represent the group that's loyal and fair, patient and hardworking. Those are all the aspects of a human-being I think people should aspire to be. To be told that's where I actually belong is more of a compliment than most people realize. :)

Have you been sorted yet? Did you get the house you wanted? Did your sorting make you learn anything about yourself you maybe didn't know or see before?

Flights taken: 22

Post-BEDA ND trip wrap-up.

2011-09-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

On a plane... again. Thankfully after this flight I am not going anywhere for nearly three weeks. I couldn't be happier about that, though my next trip is for Lauren and Matt's wedding and that's worth coming out of flight hibernation.

Anyway, I said my goodbyes today and left the rest of my family in North Dakota. I wish I had more time there, but it's also going to be extremely nice to be home. Now, where did I leave off...

Tuesday we checked out of our hotel and went back to my Grandma's house. She had lunch waiting for us (as well as more delicious caramel rolls, I just can't get enough) and my mom and I helped her with her laundry. Between loads, my Grandma showed me the trail they have around their senior center for going on walks, and we took a few pictures by the gazebo and by this statue of a deer she particularly liked.

By the time we got back we had a surprise waiting for us -- Nick had shown up! My brother wanted to take his first big road trip so he actually drove his little pick-up to ND all by himself. It was nice to have him there with us; he showed up right in time to drive with us to the small town my other grandparents live in. I rode with Nick and we followed behind our parents, stopping a few times along the way to take pictures by the sunflower fields and the old falling-down houses.

It was so great to be at my Grandma and Grandpa Horner's house. I have so many good memories from being a kid and visiting them; playing down by the old tires with my cousins, sneaking a stray kitten into their shed and taking care of it, helping make all sorts of traditional German food. It's such a happy place, and I definitely don't get out there often enough anymore.

Grandma was singing that night in the senior choir out at the park, and my mom and I decided to join in. We grabbed the songbooks and joined all the old ladies up near the front, chiming in whether we knew the songs or not. Tis was especially funny when the songs we in German.. which at least 3-4 of them were. We sang one of my favorite old songs (Wooden Heart) and I discovered a new favorite song (Schnitzelbank). Oh we had a hoot talking to all the old German folks about what a schnitzelbank is.

My grandpa is getting older, and parts of this trip were kind of difficult for me (seeing him so much more frail than I am used to) but it was very, very cute to see him sitting at a picnic table out at that park, singing along to German songs to the accordion accompaniment. So much of North Dakota is still so rooted in German culture, but especially so in the small towns like where my grandparents live. I love still being able to experience that.

That evening my Grandma's friend Eva (who's this zany old Russian/German lady) came over and had me teach her how to use Facebook - it was her idea, not mine! It's such an interesting experience trying to explain to someone not only how Facebook works, but why they should want to use it. Older people always seem so concerned that everybody is going to come and try to add them; I can't even tell you how many times I assured her (and others on this trip) that "you can deny anyone you want on Facebook! You only add the people you want!"

We sat around visiting the rest of the evening before calling it a night.

The next day we got up and Grandma was cooking up a storm in the kitchen. She made us potato soup, blachenda (this baked pumpkin pastry I love) as well as home-made fleischkeikle. I told her I'd been eating it quite a bit on this trip and she insisted I try it the way it's meant to be eaten, haha. My grandpa ate most of the blachenda; I can see now where I get my appetite for dessert-foods.

After eating, we played cards. Card-playing is my favorite thing to do with my Grandpa Horner, because for some reason it really brings him completely back to earth. Talking with him and cracking jokes and keeping score while playing cards feels so much more like how it used to be with him, and it's amazing because his mental math and ability to make straights and keep score was even sharper than mine. One of our favorite card games is called "Golf" and a huge highlight of the trip was when my Grandpa went out early and left Nick with a 55 point round. That's a really, really bad score, haha.

Nick and I snuck away for a minute to head up the street to order a birthday cake for my Dad - his birthday is Saturday but I won't be there and I think Nick is heading south to visit some relatives before then as well, so we wanted to do something nice for him before we leave. We also stopped at the Honey Store (yes, in a town with so few shops I can count them on both hands, they have a whole store dedicated to honey!) so I could buy my favorite body wash I only get to restock when I visit there.

That night my Grandma outdid herself again with the German cooking and made us another old favorite, halupsie. That's rice and raisins wrapped in cabbage and cooked with cream, and while it may sound funky, it's absolutely delicious. We also had cucumber salad, which I also love. I don't know why I always forget how much I love cucumbers. It seems like people in North Dakota eat them with every meal, and with good reason.

Some family friends named Fefe and George stopped by to visit for a little while which was nice, and then my parents went out with them for awhile. I stayed in and watched TV with my grandparents (including Minute to Win It, which is just about the stupidest idea for a show I have ever seen, haha. At least shows like "Who Wants To Be A Mllionaire" require you to be SMART).

Then we watched "America's Got Talent", and another funny highlight of my night happened. Flow Rider and Nikki Minaj were performing, and my adorable little old German grandpa says in his very German accent, "Oh, that music's so nice." I could barely stifle my giggles before my Grandma AGREED with him and the proceeded to ask me what the song was called. I had to say to my grandma, "It's called 'Where Dem Girls At', Grandma." I had to say it with a straight face. She just smiled at me and said, "Oh," with a little chuckle.

After my Grandpa went to bed, I stayed up with Grandma and she showed me all the websites she likes to go to on her laptop. I am really impressed with how good she's gotten; granted she doesn't use a lot of websites but she can check her email and she reads my blog (:D) and she has is gaming site she loves to play on. She showed me how she picks her bingo card numbers each night, and the scratch cards she can tar her points in for, and we played a few rounds of mah jong together. Computers, to my friends and I, are such a necessary and commonplace part of every single day -- I really, really liked seeing one from the point of view of my grandma. It was a lot of fun.

My grandma also gave me a gift on this trip, something I had asked for years ago but had forgotten about. She gave me a notebook filled with her memories she'd written down for me. Stories from her life, etc. I actually haven read it yet (saving it until I get home) so I'm not positive what she wrote about, but no matter what I know it's going to be incredible. My grandma had an amazing life, and living so far away from her, I don't actually know much about it. So this book is a very, very special present. Someday I will need to type it up and give it to the rest of my cousins, too.

This morning I ate some rhubarb kuchen for breakfast (another favorite) before saying goodbye to the Grandparents and hopping in the car with my mom. She was driving me back to Bismarck for my flight. We stopped in to spend a little bit more time with her mom (my other grandma) and she gave me the sweetest present! She's been collecting all the state quarters for years and years now, and she gave me a complete set of them that he's been doing for me. I collected state quarters for about a year and then gave up, so this was a lovely gift. She rode along with us to the airport, I kissed them both goodbye, and started my journey home.

I have been traveling so much this year, but this was a very different trip than the rest. I'm very glad I got to see so many of my relatives, since I was really only in ND for a short time. When I get home I have a pile of work to do to catch up on my regular schedule of things I have o accomplish each week, but regardless, I was glad I was able to take this time and just spend some time with some very, very important people in my life.

Flights taken: 22

BEDA 31: Fake babies.

2011-08-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of BEDA! My grandma (who reads my blog) actually asked me tonight, "have you blogged yet today? You'd better hop to it!" So here I am, on strict orders from Grandma Horner.

I will admit, I am a little sad this month of blogging is over. I've had a lot of fun writing every day this month - through all the craziness and traveling and tiredness and adventure, this blog is the one thing that's stayed constant and that was really nice. But, as usual, after BEDA is over I'll try my best to go back to a normal blogging schedule. I'll try not to let more than a week go by without an update, though I say that every time.

Anyway! Monday was kind of a slower day (basically it wasn't jam-packed with relatives, so it felt less eventful than the rest of the trip so far) but it was kind of relaxing to just "hang out" in North Dakota with my parents. We got up and went to Kroll's Diner for breakfast, and not a single one of us could help ordering a big bowl of Knoephla soup. It's so bizarre to me; foods like that are just 'those things my mom and grandmas make', you know? No one in Seattle knows what the heck Knoephla is. But in North Dakota, you can totally just find it on a menu in a diner and that is always strange to see. Anyway. The soup was good.

Then we stopped and visited with a family friend named Vern for a little while, and on our way back to the hotel we passed the old bar my dad use to own. Yeah. My dad owned a bar. You guys wonder why I have such a cool life all the time? I have a LOT to live up to, haha. Anyway, the bar is called the Midway Tavern, and it's still called that even though my dad hasn't owned it in over twenty years. I'd never been inside, so we stopped for a little while so my dad could show me around. We ordered beer and tomato juice (the only way I think beer is even tolerable to drink) and my dad chatted with the new owner while my mom and I played one of those electronic bar games. I think we tied. Then my dad told me all these crazy stories from his days of owning the place. I really love hearing new stories about when my parents were my age. Sometimes you forget that your parents ever WERE your age, so it's nice to be reminded. Especially when my parents were actually pretty cool in those days.

My mom and I stopped at the mall briefly (mostly to check out the few stores they have in Bismarck that we don't have back home) but then we went back to the hotel to get my dad and head out for BAR BINGO. I can't even tell you what a quintessential North Dakota pastime "Bar Bingo" feels like for me. We went to "Main Bar" (which is, wait for it, the bar on Main Street) and they told us they would only play bingo if at least twenty people bought in. My mom and I were on a mission then, going around to all the old bearded dudes sitting at the bar, convincing them they needed to play bingo with us. We finally got enough people, bought our cards, borrowed the bar's green bingo dabbers and settled in for a couple of action-packed games.

Guys, I freaking love bingo. Part of me cant wait to be old so I can just play bingo all the time without anyone judging me. When I get back to Seattle, I'm going to make it my mission to find a place that does bingo near where I live so I can drag my friends there and play all the time. I don't know why I didn't think of this before.

Anyway, I won! In the second game, I got straight bingo (half the fun is getting to yell out "BINGO!" especially in a dingy little dive bar) and I won four whole dollars. Pretty exciting. I was really close to blackout too, afterward, but I didn't quite win that one. I made friends with the bingo-caller; he went to the same college as me, weirdly. I have no idea how someone graduates from UW and ends up calling bingo numbers in Mandan, ND, but to each their own.

After bar bingo ended, my mom took my dad and I out to her favorite Mexican restaurant, "Fiesta Villa". I guess she used to go there with her girlfriends all the time when she was younger. We ordered a big plate of nachos and some margaritas, but the real highlight of the night was my parents being totally goofy and making me laugh so hard I couldn't even breathe. This might not be as funny to you guys as it was to me, but I am going to try to explain it.

So we're sitting out on the patio and this family walks in; one of them was a woman carrying a baby in a little baby holder on her stomach. The whole thing was covered with a blanket. As they walked by, my mom leaned over and whispered to me, "I bet that baby is fake." I rolled my eyes at her, but a moment later my dad (who hadn't been listening) leaned in across the table and said to us, "That's probably not even a real baby." At this, I almost spit my drink out, right over the table. "Why," I asked them exasperatedly, "are you both so convinced that woman has a fake baby? Why would anyone even bring a FAKE BABY to a restaurant?"

My parents were cracking up, and they both kept spouting nonsense about fake babies and how rude it is to bring a fake baby to a restaurant and how we weren't going to fall for it, and I said again, "GUYS. It's not like there's a BABY DISCOUNT at the Fiesta Villa! There is no benefit to having a baby here!" My mom just sat back in her chair, crossed her arms and said, "Well, there's no way I'm letting someone have a fake baby in here."

Then she got up out of her chair and waltzed over next to the family, pretending to be interested in the plants behind them but was obviously looking to see if the baby was real. Her eyes got wide and she came barreling back to my dad and I, saying, "It's real! It was definitely moving! It's a real baby!"

Needless to say, a few minutes later the family moved to a table inside. I overheard them say to the waiter that it was because of the bees flying around, but I think they were afraid my mom was going to steal their baby. Or something. Because I was afraid for them.

...though it would have served them right if it had been a fake baby.

I still need to write about all my time with my other grandparents, but I'll finish my North Dakota write-up in the next few days. I can't believe I am already flying home tomorrow. I definitely wish I had more time with my relatives right now... but I guess this just means I need to make sure I get out here again soon. It's so tough to plan a trip strictly for pleasure/family time when I travel so much the way it is, but being here reminded me very vividly how important it is. So I just need to make time, like I did with this trip. :)

Thanks for joining me for BEDA, guys! Have a great September and I'll talk to you all soon.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 30: Cheating.

2011-08-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

I am giving myself the night off.

The whole point of Blogging Every Day in August is basically just to encourage myself to write 1. more frequently and 2. about everything I have going on as a means of documenting little chunks of my life more closely than the rest of the time.

I have been having such a good time here in North Dakota and this trip is so important to me that I know I'll blog about it -- so I'm not going to force it tonight. I'm tired and a little blogged out after a whole month of crazy traveling. I don't think I've ever done this much during a previous BEDA - nor do I think I've ever done this much in a single month in my whole life.

So tonight, I will leave you with this adorable picture of my brother and I by an abandoned old farmhouse that was taken today:

Until tomorrow - our last day together for this particular rendition of BEDA! I promise that one will be a doozy.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 29: Grasshoppers.

2011-08-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

I might actually be too tired/burnt out to blog tonight. I was going so strong this month, too.

Here. I will just leave you with this short anecdote from last night at the musical that I forgot to put in yesterday's blog post, and then I will catch up on the rest of today... in tomorrow's blog post. What. I make the rules around here.

So, I was thinking about blogging this all night on the drive home last night, but then I got too caught up in my emotional musings about North Dakota to remember when it came to actually typing it up. It's a big deal, because last night I developed an irrational fear of grasshoppers.

We got to sit in the special handicap seating area during the show because of my grandma, but what that meant (aside from having pretty good seats) was that there was a lot of room on the side of me (unlike the other auditorium style seats). Mid way through the show I felt something hit my head and I smacked it away... when I looked down at the concrete floor to see what it was, I saw the largest effing grasshopper I have ever seen in my whole life. Like, past insect and into monster-status. Huge. Like 6 inches long.

For the next five to ten minutes, I honestly couldn't tell you what was happening during the musical because my eyes were locked on that dumb creature. It was inching closer and closer to my seat and I was too afraid to kick it away or anything because there was this tiny piece of me that feared it might go all Shocker on Shock Street on us. Finally, finally it crawled out of sight and I was able to relax enough to start enjoying the show again.

This was a false sense of security though, because not ten minutes later I looked over and there it was again, sitting on the ledge between our seats and the seats down a tier below us, just watching me. I kind of freaked out a little bit; I tugged my dad's sleeve and hissed, "get that thing away from me!"

Being a loving and courageous father, he flicked it in the opposite direction - which was great, until we realized the multitude of people's heads he'd just sent the volatile creature careening toward. Eyes wide; we glanced at each other guiltily, glanced down, then slouched in our seats as far as we could go. "Don't look over the edge," my dad told me, suppressing a laugh. "I think I just saw an old lady flailing at her hair."

So, yeah. We're bad people. Funny, yes, but bad people.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 28: Burning Hills Dancers.

2011-08-29T00:21:00.001-07:00

I am way, way too tired to make today's blog post anything special, but I had a nice day so I want to at least give it a decent wrap up. My parents keep me out way too late here in North Dakota! It's affecting my blogging!

My mom just mumbled from the other side of the hotel room, "you're still gonna do that tonight?" "Yes Mom, I have to." "Okay, tell 'em I said yo." So. My mom says yo.

This morning we headed over to my grandma's house for an early lunch - she made us borscht soup and sandwiches with her homemade rolls and salami. Then we jumped in the car and drove the hour and a half out to the small town my aunt Colleen lives in. We had a nice little visit with her, my cousin Corina and Colleen's new husband Chauncey.

The weirdest part about this trip, by far, is how many of my little cousins are suddenly so grown up. Corina was always one of the little kids running around whenever we'd visit in the past, but she's 14 now and I was surprised by how grown up she was. It took her awhile to warm up to me, but then she got out this notebook and a pen and said, "You know, I should probably get your autograph since you're sort-of-kind-of famous. Also some of the kids at school watch your videos and don't believe you're my cousin."

While adorable, this is the very reason I needed to come home and visit. Since a lot of this weird internet "fame" stuff has happened in the last two to three years, I just had this horrible image of my relatives losing touch with me as their cousin/niece/whatever and thinking I'm out of reach or something. I was too busy touring last summer to come home and visit, but that wasn't by choice. I was so homesick for North Dakota while my parents were here last year and I was on roflcoptour. And while I bonded with Corina today over knowing people like Shane Dawson and Smosh (boy did she think I was cool for having met them) I was glad to be able to remind her that I'm still just her cousin.

Also, we bonded over Pokémon. She told her mom, "see? Tina likes Pokémon. And you said I was a nerd." I had to interject though, telling her, "Oh, no, don't be confused; we're still nerds. I've just embraced it."

After a couple of hours we had to head out to make it to Medora in time to meet up with MORE relatives. The problem with having such a big family is that even though we have a whole week here, sometimes we only get a few hours with each branch of the family to make time for everyone. We drove the 20 miles to Medora (this adorable little historic town - has anyone been there?) and met with my Uncle Cheekster and cousins Megan and Holly. Those two were both also in the group of cousins who grew the eff up since I'd seen them last. Their school starts again tomorrow and Megan is going to be a senior and Holly is going to be a freshman. The biggest shock was seeing eyeliner and styled hair and cell phones in their hands. Kids these days, I tell ya. xD

We ate at this place in town and I decided to try "fleischkuekle" - which translates literally as "meat cookie" (as Cheekster told me with a chuckle). It's essentially hamburger wrapped in a big doughy casing and deep fried. I had to take a picture of the menu to remember how to spell it. Also, my dad made me order it myself, which was hilarious, as my knowledge of German is much, much more limited than his (which is also relatively limited). We left my dad to bond with his brother and my mom and I took the girls around to go shopping in the cute Medora gift shops. We didn't really buy anything other than ice cream cones a bit later (I got huckleberry, mmm) but wandering around one of my favorite little towns was all I really wanted out of the afternoon, anyway.

We said goodbye to them when it started getting dark, and we drove up to the Burning Hills Amphitheater with my Grandma to see the Medora Musical. You wouldn't think this tiny town in North Dakota would have such a big attraction, but the Musical is amazing and even on a slow night like tonight, there were 700 people there. It's in this great big outdoor theatre where the backdrop is the actual Dakota badlands, and the whole thing is just so cute and fun. It's a combination of nostalgic "growing up in the midwest" stuff, educational facts about Teddy Roosevelt and ND itself, country music and clogging and fun dancing and modern music. I absolutely adore it. We used to go when I was little, and back then my dream was to grow up and be a Burning Hills Dancer. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that's what I would do.

It's kind of funny how this musical (and more importantly just being here in North Dakota with my parents) can make me nostalgic for a life I never knew. I love the stories from my parents about growing up here. I love the prairie and I love these small towns and all the people who are so nice and the "old west" feel of everything and how everyone knows each other. I definitely have a certain pride for being born here, even though we moved away before I even turned one.

It's strange because it's not like I could ever experience the North Dakota my parents even knew, because times have changed and their friends are older and places they loved have gone out of business or closed and people have died and everyone is older now, but I like to pretend when I'm here that I can be part of it all. And since I was born here and everyone remembers me (albeit a tiny infant version of me) I feel like I at least was there for a tiny bit of it. And that's enough for this place to feel like home, in a strange way I can't even really explain.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 27: North Dakota Moose Lodge.

2011-08-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

Bloooooooog post time.

My post is late tonight on account of my parents kidnapping me, taking me to a biker bar, promising I'd be home by 10 -- and not actually getting back to our hotel until about 1 am. I kept insisting "but guys, I have a blog post to write", but eventually I just gave in, drank my three drinks, and succumbed to the wild North Dakota lifestyle. It's hilarious to picture my parents being the crazy people they were in their twenties, because their old friends I meet here from "way back when" are just... old. But, obviously, it's been about thirty years since their glory days, so I have to suspend disbelief and use my imagination when I picture how things were then.

Today has been a great day. I woke up relatively early and got ready in my grandma's shower (which was literally a trickle of water) and before I knew it, my cousin Mandy had shown up with her new baby Chance. You guys know how much I love babies, so I'm sure you can only imagine what a joy it was to have a baby in front of me I was allowed to play with and not just gawk at from afar. Chance is absolutely adorable (he's 6 months old and such a happy, energetic baby) and I spent the better part of the next few hours holding him and tickling him and dangling toys above him and gushing over him.

My parents keep talking to me. I don't think they fully grasp what "I need to write a blog post" actually means. This post is going to be even later than I thought.

My parents showed up a bit later and we all visited awhile, but everyone was getting hungry. After Mandy left with Chance, we went out for lunch with my grandma at this place called Pizza Ranch. It was a buffet style place, and all the food was pretty standard except the Taco Pizza (which was amazing) and this dessert pizza (called Cactus.. something) that was so freaking good I couldn't even believe it.

After lunch we dropped off Grandma and headed to our hotel to check in. We dropped off our stuff then headed over to my Uncle Gary and Aunt Mel's house to hang out for the evening. My other aunt and uncle Lilia and Rod were there too, which was really nice - I really had no idea which relatives I'd be seeing on this trip but so far I've really lucked out. I spent a huge portion of our time there talking with Lilia... we've always bonded so much because we're both readers (she's the one who forced me to read Harry Potter, bless her) and it was so nice to catch up. We talked about everything before everyone else finally came and joined us on the porch and we all started drinking. Not to say my family is super wild or anything, but they like to have fun, and often that includes alcohol. I had this drink that was bright green and when my mom asked me how it tasted, I told her it tasted "like bright green". I didn't know how else to explain it.

After more general family times, and supper, and my parents embarrassingly insisting I show my relatives a few of my YouTube videos, it was around 9 pm. My parents, Gary, and one of my mom's best friends named Lynn still wanted to party, so they convinced me to come out to this bar called the North Dakota Moose Lodge. That brings me back to the beginning of this post, and the biker bar, and being very behind in today's BEDA post.

One of my favorite parts about meeting my parents old friends here in Bismarck is that I was six months old when we moved away from North Dakota. So many of them really haven't seen me since I was that old. Six months to twenty-three years is a pretty freaking big jump, so when I meet them they tell me things like the quintessential "I haven't see you since you were this big!"

One guy we met tonight brought up the fact that when I was a baby, I raced against his own daughter in the "Huggies Diaper Derby". He and my dad argued over whose daughter won (my dad insists it was me) but the real gem from this conversation was that while other parents were waving little baby toys at their kids to get them to crawl faster, my parents were waggling a pickle at me. Because I loved pickles. My baby contender is now apparently married. Time flies, guys.

My mom is currently talking to me from across the hotel room (we have a room with a little wall divider between their King bed and my pull out couch) about our natural disaster plan. I have literally no idea what prompted this. I keep saying "uh huh", and "yeah?" and while this is a fantastic idea in the broad scheme of things, I'm not certain right this second (at 1:14 AM after an evening at the Moose Lodge) is the right time to talk about this.

Perhaps I will suggest we debrief tomorrow morning. If I remember. Remind me to refresh with my mom about our natural disaster plan tomorrow, guys. Thanks.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 26: Rummy 14.

2011-08-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

I made it to North Dakota!

I flew in around 6:30pm and was picked up by my cousin Jade, whom I'd never met before. My mom decided I needed to "bond with my family" on this trip (...why else would I be here) so she arranged for me to "bond" with Jade by having her pick me up from the airport. We didn't even know what each other looked like. My mom said to me before we left, "she studied abroad. You guys will have tons in common". Because apparently all people who study abroad are alike, haha.

Before I left Seattle I checked her Facebook, tried to memorize what her face looked like, found out that she was just a few years younger than me, and that was it. I mean, she's family, so I knew it would be fine. I was only a teensy bit nervous.

Jade showed up and kind of looked at me from across the parking lot and we both kind of did a "...are you Jade/Kristina?" thing, then laughed, and from there on out it was pretty okay. My mom was right. We got along well. I guess people who study abroad ARE alike.

Jade dropped me off a bit later at my grandma's house; Grandma lives in a retirement community though she has her own little house area with a garden. She was over at the neighbors playing cards when I arrived, so after saying goodbye to Jade, I headed over and settled in for an evening with the old folks.

I haven't been to North Dakota in two years (last year I was on roflcoptour during the annual family trip), so the look on my grandma's face when she saw me... it made this whole trip worth it. Right there. One look. Worth the ridiculous amount of money it costs to fly into the tiny airport in Bismarck.

I had a lovely time tonight. I hung with my grandma and her friends Lyle, Bev and Marion. They taught me how to play Rummy 14, which was actually a pretty fun game. I was doing really well at the beginning (they chalked it up to beginner's luck) but then I got one lousy hand which set me back to second to last place. Bev made a German Chocolate cake, which was delicious, and they kept making fun of me when my phone went off (though I swear, more than half text messages were just from my mom).

Grandma's got me sleeping out in the living room on the pull out couch tonight, and tomorrow we are meeting up with my mom and dad who are already in town but spending tonight at the casino because August 27th is their 23rd wedding anniversary.

I actually have no idea what the plans are for most of this trip or which relatives I am going to be seeing, but I am incredibly excited for all of it. I've been so homesick for this for so long; it's nice to finally be back.

Flights taken: 21

BEDA 25: Haircuts and toilet paper.

2011-08-25T21:24:00.001-07:00

Liz just walked into my room and said, "where did I put my..." and before she could even finish her sentence, I cut her off with an incredulous "really?" That's the kind of day we're having. I found her car keys in the backyard this morning. IN THE BACKYARD.

In other news, today I got my hair cut! I wasn't actually going to get it cut until after I got back from North Dakota, but Eia talked me into it yesterday. We made spur of the moment appointments and we both got relatively drastic cuts and I am happy to announce that I am quite pleased with mine.

Even though I am missing PAX Prime and a Seattle YouTube event for it, I am very excited to be going to North Dakota tomorrow (also despite the fact that I have to get on another stupid airplane). I haven't seen any of my relatives in so long, I'm really hoping the whole trip is just a total blast.

I still need to finish packing for the trip actually, so today's blog post is going to be kind of short. I will now entertain you with some anecdotes from spending the last two days with Liz. These are real things that happened/I jotted down over the course of that time:

Liz: When I was in the bathroom I killed a beetle.
Me: Oh, cool. Thanks.
Liz: At least I think it was a beetle, I wasn't wearing my glasses. It looked small and dark. So I just assumed.
Me: Hm.
Liz: It might have been something important.
Me: It was probably twenty dollars.
Liz: I highly doubt that.
Me: Well you wouldn't know now, would you. You killed it.

You know when you only have one single roll of toilet paper left, and you know when that runs out you have to go to the store and buy a new pack of toilet paper and that's just incredibly inconvenient? So you conserve that last roll to the best of your ability?
Well, Liz just dropped that roll in the toilet, so I guess we're going to the store now.

Goodbye until North Dakota!

Flights taken: 20

BEDA 24: Hot Tub Night.

2011-08-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday night, so here I am at Project Night again. It's nice to be back; I had to miss Project Night last week while I was in London, and even though I was off having overseas adventures, I hate missing stuff. So I'm glad to be here, even though the Internet is too slow to effectively catch up on my email, which was going to be this week's project. Anyway, I'm instead doing my blog post, which is productive enough.

Alexander just introduced me to a new Project Nighter by saying, "This is Kristina. She is an Internet Celebrity." When I protested the claim, he went on to say, "She once killed a man and got out of the jail time with her celebrity status." At this point, I have given up on arguing any semblance of truth and am just letting the new guy believe whatever he wants.

Tonight's Project Night is special because we've decided we're going to work for half of it, then use the second half to transition into Hot Tub Night. I'm currently wearing my swimsuit under my clothes and hoping the project part of Project Night goes by quickly because I am so excited to get in the hot tub. This is going to be the first time my new tattoo is going to be out in public as well, which I'm kind of excited about in a weird and nerdy way.

I had lunch with Eia today, which was nice as I've been so busy with VidCon and this Europe trip that I've barely seen her much this month. While we were out (we go on these routine "dates" at our favorite Indian restaurant) we got on the topic of haircuts and how we've both been tossing around the idea of getting mildly drastic haircuts recently. Since we're both kind of nervous about it, we just decided to go freaking do it, together. As soon as we finished lunch, we headed back to my house and booked an appointment for tomorrow at 1:45. So... I'm still really nervous, and not totally certain what I am getting done, but I'll be sure to post pictures online.

Okay, everyone is doing interesting stuff and I'm over here being anti-social so I'm going to go.

Flights taken: 20

BEDA 23: Home again, home again.

2011-08-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

I kind of forgot that being home from all my crazy travel adventures doesn't mean August is over yet -- I almost totally forgot to blog today. It's only the 23rd; there is much more blogging coming this month!

It's kind of strange to even try and think of anything to talk about after all of the stories I've had to tell the past week. When you've been having a week like I had, a day at home editing videos, running errands and watching a movie seems a bit dull. But it's nice to be home. And I am in need of a few dull days.

I'm so jetlagged and exhausted. I woke up at 6:30 AM this morning and now it's only 9 PM and I am practically falling asleep on the couch. Justin and I ordered in Mexican food and now we're watching "The Frog Princess". I've already seen it, but Justin hasn't.

My brain is all fuzzy right now... I think I need to just give myself a little break. The last few entries were really long, so that should make up for my lack of a coherent blog today. I'll be back tomorrow. :)

Flights taken: 20

BEDA 22 - Poland Day 3 and coming home.

2011-08-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

I'm on a flight from London to Seattle right now, after connecting from my much shorter flight from Warsaw. It's midday right now, so I have a sneaking suspicion I won't be sleeping at all on this nine hour flight. I'm only about 30 minutes in right now, so I'll be sure to give an update later on what I end up watching/doing to pass the time as time goes by. So far all I've done is talk to the lady next me, whose name is Linda from Sammamish, aged somewhere around 60 and has a heat rash. So... a few steps down from my last travel buddy.

Yesterday was such a great last day in Poland. We woke up around 10 or so and met in the lobby to learn about the "Urban Challenge" they were sending us out on for a large chunk of the day. I was on a team with Will and Cat. Basically, they gave each of us a map, a list of places in Warsaw and 100 each of whatever the local currency is called (I can never remember). We were then sent out by ourselves in our teams to try and get to all the locations before the other teams could. Right away, the three of us were super into winning. We breezed through the Palace of Culture, the Dairy Bar and Cafe Wedel. But there was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that we were missing the point of the "challenge" by hurrying like that. Instead of choking down a hot chocolate in the cafe, we should have been taking our time to enjoy a tasty snack in a foreign country. Instead of zipping up and down the elevators at the Palace, we should have been stopping to take in the incredible view of the city we'd been lucky enough to get to visit.

So after our first few stops, we quit racing. Someone else could go home with the prize. Our prize was getting to experience Warsaw at our own pace.

Our next stop after deciding to slow down was the "Prezekaski Zakaski", or "Bistro a la Fourchette". This is apparently the most "happening" bar in Warsaw, since it's open 24 hours. We sat down and had a beer with Lukas, and also ran into Greg and Dan while we were there.

After the bar, we headed to the Old Town and had to find the Zygmunt Column -- where we then were instructed to ask someone what time it was in Polish. It's "Przepraszam, ktora godzina?" if you were curious. I was a boss at saying it, but I managed to pick the one person in the square who DIDN'T speak Polish, so I looked silly anyway. Haha. Then we had to find the statue of the mermaid in the Old Town market square, which turned out to also be a fountain. I couldn't help but put my feet in, along with all the other children under the age of seven. You're never too old, guys. Never.

We only had one stop left after the fountain, but it was across the river, so we stayed in Old Town for awhile instead of completing the challenge at all. We ran into some of our Polish friends we'd met the day before in town, so they tagged along with us -- which not only made the experience more fun, but was also useful when we wanted to order an ice cream and hot dog from a stand and the people working there spoke very little English.

One of my favorite parts about this trip, and one of the things I feel most lucky about, is that fact that I was able to meet so many local Polish people. Especially ones who share my interest in new media, video-making and YouTube. While walking around Warsaw, I was actually running into people I KNEW. In a country that just two days earlier I knew literally nothing about aside from what I learned in high school about the Holocaust. I have to say, Poland is such a lovely country, it definitely deserves to be famous for more than the Holocaust.

An update -- since I wrote the above section of this blog post, I have also met the man on the other side of me (I'm in a middle seat) and the best way to describe him would be as a nice Vernon Dursley. Then I watched "Water For Elephants", which was a really good film (though a bit sad for a plane movie). I definitely had the tears coming on a few times, as well as embarrassingly gasping out loud and having to look away more than once during the animal cruelty bits. I would absolutely recommend seeing this movie; I especially loved it because of my fascination with the circus, but I think it really shows that industry for what it was, which is important for people to understand.

Anyway, back to Poland. We had a bit of a break after the Urban Challenge, where I swore I only rested my eyes in my room for a second but it turned out nearly a full hour went by. Luckily I woke up just in time to head downstairs for dinner. It was our last night out as a group, so the night had a bittersweet feel to it. The food was all amazing, as usual. This time I ordered a venison dish that also came with those potato noodles I have come to love, as well as a delicious cranberry sauce.

After dinner we ordered a bunch of desserts to split, and among them was something that was actually called "Soup of Nothing - with clouds". We had all seen it on the menu before, but since this was our last night, we obviously had to try it. I can't tell you what was in it, but literally every person at that table with us who took a bite exclaimed something along the lines of "oh my goodness! What the heck this, it's so amazing! What IS this?!" It was some sort of incredible strawberry and vanilla mousse type thing with something else white in it that actually melted in your mouth. I think that bit was the "clouds". It's a mystery to me, but it was another crazy Poland adventure I was glad to have taken part in.

After dinner we saw some guys spinning fire in the square (seriously) on our way back to the limo-of-epic-proportions, which was a fittingly surreal end to one of the most surreal weekends of my life.

I tried to fit in as much sleep as possible last night, but the hotel had this amazing breakfast for us every morning, so I diligently set my alarm for 7:45 am. I like food more than I like being well rested. I stuffed my face with potato pancakes and Brie cheese and jam on rolls and fresh fruit. Totally worth sacrificing the extra half hour of snoozing.

Jimmy and I had flights at similar times, so after a brief chat with the man who'd put this all together (thanking him profusely for the experience and promising I'd be back next year if he makes it an annual event) we hopped in a cab and began our adventure home. That pretty much brings us to now, where I am sitting in my middle seat and trying to process the week I've just had.

You know, it's funny. I'm exhausted. I feel like I haven't had any quality time at home in ages. I am tired of airports and living out of suitcases and waking up early, but I am never happier than when I am coming home from one of these incredible experiences. Sometimes I don't even know what I really did to deserve this, but I feel so lucky and thankful every day. And I really love that so many people do read my blog, because it makes it that much more rewarding to know that in a way, I'm kind of taking all of you along with me.

It will be nice to sleep in my own bed, don't get me wrong. But I really wonder... if it's always going to feel like this, so wonderful and eye-opening and horizon-broadening... whats the point in ever slowing down?

Flights taken: 20

BEDA 21: Poland Day 2.

2011-08-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

My alarm went off much too early this morning. I scrambled out of bed, dragged myself into the shower, and finally started coming to life around 10 AM. We met downstairs in the lobby before piling (once again) into the limo-of-extreme-proportions, on our way to the Chwila Klub for the first day of the YouStars event. None of us really knew what to expect, but the club itself was really nice. It kind of gave off the vibe of an indie coffee shop, with mismatched furniture and pillows and neat art on the walls. There was also a table on the ceiling, which I didn't notice until Kate pointed it out to me.

The first hour or two was meant for hanging out and chatting, and slowly but surely we started to meet some of the people who had come from across Poland for our meetup. Of the people whose names I remember -- I met a nerdfighter and fellow NaNoWriMo winner named Nela who was lovely, another girl named Hannah who watches my videos, and a girl named Klaudia who hadn't seen my videos yet but promised she was going to look me up when she get home (she was very enthusiastic about YouTube, which was adorable). Everyone I met and talked to was so nice, and so interested in what we all do online. It was fun to talk with people from a country where YouTube is something most people don't understand (as in the general public). I think a lot of us American YouTubers spent a good portion of the day encouraging people to make videos, to vlog, and to try and convince their friends to do it with them to help them find ways to make a larger YouTube community within Poland.

After they got the livestream up and running, we jumped into our individual talks. I went second, which was kind of nice (I always like getting things that make me nervous out of the way so I can just enjoy the rest of the event). It was 15-20 minutes long; I mostly just spoke about how I fell into YouTube through Harry Potter and how I discovered the larger community of vloggers, and how that community was built on the desire to talk about mutual passions. The crazy part about the whole experience though is that we had a Polish translator up there with us. After every minute or so of talking, we'd have to pause while they repeated everything we said back in Polish for the people in the audience who couldn't understand, or who we maybe had spoken too quickly for.

Everyone did a really good job with their talks, and I even learned some stuff about some of the other American vloggers that I hadn't know before. It was such a relaxed setting for giving "presentations", and I think everyone really appreciated that. Jimmy played a little music during his talk as well, which definitely helped give the afternoon a casual, welcoming vibe.

I have to stop for a second to complain about something that's been bothering me this whole weekend -- the pillows in this hotel room are so SQUISHY. I am currently propped up on FIVE pillows and I am still sinking back into an almost lying down position. How is that even possible. I don't understand. Polish feathers must just be REALLY small, haha.

Anyway. We took a bit of a break from the YouStars event to go and have some lunch, where I ate the most delicious mushroom soup I've ever had. I'm a huge fan of mushrooms. Dan didn't want his and offered them to me, so my soup was doubly mushroom-ified. Then we head a breaded pork dish that they called a schnitzel (though I was always under the impression that schnitzels were sausages; guess you learn something new every day) with cabbage and these potato noodles that I really loved.

We went back to the "Klub" after lunch to listen to a few of the Polish YouTubers speak (though we didn't get English translations, sadly) and then our two Polish buddies who've been helping with the event (I am so terrible with name spellings here; I think it's Vlaudich and Karl?) played some music for everyone. The Polish kids were going CRAZY for them! It was amazing; I loved watching people fangirl over something in a language I can't even understand. It was such a surreal experience.

I don't remember the exact course of action for the rest of the evening, but at some point the event transitioned from speakers/live music to more of an actual club atmosphere as they got the karaoke up and running. It was at this point in the evening as well that we realized there was an open bar for us, which definitely changed the tone of the night from academic to fun-time. While we looked through the karaoke song lists, one of the Polish guys (named Lukas -- the thing about names in Poland is that many of them sound like American names, but aren't exactly - so I have no idea how to spell them. I figure if I just replace all the C's with K's, in general, I'll be okay. I actually made a comment about that last night - this is the first time in my life where the "K" spelling of my name is actually more common than the "C" spelling… maybe this is where I belong! Wow this was a long tangent. Maybe I should just start over.) (One of the Polish guys) decided we needed to try some of the local common drinks and kept bringing them over to us totally unprompted. I figured I couldn't come to Poland without trying their signature drinks though, so I obliged. Especially since one of the drinks was made with apple juice! Vodka and apple juice, none the less, but I at least FELT like I was drinking something cute.

…that might help explain how I ended up onstage with my new Polish friend Klaudia singing Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". And "Wonderwall", with the aforementioned Lukas (and a bunch of other YouTubers). And "Can't Fight the Moonlight" from Coyote Ugly, totally by myself. I'm pretty sure all of these got filmed, so for better or worse they'll most likely be going online at some point.

I had such a great time that night. I felt like I bonded a lot with the other American YouTubers, as well as making friends with a lot of the Polish people as well. I chatted for a long time with Nela (the NaNoWriMo winner). I also spent a lot of time with Klaudia, one of the girls who Meghan and I were trying to convince to start vlogging (also mentioned above - can you tell I wrote this blog post in multiple sittings?). I met a boy named Paul on the way back from the bathroom who had just watched all eight Harry Potter movies last weekend after being a "hater" for years and years who after hearing my presentation, felt I would appreciate how much he likes it now. I watched a lot of people sing incredible karaoke, in both English and Polish. I tried to sing along as Lukas interpreted a Polish love song to me in English, but only managed to catch the "Yeah yeah yeah's!". And I danced onstage to "Mambo No. 5" with the winner of the karaoke contest as well as everyone else who'd gotten onstage and "competed" as well.

When we finally boarded the crazy-town-flashing-lights-mobile to go back to the hotel, we were nearly dead on our feet. But this was the good kind of tired. The kind of tired you would not only expect, but would welcome after a day like this day. It was the kind of tired that you know will leave a permanent mark on you, for being in a new country, making new friends, experiencing new foods, traditions and ideas, and pushing yourself to new limits.

This Poland trip has been all of those things for me. I went to bed Saturday night with a smile on my face and absolutely filled to the brim with love for everyone sharing this experience with me.

Flights taken: 19

BEDA 20: Day 1 in Poland.

2011-08-20T16:52:00.001-07:00

There were a couple of excited comments from people on my blog post yesterday saying they're coming to the YouStars event -- I can't wait to meet you guys! As for tonight though -- I've spent a whole day in Warsaw now and I am beyond exhausted.

Leaving London was the worst. I blearily said goodbye to Liam around 3:50 in the morning, left the flat with Alex and walked with him the 10-15 minutes to the bus station I was being picked up at. Luckily I am moderately familiar with London public transport, because as soon as I said my final goodbye to Alex when the bus pulled up, I was on my own for the next two hours during my journey to Heathrow.

The bus ride was relatively easy. I think my body was so confused as to what time I was trying to tell it to adapt to that it just assumed 5 AM in London was a normal time to be awake and functioning normally. I got to Paddington Station, bought my ticket for the Express train to Heathrow, and situated myself in the comfy train seat for the 25 minute journey back to the airport (it was easy to stay awake at that point because there was free wifi on the train, which meant I could spend that leg of my trip complaining about my lack of a Pottermore email on twitter with my friends back home who were actually awake at a decent time).

I didn't start really fading until I got to my gate (and also, Heathrow doesn't the same free internet luxury as their public transport). I nodded off a few times as I sat there waiting for the flight to board with my clunky black boots up on my suitcase. I was joined eventually by my new YouTube friend Dan Dobi, who happened to be on the same flight as me from London to Warsaw. The flight was only about 2 hours long, and somehow we tricked the flight attendants into giving us each two bacon-and-egg salad sandwiches (for airplane food, it was pretty good) so all in all it was a relatively painless flight. I even dozed for about 40 minutes or so before landing in Warsaw.

Once we got into the airport, I had another one of those moments where I rehearsed my speech in my head before going and talking to the customs people because I know my reasons for travel always sounds a bit fishy when it involves YouTube. But in Poland, they didn't even ASK. They just stamped my passport and sent me on my way. Why did I have so much trouble in foreign countries before?? It's been a breeze this time around.

We were greeted by our two contacts from FEEL IT Communications, the company that is putting on this whole event (two women named Karolina and I don't remember how to spell the other girl's name but we are calling her "Alex" for short). We walked outside and saw the biggest limo I have ever seen in my entire life. Picture a hummer limo? Yeah, got it? Okay, it's twice as long as that. No joke. There were disco balls (yes, plural) inside as well as one wall with a screen for playing DVDs and literally everything was made of color changing lights. Everything about this would have been a lot more exciting if I wasn't still running on fumes from Thursday at noon on Friday. I don't think I have ever gone that long without sleeping before.

Our rooms at the hotels weren't ready for us, so Karolina and Alex took Dan and I to this park where the name translated to "Toilet" in Polish. We walked around along the pretty paths and looked at statues and flowers and a big pond before stopping to get milkshakes at a little outdoor café. The Dan and I both had to use the bathroom and both simultaneously got yelled at for not paying when we left (paying to use the bathroom! How bizarre!). After an hour or two of this, I was literally dead on my feet so we headed back to the limo-extravaganza and began finally making our way to the hotel.

The next few hours were a blur because I was too tired to even really process what was happening. Between more hotel room mix-ups and getting yelled at for sleeping on a couch in the lobby, being dragged to the mall to get food while they stalled with our rooms and then getting VERY STERNLY yelled at for wearing our shoes in the pool area (I have now learned that such an activity is NOT OKAY in Poland) I just can't even tell you what a long day it was.

After the shoe-wearing-pool-debacle, I trudged downstairs and saw that Meghan, Jimmy and Cat had arrived… but I was so over-tired and grumpy and shuffled-about that they took one look at me, hugged me, and totally understood when I grabbed my suitcase and high-tailed it up to my room. The next two and a half hours were spent in exhausted napping bliss alone in my room.

I wasn't quite refreshed at that point per se, but I was at least more of a functioning member of society. I met up with the whole group downstairs in the lobby (we had since been joined by Will (thewillofdc), Corey (smpfilms), Kate (Katersoneseven), Greg (mediocrefilms) and a few Polish vloggers who'd be spending the weekend with us as well. We were then off to dinner, which we walked to, which was something like twenty minutes away in the part of Warsaw called "Old Town".

We were in a cute little restaurant called "Phucker" or something (I bet you can already imagine the jokes we made about that name) and we all sat along a single long table with candles decorating it. The menu was in English as well as Polish but that only helped so much -- I ended up ordering something that was half made of words I didn't know, but I wanted to be daring so I went for it. One of the things I ordered, a mini dumpling dish, came with something called "lovage". I still don't know what it is. I also ordered a main dish with a name like "Tenderloin in the Woods" or something, which was honestly too funny NOT to order. Kate and Meghan and I shared a dessert that was a type of pancake with blended something or other inside.. I think it was a sort of pureed nut filling. It also came with ice cream. It was delicious. We spent the evening laughing at our food, sharing bites, and getting to know each other and our new Polish friends. As tired as we all were, it was a really nice way to spend our first evening in Warsaw.

We all piled back into the hummer-tastic transport device spectacular after dinner and on our way back to the hotel, we discovered that the limo had fog machines installed inside. Fog machines. It was at that point that this trip passed "surreal" and went straight into the realm of "seriously, what on earth is my life?". When I finally crawled into bed that evening, I was more than happy. It was a really wonderful (albeit exhausting) day, and I couldn't be more happy right now to have the life that I do. :)

Flights taken: 19

BEDA 19: Sundaes and Evernote!

2011-08-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start today's blog post with a conversation I had with Alex and Charlie a few hours ago that made me laugh really hard:

Alex: Have you finished your sundae?
Me: Yeah I did; it was good, thanks.
Charlie: Are you excited for your Monday?

It's currently 2 AM on Friday morning, so it's not really quite time for blogging yet, but I have a long morning of obnoxious traveling ahead of me so I kind of just want to get it out of the way. In about two hours I'm taking a bus to a tube station to get on an express train to Heathrow so I can be there by 5:30 AM for my 7:30 AM flight to Warsaw, Poland. The good news is I will be there by 11 AM so I can hopefully sleep a bit before the other YouTubers even get in, but the bad news is --- my travel schedule. And saying goodbye to Alex, Charlie and Liam, who I'm currently hanging out with. Well, Alex and Charlie are working on a script in the kitchen while Liam and I watch My Little Pony and organize things on Evernote in the other room, but still.

Leaving is going to suck. Having not been in London for two years, being here such a short time was absolutely not enough. I could complain about this all day, as I did yesterday, but I'm just so frustrated with the fact that there are so many amazing people over here that I don't get to see nearly enough, as well as so many things about London that I just adore (and had even forgotten I adored, like staring at tube maps) so basically, this trip was merely a huge tease. I need to come back. Maybe next summer, we'll see.

On that subject, I got a comment on my last blog post that really got the gears turning in my head so I wanted to share it:

"Which would you prefer: To have many brief visits with friends all over, leaving many little holes in your heart? Or fewer but longer visits with friends, leaving you with larger and deeper holes that will take longer to heal? More likely, it'll progress from the former, to the latter, and finally to settling down, when your heart finds a part it can't bear to lose." -badbob001

That was such a beautiful way to word that sentiment. In general I've always felt it was better to have stronger, more meaningful connections with a handful of people rather than a bunch of casual friendships that are only surface level or a few layers deep. But all of this crazy internet and fandom stuff has really thrown a kink into that, since I feel like I make those deep meaningful friendships all the time. With something like this, quantity doesn't really actually detract from quality, but it gets harder and harder to make everyone a priority in your life, especially when they live so far away.

Okay. Now Alex is back and he's reading Liam and I hilarious articles about horrible chip (crisp) flavors so there's no way I am going to get to be any sort of insightful anymore, so I will continue these musings later. Onward to Poland!

Flights taken: 18

BEDA 18: Stretched thin.

2011-08-18T04:07:00.000-07:00

The only thing I don't like about blogging every day is that I don't feel like I am doing justice to my time in London by forcing myself to blog about it in these tiny spaces between the things I'm doing while I am here. I don't like rushing through writing, but I also don't want to spend my time here crafting artful blog posts when I could be just living my life. So again, this will be short, and hopefully I'll write more about it later when I have a bit more free time to reflect.

Yesterday was mostly spent recording the video I mentioned (which will be on YouTube soon) and then I got Alex started on watching Community. Around four thirty (is it weird that after only two days I already find myself almost typing "half-four"? Oh London.) we left with Charlie to meet Rosi and everyone else in town for her birthday bowling excursion. She was already with Lex and Claire, so we got our bowling shoes on and headed over to our reserved lane.

When I was getting my shoes, they asked, "size"? and I froze for a moment and then replied, "Um. I have no idea what show size I wear here." I remember I had memorized it back when I was living here, but that's definitely the kind of fact that leaves your mind after two years away. After trying a few pairs, we deduced that I am a 4. So. That's a fact about me. Although I seem to recall being a 5 now that I think about it.

Bowling was a ton of fun. I felt badly, because everyone was saying "I'm terrible at bowling!" before we started, and I was joining in with the sentiment (because I am) but somehow, that just wasn't true last night at all. Maybe it's something about being in London. Maybe UK bowling is easier. I have no idea, but while everyone else scored in the 50's, I managed a 111. I think it was the first time I scored over 100 in my life, seriously. Unless we're counting Wii Bowling, in which case, I'm awesome.

Melissa came and met up with us about halfway through the bowling, and the computer made her take all five turns she'd missed at once, which was hilarious to watch. I can only imagine how sore her arm was after all that. Lex got a drink called a Zombie which was delicious but had so much alcohol in it they only let you order two in a night -- I decided I should get one too, without looking at how much it cost. It was twelve pounds. TWELVE POUNDS. That's like a $20 drink. There was a tiny of piece of me that was screaming as I handed my fancy little traveler's debit card over, but who cares. How often do I get to hang out with my friends in London, right?

We went to a little Italian restaurant afterwards which was lovely. It was so nice to get to chat with everyone. I mean, I've been spoiled in getting to spend a lot of time with Rosi this past year, and I see Melissa every few months; even Charlie and Alex I just got to hang out with at VidCon, but there's something different about hanging out with them in London. And especially Claire and Lex -- I haven't seen either them since 2009. So it was just overall a really nice evening.

We met up with Jazza again after dinner and headed to a pub for our third stop of the night. I had another "Cider and Black" (I realized I got it wrong yesterday, drat!) and we hung out there for an hour or two. It was in that moment, sitting there with my friends, talking and laughing, that it really hit me how short this trip is. I guess that's the nature of my life though. I have so many amazing friends in so many different places... you can't really spread yourself that far across the globe and ever really feel like you have enough time with anyone. Every moment you get with someone just makes you realize you had a hole exactly that shape in your heart that you'd forgotten about. And London left a huge hole in mine.

Alex and I are just simultaneously writing blog posts right now, and I think Rosi and Liam are both on their way over to the flat now. So it'll be nice to get a bit more time with people before my stupidly early flight to Poland tomorrow. At least I'm going someplace else that's fun and not just home. That would be a lot more difficult.

Anyhow. London. It's great. I'll write more tomorrow.

Flights taken: 18

BEDA 17: Cider with Black?

2011-08-17T05:18:00.000-07:00

Yeah, blogging every day is proving to be more difficult than I thought while I'm here in London. There is so much to do and so little time to do it all. I'm currently at Alex and Charlie's flat and this post is being typed up between takes of a video Alex and I are trying valiantly to record. It involves playing music, so it's hard. Alex is taking a break right now to drink some tea, because he's British.

Yesterday Rosi and Lex picked me up at Heathrow Airport and we went right to Nando's for lunch. I had really forgotten how much I love some of the restaurants in London, and Rosi knew it had been much too long since I'd gotten to enjoy Nando's. After lunch we met up with Jazza in Trafalgar Square, where I had to stop for a moment and close my eyes in an attempt to imagine the place being swarmed by Potter fans as J.K. Rowling and the actors from the films waltzed in for the Deathly Hallows part two premiere. Then Jazza found out I had never sat on one of the big lions, so we rectified that immediately. That will be in a video.

We walked and chatted for awhile before Lex insisted we go to M&M World. After wandering for bit, we deduced that the whole store only carried about ten different items but some reason they had found a way to spread those items out amongst four whole floors. Also, it was about 3 and 1/2 rooms of M&M dispensers and only half a room of actual M&Ms. So, that was M&M World.

Before heading out of central London, Jazza wanted to get a drink - so we headed off to a standard pub, which felt incredibly reminiscent of my study abroad days. I ordered my favorite - a cider with blackcurrant in it (I still can never remember how to say it all cool like a local... I think it was "cider with black"? I have no idea, I'm probably wrong) and reveled in the remembrance that I could get all the things I loved about London that aren't sold in America -- like Millionaire's Shortbread and Strawberry Ribena and Indian food that doesn't suck. I wish I was going to be here longer. 2 and a half days is such a tease.

Well, I have lots more London adventures to be had and a video to film, so that's all for today.

Flights taken: 18

BEDA 16: Sparkling wine.

2011-08-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

So. Here's a thing I learned today. On international flights, alcohol is free. It's funny because in yesterday's blog post I was still doubting this trip a little, but only a few hours into my flight to London, I'm already having the time of my life.

I sat down in my aisle seat (52C, I didn't even know there WERE that many rows) and within minutes a 20 year old girl named Olivia sat down next to me. She's lovely - from Alaska, studying abroad in Vienna, incredibly sweet. We got to talking right away (her about her nerves concerning studying abroad, me reassuring her as I've done it before) and then we started bonding over the fact that both of our parents told us before leaving on this trip that alcohol is free on overseas flights and encouraged us to take advantage of it.

We were both a little timid in asking for it; when the fight attendant came by we asked, "um, do you have champagne?" Bored, she replied, "we have sparkling wine".

Yes, sparkling wine will do. Haha.

But then! Then she asked, "and what would you like with dinner? White or red?"

Clearly she was asking about wine, so we both replied, wide-eyed, "white please". So here we were, two timid girls just wanting a glass of champagne, being handed two mini-bottles of wine EACH. Needless to say, I finished both before starting this blog post. I'm having a GREAT time.

This is the biggest plane I have ever been on. It's one of those planes with three sections -- two seats on the outsides by the windows and a row of five seats in the middle. That much is standard, but THIS plane also has these crazy sleeper pods in the front for the rich people, as well as a STAIRCASE at the front of the plane -- I don't know where the staircase goes, but I can only imagine it goes to a crazy second story of the plane filled with magic and wonder and things people like me (of average income) can only dream of.

I crack myself up every time I travel, because I always worry and stress and in the end, traveling is where I am meant to be. I'm only just on my flight right now but already I'm having a blast. I'm about to watch Sucker Punch (the kind of movie I would probably only watch on a plane) and maybe eventually I'll try to sleep. There's just so much exciting stuff to watch/do/experience on this flight - what's a little jet lag, right? I'm going to regret this tomorrow.

Flight update: Sucker Punch was really weird, so I only made it about 2/3 of the way through before I gave up and tried to fall asleep. I had accidentally kicked my blanket under the feet of the sleeping man in front of me, so I had to go into cat-like stealth mode and ninja my way on all fours up to his seat to expertly un-wedge it. I think I ended up waking up anyway (oops) but I was back to my seat before he realized what had happened.

We're landing in about 40 minutes, I have no idea how long I slept, and I'm kind of hating everything right now. Someone opened a window a few minutes ago and it was SO BRIGHT. It's going to be interesting to see how long I last today... I had such high hopes for my lack of tiredness. Fingers crossed.

Flights taken: 18

BEDA 15: Airports and writing.

2011-08-15T17:31:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting at SeaTac airport right now, about a half an hour early for my flight and it suddenly hit me -- when I get off my flight in London, it will be Tuesday. So, rushed Monday airport blog post, commence!

As Justin drove me to the airport today, there was a tiny piece of me that was sort of bummed as the sun shone down on us and we cruised down the freeway. Seattle always has such a short summer, and it's so beautiful. But summers are always my busiest, most hectic traveling times, so I ALWAYS MISS IT. I know I am going to have an amazing time in London and Poland this week, and I am so thankful for the opportunity, but as I sat in that car on my way to the airport I definitely said a mental goodbye to another summer in Seattle. Maybe it will still be nice in September. I hope so.

I just found out I have an aisle seat on this flight -- 9 hours, in an aisle seat. I really try not to complain about things like this because I know many, many people don't get the opportunity to travel at all, but nine hours in an aisle seat (overnight) is going to be pretty rough. I promised Rosi and Lex I would try to sleep on the plane so I can attempt to skip jet lag and jump right into fun with them tomorrow morning when I arrive, but... I wouldn't be surprised if I trudge out of Heathrow tomorrow as zombie Kristina. Whatever. Worth it.

I forgot to mention this yesterday -- when Liz and I woke up on Sunday, we started chatting about nanowrimo and writing and novel ideas. I was agonizing over the fact that I don't even have the slightest hint of an idea for mine this year, but after talking with her for awhile (Liz is totally my muse) an idea fell out of the sky right into my lap. This wasn't just any idea either, it was one of those fully-fleshed-out monsters of an idea that appeared in my brain demanding I write it immediately. So later that day when I was at the park with Tyler, I couldn't help but pull out a notebook and furiously jot down ideas and details while the sun warmed my back.

People ask me sometimes where I get inspiration for story ideas, and a lot of times it's just like that. In the midst of a conversation with Liz, something she says will spark something and my brain will wander off on a completely different tangent - and soon I'm not even listening to her anymore but instead dreaming up a whole separate plot/world/etc. She knows that happens sometimes, and she's okay with it. She does it to me too. Haha. It's half the reason we even talk to each other about writing.

Anyway, I was excited to have come up with a new idea that I'm so into, and I can't wait for November to get here. I think my flight is boarding soon so I should probably go. Next time I update, I'll be in London!

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 14: Casper!

2011-08-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight was one of those "oops, I forgot to write a blog post" nights. I've got friends over right now, we're watching "Casper" on TV, and I leave tomorrow for London. So... I might give myself a free pass and make tonight's blog post short.

Last night I went to my parent's house (Liz came too, which was fun) where we ate a lot of food, had a bonfire, and my brother took Liz and I out in his modified jeep. It was hilarious, because when Nick asked "you wanna go for a ride in my jeep?" I knew exactly what he meant but Liz just assumed he meant we'd be going for a drive... like on streets. We didn't drive on streets.

Instead, we headed back to the woods just south of our neighborhood where my brother took us through the trails on a ride akin to being chased by dinosaurs. I can't believe how wild it can get back there, but he has that trail memorized like the back of his hand -- so I was never really too worried. Liz kept exclaiming, "this is not what I expected!"

When it got a bit later, Liz and I drove out to her parents' house where we were spending the night and stayed up until about one in the morning eating strawberry rhubarb pie and watching a "best of the eleventh doctor" special on BBC America.

Today I went to the park with my friends Tyler and Ted, where we laid in the sun, played the card game "Guillotine", tossed around a frisbee and picked blackerries. It was a lovely way to spend my last day in Seattle for traveling off to Europe for a week.

Now we're up to date, so I'm gonna go. Forgive the relatively boring update post. Cat's Halloween party is about to start and I can't wait to find out if Casper gets to be a human.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 13: Dogs and Cats. And Pottermore.

2011-08-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well.

I did myself the favor of not making any plans for this weekend (since I am going out of the country on Monday) but I forgot to consider the fact that I would then be bored out of my mind, alone in my bedroom, as a result. So when my mom tried to talk me into coming and hanging with the family tonight.. I agreed. I think she and my dad were both surprised; usually they have to twist my arm to get me to drive out there.

I'm not leaving for about an hour though, so right now I figured I would get today's BEDA post out of the way. I have been feeling apathetic about the styles of blogs I've been doing lately (the kind where I just list the things I've been doing, even though I've been doing relatively exciting things) so I decided to ask for various topics to blog about from you guys.

Here are the topics people suggested I blog about on Twitter:

1. Cats: I'm not even sure exactly what to say beyond this -- I absolutely love cats. I reblog way too many pictures of adorable kittens on tumblr and if someone has a pet cat and I'm over at their hosue, I can't help but start playing with it. I already have a natural affinity for things that are adorable, and it just so happens cats generally top that list for me. Sometimes I wish I didn't travel as much so I could have a little kitty of my own, but I know I'd be a terrible owner; always leaving it with a babysitter (catsitter?) every month when I'm out of town.

2. Dogs (particularly my dog): This story is a bit more complex than "OMG KITTIES I LOVE THEM!!" I never really liked dogs when I was younger. I don't like being licked or slobbered on, I don't like having big muddy paws landing on my shirt, I don't like hearing barking or stepping in dog poop or seeing any of my possessions covered in chew-marks. When I would go to friends' houses with dogs I felt like I spent more time pushing furry bodies away saying "get down, boy," and "go away!" then I spent enjoying myself.

My brother decided he wanted to get a pet dog when I was about fifteen and I was furious. Even more so when my mom and dad let him. An overexcited catahoula bounding down my hallway every time I wanted to leave my bedroom was not something I was excited to get used to.

But I did. The first year or so of having our dog, Honey, she and I had a strict co-existence policy on living together. She didn't mess with me, I didn't mess with her. I think she could tell I didn't like her, because she didn't come in my room, she didn't lick me, she didn't touch any of my shoes I liked to leave by the door.

I think it was this alone that made me fall in love with her. The fact that she was smart enough to realize I needed space to come to terms with her made me feel like I was living with the best dog in the world. After a while, she started testing out sleeping by my feet while we'd watch TV in the family room and resting her head on my lap while I sat at the dining room table. Over time she began to greet me when I came home from school and I would scratch her head/belly (but she still never jumped on me).

Now I don't live at home anymore and I really miss Honey sometimes. She showed me that dogs are just big loving creatures who want to be your friend, and through my relationship with her, I started to learn to love other dogs as well. In the end it was a really good thing that Nick wanted to adopt her. She really helped me grow as a person and an animal-lover.

I have now exhausted the topics suggested to me on twitter (slow day for social media, though I suppose I did ask on my second twitter, which has much fewer followers than my main one) so I'm going to finish this blog post today with a Pottermore survey I stole from Hayley.

What's your Pottermore username? StarPotion101
What House do you think it sounds like? I think it sounds like Slytherin house, mostly because of the Potion bit and always relating Potions to Snape. It also kind of sounds like Ravenclaw to me, because the "101" at the end makes it sound like a class one may take.
What House do you want to be in? I would like to continue to be a Slytherin, if it were up to me. The more I think about it though -- Back in 2004, I decided the best theme for a wizard rock back would be a 'Slytherin girl band', and I feel like I've spent the better part of the last seven years adapting my vision of what Slytherin house is to fit me (because I wanted so badly to identify with that house after 'representing' it for so long). I think I do embody a lot of the traits of Slytherin house (ambition, cunning, deviating from the norm, being overly emotional) but I may have lost sight of how much of that was from the band and how much I really truly identify with Slytherin myself. So I'm excited to get sorted, basically.
Does your username relate to you at all? I think it does! I was happy to get a username with "star" in it (in the sense that stars/space is awesome, not that I consider myself a 'star') and I like it paired with "potion". I think the best usernames are the ones where the two words kind of work together, not to mention I super lucked out with getting "101" as my number. I was hoping for a unicorn name, but I am very pleased with what I got.
What kind of wand would you wish to get? I always thought my wand would be willow, slightly springy with a unicorn hair. But... this is one of the aspects of Pottermore I am not worried about at all. I'm sure whatever I get will be cool.
Are you pure, half-blooded or Muggle born? You know, I never actually thought about that. In the Parselmouths we have a bunch of songs about being pure-bloods, but in all honesty, I bet I'd be muggle-born.
Which day did you get into Pottermore? Day 1. Like I would have waited. :)
What shape is your Patronus? A unicorn.
What does your boggart look like? I'm with Ron on this one - a big-ass hairy spider.
Would you rather be an Animagus or a Matamorphmagus? Animagus, definitely.
If you were an Animagus, what animal would you be? I would be a cat for sure.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 12: Green fire!

2011-08-12T13:15:00.001-07:00

It was funny - last night after I finished my blog I bounded downstairs looking for Justin, ready to watch Milo and Otis - but then the doorbell rang. I had completely forgotten my friend Tyler was stopping by to pick up his phone that he'd left here on Tuesday. He'd come with our other friend Ted, and I has assumed they were just going to drop in for a second but they ended up staying for a couple of hours to hang out with us.

We spent a majority of the evening in our kitchen talking about Halloween costumes (hey you can never start too early) but before I knew it, Justin was getting out all these crazy materials to make green fire. He put it all together in one of our bowls and we stood around it on the back porch (outside, for safety), transfixed on the strangely colored flames as it danced around the edge of the ceramic dish.

Then he made another one with blue flame, which wasn't nearly as impressive since a lot of flame actually is blue in real life. It's really amazing to me that after all this time, after inventing the wheel and discovering electricity and getting TV and the Internet and having millions and millions of websites full of information so readily available to us - fire is still such a novelty.

The evening ended with all of us (including my other roommate Gabe) in the living room, sprawled out on the couch, chairs and carpet, coloring pictures again. Only this time, Gabe had hooked his laptop and awesome speakers up to our TV and we were watching crazy music videos on YouTube for dubstep songs. Really, really loudly. In the middle of the night.

Now it's the morning, and I wanted to comment on a few things people said on yesterday's blog post:

"I just hate all movies involving talking dogs. Any and all movies. So, I can't even." -Afton
I don't think you understand how much this statement resonates with me. I seriously loathe talking dog movies. But it's specifically movies where REAL dogs are physically talking (ie. behaving like humans). I'm totally fine with animated dogs talking, or in the case of Milo and Otis, real dogs behaving like dogs but having a voice-over of their thoughts. As long as they don't use movie magic to make their mouths move, I'm okay with it.

"I have never watched Milo and Otis! I am really bad at movies. Like, there are a disproportionate amount of movies that "everybody's seen" that I haven't. xD" -Manar
I'm terrible at movies as well. My friends actually used to joke about it. I'm always that girl who, when asked, "You know in that one movie where the guy..." "Haven't seen it." The problem is, there are so many older movies that people always say are "classics!" but, there are also so many NEW movies each year, when do I ever have time to go back and watch the ones I missed? And who thinks, "Hey. Today seems like a good day to finally go back and watch the Sixth Sense." You know what I mean?

"It was 2 years since you were living in London? Wow I've been following your blog for a long time xD and thats not even when I started." -Ben
It's crazy to me, too. It feels like so long ago, and it's amazing to think some of you guys have been with me that long (or longer!). To be perfectly honest, you blog readers know almost everything that happens in my life. It means a lot that you guys care so much, and I've been happy to share it with you. :) Thanks for being here with me, guys.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 11: Milo and Otis.

2011-08-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Well. This morning sucked. I am tired of thinking about it though, so I won't delve into a six paragraph long rant about how I lost everything on my iPad and had to restore it to its original factory settings. Worst.

Instead, I will talk today about the movie Milo and Otis. My roommate Justin has been pestering me to watch it for literally four months (that's how long we've had the dvd from Netflix) since it was his favorite movie as a child. We finally sat down last night to watch it, and while I am totally worthless at staying awake during movies/tv at night, I made it at least 2/3 of the way into the film (we'll be finishing it tonight). I know it was made a long time ago and is meant for kids, but I was SO BLOWN AWAY AT HOW GOOD IT IS.

I seriously don't understand how they filmed some of those scenes. Especially the ones where Otis is being all protective of the chicken egg, or when he and Milo are watching the baby chick hatch together, or when Otis is pestering the toad, or when any of the kittens jump/fall into the floating box. Not to mention how they made a dog and a cat appear to be best friends and have them actually interacting with each other as if they're thinking like humans.

I was just so impressed. I wish more movies were like this one. It's such a cute and playful narrative documentary of animal life and I just love it. I can't believe I had never seen this movie before. What was I doing as a child??

I spent most of this afternoon editing a video (one that took much longer than standard vlog-editing) and it's definitely a relief to be watching it export now. I had so much footage to sort through for this one. That's the worst part of video editing -- having too much footage and having to dig to find what you want to use. It's so time consuming and tedious. I guess on the flip side, not having enough footage and having to make it stretch is actually worse. Well, whatever the case, it's convenient when you have just the right amount of footage.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about leaving the country on Monday (and going to a place I've never been before, Poland eek) so I'm just very glad I have virtually no plans for the next three days. I'm looking forward to just relaxing, catching up on TV shows (I haven't even started watching the new season of Torchwood) and packing for my trip. It's not like I haven't traveled to foreign countries by myself before, I just haven't really mentally prepared for this particular trip yet. I'm really glad I am stopping in London before heading to Poland. Going to Warsaw will be new and exciting and scary, but London is familiar.

I truly cannot believe how long it's been since I was "living" there. It's been two whole years next month actually, and I am itching to go back. There are so many people I want to see, restaurants I want to eat at, sights I want to see. I hope I can fit it all in my three days there!

Well, blogging about Milo and Otis made me really want to finish the movie, so I'm going to go find Justin and make that happen. I think he's watching stupid boring pre-season football. I wonder if I can make him switch it.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 10: Drinking Night.

2011-08-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday night, so as usual, I'm at Project Night again. There are very few people here this week, so instead of being productive, Alexander decided to redub the evening as "Drinking Night". I've now had 2 shots of something I couldn't identify and there's currently a third sitting in front of me. So, the rest of this blog post will be interesting. Also, my "project" tonight was cleaning out my inbox/replying to emails. So. Lucky you, people I am emailing tonight.

In bloggy related life things, we took Eia out to Beth's Cafe for her birthday last night, which is one of my favorite diners in Seattle. I think it was on 'Man vs. Food' one time, actually. They're pretty famous for their out-of-control twelve egg omelette (though the menu explicitly states there is no prize for finishing the omelette other than the feeling of a job well done). I have never tried the twelve egg omelette, myself. Someday. Maybe someday.

Anyway, I personally love Beth's because 1. I love places where you can order breakfast all day long and 2. the walls are completely covered in drawings by past customers. So we went out for food around 12:30 at night, we all ordered these freaking huge plates of food, and we colored.

I am so obsessed with coloring lately. Have you see my new tumblr about that very topic? I'm just kidding. Of course you have. In fact, you're already following it. Right?

Oh. Oh no. This third shot is not good at all. I said that out loud, and Alexander just told me, "just shoot it. That's the fastest way to get rid of a drink you don't like." I asked, "Oh, shoot it? Just drink all the alcohol, then you don't have to drink it anymore? Great idea. Why have I never thought of that before?"

Oh yeah! Today the My Little Pony episode of Know Your Meme went live, and I was super nervous about it because I want their fandom to like me, and you never know if people will think you've misrepresented them or something. But everyone seemed to really like it! The response on YouTube, Equestria Daily and the actual Know Your Meme site were super positive, so that was a huge relief. I'm pretty proud of the episode, and I'm so glad I've gotten to keep helping with the new KYM episodes.

I mentioned the other day that I'm going to Poland? Yeah, they booked my ticket today so I can officially say, I will be in Warsaw, Poland from the 19-22 of August for this YouTube event called YouStars Live. I actually don't know a ton about what is actually happening there, but it's essentially a meetup, in Poland. Myself and a handful of other YouTubers will be doing panels/talks and then there are some parties and general YouTubey fun. If you live anywhere near that area, you should really come. Because, let's be honest, I doubt I'll ever be in Poland again.

You know, I am thinking back right now, and I honestly don't think I have ever written a blog post while drinking before. This is a really surreal experience. Taking something that's so familiar and normal and making it slightly more outwardly difficult... is weird. This is enough to constitute a BEDA post, right? Am I done? I think I'm done. It feels like I have been typing forever. On that note, I think I'll go word-vom on some other realm of the Internet now. So... bye.

Disclaimer: I'm 23. So this is okay.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 9: Game Night!

2011-08-09T20:13:00.001-07:00

I feel like every moment since I've gotten home from VidCon has just been a nonstop party. And in a way, it is. From spending time with friends to the Renaissance Faire to last night's game-night... I really haven't slowed down one bit. And today is Eia's twenty-third birthday, so naturally we have to take her out!

But before I get ahead of myself, game night.

I don't know if I have made explicitly clear how much I love my house. I live in this big old college house near the University of Washington (lovingly dubbed the "Mammoth Caves" off a Apples to Apples card from nearly three years ago) and while it's not very wonderfully decorated and maybe everything doesn't work exactly as it should, it has so much charm. The kitchen is huge and has a big island in the middle for cooking, the dining room has a big window out to the back yard, the living room is so comfortable and inviting - not to mention the house is fantastic for parties. We have had so, so many amazing parties here.

Anyway, last night was no exception. I had 8-9 friends over to play all these board games I bought recently, and everything was just so much fun. We started out the night by buying two bags of those break-off cookies, and then Ariana waltzed in with two more bags, so before the game-playing even started we made about something like four-five batches of warm gooey cookies. After loading them all up on plates, we headed to the dining room and began the games.

I'm going to be making a video about all of the games we played soon, so I don't want to give too much away, but man. I think playing silly board games is one of the things I enjoy doing most with my Seattle friends. It just gets so ridiculously crazy so fast. Especially when it's a game that encourages silly behavior.

We took a big break in the middle of the board gaming to color a bunch more pictures in my growing collection of coloring books (I'm just going to keep plugging this tumblr until I have you all submitting to it, haha) and I was amazed at the artistic skill in crayon shading in some of my friends. Especially after a few of what Justin likes to call his "Forever Panther" drink.

The night continued uproariously with the boys flying this rogue remote control helicopter all around the house and the girls worrying it was going to get tangled in their hair. We ordered pizza and kept daring Justin to send the helicopter out to get it when the pizza delivery guy got to the house, but no one could fly it quite well enough to accomplish such a feat.

A lot of people ended up staying over, which is always fun, and it was another fairly late night. But hey. It's summer. We can do whatever we want. Even on Monday nights.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 8: Green goop.

2011-08-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't really done too much since my last blog post, but I have a bunch of friends coming over for a games night in a little while and I can't guarantee they wont be gone by midnight, so here I am. BEDA day 8. Trying to find something to say.

Last night I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones with Liz, Ariana and Justin. I will admit, I was super, super tired so I was nodding off a little at parts, but I did really like what I managed to see. I'll be watching more in the next few days hopefully, so I'll give an update about that as it's relevant.

Liz and I both passed out extremely early last night (the faire really takes it out of you) so my day began around 8:30. Most of the morning was spent replying to emails I missed over the weekend and having a skype conference about a trip to Poland I may or may not be taking next week (details forthcoming, I promise). Around one, Liz and I drove up to Panera by the mall and had a freaking FEAST there (we were both just ravenous; looking back, I don't even remember tasting my tomato soup and bread-bowl combo) and then spent some time wandering around a Tokyo gifts store exclaiming about how much we love looking at cute things (such as Hello Kitty and erasers shaped like unicorns and sushi) and shopping for a birthday present for Eia (who turns 23 tomorrow!).

The afternoon has been spent cleaning up my living room for my party, coloring a picture of Rapunzel for my new tumblr, and trying to cover my ridiculous face sunburn with makeup.

I think I've resigned myself to the fact that today's blog post will just be short. In the mean time, I will leave you with this thought - I wish it were easier to get aloe vera gel onto one's scalp. Because no one wants green goop just chillin' in their hair. Sigh.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 7: RENN FAIRE!

2011-08-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

My skin is so hot right now.

I don't get sunburned very often, but when it does happen, it happens badly. I spent all weekend at the Renaissance Faire (which was a total and complete blast) but the last few hours there today completely destroyed me. I have weird tan-lines between my sunburns in the shape of off the shoulder Renaissance blouses and a leather purse strap across my chest. Dumbest souvenir ever.

But anyway! I got up (relatively) early yesterday and packed up the car with Liz and Ariana. We put on our Medieval best and headed out for the "Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire". It's about 40 minutes away, and let me tell you, 40 minutes in a car wearing a tightly laced bodice is an adventure. Bodices were not intended for use on car rides; that much is clear.

We got to the faire-grounds and ditched our car in the camping area before heading over to the festival itself. None of our other friends were there yet, so we spent the next hour or two picking out an outfit for Ariana, as she didn't actually own any medieval garb yet. I suckered myself into buying a new short sleeved red chemise that matches my gold and black costume pieces better (and gives me more of a pirate look) and a sturdy leather belt (to hold all my accessories, since my old one had been breaking).

After our shopping adventures, we met up with Eia, our friends Gabe, Nick and Justin, as well as the whole crew of guys we met at LAST year's Renaissance Faire. It was funny to have planned to come together this year, since last year we ended up camping right next to each other on mere accident (and then becoming friends). So anyway, we found Tyler, Ted, Trevor, AJ and Jeremy wandering around decked in furs and holding chalices, just as we would have expected to find them.

I'm going to be honest... since it was the Renaissance Fair, most of the rest of the day was spent eating, drinking, and wandering around the fairgrounds looking for people who were having parties we could crash. We spent a good deal of time at our own campsite, but headed to another tent called "Paisley Glen" later in the evening where wenches and pirates were making mixed drinks, and of course had our (now annual) trip to Ye Old Tavern Bar where we downed spiced mead and erupted into raucous singing with little regard to those around us.

The evening ended with a moderately drunken scramble to get everyone situated into tents (though for some reason we had a 12 person tent that only 2 people ended up sleeping in while at least 4 people slept in their cars) as well as the horribly stumbly trips to the port-a-potty in the dark (naturally the worst part of the renaissance weekend). Seriously. Using a port-a-potty is bad enough, but when you can't actually see anything you're doing? Worst. Luckily we had these glowstick bracelets that helped a tiny bit... just the tiniest bit.

Anyway, we all woke up the next morning groggy, covered in dew, and in rumpled half put together versions of the previous day's outfits. Tyler had this dinky little grill he used to make us a potato/peppers/onion/egg scramble for breakfast (that only took about an hour to make, which was hilarious). While he cooked, we laughed at ourselves and the state of our campsite (I wish I had a picture to show you -- not only were there red solo cups and empty bottles EVERYWHERE, the wreckage was period appropriately decorated with nerf battle axes and a few various swords sticking out of the ground, claiming the territory as our own). It was seriously the funniest aftermath of a nerdy party I've ever seen.

The faire opened again at ten so we did our best to make ourselves look decent without showering, laced ourselves back into our outfits, and set out for the fairegrounds. Today was a very low-key day at the faire, which was nice. We stopped by the tavern (where we found a curly blonde wig one of us had lost the night before, propped up on the head of a dragon that decorated the bar - which was hilarious) and stood awhile by the misters they had against the back wall. It was hot today. Much hotter than Saturday.

I kept cycling between "this mist feels amazing", "wait, I'm actually soaking wet right now," and "how did I dry that fast, I'm hot again". Eventually we decided to get some food (I got an ear of corn and a chocolate/banana crepe) and watched a bit of the Queen's Pike and Rifle. Once we got bored of that we just found a shady bit of hay to sit on and watched the faire-goers stroll by in their outfits, enjoying the slight breeze and chatting with each other. There was this guy dressed as a.. I'm not even sure what. A goat man or something? But he literally spent the whole weekend just creeping around in a creepy manner walking all goat-like and staring at people, and my friends yelled at me when he locked eyes with me from across the field and waggled his fingers in this totally weirdo way -- and I waved back. Haha. Whatever! The goat man cracked me up!

Mid-afternoon we headed back over to the camp to pack up our tent and think about heading home. This was the point of the day that I'm sure we all got terribly sunburned, as I could feel the rays beating down and we transported stuff to the cars, tore down the tent, and said our goodbyes. Weirdest tanlines. Skin is so hot. Totally worth it.

Overall, this was another successful Renaissance Faire. I freaking love dressing up and being around other people who love this stuff too. I was telling my friends, Renn Faire is basically just a glorified weekend of playing dress-up, but I am totally okay with that. It also involves camping, eating, and spending time with good friends; three of my favorite pastimes.

So, I had a great weekend, I'm sad it's over, and I think I'm going to go put more aloe all over my body. :)

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 6: VidCon wrap up and coloring.

2011-08-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

"Hey can I roast my pork chop?" "Oh, we don't need to take all 64 coals." "And to eat it I just... eat it, right?" "It's so weird just seeing a block on fire floating in midair!" "Oh my god! Oh my god the cow's on fire!!" "Do we get horses? No.. the saddles are for the pigs. You can ride them."

This is what I am hearing from the other side of my room (courtesy of Ariana) as I type this. I just spent the better part of the last 2-3 hours learning how to play Minecraft with her and her brother Aaron (the multiplayer mode). I had actually bought the game about six months ago, but it's just been sitting on my desktop since I remember logging in way back then, walking around a few times, hitting a couple blocks and saying, "I don't get this".

Now, one enthusiastic friend and an evening of leanring later and I know how to craft things, dig a crappy tunnel, put torches on walls, fight spiders and open and close doors. I still don't really get it, but I can see why people spend hours and hours making things in this game.

Anyway, she's still playing with her brother on Skype, but I am diligently back on my laptop, writing my August 6th blog post early because I am heading out of town for the Renaissance Faire tomorrow morning and know I wont have time there.

I had to run some errands today, and in the midst of the boring I made a trip to the post office. There were more packages waiting for me (I think the post office workers have grown accustomed to seeing me walk out with armfuls of envelopes and boxes at this point) but this time the packages gave me an idea. As I opened my fifth My Little Pony coloring book, it hit me that I should really be doing something with these gifts. And since coloring books seem to be the most common gift I've received, the new tumblr effyeahcoloringbooks was born.

Basically I made a tumblr for my friends and I to upload and submit pictures that we've colored in coloring books. I've also opened it for public submissions, so feel free to add your own pictures to the collection! I am way too ridiculously excited about this new project. So excited, in fact, that Ariana and I went to Toys 'R Us tonight and each bought a 96 pack of brand new crayons (with built in sharpener!).

Aaaanyway. Back to VidCon. Haha. This has been the most disjointed blog series in my history of blogging. I left off at the final day of VidCon, which was Saturday.

SATURDAY

I.. can't remember how the day started. I actually just said, "Hey Ariana, what did we do on Saturday?" and we both sat here wracking our brains for a moment, and all we could come up with was that we "slept in, said goodbye to Andy (who had to fly home early), got some food with the group over at the mall, watched some mainstage stuff," etc etc. I know I did riveting things all day, but my mind is so foggy from everything that went on that weekend that I think this is the best I can do.

We had sound check for the big show around 7, which was pretty fun. Most of it consisted of milling about the stage with Julia Nunes, DaveDays, Chameleon Circuit and Nice Peter while we waited for our turn to fiddle with audio settings and tap on microphones. After soundcheck, I headed upstairs to get changed into my ALL CAPS dress and attempt to fix my hair and things, and then spent the rest of the time before the show hanging with Alex, as we were both helping each other get pumped for our performances that night (though I was more nervous for mine and he was more excited for Chameleon Circuit).

As it got closer to show time, I found myself in the green room with Alex, Charlie, Hank, Katherine and Frezned. Generally I don't get stage fright for shows, since I've done this kind fo stuff enough for it to almost feel like second nature. But while a smaller sized show might feel normal to me, you can never really prepare yourself for a crowd of THOUSANDS of people. There were just so many people out there.

Once the show started, I was fine. I think Luke and I both did really well as far as I could tell, and there were moments when the audience was definitely louder than we were. Highlights of the show included "DJ Munday" in the corner wearing shades and running our tracks for us, Luke and I both crowd surfing (seriously) and more people than I even thought possible coming onstage during "Don't Unplug Me". It was by far my favorite ALL CAPS show of all time and I was just so filled with love for VidCon for them letting us play such a huge event. I'm not sure anything will ever quite top it.

Just like last year there were the immediate post-show onstage hugs with John and Hank, and before I knew it, I was seated on the side of the stage on the VidCon couch waiting for Chameleon Circuit to come on. Let me just say, they were incredible. It was such an interesting experience for me -- when Alex and I were dating, that band was something I watched him struggle to keep going with -- so seeing them all onstage being such rockstars... it's really fun to watch your friends succeed. :)

After the show we launched immediately into the dance party. It was funny - I spent so much of VidCon being nervous for the ALL CAPS show that when it was finally over, I realized I only had a short amount of time before the whole conference was over. So even though most of my friends ran out around midnight to freak out over Pottermore stuff, in that moment I just couldn't be bothered. I stayed for every last second of that dance party, shaking it with Eddplant and Alex until we were too tired to dance anymore. I think that was seriously the highlight of my whole weekend. Moreso than the ALL CAPS show even -- just feeling so much relief and the post-show high and putting every ounce of energy I had left into having as much fun as possible at a dance with mostly people I'd never met before, as well as a small handful of friends.

After the dance I returned to reality (well, my reality) and found my other friends in my hotel room all hunched over laptops logging into Pottermore to find the magic quill and attempting to get in the beta. I went into panic mode, ripping my laptop away from someone (I think it was Sarah) and furiously clicking until I secured myself a username.

After everyone had successfully registered, we were able to relax and finished out the con with a good old fashioned hotel room party. It was another super late night, but I wouldn't have wanted to end VidCon any other way. It was such a perfect close to a relatively fantastic weekend.

SUNDAY

I'm getting really tired so I'm going to finish this VidCon trip write-up as a list.

1. Packing up our stuff and saying goodbye to whoever we managed to find at the hotel before leaving.
2. Going out to breakfast with everyone at IHOP, getting to chat with Melissa and the other Mischief Management about VidCon vs. LeakyCon.
3. Heading to Echobase to hang out.
4. Spending a few HOURS taking long-exposure photos in the back yard using various lighted props such as sparklers, light sabers, flashlights, and a huge torch on fire made by John Noe.
5. Somehow getting talked into staying at the Hyatt another night with Alex and his cousin Danny.
6. Seeing Crazy, Stupid, Love with the girls the next day. It not being very good.
7. Brainstorming a new project idea with Hayley all afternoon.
8. Working on aforementioned project all evening.
9. BBQ restaurant for dinner with AMAZING BISCUITS - wait. I think we've come full circle here.

My time in LA for VidCon was really, really nice. I'm so thankful every day that I am part of this wonderful YouTube community, and getting to spend these lovely little weekends together "irl" just solidifies that for me. I wouldn't want my life to be any other way. :)

Fights taken: 17

BEDA 5: VidCon Day 1 and Ponies.

2011-08-05T17:11:00.001-07:00

What to write about, what to write about..... VidCon or the My Little Pony/Know Your Meme shoot... I might try to summarize and do both. :) Marathon writing day!

So! Last night I headed over to Cheezburger Headquarters here in Seattle to meet up with Forest, Jordan and David (the rest of the Know Your Meme team) to shoot a very special episode of KYM. I mean, I guess from the outside it's a fairly normal episode, but it was special to me. We were delving into the word of Bronies, the internet subculture of older male fans of the show Friendship is Magic. I was particularly excited to be involved in this episode, since I myself am a huge fan of the show and find myself delighting in pony memes a bit more often than may be healthy.

Forest texted me before I left instructing me to "bring ponies". Jordan had been worried we were going to need to make a Target run for props, but I definitely had us covered. Here's one section of the set:

This was also the first episode that I had a larger speaking role in, which I can't wait for all of your guys to see. We spent the next six hours filming the episode. I learned how to use a teleprompter (can you believe in all my years of making videos I've never used one before?) and near the end we spent more time laughing than we actually spent filming. I can't tell you how hot that little room got with cameras and tvs and computers running for that long. Not to mention the white lab coats we have to wear as our costumes.

So, it's amazing that only a few months ago I was falling into this crazy MLP fandom and now here I am getting to play a Internet Scientist unfolding the mysteries of the web on the very same topic. My life continues to befuddle me.

Anyway! VidCon!

FRIDAY

We woke up Friday morning, returned the ConTour van, and zipped back over to the Hyatt for the festivities. The day started with Alex Carpenter playing a morning "sleepytime show", at which I laid on my stomach across a rather large pile of pillows. I don't understand why we don't do all concerts this way.

I think that afternoon we filmed my PajamaCam: VidCon video, but I don't want to give anything away about that so I'm just going to keep my mouth shut until I post it next week.

Around 2 we had an ALL CAPS meetup with some other YouTubers there as well; it was crazy seeing so many people spill into our assigned ballroom and line up to meet us. I will never get used to it, guys. Never. I met so many lovely people and was given some fun little presents (like a MLP activity book and a wall scroll with Voldemort's face on it).

That afternoon Jason, Alex, Mike and Jimmy had another one of their Playlist Live-inspired guerrilla shows in a hallway, which was super fun. I remember now that I sat with Alex Day for this show and started to realize we couldn't walk two steps anywhere without being stopped. It was the most bizarre experience. I mean it was mostly because of him - we literally couldn't go anywhere without girls swarming around in a circle. Swarming. In a circle. He handles it really well though, better than I do.

I know I always say this but I am actually losing track of what happened which days now. Let's see. Friday night was the first evening of shows, and I was completely blown away by the Gregory Brothers. I mean, Autotune the News is great but their live show is just incredible. Especially when the actual Double Rainbow guy came onstage. He was the HAPPIEST man I have ever seen in my entire life. And he just films everything. All the time. It's adorable.

My friends and I got a picture with him after the show actually, and he filmed use taking the picture with him. I will cherish that photo for the rest of my life, haha.

That night we just wandered around the hotel, trying to get into general conference-related mischief, but ended up spending most of the evening at the X-Bar doing Washington Apple shots around a circular table. And at some point we went to bed. Really late. I don't know. It's been a whole week guys, my memory is foggy.

The most incredible day of VidCon was Saturday anyway, so I'll save it for tomorrow. :)

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 4: Crappy day.

2011-08-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

I'm having a crappy day. My Internet has been down for over 24 hours, which is frustrating in itself, but I have been gone so long and have so much I need to do online that battling with finding wifi is just really not something I wanted to spend my time doing this week.

On top of that, I got a tax adjustment form from the IRS the other day and apparently I owe the government over $1000 from my 2009 form. This is terrible news, as I'm sure is obvious. I just got off the phone with a very apathetic man who basically told me there is nothing I can do, so I guess this is goodbye, money.

There is all sorts of fun VidCon stuff I want to write about but today I am just grumpy, feeling cheated by the government, and wishing I could actually reply to the 50+ emails waiting in my inbox on a real computer.

In non-Internet related news, I went grocery shopping last night and they had those amazing pillsbury grands biscuits on sale for .99 cents. So, continuing the theme of blogging about biscuits this month, I made them for breakfast today and they were amazing. So I suppose my day hasn't been all bad.

Last night I went to Project Night as I normally do on Wednesdays, and it was the most productive Project Night I have ever participated in, as I spent the entire time utilizing the fact that I had a working Internet connection and fit as much work in as I possibly could. As well as getting in multiple twitter battles with other people at Project Night on whether the couch or the dining room table was a better place to sit.

Well, save for this short break to climb inside a large box:

I was going to head out around 11, but then one of my friends wanted to beta test his new card game on us, so I ended up staying fairly late. The card game was based on Monopoly, which was kind of interesting (but still frustrating and slow, as is the case with real Monopoly). I ended up with all the purple properties, one railroad and a light blue property, which was pretty crappy in terms of wanting to have a real chance at winning. It was fun being a game tester in general though, even though I wasn't the hugest fan of the particular one we were playing last night.

Anyway, I'll return to happy fun VidCon Kristina tomorrow. For now, I am choosing to remain as annoyed, money-owing WhineTown Kristina.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 3: Gearing up for VidCon.

2011-08-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY

It was strange to realize that VidCon hadn't even really started yet when we woke up already exhausted on Thursday from all the fun we'd had the day prior. It was really feeling like a con already, pulling myself out of bed after only about 5 hours of sleep. YouTubers from all over were spilling into the hotel now, and I spent the morning finding and saying hi to friends left and right. In the afternoon I went out to sit by the pool with Rosi and Sam, which was lovely, especially when we were joined by Kayley and her posse she'd been hanging with. As it neared the time I needed to leave (I was playing the final ConTour show with everyone in Santa Monica that evening) the remaining non-show friends became more and more persistent in begging me to skip the show and stay.

But, there was no way. XD After hearing about the tour (though twitter, videos, text messages) I'd been missing since LeakyCon, there wasn't a doubt in my mind where I wanted to be that night. I left with Ariana around four in the afternoon and finally met up with everyone at the library venue an hour or so before the show was to start. It was so, so nice to be with everyone again. Even though I only got one day, it still was like I got to be involved in the tour, just a little bit.

The show went well. I met and hugged lots of fans and I got some pretty incredible gifts from people (like a painting of a still from one of my videos, which is incredible and also I had to send it home with some friends of mine who drove to VidCon from Seattle since it was so big). On the one hand it was just like any other show (after touring all summer and fall of 2010, the shows start to bleed together) but on the other hand, that was exactly what I wanted. The familiarity of tour that I had to miss this summer.

Anyhow, everyone hopped onstage with lightsabers for California Dorks like normal, the ALL CAPS show was fun (even if we were a little bit rusty) and afterwards, I hopped in a car with all the girls where we proceeded to stop at McDonald's to get some nuggs. What a night.

Once we got back to the VidCon hotel that night, all there was left to do was look for a party. We wandered around a bit, running into friends and chatting before finally scoping out the District Lines party on the VIP floor. I chatted with a lot of different people while we were up there, including meeting Hannah Harto from "My Drunk Kitchen" and proceeding to fangirl like crazy when I found out she knew who I was/had seen my videos. So, that was pretty sweet.

We ran into Kayley/Liam/Ed again and then the night sort of devolved into us hogging the free photobooth that had been set up in the back room and walking out much later with handfuls of stupid photos of ourselves, sticking our tongues out and seeing how many faces we could fit into those tiny boxes. Our hotel room situation was kind of crowded so I ended up going back to EchoBase with Alex, Jason, Andy and Sammy and Mike where I slept on a mattress in the middle of the dining room floor. This is only important because it was such a funny spot for the mattress to go. Anyway, I went to bed super late again, keeping up with the spirit of the con. I was good and tired for the next day, which was the actual first day of VidCon.

Back in present day terms, I have spent all day battling with my Internet connection so I could post my VidCon recap video, so I am kind of exhausted from being on the computer. Today's blog will be short, but I'll be back tomorrow with more VidCon goodness.

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 2: Beach day!

2011-08-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

I'm typing my second BEDA post on my flight from LAX to SEA, trying desperately to process that last week I've spent down here in Southern California. You would honestly think that after awhile, traveling would stop affecting a person in new ways, but it never really does. Every time I walk through the airport, about to board a flight bound for home, I can actually feel the weight of my new experiences and thoughts and ideas resting on my shoulders.

TUESDAY

This particular trip to LA started out calmly and relaxingly. I arrived in town at midday, when I was picked up (along with Forest) by Ariana and Rosi. She took us to the mall to get some food and we ended up all buying new pairs of sunglasses. I'd never owned a pair of aviators before because I was afraid they made me look like a douche, but everyone insisted I looked cool, so. After drooling over some Betsey Johnson dresses (which I've never REALLY understood the appeal of beyond looking, as they're just so freaking expensive) we went to Ariana's new apartment (which is adorable).

I had a phone interview for a radio show scheduled that evening for 9:15 pm, so we had a bit of a laptop party (scrolling through Tumblr together) while we waited for that to happen. The interview itself was incredibly bizarre, but the guy was fun and had a lot to ask me about YouTube and Harry Potter and my Buffy video. My friends were listening and laughing from the living room, and lots of people from twitter tuned in as well, which was nice.

It was such an easy, lovely night with friends. It was nice to get to spend some time with Rosi in a casual setting (usually I only get to see her at conferences) and there was no rush or stress in anything we were doing.

WEDNESDAY

As far as days with no rush or stress go, though, Wednesday was even more brilliant. It's funny, because I tend to do a lot of traveling in the summer, but very rarely would I constitute any of these trips as a "summer vacation", as they generally involve playing music or a schedule of events I need to be at, etc. But the Wednesday before VidCon, all we were concerned about was having a fantastic day at the beach (after Ariana made us all breakfast in her new kitchen).

We were joined by Tyler Nicholas, and together, the five of us packed a little picnic of snacks, threw our books and towels in beach bags, and set off for the beach. We did have to stop briefly at Target because for some reason I didn't try on the bathing suit I packed before tossing it in my suitcase (it was from two summers ago) and it was weirdly just way too big for me. So anyway, I bought a new bikini at Target (I am actually embarrassed about the number of times I've needed to buy new swimsuits on vacations for various reasons) and then we had a momentary holdup while all three of us girls decided we needed to randomly buy high heeled shoes.

Eventually we were back on our way though, headed to Zuma Beach in Malibu. It was such a beautiful, beautiful day. The beach wasn't too terribly crowded. The sun was high in the sky, and the waves were lapping gently against the shore in a rhythmic cadence while we chatted, read books, and let the warmth soak into our skin.

I know I am totally spoiled at the number of times I've had the pleasure of lying on the beach in the sun already this year, but it just never gets old. I love it so much.

Once the shadows started getting long, we packed up our things and headed back to Ariana's to wash up and get ready to move into the VidCon hotel for the rest of the week. We arrived around 8ish and were immediately greeted by so many familiar faces. After dumping our stuff in the room, we crossed the street to the usual mall food area to find ourselves some dinner, deciding on BJ's. Midway into our meal we were joined by Alex Day and John Green, which was nice. Before long though, more and more people started showing up, including the whole of most of the UK YouTube group of people I had been so exited to see again. This was the moment it really started feeling like VidCon.

After dinner, Alex gave us a tour of the penthouse he was sharing with Charlie McDonnell, then my group headed back to our room to unpack a little bit and settle in. After a little while, Ariana and Tyler headed out to stay with one other friends, and I went back up to Alex's room to chat and catch up a little bit, as it had been a good long while since he and I had even seen each other.

It was a good start to what was sure to be a crazy week. :)

Flights taken: 17

BEDA 1: Oops. Doing BEDA.

2011-08-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

You know, I really wasn't going to do Blog Every Day in August. I wasn't.

But then tonight I was having dinner at this barbecue place in LA with a bunch of my friends, and Jason asked us, "do you guys think I should do Vlog Every Day in August?" Then Hayley started flailing (like she does) because she didn't realize it was August already and needed to make sure she got back to EchoBase in time to write her first post of the month. Long story short, literally everything Hayley and I do is a competition, so here I am. Blogging. Every day in August. You may thank her (and Jason) for that.

I am traveling so much this month, so I know I will regret this decision, but sometimes I think that makes the project more exciting. Plus I will have to write all about VidCon and all my time down here in LA so I'm already set for at least the first few days of this month.

I'll go more in detail in the coming blog posts, but I've had a lot of fun down here with the whole VidCon experience. I got to see so many old friends, I made some new friends, I danced a lot, and I got a lot of ponies. You know, the usual.

Oh also, that barbecue place had the greatest biscuits. I ate three. Guys, while I am sitting in the middle of the couch beside Hayley (who's also blogging at the same time; we're adorable) and Jason is filming a vlog and Luke is playing Plants vs. Zombies, the only thing I can really think to blog about is biscuits.

This just isn't working. Everyone keeps yelling at me. This has been day one of BEDA, everyone. I will see you here tomorrow, same time, same place. Impromptu month long commitment to blogging, commence!

Flights taken: 16

LeakyCon: DAY FOUR/FIVE

2011-07-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY

I have been putting off writing this last segment of the trip because 1. it starts emotionally, again, and 2. getting to the end of writing my LeakyCon blogs almost feels like saying goodbye a second time. But life presses on regardless, so… I got up early on Saturday morning (after an incredibly late night) so I could go to the panel that Esther Earl's parents were hosting. I sat next to Lauren and Matt (with Eia by my other side) and found myself on the verge of tears for the next hour as her parents spoke about the events of their daughter's death and how nerdfighters and YouTube helped. They talked about how she got to go to the first LeakyCon and how her dad is writing a book about her life and the impact the internet had on her condition. They read little excerpts from her diary, told funny anecdotes, and said sad things as well. I held Lauren's hand for a lot of it.

It's a strange situation, because I never personally met Esther. I never really spoke to her either, though since her death I've noticed she did comment on my Facebook on more than one occasion. But more importantly, what I didn't know is what a big fiveawesomegirls fan she was. And how a lot of her core group of friends, Catitude, met BECAUSE of fiveawesomegirls. It was pretty powerful and crippling at the same time, seeing these wonderful people that are so close that lost someone so special to them, knowing I indirectly had a hand in them meeting in the first place. I really had no idea. None of the fiveawesomegirls did. We were just making videos, being ourselves, often complaining about how much work it was - but we had literally no idea what we were actually doing. I don't think the full gravity of our project really hit me until I sat in that room with all of Esther's friends and family.

It made me really think about the people who, in turn, inspired ME. Strangely enough, two of my biggest inspirations were in that room with me that day as well. After hugging Lauren and Matt and Eia and various members of Catitude, I bee-lined my way back to hug both Hank Green and Paul DeGeorge, and made sure to tell both of them how much I owe them for the things I'VE accomplished in the last few years. If it wasn't for Harry and the Potters, I would have never started a wizard rock band and met all my best friends, and if it wasn't for wizard rock - I never would have joined YouTube. Hank was the first person to watch a video of mine and really see something there, and I am thankful every day of that first Project 4 Awesome in 2007 when he included my video in one of the emails he sent out for nerdfighters to promote. I think about that day every time I make a video, honestly.

Anyway, the whole event was a vastly personal emotional experience so I wont go in to extreme detail, but I can say that other conference-goers were pretty confused when the doors opened afterward and a whole room full of crying people spilled out. We just stood there for awhile, laugh-crying, hugging each other and really appreciating the time we have with the people we love.

It was hard to know what to do after something like that, but luckily Eia and I ran into Ariana and Sam and Elizabeth who were waiting in line for the keynote with Evanna Lynch, Scarlett Byrne, Chris Rankin and all of the kid actors from Deathly Hallows part 2. We got in line with them and before long were back in the main ballroom. This keynote was absolutely adorable. All of the kids were so cute, and I was surprised by how well spoked a few of them were. There were so many quotes from them being tweeted, like about Young Snape's aversion to lemon meringue pie ("…it's so... sweet!") and little Hugo Weasley's tips on acting "Just always have a smile on your face!" Afterward they added Evanna Lynch, Chris Ranking and Scarlett Byrne, which was also fun, but it's hard to top seven adorable children.

We left near the end to go get food and headed over to Jack's Grill with the whole group of girls I'd been spending most of LeakyCon with. There was a lot of goofing around and figuring out logistics for the ball that night, and more importantly, the lunch ended with these delicious passion fruit flavored cheesecake balls. I wish I could have another one right now, actually.

After lunch, even though it was relatively early, most of my friends all went back to their hotel rooms to get ready for the ball. For those who have never been to a Harry Potter conference, the ball is a Big. Deal. It's always the last night of the conference so everyone is on an "I don't ever want to go home" high, and people treat it like prom with how dressed up everyone gets. I love it so much. Eia and I got ready with Kayley and our new friend Abby Larus in our room before heading over to the room of Ariana, Sammy, Sam, Rosi and Rachael to take pictures and make an entrance at the ball together. Everyone was just in such a good mood and so happy and goofy, and moreover, everyone looked so gorgeous.

Once we got to the ball (with our inconspicuous 'coffee cups') everyone took straight to the dance floor. The music was fun, everyone's hard work on hair and makeup became instantly pointless, and we were all surrounded by everyone we love - it was truly the perfect ending to LeakyCon. For the most part we stayed in the same central location in the heart of the dance floor (save for a quick trip to Jack's for Long Island Iced Teas) until the very end of the ball. At that point we did the (now tradition) sing-a-long to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" not once but twice, onstage with various other Leaky Staffers, Starkid members, wizard rockers and HP cast members. Then they had a hard time getting anyone OFF the stage, which was to be expected.

The dance itself ended all too soon, but knowing most of us were going home the next day, there was no question that the celebration would keep going. We caught wind of a party in someone's suite, so my friends and I headed up there for another hour or two (I've really lost track of the actual course of my night). It was a relatively relaxed party, though for some reason I seem to remember Darren Criss and Evanna Lynch taking pictures in a wicker basket? (maybe I had more to drink than I thought) and I ended up with marker drawings of a pony and Spike the baby dragon on my back courtesy of Frankie Franco and Nick Lang.

The night ended as perfectly as I could have hoped, with myself and all of my female friends in one hotel room sprawled across a king sized bed, just chatting about the week and how we hated that we all had to say goodbye in the morning. Alex joined us at the end for a bit as well, just in time to have to nearly fight a guy who came to our door to tell us we were being too loud, even though I will say that just this one time, we really weren't being loud at all.

Eia and I shuffled back to our own hotel room around 5 AM (a time we were all getting to know quite well) and snuggled in for one last night at the Royal Pacific, knowing our alarms were set much too early for our liking.

SUNDAY

This day was hard. The whole morning was kind of a daze as we packed up our things and went to find our friends for the last event of the week. We headed down early for the leaving feast, eager to pile our plates high with bacon, toast, fruit and eggs. Melissa of course made us all teary with her speech, and we sleepily pretended this wasn't the end.

After the leaving feast ended, many of us were reluctant to leave the main ballroom for the last time. We ended up sitting in the chairs in a big circle for another hour or so, just hanging out and talking. After a little while we were joined by Noah, the adorable fiveawesomegirls fan (whose age I'm not positive about but I believe he's under 10) who decided to entertain us for awhile. We took pictures with him and he recited some of his favorite videos from memory, all while trying to convince us to start a new collab channel with him. It was a blast, I love that kid. Just the cutest and most enthusiastic little boy I've ever met.

Finally we had to start saying our goodbyes. This is always the worst part; no matter how many times I say goodbye to these people, it never gets any easier. The ConTour group was the first to leave. I see Alex, Jason and Sarah quite a lot, but saying goodbye to Hayley, Andy, Sarah's sister Rachael -- I hated it. Especially because deep down I knew I should have been leaving with them.

I headed with the rest of my friends to the lobby where were found some comfy chairs to sit in for the last hour before going to the airport. Some of us chatted, some slept, but for the most part everyone was starting to feel the end of LeakyCon really setting in and nobody wanted to talk about it. Thank god most of us had VidCon to look forward to at that point, otherwise this day would have been truly miserable.

Finally we got our bags from the bag check and waited out front of the Royal Pacific for a taxi. While we stood on the curb, the sweetest thing happened. We saw two girls who were a few years younger than us hugging and crying before one of them got in a cab all by herself. We were all touched by how beautiful/sad it was that after the first girl left, we all went up to the second girl and said, "We get it! We get it too!" and we all hugged her. Seeing these complete strangers experiencing the same thing we go through every year at these cons was just so moving, and it made us all realize we're not alone. The girl was kind of taken aback, but she tweeted at us a few minutes later saying being consoled by us on the sidewalk was one of the best things to happen to her all week.

The six of us then got in a van-taxi and headed to the airport. Once we got there and all checked in through our respective gates, we headed STRAIGHT to the Harry Potter gift shop. Haha. Mostly it was just that none of us were quite ready to let go, but it was such a good thing we did stop in there, because we ran into Rohan Gotobed and Ellie Darcey-Alden, the kids who played Young Sirius and Young Lily! We asked them if they would take pictures with us, which they did, and chatted with their parents for a little while (after they too insisted on taking versions of the pictures for themselves, which is just too cute, "now one for mummy!").

We also saw the kids who played Young Snape and Albus Severus running around, but we didn't quite manage to get pictures with them. It was so funny running into them not only at the airport, but at the HP store at the airport. I love that so many of the young Potter actors are just fans themselves.

Before we left, most of us (on a complete whim) bought these photo frames that looked like a Hogwarts trunk that I can't wait to put a picture in from LeakyCon. I'm having a hard time deciding which one, actually. Anyway, we all ate in the airport food court before finally, finally saying goodbye to each other and making our way to our own gates to fly home.

Now I am home from LeakyCon, and have been for a week. It's been an interesting time, decompressing from my adventures in Orlando while preparing myself for another week in LA (I actually leave for the airport in two hours; I really cut it close with finishing this blog post in time). I'm really excited for VidCon, but LeakyCon is a tough act to follow. Luckily most of the same people will be there, plus some more (I'm really, REALLY excited to see a lot of my UK YouTube friends, the ones I haven't seen since last VidCon, or back when I was living in London).

Anyway, it's going to be a fun, fun week and I find of feel like I need it after something like LeakyCon. One more hurrah until I really get home and have to come to terms with my big summer events being over. I don't want to think about that yet - I'm dreading writing those blog posts in another week's time, haha.

Anyway, I should go finish packing and start getting ready to head to the airport. Until next time!

Flights taken: 15

LeakyCon: DAY THREE

2011-07-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY

Friday morning we got up and headed down to the pool area for food. I can't seem to remember if we did anything before that, but it must not have been important if we did, so I'm going to decree that the day began with food. There was a cute little covered outdoor restaurant area and I remember being obsessed with the Chile Lime Vinaigrette dressing they brought me for my salad. I don't know why these details are important, haha, but I want to remember EVERYTHING.

After eating, we met up with the rest of our friends over by the water. I didn't go swimming for very long but in the time that I was there, the water was perfect, the sun was shining and we took lots of adorable pool pictures. I love these little moments at conferences; the momentary breaks from all the crazy, the short stretches of time where my friends and I just get to stop and enjoy each others company while splashing around in the pool or sprawled out on someone's hotel bed. It's just lovely.

Pool time ended abruptly however, when we realized we needed to rush over to the Pottermore keynote to get there in time to see the whole thing. We threw our clothes on (our wet bathing suits were already soaking through) and managed to snag seats near the front on the left side.

Let me just tell say that the Pottermore keynote was one of my absolute favorite parts of the whole week. Before walking into that room, all we knew about the project was what they had vaguely given us online with the owls and the J.K. Rowling video and the broad explanation that we were getting a "new online interactive reading experience".

And essentially, that's what it is. But this keynote went into such detail, the whole room was in absolute awe of what we were being told. It was one of the most magical feelings, sitting in that room that day. There were hundreds and hundreds of Harry Potter fans who'd truly thought we'd reached the end of our journey of getting new Potter content, but Pottermore really sounds as incredible as they hyped it up to be. We get to re-read the books in an online/public setting, get thousands of words of new information and backstory, get sorted (for REAL!) into houses, we'll get assigned our own unique wand and compete for the house cup - and the most exciting part is that they're not all being released at once. We get new release dates for each book. RELEASE DATES. If there's one thing this fandom does well, it's wait for things. The very notion that we have more Potter things to WAIT FOR made everyone in that room feel like they were on the verge of tears (of happiness).

So I'm pretty pumped about it. I know Pottermore wont be for everyone, but from the few things they showed us of the site, I know I'm personally going to love it. My favorite part of the whole presentation was when a slide popped up that had a whole paragraph about McGonagall's life that none of us had ever seen before, and the way everybody in that room reacted to it. I'm sure the speaker only put it up there as an example of what the additional text would look like, but when he began speak, the whole room actually audibly shushed him so we could read it. I don't think he anticipated that at all, because he kind of hurried to switch the next slide, much to the chagrin of the rest of us. Any other panel, any other place, shushing an official speaker would be so, so rude. But here, with Potter fans - you CANNOT just bring in new writing from JKR and expect us to ignore it. Haha. It was so funny.

After the Pottermore panel we all raced to change out of our wet clothes (it was already freezing in the main ballroom without being sopping wet from the pool) and if I remember correctly, I think we wandered around a bit before heading unto the Tchoup Chop for dinner with Sam Friedman, Elizabeth Barret, Brian Malfoy, Tessa Violet and Shawna Howson. Everyone was so blown away by how amazing this restaurant was. They were super accommodating, and when they brought out our food, about 6 waiters were involved so they could set everyone's plates down at the exact same moment. So funny. And kind of adorable.

Sam I filled up on these wonton crisps they brought us (I think we ended up asking them to refill the basket at least twice) and then I got the most delicious bowl of fried rice I've ever had, though I may have been slightly disillusioned by 1. how awesome the restaurant was in general and 2. how little we actually ate while at LeakyCon and how starving you'd realize you were when you DID finally eat.

After dinner it was time to set up for the second night of wizard rock shows. Eia and Kayley and I lugged our merch down to the main ballroom and I'll be honest, things were super hectic and stressful from that moment on to our show because I thought we were playing second but it turned out we were actually first. This led to a few technical failures within the Parselmouths set (like realizing mid-set that the iPod I needed for the second to last two songs was still in my purse back at the merch table) but I think all in all it was a very fun show. Eia and I hammed it up by giving out My Little Pony themed party hats, pink party blowers, pink and green mardi gras beads and had Rosi and Sam come onstage to cover everything with pink and green streamers while we played. Alex was hilarious as a stand-in Harry for "Please Harry", and the set ended beautifully with Alex on guitar and Jarrod on drums for a full-band rendition of "This is Never Gonna End", which I proceeded to start crying during the middle of while singing. It was perfect.

I guess I haven't really talked about this yet, but I had been nervous about my voice the whole week since my nodes are at a pretty bad stage right now, and I had already been losing my voice something fierce by Friday afternoon. But somehow, there was something I was able to channel deep inside of me for that show and I managed to pull it off without a hitch. I mean, it was probably terrible for my voice, but at least I was able to do it. To make up for it, I've been ignoring everyone since I've been home and talking very little unless the conversations have been happening over texts or on gchat. Gotta prep myself for VidCon, haha. Then it's no more singing until 2012. I promise.

After our set was over I was finally able to relax and enjoy the rest of the show. It was funny, because before I left for LeakyCon I was really nervous about being an emotional wreck the entire week, but until Friday night I had managed to keep it together pretty well. But that night, at the show - I was the biggest mess. I cried at everything. Literally everything. Matt's set was amazing, and when everyone continued to sing "We're wizards, we'll party forever. This night will never end," I sobbed. When Evanna Lynch got on stage to dance during the songs about Luna, I blubbered. And oh my GOD. When Harry and the Potters got onstage to play the last set of the evening and I began to think back to seeing them live for the first time in 2003, deciding to start my own wizard rock band, realizing how long ago that was and how far I've come… I'm not going to lie. There was a part of the night where I wasn't even watching the show anymore, but instead sitting in a heap on the floor with an equally emotional Eia and Ariana and just BAWLED. For like 20 minutes.

But it was good. This was a deeply moving and emotional night, and there were a lot of feelings for me to process. When you're in a room full of so many people you just love SO MUCH, that have affected and influenced your life in so many inexplicable ways, celebrating such a wonderful time together and not having to explain to each other why we're feeling the way we do -- it's really hard NOT to cry. So I was glad I let it out. I needed it.

It was a pretty funny sight, actually. This was the night that a bunch of different people all gave me My Little Pony related toys as presents, so I was walking around in my sparkly dress, eyes red and puffy, sniffling, arms just FULL of My Little Pony toys. I'm sure more than one person chuckled at me as I passed by them. This was also the night I really started to get to know Mike Lombardo's drummer Andy Rumschlag, and being the sweet guy that he is, he carried all of my pony toys for me for awhile so I could sign things for people and give them hugs after the show.

I'm not sure how this started, but after the show ended, I also seem to remember a bunch of my friends (myself included) sitting on the floor in the middle of the emptied-out ballroom for a little while. Before long, we were all rolling around like crazy flailing people, back to stomach, probably unsure what other way to deal with the energy and emotion in the room. I distinctly remember Alex Carpenter looking over at us and saying incredulously, "Is this seriously happening right now?" And yes. Yes it was.

One of the most emotionally moving parts of my whole trip happened directly after the show was over (I know, like it could get more emotional than crying on the floor for twenty minutes; surprisingly, it CAN) when I ran into the Catitude/Eff Yeah Nerd Fighter people. I had met Katie Twyman earlier in the week and she told me she's try to make sure I got to meet them, but I wasn't expecting to just walk into the Registration Hall and find every single one of them in a group before me. To explain, this is the group of people who organized the secret project to get tons and tons of people to send me Get-Well-Soon letters and presents a couple weeks ago due to my announcement about my vocal nodes. I was such a mess when I first realized what they had done (back in Seattle), so to see them all standing in front of me, smiling at me -- it was almost comical how quickly I BURST into tears.

They enveloped me in the sweetest group hug of my entire life and I thanked them profusely, insisting we all take a picture together. It's probably my favorite picture from the whole trip. After chatting for a bit, I dried my eyes for the fourth time that night and headed up to my hotel room to drop off the ponies and relieve Andy of his duties as pony-master.

The rest of the evening was mostly just general hotel hanging-out; we discovered an outdoor room within the indoor lobby (weird, I know) with elephants and a big fountain and hung out there for awhile. After a few minutes, though, I headed back to Andy's room to get more drinks and ended up finding Mike, Hayley, Kayley, and Adam Colas there, so we stayed to hang out. I really loved that I got to spend a little time with all my different friends at Leaky, rather than staying in one group the whole time. There were so many people and friends at LeakyCon that it was sometimes overwhelming, but I really feel like I managed to spend a good amount of time with everyone.

The night ended much too soon (even though I was still up until about 5 in the morning), but we had one more big day left at our beloved conference and we all wanted to be ready for it.

Flights: 15

LeakyCon: DAY TWO

2011-07-21T10:06:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY

I'm having that common post-conference problem where the details of my days start to blend together. I can't remember exactly what I did Thursday morning, so I am currently consulting my LeakyCon schedule app I downloaded on my iPad. According to this, the first thing I went to on Thursday was "Finding Hogwarts". Oh yes! I remember now, we had set our alarms for 10 AM (which doesn't sound early, but if you were at LeakyCon you know that's very, very early) so after showering and gulping down a cup of tea, we raced downstairs to see our friends' beautiful documentary. "Finding Hogwarts" was so lovely. The sentiment in it, and seeing all our friends go on a sort of self-discovery mission as Potter fans was just so moving. I want to follow their footsteps and go on my own Potter journey. I can't even imagine.

After the screening, we had lunch (I can't for the life of me remember where) --

Edit: Oh YEAH. After the Finding Hogwarts screening Sarah and I had our "Meat Up" which was something that started as a silly idea, was supposed to be a meetup where we provided a 50 piece chicken nugget meal from McDonald's for everyone to share, but didn't think through the fact that were were no McDonald's anywhere near by. So we ended up just taking the people who came to the meetup over to Island's and having a buffet lunch of mac and cheese, pizza and chicken strips. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My favorite parts of the meetup were coercing Andrew Slack into eating with us (I love that guy) and getting to finally spend some time with my friend Crystal Toscano, who happened to be at LeakyCon as well and was my first close fandom friend, even before Wizard Rock. I knew her from back in fanfiction days. It was lovely to chat with her again.

Anyway, after THAT, we started to get dressed to go to the FINAL MOVIE PREMIERE over at CityWalk at 6:00. It was so, so intense. I saw every other film back home in Seattle, so for the later ones I definitely wore full robes and nerded out in my home theaters. But it was much too hot in Orlando for that. I donned my snake necklace, my Slytherin tie and my Slytherin house sweater over a white tank top and shorts. I felt like it was still representative enough, though I regretted leaving my radish earrings at home. With my wand in my purse, we headed over in the blistering heat (amidst die-hard fans that WERE in full robes, I couldn't believe it) to get in line.

We didn't have to wait long; the people who were performing or speaking or working in any way at Leaky got a special theatre to see the film in, so I ran to the top and settled in between Ariana and Eia (the perfect place to see it). It was exciting because I believe Starkid and, more excitingly, Evanna Lynch and all the Potter kid actors were in our theatre as well. It was a little goosebump-making to know we were seeing the movie in the same room as people who had BEEN IN IT. After merely one preview, the movie started all too soon. I think every single one of us was frozen in place in rapt attention for the full 125 minutes. Luckily I brought special Hello Kitty tissues, because the crying started early and lasted sporadically throughout the entire thing (Spoiler! -- My tears started when Harry stepped out of line at Hogwarts). The whole experience was just so, so intense.

There were obvious flaws and things left out of the movie, but as a whole i just adored it. Over the years I have really separated my love of the books with my love of the movies. Nobody is ever going to create MY Harry Potter on film unless I do it myself, so I try to really just appreciate that someone took the time, effort and money to create these films for us. They're very good. Not perfect, but they still make me feel something, and that's what's important. And seeing it with everyone I love and have shared this whole crazy Potter life with for the past 7+ years was something I can't even really being to comprehend. It was magical, in every sense of the word. Everyone crying together and remembering our personal Potter stories… gah. It was just so much positive, nostalgic, powerful energy.

The cutest thing was later at the conference I went to a keynote with all the kid actors from the movie (Young Lily, Young Snape, Albus Severus, Young Sirius, etc.) and they told us that even though they went to the Premiere in London, they really enjoyed watching it with us more because we had such strong reactions to everything that happened. They said it was crazy to hear us all sobbing in the theatre. I believe Young Lily said at one point, "I knew there were fans, but not fans like these!" It was adorable. Everyone cheered.

After the movie we had dinner at Pastamore on Citywalk and debriefed about our favorite parts and how it felt and all those important things. Also there was drinking, but mostly we reveled in our Potter-ness and enjoyed spending these moments together, still high on seeing the film and stuffing our faces since most of us realized in our excitement we'd forgotten to really eat. That was a common theme throughout LeakyCon, actually.

That night was the first evening of Wizard Rock shows. Most of it was a blur of seeing my friends get onstage and play their best sets ever, talking to fans, selling merch and dancing. At one point I met a few more of the Starkid guys back in the "VIP Section" (I say this with a smirk, like Leaky needs to separate out VIPs - the whole thing just makes me laugh) but anyway, Joey Richter said to me "Hey you're the ALL CAPS girl aren't you? "Don't Unplug Me" was the anthem of my summer last year!" so that was kind of cool. My favorite part about this fandom is the mutual fan-ness. It's nice to know people I admire also appreciate the things that I have done.

I also met Evanna Lynch very, very briefly, and it kind of put my life back in check for a second. I'm telling you, guys, LeakyCon is a BIZARRE existence for me. It's jarring and disorienting to have people constantly calling my name, giving me presents, getting nervous to talk to me. It's something I will never, ever get used to. But when I was back there, dancing, and I turned around and was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Luna Freaking Lovegood. I'll admit I stammered a little when I said, "Hey, I just want to introduce myself. I'm Kristina. I've seen you work with the HPA and I think you're awesome. I'm playing the show here tomorrow night, nice to meet you!" She was lovely, of course, but I just want to tell you guys I get it. I totally get it. I'm just a big of n00b as everyone else sometimes, haha.

I got on stage and sang "Goodbye Privet Drive" with Ministry of Magic as usual, and I can't even begin to tell you how exhilarating it was looking out at that huge crowd of people. There were so many people at the wizard rock shows! I think it was by far the largest crowd I've ever performed in front of; even bigger than VidCon 2010.

The last band to play that night was The Remus Lupins. Alex had Tyler Nicholas on bass (just like old times) and Jarrod Perkins did a phenomenal job on drums. This was an intensely emotional experience as it was Alex's final show as the Remus Lupins entity. I knew it would be sad, but I was not expecting how I reacted to watching his set. I teared up a little during the classics, such as "I was a Teenage Werewolf", but I was NOT prepared for what happened during his final song, "Looking For Trouble". As usual, we all rushed the stage to sing the bah-bah-bah's at the end, and while I was up there, realizing this was the last time I would ever do this - I just lost it. I can't even tell you. So many memories and emotions were spilling out of me, remembering the first Parselmouths/Remus Lupins tour in 2007, all the conferences I'd spent with them, Triple Rainbow Awesome tour in 2010 - And more specifically, Alex telling me that if ever there was a Remus Lupins show I could get to, I was more than welcome to play it.

A lot of wizard rock is based in the North East. I adore all of those bands, but they have a good thing going for them with local shows that I could never really be a part of. On the West Coast, all I had was Alex, and everything he ever did for my band meant so much to me. The Remus Lupins were such a large part of my Wizard Rock experience and it was hard to imagine a world where they're done playing. I gave him a super huge hug after the show and it took me a fair amount of time to dry my own tears. That's when I started to really feel the gravity of this trip begin to set in.

After the show that night a few of us girls went up to my room to just hang out and chat, and more friends started showing up until we had a little medium sized party going in our room. It was a fairly chilled out party, but it was good. We were slowly gearing up to the larger and more intense parts of the weekend, so I was really okay with that. :)

Flights taken: 15

LeakyCon: DAY ONE

2011-07-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

LeakyCon.

Where do I even begin?

I was determined to write down everything I was thinking and feeling on my flight home from Orlando to Seattle, but I was so exhausted I slept like a rock from before we took off until the lights came on to announce our landing. So my musings on the time I spent with my Potter friends are happening from my own bed, the morning after, with a heavy heart.

This week was truly perfect. This was my seventh official conference, not to mention all the Wrockstocks and Hallows and Horcruxes Balls and tours I've been on. Every single conference to date has something attached to it, whether it be crying over a boy or having my Parselmouth's set cut due to time or some other variation of Potter Con drama - but LeakyCon was perfect. I felt like every moment i spent there was utilized to the fullest, and each event I attended kept upstaging the previous ones.

Eia and I flew in to Orlando on Tuesday night. Our flights were long; I played games on my iPad to pass the time. We finally landed around 11:30 pm and were immediately greeted by Hayley Hoover, which was a lovely way to begin my trip. We then met up with Whitney and her sister and friend and took a taxi to our little Super 8 hotel we booked for the night before Leaky began. The night was mostly filled with the exhaustion of flying, but we entertained ourselves by watching old game shows on TV before falling asleep.

WEDNESDAY

In the morning, we couldn't get to the Royal Pacific soon enough. The others had left early for Lit Day, so Eia and Hayley and I took a cab over to Universal Resort around noon. It was really overwhelming how quickly we began running into friends. Kayley tackle hugged us within the first few minutes, Ariana and Tyler were shortly after, and way too many more came barreling out to even name. Our rooms weren't ready for us so we had to check our bags, and if I remember correctly, we took our first pilgrimage over to CityWalk for food. Aaron Nordyke and Erinn Lewis accompanied us, as well as Jason Munday, and I had a delicious burrito from Moe's (though it was no Chipotle). Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to get our registration packets, which included the coolest Conference gift I could have ever imagined: our Hogwarts yearbooks. Page after page of memories from past conferences as well as full color photos of every single LeakyCon attendee. It was better than high school. They had a little trouble finding my registration because I'd forgotten I'd listed myself as "Kristina Parselmouth" rather than "Kristina Horner". Ha.

We had a few hours before we needed to be back for the opening ceremonies, so Lauren Fairweather and Eia and I took a water taxi over to Islands of Adventure to get in a little extra Harry Potter theme park time. I remember last year walking in and seeing the Hogwarts Express pumping steam, the immaculate Hogsmeade laid out behind it - it had been so overwhelming I'd burst into tears. This year my experience at the park was a bit drier, but the magic was still there in full force. We ran around the park snapping pictures in front of everything: the train, the Owl shop, Honeydukes, the House banners, the Leaky Cauldron. Then we happened to run into a fan of mine who also works at the park, so he took us onto the Forbidden Journey ride and let us skip to the very front of the line! For those who haven't ridden it, the line generally takes upwards of an hour, so this was incredibly sweet of him, and lucky for us!

After the ride we headed back to the Royal Pacific. The Opening Ceremonies started at 6 and we didn't want to miss a minute of it. I ended up rushing the front of the ballroom and got relatively decent seats with Matt Maggiacomo, Lauren, Eia and Rosianna Halse. I loved what they did with this presentation. The combination of video documentary of the history of the fandom mixed with live performances by Harry and the Potters, Hank, Potter Puppet Pals and Starkid was so awesome. They even played my clip about thanking J.K. Rowling and showed a bunch of people's videos from YouTube saying thanks!

After that was all over, it was time to go back to the park for "Open At the Close", the after-hours theme park event for LeakyCon people. We rode the Forbidden Journey ride again, this time in a huge group of all my friends (though I had the full line experience this time around), and afterwards, I spent way too much money in the gift shop with Eia, Elizabeth Barret and Sammy Galasso. I bought a picture frame the looks like the Mirror of Erised, a good quality Slytherin banner, a Marauder's Map mug (to drink tea out of while my nodes heal!) and a Slytherin Prefect pin. Then it was time to line up for food, which took forever but the payoff was worth it. A feast in Hogsmeade. Too perfect. There was a lot of delicious stuff but my favorites were the Shepard's Pie and Bread Pudding. And the Butterbeer. Oh, the frozen Butterbeer.

I also ended up buying Ginny's wand from the wand shop, as the character wand I bought back in 2007 got broken during the filming of the "World of Warcraft Ruined My Life" music video. It's so pretty. I was saying to someone this week (I don't remember who) that one of my favorite parts about LeakyCon is being in an environment where someone can yell "put your wands up" and EVERYONE DOES. What kind of Potter fan doesn't own a wand? Anyway, back to the theme park...

We were a little on the tired side, so after a quick impromptu dance party in front of the Hogwarts Express, a bunch of us headed back to the hotel to just hang out for a little while before bed. I don't remember exactly what we did this night, but I do remember it involved hotel room party hopping, chatting with good friends like Nick Lang and Jarrod Perkins, and having Hayley tell me the sentence, "in the future, we're going to do shit and we're going to be so good at it." I love her.

More coming soon!

Flights taken: 15

Pre-Harry Potter jitters and musings.

2011-07-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Too many amazing things have happened to me recently for me to even really put it in words. I've really been meaning to blog, but I haven't known exactly what I wanted to say. However, I leave for LeakyCon TOMORROW MORNING, so it is at this point that I realize I really need to just braindump on this blog for awhile. So here I go.

1. On the mystery packages/letters that showed up in my PO Box:
If you didn't see the video, basically something miraculous happened to me. I was going about my day, running errands, and I made a stop at the Post Office. I had a package to mail, and I try to check my PO Box at least once a week or so as time permits. I stuck my key in the hole and to my surprise, I had a bit of trouble turning it. This didn't really make sense, so using both hands, I jammed the key around and thrust open the little box. I can't even begin to explain the manner in which letters were crammed into my tiny box. It took me a good five minutes to pry every single letter from its holding place, and then I found four keys to overflow boxes. FOUR. You know that cartoon image of the shoppers holding bags and boxes way up past their faces so they can't see? That's what I looked like as I left the Post Office that day.

For a little while I was baffled. I dumped the mail in my car and continued on the day's errands, musing in my head why on earth I had so much mail. It wasn't my birthday. It's nowhere near Christmas. I mentioned the puzzling event on twitter, and that's when I started to figure out what was going on.

When Eff Yeah Nerdfighters caught wind of my vocal disorder, they organized a secret project for tons and tons of fans to personally mail me get-well-soon letters and presents. And even though I have google alerts set up on my name, they somehow managed to orchestrate this whole project without me knowing. The response, I will tell you, has been overwhelming. I haven't even been able to open everything, because each letter is so wonderful that it makes me tear up, and crying is bad for my vocal chords! But I've decided to save them, and open then one at a time on days when getting through these nodes is hard. Every time I am feeling sorry for myself for not being able to eat the foods I like or go out with my friends to loud places or even being able to sing in the shower - I'll open one of your letters and I know it'll make it easier.

I am just so tickled and almost bashful about the outpouring of love I've received from all of this. You guys really make me feel like I can so anything. And that nothing, even a serious vocal dysfunction, can stop me from doing the things I love to do. I'll get through this. But I don't think I could have been nearly this positive without your help.

2. On spending time at home with Seattle friends:
It's been an extremely powerful and overwhelming time, this summer. Any time I go on facebook or twitter, I see my fandom friends crying over the final red carpet Harry Potter film premiere, or stressing about packing for LeakyCon, or reblogging pictures of the trio today juxtaposed with pictures of them from the first movie - and it's all been a little too much. I mean, I am just as guilty for participating in this pre-movie, pre-conference hysteria, but I'm having a really tough time dealing with it alone. So in the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot of time with my Seattle friends.

Now, I am lucky. Even my "regular" "home" friends are fans of Harry Potter. They too have their tickets for a midnight showing and understand why I am an absolute ball of nerves right now. But they are a tad more... calm, about everything. So it's been extremely helpful to me to sort of throw myself into other things right now while everything is looming around me the closer I get to my flight departure.

Last weekend my friend Tara had us all come over to her parent's house for the 4th of July weekend, which was a total blast. We ate food until we burst, we had a WalMart adventure where we all bought matching 4th of July shirts (they had kittens on them, it was magical) and the girls even decked ourselves out in matching American Flag print bikinis. We stretched out in the sun by the lake, we played laser tag, we lit off fireworks and sat around a roaring fire once the sun went down. It was such a nice way to spend the holiday weekend. Then on the actual night of the 4th, I found myself in the 16th floor apartment of a building on the side that faces Lake Union, where Seattle's huge firework's display was. It was such an amazing view, and we didn't even have to make the horrendous trek to Gasworks park like the other thousands of people who gathered on the grass to see the show in person.

This weekend we went out of town again, which I was so thankful for. My friend Alexandra is moving to Austin, so she wanted to take one last "Washington Adventure". We piled in cars and found the smaller, finer must-sees of our state. We went to a couple museums filled with the most random things (from scary theatrical doll collections to a whole room full of various chess sets to a high-heeled shoe collection through the ages) and found an exact replica of Stonehenge. We ate in silly pubs and took in breathtaking views and stopped late in the evening in the middle of nowhere to look at the stars as we never get to see them back home in the city. It was such a relaxing, different weekend, and it really kept me distracted from all the craziness that's happening this week.

The only problem with this plan, though, is that now I leave tomorrow and I am in no way emotionally prepared for this. At least I am mostly packed. At least I have that.

3. On Harry Potter/LeakyCon/the fandom/my current emotional state:
I can't even. To date, LeakyCon 2011 will be my seventh major Harry Potter conference. That's not counting Wrockstock or any of the smaller events I've gone to like CondorCon or Hallows and Horcruxes. Many of the people I shared my very first con experience with (Phoenix Rising 2007 <3) will be there, such as Lauren, Matt, Alex, Brian, John and Bre. Not to mention every other single person I've met since then along the way. We'll be sharing our first viewing of the last film with each other, which is something we've never gotten to experience before. We'll be laughing and crying and surely making certain we make the most of every single second.

This is something I could never actually be ready for. It's hard walking into something that hasn't even happened yet, already knowing it will be too short and fearing for when it's just a fond memory on the other side. Literally every single person who's managed to touch my life in some way in the past 7 years is going to be there. Even my old fanfiction "best friend" Crystal is going to be there, which is more perfect than I can even say.

I'm so thankful I'll have Eia there to share this with me too; she's my one link at home to all this crazy stuff I've gone through. Her involvement in all of this really made me start to feel like I wasn't going through it alone. Lauren, the friend I've had the longest through Wizard Rock, Alex, the first person to ask me to go on tour with him and someone I truly consider an older brother, Brian, the first wizard rocker who really inspired me to take this from a silly hobby to something more real, Kayley, the friend I've been blessed with having near enough to take our friendship beyond the fandom, Bre, the person who inspired me to start making videos -- I could go on and on and on but there are just too many amazing people and they're all going to be there and I leave tomorrow and I can't believe it's finally here.

We're doing this, guys. We're going to Leaky. It's real for us.

Flights: 13

Fifteen???!

2011-06-28T15:15:00.002-07:00

I had lunch with my mom today. She works about 25 minutes away from me, so I just popped over on her lunch break and she took me to this cute little farmer's market.

I don't know why I don't go to farmer's markets more often. Everyone has these adorable booths with food they've grown themselves, and it's so much more personal and meaningful than buying food at a grocery store. I got to taste all sorts of wonderfully ripe cherries and slices of crisp, fresh apples.

One booth was selling all these little bundles of flavored noodles, and they looked so delicious I ended up buying a Spinach Garlic one and a Tomato Basil one. The lady selling them was so cute. I just love supporting people like that. Makes me feel good about myself.

I also bought a large bag of snap peas, which just seem like the best TV watching snack. On that note, I have two episodes of Community left, which makes me incredibly sad, as the show has recently shot up into my list of favorite TV shows of all time. At least it'll come back on for more seasons. :)

The real reason for this blog post is that when we headed back to my mom's office after lunch, she asked if I wanted to come inside for awhile. She's only worked at this job for a couple years so I'd actually never been inside before. I know my parents enjoy showing me off to their coworkers (haha) and I love knowing more about my parents' lives (the parts you don't normally see, you know?) so I headed inside. Right when we walked in the door, a man stood up and shouted, "Look, it's the Unicorn Warrior!!" Hahhaa. Do you see what you guys have done??!

It's always funny to me that people like my parent's coworkers watch my videos. I always forget that my demographic isn't JUST random people I don't know, approximately ages 13-19, mostly girls. I get reminded all the time, but it always just slips my mind. So I did a fair amount of blushing.

My mom walked me around and introduced me to everyone, which was nice. Two ladies asked me how old I was, and did a double take when I said "twenty-three". "We thought you were going to say fifteen or something like that!" they exclaimed.

Fifteen? Really? Guys, I'm 5'10". I thought I had that distinguished "college-grad" look about me, but I guess not. Haha. Fifteen. Wow.

Now I'm just home, pondering ways to cook flavored noodles that won't be disappointing with my lack of culinary skills. Guess that's why I have google.com. :D

Flights taken: 13

Farewell to thee, corndogs.

2011-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Last night Eia and I drove up to this mall that's a little further away than our regular mall, but has a great movie theatre. Sometimes we choose to go to this theatre over our normal one because the mall it's attached to ALSO has a food court that has a Hot Dog on a Stick.

Before you judge me for being gross, have you ever BEEN to Hot Dog on a Stick? Hand dipped corndogs. Just think about it. They're so delicious! And a treat, since we don't get them very often. Eia and I like to consider ourselves a sort of corndog connoisseur, often judging the various types sold at streetfairs (which we always buy). But every now and then we indulge in Hot Dog on a Stick, because it's reliable, it's cheap, and you don't have to worry about running into any scary clowns or people trying to sell you balloons shaped like dolphins.

The reason I bring this up at all is because yesterday, upon arriving at the food court, we ordered our usual. I mentioned casually that we made the trip specifically for the corndogs, since it's not exactly down the street for us.

The girl in the funny hat behind the counter said, "Good thing you came today then, as it's our last day."

It took me a few moments to process the words being said to me. "Your - but - what? Your last day? Like, ever?"

She nodded sadly. "We can't afford to pay the rising mall rental space fees. Would you like a free lemonade?"

I was in such shock at not only the fact that my favorite foodcourt establishment was closing, but that we happened to, on whim, show up on their very last day of operation.

"We have other locations! Auburn... Portland... Alaska," she tried to console us. Alaska? ALASKA? Yes, I am going to FLY up to ALASKA for a corndog. Not helpful.

So Eia and I ate our corndogs in somber memorium of the good times we've shared over the breaded hotdogs. Guess it's back to street fair scouting for us. I even sent a complaining tweet to the mall. A sort of "how could you!" cry to the establishment that was taking our corndogs from us.

So I'm sad. Not to mention the movie we went to see, The Art of Getting By, was bland in all senses of the word. Which is a shame, because I adore Freddie Highmore.

And that was my Sunday.

Flights taken: 13

3 concerts in one week.

2011-06-26T11:20:00.001-07:00

I haven't even known what to do another blog post ABOUT these past few days, because the outpouring of love from my last post has been so overwhelming. I have no idea how to even thank every single one of you that left me an encouraging response, other than to just say "thank you, so much". You guys are seriously the best group of people I could have ever asked for, and I am so fortunate that complete strangers care so much. :)

As if trying to test my reserve, I happened to be going to THREE concerts this week. All of which by bands I love and would have enjoyed shouting the lyrics to their songs, but I have refined the art of mouthing words as of late. Wednesday I got to see Matt, Lauren and Justin on tour here at my college's bookstore, which was a lovely little show. Afterward we took them to "Beth's", one of Seattle's most famous diners (well known for the walls being covered in hand drawn pictures from guests). At one point in the night a confused waitress walked back to our table and said "does anyone here play.. uh.. Harry Potter music?" We cracked up and raised our hands, and she not only gave us crayon drawings of each of us, but a GIANT CINNAMON ROLL! For free!! Some fans had come in and sent them to us!

It was a delicious cinnamon roll.

We chatted and ate our entirely too-large 6 egg omelettes, and those same fans came and taped these drawings to the wall behind us when we weren't looking:

Pretty awesome. I think I am really warming up to this Unicorn Warriors thing, guys. :)

Friday I got to see Harry and the Potters in the Seattle Public Library, which I already knew was going to be an amazing show. For those who don't know, the SPL is this insanely gorgeous architectural heaven right smack in the middle of downtown. The walls are made of glass and nothing is exactly square, and it's hard to explain so just imagine a building that looks really, really cool. The last time I saw HatP there, at least 500 people showed up. This show didn't disappoint, and it really took me back to a few years ago when going to HatP shows was one of the big highlights of my summer.

Here's another reason it took me back:

I had both Eia and Brittany there with me! I don't get to see Brittany very much anymore, but it was lovely to have her at the show with me. It really made me stop and think about the fact that while Paul and Joe DeGeorge are just two goofy guys singing songs about Harry Potter, they've really made a huge impact in my life. I've been a Harry and the Potters fan since 2003 when they only had their music online, but if Brittany and I had never seen them tour through Seattle, we would have never written any silly songs about being Slytherins. If we hadn't done that, we would have never put them on myspace, proceeding to find Matt, Lauren/Nina and Alex. If we hadn't done that we would have never gone to Phoenix Rising in 2007, or any Harry Potter conferences, and if I hadn't gotten involved in the wizard rock fandom, I wouldn't have made a YouTube channel.

So I had a kind of emotional moment, looking over the sea of people, watch Paul and Joe rock it out, and thinking about the paths I've taken in the past four-five years. It's incredible. I am so excited to be sharing LeakyCon and this movie experience with all of these people. That's all I can really say without breaking down, hahha.

For old time's sake, and to be goofy, we took pictures with them:

That night I went over to my friends Tara and Alexander's place with Justin and my brother Nick, and we played 'Betrayal at House on the Hill'. When the Haunt started I ended up being the traitor, which made me nervous because I wasn't positive I had a good enough handle on the game to be trying to beat everyone else by myself. Thanks to my secret assassins, though, I was able to kill the heir to the treasure and wiiiin! I love that game.

My third and final concert this week was Sondre Lerche. He's a incredibly mind blowingly awesome musician from Norway and I've been a huge fan of his since I was in high school. For some reason or another, I have never been able to see him live, so this was a huge, huge deal for me last night. The concert was incredible.

Some times live shows involve the musicians just playing their songs for you, live. Sondre made sure every single part of his show was unique for this live performance, and I just cant even begin to explain how amazing it was. Generally he plays solo but for this tour he has a band with him, which just made his songs that much more amazing. Every single musician onstage (from the drummer to the violinist to the bassist to the backup female vocals) were just spot on, and I know I am gushing right now but I just love him so much and it was so good.

The best part was that it was my friend John Platter who showed me Sondre Lerche back when I was 15 or 16, and we both has gotten tickets to this show unbeknownst to each other. So it was great to get to experience this show with him. :)

The night ended with the most spine-tingling, chill inducing sing-along version of "Modern Nature" ever (which is my favorite song of all time), and I just closed my eyes and let the song wash through me and it was the perfect night.

So things are good. I have all sorts of fun plans going on this week, I'm gearing up mentally for my trip to Orlando soon, and the sun is out. I hope everyone else is having a nice start to their summers as well.

Flights taken: 13

Serious Announcement about this summer.

2011-06-23T15:17:00.001-07:00

I have a bunch of fun things I want to be blogging about right now, like my most recent trip to LA, summer plans, and my speculations on Pottermore, but I have to make a kind of hard announcement right now so those things are going to have to wait.

This is something I have been meaning to talk about publicly for awhile, but it's a difficult and kind of personal topic for me so I've been putting it off. Literally for years. But it has become more and more apparent to me recently how bad it's gotten, so I can't really hide it anymore.

The announcement, as much as it pains me to say this, is that I have to drop off of the ConTour this summer. I know ALL CAPS is only playing on it for less than two weeks, but I was super pumped about those shows and hate letting anyone down. And every time I've gotten an @reply on Twitter or an excited message in my ask box on Tumblr recently, I've felt really guilty as I mulled over what to do.

Basically, the long story short, is that I have vocal nodes that are increasing in severity. I first realized I had a problem with my singing voice back in 2009 when I went to the first LeakyCon and lost my voice there completely for no reason. It took me an alarmingly long time to get my voice back then, and once I did, I still found I couldn't sing for almost 4 months. I didn't really tell anyone about it, since this was around the time I was studying in London and didn't need to use my singing voice very much then. I didn't know what was going on and I had no idea that even continuing to talk as much as I do on a day to day basis was causing lasting damage.

Once I got my voice back in the fall of that year, I jumped right back into my normal routine. Luke and I were working on Bmin/E at that time, and I was gearing up for 2010's summer RoflcopTour. But there was a little piece of me that knew there was something seriously wrong with my voice, because tour was a struggle. I was raspy every night after shows, and there were stretches where I could barely play the shows at all. But I powered through, because touring and performing and making my fans happy is important to me. When I came home though, I finally went to a voice specialty doctor. They shoved a tube down my throat and told me that sure enough, I had nodes. Mild ones, but they were still there.

I went to a speech therapist for awhile, and they gave me all these tiny little things I could change to try and improve things (speaking in a slightly higher register, avoiding milk and citrus and spicy foods, no singing in the car, avoid talking over loud music in clubs/bars, talk less in general) so I started making changes in my life.

But how do you tell a YouTuber to stop talking? And how does one turn down going on fall tour with all her best friends? So I was irresponsible. I went on Triple Rainbow Awesome Tour. I did another short album with Luke. I continued to sing, and talk, and just hoped the little changes I had made in my life would be enough to make the nodes subside.

They weren't.

Things have only gotten much, much worse. The last few months have been really stressful amd hard for me. As someone who has been singing my whole life and has it literally affects my mood depending on if my voice is around or not, I've been crushed. I can't go more than a few days without getting raspy, and I can never count on my voice being okay for singing or performing on particular dates because it's so iffy. I've had to start turning down friends who invite me out to places that are loud, and silly as this sounds, one of the hardest parts has been not being able to participate in any sort of sing-a-longs with friends in months (road trips, campfires, etc).

It's a terrible cycle where the nodes stress me out every single day (I mean, what do you even HAVE without a voice? How do you communicate? It's a difficult concept for me to even grasp), but stress contributes to nodes, so hard or not, I have to start taking care of them.

It just sort of hit me recently that if I don't want to do any lasting damage, I need to stop being selfish and reckless now. I need to take care of myself NOW. So while I am going to be at LeakyCon and VidCon and will continue to perform there because they are important to me, I can't go on tour this summer. And I don't know how many singing related projects I will be able to do in the immediate future. This is a really good time for me to really focus on writing, and deal with the fact that silence might need to be a part of my life for a little while.

Anyway, I am truly sorry to anyone I have disappointed who was planning on coming to the ALL CAPS shows this summer. I'll still be around at both major conferences to meet and say hi to anyone who wants to, but I hope you guys understand that if I am ever going to be able to tour again in my life, I need to take a little break now to take care of myself. Even if that means cutting back on my favorite activities in the world - singing and talking.

I love all of you for being so supportive of everything I've ever done, and I'm not going anywhere. Just keeping my mouth shut for a little while.

Kristina

Good time spent at home.

2011-06-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Let's see. How to wrap up the past few weeks.

Last weekend, I went to my parents' house for the day for a BBQ (and to visit with my relatives that are in town). It was the same relatives I saw at the baseball game earlier in the week, but since we were home it was a much more personal setting to get reacquainted with the cousins I haven't seen in years.

Alexa, Madelyn, Abby, Rainy, Sawyer and Ruby are all so adorable. I have gotten to spend time with Alexa and Madelyn a few times before, so they remembered me (though they were shy and it took a little while for them to warm up to me again). The younger ones didn't really remember me at all, so it was a bit of a struggle for the first few hours.

But eventually, as children generally do - they warmed up to me. I can't even begin to explain how good it felt to be playing some strange version of softball in the front yard on a team with my 6 and 8 year old cousins. How happy it made me when they fought for who got to sit on my lap in the pictures my mom insisted we take for Grandma. How delighted it makes me when 3 different girls are vying for my attention to tell me stories that all begin with, "Hey Tina, so one time…!" I adore my little cousins and it's one of the biggest saddnesses in my life that I don't get to be an active part of their lives because we just live so dang far away from each other.

So in short, the BBQ was lovely. I adore having a large family, and cheesy as it sounds, I cherish any moment I get with any of them (as it's so few and far between as I get older).

Later that weekend, I went to two parties. Forest just moved into this crazy mansion with a bunch of other Seattle artists, and Saturday night they threw a party to celebrate a few house member's birthdays. For the most part, the party was a total blast (despite most of the people there being at least 10 years older than my friends and I, but no matter!) We ate food, we played a giant Jenga the drinking game (meaning the Jenga blocks were actually giant, not just that the game had a lot of people playing it), and we went on numerous tours of the vastly impressive house. Everyone was dressed formally and looked lovely, and I have to say I am looking forward to more parties at the mansion. The view is incredible. They live right on the waterfront, and off in the distance you can see the mountains across the way. Breathtaking.

That night I went home happy and with my shoes in my hand. The sign of a great party, for sure.

The next day was Forest's birthday, and our gift to him was to come over and help him clean out the garage at the mansion to turn it into a green screen studio. Not exactly the same type of party as the evening prior, but still a work party nonetheless. I spent most of the afternoon organizing an array of weird crap, from boxes of CDs and old unopened mail to life sized paper maché unicorns to kid-sized bikes with tires so flat you couldn't even ride it without falling on your face. For as boring as cleaning generally is, I actually had a great time hanging out and organizing stuff with my friends. The weather was beautiful and we all finished the task with a sense of accomplishment. Not to mention when we were done we got to go upstairs to the entertainment room and play hours of Xbox Kinect and eat pizza.

The week following my exciting weekend involved a lot of errands-running and room cleaning while preparing for the roadtrip to LA I'm about to take with Ariana down to LA. I did get a chance to see "Bridesmaids" in theaters, which was relatively funny - and on Wednesday I got a haircut. But not one that anyone else would notice.

Thursday I got up and heading out for a recording session. The local nerd band "Kirby Krackle" asked me to sing on one of the new tracks for their upcoming album, which I was more than happy to help them out with. Being busy and generally putting things off, I didn't actually listen to the track until the morning of recording, which proved to be rather funny. The song is a parody of 50 Cent's "Candy Shop", and in the new version, I play the sultry woman hanging out in a comic shop. I was totally not prepared to head to their home studio and ad lib things like "ooh boy" and "mmmmmm", but it proved to be a hilarious afternoon and I can't wait to hear the final product.

The final thing on my list of exciting events of the past few weeks happened yesterday: Nick graduated from high school. For some reason I forgot that they'd be in the same stadium, hearing from the same faculty, wearing the same robes, making the same life step. I actually surprised myself at how choked up I got, realizing it's been FIVE YEARS since I sat in those very bleachers with my bedazzled cap and dorky gown, linking arms with my friends and making promises to stay in touch as we walked into the next stages of our lives. Time really flies, guys. It goes by so fast.

My brother looked incredibly handsome in his graduation gown, and I stood up and cheered like a maniac when they called his name. It was my last chance to embarrass him in front of his school friends (one of my favorite pastimes) so I really had to make it count.

I'm so proud of my little brother. High school didn't come quite as easily to him as it did to me, so I know it was a very, very happy day for him. Plus, afterwards we got to stuff ourselves at the Spaghetti Factory and have a bonfire at home, and that's always a great end to a wonderful day. So things are good. :)

Flights taken: 12

On growing up.

2011-06-02T10:40:00.001-07:00

Growing up: On camping, weddings, and spending time with family.

1. CAMPING
Every year on Memorial Day weekend, my family has been going to the same campground since before I can remember. We've moved around the campground a little bit, but for the most part, weve even camped in generally the same spot. The people who come with us cycle and change every year, they've done a lot of work to improve the muddiness and ease of getting out to the tideflats, and in the last six years or so implemented the "ShrimpFest", a street fair in town during the same weekend - but through all these changes, one thing stays the same. My family.

On this trip, I've brought a whole array of different friends along throughout the years. I've met boys, I've gone swimming, I've stayed huddled up inside because of the rain, I've learned to dig for clams, I've decided I hate digging for clams, I've developed a monster skill for shucking oysters. I've roasted marshmallows, made hotdogs, had my first drink of alcohol, started to drive myself to the campground, and hiked to the waterfall nearly every year.

There were two years that I didn't get to go on this camping trip. One year was when Wrockstock fell on Memorial Day weekend. The other was when LeakyCon did. Obviously both of those events were a total blast, but there was a tiny hole inside me where camping with my family should have been. So now, no matter what, I always try to go.

This year was no different. I brought Eia (just like last year), we took the ferry over (because it's faster) and though I had to leave early to get home for a wedding, every moment I spent there was a style of fun I can't even explain to someone who hasn't been going on this camping trip longer than their memory allows them to recall. :)

2. WEDDINGS
Weddings are a funny thing. I went to plenty when I was younger; aunts and uncles, older cousins, family friends. Pretty standard. In my family, we generally dance to a lot of Polka music. The younger, hipper relatives throw in some Top 40, confusing the grandparents. Everyone dances and eats and stays up way later than we're generally allowed and I sat at the kid's table.
But now? Now I've been going to friends' weddings. People I know from high school, from YouTube, from college. People my age. And it's really strange to adjust to. I start to see my friends' last names change on Facebook. I no longer sit at a kid's table, because weddings are no longer a "grown up thing to do", they're something my friends are starting to do. And I'm not a kid. When did this happen? When did I get so old?

My friends Tara and Alexander got married on Sunday, and I've net met two people more right for each other. The wedding took place inside the Space Needle, the ceremony was full of little nerdy inside jokes and the food was delicious. We danced, we took photos with silly props, and there was no Polka music to be heard anywhere. Like most people, I'm sure, being there made me daydream about my own wedding someday. Will it be perfect? Will people walk away feeling as happy and content as I did, leaving Tara and Alexander's wedding? I hope so.

3. SPENDING TIME WITH FAMILY.
Basically, my uncle Lonnie and aunt Tina live in Alaska and have 6 adorable children I don't get to see nearly enough. The kids are all under the age of ten, and are the sweetest children I have ever met. On Wednesday I got to go to a baseball game with them here in the city, as they're in town visiting various family members. That's all there is to the story really.

I have such a large family, strewn out across the whole of the United States; I'm really starting to cherish any time I get with any of them. As I get older and busier, I've realize how hard it can be to make time for the important people in your life if they don't live next door. I never want to fall out of touch with my family, so these kind of experiences are important.

Feeling a little sentimental today thinking about all of this stuff. I'm sure the answer to this is yes, but do any of you struggle with this nostalgia of growing up more and more lately? It doesn't help I'm still making these photo albums, carefully applying my memories in the pages of books, making it that much more final how in the past they are. It's such a combination of happy and sad, I can't help it when I get all sappy like this. xD

Things I do instead of blogging.

2011-05-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

As usual, I've fallen back into being terrible about blogging. Though, to be fair, I have been focusing my efforts on similar and equally advantageous hobbies.

Things I've been doing instead of blogging:

1. Being photo crazy. I was so inspired by the 2010 photo album I made a few months ago that I went on this rampage where I organized all of my pictures from the last 3 years and picked out the best ones from 2009, 2008 and 2007. Working backwards, I have already made a photo album for 2009 and 2008 is all ready to be put together.
I can't feel too guilty about spending my time on this rather than blogging, because it's the same sort of memory-saving activity, not to mention one I'll really appreciate in the future.

2. Learning to use my Canon 60D. I've had this puppy sitting in my room for a while now, but I hadn't really had much of a chance to take it out and really get my feet wet with it. There is so much to learn, switching from a Sony HandyCam to a DSLR camera. Finally I made plans with my friend Justin (who's a total camera nut and going to school for photography) to go to our local Seattle Zoo where he could teach me some basic functions of the camera while taking pictures of the adorable animals. It was a total blast.

I still have a long, long way to go until I'll consider myself a "pro" at this camera, but I'm very excited to keep honing my skills. Especially with video, though I enjoyed using it for pictures as well.

3. Catching up on TV shows. I'm now officially caught up to live TV with "The Big Bang Theory" and I'm almost finished with "Glee". Just have the season finale left. Also, I finally took the advice of what felt like EVERYBODY ON THE INTERNET and started watching the new "My Little Pony" series called "Friendship is Magic". I'm only 10 episodes in, but I can't believe how entertaining it is. It reminds me a lot of the "Powerpuff Girls", and even though it's sort of wrapped in a pink frilly bow (which deters a lot of people, I understand), it's such a smart show. I like it a lot.

To be honest, that's kind of the majority of how I've spent my last week or two. It's been so nice just being home for a change; I wasn't in any rush to fill up my schedule with plans. This weekend I am going camping with my family though (just for one night) -- because then, I have to hurry home for my friends Tara and Alexander's wedding! I am so excited about it! We've ALL been looking forward to this event for so long, it's really hard to believe it's already here.

While it's on my mind, I wanted to thank you guys for the sweet comments you left on my Buffy video. It was so exciting to finally post it, and I definitely saw more than a few comments from people saying they were blog readers who'd been hearing about the video for ages. You guys are always so supportive, and it means a ton to me. I know I allude to this all the time, but you're definitely my favorite fans. Don't tell everyone else. ;)

Well, time for the season finale of Glee. I think I'm gonna munch on these Triscuit Thin Crisps and Japanese candy and call it a day, blogging-wise.

Flights taken: 12

Chicago Adventures!

2011-05-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

This trip to Chicago has been so crazy! I knew very little about what we were actually going to be doing here, so every day was literally a surprise.

So I flew here on Tuesday, then took a cab to the hotel and met up with Luke. We hung out in our hotel for a little while, but eventually we had to get out of the room so we tracked down a Supercuts and got Luke a haircut. By that time it was getting pretty late and neither of us had really eaten much that day, so on the recommendation of a guy in the lobby of our hotel, we went to this little Italian pizzeria a few blocks away. Of course we had to order one of Chicago's famous deep dish pizzas, which was delicious.

That night we turned in early, knowing only that we had a shoot the next day for some karaoke video game that had hired us to help them promote their release. And that we'd be hanging out with Wheezy Waiter, Meghan and Liz, and Alex Goot, who were also in Chicago for the same thing.

The next day was nothing like we expected. We headed over to this studio that was in the adjoining building and were met by a handful of really friendly, excited people. Peering through the window of the closed door to the studio we could see Craig rocking out on this super intense stage to "Umbrella", and Luke and I were handed the lyrics to "Feels Like Tonight" by Chris Daughtry. I had literally heard this song maybe twice in my life, so Luke and I spent the next fifteen minutes in panic memorize mode. As soon as Craig finished, we were ushered into the studio and sent to the sound guy where they had two mics set up ready for us to record our one vocal track to the song.

Yikes!

Luckily, Luke and I are both fast learners and pretty good at winging it, so I think after about 20 minutes or so we were able to cut a decent track. Then we had another five minutes or so until we were up onstage, rocking out and pretending we were performing this song to thousands of adoring fans while the camera crew filmed us.

Oh, I forgot to mention, Luke and I both showed up in pretty good performing outfits, but since we had no idea we would be singing Daughtry, we were missing that extra something. Two of the guys we were working for, Soung and Ed, decided it would be worth it to run down to the second floor where there was a clothing store that sold leather jackets to ask if we could borrow them for an hour or so. Like, borrow clothes from a store. We were skeptical, but the guy running the store was so awesome about it, he said it was totally fine. So Luke and I got to essentially play dress up in a leather store and we both picked out the most basses looking jacket we could find. It was hilariously fun. All we had to do was keep the tags on, which was easy because we just shoved them up the sleeves.

Then we performed our song a few times through, took a bunch of pictures with the other YouTubers and with the crew and everything, and we were done for the day! The whole process took not much more than 2-3 hours, and everything about it was fun. I love that this is my job.

We had a few hours to kill before the group dinner reservation so we hit up the skyline bar (or something like that, I could never remember the name) back at our hotel with Craig, Soung (who works with us on YouTube promotional stuff) and Christina (our contact at Crave Games. Craig gave us a comprehensive history of all the places we could see from our sky view that he applied to in the past that didn't hire him, we talked YouTube, and had a really nice time just hanging out.

Then we met up with everyone else and headed over to the Purple Pig, a restaurant that actually belongs to a family member of George Strompolos, who used to work for YouTube but now does things like getting Luke and I this opportunity in Chicago. The restaurant was a ton of fun; it was the type of place where everyone orders 2-3 dishes and then everyone just shares with each other. We all tried so many new things, including such frightening options as Pork Rear and Bone Marrow. Okay, I didn't try the Bone Marrow. Luke freaking loved it though. So did Alex Goot's camera guy and friend David (who was also a super cool guy, despite the loving Bone Marrow thing). Alex hated the Marrow, so I felt better about not trying it. Totally fine with being a wuss on that one.

After dinner, Craig took us up to the top if the John Hancock building which has the most incredible view of Chicago after the Sears Tower (but the Sears Tower costs money and this view was free). We took the elevator up to the 96th floor. I couldn't wrap my head around being up 96 floors. I don't think I have ever been on the 96th floor of anything. It was the kind of height that made your ears pop going up and down the elevators. The kind of height that dwarved buildings that we'd otherwise call skyscrapers. The kind of height that makes you wonder if humans should be allowed to be that high up. If the streets below really go on forever, like they seem to.

We took a cab back the hotel and called it a night after saying goodbye to everyone. I went to sleep feeling in awe of my own day, of the beauty of Chicago, and the friendships I have the privilege of making on these types of trips.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when we went to return the leather jackets at the store after the shoot, I had grown so attached to mine that I ended up buying it rather than giving it back. The guy was so, so nice; he gave me a discount on it, but I'm still a little ashamed of how much it was. Something like $150. It looked awesome, okay? And EVERYONE on set pressured me into buying it. xD

Flights: 12

LA to Chicago.

2011-05-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

It feels super weird to be blogging now - during BEDA, it was always a stretch having enough to talk about every day without waxing philosophical about things outside my average day to day activities. But haven taken even one week off, thinking back over everything I've done in that time... where do I even start?

I guess at the beginning.

I was in LA for nearly a week, in which time I filmed many videos with people, went to Disneyland, and experienced Free Comic Book Day Los Angeles style. My first two days down there were pretty much consumed with my friend Whitney's birthday party (including a ritzy new media networking party and hopping around many of LA's bars with our friends). Day 3 was Disneyland with Ariana, Whitney, Sarah, myself and Alex. It was so hot that day that getting drenched on the Grizzly Rapids ride in California Adventure was actually a welcome event. Thats saying something. We spent most of the day wandering around in the heat, enjoying the relatively short lines, and watching our friends Darren, Brian and Nick (from A Very Potter Musical) get weepy over their first experience with World of Color. Adorable.

It was fun to get to spend some time with the Starkid guys. I'd met them all before but never really got a chance to actually hang out. I know it's a little weird meeting them now, after they've gotten all "famous" and stuff, but it was great to see they're all really normal, down to earth guys. So that was fun.

The next day in LA included filming a beach music video with Meghan (strawburry17) Joey, Brittany, Luke and Jimmy. We had a ton of fun down at the Santa Monica pier and then met up with a bunch of our other friends for dinner. The next day was more video filming, though this time it took place in Jimmy's warehouse. Meghan set the whole thing up; essentially we powerhoused through 6 videos with the fantastic musician Lelia Broussard. We were helping her promote her music as well as this contest she's in that could potentially get her on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. It was a really gat experience (and loads of fun), especially Meghan's video, which included throwing paint at each other. I mean come on. I get to call this my job?

Friday was pretty low key and ended with everyone hanging out together at Echobase, and Saturday was my last day. I spent the morning doing Free Comic Book Day with Whitney and her friend Colin, then came back and opened all these oldschool Magic the Gathering cards with the EchoBase boys that my friend Justin found for me at a garage sale. That was a total blast, even though the cards were worth nothing. xD

Then I had a very short period of time at home. Sunday I woke up and drove to my old town to rehearse the duet I am singing with one of my old friends from high school for our gala this weekend. Then I headed to my parents' house for Mother's Day, which as lovely (as trips home normally are).

Monday was a whirlwind of practicing my other duet with Eia, shopping for dresses for the performance, spending some time with Ariana before she leaves for Europe, seeing a movie with Justin, unpacking, and repacking.

This morning I boarded a flight to Chicago. That is where I am now. For a business trip. I'm exhausted.

Flights taken: 11

BEDA 30: The End.

2011-04-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm on hold with Sprint. My favorite use of a Saturday morning. Bazinga, that was sarcasm.

I find it a little bit ridiculous that I've had to call twice now, and still no one on their customer support team can help me figure out why my old phone wont sync my contacts with my gmail account on wifi so I can transfer them to my new phone without going into a Sprint store. That's WHY they implement features like online contacts backup -- so we can do it ourselves from home!

I can feel myself getting more and more frustrated as I talk to this guy; I hate to be like this but it really kills me when I know more about my phone and how it operates than someone whose JOB it is to help people with it. This is a basic feature of the phone. He shouldn't be reading manuals in between stints of putting me on hold.

So anyway, I'm taking this stressful-useless-phone-time to blog. Today is April 30th, which marks the last day of BEDA. It's been a pretty crazy month, what with Playlist Live, all of my Miami adventures, and the filming of the Secret Buffy Project.

OMG THEY JUST TRANSFERRED ME TO ANOTHER PERSON WHO HAS NO IDEA WHAT MY QUESTION WAS. I HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT AGAIN, FOR A THIRD TIME. I HATE THIS.

Blogging every day was a lot harder this year than it ever was before (or maybe I just don't remember the previous years and it's always hard xD) but I'm so glad I have record of all this craziness. I was a little nervous I would have too much free time when I graduated college, but I've almost been done a whole year (wow, time flies) and surprisingly I've found myself busier than ever. I'm super proud of what I've accomplished in the last year.

Alex Carpenter posted a really beautiful vlog the other day about not worrying if the things you love don't last forever. He said something along the lines of appreciating the time we're spending now as moments, then as great memories in the past. Because if your current situation lasts forever, you may miss out on even more amazing opportunities that are meant to follow. This obviously speaks volumes for the Harry Potter fandom that so many of us are scared to let go of, but it also made me think really hard about the parts of my life that came even before that.

I can't remember if I have really talked about this yet, but later this year they're tearing down my old high school's theatre and building a new fancy performing arts center. This is fantastic news for them, but very, very bittersweet news for alumni of my old drama club. I know every theatre group has their own special bond and connection but mine was definitely something special, so knowing the place we all spent hours and hours together is going to be gone forever is pretty tough news to deal with. I remember when I was a Senior, looking out to the future, the great beyond of life after high school; I had a really hard time imagining anything other than doing shows with the same group of people I'd know those past few years. I assumed I'd go straight to college-theatre, trying to find that same type of feeling, a similar group of people, attempting to relive the glory days of high school where I got a lot of leads and was drama club president.

But that didn't happen. I never did a single college production. Instead, I discovered wizard rock, started playing shows, got into YouTube. And looking back, the time I spent in my drama club is still really special to me, even though it's over. It doesn't mean theatre wasn't good enough, or that I gave up on it at all. I still have a bond with a whole group of people that nobody can ever break or tarnish. But, now it's a happy sparkling memory in the story that makes up my life, a stepping stone in the history of what makes me, me.

I thought this would be a sad thing, but it's not. It was hard to let go of drama club, but I went on to do such amazing, exciting things -- and I feel like I have my time doing theatre to thank for that. I became a performer in that auditorium. I learned what true friendship was. And I learned how to move on to bigger and better things with grace.

Similarly, Harry Potter (and my time spent in this fandom) will always be with me. I'll always be a fan of the books, I'll always keep in touch with my friends -- just like I still do with my drama club friends. But it's not a tragedy that it wont last forever in the pure state it's in now. Nothing does really, except inside of us. There, things truly last forever.

And on that note, I leave you with the conclusion of BEDA 2011. It's been fun, guys. See you next month.

Flights taken: 8

BEDA 29: Living room film festival.

2011-04-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

I'm getting so close to the end of BEDA, but it's starting to get really tough. Tonight I'm over at my friend Tara and Alexander's place again, and I realized it hit midnight a few minutes ago, oops. So here I am, back on my iPad for another rushed entry on my second to last post of April.

So my friends were having a personal screening of select films from the Tribeca Film Festival in their living room, which was really cool. We watched "Wormhole", "The Ride", "Year Zero", "Mr. Stache", and "The Dungeon Master". Some of them were good, some of them were... less good... But the last one we watched was the best by far.

"The Dungeon Master" was directed by Rider Strong (Shawn from Boy Meets World!!) and his brother Shiloh Strong. Basically it was a short film about D&D, which was hilarious in itself, but the guy who played Warren (Adam Busch) in Buffy was in it. And of course, he played a total douche bag.

Then we played this super creepy games called Morton's List, which ended up not actually being creepy at all since all the game insisted we do is attempt to contact celebrities. This resulted in all of us using the leftover invitations for Tara and Alexander's wedding to send them to various real and fictional celebrities.

Now I am sleepy, and people are starting to go home, so I'm gonna end this early. I promise I will complete BEDA tomorrow with a large insightful post to make up for tonight's lame entry. xD

Flights taken: 8

BEDA 28: New phones!

2011-04-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

I had a weird dispute with a fan today, and I was going to vent about the whole thing in my blog, but the whole thing was resolved so I just deleted everything I'd typed so far. There was no reason to spread the negativity further than it already was.
Basically it had something to do with people expecting me to divulge more information about my personal life than I am comfortable doing, mixed with battling 1. a fan's desires to know everything about me and 2. my need for respect of privacy. Also I don't like being called a bitch. xD

But it's all fine now. The moral of the story is, don't write emails when you're upset. That's a rule I always try to live by. Also, I want fans to feel like I am approachable and reachable without me having to knock my walls of privacy down. It's a hard balance.

Anyway, that's not the highlight of my day by any means. Today was awesome because (what is this fiveawesomegirls?) Eia and I went on one of our traditional shopping trips where we vow we'll check out a few stores but end up only spending money in Forever21. Usually we go overboard, but this time I made a list of things I needed (bermuda shorts, summer dresses, earrings, new cell phone case) and I'm proud to that aside from this hilarious neon belt that I had to have, I only bought things on that list.

Speaking of cell phone cases, my upgrade was in March so I finally ordered a new phone, and I am ECSTATIC. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but my HTC Hero was so pathetically buggy that I've been dreaming of a new phone for months. After days of research and indecisiveness I finally decided to go with the Samsung Epic 4G, and after only 24 hours of use I am pretty happy with it. It's fast, smooth, and the interface (though still Android) is way, way more intuitive than my Hero ever was. For example, the touchscreen can tell when your face moves away from the screen at the end of a phone call and brings the call menu screen back up for you. How cool is that??

Anyway, I am really happy with this new phone; I just hope the battery life can make it through a day. That's my biggest pet peeve with smartphones. Also I got a really pretty pink and white splatter paint looking case for it. I'm a sucker for cool cell phone cases.

Now it's only 5pm and I have the rest of the day to do whatever I want with it! Maybe I'll finish cleaning my room. Or watch... something... who knows.

Question for the day: Are you staying up latelatelate to watch the Royal Wedding (I ask because I don't really care per se, but Eia is throwing a party and I'm always down for a party), and what phone do you have? I'm curious. :)

Flights taken: 8

BEDA 27: More stuff.

2011-04-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

The response on yesterday's post was amazing! Thank you guys! I guess I should try to write blog posts like that more often. :)
Not that I mind the small smattering of comments I get on my day-to-day posts; it's just really nice to see so many people chiming in with something to say.

One thing I didn't address, since the post was mostly about finding motivation to do artistic/project based things you love, was how to find motivation for things that aren't fun. Things like homework, cleaning, etc. I was never as good at that as I am at being self-motivated for creative projects, I'll admit it. I never worried too much about finishing things in the end, because I always managed to, but it was a battle. I used to have to bribe myself: "I'll write two paragraphs on this essay and then I can spend ten minutes on facebook; I'll read a chapter of this book and then I can watch one episode of How I Met Your Mother; I'll fold one load of laundry and then I can eat my leftover cheesecake." Usually I would drive myself crazy staying up half the night finishing school work or menial tasks, but as long as you have the right mindset and know you'll eventually get it done... it doesn't really matter if the process is on par with pulling teeth.

Anyway, as for today's blog post... well let's see.

I didn't do much yesterday in the way of interesting things to blog about, that is unless you find a whole day of laundry fascinating. My washer is a tad on the broken side, so when I say it took me all day - I really mean all day. EXCITING!

Today I have a voice lesson at 1, which is something I always look forward to. In particular today though, I am especially excited as my teacher doubles as a Tarot card reader, and we've got that scheduled into our meeting as well. She told me she'd do Tarot cards for my friends and I whenever we wanted, so Eia's popping by after my lesson for a reading.

As for the rest of my day... it's Project Night again tonight at Tara and Alexander's so I'll be heading over there around 7pm, and other than that? I've been kind of gung-ho over going through my room and cleaning stuff out this week. I'm not a hoarder by any means, but I do have a lot of possessions (particularly clothes, books, trinkets and things sent to me by fans) and my room has just felt a little claustrophobic lately. So I'll probably keep working on that project in my off time today.

It's been nice, having this mildly low-key week. After all the Secret Buffy Project craziness (and LA next week) having a few nice days at home was really needed.

Oh! I finished watching Coupling last night. Justin and I had been working our way through the seasons slowly for the last month or so, but we finally saw the Season 4 finale last night. Ariana actually got me hooked on that show, and I'm so glad I watched it. It's hilarious. Now I can finally look at Coupling blogs on Tumblr and not worry about being spoiled, haha.

-- Dangit!! I literally started this blog post when I woke up today, and now it's almost midnight and I just realized I never finished/posted this. I'm sitting at Project Night with a whole bunch of my friends discussing various project ideas we're planning on doing in the near future (and in general just doing social things), so I'm going to end this here. The end.

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team levels: 54-57

BEDA 26: Inspiration, Motivation and Staying Busy.

2011-04-26T10:48:00.001-07:00

Someone said this to me once in the comments, so I think I am going to comment on it today:

"You should make a blog post about how you keep yourself motivated, inspired and busy working all the time."

I am going to answer this question in three parts. :)

Inspired:
The easiest way to keep yourself inspired, really, is to surround yourself by inspiring people. I feel really fortunate to have incredibly talented friends, but it's not just a coincidence. I chose to associate with people who have obvious passions for the things they spend their time doing. A lot of my friends are musicians, but also I know photographers, writers, designers, actors - it's all a matter of who I've made the effort to keep in touch with over the years.
First off, however, there are plenty of ways to inspire yourself. Read books that make you want to write your own, listen to music that makes you want to figure out how to play your instrument better, watch television shows or movies that make you want to act, travel or learn to make movies yourself -- but! There will be dry spells in self-motivation, and that's where the friends come in. I have friends whose YouTube videos make me want to jump right up and start on one of my own. I have a friend who all I need to do is talk to her about writing for ten minutes and I start to get itchy fingers for working on something of my own. These kinds of people are so valuable to the typed of individuals who feel the need to create.
You also need to be perceptive to detail. Sometimes the smallest things will inspire me. A picture of a lovely town renews my desire to travel in an instant. An impressively phrased sentence in a book or script can inspire a whole story idea in my mind. The tiniest notion of something that may entertain a large group of people can become a most-viewed video. I see these kinds of ideas everywhere, and I guess that's what I would call inspiration.

Motivated:
This one is a little tougher. A person can have all the inspiration they want but never make the move to actually do the project, write the book, film the video, etc. I'm not really sure how to explain how to get motivation, because I kind of feel like I was born with it. But there are a few ways to keep other activities from detracting away from your motivation.
Don't let time-wasters destroy you. TV, Tumblr, going out and partying - whichever your poison is, find ways to enjoy these hobbies in moderation, or cut them out completely if you can't do that. I do all of the things I listed above, but I try to be pretty strict with myself about when those things are appropriate. I try to balance my day with a fitting amount of work and play.
The bottom line is that if you love your work, you wont need to feel the constant battle of wanting to do other things. Work isn't always fun, even if it is painting or writing or dancing, but the motivation is natural if you feel a calling for those things. I've been doing Internet stuff for fun long before it was making me any money. I was moderating forums amidst studying for tests in high school, I was building fanfiction communities during my lunch hour on the computers in the library in middle school, and so on and so forth to the degree that now, it still just feels like an extension of the things I've always loved to do. Some days, yes, it can be difficult to force myself to edit another video rather than staying in bed and finished Season 4 of Big Bang Theory, but when it comes right down to it, I could work at a fast food restaurant right now. And I don't. I make videos. So making videos doesn't seem so hard when I look at it that way.

Busy:
Well, if you're inspired and motivated, being busy just comes naturally. It actually starts to freak me out and make me feel like I'm not accomplishing anything if my schedule starts to clear up, so my system for the last few years has just been this: If I feel like I am taking on the perfect number of projects at any given time, take on two more. Then I'll never have any time to spend lazing about and wondering if I'll ever need to get a real job. This IS a real job, one that keeps me far busier than I ever anticipated.

I know this stuff doesn't come as easily to everyone as it comes to me, but I think it's something everyone sort of needs to figure out on their own. You need to either figure out your passions and throw yourself into them, or, if you haven't quite found your passion yet? Try everything until something sticks. Once you know what you really want to accomplish in life, the rest follows.

And hey. If it makes you feel better (because I realize I kind of sound like a robot right now) in the past month I've clocked up 49 hours of gametime on Pokémon White. So we all slip up sometimes. xD

I want to ask a question for the comments section today -- Does inspiration and motivation come easily to you, or does it feel more like a constant battle?

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team levels: 53-56

BEDA 25: Fast food and Tangled.

2011-04-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I am typing this blog post up while watching Tangled. For the third time. Justin hasn't seen it yet and my DVD just came in the mail from Amazon, so this is my Monday night.

I am pretty proud of myself - today I finished going through all my clothes and managed to get rid of a bunch of stuff. There are currently three bags sitting at the foot of my bed. I kind of have a problem when it comes to buying clothes, so this is something I should do much more often.

God, I love Tangled. I think one of the best parts of this movie is how amazingly they did Rapunzel's hair. I mean obviously the premise of this movie is that she has long, long hair so obviously they're going to pay extra attention to detail there, but it's exceptionally good. In past Disney movies it was kind of a thing that princesses have these impossible hairdos (can we talk about Ariel's hair for a second?) but Rapunzel's hair actually behaves the way normal hair would. Her bangs fall the way actual bangs would, it's messy sometimes when she's moving around, and you can see individual strands sometimes. I just think it's incredible.

Figures it's in the movie about Magic hair that Disney finally gets it right. xD

Today was mildly uneventful, but I did head over to Oliver's house today to record some last minute harmonies for the Buffy song. Tomorrow I am meeting with Forest and David to see a rough edit of the video, which I am really, really excited about. Everything seems to be coming together so nicely.

So I think I mentioned this back when Lent started, but this year I gave up fast food, and it was a lot easier than I thought (aside from the few times I slipped and had pizza). As yesterday was Easter, I am now free from my non-fast-food-eating time, so I celebrated tonight with one of my favorite restaurants, WingZone. I freaking love boneless buffalo wings and potato wedges.
But the funny thing is, aside from a few exceptions, I don't really miss fast food at all. I feel way better after having not eaten it in so long, and I'm not really in any hurry to start up again. So yay! Lent = successful.

Okay. Rapunzel is interrogating Flynn Ryder. I have to go. More tomorrow!

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team levels: 53-56

BEDA 24: Easter baskets at Age 23.

2011-04-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Oops, it's after midnight already. I was going to type up a blog post when I first got home from my parents' house, but I got distracted going through my clothes (I'm trying to get rid of at least two bags, since currently I don't have enough room to put them all away if everything is clean at the same time). After that I was going to do my blog post, but I got distracted talking to Luke. Then I was all set to start working after we hung up, but I popped downstairs for a moment and Justin was watching Jurassic Park, so there went another 30 minutes or so. Finally I came upstairs, sat down at the computer, opened Blogger -- and noticed in my email that my friend Gabe, the one I shot the "Delete You" music video with, had sent me a demo.

So I proceeded to watch it 3 times in my excitement.

Anyway, I'm here now, so blog post commence.

I had a wonderful weekend. As I said in a post about a month ago or so, I've been feeling overly homesick for my extended family (my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. The ones I don't get to see very often) but even moreso lately I've just been missing my immediate family too. So spending the whole weekend back in my hometown with them was just what I needed to quell the homesickness a bit longer while my busy life takes over again.

Saturday night we actually "celebrated Easter" because my brother has a job now and had to work on Easter Sunday. My parents are lovely and still do Easter baskets (seriously, how does someone "outgrow" gifts and candy? They don't) and every year, my parents hide mine in the dryer. They said to us, "alright, we decided to do Easter baskets one more year [they always say that] so go find them before we eat." I hopped up from my chair and said, "Well, I know where I'm looking."

But! Lo and behold, there were... clothes. In the dryer. So I was stumped. And searched around the entire house twice before realizing that my parents had in fact tried to hide my basket in the dryer as usual, but upon seeing it was occupied, hid it one foot away in the shower. Figures.

After our Easter dinner we went out on the back patio where my family has a fire pit, and we shared the first backyard fire of the year.

Today was a relaxing day; highlights being shopping with my mom (and buying 5 pairs of shoes between the two of us.. don't judge) and doing an extreme car-washing session with my dad. My poor little black car needed it badly. I stayed for dinner and then let my parents get on our DVR to show me their favorite songs from this week on American Idol. They're really into American Idol.

I feel really sort of refreshed from my weekend at home which didn't involve video-editing and email checking and crossing things off to-do lists. You need a little break from that every now and then, so I appreciated it. But tomorrow is Monday, so back to the routine. I am tackling my closet tomorrow.. need to fill another bag with clothes to get rid of. Wish me luck.

Flights taken: 8
Pokemon team levels: 52-56

BEDA 23: Reliving the good old days.

2011-04-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

It's only 10 o'clock at night right now, but I am completely exhausted. That seems to be the theme of this month, it appears.

I'm sitting in the family room while my parents try to watch TV but ultimately just keep falling asleep - it's just like old times. Haha. Anyway, I'm having trouble concentrating because the TV is loud and my mom keeps asking me things and to be honest I only got a few hours of sleep last night because I was out reliving my high school days with a bunch of "the old crew" who all happened to be home at the same time.

Hahha. The newscaster on TV just said "we're having some great weather this week after a truly miserable Spring so far" and I turned to my mom and said, "wow, that's dreary. I don remember our Spring being that miserable so far." My mom just rolled her eyes at me and said "you haven't been here for most of it! I'm sure our Spring seemed great during all those weekends you spent in Florida." Fair point, Mom. Fair point.

So yesterday around 5ish I drove the 45 minutes back to my hometown where I dumped my stuff off in the guest room that used to be my bedroom. I went out for dinner with my old high school pals Justin and Colin, and then we met up with Liz and Eia afterward back at our school. Eia actually helped direct the show that opened there last night, so we all went to see it and support her. Plus it's also nice to visit my school and see the my old director and the theatre I spent so much time in growing up. :)

The rest of the night was spent being a little crazy with some of my best friends that I don't get to see nearly as often as I'd like anymore. There was a lot of ping pong, chips and salsa, cheap wine and dubsteap. Until about 5 AM. I love my friends.

Today was good too but I'm too tired to write about it. I'll get to it later.

Flights: 8
Pokémon team levels: 50-52

BEDA 22: Pokémon and Anime classes.

2011-04-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's Friday morning, I'm still in bed, and my to-do list today is long. Let's cross "blogging" off early, shall we?

Yesterday I met my dad for lunch around 11:30, which is something we try to do fairly regularly. He took me out for Pho (which is a delicious Vietnamese noodle soup if you didn't already know) and we chatted about various family things before being joined by one of his coworkers. When we returned to his office, he took me around and introduced me to some new employees as usual, and the ones who already know me told me they'd been keeping up with my videos. I always end up blushing a lot whenever I visit my Dad's office. He's such a proud dad (though everything gets put in check when I remember he has THREE pictures of my little cousin Madeline on his wall by his desk and only one of me. What gives, DAD? At least I'm doing better than my brother Nick, who's first wall picture was only put up recently).

Anyway, I came home I continued work on the "Behind the Scenes" videos for the Buffy project. The whole thing took so much time to create; there's actually going to be a series of five videos I post on my second channel that will be companion videos (if people are interested in "Behind the Scenes" stuff, that is). The videos are pretty fun, so I hope people like them.

Last night I went and saw the play The Secret in the Wings at UW with my friend Hope. There's actually a funny story about this show -- I saw it originally at the Seattle Reperatory Theatre about 5 or 6 years ago, and my high school friends and I absolutely fell in love. Then later, we realized it was kind of a new work and couldn't find anything about it online really. We began to wonder if we'd ever really seen the show at all or if the whole thing was some bizarre sort of shared dream. Haha.
Anyway, when I heard my old college was putting it on, I immediately bought tickets. I was really excited to see if the show lived up to these crazy expectations I had built up in my mind over the last few years.

It didn't.

But I still enjoyed the production! It just wasn't quite this magical, ethereal experience I remembered having with my friends so long ago. I guess it's one of those things where you have to wonder if it would have been better to just never see the show again and savor the memory of the experience. Or something.

By the way, while we're on the topic of school - so if you've been reading my blog awhile, you know in college I got to take all these fun focus groups within my major. I took one on childbirth (which I loved), but more excitingly, the one on Disney.

Anyway, I'm still on the mailing list for news about my major, and this quarter I've received two emails that have made me want to re-enroll in college. Check out these focus groups they're offering Summer quarter this year:

[CHID496A] Pokémon 101
The focus group will be watching Pokémon episodes, doing readings on Pokémon, learning about Japanese popular culture, and encountering questions about animal representation and rights.

[CHID 495] Animation: Miyazaki and the Vitality of Media

M and W are film screenings of Hayao Miyazaki's films and other important anime. Tuesdays and Thursdays we talk about the films in relationship to readings we've finished. Some of the films we will watch: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away.

DUDE. Why didn't I get to take these classes? It's like they created these classes FOR ME and I won't even be there to enjoy them!!!!

Moral of today's blog post = life is unfair. Also, stay in school.

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team level: 48-51

BEDA 21: Weekly Project Workshop.

2011-04-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, we're really getting into the home stretch with BEDA, aren't we? It's amazing how quickly blogging every day becomes part of the day's events; I'd hardly noticed that twenty days have already gone by.

There was a comment on one of my posts yesterday that made me smile, so I figured I would share it: "Er... you can't just *drop in* that you went to the bank without reporting on that amazing security guard and any bank antics that went down. Not cool. :P"

Hahaha. Well, the thing is, my security guard friend and I have just sort of settled into a routine where I show up, he smiles and opens the door for me, I deposit my checks and then when I'm leaving, he tells me "it's always nice to see you here" and I smile wide back and tell him "No, it's nice to see you!" Every time. Without fail. And I still do that thing where I sort of hang back and wait outside the door a moment if I see he's busy because I know it disappoints him if he can't open the door for me. So, that's the update on my bank. Thanks for caring, guys. xD

Yesterday I had a voice lesson, which went well (though my voice teacher and I are becoming good friends and I always end up staying a half hour longer than my lesson because we're just talking or watching YouTube videos together). We've been working on this Ingrid Michaelson/Sarah Bareilles duet and she asked me yesterday if I would ever want to go sing it with her at an ope mic night here in Seattle. I've never done anything like that before! I'm kind of excited about the idea.

The rest of my day was spent writing lyrics for a new song, editing a few videos and stopping y my dad's office to pick up a bunch of stuff I bought on Amazon and accidentally shipped to my parents' house rather than to mine. Finally, I own a copy of Tangled. Finally!

My friends Tara and Alexander have been doing this thing called "Weekly Project Workshop", which essentially means they invite their friends over on Wednesday nights to work on whatever project they currently have going on, or to start a new project, or whatever. Basically we all sit in the same room on our laptops, go around the circle and say what we're hoping to accomplish that night, and then we do it. And since we told everyone what we're doing, we feel like we're held more accountable to actually get work done. Plus there are so many people in the room with different skills, you can easily ask each other for ideas/suggestions/tips etc. Last night was my first night going, but I really liked it. I finally cleaned out my email inbox (which I have been putting off for weeks) and got a Zaxy post done (another thing I have been slacking on for awhile).

The best part, really, is that we were all pretty much just working on the same sorts of things we would have been if we were at home - so the basic concept of just sitting on our laptops together rather than at our respective house is already a great idea. Fun and productive. :)

Then at 10:30 I had to run back to UW for the last pickup shot for the Buffy video. I met with Forest, David the cameraguy, and our other friend Hope in the black box theatre. We were just getting some simple shots to help thicken up the variety of scenes to cut away to, so it didn't take very long at all. Though Forest made sure to tell me on multiple occasions how much of a hair flipper I am. And how squinty my eyes are. And a bunch of other weird ticks I have that people would only notice after going through hours of footage. Cool. xD

The best part of the night was when David showed us a bunch of rough cuts of different scenes from the video that he's already begun editing together. I almost wet my pants, it looked so awesome. I am dying to show you guys this. DYING.

Now I have some more videos to edit and life things to attend to, so I'm going to wrap this up.

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team levels: 47-48

BEDA 20: Aquarium adventure.

2011-04-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty laid back, lovely day.

It started with me heading down to a local coffee shop about a block away and meeting with someone from Throwboy. I recently sort of started getting to know them when I dropped by their booth at Emerald City Comic Con, so we decided to meet up so they could give me a bag of their pillows to give away on YouTube in creative ways. So I've got a garbage bag full of fun chat pillows sitting in my room now, just itching to be given to fans. I'm probably going to start doing something with those in the next week or so.

Then Justin had a Groupon for the Seattle Aquarium that expired today, so we hopped in his car and headed downtown. First, however, I found out that MysteryGuitarMan was doing this sticker hunt thing and that one of the stickers was not only in Seattle, bit literally right across the street from the Aquarium. I made Justin do a little detour on Post Alley so I could hunt for it, but by the time I got there, the Seattle sticker had been stolen (why are people such jerks and have to ruin the fun for everyone else?)

Anyway, I took this sad picture in front of where the sticker was supposed to be, tweeted my disappointment, and headed down to Anthony's on the Pier for happy hour. Unfortunately since we were on the Pier, pretty much ever restaurant/bar down there specialized in seafood, so my options were slim for snacks. I ended up splurging on an $11 blackberry cobbler (with vanilla ice cream!) because cobbler is my weakness and I was feeling sorry for myself looking at the other options of calamari (barf) and clam chowder. The bartender also seemed to really like Justin and I, and gave us free shots "on the bar".

Now, I am 23 years old, but I try not to talk too much about drinking because I know I have young fans and I like to keep up the facade that I'm that girl who saves sick children in Guatemala and plays with My Little Ponies in her rainbow colored bedroom (haha) but there is just something so funny about the fact that by the time Justin and I got to the aquarium we were about four drinks in and a little afternoon-sloshy that I'm just going to lay it all out on the table. We called it "Drinking with the Fishes". It made the aquarium SO much more fun.

I hadn't been to the aquarium in years, and I didn't remember anything about it. There were adorable tide pools (where Justin poked a fish and it freaked him out so much he whipped his hand out and got his whole front soaking wet) and this big circular tank that jelly fish just swam around and around and around in, with LED lights making them look cool colors. We caught the sea otter feeding, and I completed my mission of finding fish that looked like Dori and Nemo.

Then the WEIRD thing, was I ran into my good friend Karly! Of all the places to see an old friend -- just so happened she and her boyfriend had a Groupon that expired too. Haha. Anyway, Karly is really into octupus, so we spent a while at the octopus tank, listening to one of the employees tell us all sorts of cool facts about them. Apparently they only mate them on Valentine's Day. Adorable.

Oh, and I did this:
On our way home, our friend Alexander called and tried to convince us to go play Laser Tag with him and Forest, so Justin and I stopped by their apartment rather than going home. Neither of us were in any mood to play Laser Tag really, but we knew we could convince them to do other stuff (plus I knew Tara wouldn't wan't to play, so regardless of whether or not Justin got stuck playing with the other guys, I knew I'd be safe).

We ended up going out for pizza (and more drinks) at this place called the Crocodile, then coming back and playing.. okay I'm going to attempt this. Betrayal at House on the Hill? Betrayal at Haunted Hill House? The Haunted Betrayal at that one House over on the Hill? Hill House Betrayal at The? (The joke became saying the name stupider and stupider the longer we played, because the name is so complicated that even if you're looking at the box it's hard to say).

The evening ended with a few rousing rounds of You Don't Know Jack and another game I can't remember the name of but was kind of like CatchPhrase. I had a blast. I have such little time lately to just hang out with friends (and have it not include working on a large project) so I really appreciate when I get to have evenings like this. :)

Aside from a voice lesson and the filming of a small pickup shot for the Buffy video, I have no idea what my plans are today. I'm excited to find out.

Flights taken: 8
Pokémon team levels: 46-47