Finals!

Finals week officially starts Saturday (language finals are on saturday) and everyone is already going nuts. I know I'm definitely feeling the heat. Upcoming for me is a skit presentation in-class on Friday for French, Final on Saturday morning for French. Finals for Philosophy of Mind, and Philosophy of Science on Tuesday, and 10 page paper for Philosophy of Religion due on Thursday! It's going to be a while ride!

I've had some time to play with some drink mixes in combination with my sparkling (sparkle-y? :D) water. Here's two I made up for tonight's study session. They're also my sustenance for the night until I can get home and get some dinner.

In the black bottle is sparkle-y water with some Gatorade(TM) powder mixed in. See how low the line is? That's what results when you add flavor powder to the drink TOO FAST. It fizzes. It fizzed out of the bottle and onto the kitchen counter and some into the sink when I got it there. It was alarming, but made me laugh at myself. The water fill-line is between where the levels for the pink and black bottles are.

In the pink bottle is simply some vanilla syrup and some crushed grapes. You can see the red seedless grapes in the quart-sized water bottle that I brought for a snack. I crushed about 5 of them and then poured the exposed fruit and juice into the bottle. I didn't crush it very well. Here's a picture of the grapes as they float down from being shaken up for effect. You can bet that I'm not going to touch that bottle again for awhile, to wait for bubbles and all. :)

Good luck to all my fellow students that are suffering finals! You shouldn't be reading this because you should be studying! But I'm a hypocrite because I probably shouldn't be blogging during finals week either.

Sodastream

If you know me, then you probably know that I have a major carbonated water/soda addiction. Major major major. My friends know this and always scold me when I'm with them and I buy soda. Not only is it undermining my pursuit to lose weight, it's bad for my teeth, as my friend in dental school tells me all the time.

As a belated birthday/xmas/graduation present, two of my dear friends got me the Sodastream machine.

To say that it is a machine though is a bit unaccurate. In reality it is a plastic CO2 bottle holder that redirects the gas into a bottle of water. My first try with this soda water maker turned out well. I added the sample of diet pink grapefruit soda syrup for my first try. I like how I can control the level of carbonation and in all, also how much sugar and flavor syrup I add.

I'm told that all the sodastream brand soda syrups contain splenda, which I'm OK with, but I doubt I will be putting out the money for it. More often I will probably be adding juice concentrate to a bottle of fizzy water. My favorite drink is usually some orange concentrate, or fresh concentrated lemonade added to a bottle of Peligrino water. This will save me the trips to costco to keep buying the Peligrino water. I preferred the Peligrino, despite the price point because it IS carbonated water and not mineral water. One of the guys in my philosophy class has also said that a tea bag added to carbonated water tastes really good, so I'll probably try that. Now I can make carbonated water at home and not have to worry abut any added nasty tasting minerals.

To say that I'm grateful for this present is putting it lightly. I had been considering getting myself one of the Sodastream models, but the price tag always put me off. This is one of the older models, it's called "Jet". This is one of the cheaper models, but it is capable of holding a larger bottle of CO2, which will last me longer between refills. Apparently if I bring the empty bottle to Bed Bath & Beyond, I can get a discount on a new bottle. Otherwise CO2 refills cost $30. I still need to get this verified though.

My friend is convinced that in the long run this will cost me less money than buying cans of soda, but time and price changes will tell in the long run.

I am in no way affiliated with the Sodastream company, nor have I been asked to review this product.

Let the break begin!

Ahh. It feels good to be home.

A few updates:

• Now 22 yrs old and ready to rock and roll!
• My new age actually hasn't really sunk in yet. Usually by the time it sinks in, another birthday is around the corner. I hadn't gotten used to being 21 yet...
• Drive home starting at 5pm was surprisingly traffic free today, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. 
• I feel like I haven't seen anyone in AGES. Let's hang out!
• This break I shall: read, eat, exercise, sleep, forget about homework until the weekend.
• Maybe practice some calligraphy?
• I brought home my PP pens, but forgot to bring any extra ink, or my dip pens. The practice might be short-lived.
• My sister tells be we're having banh cuon for thanksgiving. O_o
• I brought home a sugar pumpkin. I guess we'll be having banh cuon and pumpkin pie. LOL, weird combo
• I'm excited for Black Friday!
• ... I'm broke. 

Food post

Random post because I couldn't remember the last time I made a post. Well, after two weeks of midterms, you'd think I'd be over the hump.... but one more essay this week and then another essay the week after..... on top of regular reading responses, the semester has finally really kicked into gear.

Lunch/Dinner/Breakfast? for the next few days....
Orange chicken w/ cabbage and corn. Serve with rice and some other steamed or raw veggies.... Let's see if I actually pack lunch... >.<

J. Herbin Rollerball pen- Initial impression

I've recently been looking into rollerball pens that take fountain pen cartridges, or are compatible/refillable by user with fountain pen ink. What I initially wanted was to figure out how to refill Pilot V5 needle-point rollerballs. I've had good experiences with those pens but the problem was that they would eventually run out of ink and are a disposable. Those particular pens sell at a premium price compared to other rollerballs from other brands or product lines, such as the uniball rollerball pens. As a student I would go through a good amount of pens a year, and since I've started using fountain pens, I'm trying to slowly wean myself away from them.

Fountain pens give me that great smooth inky feel and great fun when writing with a fountain pen nib. A big problem though is that when I write quickly, rollerballs are more practical. I have not yet acclimated to the point of where my fountain pen keeps up with my fastest cursive when it comes time for writing on tests or in-class responses. For this I refer to a trusty old rollerball (currently one from Uniball, because I have a pack from a sale awhile back.)

I have one of the Noodler's rollerball tips installed in a preppy that came free with one of their 4.5 bottles of ink, but I find that that one, while it lays down a wonderful wet line with Heart of Darkness, it dislikes drier inks, such as Noodler's Black (Original? Bulletproof? I don't know). Armed with the knowledge that many others and even Nathan Tardiff himself have commented on the wear of the rollerball nibs from Noodler's, I started looking into cartridge taking rollerball pens that don't have replaceable nibs. One must assume that if the tip is not replaceable, then it must be built for work and wear.

The ones that I came across in the order I found them were the Noodler's rollerball, Kaweco rollerball, the J. Herbin rollerball, and the Yafa cartridge-rollerball. All of these are essentially what the rollerball tip in the preppy wants to be. The advantage the preppy has though as the ability to be an eyedropper pen, and thus have a beautifully large reservoir for ink. I had already ruled out Noodler's in my mind, because I already knew about their wear and  tear nibs. The next three came down to availability, pricing, and looks.

Just received the J. Herbin rollerball in the mail. After looking around for information on this pen, I found that there was little to none, and the only page with information was a listing on the Writer's Bloc website that said that the pen was discontinued. Discontinued! Where do you find such things then? Of course- rummage sales, auction blocks, thrift shops, etc. I found my particular pen on Ebay from an estate items seller/digger.

The pen comes in a foam bed  in a round tin, not even 5 inches in diameter. The collectable tin contains the pen, and some smaller tins of cartridges to fit it. I will edit this post later to include photos.

I have to admit that upon opening the tin, I was not impressed, I was disappointed even. The hazard of buying things on ebay is that you can only get so much information, and since there was only one of this particular item that I had been able to find anywhere, I settled. What I received, to my surprise was a black demonstrator pen. I had been lead to believe from the listing on the other site that all the pens came with a sliver body, with different colored caps. Other than the color though, the pen looked alike to the one on the listing, when I got myself to a computer and compared.

I suppose that my disappointment was mostly because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of demonstrators. Despite this being my first demonstrator fountain pen (with a rb tip, but it is essentially a fp), I've had click-pens, ball points, mechanical pencils, etc- that have been demonstrators. And they didn't really do anything for me. I prefer a sleek and beautiful look to my pens. (Even the eyedropper Preppys have a nice asthetic to them... when their ink barrels are mostly full, I don't get the same feeling when it's a Preppy with a cartridge.) While what I have currently can't be called the prettiest fp collection ever, they have nice designs and a great feel to them. The second thing I noticed (after the demonstrator part) was that the plastic was soft to the touch. However it IS hard plastic. This is pretty confusing. This is not soft plastic, such as the bodies of the Pilot Parallel pens, but it isn't hard and highly polished plastic like with the Platinum Preppy pens, and its also not like those plastic pens with the 'satin' feel. Perhaps I'm just imagining it. Perhaps not, but to me the plastic body feels different.

The pen is light in the hand, and fairly shot, about 5 inches capped and 6 inches posted. I need to write with it posted because I feel that it is too light without the cap. With the cartridge in, this pen is still lighter than a preppy pen with a cartridge in, but the body is also significantly thinner. The body is thicker than for instance, a BIC ball point. If I were to compare between the fps that I have, I would say the dimensions are closest with a Noodler's Flex pen (which has the same body as their Creeper), but a third to half a centimeter shorter capped, but almost 1.5 cm longer posted.

I believe the point would be equivalent to a US medium. So far it has written well and smoothly with the J. Herbin cartridge ink. Much better than the RB tip on the preppy, whether that is due to workmanship or due to the much finer point on the Noodler's tip, I can't really say. I have noticed though that the ball inside the tip from Noodler's is definitely metal, and the one from J. Herbin seems to be made of plastic. The tip being made of plastic makes me worry, because plastic wears down much more quickly than metal does. The real test for me is to see how well the pen will do when I refill these cartridges with other inks.

I will follow up with a more in-depth review another time on the writing performance once I've had the pen for awhile. (I've only had it with me for 1.5 hrs now! Yes, I was excited.) If there's anything that I've missed in terms of initial impression that anyone wants to know, tell me.

I had thought that since I got the J. Herbin, I probably shouldn't get the Kaweco, but seeing how its a demonstrator and all... I figure this will become my 'take- everywhere- pocket pen' and if I get a Kaweco it'll be in my pen pouch. I've seen and tested a Kaweco FP before, so I know what to expect in terms of body. I would definitely consider it more 'professional looking' and 'higher end' rollerball. I feel like I can get away with the J. Herbin masquerading as a regular pen most of the time. But that can be both good and bad. On one hand less people might want to swipe it, on the other hand, they might not feel quite as guilty swiping it, since it looks pretty cheap.

Relevation: Regarding Noodler's rollerball preppys

The very first bottle of ink I got was Noodler's Heart of Darkness. I was desperately trying NOT to be sucked into the world of fountain pens and had ordered a few cheap pens from Hero off of ebay and then got HoD off of Amazon. Long before I got the Hero pens, I received HoD in the mail. Now if I had gotten the Hero pens first, and that was my initiation into the world of fountain pens, then I probably would have not been likely to be sucked in, at least not as badly. Those pens were pretty bad, honestly. But along with the 4.5oz bottle of HoD came a Platinum Preppy converted into an eyedropper fill pen. I was hooked.

At that point I had only the one Preppy and some lackluster Hero's. But after my collection started to grow a bit I wanted to experiment with the rollerball tip that was included with the free Preppy. It was a joy to work with, but I still liked the fountain nib to the Preppy better, so I put the rollerball tip away and enjoyed the fountain pen.

Fast-forward. In a new bottle of some regular Noodler's Black ink comes another Preppy with rollerball tip.  Wanting to save the new tip for later, I try using the old tip. Doesn't work. New tip? It barely works. What's going on? It took me awhile but eventually I dug out the original Preppy filled with HoD, and switched the rollerball onto that, and the fountain tip onto the one filled with Black. Yes! It works!

Why is it that the rollerball works so much better with HoD then regular Black? I truly don't know. Maybe it's because HoD is somewhat of a wet ink. Compared to regular Black, it practically gushes out of the Preppy on the fountain nib. I suppose that now I'm truly experiencing the fine nib on the Preppy with the drier Black ink. I'm not sure yet if I like it though.

Question is- why include the rollerball tip with the Preppys in regular Black if they aren't going to work? I recently gifted a bottle of Noodler's Black to one of my friends, and she experienced the same issues with her rollerball tip. I have a new bottle of Concord Grape that I haven't opened yet, but it came with a Preppy without the rollerball tip. What's going on?

This post has been long, and rambling- the point was that the rollerball tip works with Heart of Darkness and not with Black. If you've made it this far though the post- kudos. I've got HW to get back to.

Little escapees

There are a lot of thing that I'm bad at. Unfortunately this includes a tendency to over-procrasinate and failing to update my blog as promised.

I promised awhile ago to post pictures of the little lovelies in the lab. Unfortunately I haven't had the change to grab any good pictures yet, but I do have some pictures of little wanna-be escapees from when we were harvesting the larvae from the paper bags (yes, breeding butterflies is soo high tech...) to transfer into wooden blocks. These blocks get misted with water and then stuck in the fridge where the larvae will experience 'winter' until spring time.

 I believe these are Speyeria butterflies and larvae. The other species we're working on I haven't got pictures of yet, but we've got a batch of them in the second or third instar and hopefully they'll be big and happy enough to make pupla soon. We've got the heat lamps going on full force still on timers so they think that it's high summer.

Here's one escapee that made it particularly far, he was climbing up the side of the plastic box we use to keep it all contained while we're working.

These little guys climbed out of their hole and were try to run away! Don't they know they're more protected inside? I guess not.

You can see then climbing up on the sides. This block is a little too full, we ended up transferring some into another block.

Click to zoom!

Label the blocks with information, so we know who came from which Mama Butterfly later. After a female lays her eggs, she dies, and we take her body and preserve it and sequence the DNA, so we know what these guys are supposed to look like.

Some of the little lovelies in their cloth mesh cage. At this point they're getting pretty beat up by having to stay in the cage and beating on each other. Also because of handling when we have to hand-feed, them. But the Prof just got the cyanide in, so he has started to mate some of the butterflies.

We're on the last few bags of eggs now, the ones from the butterflies we collected on Labor day should be hatching sometime soon, so all the heavy genetics and DNA work starts this week. Joy.

"New" Amazon Kindle VS Old Amazon Kindle

Admittedly the title of this post is misleading, as technically this should be the same Amazon Kindle. But I've noticed a few differences between my original Kindle 3, and the one that Amazon sent me to replace my Kindle, I thought I would document them.

My original Kindle 3 was a pre-order. Or at least almost a pre-order? I don't actually recall. I remember that my first two week's paycheck from working at The Grove last year went into my Kindle, I ordered it sometime in September/early October (2010) (which I believe is when they started shipping the pre-orders out (there was apparently not enough units to fulfill the pre-order, if I recall correctly)) and it had just arrived when I got home for Thanksgiving (I had it shipped home, instead of to college). The order for the new Kindle was put in on Wednesday (August 31, 2011) by my customer service representative after he figured out that my Kindle was malfunctioning (more on this later).

Aesthetically the two side by side look almost identical. The replacement is a refurbished model, but I'm more or less simply happy that it WORKS. I would have been perfectly happy, even happier, if they had been able to fix my old unit (I was actually hoping that some sort of software patch would fix the problem). The concept of refurbished in general, I know shouldn't make me unhappy/more nervous, but I don't think I can help that, especially because it looks simply inferior to my old unit. It looks new, aside from the obvious differences that I've noted below, which I've made in having the new device side by side with the old one for four hours. If there are more changes that I notice I will update accordingly. It's clean and it even doesn't have the crack in the bezel that my original did (which I've noticed that from browsing around Kindle forums that this actually is a fault with the Kindle manufacturing/design.)

The problem with the old unit was that to put it simply, it was SLOW, and then it FROZE and RESTARTED ALL THE TIME. It was simply quite aggravating. The slowness I could deal with, it had been building up for months and months. I had thought though that it was a side effect of just loading LOTS and LOTS of books on the device. When you fill up the hard disk on your computer it slows down, right? I figured that something similar was going on. At this point in time though, when I need to turn the page in a book, I'm more likely to have to press the button, go away, maybe leave to use the restroom or something, come back, and either it'll still not have turned the page, or it has (sometimes it takes ten minutes to turn one page, I was ready to go back to paper books, I was reading more on my laptop Kindle application then the device itself, and sat there and timed it once), or for some reason, THE UNIT HAS FROZEN OR RESTARTED ITSELF. Now if it's frozen, I can do a hard restart by holding the power slider to the side for twenty seconds, that's generally what is recommended by the Customer Service (and is in fact what they asked me to do, first thing after acknowledging that I believed I had a problem). But there is NO REASON why a device needs to restart itself five times in one day, unless I tell it to. (By five times, I'm probably fed up with it and I'll give up for the day.) This never happened when I first got the unit. Even with three classes' semester's worth of powerpoints in PDF form, plus a summer session. And those PDFs can take up a lots of space. Towards the end of June is when this problem started presenting itself I suppose. After the first summer session, I removed all of my class PDFs from my Kindle. THIS is my original and primary purpose for my Kindle: To be able to take along my class material in a small and wonderfully light and easy to read device. After I started to do this last fall, I rarely ever had to print powerpoint slides, electronic text based materials, etc. I didn't even have to take my laptop to class with me anymore, and have it take up the entire desk in the lecture hall. Those desks are small but the little Kindle and a notebook fit on it well. My laptop is no monster, with only a 13" screen, but I need to write in my notebooks ON TOP of the keyboard, in a cramped desk/chair combo. After I discovered how to make fanfiction mobi files, I hardly ever had to use my laptop anymore except to access the internet to do research, do homework, or to look at blogs. With this in mind, I had to stop my lagging to call CS because a device with all these problems wasn't going to work with the school year starting. Even with primarily philosophy classes this year instead of primarily science classes in prior years, the Kindle would be a big part of my academics. I even had to order a CISS for my printer in anticipation of the amount of text materials I knew I would have to print.

It was quite funny actually when the CS agent realized that he would have to replace my Kindle, and I suppose that was primarily because I could hear him swearing in the background. It was obvious that he had said it away from the phone or had attempted to muffle it with something, but I could hear it.

But all this stuff is not what this post was supposed to be about, so let's get down to nitty gritty.

The devices look the same more or less when you initially look at them. The first difference I noticed is that the buttons on the type pad are different. In the old unit, it is clear that Amazon attempted to make the buttons also matte to reduce as much glare as possible on the device. The product was that the buttons, while matte, also had a slightly grainy texture to the touch, which I suppose was helpful in giving a tactile feel to the buttons as well as stopping the sliding sensation on buttons that are shiny and very small. If you've ever worked with very small shiny buttons on devices before, you might understand what I mean, I noticed this primarily on my old Blackberry. The buttons on the new unit are shiny, although this is not obviously to the eye, I noticed the difference in feel first, and then noticed the visual difference. Personally I like the old version, because it provides a slight grip on the letter keys when you use them. There were numerous reports though that the Kindle 3's key labels had a tendency to wear off after an extended period of use. This never happened to me, but I believe that that is mostly because I don't play that many games on my Kindle, and I had kept the original plastic cover that came with the device on the front until about February. Looking at them closely now, I do detect some wear on the labels. Printed labels on the shiny type keys on the new unit might prove to be less prone to wear off. This would be an interested experiment to do, but not one that I would do personally.  Which do I prefer? I have gotten used to the feel of the old unit's buttons, and the slick feeling of the shiny buttons is not something that I welcome, but if that will increase the longevity of the labels, I honestly can say that I don't know which I would toss up. The shininess though, I definitely don't like.

Part of Amazon's claim is that the back of the Kindle has a tactile feeling back, so it is less prone to slip out of your grip due to dry or slippery hands. The backing to the new Kindle unit is smoother in grain then the one on the old unit. Perhaps smoother in grain is the wrong description, but it is smoother feeling to the fingers. The old unit has a lovely almost velvet type feel to the supple plastic covering the back of the Kindle. The new unit has a smoother feel, and less of the velvet feel. The plastic does not seem to be as soft, or tactile. Will this be easier to slip from the hands? I don't know. As I keep my Kindle in a leather case (secured by elastic ties) most of the time, the back is something that I rarely touch on my old Kindle unit, and that will probably continue to be the case with the new one. (You forget how small the Kindle actually is after you've had it in a case for awhile, my particular case increases the thickness by about three times the thickness of the device on its own.) I do feel that this is not what Amazon promised to it's customers though. The tactile feel of the back of the device is significantly decreased, and while enough for a good amount of tactile feel, I like the old version better.

The power slider on the new device is sticky/stiff. This problem might go away with use, but for now, it feel like the slider is just more cheaply manufactured. The whole new unit seems more cheaply manufactured from my original unit. I might be wrong, but there's what I think.

Aside from the look and feel of the device, the real question is that how does it perform? I can say that after copying the documents folder from the old device to the new one, and so it has the same amount of space taken up, the new one still performs better. The page turns are a little slower than a brand new, mostly empty device, but it is still actually turning the device at least close to a slow page turn.

As much as I feel that I like the old unit better, I have to admit, I like the new one more because it works.  And in the end, that's what really matters, the device needs to perform, or it's not worth it.

Another question though, is that does my manufacturer's warranty now expire from the purchase date of the original unit, or the 'purchase' date of the new unit, as I did receive a purchase confirmation, and what exactly is the warranty information on a refurb unit?

OK- Time for bed now, driving home for labor day weekend tomorrow morning.

First week of semester

We started the semester on Monday, and I finally was able to register for my French course. I had had problems in the spring because the spaces were locked for potential freshmen, and then there was a glitch with the system so it couldn't read my placement test score. I managed to get an override in the afternoon and then register. I need two full semesters for my BA and this was my last chance of getting around to it. It's a little different being an immersion course, so I'm having a little trouble, but enjoying it.

I'm taking three philosophy classes this semester- Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Mind. The irony of it is that Philosophy of Science in held in the school chapel, and Philosophy of Religion is held in the biology building. Unfortunately the heat is really wearing me down and makes it hard to sleep at night, so I ended up oversleeping and missing my first class yesterday (Ooops!), I have the same professor twice in the day too, so it was only somewhat awkward. The downfall of having the same professor twice is that you can't skive off only one class, the Prof will know.

I had an interview with the library today. I think it went well and hopefully I can start working next week.

We had our first research meeting today. Prof H is conducting studies on butterflies. He discussed the semester's research goal and started us out today by having us hand feed the butterflies. I was a bit skittish in grabbing my butterfly from the cage. Unfortunately the problem was more that the butterfly I was aiming for was on a leaf, and I'm not the most comfortable with plants. Butterflies? OK. Plants and flowers... ehhh. I will have to get over this ASAP Dr. H says though, as jerking away will cause more damage then grabbing them incorrectly. I suppose that he thinks that I'm more skittish of the bugs, which most people would be, I suppose. I call them Dr. H's Little Lovelies. Perhaps I'll take photos and such next time I'm in the lab.

I called Kindle customer service yesterday, the first chance I've had all week, because I've been having freezing and restarting issues with my Kindle. After a few false starts, some phone static and lots of repeating on the representative's part, they determined that my screen had gone defective or there was something wrong with the motherboard. Thus a replacement is on its way, and I will need to send back the defective unit. I wish that we could have resolved the issue via a software update or something, alas, if it's something they can't fix over the phone, then they don't question anymore into it I suppose.

I've already got a lot of work to do and many things to read. For now- Salut!

Flashback, flashforwards

First a flashback-

This is a short film that I and some other students set up during my freshman year of college. Now entering my (hopefully) last year of college, I feel so much older, and disillusioned from myself back then. Now is more then ever the time to ask what the heck I'm going to do with my life.

The simple answer would be that I haven't a clue.

Perhaps I will expand on that later.

More writings, and Che

I'm a horrid updater. Just uploading some stuff I did last week.

Teddy bear in progress

Silly Masha is such a sleepy head

Admittedly these are not very good, mostly because I haven't gotten very much practice in. Also because I'm working on a 3"x4" Sketchpad. SMALL.

I also made Che last week! For those that don't know Che is the vietnamese word for dessert type dishes, and alot of them look like cold sweet soups. This one is made with a layer of mung bean on the bottom, colored tapioca (traditionally it's red when you get it in shops, but I made it green because I don't have any red food coloring, but I did have some pandan ;). ), and thin strips of agar agar-jello on top. Usually it's topped off with some simple syrup and coconut milk, but I topped it off with some non-fat milk and some (self!-)sweetened coconut milk. The result is not nearly as sweet as in the stores, but it's sweet enough for me, and really refreshing on a summer day. I've been eating it for breakfast though. ;D

That's all for now...

When journals become public

Admittedly I've always struggled with the concept of blogs, as the world knows them now. When I was first introduced to blogs, in the early 2000s, the concept of a blog was explained to be not unlike an online journal, abet a very public online journal. It was also a social playground ripe for gossip and cyber-bullying. You could write anything, but if someone found that post, and received it the wrong way, or even the right way... Nothing is personal in a journal when that journal is on the internet.

I don't know when blogs as I know them now came to be the norm. Perhaps it was always as such, although being stuck in the realms of Xanga and Livejournal might have retarded my internet growth rate. I'm certainly used to something far different than what I've been seeing.

At the moment I need to stop and reevaluating what is going on, and where I want to go with it. Having three, or four online journals is silly, and more than a little bit erring on the dangerous side of life, in my opinion. At the same time, I feel that having many blogs, each dedicated to solely one aspect of my life can easily become overwhelming as well as confusing.

I am under no illusion that a true blog is alot of work. But for the most part, I do not think that I intend this to be a true blog. This is a project more as an outlet for confusion, creativity, and general kookiness. Hopefully I can keep it lighthearted and uplifting. It is also a chronicle, so I may look back and see what I was, and how I was, today or tomorrow.

Handwriting: a work in progress

 I've been working on my handwriting this summer in my spare time, and thought I'd do a chronicle on how it's going so far. I can't say that it's the best in the world... here's what I've got so far... BEFORE samples and AFTER samples! The pictures are pretty dark, but I haven't discovered yet how to photo-edit on my mac without actually moving them ON to my hard drive (I would rather keep them on the SD card. :). )

 OLD PRINT

OLD CURSIVE

when I first started trying to 'improve' my cursive, using the Ames Guide to Self-Instruction (to practical and artistic penmenship) on IAMPETH, which has scans of instruction books on various styles. It's inconsistent between my old style and the style I was trying to take on, and messy!

Writing sample from earlier today (err, Sunday, because it's the middle of the night now... ^_^) while I was writing to write an essay...

Ahh.... As I said, it's a work in progress! Not the best at all. Unfortunately, at times I myself have trouble reading my own handwriting in the new cursive because I'm not used to the slant and the loopiness of it. In the middle, I accidentily lost where I was at, and then somehow started practicing the Palmer method of Business writing (which is totally different!!), so I had a setback a while ago. I'm currently practicing the 'practical side' of the Ames hand, which is a lot like the Palmer business writing in the beginning (which is how I got confused!). I hope to go on later to Ornamental writing as well, partially because it's so pretty!!)

I'm currently taking a break (I know, I just barely started!) from calligraphy because I have to return the library books soon, and I'm taking a reading/thinking-intensive class (Moral Problems) and have less time for it. Calligraphy practice takes more time than handwriting practice! Unless, of course, I start trying to writing my essays and reading prompts in a calligraphic hand, but that would be 1) slow, 2) ink consuming!

Fun picture: while I was wandering around downtown with my sisters last week, we saw a guy literally come and plomp down his piano and started playing! People with instruments are a common sight in the area, but this is the first time I've seen a person bring an outright piano! And he was pretty good! Hooray for the people we find in SF!

comment!!

Reviving creme eye liner

Yesterday when I reached for my ELF creme eye liner in metallic olive, I was dismayed to hear a rattling sound from it's container, and sure enough, when I upended it, the eyeliner simply fell out of it's packaging. What's curious though is that for the most part, the liner was not dried out, and I could still use it. Since I was short on time I used it, and resolved to come back later to find out how to fix it.

I have several of ELF's creme eye liners from the studio line. My black and midnight (blue) colors I've had close to a year now, and gunmetal and metallic olive I've had for about three months. I distinctly remember though, that upon receiving all of the liners, all of them were at least a little bit pulled away from the jar (plastic) already. Only the blue and the olive seem to have changed in pulling more away from the sides of the jar though, although there was already space all around the liner in the first place, I suppose it was only a matter or time..

Now, having heard and read of numerous horror stories of how gel and cream eyeliners and shadows have the tendency to dry out, I felt like I should do something, even though for the most part, the liners felt and acted, more or less the same as when I first received them. A larger contributing factor though, was that knowing that with more surface area exposed to the air in the jar, no matter how tightly it is sealed each time, the more likely they are to dry out. Every time the jar is sealed, the amount of moisture in the air in the jar, and with the product exposed will attempt to reach equilibrium. So say you live in a dry climate, you would be releasing moisture every time you open your jar, and your product would dry out even faster. With one of the liners so separated from the jar that it fell out, it was time to do something.

Basically what I did for the olive, was first take the piece of eyeliner out. I then took my hairdryer and set it on HIGH, and heated up the plastic jar. When the plastic was adequately warm (hot, but not burning, not so hot as the liner starts to melt), I took the liner, and pressed it into the small remnants of eyeliner in the warm jar. I then took up the hair dryer again, and pointed it towards the top and the sides of the open jar, with the liner inside. The point of this was to warm up the liner and the jar. Then using my ring finger. I pressed out and down from the middle of the liner, until most of the space between the liner and the jar was sealed. This is the only one of the liners, that kept most of the shape that it was originally in, but at least most of the air surrounding the liner was sealed, and I could see the color pressed up from the outside of the plastic.

The process with the other three colors was a variant of the same procedure. The difference mainly being that these liners had not yet fallen completely out of their containers. Heat was applied to the bottom, and the sides of the jar, and then the top. The blue and black liners, being older, were understandably harder where they had been separated from the jar. For those two I took a clean toothpick and broke up the creme, and mixed it with more application of heat until the product was smooth, although still not melted. I then gave it a few hard taps on the countertop until I was reasonably sure I had forced out a majority of the air bubbles, at least those that I could see. The tapping was applied to all of the liners, but the black and blue were the only ones I felt I had to mix, the reason being that only heat and pressure was not enough for force the liner back to the sides of the jar.

For now, they are cooling in their pots, with the lids on. I will test them tomorrow to see how well the products fared, but for now, I am hopeful and reasonably sure, that they will work as they should.

My new pens came in!

The Noodler's Flex Pens I ordered last week from the Goulet Pen Company arrived yesterday, and I went to go get them at the post office this morning. I got Cardinal Darkness and Vulcan's coral. I thought I would like the Vulcan's coral better, but I'm actually quite fond of the Cardinal Darkness. It's lovely. I'll admit that the Vulcan's Coral is easier on the eyes though. The Cardinal Darkness is a cardinal (bird) red with black swirls throughout the resin. The Vulcan's Coral is not coral like I know it. Rather it's something between magenta and burgundy colors with white swirls. The tines spread out to about 1.5 to 2mm. I'm looking forward to giving these a test run. Now to decide which one to ink up first. =D

What also arrived with the flex pens was my new Lamy Safari. *Squeal* Haha. I wanted to experience the awesomeness of Safari, but I wasn't really drawn to any of the colors I saw on Amazon. Aquamarine is the limited edition color for 2011. The cheapest Safari on Amazon goes for about $25 for the color Charcoal. Lately I've had a weakness for nice bright colors. It also helps me find things in my black bag. What drew me to ordering one from this company is specially that they aren't raising the price of the pen just because the color is limited edition. I got this for $30, which is the same that they charge for all the Safari pens from their site. Lamy USA sells Safari pens for $35, which is the pen's retail price for all colors, but it only comes in fine, medium, and broad. The Goulets kindly let us pick which nib to buy with the pen, as certain nibs only come with certain pens, or sold separately (about $10 and up). Instead of getting the regular Fine nib that would have come if I ordered from Lamy or Amazon, I got to choose a italic 1.1mm stub, at no extra cost. This exciting purchase is going to allow me to experience both italic stubs and flex pens at the same time! I already have some Pilot Parallel Pens, in all the sizes, but I've found that while they're a little too big for everyday writing/note taking.

After getting the pens from the post office, I found that my regular hair cut place is closed on Tuesdays, so I couldn't get a haircut. So I bought a order of porridge from a little store on Clement st. and then made my way to the ocean.

 This is by sutro baths. I sat and watched the fog roll in gradually while eating lunch and reading homework.

At this point all I've had today was porridge, and later a Icee from Burger King. But since I've walked maybe 15 miles today. It's probably time for a nap. Or maybe more homework.

(I am not affiliated with the Goulet Pen Company, but I do think that they're awesome! =D)

Starting Up

My Pilot Parallel Pens came in yesterday! I'm so excited! This is hopefully the start of either a lifetime hobby, or a passing fancy. The former, I hope is what becomes of it. What is it? Calligraphy, of course! I've just inked up one of my brand new pens and started doodling some stoke practices with it. What I hope will become of this blog is that there will be a good scattering or handwritten posts as well as typed ones. That is, once I get everything in order. Only think I know so far is that notebook feathers badly! But initial tests with the 2.4mm indicate incredibly smooth nib compared to my Hero student pens, and Platinum Preppys. Now, hopefully I can get enough practice to keep the WHOLE nib connected to the paper at all times! What a big nib!

New Blog

My friends had the idea that I should start up a blog chronicling my daily (and let's face it, not so daily) adventures. Here goes nothing! (Or Something!... Blah, who knows?)