Who's Patronus? Sailor PokeMoon's.

MEGACON 

& All of it's Fantasms. 

           It's so easy to fall into the routinely norm of school and work and family and significant others and time wasters, that we almost slip away from who we truly are. I know how corny and cliche that sounds, but it's true for everyone. I think this why I love going to Conventions & Conferences: I get such a high from them. Because you're surrounded by people with the same passions as your's and nothing else matters except participating in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournament or taking a picture with a real-life TARDIS. 

          I go through these phases where I feel unaccomplished and bored and like I'm not doing anything meaningful or fun with my life. The feeling overwhelms me and I start an irrational project like wanting to read a hundred books in a year or up-and-go to an Anime/Comics/Sci-Fi Convention in Orlando to meet Tom Felton. I keep tacking things on to this list of things I want to do this year; and since MegaCon, I've compiled yet another list strictly of Cons I want to go to. My goal is at least 3 this year. 3 Cons, 100 books read, 1 book written, and re-watch all 83 episodes of the original Pokemon. 

          I feel like I'm rambling because I pretty much am. There are so many fantastic things I'm planning to do this year. Especially with La Band and reading and writing. The Nerd Cells in my body are so fully charged I feel like I'm going to explode. This is what I love about conventions - they fire you up because you're not worried about homework and workwork, just the things you're passionate about. All I want to do, and in fact, did do, is watch anime, play Mario Brothers, register for conventions, write & record music, and read as many books as possible until I sound like a pretentious know-it-all.  

          Maybe this is why I want to keep going back to cons - maybe I feel I need a constant reminder of who I truly am: A Draco Malfoy fangirl bleeding green and silver, a Doctor Who fanatic shipping Tennant & Rose, a secret Pokemon/Sailor Moon lover at heart who needs a convention to bring it out of her, a Browncoat without a show, a writer lacking a finished product, and a novel-addict with list of goals and accomplishments she keep's forgetting to refer to. 

          I'm making a promise to myself that I'm not going to let society cloud my vision of who I am. I'm going to try and not let myself get into the My-Life-Is-Boring-Rutt because I'm making a point to allow myself one Nerdism a day. Nerdisms will be posted at the end of the week. 

          Also, even if you're not a Nerdfighter but you have things you're passionate about, don't let Life trick you into thinking the things you're passionate about are less important than the things that unfairly prioritize themselves as "having" to be done. 

         


          PS: Tom Felton was absolutely gorgeous and despite the photographer attacking me when I attempted a hug, it was an amazing experience. Got some fantastic t-shirts and hand-drawn Doctor Who art, along with a mini-TARDIS. I'm so hot, wouldn't ya say? 

          PSS: Kind of completely unrelated, but some minor updates: La Band (Now referred to as "Native Tapestries,") is auditioning for Battle of the Bands this weekend; we also have a gig March 3rd. And I was nominated for Student Employee of the Year, so I've got a banquet for that March 28th, and I was invited to some Important Person Dinner Banquet in early March. Sooo.. March will be a good month and now you're updated.

Books read: 2

The "I'm-Single-So-I-Have-The-Right-To-Hate-Valentine's-Day" Epidemic

It's really exciting when something inspires me to blog about society's imperfections. Today's topic: Valentine's Day and Why Single, (or as I was informed earlier,) Cheap People, Hate It. Some history of Valentine's Day...
Valentine's Day originally was to honor Christian martyrs known as Valentinus in 496 A.D. and became the day of expressing affection to loved ones in the form of "courtly love." This was only exclusive in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of European Literature, until the 15th Century when the tradition of flowers, chocolates, and greeting cards became the expression of affection worldwide. 


What bothers me so much about Valentine's Day is infallible desire for people to criticize Valentine's Day because they don't have a significant other, or just for the mere fact of wanting to be "different" and go against society by expressing callused words like, "I don't need a man, nor a day of flowers and chocolates to be happy." or "Cuddling with myself tonight. Screw the Valentine's Day Commercialism." 


If you're going to hate Valentine's Day because you don't have a lover to spoil you, you might as well hate Halloween because people don't think 20 year olds in costumes is cute anymore..it's creepy and most often, unpleasantly suggestive. And you might as well hate Christmas because Santa doesn't exist, and darn it, "you're getting one big present this year." You better not even think about enjoying Thanksgiving because you hate all of your family members anyway, and the majority of them are in jail or on the pipe...and how could you be remotely thankful for that?


It's just wrong and discriminatory to not enjoy one holiday because you feel as if you don't have the right credentials. Suck it up, push up those girls, and find a man. Maybe if you spent less time on Facebook posting statuses about how much you hate Valentine's Day, you'd use your time more wisely and invest in a mate. 


Happy Valentine's Day! <3

The Resurrection Post

I'm a zombie!

Hello, followers and readers alike! 

I am, in fact, back from the dead. I haven't posted since November 1st, when I was informing everyone of my one-month-hiatus-which-gradually-and-unexpectedly-turned-to-a-three-month-hiatus. Most sincere apologies on my part; hope you all can forgive and refollow! 

First, I want to thank the 75 viewers who have kept checking my blog for updates or rereading old posts back when I had time and NaNoWriMo didn't murder me and all that good, snazzy business. Sidebar: I, *audible sigh*, did not finish NaNoWriMo; I got a little over halfway finished and my "If-I-Don't-Finish-Completely" goal was at least finish halfway. But no worries, I AM going to finish my novel at some point, and it will be edited and revised and hopefully sent out to publishing companies this year. 

Second: After the last post, there were finals and projects and papers, oh my! But I ended up having the greatest winter break of all time. I finally traveled; which is something I've wanted to start doing for awhile. Saw Pennsylvania, New York City, and D.C., plus a bunch amazing little perks like The Crayola Factory and witnessed candy canes be made from scratch and experience snow tubing. Although I missed my family terribly, I spent one beautiful kick-butt month with the boyfriend and his family and they truly made it special for me. Still thanking my family and his family a million times over for letting me experience things I never have before! 

Third: Which catches us somewhat up to the present. I'm taking 18 credits this semester; including, Air Traffic: Orlando TRACON, Air Traffic: Daytona Tower, Evolution of Scientific Thought, Thunderstorms, Occupational Safety, and Music Appreciation & Criticism. Wide variety of classes, I know. It's consuming me and taking up the majority of my time, but I desperately want to finish a year and a half early. And I'm totally going to because I'm like, a superhuman. 

Fourth: Speaking of superhumanisms, a couple of my friends and I have somehow compiled what seems to be a Folk Indie band. And we're pretty much fantastic. I'm absolutely more excited about this than like, anything right now. Mostly because a) I haven't had anything to do with anything musical in over a year and b) there's so much talent between the three of us, it's explosive. We're in-between-names at the moment because apparently there's a Tapestry Music Collective, which for some reason, sounds too much like The Tapestry Collective. Click here for fantasmic talent! We performed Monday night at the campus talent show (which can be seen in the aforementioned link) and the audience was extremely responsive. It's definitely something we all want to pursue and are ridiculously excited about. More details on this business later--like a band name and upcoming performances and all that good musical stuff. 

Fifth: I'm resetting goals for myself. The first being, read 100 books this year. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but I'm so ready to do this. I also want to finish my novel, start a journal of famous last words, and TRAVEL. More on this later, I really should be studying for a test. 

Sixth & Last: I'M MEETING TOM FELTON NEXT WEEKEND AT MEGACON! Ahhhh, freaking out, excited, can't handle it, going crazy, fangirl, fangirl, fangirl! Etcetera. 

Well, that's all folks. Promise I won't be a zombie anymore. I've already used my Zombie Card. No more disappearing acts! 

Books read: 1

One Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty Seven Words

NovemberNovemberNOVEMBER! This is going to be a super short, super unclever, super non-witty blog because this week is ridiculously crazy. I have 2 exams, a quiz, need to watch Castle, and need to WRITE. For the rest of this month, the blogs, I apologize in advance, will either be relatively short in length or scarce in quantity. Why? Because I'm FINALLY participating in NaNoWriMo. Which, if you don't know, stands for National Novel Writing Month. Throughout the month of November, I, along with thousands of others across the world, will be writing 1,667 words per day to reach the final goal of 50,000 words by November 30th at 11:59PM. I'm not going to reveal what my novel is going to be about specifically, but involves an 18 year old girl, college life, satirical and dark wit by the multitudes, and a Motel 6. This is why my blogs are going to be scarce: because I need to spend the majority of my time writing my novel. My goal is to complete the competition on November 30th, but then also be able to add more and edit the novel to where I can publish it. I also have another Occupy Daytona rally this Saturday so I'll be busy with that. And I have rallies for Awake the State throughout the month! OH! And I'm definitely starting a YouTube channel this month. I'll post a link to my channel when that commences. So, I apologize if I, like, keel over and am unable to entertain you with my Thoughts of Awesome Entertainment and Whatnot. 

Sidenote: I had a superamazingfantasticmagical weekend with The Boyfriend last weekend. I won't recap everything except that we had sushi, had a bumpin' Halloween party with the family, went to my first college football game at UCF, got scared out of my mind on Test Track at Epcot, and had an absolutely DELICIOUS tour of the Food and Wine Festival. Ah, sososo good. Honestly, I would've had an amazing weekend with The Boyfriend if we were making mud pies. Every moment with him is different and magical and perfect. And I absolutely adore him. If you're reading this and are saying to yourself, "Oh my gosh, shut up. I really don't care about your relationship because I'm really super jealous and will never find one of my own." Well.. stop saying that. Or just stop reading. But I don't want to lose followers, so just stop thinking that. If you think you'll never find the right guy, stop thinking that too! Good things happen to those who wait; and the longer you wait, the better the guy is. I waited a really long time and I got the best thing I could ever ask for. <3

I was going to end this blog with that sappy-one-liner but I forgot to mention, if you want to track my progress for NaNoWriMo, go to www.nanowrimo.org and search "AshliWho". I'll also be updating as much as I can on Twitter: LINK HERE! and of course, via blog posts. That's all for now, folks. Time to enjoy this photo of me crying on Test Track!  

"These are my Confessions..."

I started last week's post off with an allusion to a YouTube video I had been featured in. I don't want to sound redundant, but now I'm going to say, "Go subscribe to this channel Here!" to understand what I'm about to blog about. Alex Day, "nerimon" posted a video entitled "YouTube Survey 2011". Considering I've yet to be able to conquer the procrastination I constantly endure, I haven't started vlogging, and am not on YouTube. This is getting wordy, so here it is: I'm responding to Alex Day's YouTube survey via Blogger. 

Question 1: Tell us about your first kiss

My "technically" first kiss happened when I was in pre-school with a boy named C.J. I remember chasing him around the playground and demanding him to kiss me. I finally tackled him behind the big yellow slide and told him if he didn't kiss me, I'd tell everyone he liked boys. His twin brother David saw the whole thing and told his twin that he better just do it. And so poor little threatened C.J. of the big yellow slide kissed me. Not on the hand. Not on the cheek. Right smack on the lips. I felt awesome. And then never talked to him again. 
The real first kiss happened on a rainy afternoon in 7th grade at Silver Sands Middle School with my first boyfriend, "Pseudonym". I don't feel like embarrassing myself and him in one blog.We had been dating 3 weeks and he kind of just grabbed my face and kissed me. I didn't really know what to do so I just stood there. It didn't last very long because how long does one keep kissing a mouth unpuckered? Suprisingly, the relationship lasted over a year. Even after 4 months when he told me he was going to make out with me whether I liked it or not. But that's another story. 

Question 2: What was the most expensive item of clothing you ever bought?

I don't buy many expensive items of clothing. But Junior Year of high school, I ran for Miss Atlantic and the contestants needed a dress for the Poise and Presentation portion of the competition. My mum bought me this gorgeous satin, sequin, ball gown for around $350. Needless to say, I lost the competition and am $350 poorer. 

Question 3: What was the first job you ever wanted as a kid? 

I wanted to be a professional figure skater. I used to watch figure skating all the time when I was little and would've given anything to skate in the Olympics. The "at-the-time" Daytona Ice Plex opened and my best-mom-in-the-world-mom put me in private lessons. 6 days a week, Monday-Saturday. I'd get up at 5:30, skate from 5:45-7AM, go to school, and get back on the ice after school until 4. Then, Saturdays consisted of 10AM jump class, 11AM ballet, then skating the rest of the afternoon. I honestly don't know how I did it as a mere 8-year old. But it was my passion, and it was my dream to be a Michelle Kwan when I grew up. And now, I want to control airplanes. Didn't stray too much from the child inside me. :D 

Question 4: Tell us about your group of school friends

I didn't necessarily have a specific group in high school, I floated with all of the cliques on campus. But in middle school I ran with a group that called themselves...K-JAB. Again, not writing names for courtesy purposes. K-JAB, of course, stood for all of our initials. And we were the most popular girls in school, your typical snobby clique that everyone wanted to be friends with and was jealous of. We had a notebook we all decorated after the tragic loss of our first one. "B" lost it at lunch one day and we were freaking out because everyone's secrets and rumours and drama was in that book and we were going to be "so dead." So we passed around this notebook everyday unless someone needed an extra class period or day. When someone had the notebook too long, everyone got all grumpy because they couldn't write down their drama for the day. The biggest drama I remember about the notebook was a massive fight that broke out between myself, A, and J. Pages and pages and pages of cattiness vomited all over a shared notebook between four girls. In addition to this beloved book, every Friday night we went to the movies. No matter what movie, we were there. We saw the movie, had a sleepover, and called boys all night because that's how cool we were. Oh, and we ate lots and lots of birthday cake ice cream. 

Question 5: What would you name your kids?

I've thought about this a lot and I always either 1) forget the names I picked or 2) meet someone with the name I picked and they turn out to be someone I disgust. However, boys' names I've stuck to include: Ashton, Logan, Aiden, and Lucas. Girls' names: Skyla, Sophie/Sophia, Lucy, and Riley. Not sure why the majority of my boys' names end in an "en" sound and the majority of my girls' names end in an "ee" sound... o.O 

Well, that's all we have for today, folks. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of Usher singing "Confessions."

I'd Eat My Words, but I'd Rather Eat a Cupcake

A few explanations: If anyone saw the terrible and highly unpopular video of Chantel and I singing an Improv Duet at Atlantic's Cafe AMARD two years ago on YouTube, a) I'm sorry and b) you know that I prefer muffins to cupcakes and provided a well-detailed argument in regards to the ever-ceaseless: Muffins vs. Cupcakes War Saga Thing in acoustic song-form. However, despite my irrefutable zeal for the muffin, particularly blueberry and banana nut, I am, in fact, craving a cupcake. This could be due to the fact I just walked down the hall and two very nicely dressed women (I don't why I felt the need to say these ladies were nicely dressed) were talking at exceedingly loud about how much they wanted cupcakes. Normally, I'm quick to jump and say, "Hey, nicely dressed ladies, go get a muffin instead!" But rather than me being at the front lines of defense for the moist, fluffy, baked good, I kind of wanted to follow them out of the office and go wherever they were going to get a cupcake as well. <---That's actually really creepy now that I write it out. Anyway, in hopes of quenching my craving for cupcakes, I searched "Making Cupcakes" on YouTube. The only video I got through was the low budgeted adaptation of a Food Network Home Cooking show, where this highly unenthusiastic woman made cupcakes look like ice cream cones. They look so pretty, but I seriously think I have contracted diabetes upon watching this video. In case you feel like contracting diabetes as well, the steps on making an ice cream cupcake are as follows:

1. Fill the cone halfway with jellybeans (or candy of your choice) for that extra sweet punch in the face

2. Unwrap your cupcake and ice the top, then stick it face down into the cone

3. Take your MINI cupcake and stick it face down onto the larger, iced cupcake (ice that, too!)

4. Then, take as much icing as possible and spread it thickly onto your cupcake stack. This way, you'll be able to feel the icing glue your organs together with every bite. 

5. Don't forget to ice it like a soft-served cone, so if you need more icing, don't worry about it! The more, the better. 

6. Finally, sprinkles! Because who doesn't like a heart attack without sprinkles.

It's safe to say that after watching this video, I have reaffirmed my Team Muffin status. And now, a cute Muffin Cupcake Conflict War Photo: