A Rant About Tourists.

So it's been a while since I've talked about "new city experiences." Partially cause it's been a while since I talked about anything, but mostly because I feel acclimated to the city now. Crazy to think it's been almost a year since I moved here to Seattle. But this isn't a discussion of my adjustment to the city of my dreams, it's a rant about an opinion of mine that has changed since living here.

My whole life I never understood why tourists got a bad rep. People acted as if they were the scum of the earth more or less depending on the specific city or area.

I thought "What's the big deal? They're just trying to have a harmless good time."

But it's summer now and as I try to speed-walk my way through Pike Place Market to get to class I find myself growing more hateful of tourists each day. They walk at a snail's pace as they window shop. Sometimes they stop right in the middle of a busy sidewalk to figure out where they are. In the recent months the sidewalks in that area get so busy that the foot-traffic spills over into the actual street on a regular basis. (I feel bad for the people trying to drive through there...)

There have been days where I would have normally been right on time but ended up late because of the extra people. I know it's a fun area and I should be more understanding, but I'm just trying to get to class on time!

That is all!  >:/

Glitter painting

Sometimes I attempt to paint. With glitter watercolors. Yeah you read me, glitter.

So while I was sitting here at 12:45 am drooling over cupcakes and ice cream online, I suddenly thought "Hey, remember that blog I have somewhere on the internet? I should post something there. Something, anything, just do it!

So here, take a gander at two of my little paint doodles.

Summer Lovin'

(What an original title.)
Though my summer is short I've actually done quite a bit so far. At least for my standards of usually doing nothing more than school work or laying around.
I would preferably post high quality photos edited to my liking but flickr currently wants money from me before I can upload. So instead I thought I'd post my recent instagram photos, think of it as a photo diary of sorts.

1 & 3. One of my best friends got married a few weeks ago. I still can't believe it, I'm pretty sure we were in middle school like a year ago. 

2. I finally achieved a perfect town in Animal Crossing!!! After eight years or so of owning the game.

4. This woman was seen reading a book at Westlake Center, I was completely fascinated by her. I swear she looks like a Hogwarts teacher. 

5. Tea roses. They're pretty. 

6. Reunited with my cat! You can see we're equally happy. 

7. My mom traded in her car for an Acura. It may be a 2004 model, but it's nicer than some of the brand new cars I've ridden in.

8. A story my cousin and Uncle wrote when she was younger. They want me to help turn it into a real book now which is completely flattering. 

9. Mayer Hawthorne and the County opening for Foster the People! It wasn't exactly my normal scene but I have to say, he was pretty good. 

I still have nine and a half more days to go, who knows what other adventures will take place.

"Summer"

I did it, I survived spring quarter!
Despite having two gen-ed classes and one very insane design teacher I passed all my classes. Originally I was going to rant about my finals experience and how I didn't think I was going to pass one class because of said insane teacher, but I'd rather just forget about that...

So what does my summer look like? Well it's about three weeks long and so far it involves a lot of Animal Crossing. I'm spending as much time as possible at Mylinh's house but also splitting time between other friend's, my mom, and my extended family. On the 9th I have to start school again up until September 22nd.

Aw man I just realized that this entry is really boring and short. And I don't have anything else to say. AND NO PICTURES. I'll try to be more interesting later. 

Today was a fattie day

Macarons, Instant noodles, old bread, crepe filled with ice cream.

I regret nothing!

Springtime Journey

One sunny day I decided to take a break from my never ending homework and go explore the city through my lens.
It was a lot of fun taking new routs that I hadn't walked down before and seeing things that I didn't know existed. Except for the creepy toothless man that bluntly asked if he could have sex with me....that I could have done without.
Now I just need to do this again with my college friends (to prove that I have some.) I miss taking my camera on outings with friends!

Backwards attire.

On the left is what I wore to go out shopping/lunch. The right is how dressed up I got to stay in my apartment and do homework alone. 

Yeah, I don't get me either. 

Secret Urban Garden

Last Sunday was my last day of break, and I wanted to spend it doing absolutely nothing. And I did most of the day! But at one point I wanted to get out of my apartment for a while, so I went out and started walking. I didn't know where I would end up, I just wanted to walk in a different direction from usual.

It was a beauuutiful day for once and I wanted to enjoy the sun. After a little walking I stumbled upon what looked like a little park. When I got closer I saw that it was actually a garden. One that was a little rundown, but still perfect for what I wanted.

 After following a trail that was covered in bushes and thorns, I found a stairway which lead to an area surrounded by trees in full bloom. It was beautiful, but my allergies were also in full bloom...Next stop: Headache city, population: me.

If only I had my real camera, that would have made for some amazing photos. But these iphone photos will have to do.

And maybe this garden wasn't so much of a secret because there were other people there. But I don't care, I'm still going to call it that.

Unintentional love story

This past Wednesday, THIS happened. 

Ah sorry for sloppy writing, I drew this after a math final. 

Naked Guy

  For the past few months I've been drawing naked people once a week. It was weird at first...but then it gets kind of normal.
  Most weeks we draw in charcoal which is messy, hard to work with, and just plain horrible. But for the past two weeks of class, we were allowed to bring in whatever medium we wanted. I chose digital myself, and brought in my laptop and tablet.
  I've never tried to draw from life on it before, so it was a new experience. Towards the end I think I got pretty okay at it, with the exception of the "hairy" line work that my teacher said I need to get rid of.

  All jokes about the angle aside, I'm kind of proud of this. It shows that I made improvement, which hopefully can only continue. 

  Now I wonder what kinds of people will find this post based on the tags and title...hmmmmmm... 

Bus Snobs

(In case you can't read it...)

Kent: "The behavior of our classmates is rahther abhorable."

Kayla: "mm'Indeed."

Also, 'abhorable' is a funny word which spellcheck doesn't seem to like. But it's still a real word...right?

Blogs I been lovin'

Miso Happy: A pretty popular doodle blog on tumblr. This is actually one of the blogs that inspired me to start using my tablet again. And guess what? This girl studied my major and lived in Seattle like I do!! (Until she moved a while ago...) I totally want to be her best friend and doodle together and make cute things and be all Seattley and graphic designy.  * _ *

Little Miss Paintbrush: Another cute doodle blog! I mean just look at her layout, it pretty much sums everything up as soon as you open her page. Plus I love the sense of humor as well.

Cute in Korea: This blog is just starting out, but what's already there is great. Elle is a foreigner living in korea, it's interesting to hear about korean things from her point of view. (My favorite is the food posts eh heh heh...)

"Huffmans'" flickr: Not a blog...that makes my title a lie...But I absolutely adore this girl's photos! It's no secret that I have a Disneyland obsession, and since I can't afford to go anytime soon, I spend a good amount of time online pretending I'm there.
When I get tired of the standard park photos that everyone takes, I look for something a little more fantasy-ish and artsy. That's exactly what huffmans' photos are, beautiful, surreal photos that make the most magical place in the world look even MORE magical. Here's some of my favorites.






So that's how I've been spending my free time lately, looking at these blogs (and photos) for hours on end. :) 

Burnt Marshmallow Brain

I've been so busy lately. Well, life has been busy ever since I started school, but the last few weeks have been especially extra super busy!!!!

From eight hours on math homework, to the endless pile of english papers. Let alone the day that I spent ten hours working on my calendar design nonstop. My most recent horror story involves a research paper with very specific source qualifications. No general internet sources, no magazine derived articles, and no newspaper articles. Only books or scholarly journals. -_-

After several hours of yelling at my computer screen and 3 topic changes, I still had nothing. In the end I wrote a horrible, piece of crap paper just so I could turn in something this morning. Something is better than nothing, right?

This is my self portrait; Monday edition. I stumbled around all day in a haze, just wishing I was home. On the bright side, the hardest day of my week is over! 

Lets go live in a hole

"...and survive on instant ramen. It'll be great, we can wear loincloths and never bathe."

This is my solution to life's problems.

Snowmageddon 2012

Just a few weeks ago, the weather decided it was time for us to have another snowmageddon! Our first was a few years back, and I guess we were over-due for another exciting round of power outages, closed streets, car accidents, and school closures.



It wasn't bad downtown, where I live, but everywhere else seemed to have a foot or more of snow. My mom was snowed in for about four days!



When I'm back home-home, I hate snow! Mostly because it keeps me from going anywhere, and I get stuck inside without power. But here in my new home, I LOVED it! I could stick walk/bus wherever I wanted, and it was beautiful seeing snow in a new environment.

Balloon Dream

Based on a dream I had recently. It ended with me getting dunked in the water.  -_-  

A "Bridesmaids" moment

When this moment happened in real life, I immediately though of this scene. Oh mom, only you...

In other news, yay! Look! I made a comic for the first time since like....2010. Here's to practicing more on my tablet so I can use it to make beautiful masterpieces. 

Projects Thus Far

I've already completed my first quarter in school. The ride has been a liiiittle crazy, and has made me busier than I’ve ever been in my life! But then again that’s not saying much...

I’ve had to do more projects in these past weeks than in months at regular school. But that’s definitely not a complaint, Projects are so much better than monotonous essays and homework.

I'm about to start my second quarter in a few days, and I thought I'd share some of my projects from the last one. My skills aren't the most impressive quite yet, but hey we all have to start somewhere.

In color theory, we painted swatches like these. Nothing too exciting here.

This is a design created entirely from type. We were required to use an ampersand because they're "beautiful." 

This is what we did in typography most of the time, traced letters. Can you see my mistake circled in red? 

One of my funnest projects! We could create a sign for anything we wanted.

Halloween! Pretty simple except for the outlines I made in photoshop.

We had to use the golden mean, which was confusing as heck! I still like my concept for this one, but I really dislike how it turned out. Outfit of the young adult girl inspired by SNSD's Jessica HA!

"Tools of a wedding" phew this one was hard work. And the groom kinda looks like a girl haha.

Tiki mask! It was fun to have a more simple project after so much craziness.

I put so much into this one. I'm super pleased with how it turned out except for the face, I need practice drawing more realistically.

That's it for the projects worth looking at.  You can click any to see them full sized. Even though my skills aren't where I hope they'll be, I'm still proud of a lot of these! :)  I'm sure they'll be fun to look back on some day.