Plastic Fantastic

Awhile ago I opened the back of my Holga camera to find that the batteries had leaked allllll over the inside. This apparently happens a lot with the Holga models that have built-in flashes. It was pretty un-salvageable, but I managed to save the lens and the top of the camera, as well as a few little parts from inside that could be useful for future modding/repairing of another Holga, with minimal skin-on-battery-acid contact.
I went down to Oregon Camera and bought a new one, this time one without a built-in flash (a 120N instead of 120CFN). It was only about $35 and once I got home I started tearing it apart..... so that I could make it better! 8D
I modified the aperture and the focus like I had done to my old one, and put in a bunch of foam and cardboard to make it able to shoot 35mm film. So these pictures are from the first 35mm roll from my new Holga! Hooray! I already put most of these up on Flickr, so if you are a good friend like Claire and check my flickr page you've probably already seen them, but there are also a few that I didn't like enough to put on flickr. But I liked them enough to put them all up in hurrr.

Today I went to the dentist and I don't have any cavities! Hooray!
Also today I was reading about Japanese onomatopoeia and ぴかぴか (pika pika) means "to glitter, sparkle." Now I love Pikachu even more!

domo arigato

Hiii. I haven't blogged in awhile, but it's summertime now so whooo cares!
I think I might have a bit of allergies or something, cause I've been all stuffed up and getting headaches the past few days. But not it's not too bad or anything, just annoying.
I've been out of school for almost two months. I didn't think I would miss Toronto now that I'm in Corvallis, since I missed Corvallis so much when I was in Toronto. But I actually do miss the city. Just not as much as I missed Corvallis.
Anyway, a week or so ago Claire and I went down to Hoover elementary with Domo-kun.


It was quite lovely and sunny outside, but the path down through the trees was still pretty muddy. The lens I brought isn't the best for scenery-type stuff, but I kind of liked this picture.


Domo was having a good time on the playground.




Then Claire decided to start throwing him in the air, and we thought some mid-air shots would be nice. Here is Domo flying by the forest...

"Waaahh!"

Here he is breakdancing on a tree...

This one is my favorite:


Wheeee!

That is all. Life is looking good right now and I'm happy.

Free time in Corvallis

O hai. So I'm still in Corvallis waiting for everyone to come home. It's prtty dull here with no one around. Yesterday I watched Lost In Translation, which was really good. Speaking of things with... Lost in the title... last week's LOST was SO SAD, why did Sun and Jin have to die by DROWNING?! That's like the WORST WAY TO DIE. Also they willingly orphaned their child, wtf?! But yeah, very very sad. And then there was this week's episode, which was major and also kind of weird. Only one more episode til the finale aaahhhhh

Today I hung out at the train at Washington St....





...with Jonny!!






(crouching tiger hidden jonny)


What a bamf. I took tons of pictures but haven't gone through them all yet. I want to start taking pictures again, all of first year was just too busy and full of distractions. Afterwards we hung out at my house and I pwnd him at super smash bros, pokemon puzzle league, and mario kart, and he skype-met edward.

In other news, I got my hair cut short again and I'm still getting used to it. But I don't miss my long hair like I thought I would. I wish it was naturally lighter so that I could dye it without killing it. I like being back home but for now I'm just waiting for everyone to come back too. That's pretty much it. Baii!

Hello summer

I'm back in Corvallis! I still have to unpack though...


That will be fun.

To do:
-unpack/clean room
-update resume
-roam corvallis searching for a job
-sort out next year's classes

It's Oregon raining outside. I'm so happy to have my own room again. But I miss Toronto and the people there, especially because none of my friends are back from school yet. At least I have a head start finding a job! Yaayy...

Burford and Apsley with Oma and Finn

Finn is obsessed with the song Fireflies by Owl City.
Here is a vlog for you!

The Weakerthans

Hi how are you whats happening. So I haven't blogged for awhile. But now I am blogging.

Mostly I was putting off posting cause I wanted to post about meeting the Weakerthans, who I decided were my official "favorite band" early this school year. I really, really love them and it was amazing so I wanted to do a good post on it but I kept putting it off cause I don't think I could possibly do it justice. Soooooooo instead of trying to explain it I am just going to type out what I wrote about it in my diary because yes I keep a diary that's what cool people do. So there's prolly bad sentences etc and also I left stuff out but pretty much this is what happened.

[side note, John Samson = vocals, guitar; Jason Tait = drums; Greg Smith = bass; Stephen Carroll = guitar]

Thursday, March 25
Yesterday was awesome.
I went to Bathurst to get my credit/debit cards that someone turned in. I saw a cool record store while looking for the bank called Sonic Boom and went in, looked around. There was a sign on the door that said The Weakerthans, March 24 but I thought at first that it was for that concert in May, I thought, this must be the place they're playing in May. But once I'm out, I think, but they can't have just made a typo, wtf. So I go back inside and to the guy working there I'm like, are the Weakerthans gonna be here tonight? And he's like yeah. "Are there... tickets left?" "It's free." "Dude" "Yeah." He said get there by like 4:30 and it starts at 5. So I tried to get Kara/Rifqi/Elise to go. But Kara and Rifqi couldn't. I finally found the bank (after asking someone at a CIBC bank) and got my cards back. Then I went home, it was like 3:00.
Eventually I got Elise to come, it was close though and we only got there for the last 2 songs. I pushed to the front. Jason Tait looked at me at least twice. When they played Night Windows I got goosebumps. I bought a $2 poster and got it signed by all of them. When I came up to John Samson I was like, "...you are like, MY GOD." He was so cool and a bit distant but later he was really nice. I got a picture w/ him. I look like a creeper in it.

[you're not seeing that photo btw]

I said hi/got all of them to sign. I was shaking it was amazing. Elise doesn't listen to them but thought they were good. Stephen gave me a high-five. We asked Greg when his art thing was. He told us, 1640 Queen St W at 8pm. (He had talked a bit about it during the show). We hung around among the records like creepers and talked about music while glancing over at them until they had left. When he was leaving Jason looked over at me and waved bye. Ahh! Elise and I walked back to Vic and had dinner before going to Queen St. We started off a bit late and took the subway to Lansdowne, planning to walk south to Queen.

[Omitted because it's just boring crap about how we got lost while trying to get there]

It was like an hour and a half after it started but there were still people, it was really really small and pretty crowded. Along with Greg's art there were instruments made with gears, pvc pipe, etc. and some tree silhouette drawings. All 4 of them were there. John was wearing a black hoodie. Greg reminded Elise and I of a young Jack Nicholson. He eventually saw us sitting awkwardly and was like "heyyyy!! You guys came!!" And I was like :O. We met a guy named Wayne who was like early 50s maybe and works for CBC. He said earlier that day or recently or something, he had worked w/ the Barenaked Ladies. He was cool! He was like, "so you're a big fan of the Weakerthans? Do you know the hockey song?" and I was like, "...do you mean Elegy for Gump Worsley?" and he's all yes! You're a true fan very good! And he told us all about Gump Worsley and old-school hockey and stuff. We talked to him later and he was like "I saw you talking to John" and I was like "yeah it was pretty much the best part of my life so far." and he's like "lol nooo, I think the best part of your life is studying astronomy!" What a sweet thing to say! He was like "they're just guys" but holy SHITTTT it was so amazing. Like fucking hell. So awesome. I talked to all of them while we were there. There were no screaming/crazy fans except for us, it was a very "in" crowd I guess and most people were like 25-35 and seemed to know each other. I asked John if he liked Toronto more than Winnipeg and he was like lolno. We talked about Portland a bit and I nearly fainted. Before we left I said goodbye to Greg and I was like "your art is awesome. Your music is awesome. You're awesome." and he was like "YOU'RE awesome!!" and gave me a big hug. OMG. I said bye to Jason and basically was all up in his grill being like "Sooo I'm leaving but just thought I'd say bye and you're awesome and I played the drums too and you guys are my favorite band and you're amazing and oh my god you rule okay bye" and his facial expression was like "whoa what's happening this girl is crazy!" but he was smiling. Best fucking night ever. Wayne told us how to get back to the subway station. While we were waiting for the streetcar I literally almost started crying out of happiness and disbelief. On the streetcar/subway ride/walk home Elise and I talked about religion. Because it had come up before when I was talking with Wayne and her about astronomy. It was really interesting. It was the best night. Of my entire. Fucking. Life.


So anyway thanks for reading all that if you did in fact read it and now here are some lovely pictures that I shakily took while staring in awe.
Apparently Greg Smith is headbanging, or being sucked into a vortex or something.


Afterward someone made them pose so they could get a picture, and I nonchalantly but totally creepily took one too.


Here is my poster, you might notice that it's awesome


Okay fine here is the creepy picture of me and John Samson.

Sooooooo

She blinded me... with SCIENCE!

Hi!
On Saturday I went to this thing with Elise and Kara called Kollaboration, it's basically an Asian thing where they show off Asian talent and there's a competition thing like a talent show. Wowww that was a really good description. I'm too lazy to change it. Anyway it was in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, right next to the CN tower, and it was super rainy and windy and we went around for like 20 minutes trying to find the right place, but we made it eventually. Pretty much everyone there was Asian (mostly Korean) and everyone was like "yay being Asian!" and I was like, does half-Asian count, and feeling very conflicted about my background and where I belong STORYOFMYLIFE. Other than that it was really fun. I basically went to see David Choi, musician and ultra cute "Youtube sensation." Maybe you have never heard of him before. Maybe you have. But Elise and I are both Youtube geeks and follow all the same people etc, and we were in maximum fangirl mode. Kara probably thought we were insane. After the show we bought his album and he came out to the lobby and we were like "YOU ARE SO AWESOME AAHEEHEHEHE, WILL YOU SIGN THIS OH MY GOD THANK YOU CAN I GET A PICTURE WITH YOU?!" Of course it was the one day I didn't have my camera with me, but I got a picture on my phone. But I don't know how to get pictures from my phone to my computer. :/ He said I looked like one of his family members. Afterward Elise and I were like damn we should have given him a hug cause he is SO ADORABLE. There were like 30 people waiting for him to sign their stuff but we waited our turn (Kara left) and when we got to him we were like "ummmm can we have a huuggggg?! heehehhehee" and he was like lolsure. It was fun to hug him because he's so short, about an inch taller than me. He was really nice too, like he actually talked to us and stuff. So YAAAYYYYYY I met David Choi! We got a cinnabon and took the subway home.


On Monday I went to the Japanese Cultural Centre with Bachan and my cousins Paige and Emma, who are 7 and 8 (I think) and their parents for Nikkei Kids Day (Nikkei=Japanese migrants and their descendants). Paige and Emma love me and I'm not sure why since I'm really not that great with kids. I never really know what to say to them. Anyway it was cool to go there, because I never ever see Japanese people around. Toronto has tons of Asians but they are almost all Korean or Chinese. There were a bunch of activities set up for the kids to do and they won little prizes and stuff, it was very cute. There were soooo many mixed-race kids! There were a few tables for different Japanese prefectures and two of Bachan's cousins were at the one for Kumamoto, where her parents were from. I had never met them before so that was cool. There was a whole room with artwork and information about the internment camps, and I learned that both sets of my great-grandparents were in the Tashme internment camp in B.C. and now it's a ghost town.
After that we all went to the Science Centre. I had never been there before and since it's March break there were a million pushy tourists and their annoying pushy kids, but it was still pretty cool. In April some Harry Potter exhibit is going to open (they already had one of the 16 cars they used in the movie for the part where Ron drives the flying car and is like "come on then 'arry!" and rescues Harry but I can't remember which book that is). As a kind of preview they were going to do a "sorting hat demo" so Bachan and I went to check it out before we left. It was basically this blonde lady with a really fake British accent and a witch costume inviting kids to sit on a stool and asking which house was their favorite. Then they would put on the "Sorting Hat" (actually she would just hover it over their head cause I guess they were afraid of spreading lice or something) and this recorded background voice would come on and sort them into that house. 90% of the kids chose Gryffindor. So over and over we heard, "brave, courageous... a good heart... better be... GRYFFINDOR!!" It was brain-numbing but we really just wanted to sit down. Waiting for the bus back to the subway station, I tried to teach Bachan how to text.

Also I made a new skirt recently with Bachan. I was getting bored of my robot dress so it got cut up. I am way too lazy to take nice pictures so here is one that I took in a mirror. I forgot to take a close-up. But you might remember the robot dress anyway... I'm sure Claire will.


:D

Today I got a Visa bill for 65 cents. lolwat
Yesterday there was finally a non-canceled observing session for my astronomy class. It was on top of the 15-story McLennan building and I went up there at sunset and it was soooo beautiful. Yeah, I didn't have my camera. But once the sun went down you could see all of Toronto and all the city lights. There was a telescope set up and we looked at Mars and the Orion Nebula. The TA took some of us inside to see 2 of the more hardcore, non-portable telescopes. It was pretty cool. That's pretty much it. Bye!