Gotta Catch 'em All...

I find it strange how much I like to collect things. I don't think I would ever call it a hobby or anything, however I've been coming to terms with the fact that I almost subconsciously collect things. Even as a kid, I enjoyed my coin collection, was jealous that my sister had a stamp collection, and had quite the Pokemon card collection too (I know I was and probably still am quite the melvin). Thinking back to it though, there were several occasions where I was offered great rare cards if I would have been willing to part with several of my cards. It was probably quite stupid to say no, but I couldn't bare to get rid of cards that I only had one of. I've noticed that this is something that has carried over into my Magic playing. On occasion I've taken a crappy rare over an okay common simply because I didn't have that one yet. I originally started playing Magic to actually play. While playing is still a lot of fun, I don't buy packs so I can build decks, I build them in hopes for something new. You can imagine my disappointment when I pulled two of the same rares at this last pre-release. They were pretty sweet rares, but I didn't care... I wanted something new... I'm glad I've got some sort of self control or this would carry over into lolita... I'm pretty sure I'm getting at least one set of eyes rolling at that statement but I'm serious. Every time I see cheap brand on EGL_Comm_Sales I want to buy it just so I can have it. It doesn't even matter if I like it or not. I'm trying to employ that whole "Only buy it if you LOVE it" rule, but it's hard.

My studying in France has brought along a new bump in the road as far as collecting goes. Not only do I want to buy every book that sounds even remotely interesting, I have also come across easter eggs with Hello Kitty figures in them. I am always disappointed to be unable to find decent reading material in French while in the States but really when it comes down to it, I realize I don't want to read shit in French... Reading in French feels like work, whether it's easy or not.

After opening my first box of Hello Kitty eggs, I thought to myself how I'm in a way lucky to not be studying in Japan instead. Gashapon toys would probably be my weakness. As if readily available lolita clothing wouldn't have been a big enough drain on my wallet. There were 24 different Hello Kitty figurines to collect inside these little chocolate eggs. If Monoprix hadn't sold out of them, I'm sure I'd have more than 15 figures right now... I did however see the Transformers version of the eggs today... I walked away though... I've never even watched Transformers, but something about finding Megatron inside an egg was just appealing.


Picture very much related. (It's my Hello Kitty Army. Be scared.)

My Name is Kei and I am a Brand-Addict.

I've recently lucked into being able to get a hold of one of my three dream dresses. Two of them are the red and black colorways of AatP's Vampire Requiem short JSK's so I probably won't be lucking into them anytime soon without dropping a few hundred dollars each. Really this post is just a look what I've got post. No harm in that though right?

I'll start with my trip to Paris back in January. I went to Baby the Stars Shine Bright. It was my second time there but that didn't take away from the awesome. There were quite a few people there this time which wasn't the case last time. I guess I'm glad to see it's doing better than the one in San Fran. I tried on a few things and kind of regret not buying the Castle of Nightmare skirt in red and the Vampire Requiem bag... That would have kept me from buying all the other stuff I got. I'm not too sure I'm happy with that compromise, but regardless I am happy to have gotten what I got.



These shoes were my big purchase of the day. I'm quite happy to have them. I can't wait to wear them since I haven't been able to with all the rain and snow here.



I was kind of torn on whether or not to get this. I bought another t-shirt style cutsew from Alice and the Pirates a while back and really liked it. I really like the shirt but I guess I just feel that the stripes are unflattering. I've been debating on whether or not to go ahead and wear it out or try to sell it on egl_comm_sales.



These were my pseudo-responsible purchases. I bought the tote for my groceries and to take my dinner materials to the kitchen and back. I've used it a lot but I kind of regret not getting a black tote instead. I bought the cup with the intention of using it for tea or hot chocolate but I didn't want to dirty it T_T. It's currently housing my pens and pencils.


These were my obligatory sock purchases. I could never justify spending so much on socks online but somehow I can't say no when I see them in person. I bought the Black and White and the Black and Grey versions of the Stripes and Trumps socks. They were after all an item I had to have once I saw them online. The second pair is very sparkly. The sparkly sock they have are kind of itchy, but they are cute nonetheless. I wear them with stocking under them. While I could always go bankrupt on brand, that is all I bought that day. However, I did manage to get a hold of this parka off the egl_comm_sales around the same time.



I had long wanted the cutsew version of this parka. My boyfriend got me the Marine Rose Skirt lucky pack for my birthday this year and while I was happy to have gotten the cutsew at all, I got the white version. This kind of makes up for it though ^ ^. Too bad everything I've ordered since I left goes to my house in the US... Lastly, I would like to talk about my dream dress.



I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I was quite disappointed when I found it to be sold out. I was even more disappointed when I found out how popular it was. Popularity often means money and difficulty in lolita so I had sort of given up hope. I didn't have $300 dollars to spend on it the one time when I saw it on EGL_comm_sales. It was snatched up fast too. I put out a want to buy and everything. No luck. I saw a girl wearing it at the Otakon this year. I offered to pretty much buy it off her back. She said no and told me how it was her dream dress too. Lucky girl. I ended up picking up the pink version of the dress at the Otakon the same year. As happy as I was to have it, I'm a gothic lolita and haven't actually worn it yet. I had given up until I bought a copy of Baby the Stars Shine Bright's Fall and Winter catalogue. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it in there. Since that moment I checked for new items many times a day on their website. The moment it showed up I almost couldn't believe it. I debated over the size and decided I should get the M size over the S size and then bought it. They shipped it right away. I was quite pleased. The package arrived at my house a few days ago in the US. My mother opened it and sent me an email about a surprise. I knew there was a fair at the moment but didn't expect to receive anything since the dress was just under the limit. I was shocked to have received not only the fair item but a calendar and diary as well.





Unfortunately, I'll be taking another trip to Paris in about a month. I say unfortunately because I'm kind of low on cash since I can't work in France. I'm hoping that there isn't anything expensive that I have to have when I go visit. I'd like to have some money left when I get back home... I guess that's what I've got a job for though...

Breaking the Silence

It's been quite some time since I've done an actual blog post. I'm currently studying in France and it's been quite the experience so far. I don't really know where I want to start, but it only seems logical to start at the beginning.

I got here on the 11th. Aside from some minor annoyances caused the other Americans not wanting to take my advice once we got to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris the trip to the Gare de Lyon cost a bit more than I would have liked it too. It also took 3 times as long as my methods but that's not what this is about, however, it took me 3 1/2 hours to get to JFK by car and then 8 hours to get to CDG by plane so I wanted to minimize any further travel time as much as possible... I suppose this is where I will start complaining about my program through SUNY New Paltz. While I was still in the US, their study abroad office was just inches above useless. I only say inches above because I did actually get the papers I needed in time, but with absolutely no time to spare. I drove 2 1/2 hours to their campus for the 3 hour orientation. That is something I regret somewhat. While sitting there for 3 hours with nothing to show for it, the other Americans told me more in 5 minutes than I had found out from SUNY New Paltz during the previous months. They weren't even able to provide us with an address where we would be staying before we left. As a matter of fact they told us to ask a cab driver to take us to Batiment Stendahl, they should know where it is. No address. No description. Luckily my cab driver knew how to get here but the other Americans weren't as lucky which tacked and additional few euros on to their trip. Once we got their, the people at that building weren't even sure who we were. It took some explaining before they finally figured that we must be the people on some tiny list they had. I'll spare you the nightmare that getting my visa was for now but getting here was a bit of a nightmare.

After going through two weeks of orientation to learn about the town we had to take a placement test at the CLA. The test consisted of three parts: Written comprehension and expression (grammar was also in this section), oral comprehension, and an interview. From this test they would place you in either level A,B1,B2,C1, or C1+. The test isn't too difficult. I felt that I did poorly on the interview out of some slight nervousness. I also know I made some mistakes on the oral comprehension part due to a confusing answer sheet. Too bad, so sad though. I ended up in B2. More specifically B2.5. I was hoping for C1 and just missed it but I think that everything turned out fine since I ended up with mostly awesome teachers which doesn't seem to be everyone's luck. The classes as a whole seem to be quite easy. Oral comprehension always seemed to be my weak point though, which is what I think kept me from getting into C1. While I can understand people perfectly fine, I can't understand recorded speech to save my life. I suppose that's why I'm here though. If it weren't for that I may have tried to go up to C1. While they say that changing levels is uncommon, there have been many people who have switched up and down levels. Our class had at least 3 switch out and 3 people switch in. I suppose I've decided to let myself enjoy the break though. I'm used to working on top of a much more busy schedule than I have now. As long as New Paltz doesn't manage to screw up putting the grades into my transcript correctly, all will be well. I don't have my fingers crossed though. Anyway, I suppose that's the beginning. I'll try to make this a more regular thing...

Big Five Personality Test

I took a personality test that seemed kind of interesting (and truthful) Enjoy!

I'm a O0-C74-E9-A2-N22 Big Five!!

My French Hospital Experience

I feel like I've been keeping extremely busy lately. I've just gotten back to the US after spending two weeks in France. My France trip was great although I did get to see a portion of France that one generally does their best to avoid while vacationing, the hospitals. I think the reason I ended up in the hospital are best summed up by the words of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. "I fell down some stairs." In the end, I blame the Doc Marten's that I was walking down the stairs to retrieve. I hurt one of my toes and thought it may have been broken. Knowing that a hospital can't really do anything for a hurt toe, I simply asked my host family for some ice and maybe something to tape it up. They however insisted that we go to the hospital. After telling them it was really not necessary, I finally gave in a went to grab my wallet and coat. Sadly, I forgot my camera. French hospitals are quite different from hospitals in America.

According to my host mother, this hospital was a quite old and a new one was being built to replace it, even so, it was still rather surprising to me being used to the hospitals in America that are so shiny and clean that you could probably eat off the floor. The first thing that caught my attention was the lack of any sort of parking lot. We parked around the block and walked to a closed gate where we had to page the nurse. The gate was already opened a bit so we came in and the nurse met us at the door. I'm not sure if this is typical of the daytime shifts as well or just the night shift. She escorted us to a room where she asked me for my information. Rather than attempting to explain my life story in French I just handed her my driver's license. She filled out her bit of paperwork and then said the doctor would be in momentarily. Being used to the American system I expected to see the doctor at some point in the next hour...not the next two minutes. I was pleasantly shocked when the doctor really did show up in just a moment.

Unlike the nurse, the doctor wasn't the friendliest of people... I suppose this is typical of American doctors as well. He decided I needed to have x rays. The nurse then escorted me to the room with the x ray machine where there were some chairs to wait in. I started to sit down and before I landed in the chair the x ray technician had already come out to get me. The strangest part about this whole trip was not that that I was not told to use a wheelchair, they let me walk to have my x rays taken, but that the x ray room had thin walls. Here, I believe they need a certain ridiculous amount of steel in the walls, floors, and ceilings of the rooms where the machines are. I was also not given one of those lead aprons to wear. No complaints there ...I don't want kids anyway ...But it was still an odd moment for me when he just turned around to snap the photos. He didn't even have to leave the vicinity of the x ray like they do here. A few moments later he handed me the x rays and sent me back to my room and within seconds the doctor came back too.

The doctor took a few glances at the x ray and told me that my "finger" was not broken in English which was cute considering it was my toe we were there for. He left and sent the nurse in to wrap it up and then sent us on our way without any sort of charge. I must say that I agree with the French medical system. It would be nice if we jumped on that bandwagon pretty quick. From what I understand, government run health care is not as nice in places like England and Canada but if our system would take a few tips from the French I think it would be a huge step up from our current health care predicament. It was nice to walk into a hospital for the first time ever and not have to think about how I (or my parents) will be able to pay for this when its all done and over. Once again, I look forward to the day America can do the same for its people.

Otakon 2009: The Recap

Now that Otakon has come and gone once again, it is time for my typical recap. You can all rejoice.

Day 1

The first day of the con started as the first days usually do. We got up super early and made our way over to the convention center. This year was slightly nerve racking as no one bothered to give us our special passes we needed. Regardless, everything worked out well enough and we got to our spot and began to set up. This year was particularly neat because Eric's spot had a camera looking down on the piece which was a really nice touch. It was definitely a bit of a face palm moment when we found out that they were just doing a live feed instead of actually taking video because of "a miscommunication." Once again though, it was a nice touch.

Perhaps I'm a bad assistant but in the first hours of the con my mind wasn't even remotely focused on the chalk art, but the Brand clothing in the dealer's room. The very moment we had Eric set up, I was off to scout out what treasures there were to be had. I first managed to get a hold of BTSSB's Princess Drop Embroidery Pocket JSK in pink. This is both extremely exciting and disappointing. This is my dream dress in black. I settled for pink because my choices were between that and blue T_T. I also managed to get the Sweet Melody Pochette in pink from Angelic Pretty to match it. ^ ^ Its pretty amazing. ^ ^



Once I had finished my escapades in the dealer's room, I went back to check on Eric and check out the Artist Alley. I wandered around Artist Alley for some time, which was mildly disappointing save for one or two booths who weren't selling the typical drawings of popular characters in cookie cutter poses. I was upset to be unable to locate Morrigan NYC as I wanted to get a look and perhaps purchase one of their raven skirts they just released but Lolitas and Cream's adorable sweets jewelry made up for thier absence. I must say that their sweets jewelry has gotten much cuter since last year. I bought a ring and a necklace this year, which I love. By the time I was done running all over Eric had accomplished quite a bit of work on his piece.

Day 1 was a little uneventful after my hours in the dealer's room. Partly because Travy was sleepy and cranky and because there wasn't a whole lot going on that was relevant to my interests. We made attempts to go play MTG at a store somewhere in Baltimore but that was thwarted by Travy's sleepiness and our single standard deck between the three of us. We ended up heading to Little Italy instead. We found a cute little cafe/restaurant and decided to eat. I had the best cannoli in the world there and then we returned to the Inner Harbor. We wandered around a small mall for a bit then headed back. Like I said, Day 1 was a bit boring.

Day 2

Day 2 started out with us waking up way too late. I wanted to go to the Ultimate Lolita Fashion Show but didn't make it. I got up and got dressed up in my frills and we headed out for the Lolita Swap Meet. We got there pretty early so we ended up waiting for quite a while. In the meantime Travy and I played DS and occasionally stopped to look cute together.

The Swap meet was extremely succesful for me. I managed to get rid of everything I took to trade except for an Anna House cutsew. I ended up with two new brand blouses (AP and BTSSB) and an AP cutsew. It was quite exciting. Poor Travy had to sit through it all but inside I know he was enjoying the ridiculous amount of lace and frills ;p.

Time for Coordinate info!
Socks and Parasol : BTSSB
Skirt : ITS
Blouse : Rakuen
Shoes: Montreal
Jewelry: Meta

After the swap meet, Travy and I went to the Cheesecake factory. I got some wierd potato and salmon thing that I was not too fond of but did not get any cheesecake T_T. The place was kind of nice and on the plus side we got to see an epic battle between a small bird and like 8 pigeons over a piece of pizza crust. I got some video of it so enjoy.

Video to come soon...

After eating, we made a mad dash to get into the Kanon Wakeshima concert line. Which bordered on the line of ridiculous by the way. When we were there waiting for the swap meet two hours earlier there were maybe ten people in line. When we came back this time, there was nearly enough to fill the entire theatre hall. We still managed to get decent seats somehow though. The concert was really good and I am jealous of the dress she was wearing. The end however was a bit hectic. Some poor planning on the side of the people running the concert caused a mad rush at the end of the show to get in line for her merchandise and autographs. Many people were sent out and left unhappy. I myself just left and am glad I didn't waste my time as there was another much less crazy signing the following day in the dealer's room. I took off to the dealer's room once again and picked up her cd for the signing.

Day 3

The final day was a bit crazy too. We all had to get up early and be out of our hotel before we went to the convention. We got out early and took all our stuff to the car and headed in for the last day.

The first thing on the agenda was to get to the dealer's room for Kanon Wakeshima's signing. We got in line outside the dealer's room at nine and waited. I was amazed at some of the bad cosplay I saw. Most notable were the Mana cosplay and a Cami cosplay from Street Fighter. The Mana cosplayer was particularly bothersome because I had to listen to her go on and on about how much of a J-Rock know it all she was. Simply wearing EGL (made of shitty materials no less) with poorly applied black makeup does not make you Mana even if you do have a Moi Dix Mois pendant. My beef with the Cami cosplayer was her disappearing thong and that people need to understand that just because they aren't fat doesn't mean they look good in skimpy clothes. This chick really needed a pair of pants to cover her flabby ass badly.

The signing itself was quick and painless. We were pretty close to the front of the line. Kanon didn't seem too pleased to be there so she made no attempt to be friendly. She took your object signed it and handed it back barely even glancing up to say hi. I have to wonder if she's just not a morning person or if Mana's inability to deal with people has worn off on her.

We made one last run around the dealer's room, I found some cute stationery and Travy got me a Charmmy Kitty Plushie, which brings me to something I've been harping on lately. Its somewhat creepy when you stop to think about how Charmmy Kitty is Hello Kitty's pet cat. Its worse than the whole Goofy/Pluto thing Disney has going I feel. While it is strange that Goofy gets to be humanized while Pluto is a pet, Pluto isn't Goofy's pet which is what makes this so off.

Afterwards, we decided to run around Baltimore one last time mainly to get some food in our stomachs. We ended up at McDonald's where we had our most interesting homeless/beggar experience. Not only did she attempt to push Jesus on to me but in the same breath also asked me to pay for her prescription. Then preceded to argue with the cashier about how she was in line (Which she wasn't) and should be served next. The amount of offended black chick attitude in one room was almost enough to scare me as the three women behind the counter got angry and louder while arguing with the lady who failed to understand that one must actually be in line before they can be the next in line. The rest of our trek was pretty uneventful save for being screamed at by a homeless dude in a wheelchair and being able to express our inner /b/tards.

We returned one last time to the con to help Eric tear down and whatnot. For those of you who have yet to see the finished piece...here you go ^ ^

They helped us hang it up very last minute and unfortunately it was after the con was over. It was still pretty awesome though. We did our typical teardown when we hairsprayed the living daylights out of the piece and sectioned the piece up. It now resides in its tube where it is likely to remain until the end of time.

Overall, it was a pretty decent convention. I think to be honest I enjoyed the smaller NYAF more to it though. I'm looking forward to it in September this year. As Eric is planning on doing another mural, I will see you then and there.

Check out more of Eric's work at www.pepperink.com

Chiller Theatre Memories

With Otakon 2009 coming up, I've been thinking about some of the past conventions I've gotten to go to and have come to the conclusion that a lot of weird shit goes on at these things regardless of what kind of convention you are attending. I started going to conventions about six years ago with the Chiller Theatre conventions in New Jersey. As the name suggests, Chiller Theatre is a horror movie convention, but to me seems to be a relatively calm scene. The first year we (Myself, Eric, and Alexis) went, there were quite a few cool guests. We met Elvira and Linda Blair. Linda Blair was fun to chat with because like most people who live in the Binghamton area, we were familiar with Elvis the Cowboy. Naturally, we had to tell her about him. For those of you who actually read this that are not from scenic Binghamton, Elvis as you should have gathered from the description is a cowboy complete with the holster, (toy) guns, and hat. He is tiny man about the age of seventy that wanders about the places of business calling women by the names Linda Blair and Jennifer Lopez. He once called me Poccahantas. He is a tad crazy as you may have gathered. He calls most men he runs into by Bruce Lee. Linda Blair seemed to be rather speechless when we told her about him. She seemed to think that he must have had something happen that he related to one of her movies. This may have been a decent theory if one of my coworkers hadn't straight up asked him about it one day. He told us that he calls attractive women Linda Blair because they are attractive too. He followed up by saying that Linda Blair is getting to be all washed up and he's been calling people Jennifer Lopez lately. Without knowing these key bits of information though, Linda Blair signed a photo to "The Great Cowboy" which we later framed and gave to Elvis for his 68th birthday. He told us he'd be crazy if he ever gave it away. If only he realized the irony in his comment...

Although not directly related to Chiller Theatre, I thought I should mention how much New Jersey sucks for trying to eat us everytime we traveled through on the way to and from Chiller Theatre. Screw you New Jersey <3 New York.

Another very entertaining moment of the following year's convention was the fact that Peewee Herman was one of the guests. He's gotta be like sixty maybe older by now. Sadly we did not get to meet him, but I did manage to get my hand slapped away by his body guard. That's right people. Peewee Herman's body guard hit a harmless gothic lolita. I blame Alexis 100% though. She REALLY wanted to meet him/hug him/ or squeel at him. I can't remember which. So when we saw him walking though the con we followed after him yelling PEEWEE! He skillfully ignored us though and kept walking. We finally got close and I reached out to poke him to get his attention. The moment my finger touch his suit jacket my hand was viciously slapped away. It was rather upsetting T_T

On a final note - I find it to be extremely interesting that there is usually a huge number of porn stars on the guest list at Chiller Theatre. I wonder why this is. I found it to be even more amusing that most of them that we came into contact with were completely in love with our lolita coordination. This wouldn't surprise me in Japan, but for some reason its rather shocking in America.

R.I.P. - Tiara of Alexis