Hairapy

As the season's change, people begin to look for ways in which to spruce up their look. Some buy new make-up and try out a new look. Others kick up their wardrobe a notch with new duds. I dye my hair.

Since I was a wee ickle thing, I've always had a weird preference for non-traditionally colored hair. When I drew, I drew girls with purple and blue hair. As I got older, I longed for all of the fun colors in my hair that my parents would never let me have. Especially pink. I wanted pink hair so bad, I could taste it.

My mom, a hairstylist, allowed me my first adult haircut and highlights when I was 13. It was a clunky, unsophistocated bob with brassy highlights and I hated it. This didn't stop me from begging, though. Slowly I worked my way towards red highlights, then red tips. In between colors, I kept my hair dyed a glossy blue-black, because it just couldn't be 100% normal. Finally, my junior year of high school, I was allowed an all-over strawberry blonde, which then became a raspberry red for 6 months.

Then college happened. Rules about my hair color suddenly didn't apply to me and I made a point of dying my hair in whatever way and with whatever colors I wanted. I found out lots about my particular kind of hair, what it could or couldn't handle, and where it's snapping points were.

Then, a year ago today, after years of dying, damage, dying, frying. breakage, and more dying, I made a scary decision. Convinced by my cousin, I cut off almost all of my hair, leaving only about an inch and a half all over my head.

In the African American community, women who transition from chemically treated hair to 100% natural hair will often do what is considered the "big chop"; they will cut off all of the damaged and treated parts of the hair, leaving only the natural strands behind. This is what I did, with the intention of growing my hair out naturally.

The problem was, I just really was not pleased with my natural hair. I didn't have a problem with the texture or anything, it's just that the color was soooooo boring!

So earlier this year, I bleached out my hair and went full-on blonde again!

(no pictures of the fresh blonde, because I'm dumb and forgot to take them as I often do)

The thing is, I went blonde with the intention of dying my hair another color, only to find that I couldn't decided on what color I wanted. This led me to being blonde for months before finally finding my color inspiration:

Having considered Kelly Osborne a style icon since before I even really had a sense of style (and when her's was just as gritty as mine), I loved seeing this look on her, and seeing it pop up more and more as it started trending, I needed it on my head. I needed that specific color on my head. I wanted lavender and I wanted it NOW! However, I knew that there was no way I'd get the color to come out on my own, even having already bleached it. I inlisted the help of my beautician friend Sarah to do my roots, lift the rest of my hair another level or two, and create the lavender.

(I'm a Pikmin! Or a unicorn! Unicorn Gundam!)

Lavender proved tougher than we both thought. Since there are so few medium/light purple dyes, we had to dilute a violet, and the original result was grey that faded out within a week. Two weeks later, we tried again using a different violet dye and increasing the amount of dye in the mixture. The results were perfect!

It was a perfect lovely lavender, with some darker streaking in the front and it is magnificant! I am so in love!

The next day I went to the mall with Katie and I got a fair number of complements on the color. The best parts about the trip were finding purple bobby pins (I had to buy them, I had literally just been complaining about not being able to use black bobby pins in my hair about an hour before), and having like three of the sales girls in the MAC pro store try to convince me that this beautiful lavender lipstick from the Nick Minaj Viva Glam collection would DEFINITELY not clash with my hair. Their convincing worked.

And that leads me to today. My hair has been trimmed up and the damage from the extreme bleaching has been cut out, but I believe I've grown about eight or so inches of hair since my big chop. My hair is by no means perfect and more often than not I will simply resort to wearing a wig because my hair isn't tidy enough to wear out, or it doesn't fit the occasion, but I'm trying to learn to be more accepting of it. I'm trying very hard not to cut it anymore so that it can grow out to the length it used to be (and longer) so that I can enjoy my natural, beautifully colored curls in more ways than just "afro-fluff".

But most importantly, I'm learning to love it for what it is. Soft, fine, curly, and awesome.

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

Dreaming of the Disney College Program

I'm excited to share that this fall I've decided to put my full efforts into applying for the Disney College Program, Spring 2014.

Believe me, I understand that the program is an opportunity for Disney to get extraordinarily cheap labor (considering we'd get paid nearly minimum wage and from that Disney pulls out their criminally expensive rent for the half of a room you are staying in on their property) and I get that they often work CP's more than 40 hours a week, every week (not unlike my current job), but I still want to do it. I've been kicking the idea around in my head for years and it turned from a "why should I?" to a "why not?" I mean really, as long as I'm at least breaking even financially and I still manage to have a good experience, what's wrong with me doing it if it'll make me happy?

With this being my last possible opportunity to do so, I'm going to spruce myself up and prepare to make the best impression that I can in the hopes that in January I'll be flying down to Florida, ready to take on Disney. I'm hoping that with all of my experience, I'll be offered a job somewhere that actually pertains to my potential future job opportunities. Here are my top choices:

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique/Pirate League

This one is almost exactly up my alley. It combines my years of experience in sales and customer service with my almost equal time spent working with children. It also doesn't hurt that most of my sales experience has been in cosmetics, so I'd think that that would be a bonus. Basically, to play dress up with child guests and turn them into princesses, princes, and pirates. Plus, in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, I get to be a Fairy Godmother-in-training and I get a wand that deposits glitter everywhere. What's not to love?

Merchandise

Again, puts my years in sales and customer service to good use. It's an environment that I'm already very familiar with and unlike at previous sales jobs that emphasized speed over customer service, I assume Disney will have a better appreciation for my ability to please guests and help them get exactly what they need with the treatment that they deserve. Also, I'm sure that it'd be easier to pick up extra hours here because being able to work a cach register is probably an important skill across various places in the park. Plus, on slow days, I can "shop" while I work XD

Vacation Planner

Again, sales and customer service. Unlike merchandise, however, vacation planners get to be more focused on customer service and satisfaction and while I assume upselling is still a job requirement, I imagine it's more important for park guests to have a great experience and vacation planners are vital to making that happen. This one would probably be the most useful to my potential future goals as well, since it will require levels of book keeping and customer service that translate better than customer service in retail to jobs involving guest relations.

I'm also interested in being a character attendant, a photopass photographer, working in attractions (I think I'd do marvelously on a spiel-ride), and hospitality. If I get offered a job in any one of these areas, I'd totally accept. If they offer to put me somewhere else, I'm going to have to draw hard line and decline, because these are the only areas I can see myself working so many hours over so many weeks. Just because I want to do the program, doesn't mean I'm desperate and will take anything that they will offer me. Besides, I have almost an equally as satisfying consolation prize: if I do get turned down, that means I can immediately move out to Portland, OR after receiving my degree and get started on building my life out there.

Both plans are ones that I can accept and be happy with.

The application process opens up in September, I'll be posting as I get more information and things start moving forward. I promise that this isn't going to turn into a DCP blog, I will continue to post about everything that's going on in my life, even if I do go and work for the Mouse.

Until next time,

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

Making the Most of My Days Off

My life has slowly been driving me insane.

Tomorrow will be the sixth Sunday in a row that I've had to work overtime. When I first started my current job last year, we were on a four day work schedule working ten hours a day. Now we work on a more traditional five day schedule working eight hours, with weekends off (before our weekends rotated, but every other weekend was a three-day holiday, almost. This new schedule has the benefit of being very reliable when we aren't running sales, but it also allows for less time off.

Before you math my face off, yes, I understand that I'm still working 40 hours a week (except lately it's been closer to 48), so work, itself, isn't taking up more of my time. However, spreading it out over five days instead of four give me less of a break and even though our shifts are shorter and less brutal, we now have an extra day of having to deal with the hard work to make up for the time shaved off of the rest of the days. Often, on days when I do have to work, I don't want to do much else that isn't relaxing or fun, because I know any stress or fatigue I incure is going to be compounded by my grueling job.

To combat this, on the days that I do have off, instead of being incredibly chill like they used to be, I try and cram in as much fun stuff as possible, so that I can still have the opportunities to do the things that I want to do, without knowing that it has to end because I have to go to work in a few hours. Yesterday was a perfect example of this. 

In the morning, I woke up around 9:30, got dressed in some frills and headed out to get some unnecessary and probably unwise shopping done, because dammit, I deserved it! I wore an outfit inspired by my favorite Sailor Scout, Sailor Mars, pairing a t-shirt with a cute Annahouse skirt and flats. I know the coord isn't perfect by any means, but I liked it and might wear it again if I'm jonesing for some casual lolita:

I even had Sailor Moon's star locket! We started selling these little gems at work and while they don't play music or even open (I didn't know until after I bought it), it was still a cute piece for my outfit. I still want Mars's henshin wand from Kuma Crafts someday, but that'll have to wait until at least after AWA.

I stopped by Hot Topic and Sephora and picked up some things that I don't need, then I dropped by Nashville Anime Day for an hour or so to shop a bit and hopefully meet up with some new lolitas in my community. Maybe it's because I'm getting old or because it was such a small event, but I felt really out of place there and when I didn't find the lolitas I was looking for (lol!) I just decided I'd meet them another time. Here's my haul!

Most of it's from Hot Topic because of my employee discount, but I got some nail polishes from Sephora and in the dealer room at Nashville Anime Day, I picked up some pins for my girly punk vest (including this awesome "vintage" pin from Magic Knights Rayearth).

After shopping and a trip to Smoothie King for a King-sized Green Tea Tango, I met up with the ladies for our Sailor Moon tabletop RPG (because I am that much of a geek) and PIZZA! After the game, we went out for froyo at Sweet Cece's (today was a bit of a food binge for me) and went to our second viewing of Pacific Rim.

Over all, it was a very full and very fulfilling day. Today, I am cleaning up my room a bit and trying to stay as relaxed as possible before working another Sunday that will become overtime on my next paycheck. Hopefully next weekend they will let us have our full weekends back, but until then, I'm making money and making the most of the days that I have to myself.

Until yonder 'morrow breaks,

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

So what's up with me?

So if you're reading (and you probably aren't because who wants to hear me literarily flail on the internet [but I'm gonna do it anyway]), you're probably wondering where the heck that last post came from (you're not) and where I've been (but I know you don't care).

You see I've been busy. Like, really, it's not laziness, or anything, I've just been stupid busy. I know I've been AWOL for a while now, but I'm working on cutting out the parts of my life that are forcing me to do that, I promise. It's not because I've been lacking things to talk about either, it's just because I've been lacking the time to sit down and write about them.

So here's an update on how I'm doing and what's going on in my life before I dig into all of those drafts and half-finished pieces of finery for you fine folks (that I'm imagining exist).

First, Artscubed. I finally made the decision to step back from this organization that's been a very important part of my life for many, many years now. While I've had my complaints, the reason why I'm quiting is actually because my plans for next spring will likely not even allow me to be in the state to physically attend the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention. This has been one of the biggest changes in my life recently, because I've been attending MTAC for nine years now, and it was my very first anime convention back in 2005. Though we fight and quibble and argue, the staff of Artscubed are my geek family. It was the decision to resign that has pretty much lead to me being able to accept and be happy for the opportunities I have available to me in the future.

Speaking of the future, my boyfriend has moved across the country to Portland, OR and though I've been avoiding talking about just how excited I am for it, I am OBNOXIOUSLY excited to be joining him next year when I finally get my degree. I'll finally get to live on the West Coast! Hippies and public transportation and liberals and nudity, yay! I'm especially excited for the opportunity to meet new lolitas and expand my friend base.

Also WEST COAST! Sakuracon! Anime Expo! PAX! PMX! Comic Con! I could go on and on.

So yeah. Those are a couple of the most important changes in my life, currently. I've been in classes all summer and I've been working a lot of overtime, so things have been a tad boring, but I know I've got some fun stuff coming up in the next couple weeks and I've got a really exciting line-up of fall events to share! So whether or not you are there and reading, I'm still going to post.

Lots of love and hugs and kisses to you all,

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

Sephora and the Little Mermaid: A Tale of Bad Customer Service

Warning: This is a rant. A very thorough rant, because that's how angry I am with Sephora at the moment.

Ok, so Sephora has (had?) a negotiation with Disney that they would release a make-up line inspired by the Disney princesses, appropriately titled the Disney Princess Collection by Sephora. Each section/release of the collection was inspired by a princess, the first one being Cinderella, the second being Jasmine, and the final being Ariel.

As you can imagine, having missed out on the Cinderella collection and being unimpressed by the Jasmine collection, I was pretty excited to see what they would pull out for Ariel. Ariel isn't my favorite princess (though for a very, very long time she was), but she was by far my favorite princess represented in the collection and knew that I at least had lots of greens and blues to look forward to in the color palettes. When I got my first glimpse at the large eyeshadow palette, I was not at all disappointed:

I was looking forward to this palette. I found out about it the day after the first customer service snafu where they had an "accidental" release of a few of them to "select" VIBs, leaving lots of other VIBs and card holders irritated that they weren't notified. Sephora at one point said that it was an accident and at another point said that it was an intentional prerelease to VIBs. The erroneous information (because one of these situations has to be a lie told to somehow help cover Sephora's ass), has created a bit of a backlash, but most were satisfied knowing that it would at least get another release with more stock of the product and ample warning to everyone in July.

The good part of the few palette's to go out in the prerelease were early swatch tests and reviews from established make-up gurus. The reviews were somewhat mixed, but I was still excited. I still wanted to spend my hard-earned cash on this specific item from the collection and this item only. I immediately signed up to receive an email notification when it was back in stock back in June, and waited patiently for a month.

Then finally, that day came earlier this week. I was in class when my phone beeped at me, indicating that I had an email. Fifteen minutes later, when class was out, I saw that Sephora had emailed me about the palette being back in stock, and I immediately darted home to purchase it (which, considering my commute, took about 30 minutes). By the time I was in front of my computer and ready to order, only an hour had passed since I received my email and the palette was once again out of stock. What gives, Sephora? I looked around and saw that I definitely was not the only one. People were complaining all over their Facebook, the product page in the reviews, Reddit, Twitter, etc. It was not a cute look and Sephora simply responded to every single inquiry about an online restock with "the items will be available in your local Sephora starting in early August". This, to me, was unacceptable. Knowing full well the potential popularity of this product and the hype it has been receiving from both Sephora and it's customers, it makes no sense that they only made enough to sell to a few hundred people who managed to snag them during the hour that they were up.

The day wore on and, of course, I was still fuming about it the next day. I had been considering the potential to get one of the palettes at one of my local Sephoras (I'm pretty comfortable with the manager at the one inside JCPenney and considered giving him a call about the release date and if he'd hold one for me), but I sincerely do not want to reward Sephora for their terrible customer service and game of cat-and-mouse with the release of this collection by hunting down the palette and giving them my money anyway.

Then this morning (well, now yesterday morning) I got another email from Sephora at 7:15am. It told me that the Ariel eyeshadow palette was back in stock. When I clicked on the link, the item had been removed from the site entirely.

My mind has been made up. At least for this particular collection, Sephora will not be getting my money. As much as I can't stand ULTA, I will probably start shopping there again and I will make a point of not ALWAYS going to Sephora for all of my cosmetic needs, because they don't deserve it. I'm not boycotting the company, but I could care less how many points I have/need to get certain perks and I no longer care about being a VIB. Some might think that this is harsh, but I don't have time to be jerked around.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? I'm interested in hearing what other people have to say about this whole thing and I hope Sephora actually addresses the issues involved at some point to the public.

*sigh* Until next time, my dears,

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

Photoshoot with the Moderators of Tennessee Lolitas

Hello Lovelies!

This past Sunday, Sarah, Bri, and I went to Opryland hotel for a small photoshoot as the mods of the TN Lolitas Facebook group. I was really excited when we decided to do this shoot because I really love this dress and love making coords with it, and since I wore (nearly) this coord at MTAC and got no photos, I wanted to do it over. Looking at it now, I realize that there's a lot more white in the dress than it lets on (I just think of it as a black dress), so the lack of white accessories definitely leans the coordinate away from perfect, but I love it nonetheless.

I took most of the photos (and in turn, Sarah took my spiffy camera and took photos of me since I'm bad at timed selfies and what not) and we spent an hour and a half just primping and being pretty. And we all looked AWESOME! Seriously, I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to be creative with these ladies, and their shots show just how well we work together. They'll be posting photos to their own blogs, but for now, here are the best of my photos:

More photos behind the cut, if you'll click below:

The Other Weekend, Outfit Post

Just a quickie update (I just finished finals, so I'll have time to post more often) this is what I wore to our meetup a few weekends ago:

It was a lolita meet-up and that is clearly not what I wore, but I got this beautiful skirt from the Snow Field at AWA last year and I never got around to wearing it because I'm derpy and kept forgetting that I owned it. So for a day out shopping with the girls (several other ladies chose to go with other J-fashion styles as well, such as vis-kei and mori girl), I wanted to really go overboard with the space theme and be comfortable (sans crinoline) at the same time. The look was a lot of fun, and I hope that I'll get to recreate it when I finally drag my boyfriend down to the US Space and Rocket Center sometime before I move out of the South.

Additionally, I wore my Laser Cats t-shirt to my astronomy final and made a 109% on the test. Since I missed over half of the classes, did I do so well because I am insanely clever, or because my shirt is insanely awesome? I suppose we'll never know...

Until next time, my dears,

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

How to Keep Yourself Entertained When You are Feeling Under the Weather

So two weeks ago yesterday I had the biggest medical emergency I've ever had to face in my meager 23 years.

I cut my hand open.

It's both an overstatement in the most literal sense and something of an understatement when compared with the general usage of the term. I've both joked and actually seriously described my hand as having been cut open before, but I've hardly damaged myself as bad as this before. It's so strange, because it both seems so small and un-requiring of medical attention and yet, when I think about it, I know that this could have been very serious had my boyfriend and roommates not worked as quickly as they did to get me taken care of.

In short, I was washing dishes and an old glass shattered while my hand was in the glass. Clean break, clean cut. The problem was how deep and long it was. I keep joking that I had a skin flap and that it might have grown into an extra finger, but I actually was just shy of hitting some nerves and it's fortunate that I wasn't washing the dishes more aggressively. It's also fortunate that I'm not anemic (like the other women in my family) because I very easily could have passed out and lost a lot of blood while I waited on one of my roommates to find me hours later. I had to be driven to the ER and get a tetanus booster and six stitches to keep the wound closed while it healed and my job put me on medical leave for 10 days.

While it was an unexpected and needed vacation from my physically demanding job (especially right after MTAC), I can't say it was exactly welcome. In all, on top of my medical bills, I lost a week and a half of pay, and I'll only be able to recoup about a third of that after I've filled out all of the paperwork for my medical leave. Plus, I then had 10 days off to do...nothing. Yeah, without the use of my right hand, I really wasn't able to do any of the things I would love to have done with all of that free time. However, I didn't relegate myself to sitting on my butt the whole time! While I spent large chunks of time catching up on shows and watching movies with my boyfriend and being more demanding than necessary (but only slightly *wink* ), I did my best to make the best of the situation.

So what can you do when you aren't feeling so good and are forced to take time off to take care of yourself? Here's what worked for me:

1. Don't dwell on the things you can't do and look forward to the things you can do.
I spent a lot of time on that first day trying to think of things to do, only to realize that it required the use of my right hand and I wouldn't be able to manage. It was depressing to realize that I couldn't even blog because typing with one hand was too tedious. To cheer me up, I started looking for new ways to do the things I knew I could sort of do and started doing things I don't do often enough, like sitting out in the sun or going for walks. It really helped that the weather was amazing for most of my leave, so the sun and vitamin D was exactly what I needed. I also learned and practiced doing more things with my left hand, like writing. Since I'm so dependent on my dominant hand, it was difficult for me to even get comfortable using my eating utensils or to operate a computer mouse. so proving that I could do it if I had to was nice.

2. Relish the opportunity to be lazy without guilt.
Thinking of all of the things I wanted to do (sewing, drawing, crafting, blogging, etc.) really bummed me out, so instead I bought myself a pint of ice cream, settled into my couch, and started a mini-marathon of Battlestar Galactica. Because I'm a nerd. I know it's not good to spend all of your time being sedentary, but this is one of those time you can do it and not feel guilty. Enjoy it and immerse yourself into someone else's world so that you won't get all bogged down in your own (especially if you are like me and spend too much time worrying about how the world is managing without you). I watched a lot of BSG, Mad Men, and random anime, and played the hell out of the Sims 3 during my down time and it was nice. Just enough of a good thing to make it wonderful, even.

3. Try and get out.
For somewhat more extended absences like mine, make a point of getting out, at least once every couple days or so so that you have a reason to peel yourself out of your comfy spot and fight off those bed sores you've potentially been developing. Get up, shower to the best of your ability, get dressed (don't rush yourself and take your time fussing with your hair and make-up, it'll help you feel better when you know you look just right) and go somewhere! I made a point of spending lots of time with my boyfriend, but I also spent time with my friends during their free time and I visited my sister to spend some quality time with my toddler nephew. It was nice not having to squeeze these visits in before or after work, or rationing out my precious free time.

4. Pamper yourself.
Really, this is just the answer to everything. Take a long bubble bath (again, to the best of your ability, so for me that was with two plastic bags taped over my hand) with a glass of wine. Give yourself a facial or be like me and use the excuse of having a bum hand to go and get yourself a professional facial. Deep condition your hair, get your nails done (if you can), get all of your waxin's did, you know the drill! I had a hard time washing my face, hair, and shaving with just one hand, but I figured out a way to make it work and even on days where I didn't want to go through all of this trouble, bothering to just tale a shower and get clean did wonders to help me feel better when I felt like I had been sitting in my own filth for days.

Hopefully this was helpful and it feels great to be able to fully use my right hand again. Let me know if you have any additions to my suggestions and I will see you all again, pretties!

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

MTAC Came and Went, and Here I Am.

I'm so sorry for the lack of posts, I really just had to enjoy some of the free time I suddenly had right after the con.

So yeah, MTAC was the weekend before last and I can truly say that I'm glad it's over, at least for now. I won't go into details, but that weekend was pretty awful for me and I really just needed to be done with it and backed well away before I could really post anything about it. Anything I could have said before now would have been really boring for you all, so I got my feelings straightened out before deciding to update here again.

Now don't get me wrong, MTAC really is an amazing convention and had I just been a congoer, I would have had a blast, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, I worked the weekend away and barely got to spend any time doing anything outside of that.

But I DO have some highlights from the weekend that I'd like to share.

On Thursday and Friday of the con, I really did just spend a ton of time running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I even had an outfit planned for Friday and didn't end up getting to wear it because I had to hit the ground running at 7:30am until things finally calmed down at 9pm, leaving me enough time to change into my "evening outfit". You see, last year I won MTAC's Risque Cosplay contest with my silly Princess Peach burlesque routine and as a result, I ended up being one of the judges for this year. I very well couldn't show up in jeans and a Hello Kitty t-shirt, now could I?

(Photo by Terry Sherer)

Here I am, cheesin' with Hipster Hulk. Oh yeah, we're dorks. The winner was this super adorable Harley Quinn who danced right out of her corset, and into the hearts of the audience and all of the judges. I was happy to see her take the grand prize!

The next day I was prepared and woke up at 6am to get ready, knowing that people would be expecting me to report at 7. I was able to put together my creepy cute outfit from my Polyvore and I think it turned out very nicely!

(Photo by Sarah LeFebvre)

I wish I had gotten better pictures of this or any picture of my Sunday outfit at all, but both of them turned out really well, I think. I made the bat necklace and eyeball broach on my headbow, BTW. Better pictures of those to come, I had such a blast making them and would love to show them off more.

On Sunday, I finally carved out about an hour to visit the dealer room and I'm sooooo glad I did! I picked up several things, but being a HUGE Macross fan, these, by far, were the most exciting purchases:

First I got this lovely Sheryl Nome figure from the Macross Frontier/7 crossover that they are doing for the 30th anniversary. I fell to my knees when I saw her, wearing Basara's outfit and everything. The seller give her to me for 25% off because one of her pegs was broken, only to get home and realize that her base and pegs are fine! Yay deals!

Do yourself a favor and click on the images to view them larger, because she is so gorgeous. She's from one pretty swanky looking Banpresto Macross Frontier prize set from which I also snagged this little gem:

I already had the plate and spoon from a previous Banpresto prize set, but I picked up the teapot at MTAC and now I just have to find the cup to complete the set. My new lovelies have already found a spot on my over-flowing figure shelf.

I also got a totally awesome dinosaur kigurumi (a throwback to the days when I was still doing "Geekzilla vs. the World") and a stuffed Gloomy Bear. How I ever lived without a kigurumi in my life before now, I don't even know. Best pajamas ever!

Overall, glad that MTAC's over, glad I had the opportunity to help make it happen, and glad to finally have some time to rest. In fact, as of Monday I've been on medical leave from work for slicing my hand open while washing dishes :( . It's a bit more of a break than I wanted, but I will certainly try and be productive with the time :)

Lots of love!

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

On the Fourth Weekend of March, My Birthday Gave to Me...

...a lovely Sakura Matsuri and a mountain of work for MTAC!

So this past weekend was the Cherry Blossom Festival hosted by our local Consulate General of Japan and it's always something I look forward to, but am a bit wary about each year.

You see, I look forward to it because TAKOYAKI!

Also, lolita with my friends, hanging out with people I don't get to see often, educating people on Japanese culture and fashion, sometimes wearing cosplay, enjoying the lectures and performances...

(click to view larger)

But really, it's all about the takoyaki.

And funnel cake :)

Th reason why I DON'T look forward to it is because it always rains on the day of the festival, without fail! I've attended the last three years and every year we've been rained out each time. This year was a bit better in that the rain waited until after the festival, but it was super cold and cloudy all day.

Still we all had a good time and I got to give a lecture about Japanese Street fashion (which I was somewhat unprepared for, but it turned out alright), which had one of the largest audiences at the festival!

(Photo by Kate Canes)

And one of the best parts was that I got to spend SO MUCH TIME WITH KATIE! XD This girl, I cannot even tell you, is an inspiration and an awesome friend! I love having her around and I'm so glad that I got to spend this past weekend with her and that I'll get to spend even MORE time with her this coming weekend!

Nothing else about this weekend even matters because it was all no-fun working-for-MTAC stuff. Spent Sunday night sorting out the last of everything at the Go/No-Go meeting and have been tying off loose ends ever since. This weekend is when it will all comes to a head! This weekend! The fifth and final weekend of March! Ack, it feels like everything snuck up on me! Welp, no time for whining, time to make this thing happen.

After I've recovered, look for an article and photo dump of stuff from MTAC sometime next week!

Until then, my dears

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

On the Third Weekend...Ahh, Screw it

Yeah. March isn't over, but I ran out of time to do things.

MTAC's around the corner and I just...don't have time. I don't have time.

This past weekend I drank and made merriment with my friends and continued on the trend of eating my bodyweight in cupcakes and sweets.

I only want to fill myself with sweet things.

Oh yeah, ya'll get it. When this month is over, I have got to do a detox or something, I think my whole system's mucked up with sugar and alcohol and stress.

This weekend is the Cherry Blossom Festival (Sakura Matsuri if you're more of a weeaboo than me) and I'll be hosting a lolita meet-up at the festival and doing a lecture on J-fashion on behalf of TN Lolitas. Hopefully, I will remember to make time to post about it before MTAC next weekend, because it would be a shame to not do so. I will be so cute. I really should remember to post.

So please bear with me for a bit longer, in two weeks I'll have free time again!

Toodles!

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

On the Second Weekend of March, My Birthday Gave to Me...

...time to be la-a-aaaazy!

Wooooooo! XD

On Saturday, Josh and I did stuff of little importance, then had dinner, drank, and watched movies with my roommates.

Then on Sunday, we lounged about in our pajamas and marathoned Neon Genesis Evangelion (he had never seen it), followed by End of Evangelion.

Because the mechs are sexy...leave me alone...

Gah, that was a break that I desperately needed. :3

Unfortunately, the world doesn't stop just because I want it to. With MTAC in about two weeks (eep!), I pretty much spend all of my time outside of work in front of a computer working on MTAC stuff or on the phone with MTAC people.

The going has gotten pretty rough, and most days I feel like I'm running myself ragged. Where I once counted down the weeks and days to my favorite time of year, I now find myself wishing it was all over and done with. I know I'll be fine once I actually walk into the convention center that Thursday morning, but I have to keep reminding myself of that fact, or I get pretty gloomy. One of the little things I do to keep myself excited for MTAC is plan my outfits for each day of the convention! Here is one of the outfits I'd like to put together:





I already have the dress (mine is the one with the scalloped hem and sweetheart neckline), but I'd need to get almost everything else! I saw the boots and leggings at work and knew I needed to have them (despite the hefty price-tag on the boots, yikes!), and I'll probably carve out time to make a bunch of creepy cute accessories to wear with it. I'll also need a new wig to complete the look. Over all, this is probably going to be the "costliest" outfit to put together of all of the ones I'll be wearing (since I've pretty much got everything I need for the others). Hopefully I can do it for relatively cheap, since I want to save as much as possible for spending in the dealer room at con.

What about you guys? Do you attend conventions? Do you bother planning out what you'll wear at the convention in advance, or do you just pull what you already own when packing the night before?

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

On the First Weekend of March, My Birthday Gave to Me...

...a lovely tea party!

This past weekend was the lolita tea party that I hosted at my apartment. Since it was so close to my birthday, I essentially decided that it would be a birthday party in addition to being a Tennessee Lolitas meet up and sponsored the whole thing myself. Yes, it was a tad costly, but TOTALLY worth it!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but....

...my birthday is coming up! Aside from being obnoxiously busy for the last week or so (had to work overtime last week and the anime convention for which I work, the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, is now in less than a month), I have been working hard to plan for and prepare to throw the best birthday MONTH ever!

Say what's that? Birthday month?

Yes, I am a terrible dork and I am spoiling myself rotten for the entire month of March! Each weekend I plan to do something fun to celebrate and I'm even throwing myself two birthday parties! Because of this, I don't feel bad about the lack of posts so far, because there will definitely be a great increase in posts following this weekend.

Look out for my next post(s) about my first party, which will be on Sunday. I am super excited to reveal all of the things I've been working so hard on for the past three weeks!

Until then, my princes and princesses!

♥ Princess Kisha ♥

Happy Valentine's Day 2013!

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! ♡

I just wanted to say happy Valentine's Day to you all! Whether you're single, in a relationship, dealing with something complicated, or forever faithful to your cats, everyone should take today to love someone, even (or especially) if that someone is yourself!

My global studies instructor showed this to me today in class and I'm sure that I'm a bit behind in finding it, but I love the message and it made me smile. Hopefully it'll make you smile, too:

 Also, NOT COOL, ROBERT FROST. 

If you're into all of that lovey-dovey crap I might be shoveling down your throats then check out three of my favorite love songs after the jump:

Valentine's Day for Lonely Hearts

So I must admit, Valentine's Day used to be one of my least favorite holidays. For a teenager who was convinced that she was fat, greasy, and unattractive and subsequently never had a date, Valentine's Day was the macro lens that focused on how incredibly unwanted I felt. I had a few major crushes through high school and when not a single one of them proved to be productive, I always ended up feeling that much worse about myself.

Then I got a boyfriend. Things were supposed to change then, right?

Right?

Well, I can definitely say that it did get a tad better. Valentine's Day went from being miserable to being relatively tolerable. I had someone who liked me (enough) and wanted to go out with me and buy me flowers and chocolates and things. No longer did I have to deal with the anxiety of going through another Valentine's Day where I'd wait for even just one of the guys to notice me. I wasn't alone. So why didn't I learn to love Valentine's Day?

The answer to that, at least for me, is that I hadn't quite learned how to love myself first. It took a nasty break up, and several changes in my life before I could see myself for the awesome person that I am. There are days when I still struggle, but I put on my make-up and get through them. I had to learn to really love myself and be my own valentine before I could be a good valentine for anyone else. Now I'm with a pretty fantastic guy who makes me happy and it's easy to look forward to spending Valentine's Day with him when I can be happy knowing that I can be a pretty fantastic gal for him.

However, it all starts with learning to love yourself. After my last relationship, I spent the following Valentine's Day shopping, eating delicious food, hanging out with my friends, and being very single. I know it's not easy, but you'll ultimately be happier if you do something for "you" this Valentine's Day instead of moping and being unhappy. Here are some fun ideas for your very you-centric Valentine's...

1) Do arts and crafts.
Make yourself something pretty! One of the big things that come with Valentine's Day are V-Day cards! Usually people make, give, and receive them, so why not make some cards for your friends and family? Maybe make an extra special one for yourself? Or you can make a whole slew of other things, it's all up to you and what you want to do! Play with glitter, get glue on your fingers, leave bits of scrap paper or fabric on the floor and make wonderful things!

2) Indulge yourself.
On a diet? Not on Valentine's Day! Bake yourself some cupcakes and spend lots of time decorating them with icing and sprinkles. Buy yourself some of your favorite chocolate and a pint of your favorite ice cream and enjoy it thoroughly over a sappy, feel-good movie and a glass of wine (caution: know yourself and your limits. If you are a sad drunk or anything like that, substitute alcohol with a truly decadent cup of hot chocolate with all of the trimmings, or your drink of choice).

3) Pamper your body.
Check out your local day spa and get a facial or massage or both! Get a pedicure or stay home and give yourself a pedicure! Soak in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine (wine goes well with many things) and your favorite novel. Get your hair done or even consider trying a new haircut or color. Taking care of your body will help you to feel better about yourself.

4) Go out.
Do it. Go somewhere that makes you happy. Get some friends together, if you can, and make an evening of it. Or go alone and make some new friends! If you're anything like me, you'll go to the theater and see a musical or see if there are any burlesque shows happening in your town and try to attend one of those.

Whatever you do, though, don't be down on yourself. If all else fails, stay home, play video games or marathon a cool show, but don't let anything get you down. You are awesome, beautiful, handsome, clever, caring, special, and most importantly, and loved. Remember this and have a wonderful Valentine's Day! XOXO

-Princess Kisha 

A Happy Living Space = A Happy Princess

One thing I've always been really bad about is keeping a neat and organized living space. :c

(Look guys! A better watermark!)

(This is actually a bit neater than average, you usually can't even really see my floor!)

Sitting in my messy room, it's hard to be motivated to do anything because you simply don't have the room to do anything. And when it's not a matter of having room, the messiness is often a distraction that keeps you from getting any real work done. Many times I have told myself and others that I can't do a certain thing or task because I have to clean my room and do laundry first. I then end up spending the rest of the evening catching up on the internet and/or being distracted by Netflix. Since October I have been telling myself that I'm going to clean and finish unpacking my room, and since October I've been putting it off.

Now that we have begun 2013, I couldn't put it off any longer. In my family we have a tradition of cleaning everything in the house during the first few weeks of the year, and it's one of the few traditions that I actually still keep. At the insistence of the little nagging voice in the back of my head, I set aside an evening to clean and organize my room and I finally did it!

Now that it's clean, I have to keep it clean. One of the things I've noticed is that the main reason I end up with stuff all over the floor is because some things don't have a convenient location or have no real location at all. For example, I prefer doing my make-up in my room in front of a mirror, but I've only got the one tall mirror and no surface to place my stuff while I'm using it and when I'm done. While contemplating what I needed to do to fix this and other inconveniences, I decided to borrow an idea from Violet LeBeaux to document some of the updates I plan to do to my living space. My changes won't be as sweeping and all encompassing as hers are, but they will be significant compared to what I currently have.

I think that making my room prettier and more user-friendly will ultimately lead to me wanting to keep it clean, and my learning to keep my room clean will lead to more productivity on my part. I always feel more zen and ready to work when I'm working at a clean desk in a clean room with a cup of tea (but really, everything goes better with a cup of tea). I'm already in the process of creating a vanity area and I also hope to be revamping my desk soon, so look for entries specifically about those areas and more!

Until then! =^_^=

Kisha

Goals for the New Year

I know I'm a bit late to make any sort of list of resolutions for 2013, but the year has hardly started, and it's really never too late to try and better yourself. That being said, a new year provides a good excuse to give yourself a fresh start on new goals, and greater motivation for old goals. I like to make a list each year so that I can focus on my goals, and as something to reference as I work toward achieving them and marking my progress.

Though I make a list each year, this year I wanted to try something different to help remind me to stay focused. My roommate and I have both made collages representing the goals we plan on working toward this year and inspirations to continue working hard.

(Please forgive the crappy watermark, I have yet to sit down to/get help with making a new one.)

Parts of this collage represent...