.Amani
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Saturday)
Avian with Crystal
Despite us being in the metro area, this place was EXTREMELY cheap. I mean, freaking ridiculous. Pancakes for 4 dollars ridiculous. You'd neverrr see prices like that in NYC! I wish they had a location up here! The service was so good, too. I personally had a plate of pancakes with strawberries and pecans on top, with a side of hash browns and some spiced chai tea. All the food was sooo good and the total came out to only $10. Like are you kidding me? This place was a godsend
Apparently we had some sort of issue with our reservation... which was stupid. But we got it fixed quick when we got back to the hotel, and then we headed up to our shepherd mother's room. There, we chatted with Mother Jones for a bit where she told us the history of the COOLJC International Women's Convention, and her time as the president and the differences between then and now... back then, they used prayer as a way to choose their presidents and now it's by regular voting. Mother Jones was chosen through prayer to lead the convention, and throughout the years of her presidency she prayed through everything, and pretty much made the convention much better than it is today.
The views from Mother Jones' room
She told us that her first convention was in California, I think in L.A... and how the holy spirit had led her to stage a parade and how despite the odds it came to fruition... a huge crowd of women, hundreds I think she said, if not nearly a thousand, marching and singing hymns and whatnot. They had balloons in their hands, each with a small paper scripture on the inside, and at the end they let them all go, to bless whoever would end up catching one in the future. Apparently it was such a spectacular and spiritually-charged event...
She talked about how she had set up a Single's Night each year for youth to fellowship and stuff, how she had a lot of panels being run for youth, and for men too, and how active the convention was because of all the things that got set up. This year... none of that. The new president apparently stopped all those activities, and she never put anything to replace them.
When we talked about those things I felt jipped. LOL. I dunno. It seemed like I could've had such a good experience had all the things that were put there by Mother Jones had been kept. And it seemed that part of the convention was concentrated on the president's last year as well... Iono... after hearing Mother Jones talk, trying to imagine how it was back then, my vision of back then pretty much snuffed out any image I had from this year. The new president, who starts on next year's convention, said that she was going to bring back a lot of Mother Jones' stuff, so I'm pretty excited to see that.
When we were done talking (Mema had a panel to go to or something), I got dressed to go to the pool.
The views from the pool area
Maybe I should've done a nicer pose... lololo
YUP, I still wore my bikini LOL. If you read my past entries you already knew I wanted to wear it so bad! I had no one to impress here, barely anyone went to the pool, so I wore my VS bikini with my potbelly. Not a crap was given lololo. Though the other youth were joking on me, saying I looked pregnant. = w= whateverrrr bros
Women's Council Weekend 2011 (Friday)
Despite the fact that I was limping around for half of the weekend, I enjoyed myself quite a bit down in Norfolk, VA. The pier area was gorgeous and certain areas had this beautiful view of the harbor... I wish I was able to wander around more and explore.
It was a verrrrry long 7+ hour bus ride down there. Luckily we were able to get sleep here and there in our cramped seats (seriously, barely adjustable) so it didn't seem as long.
Avian yearning for the ocean water... LOL
I wonder if we were near Virginia Beach?
The other youth people talking about Pig Latin and gibberish and other languages lol
I should've taken more pictures of our hotel room, but my friend Avian and I had this comfy King-size bed, with an extra rolling bed in one corner for our 3rd roomie Dijah. We were across from the Bank of America building but we still had a pretty nice view of the city. Dijah was pretty lucky for her little bed in the corner, it was right next to the window. I wish I woke up to the sun's warmth every morning... D:
The view from Dijah's side of the room
The other view from our room~
The sun was actually setting by the time we got there, so we had maybe two hours or so to wash up and relax before we headed to Friday night service. No pictures there... I hated my outfit LOL (wearing white with offwhite was such a huge peeve for me..)
It was pretty good. The music performances were GREAT, especially this saxophonist that performed, and then the speakers were good too. I really liked the first one, I forget her name but she had talked about women in power needing to stay humble and 'within the Spirit' through prayer and being hospitable than being concerned about their positions and whatnot. It really touched me and when we had a little prayer session I was in tears.
It's really hard to explain the emotions that are let loose during these moments, but it was a huge release for me. I think that it was one of the reasons why I was pretty chill when I got fired... I know that God has only the best in store for me as long as I try not to hold onto anything other than Him.
Afterwards there was another speaker, who spoke pretty well, but after the praying from before, I was too exhausted to really get into it.
Once service was out, I went around to find the pool area and looked around. One heated pool, 3 jacuzzis, one indoor and the other two outdoor... that were cold as hell :| Apparently there were plumbing issues the whole weekend for the lower floor or something... the jacuzzis were so cold.. it was a shame, because they seemed very intimate and relaxing (especially the outdoor ones, which were in their own little 'booths' with a door and all). We were roomed near some Southern guests who were in the pool area with us at some point, and on Sunday one of the guys said that they were just then fixing the jacuzzis.... right as we were checking out = A= what kind of shi--
The younger kids were already in the pool area at the time and were pretty much done, since the pool closed at 11 or so... so we went back up to our rooms, dressed down, and everyone pretty much bummed in our hotel room the whole night as we ordered pizza and whatnot.
Already, drama was brewing because of kids... It's funny when you travel with people to relax and have a good time, just for it to be ruined anyways by petty crap :/ Not even like yknow, serious dramu that's worth talking about. It was very irritating and there was of course tension in our room. I don't do very well with that.
Of course, it was only Friday and I was bound to get more irritated as the weekend went on...
Monday, October 24, 2011
More Giveaways~
(Really hate Blogger's changes, I liked putting links in the images... = w= or maybe it's just Chrome jacking my stuff up.. blahhh)
Miss Chantal is having yet another giveaway sponsored by Shoppingholics~ the prize this time are 2 pairs of GEO circle lenses (I'm guessing winner's choice? o:), lens cases to go with, 1 cute animal travel lens case, and a set of Hello Kitty stick-on toe nails. Ends November 15th~
Universal Doll is having a little giveaway, which includes 3 pairs of ponponpon-- I mean, Kyary Pyamu Pyamu lashes, a Bihada Ichizoku face mask, and a little Tokyo Girl's Collection phone strap. Ends November 3rd~
This one blogger is doing some closet-cleaning and is giving away a -buttload- of unused circle lenses, BB Cream samplers and makeup brush guards. It's kind of complicated for me to join, since I don't have a Wordpress to do all the instructions, but the prizes are pretty good!
This ends on Halloween~
My girl Lynnette is having yet another giveaway~ this time to win a $25 certificate for Socks4Life. It's a pretty good prize, Socks4life's stuff seems pretty cheap and that prize will easily get you a good 2-4 pairs or more of warm cozy socks and stuff for the winter :3
Ends October 28th
All this giveaway stuff makes me want to host one but.. *sigh* holidays ; w; maybe one day
Sunday, October 23, 2011
the month passed by so fast, right before my eyes! Already Halloween is here, with the winter holidays coming right up... around this time I start feeling so old, when things just seem to pass you by.
So let me see... updates...
At the beginning of the month, I had a small injury that sort of led me to getting let go from my job. Right before the Women's Council, I was supposed to work 4 days that week, but somehow I had ended up hurting myself... I'm not sure how! I can only guess that I hurt myself the Sunday before the con, because a bunch of us ended up getting drunk (me and Susan were completelyyyy wasted), either that or I've been putting so much stress on myself after I had gotten sick last month that I injured myself.
In any case... I ended up going to the hospital that Tuesday because one day my knee was and creaking and popping more than it usually does (I told you I was ancient.)... then the next day it started feeling like there was a bit of pressure... then by Tuesday there was a LOT of pressure in my knee, to the point where I was very irritated, kind of to the point of tears, and I was just obviously limping all around the store. I ended up going to the hospital after getting out of work that night to find out that there was fluid building up in my knee! The doctor told me to pull out of work for 2 days... which of course ended up being 5, because this was right before the con. I was really tight because I didn't make any money for New York Comic Con which was the week after.. I went to my job with my knee wrapped up to drop off the doctor's note before picking up my paycheck and then got prepared for Virginia.
By the time I got back to the city from the con, my boss didn't make the schedule or whatever, or at least I didn't have no day to come in. So I go in that Monday... I was there for maybe 10-20 minutes and then I was right back out the door.
To be honest, I'm pretty glad I got let go... having been my first time working full time, it was just really hard to go all the way to Queens just to work... it was nearly a 2 hour commute one way and after I had my fever in September I was having a lot of difficulty keeping up as far as attendance. Especially if you know how the MTA tends to be.. and it was even more difficult because if I were to be late, it wasn't like I could call in advance because there'd be nooo one there. I dunno. it was hard. Maybe I'm a wuss xD
Anywho besides lateness I also got in trouble for not being able to do things right... which I was confused about because no one had any complaints for me this whole time? They knew I never did clothing retail before but they assumed that I would know everything... in any case, having worked at the fitting room for more than a month, I was doing pretty good keeping it clean, but the day I went to the hospital I left a mess because the assist. manager kept rushing me from finishing so we could leave.. just to complain about it the next day. Really? I'm here limping ready to go to the hospital and somehow there's no consideration for my situation?
And then apparently they also let me go because of the injury itself. Because apparently an ex-worker had a similar issue and it caused problems because it happened often and they couldn't deal. Which I know is wrongful termination but... at that point in time, I really didn't care anymore. I still don't care, and I wasn't mad for them letting me go. It was just annoying because this is the first time my knee ever got messed up like that, and they were sure that it would probably happen again...
Don't get me wrong, that was probably the easiest place to work at? But eh. I said I'd mainly work there for the experience but at the end of the day it was barely worth the minimum wage, I think. Just me struggling and having this language barrier with most of the workers and stuff. So! I'm glad I'm gone xD I just had to talk about it and rant for a bit. Now that I'm free, I'm gonna try and get a new job in a more convenient area, plus try and get up on that event planning & design course I still haven't finished yet!
~~~~~~~
Comic Con was pretty good. Of course, I couldn't really spend much because I barely had money, but I still managed to enjoy myself. I got two posters for 8 bucks from Kinokuniya booth, and like 3 tshirts and little stickers and other swag from all these games.... I played Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I'm excited for since it's coming out around my birthday! and I also played Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and I did a pretty good job for playing Zelda on the Wii for the first time!
There was a looot of comic-related stuff, and so little Japanese culture/fashion and anime stuff. It was kind of dull for me for that reason. But I still enjoyed the dealer's room. I didn't get a chance to cosplay either, besides as a Ravenclaw student on Friday, because I gained a lot of weight while I worked! (The picture above is a total lie --well, almost... my gut tends to poke out now because I've been reaaally fat lately. Hopefully I'll get smaller now that I'm not working and going to fast food joints.) Plus I had no time to finish up the Fran costume.
Welp~ there's always next year~
I'll post my pictures in a little bit xD Oh and of the Christian convention too, I got a lot of pictures from that as well
As far as plans for Halloween? No clue what I'm doing at all as far as partying or dressing up... but I'll be getting a new wig from MintyMix, ran by one of my favorite gals Kammie~
This brown and tan split wig~
and then these matching 'wire wig' thingies she just started selling. So you can have an additional styling item, like this~
Cute, right? So I'm getting one in brown and one in tan~ I'll probably do a review at some pointtt. Also thinking of buying some accessories from etsy, but it all depends on what I have left..
And then to end this post on a better note, my circle lenses are on their way to my house! :3 I'm extremelyyyy excited, and I really hope they arrive before Halloween! It took maybe 2 months for the whole group order to go through, but I'm glad I'm finally getting them. I'll make a fully-detailed review once they arrive and whatnottt
So until next time, I guess~
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tokyo Kawaii TV in NYC!
Me and my boo Yuuki
So last week Tokyo Rebel had made a last minute announcement saying that Tokyo Kawaii TV was going to be filming in New York this past weekend. What a rush! Come to find out that they were filming both the lolitas and my gal friends over the weekend. So excited over it still, I wonder how the episode will come out!
Unfortunately I had to work the day the NYC gals were filmed, but I did manage to be filmed with the lolitas. The NHK people filmed at Tokyo Rebel ( I ended up being really late and managing to slip into the last group of people!) and then drove to Cha-An, a Japanese restaurant a few blocks away.
Not sure if they did it with all the other girls, but with us, they drove us in this mini-van to maybe a block away from the place, and then filmed us walking to the restaurant and entering it xD pretty exciting I guess.
Yanise looking at Cha-An's menu...
And then posing xD
Alex looking like a sexy Snow White. mhmmm
As far as food, I had this dessert set, which was like a treat sampler (chocolate scone with cream and candied orange peels, earl grey macaron, piece of raspberry pound cake? etc etc) and I must say, the scone especially was the best scone I've ever had. It was so warm and soft inside and had this wonderful texture to it, just sighhh. And for tea I had a hibiscus iced tea, since it was pretty warm and humid that day.
After Tokyo Kawaii had left, a group of us decided to stroll our way to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, and before we made it there, we stopped into Doug who was taking a beer break LOL. He filmed us on his cam walking into his store, just filling up the thing with frills and served us ice cream.
It looks like a taco or something, don't it? xD
After that we made our way back to Tokyo Rebel, chilled there for a while before heading home.
I usually keep the ties in the hat when I wear it because I really dislike the look, but there was no way the hat would've stayed on my head with all that weave without it xD It's all good though.
Outfit rundown:
Hat: Apatico
JSK: Innocent World
denim jacket: Yumetenbo/dreamv
tights: from sockdreams! Leg Avenue, I think?
shoes: An*tai*na
bag & watch: from my job
The Tokyo Kawaii people were so kind to do this! I remember when we were recorded for I think Fuji TV or something, and the people filming us weren't anywhere near as kind or appreciative of us giving our time to them...
I know my girl Usagi got her room filmed for the NY gal room, and my girl Yanise got filmed for the loli room. I'm so extremely happy for them, though a part of me wished my shitty room got filmed too. LOL especially with my ridiculous AGEHA collection? Yup lol
I can't wait to see the episode. They said it'll come out sometime between the end of October to sometime in November. Can't wait to see it!
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