Slowing Down

I wish I could I say I was busy, hence the lack of posts. I really do, but reality doesn't quite come close. I'm working at a vinyl shop now on minimal wage and it has been a fulfilling time to indulge in some free time, get back to what I like and generally take things step by step. I haven't felt peaceful in a long time, but things are rearing its ugly head again. 

Minimal wage means minimal spending and I can't afford luxury and even had to cut down some things I wouldn't have blinked twice on spending on previously. And as much as I had hoped I would get bumped up to a full time post at work, things aren't looking up, so it probably means I need to look for a job that pays much better. Being an adult means having to fork out money on alot more things and I still really wanna go to Japan next year.

I have't felt creative in awhile and even my cosplays are slowing down due to the shortage of funds, so I guess it's just time to get back to real life and start the hamster wheel of working at a regular job once again. 

I'll update soon, heck I've got alot of posts I've been wanting to post up, so just be patient and gimme some time to clear them kays?

ICDS 2014

I almost didn't attend International Cosplay Day Singapore (ICDS) but when I heard that the amazing Kamui Cosplay was gonna be a guest and teach a workshop on armour/prop making, there was no way I was gonna miss it!!

Pic with the amazing Kamui herself. I learnt quite abit about Worbla and foam for prop making from her workshop 

Bought all 3 of her books as a gift for the bf, she even autographed them!! I also got a poster autographed by her, I'm thinking bout redecorating my room and framing the poster and Vampybitme's signed poster to display on my wall.

For a small event, there were many amazing cosplayers who turned up, including this incredible Iron Giant cosplay!!

Look at that thing!!

The incredible man behind it named Orvis. He laughed when I asked if I could take a pic of him saying that it was the first time all day that anyone asked to take a pic of the man behind the robot.

Unfortunately, after the event, I woke up the next morning to find my cosplay appearing in the local paper.

It wasn't so much as me appearing in the paper that irked me, it was the complete lack of respect of the writer and photographer, who chose to take this sneak picture of me while I was busy posing for a photo with Rescend instead of respectfully asking for a picture. This is especially annoying when a local law was fairly recently passed regarding requesting permission to post identifiable information of anyone. The fact that the local newspaper didn't give two hoots about it is especially infuriating. I wrote to them to explain the matter but failed to get a reply, so I'm considering taken other actions elsewhere.

It's not that I'm trying to act like a big shot or something, I'm just concerned that these reporters think they can get away with such behaviour especially with the local cosplay community, simply because we're the "weirdos" or something. 

Anyway, to avoid turning this post into a major ranting session (which is pretty much halfway there), I'll end this post now... till next time!

Cosfest 2014

Cosfest is one of the cosplay events I look most forward to every year, partly because it's one of the bigger local events and also nearly everyone in the community chooses to stay in the nearby chalets, so at night the place becomes one huge party fest. 

I chose to do simpler cosplays this year as I didn't have any team, and I didn't feel like stressing myself out with preparations due to the stresses I had from my last job.

Cosplayed as Reira Serizawa from Nana, and took this pic with Candy. Need to trim my wig's bangs abit more, but I love the texture of the wig.

With some of the people I admire in the local cosplay scene, Xiaobai, Kanasai and Cvy. All of them were cosplaying Vocaloids.

For day 2, I cosplayed as Celty from Durarara!! 

With Jo and Jas, both cosplaying different versions of badass Major Motoko from Ghost in the Shell.

Managed to snag a chance to meet Yuegene Fay!! She had run out of cosplay cards by then, but she very sweetly autographed the back of my Celty helmet.

With Jo, Hana and Drefan while watching the stage performances. Drefan's cosplay was especially funny, he kept throwing and body slamming willing people onto a mattress as part of his wrestling cosplay.

Pic taken by Kappa

Pic taken by 8bitwonderland. We actually posed next to random black colour motorcycle and quickly scurried off to avoid being confronted by the bike's owner.

There were also many crazy fun stuff during the chalet too!

Esther brought her little birdy pal, Popcorn, to the chalet and word quickly got round bout her little feathered friend. Popcorn seemed to really take to Dan throughout our stay.

What's a party without awesome junk food?!! Nearly every room had different pizzas resulting in pizza deliverymen scuttling from room to room.

There's also Rescend's annual Cosfest parody video. This year's video was inspired by Hangover by Psy and Snoop Dog, see if you can spot me in the video (hint, I'm polishing my Celty helmet).

Besides the pain of being forced to leave midway through my day 1 cosplay to attend a ridiculous concert for work, Cosfest was as fun as I ever remembered it to be.

Funan Anime Matsuri 2014

Attended the small Funan Anime Matsuri event back in June, I think? I usually don't bother much with smaller cosplay events at malls due to my work schedule, but I made an exception for this event as one of my favourite cosplayers, Sakuya, was a guest for the event. 

Cosplayed as Annie Leonhart together with my friends, Janice and Beverly. Together, we were the Titan trio.

Met some friends at the event

Had an incredible stroke of luck and managed to find Sakuya while she was backstage watching the stage performances. I kind of called out to her and she immediately turned around and was super friendly!!! She whipped out her phone and took this picture of us before I even asked! 

More pictures once she escaped the barriers around the stage

Group photo with the other Shingeki cosplayers at the event.

Recreating the infamous Levi kicking scene

Bonus picture of her dusting the wall haha

It was such a pity that she had run out of cosplay cards (cosplay business cards) but I gave her mine and I'm just happy enough to have a chance to meet her and take a picture with her! It was also surprising that she was actually tiny in real life compared to how she's usually protrayed as such a masculine figure in her pictures. She's my height (I'm about 5 feet 1") and probably 2/3 of my size, which is sooo skinny!!! She couldn't really speak English but she made alot of hand gestures to communicate with us and my friends and I tried our best to speak to her in our terrible broken Japanese. Still, it was fun to be able to finally see her up close and personal in real life. 

Being Touristy

Globe-trotting gyaru, Kayo, was back in town for a week or so a few months back. it was fun being a tour guide and showing her around town like before, though it was more of a shopping/ sight seeing trip this time, unlike the food driven trip last time. 

Started the day with brunch a la Singapore style:

Half boiled eggs mixed with dark soy sauce and white pepper, Kaya (coconut jam) and butter toast with strong coffee

It was amusing to hear Kayo comparing the eggs to Japan's onsen eggs, and she loved the strong coffee.

After that, we headed to Haji Lane, as she had read up about it online.

Tourist shot! My face looks really weird here

Steph's tattoo artist, Kevin, helped to take this picture after we popped by his store to cool off due to the intense heat.

My outfit consisted of:

Inner shirt: Uniqlo

Lace Nightie: Taobao

Shorts: Lowry's Farm

Stockings: taobao

Denim Jacket: Calvin Klein

Badge: taobao

Shoes: Random shop in Holland Village

Hair clips: Sasa

Final shot before Steph had to leave for the day

It was fun catching up with Kayo again and hopefully, I'll get a chance to head to Japan and she'll be my tour guide the next time we meet.

Shingeki no Kyojin Hanji shoot

It's always fun assisting friends when they do their shoots. It's also kind of a "you-scratch my back, I scratch yours" kind of thing, as people are more willing to help you out too when you need some assistance. 

This shoot was quite awhile back but nevertheless, I had fun exploring a bunch of abandoned colonial houses during the shoot and Rescend was on the ball as usual while Jo looked spot-on perfect as Hanji. 

Setting up and I'm not quite sure what exactly I'm doing in this pic, being silly I guess haha

Posing for the cam!

What's a shoot without some omakes? 

Here's an actual decent pic from the shoot

I was also a hand/arm dummy for this series of story shots. My short stubby fingers have finally come to good use!

The team behind the scenes

Spent the evening sampling Hanjo and Levi alcholic drinks that my friend, Serene, specially ordered from Japan. I think Hanji tasted kinda fruity while Levi had more of a tea taste to it.

Back Again

Image from the movie: The Place Promised In Our Early Days

Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth for a few months. I'm not sure if anyone is gonna actually read my blog anymore but meh, whatever. 

Anyway, if anyone's actually curious bout what happened to me, I got the job at the PR agency I wanted a few posts back. Started out the first month fine and optimistic bout everything, but after awhile, things started grating on me. The colleagues were cold, I couldn't connect with anyone, the bosses were just existing to throw us work and disappear without any real direction. I was lost, confused and started hating anything and everything related to my job. 

So basic thing is, I switched jobs. My friend offered an opportunity to work at a vinyl store and I grabbed it. The money's tight because I'm on a part-timer's payroll, but the colleagues and boss are exceedingly nice and warm and caring, and I have flexibility in my schedule to do the things I want. I dunno how long this can keep up, but for now, I'm happier then I've been in a long long time. 

I know I can't remain this way forever, and I do have concerns bout how I will be able to last financially in the future with more financial responsibilities. However, in 2 years, this is the first real sense of peace I've had. 

I'm learning alot of things at work bout the turntables and vinyls, more than I ever thought I'd ever learn about them. I'm hoping dearly that I may get an opportunity to earn full time employment, so I need to work hard and prove my worth. 

I'm still uncertain about what the future may bring as things haven't gone as I had planned years ago. But, I'm just glad I'm still here trying to feel my way around and learning more about myself along the way.

I have a great backlog of posts, so I'll slowly update them even if I'm just typing into a blog that no one bothers to read anymore. 

Re-evaluation

Things aren't turning out as I had hoped....

I really hope that it will get better soon....

In the mean time... here's my current ear worm:

And I'm looking forward to getting a new haircut, hairdye and perm since my hairdresser just came back from her trip back to Japan.

Featured in Cosplay Gen!!!

I interrupt my currently dead blog to squeal like a rabid fan girl that Cosplay Gen , yes THE Cosplay Gen has actually featured my Disney Princess team's cosplay picture!!!

Picture in question: 

You can see the feature at: 

Facebook

and

Website

I've been incredibly tired and worn out from work, so I apologise for the lack of updates. I will be blogging soon, it's just a matter of sitting down, uploading pics and writing everything down. For faster updates on what's going on in my life, you can head down to my Instagram or my cosplay page

Baked Kit Kats

Ever since I started my diet, I haven't really eaten much sweets except for the occasional treat. But I couldn't resist when I chanced upon a shop selling the Japanese baked kit kats. 

The packaging, clearly showing the kit kats are meant to be baked

The cute individually wrapped kit kats. At 64 kcal each, its a treat I can live with once in awhile.

Though it's much smaller then I expected. It's only half the length of my second finger and I don't exactly have long fingers mind you.

Nice and toasty in my toaster oven. Supposedly the kit kats work only in toaster ovens, not the larger convectional ovens as the heat is too intense.

The kit kats melted down and got stuck to the aluminium foil so I had to slowly peel them off. The packaging says to toast it for about 3 minutes, but it didn't get the caramelised effect I wanted, so I left it for an additional 3 minutes. 

End result!! It was warm and had the lovely caramelised sugar taste of creme brulee, which probably explains the pudding flavour. The inner wafer was still crisp but there was a slight amount of melted gooey-ness from the white chocolate. Super addictve, I'm glad it takes time to slowly toast them otherwise I'd probably finish the entire bag in a single seating.

In other news, I got the job I wanted! I just finished my first week there and the company is really ultra small, like less then 10 people. Good news is, its an express route to learning new things, bad news, I'll probably be doing ALOT of things and might have some late nights. I'm trying to tell myself to just be strong and learn everything I can even if it means working late.

The sucky thing is, I just feel bit unwanted by the colleagues there. They're mega tight together to the point where they have each other on Facebook and Instagram and stuff, so I feel super awkward and out of place right now. I don't even have a chance to enter their conversations because everything is so personal and it sucks when they keep harping bout missing their ex-colleague, the one I replaced. 

The bf says I'm thinking too much and some friends are telling me to just give it time. I guess I just need to steel myself and tell myself to make things work as it's getting really tiring for me and bad for my career to keep jumping jobs. It's do or die now. I need to make it wok whether I like it or not.

Hair Do, Pigging Out and Popping Pills

Nothing much has been happening to me lately besides waking up, surfing the net, catching up with friends, packing up my room and finding a new job. So pardon the lack of posts though i really ought to get a move on review posts since I did get a few new items lately. I might also do a gets post, since I did make some big ticket purchases from last year till now but we'll see how it goes.

I did get a new haircut, hair dye and perm done fairly recently back at Kizuki+LIM. I'm too deeply in love with the ambience of the salon and the skilled hands of my cheerful hairstylist. 

Dyed my hair back to a darker to brown to reduce damage and also because my hair was starting to become multi-coloured once again. I also did a slight body perm, not enough to give me curls like before but enough to create a slight bounce and airy feel to my hair without trying. I must say that the strawberry tea that they serve is really soothing in a nice floral way, something about the place always makes me feel relaxed and drowsy much to my hairstylists's amusement.

I was also holed up at home partly because I came down with a bad case of flu. I was given a battery-load of medicines to take but at least it's nearly over, I just have alittle cough now, and the medicine has helped to calm my eczema down, which is a pretty good bonus. Though for the first 2 days, I was so drugged up I couldn't even make out what I was watching on the tv.

To cheer me up after my illness, the bf brought me out for a lovely brunch at a cafe called Tea Dot. I had yummy scrambled eggs on buttered toast and a grilled portobello mushroom, while the bf satisfied his meat craving with some bangers & mash. Shared a lemon meringue tart and had some bitter tea which helped soothe the throat. I also pigged out on a seriously awesome burger and truffle fries with some friends before I had my hair session, I could use a bag full of those amazing truffle fries now but I'll be patient and wait till my throat gets better first.

On the job front, I've been taking it slow and easy instead of making my past mistakes of whoring myself out and readily accepting any job that came my way. I've scaled back and applied for jobs in industries I feel that I have an interest in and as much as it pains me, I've decided to try entry-level jobs with the PR industry, which means a pay cut but also streamlining my job scope and role and responsibilities so that I needn't run around like a headless chicken wondering what the hell I'm doing. 

I've got a second interview with a PR agency tomorrow and I'm really crossing my fingers and hoping things will work out this time. So let's just see how things go.

Quick Meetup & Dinner

Had a short but lovely dinner meeting with my bestie from another mother, Steph the Magnificent!

Didn't do much other then having dinner at a cafe she hadn't tried and some window shopping, but nonetheless it was fun.

Camwhore pic of the day! This is also my most recent photo after I did a hair dyeing session and quick trim last week, my hair is now a dark brown.

Blurry outfit pic, but it'll have to do as I didn't take any other pic of my outfit

Cropped top: Boy London

Inner dress: M.O.S.

Stockings: Can't remember

Ankle Boots: Online

Spiked hairband: Online

Bowtie choker: JRunway

Winged backpack: Glad News

We ate at this Parisian eatery called PAUL. I've tried their pastries and sandwiches numerous times and dined in once before with the bf. Honestly, I think their pastries and sandwiches to go are better then their dining in options. Their service is also bit slow and lacking.

Had an open-faced beef sandwich, it had a fancy French name, but I've forgotten what it was. I hate raw onions so it was immediately scooted off to the edge of the plate. The salad had a nice vinaigrette  dressing and was pretty fresh. The sandwich itself was overwhelmed by the cheese, I hardly tasted any beef though the crusty bread was good.

Had Strawberry Millefeuille for dessert and was highly disappointed by it. Steph said my picture made it look so much better then how it looked like in real life. it was served shoved towards one edge of the plate though it did look pretty. The pastry layers were quite hard and not at all crisp, light and buttery. The choux cream was too sweet, overwhelming the strawberries and pastry. At least the strawberries weren't too sour.

I'm craving for some decent pastries right now after the disappointment of the dinner. But at least I did manage to have alittle catch up session with Steph. 

Now it's back to cleaning and clearing my pig sty of a room.

Cosplay Tip: Safety Shorts

Since I'm pretty deep into cosplay lately, I figured why not add alittle section to my blog called "Cosplay Tip"? I'm not saying I'm an expert or anything, but I figured it'll be nice to give out little advice here and there to help budding cosplayers. Of course, you may agree or disagree with some stuffs I may write but that's entirely up to you.

In the mean time, today's topic is safety shorts! It's become a cosplay staple of mine ever since I realized that the majority of Japanese school girl uniforms in Japanese anime have them wearing outrageously tiny micro skirts that barely cover their bum.  Of course, in reality, not only is it difficult to walk around with such short skirts without feeling self-conscious, but you'll be attracting plenty of unwanted attention from pervy people. Sometimes you may also unintentionally "flash" yourself without realising, it could be bending down to pick up something or simply going up a rather long escalator, well you get my drift. I'd rather be safe then sorry, so I always wear a pair of safety shorts, just in case of anything.

This is my favourite pair of safety shorts. I actually have a few others but they are slightly longer so sometimes they can be seen peeking out from beneath my costume.



Showing how it looks like underneath one of my shorter costumes, my Persona 4 cosplay of Fujiwara Rise.

Not only will the safety shorts help to protect your modesty, but it will help in creating unwanted situations. I've seen poor girls tripping over in their sky-high heels only to land flat on the floor, unintentionally exposing themselves to a group of nasty photographers taking advantage of the situation.

Some of my friends choose to wear boy leg panties instead as it doesn't affect the look of the outfits, or even bloomers if they wanna feel extra girly underneath a ruffled dress. My point is, with revealing costumes, it helps to have alittle security