Monday, February 6, 2006

   My neverending pile of Shame
Well I think we all have one of these; a mound of things we need to do but never can quite find the time to do them in. That's sorta how I feel right now. After the increadibly busy month of January, I now find myself under a mountain of catch-up work. I have to clean my room for starters, then study my butt of in Chemistry just so I have a remote chance of getting a B, not to mention the project from my RA class in which all of the work seems to have been dumped on me.

But thing have also been going good for me as well. I had a blast at Ushicon in Austin last weekend. As soon as the Cosplay section is back up, I'll post my picks of me cosplaying Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist. I've also just dropped a class which gives me a bit more free time to focus on my grades. As long as I can do that and force myself not to think about cosplay or cons until the summer, I'll be able to salvage my GPA from the dive it took last fall.
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Friday, January 20, 2006

   Happy Birthday to me!
Well, I'm very happy to be turning 20 tomorrow. Just wanted to say that!
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

   I'm Baaaaack!
Uh.. yeah, I did it again. But with the holidays and everything who can blame me.

Anyway, I'm back from my Christmas break. I got a bunch of cool stuff including a memory-foam mattress pad, a sewing machine, one of those "magic scarves", Smallville season 1 box set, and most importantly a video iPod.

I'm currently trying to get a job as an RA in my college dorm. The job pays pretty well, plus I get a privet dorm room. I have an interview set up with my university's housing office on whether I get the job now. If not, I'll re-apply at the end of Feb.

I've recently discovered I LOVE to cosplay. I like designing the costumes, wearing them at cons, getting into character, and meeting other cosplayers. Right now, my next convention will be Ushicon in Austin, TX the last weekend in Jan. I'll be cosplaying Edward from Fullmetal Alchemist. I'll be posting the pics in the cosplay section of this site. My pics from Anime South back in Nov, will be up as soon as technical difficultlies are solved.
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Thursday, December 1, 2005

   Exams, Con, Familiness, and the back to school flu!
Well, I'm finally back at school after Thanksgiving break, which was very restful, and now I think I may have the flu. But more about that later. Let me start by backing up to my exams; they sucked, end of story!

But thankfully, I had the perfect way to cure my post-exam blues: an anime convention! I went to Anime South in Destin, FL. This was their first year, and I had an excelent time. I cosplayed as Kagome (it was the best thing I could pull of, all things considered), I teamed up with a whole bunch of other Inuyasha cosplayers and our group's skit won best in show! With my cut of the prize, I got the next volume I needed of the Naruto GNs. I also bought a lot of other stuff with some money my aunt gave me.

After returning home to New Orleans with all of my new anime gear, I got to enjoy a few days of sleeping in before having to deal with my little cousins on Thanksgiving day. On Friday, I went the the "grand" RE-opening of Audubon Zoo since Katrina. Speaking of the storm, I realiesed something else over the holidays, it's still a bit painful to revisit those memories of that week just following the storm.

So Tuesday I drove back up here and my throat was feeling a bit sore, now I'm congested, achy and tired, which leads me to believe I may have the flu and not just another head cold. But I only have one class tomorrow, and them the weekend. Ah, it's good to be back.
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Saturday, November 12, 2005

   Return from Hyadus
Ok, go ahead a yell at me. I've been absent from myOtaku for over a month. I won't bore you with my excuses, but rather just fill you in. First off, two weeks after my first return trip home, I went back again to get some random junk that couldn't fit in my car the first time. It was pretty nice especially since my mom took us out to eat, and yes, there are buisnesses reopening every day down in N.O. But going out to the lake front made me reliese for the first time since that very first week of Sept, just how much things have changed and just how much rebuilding this is going to take. Two of my favorite seafood reasterants were leveled by storm surge, and there is a consistant brown line on most of the structures that shows just how high the water got.

The week following my second trip home was homecoming week, which kept me busy, busy, busy. To make matters worse, I had a bad head cold that weekend as well (never mix Nyquil and Red Bull!), so I was forced to take off of work that week. I'm just now starting to catch up with the school work I got behind on that week.

Over the next cupple of weeks I had to juggle school, work, clubs, random sickness, and money issues. But I think now I've got just about everything back on track. This week is my last week of the quarter (my university is on the quarter system as opposed to the semester system). All I have to do is turn in my fee payment for next quarter, take my exams for physics, animal anatomy, and chemistry, then pack and head home for Thanksgving break. I'll be going to an anime convention in Destin, FL. the weekend before TG. I've been planning this since the summer, only now I'm going by myself instead of with my friends. But I should have fun none the less, and after this very stressful quarter, which got off to the worst start possible, I really need to relax and have fun.
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Thursday, October 13, 2005

A Strange Homecoming
Alrighty, as promised, here is my first-hand account of post-Katrina New Orleans, in as much detail as I can recollect, complete with pictures.

As we (my mom, brother, and myself) drove down Interstate-10, we saw our first signs of hurricane damage. But as I saw building after building with at least some degree of damage, I saw that all was not lost when I saw that our local Best Buy, my source of anime, was unscaved.

Fast forward our approch to the Orleans parash line. It is 6:30 pm and the curfew is for 6pm in the city. The National Guard wouldn't let us in the city; stupid burrocracy. We called a friend of ours that lives in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, and they were able to put us up for the night.


We visited another family who live out there. Their house was flooded so they're living in their trailer parked on their lawn while they fix their house. They invited us over for breakfast on Sat morning.

After breakfast, we drove home. Everything seemed to look normal except for all the downed trees. I even saw a sign for "firewood for sale" on a large fallen trees. The nutral ground (median) was littered with temp signs advertising things like home repair, tree removal, and buisness openings; the city was starting to rise again.


When I finally saw my house, I can't begin to descibe how relieved I was. I hadn't been home since the day I evacuated, a month earlier. We were delighted to discover that we had power on at our house and running water (but it wasn't drinkable), and mine and my brother's pet betta fish were both still alive. We were forced to leave our fish and I had figured they had both starved to death, but they were somehow alive and well.


The only damage we had to our house was our back yard fence,


a hole in our roof,


and a bit of damage to the back of our house.


Our pool looked more like a pond after one month without circulating.






We even had to get rid of our refridgerators and freezers since food had been rotting in there for a month, we didn't even want to attempt to clean that. So we duck taped them up and hauled them out to the curb.

I spent the rest of the day packing my things I left behind when I left. I somehow got all of my stuff into my car, but just barely. I drove back up to school Sunday and unpacked all of my stuff that night, which took about 4-5 hrs (just the unpacking part).


Well thanks for baring with me as I shared my story and pics. And thanks for all the concern you guys have shown me over the past month and a half. See you around!
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Monday, October 3, 2005

   Normalcy Restored (well, just about)
I am very happy now that things are finally starting to get back to normal with me. I was able to get home this weekend and retreive my things, including my car. I'll post a detailed account of my trip down to New Orleans once I get my pictures uploaded and I have a bit more time.

Meanwhile, I have 2 more exams I have to get through this week and to make matters worse, the AC just went out in my dorm. It feels like a freaking sauna in there, that's why I'm in the comp lab right now. Well, all I really wanted to say was that I was able to go home and to expect more info on that soon.
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005

   That wasn't that bad!
Ok well, yeah... Rita definately wasn't as bad as they said it was going to be; it certainly wasn't a repeat of Katrina, that's for sure.

If all goes according to plans, and I certainly hope it does, I should be able to go home this weekend and get my things. This all majorly hinges on one thing, whether or not they re-open my neighborhood by this Friday. If they do, my mom and brother will drive up here and pick me up that day and we'll drive back down to the city.

I really hope I'm able to go home, this weekend. I was looking at a calender a little while ago and noticed that this Thursday will mark one month since Katrina made landfall and devistated the gulf coast region. That means that it's been a month since I last saw my home with my own eyes. That's right, I haven't seen New Orleans since before Katrina, and I mean seeing it with my own eyes, since looking at video on the news or pictures on the internet just isn't the same. I'm going to try to get some pictures and maybe even some video of my house put up here after I get back. And I'll be sure to post when exactly I'll be going home.

On a lighter note, this is the contents of a funny e-mail I got from my brother about Hurricane Katrina. Well, I'm outie. Enjoy!


Another view of New Orleans..............

Things learned from watching the news on TV lately.

l. Hurricane Katrina only hit black people's property.

2. New Orleans was devastated and no other city was affected by Katrina.

3. Mississippi is reported to have a tree blown down.

4. New Orleans has no white population.

5. Katrina blew a limb off a tree in Alabama.

6. When you are hungry after a big hurricane steal a big screen TV.

7. Katrina did 23 Billion in improvements to New Oleans. Now the city is welfare, looters and gang free and they are in your city.

8. White people don't make good news stories.

9. Don't give thanks to the thousands that came to help rescue you, instead b***h because the government hasn't given you a debit card yet.

10. Only black family members got separated in the hurricane rescue effort.

11. Ignore warnings to evacuate and the white folks will come get you and give you money for being stupid!
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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

   I hate the F-ing Media!
Ok, I am super pissed off at the national media right now. If any of you are still keeping tabs on the Katrina situation via any national news channel, don't believe a word they say, it is all a pack of lies! I'm sorry, I guess that just shows how mad I am right now. They seem to have turned the country against our Mayor, Ray Nagan, whom I think has done the best job thus far of our public officials. I mean, he was down there when the storm hit, he was with those people at the Convention Center. He asked and demanded aid for our devistated city, but thanks to all the FEMA red-tape, it was slow in coming. He called for the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city. And now he's re-opening those neighborhoods, and only those at this time, that didn't get any water, which includes mine. Yay!

Ok, I just had to get that out of my system since this blog thing on AOL had a poll to rate Nagan performance and comment on it, and most of the critisism I read had me screaming "F*** all you idiots!" at my computer screen and gave the the urge to grab each of them by the throat, stab them in the gut repeatedly with a rusty baonette, and leave them to die in the putred flood waters of New Orleans.

I'm not normally that psycodic sounding, that's just my rage talking. But onto happier news, they're re-opening my nieghborhood this Friday, pending Rita. I hope this thing does what it's supposed to do and hits Texas. Not to wish ill-will on our stately nieghbors, but N.O.really isn't in the condition to handle even a tropical storm, let alone another powerful hurricane.
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Sunday, September 18, 2005

   Yay-ness for Cloths and such!
Things seem to be getting back to normal, or trying to at least, for me. The mayor of New Orleans plans on re-opening parts of the city that were least effected back Katrina and her after math. My neighborhood is one of those that will be reopened this week and my mom is going back home to check on our stuff next weekend.

As of late, I've been really missing my family, especially my mom, but I don't think she realizes how isolated and alone I can get up here, especially without my car. I'm hoping that I'll, personally, be able to get back in the city by the end of this month to get the rest, or at least most, of my stuff.

But enough of this depressing nonsence, on to better news. I got a package from my mom on Friday with some of my "rescued" cloths and some food. Watched some pretty good anime and non-anime premires this weekend. Watching TV, especially anime, really helps me relax and forget about the major worries of my daily life.
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