August 4, 2003

Kinko's makes me rather sick T_T; I might have to call off the manga anthology project that's, oh, READY TO PRINT, because the people there just had to give us a project cost estimate of $x, which made us happy and decided to go with Kinko's' service, and changed it to $y at the last moment, where y=nearly twice x. DUDE, that's so LAME. I don't know about the fate of the anthology; we'll have to wait until tomorrow and see whether the account manager is a sane person or not. The sad thing is that we only have a couple of days left before Manifest, and if we have to find another printer, it'll most likely not be done in time -_-;

On other stuff: Post-it notes own me. I have three different sizes of the yellow thing, and I think if I didn't have the tens of them stuck on my desk/monitor/printer table/whatever space I could find, my life would not be the same. It would be a lot less organized, for one thing.

08:38 PM

August 5, 2003

Ooh, forget it. I (more like, we) met and talked with the account manager at Kinko's~ He turned out to be a really nice guy, and boy we didn't even have to negotiate to get the sort of price we wanted :D We could've pushed it a bit further, but it was as good a price as any, so we decided to go through with it. What surprised me was that it turned out that the account manager knew the owner of the Subway I work at, they were schoolmates apparently. Wow, small small world :D

Anyway, so the anthology will be finished in a day or two; Manifest is looming, nearer than ever; and dude, I so haven't done anything useful this week other than minding the anthology business. Hmm.

07:34 PM

August 6, 2003

Been watching quite a bit of anime lately, out of procrastination XD; Watched FLCL (darn that's one cool crazy show), Get Backers (dude coolness ;o;), and Naruto (I still like the manga better, though the anime is certainly not bad at all X3). Oya, I've been reading the One Piece manga too, I dig it a lot =3 The style and characters are just irresistible - the art is very... carefree somehow. Love it ^O^

10:57 PM

August 12, 2003

OMG... Manifest 2003 has come and gone. To say that I had a blast is a terrible understatement. This is only my third convention ever, and my very first time actually having a table and selling stuff. There is no real Artists' Alley, but many of us just had the initiative and grabbed a couple of tables meant for the dealers anyway. I was selling the Anindo comic anthology Punch!, along with aSen and Amel, and it did way well. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy! :D

I was also selling some prints, and since it was my first time doing so, I had no idea how many to make and bring. I ran out around lunchtime on Saturday (...it's either poor planning or a nice surprise :D I choose the second option thanks), and since I still had one and a half day to go, I decided to bail and print some more. Good thing my apartment's sooo close XD; I came back and sold yet more stuff. The downside of being behind a table is, of course, that you don't really get to see much, but what the heck. I had twice as much fun than I did at last year's Manifest, which itself was really good. Sitting behind a table all day may sound boring, but dude, it is so not. All sorts of people stopped by and browsed through the comic and prints, and many stayed to chat. I met a lot of wonderful people~! Er, more like, I met a LOT of WONDERFUL people!! :D Thank you so much for everyone who dropped by and bought prints. I've also mailed out the ones that were ordered while I was out of stock.

What really surprised me though, is that quite a few people actually recognized me/my art and had been to my site before. It's such a pleasant surprise~ I also ran a drawing/self-publishing/comic panel, along with Piro, Dan, and Kath. It was my first time running a panel too~ I think (hope) I did okay ^^;

The art competition/show pieces were great~! Piro won the Judges' Pick and got the Chobits box set! :o Way to go Piro! XD The cosplay was really good too; them crazy Sydneylanders actually won all awards on both days. First day's winner was a gigantic Moogle, which you can easily find if you look through Manifest photos anywhere. We even held Moogle photo sessions! Kenny was so popular XD; The runner-up, however, held more interest to me -- it was Chewie as a reaaaally good Auron. I mean... dude... Auron :O He had the sword too, which was reaaally nice. Oh the details. Oh gawd, I was so totally going ga-ga over Auron :o~~ A Lulu won the first place prize on Sunday; second place was Kakashi. While I was sitting there behind my table, a lot of people wandered around wearing the Naruto headband, which I really really want ;_; It's so expensive though, at AU $89 (I think?). And by the time I decided to screw it and buy it anyway, it was sold out ><;

I was so well-fed throughout the whole thing~ The Manifest committee made sure we didn't starve by dropping by and offering us candies every now and then. We were given a platter of sushi for lunch on both days too, which was really good :D We had excellent dinner on both days (you can't go wrong with Japanese food). Last night, however, since we (that is to say, Alf, Avie, Piro, and me, which were the only ones left) were pooped and only wanted some rest, we stayed home, played some Luigi's Mansion, and ordered Indian food, delivered to my apartment. It was so totally nice~ I have never had proper Indian food before, aside from curry, and even then I usually don't touch it because the people around me are mostly crazy about chilli -- I'm so out when it comes to the hot stuff. But yeah, dinner was wonderful last night! Tandoori chicken and naan and curry. We had this mango yoghurt thing and this bread pudding-ish sweet dessert, which were really yummy :9~~~ I must say though, that if it weren't for the people, Manifest wouldn't have been half as fun. And wow, since this post's gone pretty long, I should probably stop now :P

08:35 AM

August 18, 2003

Hmm, I don't know where to start... I've been more or less in bed for the last couple of days. During Manifest, I'd apparently been having too much fun that I kinda neglected attending to some of the finer details in life :P Such as properly cleaning my soft lenses and not overwearing them. I woke up on Wednesday with my right eye red and watery (and I mean REALLY watery -- it was like OMG FLOOD!) , but I dissed it as some kind of common irritation or something. Couldn't be anything serious, I thought. However, the next day I woke up with even more tears in my right eye, and it was redder than ever. It was really difficult to keep it open too, as any kind of light caused a splitting headache. Not to mention that the eye itself was really, really painful. The shock came when I looked into the mirror and noticed that there was this 2-mm-diameter whitish spot on the cornea. I called my mom and she urgently told me to see an eye specialist right then and there, so I did.

I was spilling tears from one eye and had pangs of headache, but I made it to the optometrist okay, with the help of my brother and a friend, who, thankfully, brought a car. The optometrist told me I had an ulcer on my cornea, and I was like, huh, whatever is that? But he was all like, I gotta send you to an eye specialist right NOW because it's really serious and you gotta get medication NOW and you gotta squeeze inbetween appointments if you must. He called this ophthalmic surgeon (which is basically a medical eye specialist), gave me a referral letter, and sent me to him. Well... the doctor basically said the same thing: that I had a corneal ulcer, that it was serious, and that it could lead to a seriously decreased vision or even my losing my eye if we didn't start a treatment fast. Acquired prescription, went to buy antibiotic eyedrop with prescription. Things didn't quite improve the next day though; I woke up to find that there wasn't as much tears anymore, but I could see nearly nothing clearly with my right eye -- only blurry shapes. Called the doctor, and he said that I should persevere with the drops and if things didn't improve in the weekend, I should drag myself out to the Emergency section of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. Ookay...

Saturday came, and things were still blurry. The eye was still red, too, and the eyelid was swollen. Basically, I was in a bad shape~ It wasn't as painful anymore though, but still :P So, on mom's urgent advice, I went to the hospital. The three eye specialists there kinda held a conference after individually examining my eye (boy), and decided that the symptoms showed that it was healing -- less tears, less pain, etc. They told me that it would be normal for my sight to be blurry (...), since the ulcer was nearly right on top of my pupil. They sent me home after making an appointment to see one of them again on Sunday.

Sunday came, and things started to improve a little bit. I could make out letters now, and the eye was less red, less painful, and less teary. Saw the doctor at the hospital, and he gave me a letter to hand to the ophthalmic surgeon I was gonna be seeing again on Monday... today. This morning I woke up feeling a lot better, and my sight has nearly been restored. Saw the doctor early in the morning, and he prescribed me to an anti-inflammatory eyedrop, which would reduce the chance of the ulcer leaving a permanent scar on my cornea, which could seriously damage my vision :P But yeah.. it's a lot better now. The moral of the story is, DO take the time to mind your soft/contact lenses, people. It was the worst timing for me; during the time of Manifest, it was about time for me to change the lens case, lenses, and the lens solution. They were particularly bacteria-prone at that time. Throw in my general activity and overusage during the period, and voila, I got meself an ulcer from infection. Which, you should know by now, is seriously dangerous. It's a lesson to be learned, I guess :P

Thank God I'm recovering~ I must also say it's thanks to all the well wishes and prayers from loving peers and family. Much love goes to each and every one of you <3

...thus concludes my second CRAPITSTOOLONG entry in a row XD;

09:53 PM

August 22, 2003

Been on a Get Backers marathon. Watching ep. 24 right now. Makubex is one cute angsty bish. The whole show is a mix of the Matrix, DBZ, X-Men, and many other things, done prettily in shoujo anime style. Very interesting. Midou Ban is such a cool bastard. My brain is totally GetBackers-ized at the moment.

01:47 AM

August 25, 2003

I want more Get Backers ;o; Ban <3 <3 Kazuki is one GIRLY MAN. DNAngel anime is REALLY nice (woo, high budget stuff), but I still like the manga a lot better. Naruto anime is TOO SLOW @($*&!*(% I'm sad because my ADSL firewall is preventing me from being Narutomanga-pimped... but it might be a good thing. Kakashi <3 <3 Sasuke <3 <3 Haku is one GIRLY MAN. Eye is recovering. Still a bit blurry, but almost normal. I don't know why I'm watching so much anime O_O; Must... draw... fanarts...

08:03 PM

August 28, 2003

I'm officially addicted to Naruto now! And I mean the manga. Of course, I'm currently deep in Get Backers worshipping too, but I wanna talk about Naruto at the moment :P It's... how can I put it... cool. The art is excellent (though the girls are UGLY AS HECK^!*(@), it reminds me so much of Akira Toriyama, the aspects of his art style that I adore (Heaven knows Toriyama-sensei is amazing). The details, the perspective, the settings, the action scenes, etc. Not to mention cool characters (Kakashi <3 <3) and the fact that both boys and girls can enjoy it. Want.. more...

03:56 AM

August 30, 2003

Today was fine. Work was alright; it wasn't too busy, but not so quiet as to die of boredom from. Went to school and finished a short assignment, discovered that we've been granted yet another one, a Java programming project this time, whose project specification spans seven pages. Hrm, should be interesting. Decided to screw the rest of the lectures of the day and bailed to the city with a friend. Had a very nice, thick frothy mocha, and a green tea mousse from the infamous J-Cafe. Went back, slept for a while, woke up at 1 AM, and now I can't go back to sleep :P

Argh assignments.

03:07 AM