The Thing About Goals

Yes, I know, people say to reach for the stars and "dream the impossible" but I don't necessarily agree with that particular advice. No, no, no, don't hate me until you've heard me out completely. Shall I begin?

Ok, so let me make 1 thing Crystal clear. I do NOT mean that you should not set goals or have high ambitions. I mean you shouldn't dream so big that you can't see your dream. I'll tell you why.

Cue harp music; Backflash begin:

So this summer I was, well you could say, SUPER AMBITIOUS. Like beyond ambitious. I wanted to learn 3 languages, study for random tests, get ahead in next year's curriculum, fix my routine, etc. There's like 5 more goals. Long story short, I did none of them, and as my summer drew to a close, I fell into a sort of depression. Thoughts going through my head around that time were like:

"Oh Elle, your such a failure."
"You couldn't even do ONE STUPID THING."
"This is a prediction for what'll happen next year."
"Look at all your friends doing great things."
"You told them your goals, and your gonna go back to them unchanged, if anything, worse."

Etc, Etc, Etc.

Well I became afraid to dream anymore because I was afraid my nightmares would wake me up.

I dreamt a dream too big for my eyes to see. Beyond my capability. I don't mean to tell you to dream small. You should dream HUGE! Just don't lose your sanity if things don't go as planned like I did. I'm motivated again as a new year begins in my life and as excited as ever.

I think the mistake I made was thinking I failed because I had set a type of due date for myself. It's not like I can never attempt those things again. Nothing is lost. That is the lesson I hope you learn from my story.

1. DREAM HUGE, just not unbearably strenuous
2. If you think you've failed, don't be too hard on yourself
3. Anything is STILL possible!

Good Luck with ALLLLL your goals:D👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻

~ ELLE

Finding My Voice

-Imagine we're in the hunger games- It has begun! someone yells, and suddenly everyone swarms around and begins screaming and beating each other and chaos, ect. In OTHER words, school has started, yaey ^-^

Up until recently I have been a small child with practically no responsibilities and worries. I could go all around doing and speaking to as I please, traipsing around without a care in the world, or that's how I like to envision my past, I highly doubt that's how my life actually played out (shh, let me pretend!). I had parents to do all the tricky stuff for my little self, like handle scary things like... people. 

Then came life and whoop, congratulations, you're a teenager! Now, I used to scoff at the whole, oh teenagers are horrible and frightening and you will go through a whole identity change bla bla bla, But my was I proven horrendously wrong! Teenage years are horrible! They are painful! They are GRUELING!!
You have to find out what you are in this mess of a world. With people battering you on all sides trying to tell you to think some way, act one way, be another way.

For me that horrid limbo teenager mode means trying to find how to be towards others.
One thing I struggle to figure out is how I want to deal with other people. I never had to deal with a big social circle, I have a small school, and a small family. And suddenly being thrust into a whole new pool of people with different beliefs and thoughts painting abstract colors before me, I feel a little lost.



Do I want to be an open book for people to read and write their problems in, or someone who screams my beliefs from the rooftops and doesn't care what people say about me?
Or do I want to be somewhere in between?

These piddly puddlings are written in this blog, in my posts. Do I want my voice to be loud and bombastic, making silly jokes and exclamations, never hinting at the feelings that bubble underneath my skin? Or do I want to be a solid voice of my beliefs and loud about my opinions, wiping back the curtain on things that need to be said and are normally hidden. and still be humorous in a different, more refined way?

The normal response to these things are, oh child, do what makes you happy! And they strut away feeling like they have given you the most marvelous advice of all and expect your problem to be promptly solved.
But that is the problem, that I don't know which version clicks, which me feels like the me I can fill my skin in.

So I will keep turning over these things in my head, in my posts, in my writing. Trying different things and seeing what fits and what has to get lost.
I want my writing here to reflect my real voice, not a fake smile that I put on for the people of the Internet to poke it's spun glass strands.

-Crystal!


What an angsty post that was, feel free to leave your angstings down below so we can angst together :) What do you think? What helped you find your voice?

How to manage reading all of your favorite blogs

"greatness is not a solitary act"
Is something I wrote on some college application. Although this is an important aspect of most forms of success, this sentence rings true especially for blogging!

On a random side note, please send over some mosquito incinerator and a magical panacea for all these wretched bites, my poor flesh has been eaten by the blood sucking vampire monsters, and it itches so bad, SO BAD! 

Something I've noticed since I've made this blog is that blogging by yourself in your little hobbit hole doesn't work, you have to go out and talk to people (frightening as this may be, especially if you're low-key afraid of the Internet and stuff), they can help you, and you can help them. You don't have to go and be instabuddies with everyone if that's not for you, but interaction is a key part of blogging.

And no, this doesn't mean you should only go to blogs to bring traffic back to your own (you probably weren't thinking that but if you were, I caught ya!) You should comment and follow blogs you actually enjoy reading, it makes for better interactions later on. But looking for support in the blogging community is a great incentive to get out there and find blogs you truly enjoy.

Now you've found all these wonderful blogs, each of them special and cool with different charms and personalities, what could go wrong!? Suddenly you're drowning in all of the lovely blogs you want to read and end of missing and forgetting some great blogs.
I'm no expert on managing reading many blogs and most of the time am drowning myself, but I do have a few helpful tips I've picked up juggling a large reading list :)

Pretty self explanatory, but one of the easiest and most helpful things you can probably do. Even if you don't read every blog you bookmark regularly, you can scroll through your bookmarks on a rainy day when you have nothing to do.
It also does wonders to prevent prevent the, darn it I can't find that amazing blog that had everything I needed on it, scenario.


Most bloggers have the widget in their side bar and doing this helps both you and the blogger, you're giving them a shiny new follower (which is always exciting!) and when you add them it makes it easy to see all their new posts. When you visit your own blogger dashboard your subscribed blogs show up in a handy mandy little box at the bottom, and any of their recent posts in chronological order. This is better than bookmarking because a) there's less of a chance of the blogs getting lost in all the other bookmark junk on our computers, b) you can see if they posted anything new and c) you can access it from any computer.
The only thing I don't like about this method is that you have to be signed in to your google account and you can only access the feed from your blogger dashboard. It's just a little cumbersome for me and I don't get any sort of notification.

 
Again, most bloggers have this (Hint hint, you can follow YJR here)
And while I don't like Bloglovin' for discovering blogs, which is a topic for another day, it is very handy for keeping up to date on the blogs you read. It's nice because you can read the posts directly in Bloglovin' and not have to navigate between everyone's individual blogs.



You are NOT required to read every blog all the time.
I know the feeling of wanting to read ALL blogs ALL THE TIME and comment on all posts because blogs are wonderful and the pressure can get stressful.
But we're all humans here yes? That means we often have busy lives and our responsibilities should take first priority. When things get rough it's okay to drop regularly reading blogs you like, you shouldn't feel guilty for it and it in no way means you don't like their blog. Your health and work comes first, take care of it.

PINKY PROMISE

Schedules....

Sure, they can be helpful in pushing you to put in that extra time and effort. Sure, they can help in making you more organized and force you to actually work. 

But, those are just expectations and fantastical outcomes. I am not denying that schedules can work for many people and make them more productive. I am just saying that I am not one of those people. 

I'm the kind of person who can't stick to a schedule for the life of me. It's not that I lack motivation or that I am lazy. Am I a failure for making tons of schedules and not following through with any of them?

NO. 

It does NOT mean that my life is over. I shall NOT let one failure define me, when I have many successes past and successes to look forward to. 

Tell me honestly. If you had made a plan to conquer and you really believed you could make this one happen. How would you react if it fell apart in front of your eyes? Would you be devastated? Well, if you're a human, WELL DUH, YEAH. 

And I completely empathize with you because it's happened to me in the past 479230254748302747 times and it probably will happen again.

But we can NOT let it stop here. We need to get it together and keep going. The schedules we create can't judge us. The people we told about our plan have no right to. So, why should we judge ourselves so harshly, when we out of all people know the circumstances which led to this fork in our path. I'm not saying we shouldn't blame ourselves for our failure. I'm just stating that we shouldn't destroy ourselves more. 

Our will power must be strong enough to break our self criticism. Any thoughts of negativity such as "I couldn't even do this" or "Everyone will succeed, and I'll just be left behind" or even comparisons to other people who seem figured out, are ABSOLUTELY NOT allowed. You can leave those outside your room because they are not allowed in your work place where you are meant to do great things.

Let's promise each other that we shall not cry alone in our beds over our TEMPORARY "failures" and we shall not consider our life over if something doesn't work out. Let's also not tell everyone about our failures and short comings. Let's stand tall and have respect for ourself, not pity.

I, Elle J, hereby promise to live by this attitude and through this vision.

Do you?

DREAMERS SHALL DREAM

What do you want from life?

That is the question.

It may just be a simple one,

But it takes a lot of contemplation.

Do you want admiration?

Or simply a strong foundation?

Will good health make you content?

Or do you need other fulfillment?

Is your dream just to be better off?

So you can buy a hospital the next time you cough.

Are you longing to be recognized?

So you can be idolized.

Well let me tell you something if you let me.

Dream a dream as big as the sea

And don't just let it stop when reality hits.

Because a dreamer like you can never quit.

If you have a spark, let it ignite.

You will show them you were right.

And when they come seeking your aid,

Teach them how a dreamer's made.

Turn them into dreamers too.

Because the world needs more dreamers like you. :D

Another poem for you guys. Hope u like it <3<3<3<3

~Elle J

They Did What?!---My Reactions to Olympic Sports

As we all probably know by now, these past few weeks have been the Olympic games in Rio and they are about to draw to an end.

Now I'm not a hardcore watcher of the games, but I see them on TV and as i'm watching these world renowned athletes compete in their various sports, many of which I've never sat down and watched before, some very particular reactions to each come to mind.

Now I don't play any of these sports (except ping pong I guess), I wish I did and took tennis for a while, but at the moment my sports include fast typing and the occasional run. So as a non-athlete, these are my unsparklied observations from a non-sport watcher.


----Archery----
-Oh, this is cool, I always wanted to learn archery.
--I tried to make a bow and arrow once with a stick and some yarn in my backyard. That is the type of child I was, you can imagine how that went.
-How come they're not hitting the bulls-eye every time? Aren't they in the Olympics? (This shows how much I know about Archery because I can probably hit the bulls-eye about -100% of the times they can)
-That bow looks really hard to pull back, I bet I couldn't pull that.


---Boxing---
-Yep, that guy is definitely going to win.
-He's a much better player though, why is he letting the other guy beat him?
-That guy is getting more hits but the other one is more strategic with his punches and will probably win.
-Oh man, that was a bad hit, they look like they're going to pass out.
-Be more aggressive! STOP running from him!!!
-Eugh, you can see all the sweat fly off from his face, hm.
-Ouch...good hit.
-The referee is probably going to get punched.
-How do I read this scoreboard?

---Equestrian---
-Oh my god those horses are nice!
-Those horses are like, really nice.
-I wish I could ride the nice horsies.
-There are two types of horses in these games, those who keep their head up and watch the obstacles as they come, and those whose heads are down to the ground and being led around (metaphor for life and whatnot).


---Synchronized Swimming---
-Where are the rest of their clothes?!
-That must be some good makeup to not come off in the water, sorcery. (I know there's waterproof makeup but it still looks like magic, me being a makeup caveman and all)
-They are so good woah.
-Well if they weren't good they wouldn't be in the Olympics I guess.
-Do they not need to breathe or stuff? I knew there was sorcery involved!


---Table Tennis---
-Hey this is a sport? Cool.
-I can play this, alright I've got my Olympics plan!
-I should look into this, I mean I beat my classmates, that counts for something right?


---Weightlifting---
-Wait, 100 kilos is 200 pounds! And they're going higher?!
-How do these people train for this? Lifting up the coaches while said coach scream at him to lift them higher probably.
-What if the weights fell on them? If they drop it it'll definitely kill them and then all hell will break loose.
-Seriously has anyone not died in this yet?
-Their shoulders, and backs, and hands, and organs must be seriously messed up after doing this as your day job.
-I should hire one of these people to follow me and carry my backpack and scare away my enemies. That plan can't go wrong!

---Soccer/Football---
(Depending on if you're in America and like to be special from the rest of the world)
-Not impressed
-Walks away


I only included of the sports I had especially strong reactions to while watching, I hope you are amused :)

Leave some of your own reactions to the Olympics in the comments, I would love to read them!

Why I'm Not Dreading the End of Summer

Summer is almost over, which means the internet collectively whines that they soon have to go back to school.

It's basically tradition to gripe and cry on social media about how you're so not looking forward to school, and then to slap "back to school" on everything because we might as well. Apparently it's cool or something? I must have missed something along the way because personally, I am really looking forward to summer being over so I can get to school again. Even though it can get stressful, I would rather have stress from working than stress because i'm not being productive.

Now I know that some people hate school for legitimate reasons, or they have such a marvelous summer that they are dreading its end. If so, my sympathies to you man :(

I have had an amazing summer and done a ton of cool stuff this year, but at the same time I am ready for it to end and want to leap back into school. Before you burn me at the stake for witchcraft, hear me out, kay?


I Have Amazing Teachers
I lucked out in the teacher department, most of them are amazing and make the class a blast! I have a small class so there's a lot of opportunities for direct interaction with the teachers, which make it a lot more engaging and hands on.In a perfect world ALL of my teachers would be lovely, but I don't live in that world and if you do please give me directions. But the good definitely outweighs the bad and I can't wait to see them again.
There's also the mystery/anxiety of the new teachers you're going to get and i'm praying they're nice! 

I Love My Classmates
We've all been in the same class for a long time and are basically a defunct squishy family. We all are really laid back and comfortable with each other and have a ton of fun, which makes it a nice environment to be and learn in. I can't wait to see them because they are all amazing. (I am melting from my own mushiness)

I Get To Learn!
I love learning and it is one of my favorite aspects of school. At school I get to go all day and learn while in the summer I don't learn as often (depends on your definition of learning but, you know). The classes I take (especially science!) are challenging and make me work my brain to solve the problems and I get to see the results of my work as a grade. For 8 hours I get to devour interesting information from my books and teachers, having discussions and asking questions. Plus sitting in school and learning things all day makes me feel smarter haha.

It Keeps Me Motivated
Now I know every summer I sign up for and say I'm going to learn and work on all these things (please tell me I'm not the only one who does this!), but when there's no deadline to crunch and I've gotten out of the swing of school, I end up piddling around and become horribly lazy and achieve maybe one or two of said goals when, if I had more than enough time to do more.And during school when I am used to coming home and working, it's easier for me to jump right into other projects that don't have to do with school and get stuff done, even though I have less time.

I Feel More Awake
This is ironic but very true. In the summer progresses I find myself feeling fatigued, as if I did a whole workout, but the problem is that all I've done is lay around all day and still I feel sluggish and heavy.When I have school I have to constantly work my brain and walk up all the stairs in the morning (they are no joke) and stay out doing stuff all day. (This is where it gets contrary) So because I go out and work all day, I feel less tired. It's not exactly tired I feel in the summer though, it's lethargy, not a satisfying tiredness from working hard all day.

Because I'm a science geek and we have this marvelous thing called Google, I researched why we feel tired when we are inactive and (ignoring some sketchy yahoo answer threads) it turns out that lack of exercise slows down the flow of oxygen in your body, making you feel sluggish and slow.Which means that I (and you too if you have this problem) should work on exercise to fix this.

I'm Done Vacationing
I have had my fill of relaxing, time for some stress!

Paranatural: Why it is awesome and you should definitely read it

 *Waves Hello to the people and kittens, but not the ominous clouds looming overhead, they don't get a friendly wave*

It's summer vacation now, and that means that basically I have a lot of time to attempt to be productive, but mostly end up flopping around and doing decidedly unproductive things,

One of the things I did was bingeread the entire Paranatural (which is fabulous, more on that below) which is the event that inspired this post.

I was actually going to make this post my top three webcomics (I read them a lot, they are such fun!) but I ended up raving so long about Paranatural I decided to make the whole post about it because it DESERVES A WHOLE FULL POST!

Now I’m sure you must be thinking

Crystal, I am so lost! What in the skies is a webcomic?!

Well well well precious reader, get your learning caps on because i'm about to tell you.

Webcomics are basically comics (Bet you couldn't guess!) that instead of a book are uploaded online. The artist tells the story in a series of updates that continue until the comic is done.

Make sense?

Basically a webcomic is an online comic.

Capicse? Good.

NOW FOR THE FUN!

It is appropriate for humans of all ages which is awesome because you can make all the little children in your life read it and not have to hide it from their little prying eyes.

Note: I will not put pictures from the actual comic in this post in respect for the artist/author's intellectual property.

Summary:

"Paranatural is a comedy/action comic about a group of superpowered middle schoolers fighting evil spirits and investigating paranormal activity in their hometown."    Source

This is actually my favorite webcomic, for many many (many) reasons. As I already mentioned before I bingeread all of this in a few days and now I am stuck waiting for updates for new pages which is NOT OKAY! What do you mean the artist has other things to do with his life?! Surely his sole purpose is to provide me with more pages (leave me in my delusions)

Reasons it is fabulous

-It is HILARIOUS! I read it and literally laugh out loud (not the lame kind of lol that people text you when you know they probably have the facial expression of a stone blobfish!). And then people stare at me and demand to know what is so funny but the precious is mine! All mine!

So sad, so sad.

-My sisters (small gremlins that they are) rave about it constantly and harass me to check updates for them. They made me read it, now I love it, chase them, it is their faults!

- The alt texts Zack Morrison writes for each page are priceless, along with the comments he sometimes writes along the bottom. They are half of the experience. DO NOT SKIP THEM (you have been warned)!

- There is quite a few (read: a lot) of pages to catch up on already so you have quite a lot of binge material before you have to be sad waiting for updates like me (sobs quietly).

-The Puns. THE PUNS! (read: THE PUNS!!!)

-The witty dialogue with perfect sassy replies at all times and impromptu pun warfare are perfection (if only REAL life dialogue worked that way)

-The art is fabulous, all the facial expressions are precious and hilarious and so wonderful and make me LAUGH SO HARD! And as someone who attempts drawing-ish stuff when I’m not doing the 50000 OTHER things I get myself into, I know how hard those BLASTED BACKGROUNDS ARE. And I clap at the skill. Tea and cookies for you Zack Morrison, tea and cookies for you (unless you don’t like tea and cookies, then you can have coffee and crumpets I suppose).

- Max’s Dad is wonderful. Enough said. He is parenting goals…probably not really. (read: gives his kid candy for lunch and bought a convenience store to live in because it was his dream)

- Even though it is silly and comic (pun ABSOLUTELY intended), the characters are all deliciously complex, with backstories and private struggles and the whole gambit, and we get little morsels into their own secret thought minds, which is great fun and gets story points.

- It also has little serious parts that keep it from being nauseatingly light and gives it nice depth.

Do you read Paranatural? Will you give it a try? Do you read any other webcomics, I’d love some recommendations, I’m always looking for more to waste spend time on. Let me know down below.

THE SEARCH: Have you seen it? I can't seem to find it anywhere. Keep looking-

"Oh Dear Dream of Mine"

~By Elle J~

I have searched for you everywhere.

In empty bins of dreams,

Within ripped mattress seams.

I have made "WANTED" signs,

I've looked for you between unwritten lines,

Of the story of my unhappening life.

You don't know what I've done to find you.

I'm desperately in need of your light right now.

Tell me how,

How must I find you if all my other options depend on you too?

I don't know what to with myself.

Can't find that hope in anything else.

Once I find what I'm in search of, I won't ever let it go.

Once I find my hope to fly, I will just know.

When I find you, Oh Future of Mine, 

Oh Reason to Live, just watch what I do.

Yes, indeed, I will follow you through.

Just a little poem I came up with to inspire those in the same ball game as me- desperately searching for your calling- I hear ya loud and clear, and eventually, your future will too. ;P

~ELLE J~ <3<3<3

DO U SPEAK HUM-ISH??? (If you are reading this, I can almost guarantee that you do)

Today I shall bless you with the topic of none other than... language, YES THE MARVELOUS LANGUAGE that allows us to order our subway sandwich exactly the way we want it (no, I was not paid to advertise Subway "eat fresh") and find the right book in a library. However, the focus, my friend, is the big question. Do all humans come with a "human" language that cannot be altered by geographic location? Are we all connected by a simple thread from which we can never be budged? Why is it that if I went to a completely diverse country, I would still be able to ask for nearby restrooms and restaurants? There must be something there! Why is it that smiling is the universal sign for happiness?

Why does this baby look sad to us no matter where we are from?

And why does this baby look scared or that it has a lot more than merely "diaper" down there?

There must be something we all share? Don't you think? Tell me your opinions in the comments.

DO YOU SPEAK HUM-ISH, 'CUZ I DO :D

~ELLE~ <3<3<3

P.S. Sorry for not posting in ages. I will keep you guys posted when the wires in my brain randomly start working and produce thoughts worth sharing. ;D

Code Clips #1: Interactive Links with HTML

Hello, greetings, yes yes, shake hands, smiles all around. Good? Good.

Today I just want to share a little HTML tip that I find really helpful when blogging and commenting on other's blogs.

Ever see those people around the blogosphere who, instead of pasting the link of their blog in a comment as regular text, use whatever sorcery to actually make their blog name a link that you can clickity click? Today I shall teach you this sorcery.
Spoiler, its not actually sorcery, just a simple HTML tag that YOU can do! (Cue infomercial music)

Now many people already know about this (kudos to you, have a cookie) but I though I would put it out their for those who don't, so you can jump onto the fancy high tech link bandwagon because you know, we're in the 21st century now, we are the future!

Using this makes it easier for people to zip over to your blog through a comment you left, they may be interested but if they have to copy and paste a long rambling link (which is fairy difficult on mobile devices without a mouse) they might not visit and you could have lost a potential reader or friend.

When you write your comment, all you have to do is write this wherever you want your link to be.

<a href="POST LINK HERE"> NAME OF BLOG HERE </a>

When you use this its a good idea to use the preview button to see if it works before posting, it helps in avoiding the embarassing event that your link code doesn't work.

The "a" tag in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is for a link and the "href" tells the code where in the internet the link should go to.

Make sense? No? Did you already know about this and am I just chittering to myself like a squirrely squirrel? Let me know in the comments below (hehe, it rhymes, that pleases me)

Chose Your Choice

Yes, i'm still alive, kind of, more posts should be on the way soon so watch out for that.

Here's just a little snippet that I wrote, read it in all its strange choicy glory.


The man in front of me grins a salamander grin, the skin of his neck creating folds under a stubbly chin, as if the smile was weighing down his entire face. It was not a good smile. He pushes forward two boxes the size of matchboxes. 

In front of his left hand is a box of unadorned mahogany, just a dark box and nothing more. But it's simple design reeked of the quality of kings, it's seams sure and sealed, it's corners crisp and clean. It sits confident as a cat in its own worth and powers. Open me if you care, if you dare, it seems to say.

The box pushed forward by his left hand was of white opaque Quartz. It glittered with shifting dreams of forgotten promises and joyful days spend on joyful things. It's lid seems fit to pop open and spill it's enthusiasm to any who would listen, simply waiting for someone to peek at the hope and mystery inside.

Salamander says in a low sticky voice, "chose your own fate young thief. The choice is yours which box you chose, perhaps one is your poison and the other a blessing, perhaps they are both punishments for your crimes, the choice is yours" 

Your slide the smooth wood closer to you, its glossy sheen slides easily across the table. Its surface is warm to the touch, just hot enough to make you notice it but not hot enough to burn. You try to open what appears to be the lid, it won't budge. Instead a hidden drawer slides soundlessly out of the back. In it is a glittering crimson jewel. It's cold hard face grinning at you from its dark abode. The smooth jewel reflects your own shocked face.You look around, salamander is gone, the treasure is yours, you are free to go. Surely you made the right choice. The jewel winks at you with its bloody red face.

The box practically purrs as it slides into your hand. It's glittering quartz smiling at you, blinding you with its beaming bright grin. Your fingers graze the lock, it is cold, chills run down your hand and your spine. As soon as your hand touches it the lock leaps open, it sits contently, waiting expectantly for you to look inside. You peer in and see a black stone, a small black stone and that is all. You hold it in your hand, it is suddenly cold, so cold. The cold spreads down your fingers and up your arm, blistering your skin. You howl in pain as the cold burns you and the rock won't go, won't go. Then the rock drops from your hand and you flinch away from it as it clatters to the floor. The burning is gone, only the memory of the searing chill ghosts over your arm. You look around, salamander is gone, the box is gone, the rock is gone. You are free to go

Tut tut, naughty naughty little thief. Which do you chose?

Let me know in the comments what your choice was and how you feel about your fate. the choice is yours. >:)   

GIFS (And why they frighten me)

A puff of purple smoke seeps in and voila! Crystal appears!

Hello fine feline friends! (This greeting also extends to non-felines)

If you spend any amount of time on the internet you may have heard of these things called GIFS which stands for Graphic Interchange Format.

Sadly it doesn't stand for Griffin Intelligence Fedeation, although i'm sure that exists somewhere in the multiverse.


As you will also know if you've spend any amount of time on the internet is that GIF are glorious magic things that magically move and repeat and you ogle at them over and over and over.

Now I do love GIFs just as much as the next rabid reader, to be able to express an emotion in a picture that MOVES is such a wonderfully delicious feeling! I especially love animal GIFs becuase, animals + pictures + MOVEMENT = Perfection

Exhibit A of friendly GIFS that DON'T frighten me:

Animal GIFs are good because a) Animals, and b) animals are something that exists and everyone else who sees it can recognize and say, yes, this is a creature who is probably not human, oh look it's a meerkat with googly eyes, and laugh and swoon at the little animals accordingly.


Good GIFs are also ones from cartoons/things I actually know of i.e. Harry Potter, Sesame Street, ect.

Such as...

(because what else is there to talk about besides the upcoming US elections??)

These I know EXACTLY where they are coming from and what happened and why THAT EXPRESSION HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE! I can therefore say, yes, I like this GIF, this is what it comes from la dee da, and proceed with my life.


Here is where the frightening part comes in!
If you do not want to hear about frightening GIFs because you believe that mayonnaise is much scarier, then please just look at the pretty pictures and ooh ah and proceed with your life, because this is about to get ranty and mildly irrational.

Say there is a GIF like this

Yes, the expression is marvelous, the emotion took the nail on the head and hit it precisely on the fear and anxiety I am feeling at the moment (Am I overreacting? ABSOLUTELY NOT!)

But the problem is that I have no idea where this GIF came from, what show/movie/video/world. And that is NOT OKAY. I have no idea the context where this was used AT ALL and whether something horribly inappropriate or disturbing has just happened and I go willy nilly posting it other places on the internet oblivious in my GIFing.

And to make matters even worse the spiders who crawl into this blog (i.e. lovely readers) who recognize this GIF say, oh Crystal, I love that  movie/video/show and start asking me about it and how lovely it is and try to convert me to their fandom cults and I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what is going on and I am left frantically googling what in the world this and just sitting there an ignorant puddle of awkward ooze! AWKWARD OOZE I TELL YOU!

This my friends is why I avoid GIFs that I don't know the people involved as a general rule, except in the most dire circumstances (i.e. the GIF is TOO PERFECT to abstain from using!)

But animal GIFs are good, and Harry Potter...need I say more?



_Crystal_


Leave a comment with your thinkity thoughts! Do you ever have a (perfectly rational) fear of using unknown GIFs? (Likely) Or am I just crazy? (Highly likely)

Micron Pens Review

Hello all, yes, it is I! No, I am not dead...

Sorry for both of us being super poofy these past weeks months, both of us have exams coming up, and sadly, life gets in the way of like, more life but let's not cry over spilled cookies. Because if a cookie spills WE CAN EAT IT ANYWAYS! Touche cookie men!

Stop rambling Crystal, please, they don't like it.
How do you know that other me?
I don't, but I do know they don't want to read a whole post about cookies.
GASP, but who wouldn't!?
...
Okay, i'll stop now, always killing the fun merghp.

But basically, exams = no fun/time/life.

ANYWHOO

Pigma Micron is a type of pen by SakuraofAmerica that are for drawing or lettering, or, whatever it is you want to use pens for, who am I to limit your creativity?

Apparently these things are RAVE and are like the most wonderful magical pen in the universe, I had always heard of them and all and goggled at them at the craft store, but they are expensive and haha, no, I didn't need them that bad.

But I was at my craft store a while ago and they have this section that is stuff that's damaged or opened (maybe returned?) for really big discounts, so I was strolling along and ladeeda, I see a pack of microns in the section!

It was a set of four that had been opened and only three were there. The normal price was, methinks, 14 dollars, yeah, a lot for four pens and they were only 3.75 for those that were left.

Now I know, I know, that's still more than a buck per pen but I had always wanted to try them out so I said, heck, why not.

And bought them.
And brought them home.
And tested them out.
And now I am reviewing them merp.

Now I am getting sick of hearing myself type (Can you do that, because I can!) so i'm just going to jump in headfirst (Never a good idea unless you can eat 5 tons of cheese, can you? If so, please proceed)

What I got were three pen sizes, 1, .05 and .01, the latter being the thinnest.

left to right: .05, .01, 1

 Now, I like sharp pens, with me, especially when i'm drawing, the sharper the line the better so these were a lot of fun for me to work with. The color of the ones I got were "Sepia" which is a brown, almost black color. I would have preferred black, but ah well, beggars can't be choosers.

Overall, I give these pens a 4.75 (Out of 5)
The quality is amazing, i'll give them that, smooth flow, firm tip and the the size is so itty bitty. It's wonderfully pleasing to draw minuscule little things no one else can see because they're YOURS. To be honest, the .05 and .01 don't have too much of a difference in width, even though it looks like it when you see the pens themselves.

You can get as thin of a line with the .05 by pressing lighter, and a thicker one more similar to the 1 marker by pressing harder (something that horrifies me when i'm working with pens like this because I feel like it's going to break off and fly across the room and be never seen again and DIE!)

I'm not giving them a 5 because, from a realistic standpoint, they aren't really price friendly those of us who don't have gold earwax (If you do, teach me your ways please! I'll pay you in chocolate and kittens). I wouldn't buy these at regular price unless I was working on a special project or something I  needed serious inkage for.

But they are amazing, I like them a lot, they are so fun to draw lines with (You can see how wonderfully professional I am heh), if you can get them for cheap and you like to draw or do lettering, do so!

BUT! Just a warning that good tools help sure but you don't need fancy stuff to draw, pencils, pens, blood dirt, whatever you feel like. Art is for everyone (except potatoes, potatoes don't get art)

Wish me and Elle luck on our exams!

-Crystal


Have you ever tried Microns? What's your favorite pen? Throw us a comment, we'll try to catch it :)

Pressure is Just a Few Letters Put Together...

PRESSURE TALK PART 1

Are you pressurized by an upcoming exam or major event? Does sweat trickle down your face when thoughts of it haunt you? Are you bad at taking stress and boil or even freeze under the pressure? (Okay last one) Are you the kind of person to be done with everything and take a few days off for mental recuperation? (I literally just described myself) If any of these are yes, boy have you come to the right place.

Wait... Hold on.. I need a snack......
*Thumps down the stairs*
*Cue opening of fridge*
*Thumps back up the steps like a freakin' elephant*
......Okay I'm back. Where was I?..........OH YEAH... Boy have you come to the right place. So I just wanted to tell you that I am in the same position right now. I've got 3 AP exams coming up within the next 20 days, teachers telling us we're behind, and colleges to apply for in a few months. Long story short: I have a lot of pressure riding on these next few months that doesn't seem to be lessening anytime in the near future. And I'm pretty sure you have many troubles of your own that pressurize you everyday. So let's get through this together, dear friend on opposite side of screen.We are a team now and we will TRIUMPH in our battles.

One thing I've recently learned about is closing my eyes and imagining that I'm near a river. I put every thought of worry that tries to disrupt my focus on a leaf and let it flow away in the river.
TRY IT and tell me if it helps. It sure helps me.
And if you have any ideas as to what else can reduce stress, tell us in the comments.

Good bye Just Right People,
      ~Elle

DIY Noise Maker

Helloooo all! I have reappeared, life has been busy lately and you know, I actually have to do life sometimes unfortunately.

One thing about me you probably don't know (And if you do, you probably know me in real life and if you don't and still know...i'm going to quickly walk away now) is that I really, REALLY like noise. I love noisemakers, cheering noises, yelling, chaos and cacophonies in general.

This is probably because I grew up in a fairly loud household, lots of kids often lends itself to lots of noise,  you know, like, children noise. So I guess my survival tactic was learning to love the noise, hooray for me!

I was wondering how to make a special kind of noisemaker for commercial reasons, business plans ect, the usual when I wondered how I could make a noise maker by myself from household items.

A few minutes of googling brought me to a really simple tutorial that I was actually doubtful it would work but turned out surprisingly satisfying!

It is literally all over the internet and I don't know whose idea it was originally to give credit but here is one blog that made it quite nicely.

I'm going to stop rambling now, behold the wonder which is the steps below!
(I'm sure that last sentence is a dreadful breaking of all parallelism rules but I shall do as I please!)


First you just find a normal old Plain Jane disposable straw like this one

Now flatten one end with your hands, or mouth, or jackhammer, actually don't use the jackhammer, too much evidence...

Aw rats, my paw got in the picture, darn my secret is out!

Next cut a notch-ish thing in both sides of the flattened end to make a point. The end should look kind of like a pair of tweezers.

Put the pointy end in your mouth, cover it completely with your mouth, squeeze your lips together slightly and, blow! Don't stab yourself with it though, sharp ya know?

It takes some playing around with and adjusting to get the sound to work, but keep playing with it. If you can't get any air to blow your lips are pressed too tightly. And you seriously have to blow as hard as you can into it, once you get the hang of it it's jolly good fun!

Once you do get it to work it is literally so loud it is marvelous! When you make the straw different lengths it makes different sounds.

Now go, annoy all your relations, I know my mom was extremely annoyed by it, haha!
Impress your friends with your amazing marvelous skills!

And most importantly, MAKE NOISE!!!


Hopefully i'll be able to post again before like, two months later, if you have any posts you'd like me or Elle to do, leave a comment and let us know :)

 ♥ Crystal

The Power of the Media

Greetings Earthlings, please enter and close the door behind you, no no, there's no need to worry, what's that? No, this isn't a particle accelerator in the background, aha, hm, anyways.

Anywho, I was here for a reason, ah yes, I was thinking again, yes, again don't  look at me like that!

I was minding my own business, writing an article for the school paper, when I realized that I was choosing my words a lot more carefully and making sure my facts true a lot more than I do when i'm just writing a paper for school or a note for myself.

And I realized that I was being so cautious because in the back of my brain I had realized that whatever I wrote would shape the views of whoever read the paper. If a person hadn't heard of the story before-hand, whatever they thought about it would be shaped by the words I put on the page.
And then I realized that this is the truth of the media, how heavily it shapes our perspectives of the world around us.

Our views on a topic are so often reliant on what we read online, or see on tv, and for many things, whether they be far away from us in a foreign country or about a certain person, the only way we can see things is from someone else's words.

And that means that with a twist of a word, that whole perspective can be warped, with no one the wiser.

It's something interesting to mull over, how objective our perspectives are, and how heavily the media changes our view of things.

I'm planning on making my posts a tad bit longer from now on, and doing a few more topics *coughdiycough*
If you have any post type suggestions please let me know, leave a comment down below.
HAHA! I Rhyme! ha,hm,mmm

-Crystal

Thoughts? Leave a comment and let us know, we would love to hear from you (that was meant in a nice and friendly way, not a creepy diabolical pickle way)