New Blog Launch!

Okay, more shameless self-promotion. But really, I'm making this post because I know at least a couple people follow my blog and want to keep up with what I'm doing around who-knows-where.

So, I just launched I Can Play The Game, a blog about personal development for young people in a school-of-hard-knocks society. I'm hoping that I can gather some resources there to help other young people looking to get on their feet online, but I'll also be tracking my own online income.

Still, the purpose of this blog is to help people.

I'm sick of everybody around me being poor and miserable, and I want to do something about it.

So if you're poor and miserable, go take a look at I Can Play The Game, subscribe, and see if I can't bring anything to the table for you. The more you subscribe and comment, the more you're helping out other young people who are having trouble figuring out what to do with themselves.

And spread it around. If you see something you like, Tweet it, Stumble it, do whatever you like.

Set new goals for yourselves, guys.

Keep on keeping on.

And other motivational stuff.

So basically...

I realized that most of the posts on this blog have been blatant self-promotion. And who wants to watch a blog about that? I'll start talking about fun stuff a little more.

Well, here goes a tentative journal entry:

Got back from New York a few days ago from visiting my big sister at college. I'm sooooo exhausted! It was fun while I was there, but the plane rides to and from were brutal. I at least got a bit farther in Dragon Quest IX.

Right now I'm working on making some bullet hell games with Danmakufu, but I'm not so good at the whole coding thing. But still, I figure that if I ever want to be a game developer, I need to start learning early, right? So I'm gonna work harder.

Also considering getting a job at the local movie theater. But who am I kidding, I'm not really going to get a job. That's just... I don't get jobs. That's not "me."

I really wanna do some more posts about drawing. I need some feedback for those, though. What do you guys want to see? More theory, or more practice?

Anyway, off to eat gummy bears and do other moderately fun things. See you guys, I really appreciate the feedback!

Started a Helium Account...

For all the bad things I've heard about Helium, it actually seems pretty nice.

While I'm depending on another website for real income, Helium seems like a great hobby to rake in a few extra cents here or there.

I earned my first penny today! And hell, writing what was practically a journal entry about Astid? Yeah, baby!

Anyway, if you want to see my posts on Helium, check them out here.

If you're interested in writing at Helium, let me know and I'll drop you a referral email (it'd help you and me out a ton).

I'll probably write a review of the service in a few months, whether or not my earnings take off. But with ten articles on my first two days, I think this is gonna be a pretty nice working relationship.

I got a capture card! + New Arts!

As the title obviously states...

I GOT A CAPTURE CARD! :D WOOHOO!

Basically what that means is I can record video directly from my television. I can do all sorts of things for Youtube now. If you want to see what it can do, just check out this short video I posted a few days ago:



Speaking of Youtube, I've also posted a ton of new art. If you're interested, check out this video for some tidbits of what I've been doing (warning: the sound is a bit loud!):



I want to post some drawing tutorials in the future, though I'm not really good enough. What do you think?

Also, please comment and subscribe! I haven't had many of those yet, and I really appreciate the feedback. Don't forget to comment on the blog, too--it's good to know that people are actually reading it.

As it turns out, this blog is becoming about art. Funny, huh?

Anyway, check out the Youtube and everything. =) I love you guys! If you have any ideas on what you'd like to see posted on the blog or what might be interesting to see, let me know. I'm always scratching my head for ideas.

My Etsy Site!

So I got some pendants set up on Etsy a while ago and thought I'd let you guys know about them. The pictures were blown up on Etsy's site--just click on the picture on the listing to get the actual size.

Anyway, some of my stuff is on my new widget on the left of the blog. Check them out! They're handmade so they don't cost a lot.

I've also been working on some rings. I just love making rings! It's so fun. There are so many simple designs you can do that turn out looking great.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll see you guys soon!

Watch me draw!

So I just posted some videos to Youtube. I FINALLY got around to using my Hypercam.

Anyway, my laptop caught a virus last week so if you haven't heard from me in a few days that's why.



It's sped up, of course. But anyway, I'll be posting more videos when I finish up that drawing. One of them's up right now--check it out!

PopCon 2010 Day Two!

So today was the second day of Grey School's 2010 Illinois Conclave (lovingly nicknamed PopCon) and I had the joy of meeting Dean Stonetalker at a guided meditation session.

I thought I'd walk you through it.

Dean Stonetalker walks us through the introduction to the meditation and beckons us to a grove. We have a guest, an animal.

It was a deer, with glowing red eyes.

Dean Stonetalker continues to tell us the guest has a message for us.

The deer continues to stare wordlessly.

Our guest has someplace to take us. Dean Stonetalker encourages us to follow our animal guest.

The deer hesitates. It eventually leaves the clearing, just past the treeline, where downhill awaits the seemingly endless landscape I escape to in my private meditations. For these two places to be physically connected would be impossible--the landscape is vast. I see it placed in front of me despite knowing this would be impossible in the world of reason.

We return to the grove, and our guest has given us a gift.

The deer regurgitates a large iron bullet, round, about half the size of my fist. It looks nothing like a bullet, but I know it to be fired from a gun.

We take the gift and return to the realm of normal consciousness.

The significance of this I don't know. I'm sure it will become clear in due time--meditations have a way of doing that. But for now, it's a genuine enigma. I have no idea why a deer, and I have no idea why an iron bullet.

Dean Stonetalker was absolutely great, gave me some ideas. I was kind of hesitant in the meditation because, to be quite honest, I just don't go that deeply into trance. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure I had gone into trance at all, maybe that I was just following along with the Dean's words and picturing what came most easily to mind. But I heard the others' stories and they seemed pretty vivid.

Even now, I'm starting to make sense of it all.

Flower bombing!

So today my sister and I decided to make flower bombs.

Basically you take some dirt, some native wildflower seeds, and some water... mix until thick... and roll them into small balls. Finally, toss out the window of your car.

Fun? YES.

Legal? Mmmmmaybe.

Certainly not on private property, so don't go flower bombing on someone else's land. But it's perfect to spice up any abandoned lots.

The ingredients:



The aftermath:



(Plus some flowers and herbs I planted about a week ago)

I'm just excited to go around and throw these about. If any flowers pop up, I'll be sure to post pictures!

Answers from Tofugu's Koichi

So about a week ago I had the opportunity to email Koichi, the writer of popular Japanese culture blog Tofugu and online Japanese textbook Textfugu (plus an English culture blog written in Japanese, Koichiben). He's a pretty experienced blogger, a really cool guy, and definitely a big name in the J-blogger "industry." I asked him some questions about blogging, and here's what he had to say:

Q: First off, I know that Koichiben was created before Tofugu. What blogging platform did you choose to use, or how was Koichiben built?

A: I use self-hosted Wordpress for everything, and I host on Dreamhost. Wordpress takes the nasty backend out of blogging so you can focus on content.

Q: Did you have any previous experience blogging prior to creating Koichiben?

A: Nope

Short and sweet, I like it!

Q: What inspired you to bring Tofugu into the professional world?

A: By professional world do you mean as my actual job? When I was making enough money to live off it, I suppose.

Tofugu just became Koichi's full-time job in tandem with Textfugu.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers regarding how to get a start?

A: Network and get to know people - doing what you're doing right here isn't a bad way to do it, actually.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers in the J-blog niche?

A: Get active on Japansoc.com and get to know the other bloggers.

Q: How did the knowledge required to write Tofugu come to you? Did you spend a lot of time on research, or did your passion for the subject bring the information to you?

A: I try not to let information get to me, to be honest. I feel like it saps creativity and I'll accidentally copy someone / repost something. My goal is to post pretty original stuff, so I usually just write about the things I'm interested in learning. I figure if I'm interested in it then some others will be interested as well, and that's worked out pretty well so far. I do spend a good amount of time researching for a lot of posts, though. I don't want to be the kind of blog that posts someone else's content and then has a three line comment on it.

Some great advice!

Don't forget to check out Tofugu if you're even remotely interested in Japanese language or culture. It updates regularly and presents information in a fun-to-read way that's sure to keep anyone's attention. Koichi has a really unique "voice" and certainly uses it to full effect in all of his writing endeavors. I was linked to Tofugu first a few years ago and I'm glad I've been following it ever since!

If you're interested in learning Japanese, I also recommend you stop by Textfugu and take a look at what they have to offer. Expect a full review when the book catches up to my level... but until then, I've been reading every post and I'm still learning new things. I'm trying especially hard to follow along with the Kanji section--Koichi's method is the most painless that you'll find out there. He also recommends some of my favorite language-learning applications that I use as an aspiring linguist. He definitely knows where to go to get the learning done, and I'm glad he's writing his own material now. Textfugu is constantly updated, meaning the material will never become irrelevent or stop at a low level. Plus, if you order the full package, you get these updates free forever. Some teachers have even started using Textfugu in their classes! But hey, I guess that's all for another post, right? I want to write a good solid review of this thing, cause I love its content.

Hope you all enjoyed that little taste of Koichi! See you next post.

Making Gemstone Pendants

So for a few months now I've been practicing making gemstone pendants. I started off going to the bead store and asking them if they had any advice for me. Without any holes drilled in the stones they were mostly at a loss, but they were able to give me the information I needed. Since then I've been making some really fun stone cabochons like these:





I'll be teaching a class on making cabs at the Grey School 2010 Illinois Conclave. I can't wait! There's sure to be a blog post about the events next month.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you. Maybe I'll post a tutorial one of these days.

My Favorite Thing

Just these.

Started Karate Today...

So I started Shotokan Karate today (which I always have to focus not to mispronounce "shotakon..." embarassing...).

I'm not really sure if I like it yet. I know it's all about discipline and everything--I actually started when I was around ten and gave up for health reasons--so I feel like I have to stick it out for a while before I decide what I really think of it.

It's good for my health and everything, which I like. And I like the whole philosophy behind it. But I can't pretend to enjoy it. I'm not going to be performing my best if I'm constantly watching the clock for the end of class.

I'd considered taking up Jeet Kune Do for a while as well. I'll have to explore the principles of martial arts in general before I do that, though, so maybe Karate is just a stepping stone for me.

I always did feel like Karate was kind of the little brother of martial arts. (No offense intended, Karate lovers... or older siblings)

Well anyway, I have private lessons again on Monday. Only one day to rest, whaaaat! D: I'm too used to being lazy!

May Updates and Mahjong

So I've gotten into Reach Mahjong lately. I'm still not entirely familiar with the set of rules (because dang, that set of rules is big), but I'm good enough to win a hand every once in a while. It's been a long time since I last declared Reach--I should practice!

I'm aware that there are a lot of online sites and applications dedicated to playing Mahjong online. Feel free to go check those out yourself--I'm too lazy to check them out for you. I'm currently using Touhou Unreal Mahjong, because semi-crossover boardgames are fun.

Keep in mind that different rule sets, and indeed different sources, use different terms. (Pungs, chows, pon, chi)

But it's an interesting sport. It seems too complex to be a simple common board game, although I suppose Scrabble would seem overly complex to a foreigner as well.

Reach Mahjong also goes by the romanization Riichi Majon. If you're interested in playing, go look it up. It's good fun!

Sideways Drawing

Quick note: Sorry for the text wall! Publishing seems to finish it off a little weird right now.

Today I was thinking kind of sideways, so I decided to draw sideways. Here's how it turned out:

Same character drawn right-side-up: (sorry if it's hard to see, the brushstrokes are light)
It's amazing how a perfectly normal and self-professed "artist" can turn into a near-child with an attempt like this. It's a scary phase for artists to go through--realizing that something simple could potentially cripple their talent.

But it's really a lesson in basic drawing.

We all grow up perceiving things as symbols, as pictures in our mind instead of lines, shapes and forms. You look at a face, judge that you are looking at a nose, and draw the presumed shape of a nose. You don't usually think to draw the strange way the nose curves and even if you draw nostrils, they're not always placed accurately. And if asked to do the same thing upside-down, you will likely have to think on it before getting to work.

It's all a matter of training your mind to work in different dimensions. You can see the effect of close-minded visual thinking in my first drawing--the eyes are at different heights, the breasts are lopsided. They're reduced to childlike visions of two eyes placed on a head, two breasts on the body, and one simply fails cognitively to see "the big picture."

What this means is that even the most seemingly well-trained artists can be far from masters of their trade if they cannot draw upside-down or sideways. That's because they're used to drawing symbols, not creating lines. There is no memory imprint for "upside-down eye" in their brain. And that's good! Because once you do draw an upside-down eye, you are training your brain to think in a different way.

And that's good.

The truth is, anyone can be an artist. Anyone with the manual dexterity to write with any legibility can do it. It's just that drawing is a skill fast-abandoned in schools, and many children get frustrated by it while they move onto subjects such as math where they grow to excel. Few find the golden nugget of artistic opportunity and hone their skills, and even then they can learn from a change of perspective.

Try taking a complex picture and drawing it upside-down, from every detail and line. See what you come up with. You may be surprised to have an artist in the house. It may look a little wobbly here or there, but chances are you'll get a lot farther than a potential perception of it right-side-up (a stick man, for example).

Artists, I challenge you to draw sideways or upside-down for a day and see how it changes your work and the way you see it. Non-artists, I challenge you to do the same!

Always be aware of the limits you're placing on yourself based on your point of view.

Lose the Propaganda

So you might know I've been into lifehacking and self-development for a while now, but it hasn't been all that long until I recently discovered a blog called Illuminated Mind.

Illuminated Mind is run by Jonathan Mead, a life coach and martial artist who admits he's always been a bit of a non-conformist. He quit his day job in 2009 to take up writing as a profession. He calls it "getting paid to exist."

I quickly became a huge fan of Jonathan's unique philosophy and the way he filtered out the "fluff" from the run-of-the-mill motivational/productivity content. He gives you things straight, sometimetimes painfully so, but that's what makes him stand out. If you're willing to take the risk of facing up to life's unfortunate truths and making the best of yourself, his content is incomparable.

Jonathan has written several e-books, writes a newsletter for subscribers, and posts on a frequent basis to the main blog.

If you're looking for some straight-faced advice on reaching your dreams, check out Illuminated Mind's page for subscribers-to-be.

PS: Why did I make this post? Because I'm absolutely enthusiastic about the content Jonathan has waiting for you that we can all apply to our lives. I don't have subscribers to promote anything to, this is my way of showing what I've gotten out of the hours of internet soul-searching I've been going through lately.

New Camera!

So my mom's camera part (which the dog previously chewed up in her puppy days) finally came in the mail and I can start uploading pictures.

Only problem is you're going to have to wait a little while until I actually post pictures because I don't know how to work it!

For now I'm just ailing over the fact that my dog dug a hole in the backyard. We just seeded that lawn! Augh! I don't mind putting up with the destruction, though, given that she's such a sweetheart.

(See now, I stole this picture from my sister who has a fancy camera.)

Clash of Less-Than-Titans

Today my two true passions--my dog and my garden--clashed for the first time.

My beautiful Australian Shepherd mutt dug up my tiny stick of a blueberry bush. I'll have to buy another one and re-plant it this summer when my sister is home from college, but I'm not too worried about it.

I think of it as a sort of christening.

Now I just have to remember to sprinkle the darn thing with cayenne powder.

The garden, not the dog.

Practice and Incubation

I think I just need to surround myself with writing, and my niche will find itself. After all, I'm still an amateur blogger. I'm still learning things about posting, themes, tags, traffic, and a lot of other stuff. It's not like if I started a big blog now it would be very successful, with my meager skills.

So I'm just going to keep posting here whenever I can. The first step to finding success is to look for it!

For Learners of Japanese

Just thought I would make a post about this... because I spent MONTHS looking for this.

I'm learning Japanese and one of my favorite resources has got to be Let's Plays. Basically, a player gives commentary on the game they're playing and uploads the video to NicoNico or Youtube. Simple, right? But it took me forever to find them in Japanese because, unlike say Finnish or Swedish (and you can find LPs in those languages!), they go by a different name: 実況プレイ (Jikkyou Purei).

Simply put that into your searchbar and you can find TONS of listening material. Of course, you have to be at a level where the material will be useful, and you have to take everything you hear with a grain of salt. You're not going to learn Japanese from Let's Plays anymore than you are with solid anime, so don't fool yourself into thinking this is an easy way out of studying. However, it is a good way of incubating vocabulary words!

It's passive learning, but it's good learning, and it'll drain a lot of your free time. So be sure to cram in those vocabulary words before pressing play!

Blogging outlets

I feel like I need a better outlet for my blogging. A personal blog will do for now, but I want something substantial that I can make into a solid business venture or something. Everyone talks about how there are so many niches out there, the hard part is choosing one. And yet I can't find anything that would apply to me! I'm not good enough at video games, art, languages, gardening, any of my hobbies to provide any new information, and certainly not for an extended period of time.

I guess it's a bit early in this blog to be talking about my "blogging future." But I wish it were simpler to find things to write about that were actually productive. Seems like the only things people can write about these days are money and website design.

Neither of which I'm good at, by the way.

Going Abroad... or not.

Learning new languages is a huge hobby for me. I'm currently learning Japanese and Swedish, but I have over ten others on my "to-do" list.

Anyway, I've been learning Japanese since I was ten, entirely self-taught. That makes it six years. Let's assume that I half-assed a lot of it (because I did) and it's perfectly reasonable that I'm still at an advanced level after all these years (though it's supposed to take 4-6 years to reach fluency). And I've always wanted to take a trip to Japan.

On top of that, I'll be getting my diploma soon. That means I'll have a year off before I'm expected to go to college.

The immediate solution to this problem is GAP YEAR! TAKE A GAP YEAR!

Basically, a gap year is a year someone takes off of school or their job. A lot of kids who graduate "early" take one. And best of all, there are programs to take you all over the world studying language and culture for that one year (or a portion of it).

So I've been counting on going to Japan next year for a while now. Only thing is, I've discovered

• I don't have the money
• I can't drive
• I haven't taken the SAT
• I've basically never been away from home

And it's looking like a worse and worse idea. Chances are, I'm going to work my ass off and go the year after next regardless. Maybe I'll wait until college and go to school abroad. At any rate, you'll hear about it once I'm there, and it will be fun as hell.

Welcome to Blogger?

Well, nice to meet all the bloggers out there! As you can see, I'm trying out Blogspot for just about the first time. I'm also experimenting with a blog over at WordPress. So I guess the two platforms had better step up before I decide which one I like best!

An introduction?

Well, this is my personal blog, plain and simple. My name's Adriana, I'm happily 16, and I'm experimenting with blogging. I'll share my personal experiences here, anything that I'd like to share with the world, anything I just want to throw out there. Hopefully I'll meet some new people and learn more about myself this way. Now let's see, do I get an "About" page...? Guess it's off to take care of that first hurdle.