Happy Chinese New Year 2012

Happy Chinese New Year, year of the majestic water dragon!

...but how happy can this lunar year start without any gau?!?  TT_TT

Dad didn't make us any of his famous gau for us this year  </3
But I'd even be happy with even the one in this picture  >.<

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It must be the dead of winter around most places around the country, but here, it's been a stifling, still, sticky, hazy, weird rainless summer here for a good 2 weeks now, although we've had a random half day of weirdly cold and windy weather that abruptly stopped as soon as it started.

I'm often dizzy and headachy all day, go to sleep in the heat, wake up all sweaty and without much of an appetite... blegh.  Being all sweaty in the dead of winter...  This is beyond weird.  This is supposed to be the coldest time of the year, even over here.

 COLD WEATHER, COME BACKKKKKKKKKK!!   > A <

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ LITERATURE ★★★★★★★

So it's been trudging through Etsy and Gaia commissions, trying not to get migraines, missing a whole bunch of people, trying to get myself out of this rut, trying to figure out what to do next.  I'm going on a skype/socialization break for a while to concentrate on getting back into a productive schedule again.

  In the meantime, though, I finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is one of the most brilliant and emotionally striking novels that I've read in a long time, I've already started to go back and read it again. It makes me really wonder how faithful the movie adaption is (or could be), so I can't wait to watch it when it comes out on DVD.  o.o

"I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say, it hasn't made life wonderful, it's made life possible, when I rub my hands against each other in the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO, when I clap my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of YES and NO, I signify "book" by peeling open my clapped hands, every book, for me, is the balance of YES and NO, even this one, my last one, especially this one."

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ PRP ★★★★★★★

Last week, the book that I spent so much time designing finally came in!

It's a compilation of my creative works throughout 2011, I've been making such yearly compilations for the last few years now.  :3

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ INTERNET AWESOMENESS ★★★★★★★

...I think that I NEED this.  o____o  

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ GAMING ★★★★★★★

MINECRAFT

I actually haven't been able to play much games recently, but I still have a bit of screenies from my gaming vacation, so I'll be posting those until I find a good public server to join.  (Though I'd rather play with a really good friend... so maybe I'll just wait til summer  ; ~ ; )

So anyway.  Without further ado, the second of me and my friend's Minecraft buildings, which I named "Sky Garden I":

 

Habib arriving via the waterfall entrance  

After exiting via waterfall to the ocean, under the sky garden

Shaky start

...Whoa.  For some reason, blogspot lists the date of my last post as being written on 12/31/11 when it was published on the 7th of January.  I was thinking, "Whaaaaaa, no way that I didn't post since then!"  ...but, admittedly, I'm a bit late if I wanted to do blog posts on a weekly basis.  >.<  

I know that I probably mentioned this before, but ever since the beginning of December, I've felt like such a burnt out and hollow shell of a person (especially for a reason that only one person knows).  Sometimes I'll feel like my senses are returning, but it doesn't last long.  ._.  Nothing really feels good right now.

Even the postal service is adding to my unease, I now have a total of two packages that never made it to me, it seems.  </3 And in the last couple of days, when I've been feeling really horrible from both the weather and a cold.  ...I wonder what can get me out of this horrible rut...?   >~<;;

I finally hit my 7777 pageview mark on dA, though~!  >w<  .... uh oh, now to make a kiriban pic.  ahhhh!  @ o @;;

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ INTERNET AWESOMENESS ★★★★★★★

Okay.  So even when it feels like a big part of me isn't even here, I fully recognize the awesomeness of THESE.  

I.... I just don't know what to say, but it's the work of an astoundingly talented master, watching him at work made my brain dither.  Seriously, this is one of the most amazing work processes that I've ever watched.  

...Though, to be fair, that artist who draws those portraits with ONE LINE is pretty mind-blowing too.  

First, you're like, "....uh....?  then when you realize what's happening---> mind= BLOWN

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AND THIS!~!  I NEED TO MAKE THIS!!  * A *
Chocolate dipped panda gummy bears!!
  http://www.thecheesethief.com/2012/01/chocolate-dipped-panda-gummy-bears.html

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...I may never buy it, but Gaia, I love you so much for making a Katamari King of all Cosmos item  :,D 

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absolutely amazingly geeky bangles by http://kerinewton.deviantart.com/

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ RESOLUTIONS/ PLANS ★★★★★★★

So.  I haven't had time to make any kind of real list of resolutions/goals for 2012, so I'll just throw one together righhhht now. Here are the first few that come to mind (I'll make an official post about it later):

--Reach level 120 on my Blaze Wizard on Maple story

--Reach level 200 on my Mercedes?  o.o

--Learning how to survive in Minecraft (and 2012 as well?... o.o )  Dx  

--Building a (simple) castle with Spec in Minecraft

--My first traveling journal project~!
--2012+ :  Make (reasonably good) friends with people in all 50 states~!  

My progress so far  ;o

....I like how most of the first couple of resolutions that came to mind were related to games... xd

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ GAMING ★★★★★★★

...Oh dear.  It seems that I really should have made a blog during my brief gaming vacation that I took last week, now I have a ton of screenies to post.  >.<  I may just make a separate post for my minecraft screenies.  But it's (incredibly) funny.  When I look back at my screenies folder, I wonder what on earth is going on.  For most, I can still remember the context of when I took the screenie, but some just mystify me.  

The most willfully suicidal octopus that I've ever encountered.  I found it right outside of a waterfall underground, then
Spec knocked it down and I tried to create a nice little pool for it.  And what is the first thing that it does?  Push itself
right onto the only available bare stone block to beach itself again.  Sigh.

... what is everyone looking at?!?  o.o  

And how did this happen?  I'm not even quite sure myself.  I learned how to wear a  jack-o-lantern, then the
next thing I knew, Habib and Spec had me imprisoned in a pumpkin prison, which I dug into the ground to
escape from.  xD