I discovered today that the Mac computers delete button doesn't actually delete anything. As I was desperately trying to finish my project on photoshop using a vaguely unfamiliar Mac, I desperately pushed the delete button to try and delete layers, selections, and files. As far as I can tell, the delete button doesn't work on any of these. The existence of a delete button that doesn't delete is mystifying to me.

It was a pretty stressful day. I realized that an American girl who took three years of Russian in college is better than me, a native speaker from Russia who lives with Russian parents who speak Russian to her half the time. It was just me and her in class today, and lo and behold, she got every grammatical question right and I got almost every one wrong. I felt so. very. stupid.

Besides that, I spent almost my entire day trying different ideas for my self portrait project using photoshop. Who knew that making a photomontage self portrait could be so frustrating? I just had no ideas going through my head. It's also very frustrating when no matter what your idea is or what your vision for a project is, everything you do always turns out creepy. I really need to work on that.

My roommate Mollie was complaining about how she accidentally got herself into a deal to pay 5 dollars a month to keep her money safe in case she died or something, and she was saying that she "should keep all her money in a sock." When my other roommates said that you have to take inflation into consideration Mollie said "Well maybe if I had an air gun I could inflate my sock." Just a thought on how hilarious my roommates are. Haha. No, but seriously. Lulz

So I thought I would address the whole "why is my username cheesecakefairy?" question. I really, really like cheesecake. Of all desserts I'm pretty sure that cheesecake is my favorite by far. Ever since I was a little kid I've always loved even plain cheesecake. Once for my birthday my boyfriend's mom made me a cheesecake. I made this graphic just to show my love for the all wonderful dessert. There isn't really much depth to the reason, but I did make up a song with my friend to display my affection and love for cheesecake. The song goes as follows:

Cheesecake, cheesecake

I love cheesecake

It makes my heart ache

If you don't give, I will take

My beloved cheesecake

Then I'll throw you in a lake

And stab you with a garden rake

Then I'll make your children bake

Me another cheesecake!

Now I understand that some people may be disturbed by this song, but basically it was my friend that came up with the "garden rake" line so therefore, it is not my fault. However it is true that she forgot about the lyrics but I never did. Bwuahaha. Plus I don't think cheesecakes are baked but oh well. Everyone who knows me pretty much knows that me and cheesecake have a special thing going on. Any more cheesecake references I can think of will be added in the future.

"It might be true
The more one experiences suffering
The more he can be tender and strong ”
—Ayumi Hamasaki from “my name’s WOMAN”

This is a quote from my favorite singer of all time. She writes her own lyrics and sometimes composes the music, but I find that her lyrics speak to my life and my experiences more than any other singer on earth. Ayumi had a very depressing life because when she was young her father said he was going on a business trip but then he left and never came back. She was forced into modeling at a young age in order to pay bills, and she couldn't make friends in her neighborhood because of her independence and her mother's strange behaviors. Don't quote me on these facts, though I know most of them are pretty accurate. I've had to move around a lot in my life so I definetely can relate to Ayumi's struggles and having a family who is sometimes hard to agree with. I admire Ayumi for her independence and realism, and feel as though I've been with her on her path toward self understanding that is so clear in all her touching and emotional lyrics. Every time I was suffering, I would turn one of her songs and usually by then I had already looked up the lyrics and would think of what they meant to me and how I'm not the only one who feels alone and low on self esteem. Though I've listened to a lot of J-pop, K-pop, and other genres of Asian music I still think that Ayumi is my favorite.

This particular song that I quoted is about how women are always treated as being underneath men, even though we're in a new era where women are supposed to be equal there is still subtle prejudices and harrasment going on below the surface. Ayumi addresses these facts in her song in the lyrics "we're not just dolls who are dressed up." Clearly, she still thinks that men don't always treat women equally. I would have to agree with her, because speaking from the point of view of someone who has always felt like she didn't quite fit into the feminine stereotype, it's not easy being a "strong" woman. By strong I mean I don't take people's crap, I don't sit around and pretend I'm cute and flirt with guys when I'm bored, I actually take my work seriously and don't try to appear weak or stupid to attract people, and I will make an attempt to stand up for myself if I have to. It's not like I'm a feminist or anything, but I've had a pretty dramatic life in comparison to the average person and I've learned to deal with tough times. I never thought back in childhood that when I became a teenager I would scare my friend's younger brother without saying a word to him. Sorry if this was all rather confusing but it's just my thought process right now. Sometimes it sucks to be female. But it's better when Ayumi is on your side.

This is a drawing I made in the first week of college at Oberlin. I was using a picture from my art book for Angel Sanctuary (an amazing 20- volume manga that I absolutely love drawn/written by Kaori Yuki). Drawing is a pretty big pasttime of mine and I particularly enjoy drawing in manga/ anime style though it's hard for me to draw it nicely completely from my own mind.

http://canta-per-me.net/

I have always loved a certain composer and lyricist Yuki Kajuira. The link above is a fan site with sheet music, downloads, lyrics, and very descriptive discography of her numerous songs and album releases. I don't think she's ever recorded a song with herself as the singer, but every song she releases is absolutely melodic and beautiful. Though they are far from being pop, they combine the classical sounds of string instruments (particularly the guitar and the violin) with more computer-created sounds. The voices she chooses for her songs are almost always female, and her lyrics are never dissapointing. They address topics ranging from vanity to cynicism, violence to deep love. She also writes lyrics in all sorts of different languages. It's amazing to go through song after song listed on her fan site and find almost each one listing her name as being the lyricist, the composer, and anything else the song might have required besides singing. She's just that talented and devoted to her art. I find her to be a very admirable person. It adds even more when I take into consideration that her music is used in half the anime that I love. I suggest check out the site if you like classical, melodic, meaningful, or instrumental music.

This is part 1 of Angel's Egg, a surrealist anime work that people generally either love or hate. It's somewhat based on Christian theory which is unusual for Japan becuase Japanese people don't really practice Christianity. It was produced by Tokuma Shoten in 1985 and is a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and Mamoru Oshii. It's a rather dark film and has existentialist thoughts within it. I found it very interesting. I have no affiliation with Angel's Egg. Just so you know. K thanks.

These are my thoughts on this anime. I found it difficult to watch. Not necessarily horribly depressing, just difficult. The music was a little too spooky for my taste, even though I like dramatic spooky music it was just too repetitive and a little bland. Parts of it really shone, specifically metaphorically speaking. But only if you were thinking about it really deeply, I mean, the dialogue was so sparse there was hardy a hint about what the writer meant by what the characters were saying. It's like they knew everything about what was going on but the audience has no clue. There isn't any revelation at the end either. I guess I like the basic idea of the concept: the innocent girl holding on to a shred of hope that may or may not actually be there, and the realist/pessemist (depending on your view) crushing that hope and causing her suicide. It's nice that at the end though, or at least I gather, that her suicide leads to a rebirth of the dying or already dead world where everyone pretty much acts like a zombie and is hunting shadows of fishes that aren't really there? I mean that's clearly a metaphor but I'm not entirely sure what it's a metaphor for. From what I read of other people's interpretations is that the whole work is based on one of the artist's "fallout with christianity" according to this: http://blogs.teodesian.net/wp/?p=117 blog, which I just discovered and tries a lot harder than wiki to explain what's going on. I think it's a beautiful peace of work in it's own way, but it definetely makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

So this is a poem I wrote not too long ago when I had this horrendous taste in my mouth. Every time I eat too many sweet things this taste comes back and sometimes it doesn't go away. It kind of makes me lose my appetite and it's extremely annoying. So let me share with you my deep emotion about this issue in poetic form!

Please, just water

Her glands won’t
salivate at
the thought of
funnel cake,
oreo ice cream, and
sugary tea with milk.
There is no question
it must have been the
raspberry lemonade
coating her throat.
The hours
pass by
she watches
time…
the cat slinks away but
the flavor
continues to disgust.
No bitterness
can defeat this
sickening concoction.
Perhaps if she
cut out her
tongue,
her mouth might stop
rotting.

This is an artwork I made in senior year of high school. I was really stressed out because I had to create my entire portfolio of art in my first semester and had to have it be good enough for submission to art colleges. This ended up being quite overwhelming while I was taking AP Government, AP Lit, and AP Biology as well as humanities honors and a creative writing course. This was one of the favorites of my art teacher and several of my friends. I don't typically like my own art but this one I think turned out quite nicely considering that I didn't spend hours on it.