Porcelain Perfection.

The one (material) thing which I truly want for Christmas is a proper Ball-Jointed Doll (BJD). I want one more than an iPod Touch, more than clothes, more than shoes and more than that new Harvest Moon game. To put it simple, BJD photography amazes me. I have a semi-“professional” doll (i.e one which isn’t exactly used in fooling around…), which is the one you can see in my current doll pictures. She is of the Pullip brand, and whilst I adore her to bits, her huge head, bubbly eyes and childlike features can never convey the deeper, darker emotions which I want in a more serious, artistic picture. (She can ace the “cutesy” pictures, though. And she’s very, very gorgeous.) Mind you, I’m not complaining. I suppose what I’m trying to get at is that she’s not as flexible as a BJD, and while I adore her, it’s just not the same.

I’ve been pillaging the Internet lately, browsing through different BJD photography galleries on DeviantArt and window-shopping on websites. These dolls are expensive… it costs at least 400 U.S for one of the more well-known types. The most expensive one which I’ve ever seen was about…650 U.S.

I know. Ouch!

Of course, each doll is handmade of this really fancy material (I can’t seem to remember this material’s name, it’s at the tip of my tongue though… Ah well). And, of course, the doll will probably last forever and be durable, as long as you don’t go banging it about all over the place (or so I’d like to hope). You also recieve the doll assembled, which is actually a much bigger deal than it sounds, and you get a bunch of random freebies, like wigs and, in some cases, an outfit or two. Plus, the eyes are all glassy and detailed, and the face-up is intricate. I suppose, at the end of the day, the value is worth it — given that you put the BJD to good use.

That’s probably the major concern I have. I don’t want to ask anyone for a BJD, mainly because one would be frickin’ expensive and I could never ask for that much money. Hence, I won’t even bother asking for one for Christmas. If I did, I would feel way too guilty. I don’t know whether or not I should try to save up  for one — mainly because I have no clue if I could use it to its full potential (though a few of my friends who have BJDs seem to think that I could). I guess I just don’t want to waste time saving money only to blow it all off on something which will entertain me only for a short period of time. As stoked as I may be about Doll Photography now — which is an Art, OBVIOUSLY, and I care not what people say — will I still be enthralled with it in 3, 5 years down the road? I don’t know. And that’s the biggest concern.

On a completely different note, on one of the galleries which I was going through, the photographer had a FAQ-esque guide along with it. One of the “Questions” was: Why spend so much money on a DOLL? to which the owner replied: Because it’s cheaper than a car and isn’t as bad for the n. :D …I don’t know why, but it made me laugh. xD

I suppose the best thing to do would be to not over-think it. I think I’ll start to put some of my (practically non-existent) savings towards it, and see where that leads me.

I’ll still turn green with envy every time I go through a BJD photography gallery, though.

P.S:
This is the one I want:

Gorgeous, isn’t he? :DD

To Write Love On Her Arms.

“To Write Love On Her Arms” (usually abbreviated as TWLOHA) is, as Hot Topic puts it, “a non-profit movement dedicated to giving hope and help to people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.”
I think that this organization is one of the most powerful out there. They’re so down-to-earth, so human — they’re just amazing and incredibly inspirational. I support them tons, even though I only discovered TWLOHA a month or two ago. They’re very popular, but not popular enough.
So, I thought I would dedicate one little post in this young, tiny blog to this huge, inspirational and life-changing organization. Spread the know if you can. =]

The World of A Girl Gamer.

Mysims

Anyone who knows me well knows of my love of video games.
I have a passion for gaming. Some people look down on this, thinking that it’s silly and a complete waste of time — however, I’d beg to differ.
Inside the world of games, you’re taken away to a place unlike you’ve seen before. In that way, playing games is a lot like reading. In classics, like Pokemon and Final Fantasy, you’re pulled into a world where you have to scrape together a team and overcome various obstacles, getting stronger and stronger along the way. I’ll never forget the Summer of 2008 — Edward and I were particularly obsessed with the newest release of the Pokemon saga (Diamond Version) and we would stay up to the wee hours of the morning, conversing over MSN whilst simultaneously taking on the vast region of Sinnoh. Good times, good times. xD Though I still believe that the older generations of that particular series were the best…
My love of gaming eventually caught on to another one of my friends — Robin. It all started with Mysims — a cutesy little game which wasn’t all that to me. Robin, however, developed an INCREDIBLE passion for this particular game — we would play it at least twice whenever she visited — and eventually, Robin decided that she would get a Wii, in order to pursue the world of Life Stimulation games furthur. I’m not complaining at all — the more gamers, the merrier!
One other series which I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with is Animal Crossing. My friends are painfully aware of this. The new installment, Animal Crossing: City Folk, was released last week Sunday, and I am ITCHING to play it! (The local game store said they’d get it in on the release date. One week later, and still no Animal Crossing. I’m very annoyed — I could have ordered it off Amazon and it’d be here now! But I suppose half the thrill is the wait, right?) Animal Crossing is like no other game — it’s life stimulation to the point where the clock ticks in real-time, seasons come and go, and you get to celebrate real-world events inside of the game. Friends who also own the game can visit your town (as in Animal Crossing, you create a player and get pluncked into a randomly generated town with randomly generated neighbours), and you can run amock and hit each other on the head with bug-catching nets. Really and truly, Animal Crossing’s “plot” is simple — and it’s that simplicity which makes it one of the best series ever created. xDD
I suppose that my games sort of are a chance to escape from this drab, intoxicatingly routine life, and go sailing down into a new place — where “stress” only pops up when I can figure out the next step to solving a puzzle or don’t have enough in-game money to buy that new rare item. (Even in those cases, it’s not stressful. It could be frustrating, but that’s what makes it a good game, right?) There are no formulae to memorize, no equations to solve, no molar mass calculations and nothing to drill into my head. There are no shallow snobs, no close-minded individuals, and no one is there to point the accusatory finger. It’s just my controller and me.

Bite the tongue.

Today, my friend Edward told me about a conversation he witnessed after-school on Wednesday. Basically, 3 of my classmates were standing around, just chatting about random things. Edward didn’t pay much attention — until he heard one of them say, “Are you sure you’re brother’s not gay? I mean, seriously!”
The girl of the group cringed, then shook her head. “No, of course not!…” She paused for a moment. “Well, maybe.” At that point, all three burst into laughter.
One of the boys quipped up, “If I had a gay brother… Well…That’d be shit.”
“I know, right?” The girl replied, rolling her eyes. “I swear, if I found out my brother was gay, I would sit him down and torture him until he’s not gay. I couldn’t stand having a gay brother.”

If I was put in a situation where one of my friends said that, I’m not sure what I would do. I would be torn between bursting out into tears of frustration or giving someone a face full of fist.
My group of friends and I, we’ve very pro-gay rights — you would never hear the words “that’s so gay” passing through our lips. The “F” word doesn’t have the mainstream definition for me — I would say what I mean, however I think it’s not necessary (plus, typing it makes me feel sick, quite literally).
The problem is that it is suddenly so very normal to casually revile all things gay. It’s ingrained in society as part of normal, natural social speech. I can recall one Spanish class last year, in which one girl shrieked out “STOP BEING SO FRICKIN’ GAY!” at a boy who was poking around in her pencil-case. My eye actually twitched right after the sentence left her mouth, and my Aussie friend Lanora looked at the girl dead in the eye and said “How the hell would that make him gay?”
The girl huffed angrily, holding her pencil-case as the boy grinned from ear to ear. “God, ya’ll are so annoying!” She announced melodramatically. “You live in TRINIDAD! It’s part of the CULTURE! If you travel all over the goddamn world so much, you should get to know the culture you’re living in!”
At that time, I thought that this statement was complete idiocy and that the girl was just plainly silly. But now, I’ve been exposed to so much homophobia and seen so much attacks at even the slightest thing dubbed homosexual that I’ve begun to believe her words.
I just wish I could do something, anything, to let people know that even casual, unconscious gay-bashing is not acceptable, and that for god’s sake — it’s not like they’re not people, too. They have the same rights as us, they have the same needs as us. The only difference between the heterosexual and homosexual is who they are sexually attracted to. Don’t you have to ask yourself, Does it really matter? Should someone be ridiculed, mocked, and even abused just because they are in love with someone — who just happens to be of the same gender?
The most amusing thing is that I go to an international school — one which is supposedly exposed to a variety of different cultures and beliefs. You’d think that a school full of a rich medley of youths would be more open-minded. Sure, we all respect each other’s cultures — race isn’t at all an issue. However, the ones who take great offense to, and do not tolerate, racial insults being pelted against them have no problem pelting homophobic derisions against others.

And yes, maybe this is just an overly-dramatic post. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive and a bit too apathetic. But I’m tired of brushing these things away. Sure, I can take the occasional “oh, *insert guy’s name here*’s so gay, lolol” — I mean, it may irk me for a milisecond (enough time for a friend and I to exchange disgusted glances), and if the person has good intent, then hell, I might throw in a giggle or two myself — after all, no harm’s been done and I’m all for freedom of speech. It’s when they’re serious with their bashing that I have to grit my teeth and bite my tongue.

Not alone.

Growing up, I was never the girly-girl.
I never wanted to paint my nails shimmery, light pink, and I never wanted to get the new limited-edition Barbie, which just so happened to come along with a horribly tacky “tiara” which was decorated with a few cheap rhinestones.
I can vaguely remember myself, age 7, talking to one of the “popular girls” at school. Charlotte was her name, I think. “If you want,” she told me, whilst flicking her soft light-brown hair back in a very stand-offish way, “you can hang around with us at lunch today.”
Us referred to the ‘popular grrlz’ back then. My memory is horrible — I honestly can’t remember who the group consisted of. However, I do remember not being the slightest bit interested. “Sorry!” I chirped in response. “I’m going to play Samurai X with Joshua in the field today!”
(We used rulers as swords. It was the most fun thing EVER.)
My childhood consisted of bruises and band-aids. I loved to roll around in the mud and I dreamed of climbing a tree so high that I could eat the clouds (yes, I’m serious). I also went through a very *unique* stage, of which I was obsessed with being a vampire.
Things haven’t changed much since back then.
I’m a lot less tomboy-ish (mind you, I can barely resist the urge to jump straight into a miscellaneous puddle of mud on some days), but I honestly can’t see why people would want to conform themselves to be… like everyone else. I’ll hear about the current trends — things like reading Gossip Girl, Twilight, all of that sort of thing — and I’ll just raise an eyebrow and plug my iPod headphones back in. Whilst people are getting wasted, I’m home talking to my friends online or over the phone.
When people are “dancing” at parties to the beat of the new Akon hit, I’m in my bedroom blasting electronica and pop punk, jumping on my bed and generally thrashing the place (hey, I need to have some fun, too).
The point is, I’ve never even been aware of the prescence of “peer pressure” or “expectations.” I go out there, I do my own thing, and I have a hell of a time doing it. It’s the way to live. I don’t like to talk excessively. I don’t like having people follow me… which is probably why I love to hang around unique individuals.
Robin, Edward, Nora, Mai… they’re the ones who I can be found with on a day-to-day basis. April is my homegurrrl in Canada. Megan’s in the U.S. Ash-chan is in Trinidad; however, she’s in the school which I transferred out of 2 years ago. (We still talk a lot.) They’re many more who I can talk about — but it would take forever, and I doubt anyone would like to sit down and read this for the rest of their lifetime. xD But anyway… they’re all different from me, in many different ways. Yet, simultaneously, we’re exactly the same. I guess you could say that we’re all strangely compatible with each other. They complete me — fo realz.
They don’t necessarily understand me — though I’d like to believe that they do — but, they accept me. And my odd tendencies. In my old school, if word got out that I was a hardcore liberal, I’d be immediately dubbed as some type of freak. I guess the fact that it’s a really “conservative” school plays a key role in that, and we *were* a lot younger, but anyway…
I now wear my beliefs and opinions right on my forehead (figuratively speaking). I don’t impose them on anyone, but if someone starts bashin’, I start thrashin’. I’m withdrawn but not exactly shy, I’m quiet but not very delicate (okay, maybe sometimes I’m a *little* emotional. Whatever.) I am a bundle of contradictions — and I have people around me who, knowing that, still accept me. I’m pretty damn stoked about it, if I do say so myself.
Now, as you can see, I’m rambling on and on, so I probably should stop. I supposed the best thing in this world is having knowledge that you are not alone. I hope that everyone can have that knowledge — even if it’s only concerning one person.