So serenade_rose complained about her flist being dead. Okay, on my part it's less dying and more lazing around...

So have a photo! :D


Sort of overexposed but I am too lazy to fix it. Whatever. At least it is a never-before-seen photo!

I thought bunnisteffi's new girl deserves an introduction (shame on you, owner!). She's named Chrisanne Fern, though I like to call her Anne. She is stealing Reiko's body and wig so I do think Reiko must resent her.

Anyway, I've been talking a lot with my sister (who studies in Perth, Australia). Our conversations usually involve a lot of shrieking and freaking out on my part.

ME: Did you know MBBS is a double degree?! It's Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery TOGETHER.
SIS: Yeah... my Veterinary Science degree is also a double degree, Bachelor of Vet + Bachelor of Surgery.
ME: But aren't double degrees hard? I'M GOING TO DIE, AREN'T I!!!
SIS: Relax, I haven't died yet either. I'm only in second year though so...
ME: So I can be guaranteed to survive until my second year at least?

Also, I don't know why but I'm treating as if I'm going to Melbourne already. I think I have resigned myself to going to some ulu country to study... Especially since my grades (A Levels + ISAT) are both good scores for Monash University. I took the ISAT last year and got a score of 178 (75th percentile), so I re-took it last month and got a 181 (86th percentile). Although my marks only went up by 3 the exam itself was tougher than the previous so the reason for my huge improvement i standing is that everyone else did badly, ahahaha. XD;; I just excel better in tougher exams -- remember being all "oh crap this Biology paper is too easy" during the A Levels last year. Tough papers are much better for exams where the marks are moderated (following the bell curve) and this totally proves it.

Useful things I have discovered about my potential place of residence:
1. Monash does have single-person apartments about a minute's walk away from campus. Yippee, no roommate! I have privacy and paranoia issues and simply cannot cope with a roommate possibly poking through my wardrobe/dolls/computer/bathroom. I wouldn't mind a housemate, as long as we have separate rooms.

2. Australia, being the weird country it is, doesn't allow chinchillas or hamsters as pets. O-o I was quite crushed that they didn't allow fennec foxes as pets, either, which is like my dream pet aside from wildcats like tigers. They do allow ferrets!! I want a silver ferret with dark eyes, but I have no idea if I'll even have time to look after it so yah. D:

No comments on my potential ferret's name but I bet you all know what it will be. /shifty eyes

Okay it's 9pm and I haven't had dinner, so I'm just going to abruptly end this entry and go find the croissant that is calling my name.

All the waiting I posted about last week has paid off~ I've been accepted to the National University of Singapore (NUS). I know it's considered prestigious (ranked 28th in the world), and I'm genuinely elated to have been accepted - but I'm applying to Australian medical schools come May, so the real challenge is still ahead. It feels like just yesterday when I entered junior college, let alone graduated. The two years really flew by, and while I don't miss the school, I do miss the uniforms and the sense of belonging, of knowing where your place in the world is. It's like taking a leap of faith, and not knowing if there's someone on the other side to catch you if you fall.

Congratulations to chuo_ri and twin on the arrival of their own Mr. Williams! （●´∀｀）♡ After three years of yearning, yeah? bunnisteffi also deserves congrats, because there is a much-awaited parcel which apparently just touched down in Singapore but has yet to be scanned into the Speedpost system. I'm hoping for a Monday delivery~~ :D

And more congratulations to me, because I've found a head that I've wanted since I started the hobby but didn't get because at that time $500 for a 60cm chunk of plastic already seemed terrible, let alone twice that. It does come with a pretty Andreja faceup but I've already arranged for a new faceup. I've been so excited I keep going back to look at the sales pics, and she already had a name waiting for her for months now.

And last but certainly not the least... Remember the little birdies who nest in my front yard every year? Their chicks have grown up and flown off, but today there were juvenile birds of a different species chirping and singing their little fluffy feathers off.



It's been a happy week. ♥

Today was grey and drizzly, but nonetheless my Muse was unfazed (as usual) and demanded photos, much to the protest of Sleep (which was deprived) and Common Sense (which didn't want to edit photos). Muse was spurred by the return of the camera (Biscuit, Nikon D3S) from my dad's sightseeing trip to China. There was more light than yesterday, though, as you can tell from the improved quality of photos from yesterday's post.

I've read up on group posing techniques lately, in preparation for all the future Switchies that are coming along. Also everyone just got new outfits so it was a good opportunity to practice group posing and take photos of everyone at the same time.



This is a classic, triangular formation, with the tallest boys in the middle. 50mm on a full frame camera is annoying because I can't get close enough for a tight protrait photo, but my room is small and I can't get far away enough for a full body photo either. I must recall to change back to the 24-70mm next time.

( I am very tired after an entire afternoon of photos. D: )

Okay, we have come to the (rather abrupt) end. I am suffering from serious fatigue and fanfic-withdrawal (as aptly descibed by bunnisteffi). I might need chocolate therapy.

Somehow my Muse likes to hit me over the head only when it's raining so hard 2pm in the afternoon looks like it's 6pm. Of course there should be some sort of Common Sense that says:

"raining = no light = ugly photos"

However, Muse ignores Common Sense. It's just the way it is. Why do you think Picasso decided to flatten multiple points of view into one linear plane?



So it's always up to Common Sense to take over when the photos are done and post-process it. My room has have green curtains, so everything gets a sickly green cast and some editing is inevitable anyway.

( Click for a before/after comparison. )

Anyway, the point of this post is to wait patiently for chuo_ri's own Mr. Williams' homecoming. :D Although I must really kick mine out for a new face, yes. It's also in return for her (or rather, Wan) for tweeting all those pretty sakura photos~~

PS serenade_rose I told you all Williamses have orangey defaults. That includes mine. This is the reason it doesn't seem quite as bad. D:

I am quite tired of waiting around. Not to say I'm not enjoying my holiday, I really am, but being kept on the edge all the time is tiring - must be the reason why I sleep 10 hours a day.

I haven't received any university offers from either NUS/NTU -- granted, it's only been a week, but so many people have interviews and acceptance letters already! In the interim, I have a retake of the ISAT for applying to Australian universities for medical courses, then I have to wait 4-6 weeks for results to come in to actually send the application and then wait some more. If the results don't arrive in 4 weeks I'll have to use my older result which is... good but not good enough and then it'll be $300 wasted. D:

Then there are a few dolly things floating around in the mail... like my VolksUSA order which has been apparently on board a plane to nowhere for 7 business days now. I hate Priority tracking. Actually, EMS tracking from there is equally bad because they never state when the parcels leave the country, bah. And then some more waiting on faceups which are almost-but-not-quite-done and I have so many shoot ideas that will evaporate in a poof when they actually do come home.

I'm also waiting for more news on the Tokyo Dolpa 27 on May 5th and the Switch Carnival on May 20th. I don't really want any new dolls, but what I do want very very badly is:



Sofa~ Pretty sofa~~~ :D♥ Look at it it's so Rococo and gorgeous! I actually had a mini heart attack at the price because Volks labelled it as a "chair" and it did look smaller, but a friend confirmed for me it's the same size as the other sofas. I did hear it was Dolpa-only, but VolksUSA has told me they're "pretty confident" of getting this furniture. I don't even know where I'm going to find the space for a behemoth like this but whatever. I will make space appear if needed.

My mum was unimpressed -- "I can buy my own human furniture at that price" -- and Dad was of the opinion I should rent it out for photoshoots. I did blab on about how astonishingly pretty it was and how it looks straight out of the Palace of Versailles we visited in France, but I didn't tell her the Rococo era was actually deemed frivolous and even gaudy.


What do you mean, waiting for you isn't a good enough reason to lounge about?

I swear the photo looked brighter in Photoshop, but somehow Photobucket is making it a shade darker. >:/ serenade_rose was right about the slight blurring, too. Guess I gotta upgrade my Flickr once I hit the limit. Somehow my Flickr friends seem to prefer girl photos, but my LJ ones prefer boy photos...

Everybody on Twitter knows I've been on my Lord of the Rings kick lately.

Me: Aragorn has so many names! He was born Estel, but his real name's Aragorn; in Bree he called himself Strider, Eomer calls him Wingfoot, his name when he’s king is Elessar Telcontar, and then he called himself Thorongil for a while -

Friend: Please, no more Lord of the Rings nerdery.

So I have moved on to getting my Harry Potter fix instead. This fix seems to come around every 3 years or so.

(The photo and words have absolutely no relation to each other. I don't even know why I did this.)



" “If that’s what you’re into,” Harry said, hopelessly honest, and leaned in and kissed him again, holding him pressed up against the doorframe and kissing his mouth, the curling corner of it, and his jaw and a place near his ear. Malfoy made a little sound, broken in the middle, that made Harry’s heart stutter in his chest." 

This fic is completely breaking meeeeeeeee. ;____; It's so good I want to cry at every emotional climax, and the way the feelings are written is completely heartbreaking and steals my breath. I've laughed out loud several times, missed dinner, stayed up to 5am, caught myself not breathing, and it's all worth it. How can I possibly describe the tempestuousness, the passionate fury of the words?

"I," said Malfoy, a little hesitant. "I stopped hating someone once, though." 

You know, I can never, never understand how some people don't read. It's fairly impossible to describe the feelings reading brings me -- the joy and euphoria and sadness and tension; all of that, you miss out when you're not a reader. The world around you disappears when you fall in love with a story, and then you emerge and that hollow sense of loss at finishing it...

/crying forever

(Yes, I finished it. Hence the very emotional, fangirl rant.)

I think this started simply because I bought new dresses for Reiko, and she wanted to wear them and not the furisode kimono. Guess who was unlucky...?

Kae seems to be having a streak of bad luck this week: first, I forced him to wear this; second, the top laminate layer of his headplate started to peel; third, he faceplanted and chipped a bit of MSC off his nose; shortly after that his head magnet fell out. =A= Meanwhile I'm on a Lord of the Ring fangirl-streak (LEGOLAS LEGOLAS LEGOLAS that explains why I've been rather MIA lately) so yeah... maybe that will counterbalance his bad luck.

( A miserable total of three photos. )

I love Hahwas. ♥ Even if Kae looked pretty haughty today. I like to think he's a Malfoy in disguise. *cue more fangirling*

I know a couple of commenters were like SHOW MORE SKIN!! a few posts ago, but I personally think it's more sexy to reveal tantalising glimpses of skin and let the viewers drool, no? >:D Also the obi just emphasises how slim the Graffiti waist is... Plus some people were teasing me about how NSFW teasers I put up on Twitter were, but they're all clothed!! There is nothing unsafe with the photos!

Today a parcel from Switch arrived (sadly, in the evening grrr no more light!). It contained many things that Rene likes.


Sailor boys! 


Servant Crew boys!

Rene likes her uniforms a lot. *sparkles* There's actually one more white sailor outfit for schizocheese's Nanaki, then we can have a Captain, First Officer and cabinboy photo together wouldn't that be cuuuuuuuute. ♥

I don't know what Mr. Williams is doing in a butler outfit. That was supposed to be Kaitou.

Edit: WAAAAAAAAAH SWITCH Y U DO THIS TO ME? I just received a $400 order and now I want to order again... T_________T

Happy Leap Day~~ My mum is a leap year baby, so we only celebrate her birthday once every four years. It really saves on presents.

I was joking, joking! Of course we have cake and sing the cheesy Happy Birthday song every year.

Anyway, February 29 means something entirely different for me. It's two more days to D-day. D, in this case, stands for doom.



The problem is there is going to be a principal's talk yadda yadda for half an hour beforehand. HOW CAN I STAND THE TENSION? My entire life is going to be hinged on this results. =A=;;;

If I get four As application for university will be so much easier, plus I'm sure my dad will be happy to sponsor a trip to Thailand for Dollfete come end March. It doesn't help that he is amused and TROLLING me and keeps telling me "Tomorrow is Thursday, and then Friday~" and I'm like "Please don't torture me by unknowingly quoting Rebecca Black." 

Also serenade_rose was seriously awesome to spend two hours yesterday walking me through application tips/acceptance dates/general freaking out. She did scare me by telling a tale of how some-friend-or-other who always achieved Bs for General Paper (the tough English paper) but scored a U in the actual exam. U! U!!! U = FAIL. I remember picking a question on prejudice and writing quite badly. D: D: D:

But anyway SHE DESERVES THANK YOU PICTURES. With bare chest because her boys are always stripping anyway.


(He looks really young here - is it just me? Also I don't ever use hair wax but I buy it for him, whut.)

Mr. Williams is laughing at me while I tear my hair out... D:

ETA: Now I'm actually pretty chillax. Que sera, sera and all that.

Happy Valentine's/Friendship Day~~❀ Finally getting off my lazy butt to post something! (Also Flickr cannot read .png files, so lousy.)



We got a new guinea pig. :D A female, because we only have males right now in the house - mainly because we buy for looks and males always look better than females and seem to inherit the Abyssinian (which causes the rosettes in their fur) genes. Also males just have nicer bone structure around the head in general, but I'm digressing.

Anyway, her name is Mochi. She's a brown/white Abyssinian guinea pig, and likely to be paired with Kimchi (grey agouti Abyssinian with roan tips) when she's mature. Right now she's a super cute tiny ball of fluff that fits in one hand, and really fine-boned and delicate. I wish they'll stay this teeny forever... miniature guinea piggies? A breed I really want is the Alpaca guinea pig, which is SUPER adorable like their namesake. It's the closest I can get to actually keeping an alpaca, here in land-scarce Singapore as if farmstock is even legal as pets. They're kind of a rare breed, apparently?

It feels nice to indulge in playing with the pets, after ignoring them throughout last year. *blames exams*

Today I emerged from hermitism and nocturnalism and woke early to meet with bunnisteffi, chuo_ri and twin. After that I crashed for a four hour nap, but that's because I got only three hours of sleep the night before.

( Dolls & Dessert, the winning combination. )

I should probably be getting to sleep because it's 3am over here but I'm still stuck on Tumblr reading suggestive notes from fictional characters. And the lovely, lovely author even participates in the giggly fandom and bribes readers with unreleased content and teasers. She even releases the sexy scenes online which had to be cut for the actual book. >:D

I've been on glorious holiday since December. Not the kind of too-many-things-to-finish kind of break, but a real holiday with absolutely nothing to do if I don't want to. :D And it lasts until March at the very least, but possibly until August. I did think of getting a part-time job, but daddy dear says he didn't pay for me to get an education to sit behind a counter and answer queries or run back and forth carrying plates.

(Though he didn't complain when I got a two-day photography job last week. /eyeroll Biased!)

I really am having fun just rotting away at home, though. I suspect I was a hermit in a past life. To prevent the onset of boredom I sometimes hang out with friends, often play with Shiro, frequently bugger my dad/sister and Internet almost every waking moment.

Occasionally, I fill out memes.

( « 12 Questions for 2012 » )

Of course I've been taking photos. :O serenade_rose demanded I prettied up her friends-page... I promise to take more? ;~; I'm thinking of a human x doll shoot...


The full photos can be viewed: 1. • serendipity •, 2. • secret •, 3. • selladora •, 4. surreptitious sagacity

Kaitou looks infinitely more badass after staying in his box for two months. This says something... Though undoubtedly Reiko is lecturing him on how his blazer doesn't match her dress, and she refuses to wear it. Well, it's the thought that counts, right?

-

Checklist for bunnisteffi to look over:
Camera + lens + CF card
Reflector
Flash
Necessities - sunblock + wallet + umbrella
Pocketwatch
Makeup
Yui
Myself + razaera
Hats

What shoes should I wear, dear stylist-san? Or are you bringing me shoes? Please bring Yui some sandals. :D

( ...was up to a lot of shenanigans in Mr. Dentist's office. )

So I felt really crap with the entire left side of my face numb and had doll photo therapy.



♥

/Reikoyouderp

( You are welcome to skip this boring post. )

May 2012 bring with it happiness for everyone! ♥

PS I am sorry to bring such a rambly post after I've been dead on LJ for a while. =A= I mostly hang out on Twitter and Flickr now. Indulging laziness, y'see. When comments are limited to 140 characters I find it easy to strip away all unnecessary things and get to the bare minimum.

PPS Wait, there's an LJ-like now? What is this, Facebook?

I pretty much post all my photos to Flickr now in a valiant but futile attempt to prevent my LJ becoming a photospam.


Although if you look at my photostream all the recent images have been dark. =A= That's because I get weird notions to take photos at night. I know all my recent images are also of girls that's because the frilly cheers me up. :D Like this patchwork dress~♥

...Yeah. Just in case one wondered why I don't have new photos.

bunnisteffi very kindly organised the Switch meet today. I'm sure she had good intentions like allowing friends to catch up and admiring all the Switchies, but...

( Only three pictures so I'm bumming around waiting for everyone else to upload more. )

I'm back!

I have been miraculously revived from the dead! As a zombie!

...Nah, I wasn't really dead at all, since death by exams don't count, right? Anyway, I am now free as a lark I lied, I have two last papers next Tuesday and Thursday but we're ignoring that so I'm going to attempt catching back up with my online social life.

Things to Do After the A's (ATAs)

☑ Reunite with my warm cosy bed
☐ Shopping trip with my fellow A Level inmates
☐ Volunteering
☐ Switch orgy meet! :D♥ To camera or no camera?
☐ Watch Merlin and Sherlock (as if I need to add any other fandoms /headdesk)
☐ Catch up on sleep
☐ (Re)read the Inheritance quadrilogy
☐ Enjoy the school holidays until next March

I have gotten supremely lazy ATAs. Like a slug, mmhmmm. I thought of a few funny tags for this entry (Twitter/Tumblr's influence) but I decided not to mess up my LJ tag list. I would also insert random .gif spams but ehhhh that's one reason why I can't stand Tumblr so I shan't.



Have a Yui instead. I know this was up on Flickr like, 92037112 weeks ago but I've not touched the dolls for nearly 9 weeks now so... no new photos. D:

I always like receiving Switch orders because it restocks my bubblewrap supply. They wrap everything to death, really. ♥ And receiving an order usually means pretty wigs/heads/clothes.

Super tired, so not much commentary from me.

( Switch Soseo x Volks - resin match/body comparison )

( Motorola cellphone comparison )

Okay so I got around to digging all the blue eyes I have out of the dolls' heads (open-skull surgery, yes!). Gosh, I love blue eyes. ♥ I tried to line them up according to the shade of blue so you can really see the difference in material, and not be swayed by colour.

( Little blue blobs! )

That said, if you're not into photography... there really isn't a huge difference when you place the eyes in the heads. It's not like you're going to get all up into the dolly's face to examine threading, after all. And no matter the material/brand of eyes - you still have to light properly to get them to show up well in photos, so it's not really an escape route when it comes to good lighting. Wait then why am I dropping money on urethane?! I end up eye-Photoshopping regardless of material/brand so uhhh same amount of work, I guess?

Now you mean I have to put them back in the heads?!!?!! D: