I’m going to be gone starting this week until the end of March! It’s that time of the month where I have to start cramming!

So long, farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!

plugs
my retouched photo for my friend, who’s like a genius at photography and super famous! (11^th photo! It was also in The Source Magazine!)

I miss Lose The Road, Loquacity, Afterglow, Dumago and Exonerated Blends.

I apologize I won’t have time to get back to you this week in comments, unfortunately I have a lot of school work to catch up.

But, I love you, guys, seriously.

Lastly, I want to remind everyone that sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Life is endlessly frustrating, painful, stressful, and every other adjective synonymous with difficult there is in the dictionary. But nothing is impossible and please, please, please, try to see that. I wish he could see the impact his passing has on us and that he was so loved and any one of us would have been there for him in his time of need. Lastly, rest in peace, my friend. I already miss you. I can’t say goodbye to you, because I don’t believe in them, and I know I will see you again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PARAMOUR!
I decided to scrap a card, and give you guys something fun

Download Birthday Mix! (19.5 MB)
It’s four pretty mellow songs.

So a few tips, if you are interested.

1 Use the Healing Tool Brush. Retouching is about attention to details, not the general idea. Don’t select the whole face, then blur the face and call it a day. That’s not how it works. You have to really zoom into the face and get rid of the tiniest blemishes, when it comes to retouching you must be a perfectionist.

2 People have shadows on their faces. If you want to lighten the skin, great! But keep the shadows, or else her/his face will be really flat.

3 Eyes shouldn’t be too brightened or too enhanced. No one has bright cerulean-aquamarine-esque eyes, nor do they have dark yellow irises. Keep it close to the person’s real eye color, and enhance it slightly with a circle of light yellow color around the pupil, take that layer and set it in Soft Light at 16% opacity.

4 Keep it realistic. If this celebrity’s photo was taken on a red carpet, don’t make her look like she just came out of ANTM photo shoot, that’s like taking away a part of Demi Moore’s hip on her W magazine cover. It’s too obvious. Clear the wrinkles, blemishes, “selective color” her skin tone/eyes and backgrounds and call that a day. Don’t go the full blown photoshop and give her glowing/radiant skin, that’s nice for a commercial ad, not for a red carpet event.

5 We have pores in our skin. I would suggest you add on a “noise” filter at the end of your retouching and adjust that filter to a reasonable degree giving the illusion of pores after you did a full scale blemish wipeout on the face.

I stick to these few tips and had a lot of success in retouching. Sometimes you have good retouching days, sometimes you have a bad retouching week. But rule number on is the most important rule, it’s about paying attention to the details.

Another situation, I give advice to people all the time about what they should do with their relationships and things like that, but when I have a problem and I start talking about it they somehow manage to turn it around and steer it in their favor. So I end up helping them solve another problem while mine is like hanging in purgatory.

And then there’s the issue about competition. I have never pegged myself as competition, but apparently I am to some people I know. I offer someone I know some help to study for physiology class and in turn they not only get my knowledge and all my old work (because that’s what friends do I suppose), but when I’m struggling with another subject, they just shut me out. Thanks guys.

the saltwater room—owl city

And these are the days music is the only thing that makes feel better.
I usually never really make my blogs personal, because I’ve known to rant in a really bad way and then other bloggers come around and bitch at me about why I bitch about things, so I try to limit personal blogs.

update: the reason behind this limiting personal blogs
I had the unfortunate incident when I used to blog on blogger.com back in the day, when I really took Paramour as a portfolio rather than a blog. So what happened was I blogged about this girl in my science lab who kept complaining about how she was doing bad in school. Well, I asked her how she was doing and how her grades were and she told me she had a 4.0 GPA. Well please remind me if I am wrong, but I think the last time I heard a 4.0 (that’s like getting all A’s/high marks, etc) was like the BEST thing ever. And the way she said it made me feel kind of angry because at that time I wasn’t doing very well in school, and hearing someone complain about having good grades is sort of a pet peeve. Long story short, I posted it on my blog and I got severely attacked by this random person. He called me selfish, and childish for complaining about it and all other crap stuff that I really didn’t bother to remember. And I realized whatever I post online is in fact visible to everyone on the universe. What he said obviously wasn’t nice at all, and that kind of made me mad again! The guy didn’t know my situation and he chose to just assume that I was being angry through other reasons, that’s what angered me. So to avoid unnecessary confrontation, I try not to write rants or vent too much. Because as much as I know my online friends support me and care for me, there are people who aren’t as nice or forgiving as they are.

But thanks for all your nice comments, though, they all really made my day

Thanks Bea for making me SOTM!! I’m so honored!

Here’s what it looks like from a person who is selling the same thing on Ebay.

^ they are selling it for $124!
Original retail price for a new dress is $278.
I must say $28 + a little wear and tear isn’t so bad. If my math is correct I saved about 90% off the original price.

I find it very simple and very vintage looking. Plus it’s not super short or too long. AND it’s made from cotton (only the most comfortable material on the planet)
I will find time to take pictures of me in it, because I love it!

Whee!

I created a very cute background for this layout too. It features Zooey Dechanel (500 Days of Summer) and Sam Worthington (Avatar) with lyrics by the Fray (All At Once).

Done with physics midterm! Off to watch some of my favorite shows! But first a warm shower because this weather has been very cold.

I don’t know about you, but I find $50 for a dress quite expensive. Imagine how I would feel about a $500 dress. Yeah, someone call 911. First, I think those bloggers must be quite well off if they can afford a lot of their designer clothes because every other post consists of some designer item like a dress, boots, shirt, pants, shorts, or skirts that are either made from YSL, Phillip Lim etc. Again, these things are not something the average person can afford. Well, I certainly can’t at least on my student allowance. I don’t have a job, since I’m a full time student. I’m hoping that the harder I hit the books (the harder I study) I’ll land myself a good job so maybe in the future I can afford some nice clothes (but even then I doubt I will blow it on a $1000 pair of Ann D boots). So of course, I’d be somewhat jealous of those bloggers wardrobe. These people do it for a living, so I understand how fashionably relevant their wardrobe must stay in order to stay on top of trends.

So I wonder, do you have to own designer/brand name clothes to be fashionable? I think having designer clothes gives you an advantage, but not always. Sometimes a knock off at a department store or chain store like Forever 21 can yield the same results for a lot less. But I mean who wouldn’t want something from Dior right? I have no time to carry a full fledged cheap and chic fashion blog with my study schedule. But I hope I’ll see something like that from someone else in the future. Someone who understands the predicament that fashion doesn’t always equate with designer.

Anyways this is Matt Bomer. He stars on the new USA series called White Collar, which I think is an enjoyable show, but I don’t love it exactly. I loved this photo of him though. He’s wearing everything I want a future boyfriend of mine to wear. They call this outfit “the prepster” look, which I can’t get enough of this style. Whoever styled him for this shoot needs to be given a raise! This is just your basic collage, and some repeating images, not too fancy.

I am a huge Joaquin Phoenix fan. But I don’t think I’m a fan of his pseudo-rapper phase, where his face looked like a bear (the look Brad Pitt is currently rocking..) I think this is a photo shoot from Walk The Line. Definitely prefer him clean shaven. Lighter colors go well with his dark pictures.

I happen to find January Jones very gorgeous, but this photo of her was terrible! It looked like someone filtered it with too much “noise”. So I tried to tone the skin down and smooth it out too. I had an original that I did, but I really didn’t like it, but the one you are seeing right now is the finished version and I’m still not satisfied. Boo, oh well.

My roommate and I were obsessing over Audrey Hepburn’s style this past week and made an oath to go vintage, in style of course. She’s such a classic beauty and style icon! You can’t argue with that. But I loved this photo of her, she’s so cute! Plus it was super easy to colorize. I mean it’s only black, white and skin tone. That’s 2 colors, and a shade color (i.e. skin color).

The rest are self-explanatory.

Also I believe Paramour’s like 4^th Anniversary is coming up in February 14^th (I don’t think it was the 14^th, but I think Valentine’s Day is a fitting day.) so I’m really excited for that

yeah, sorry the icons are half-ass too.

Oh there’s also a dutch forum post that apparently discusses how real and fake my photo manipulations are (fake, I would presume is the rightful choice, because simply they are), It’s what I get for googling my website on a whim! I lost the link, but I’m sure you can find out for yourself! It was quite a laugh, translating back and forth on Google Translator. I’m quite popular in the Netherlands, hahaha.

Thanks to Kyle for coding this amaze balls layout!

oh and some big news which you can find here.

“When I get big, I’m going where he’s going: South America. It’s like America… but south.”

But on a happier note, I finished training at the hospital a few hours ago. I have been assigned to the Mother Baby Unit at the hospital. It’s part of the hospital where the mother and newborn baby come to stay before the leave the hospital. Our department director took us around on a tour of the floor and I saw a baby in the nursery. (Don’t let movie nurseries fool you…the nursery I saw had it’s curtains closed all the way, so no one can look inside at the babies AND the floor is like electrically gated, only nurses, doctors, volunteers like us and the parents are allowed in!) The baby was soo tiny and so cute. I’m very excited to work on that floor soon, but it won’t be until February.

Now back to physics and hopefully some sleep tonight. LOL

{update} I forgot to mention my highlights of 2009.
Now that we are onto a new year, and new adventures, I’d thought I’d highlight the most memorable experience I had in 2009.

Going to see Blink-182 live in their reunion concert
People don’t believe this when I tell them, but blink-182 was the first band that got me into serious music. I mean I remember hearing this girl talk about their album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket in middle school and it didn’t make much sense to me. But then I heard I Miss You, and it was like suddenly this music concept revolutionized the way I looked at life (not that dramatic, but you get it, it was life changing. To this day I can’t live without it!) Of course there was the starter packs like Britney Spears, and I was just conforming to whatever my friends were listening too. Blink-182 opened its punk rock doors to me and I loved it. I remember being sad that I didn’t get to their final concert because they were announcing that they were breaking up (this jerk in my math class made fun of me because I didn’t see it and he did, to this day, he’s still an ass). But this year when they announced they were getting back for a reunion tour, one of my bffs and I got tickets to it! It was spectacular and they played all our favorite songs like I Miss You, Online Songs, etc. I lost my hearing for a while, got a splitting headache, took hundreds of pictures and videos, sang along to their songs, but it was so worth it. It was also my first real concert, and because Warped Tour doesn’t really count. Sadly, the downside was the awful smell of weed.

{blends}

{retouches}

{affiliates}
Welcome, Aenea @ Charming Vanity!!

{music}
1. Hard—Rihanna
2. Just Say Yes—Snow Patrol
3. Worn Me Down—Rachael Yamagata

I’m also in the process of getting a new layout up. So I won’t be adding people to my entourage just yet.

Anyways, it’s a new year. I don’t have many resolutions this year, but to keep at the old ones I’ve always had, like
1) get in shape (oh god, how those food feasts come back to haunt me in the form of FAT!)
2) go to the gym (or at least try to go once a year…haha)
3) COMMENT MY AFFIES/PARTNERS BACK!!!!
4) go to sleep early (yeah, obviously not happening tonight)
5) wash my car (okay, that’s more like something I need to do right now)

I started school on Monday and things seem to be going well right now. But it’s only the beginning of the quarter so I should probably assess my dislike or like for my classes later on. College hasn’t change much, but sometimes I feel like I don’t really go out and try to make friends with people on campus. Maybe people on campus intimidate me, or maybe I just don’t like the impression some of the students give when I see them around. Boy am I a glass half empty person! I think I’m this moody because I am exhausted and I’m suffering from a cold.

But on a happier note, one of my good friends is in two of my classes and another friend is my physics discussion class. So I pretty much have friends in all my classes so I won’t feel lonely. I’m glad I kept in touch with them. It’s hard to keep in touch with people you just meet for an instant in a lecture class! Because what if they never sit next to you again? What if their name escapes you? How can you put a name to a face? So there’s always that challenge. So I suggest you all make friends with your roommates because those people are people you see everyday and it’s easier for contact to maintained, but sometimes roommates aren’t such great people either. (See, there I did it again! Glass half empty!)

I also kind of miss running Love In Japan, but really I don’t have any time for it right now. Maybe in the summer, I’ll be back, so I left the website open, I might post a challenge randomly, so I would suggest you check around sometimes. But I don’t know yet. I will let you know if I do.

Anyways, a random question. Do you think college (or any form of seniority) has make you more mature? I know it sounds like it’s obvious, but maybe if you look deeper you’ll see that maybe you haven’t, or vice versa.

please visit Erised It’s new and insanely gorgeous! for blend challenge fans alike!

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it) and Happy Holidays!!

I’m so thankful for you guys! Thanks for a great year!
Enjoy your holiday, and eat lots of food! (You know I will) I hope you all get what you really want (or need)! You all deserve it

The Holiday Playlist for parties and such.
1) Last Christmas—Jimmy Eat World
2) Anna Maria (All We Need)—We The Kings
3) Earth Angel—Death Cab For Cutie
4) Get Behind Me, Santa—Sufjan Stevens
5) Island In The Sun—Weezer
6) You Make My Dreams—Hall & Oates
7) Gumption—Hans Zimmer
8) Haven’t Met You Yet—Michael Buble
9) Why Do You Let Me Stay Here—She & Him
10) All I Want For Christmas—Mariah Carey

Avatar was just that. Mainly it was about these natives called the Na’vi who are indigeous to a place called Pandora. The human race relies on an element that is prevalent in the Na’vi hometown (their community is located in a gigantic tree called home tree) for survival and financial stability. So Dr. Grace Augustine has designed these things called avatars, which is a clone mix of Na’vi and human. So basically it’s a human clone in the form of a Na’vi. These avatars share a genome with their respective human counterparts and that’s how they are controlled, by the minds of their human counterparts. By creating these avatars, humans can use them to become integrated into na’vi society so they can convince the Na’vi to help them. Well now comes along ex-marine Jake Sully who finds himself in charge of his deceased twin brother’s avatar (since they are identical twins they share the same genome) and he slowly befriends a Na’vi called Neytiri (who Jake eventually falls in love with, which is the only thing that made the movie kind of awkward for me because Jake’s in love with her, but she only sees him as his avatar). Passion, betrayal, devastation, death, mourning, epic fire showdown, epic fights ensue as Jake and his avatar manuever their way around pandora.

I loved it but it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

On my way to comment everyone’s blogs. Time to be a comment skank and be all over people’s comments.

Happy Holidays!

I truly believe that if I really work hard and become less distracted I think I can accomplish my goal. I haven’t really decided, but I plan on graduating first then applying to medical school, so I have a year to start filling out applications and preparing for interviews (if I do get any). I don’t know what it’s like for other countries, but in the US, medical school is extremely hard to get in. Even the smartest people have slim chances, so I want to be very prepared and a solid candidate.

But right now I’m going to say, EF YOU SCHOOL! I’m going to enjoy the rest of my break and start to studying for my winter courses (if I have time, or if I procrastinate..). I’m really excited to see all my high school friends, eat lots of food and be fat. I should really hit the gym starting next quarter.

Maybe I need a new year’s resolutions list, like vowing to go to the gym more, watch less television shows, don’t start new television shows, give up soda, etc, etc.

I know most of my posts are about school, sometimes I just really stress out (though people always say I never show it. Yeah, I can hide it well) and I blog about it. It makes me feel better when things are out in writing.

I saw five of my old high school friends this week. It’s been a whirlwind. I started out the week by going to the mall with two of my friends, one goes to UC Davis and the other goes to Stanford. Rounded out the rest of the week by watching Notes on a Scandal with my friend that’s a Berkeley, and Milk with my friend from UCSC, and lastly spent tonight at Tapioca Express (an Asian tea cafe) with my friend at Cornell. So good to see them! They’ve changed in some ways but to me they are still the same. It’s good to be back with people you know well.

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