Summer is Here

Long time no post, again. Oh well, never was a frequent poster here. And now I have a Tumblr blog as well, so I've been posting there a lot lately and not here.

I can hardly believe it's July already (Happy July 4th btw to every American reading this!). Not a lot has happened since I've been out of school. I've mostly just been working a lot. I finally did start my summer writing practice, with mixed results. I went to Legoland for the first time. I've been attending the CWCW summer workshops on Tuesdays, though at the moment I've just been sharing old stuff. Other than that, I've mostly been vegging.

I have been thinking about the CWCW. I think I may move on from them when the summer is over. Considering I'm a CSUSM alum now, and the CWCW is a school group, I'm going to have to move on from them eventually. I do enjoy having a way to get feedback, and lately it's been my only way to hang out with my friend Jessica, who is also in the group. But eventually, I'll have to move on.

Future summer plans: at the end of July, my family is going to go stay in a cabin like 14 hours north of us for a week. That should be awesome. It'll be nice to get away. I may take this class at the church I've been going to with my parents, a class about S.H.A.P.E. (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Ability, Personality, Experiences), which starts sometime soon. And I may take a conversation class from the local Alliance Française in August -- I just took their online placement test to determine my level of French ability, and they got back to me about possibly taking classes. Since I'd said in my info (submitted with the placement test) that I wanted to work on my speaking primarily, I think that is why they suggested a conversation class. Because I can read and write French well, but my speaking and pronunciation fluency needs help because I took French in a mostly non-immersion environment. I took the test for B1 level ("I took French for anywhere between 4 and 10 years in school and managed to practice on and off until now (through reading, travels, classes, work assignments...) and/or In the recent past, I took French lessons for more than 3 years and less than 4 years with good results , then ..."), which seemed to best describe my level of knowledge. Hopefully, I can work on my fluency and get my proficiency certified, so that I can prove a certain level of proficiency on my résumé.

And - once again - I do want to work on my websites. It's just been put on the back burner at the moment. I have been thinking about it though, and this is what I'm thinking:

• My main domain will be starry-dreamer.net. The homepage for this will just be a Flash interface/portal, similar to this one website I saw once that did that. I might have to figure out how to make a version that would work if you didn't have Flash (like on the iPod/iPhone), that is, if I think it's really worth it. I'll look into it. Anyway, this domain would be the one for my sites that don't really need their own domains, like fanlistings. The sites under this domain would be:
• Capture On!, my planned fanlisting for the Pokémon Ranger video game series. Now that the series has three games, I can do a "series" fanlisting for it (that's TFL rules).
• Liquid Mercury, the revival of my old Sailor Mercury fansite
• Ayeka's Palace, a revival of my old Ayeka fansite, extending from the version created for my Writing to be Heard project
• The revived LAR Productions website, which I may remake via WordPress or Joomla.
• Any other fanlistings I decide to create or revive, such as Memory of Time, my old Fancy Lala fanlisting
• A possible revival of pctroupe.net, my old PotterCast Acting Troupe fansite, since a member of the Troupe recently e-mailed me mentioning how much the troupe loves the fact that there was a fansite for them. (I'm waiting to hear back from this person before I revive it).
• My writing website will remain at the same URL but I intend to update it not only content-wise but also in terms of looks as my web design abilities improve.
• Myu Corner will also remain at the same URL but will get overhauled in terms of site design as my abilities improve. I'm going to try to re-determine the focus I want for the site and probably try to watch all the musicals before continuing with it.
• Sparkle Moon, my planned PGSM fansite, will continue as planned. I think I will get the transcripts - the main focus of the site - done first and then worry about the rest of the content. Since I just bought the PGSM Memorial Book off of Ruth from Miss Dream, I should have a great start in the picture department. I may also buy the new 14-disc DVD boxset of PGSM that was announced recently; I'm just not sure I can afford it, even with Amazon Japan's 27% discount on pre-orders (it comes out in September). Brad from Moonkitty.net assures me that it is a great savings compared to getting all 15 PGSM DVDs (12 regular DVDs, Special Act, Act Zero, and Kirari Super Live) individually, since each DVD individually retails for like $60 US, whereas the boxset is, with the discount, about $285 US, not including shipping and the about $70 US in import tax that I'd have to pay. So it's about $355 with import tax plus about $25 for shipping and a handling fee, so about $380. Ouch. However, the individual DVDs, which run about $60 US apiece (which is WAY too expensive for a DVD) would go for about $900 altogether. So I just don't know. It may not be worth it.
• Anime/manga guide site - This was originally going to be under my Starry Dreamer domain, but after discussion with a couple Miss Dream people it makes more sense to give it its own domain. Also per their advice, I'm going to make it a wiki to allow for an easy community-editing setup, which is what I'd like for this site since it's impossible for one person to watch all the anime and read all the manga that is out there. I haven't come up with a name for the site yet (WindKnightFuu's Anime and Manga Guides is its temp title). All I really know is that for the anime sections there will be episode and movie guides and seiyuu information, and for the manga sections there will be series overviews and writer and illustrator info. I'm not sure whether to do chapter summaries (the equivalent of the episode summaries in the anime section) because I'm not sure how to do that without giving away spoilers. And I want the site to be as spoiler-free as possible, since I've spoiled myself many a time looking up series on Wikipedia. The idea behind the site is to provide a "one stop shop" site where people can find info on many different anime and manga series - especially newcomers to anime and manga. I've found out about many series just by browsing Wikipedia myself, so I want to provide that sort of experience to others. I'll have to come up with templates for everything as well. I'm considering getting some practice on some of the many fan wikis for different series before I start mine, to get a hang for how it works.

I've decided to start anew with my main YouTube account as well, primarily because making a new account is the only way you can change your username. My current main account, Bgirldotnet, is named for my old personal domain (bibliophilegirl.net/bibliogirl.net), which no longer exists, so I don't want to use that name anymore. I also want to start new and get back to what got me into video-making back in 2005. I have a long list of videos lined up to make, primarily new ones though there are some re-makes on the list, like my Sailor Moon/Harry Potter fan trailers. After much agonizing, I finally came up with a new username today: LitTechGirl (from the fact that I'm a girl and I like literature and technology). According to namechk.com, it's available. (Namechk is an awesome site that lets you check the availability of a username across hundreds of popular sites). I'm going to make some videos before I officially open it, though, and also utilize the strategies mentioned in an article that I randomly came across which lists 8 simple ways to improve your YouTube channel. (For instance, according to that article, you can make your own header even if you aren't a YouTube Partner). My other two accounts, my solo fandub channel WindKnightFuu and my group fandub channel imagodeidubs, will stay intact, though I will definitely follow those "8 Simple ways" with them too. I'm also going to try to learn new programs, like Sony Vegas, a popular program among YouTubers at the moment (and which thoroughly confused me when I tried to use it before), as well as put my new skills in Flash to good use. Also, I'm rather interested in trying out the programs listed at www.youtube.com/create.

So, it seems like I have a good game plan for my websites and such. Finally! Praise God!

In other news, I recently bought a few Sailor Moon items from my friend Ruth at Miss Dream! They arrived on Saturday. The items are: the PGSM Memorial Book (a long-time want of mine), a shitajiki (a.k.a. "pencil board" - you put it under a sheet of paper when you need something to write on or to avoid writing on the pages below), and the CD single for one of my favorite Sailor Moon songs, "Watashi-tachi ni Naritakute" (the first ending to the fourth season, SuperS). My meager Sailor Moon collection is growing! Since my initial post about my Sailor Moon collection, I've acquired a few more things. I bought six cool SuperS magnets at Animé Los Angeles, one for each senshi in SuperS (though the one I got for Chibimoon is of her and Moon transforming), as well as a couple Sailor Moon pins from an artist in the Artist's Alley (Sailors Mercury and Pluto). I bought three books off Amazon - Sailor Moon: Friends and Foes, Sailor Moon Role-Playing Guide and Resource Book and Meet Sailor Mercury: Ice - all of which are English-made and are pretty good (though the Friends and Foes book was underwhelming info-wise but has nice pictures). Last Friday, I bought a couple more pins at the county fair, from the same booth where I got the Sailor Moon pin and the 12" doll - one of Mercury and one of Chibiusa. (I think I bought other pins with the initial Moon pin - I know I got a Totoro pin and one other pin, which may have been of Sailor Venus). And now I have the stuff I bought from Ruth. I hoped to get some stuff at Comic-Con this year, but I wasn't able to get a ticket so I can't go. Pooh. I also pre-ordered all of the new Sailor Moon English manga that is available for pre-order, which I should start getting in September.

Oh yeah, did I mention that before? I don't think so. The Sailor Moon manga is getting re-released in the U.S.! Starting in September. And it's being released by Kodansha USA, the US arm of the manga's original Japanese publisher, and headed up by the person who was head of Nakayoshi, a popular Japanese manga serial magazine, when Sailor Moon was originally being serialized in it in the '90's! Plus there's going to be translation notes and lots of other good stuff. I'm looking forward to it. AND....THEY'RE ALSO RELEASING CODENAME: SAILOR V!!! That came as a huge surprise! Unlike the regular Sailor Moon manga, Codename: Sailor V, the sort of "prequel" to Sailor Moon, has never been officially released in English in ANY English-speaking country. So now I'll have 2 nice English versions (the mangas being released are the 2003 "Revision" versions, in which Sailor V was condensed from three volumes to two) to go with my 3 French volumes. Sweet.

Anyway, I've pre-ordered the four volumes of the Sailor Moon manga currently available for pre-order, so I should be set on those till March 2012. I also pre-ordered the two Sailor V volumes already. I'm SO looking forward to having them!!

Well, it's late; I better go to bed. I have today off again (I had yesterday off too this week cause of the holiday) but I want to get up early because I was thinking I'd like to go to Disneyland this week (particularly California Adventure since I barely got to see that last time) and I want to go to my union's office and buy a Park Hopper there (where I can get it cheapest). I'm enjoying having the time to make little day trips! Though there are probably better uses of my time.

Good night!