TiLT (Part 2): Giving Thanks For...

• Having amazing friends who enjoy my presence and are willing to pick me up when I'm not doing so well. (This was the day that I played improv and a random girl told me I was a "bad partner". Conclusion: I'm not going to play improv for a while.)
• Having an awesome family that's going to drive down to see me tomorrow. I haven't seen them in ages. It will be nice. (I'm only saying this because they read this blog... JUST KIDDING! Sort of. :P)
• Having festive roommates who decorate our room for Christmas a month early.
• The wonderful, slightly chilly weather that has finally graced Los Angeles.
• The extra days to catch up on homework... I mean...

I'm just--- really thankful. In general. To life, for having worked things out in such a way that I can for once be content and not extremely anxious about things going on. I would say more but I only had a chance to write this at 4 in the morning, so my brain is pretty darn kaput. Happy Thanksgiving!
<3 Linda

Shout-Out: Happy Birthday!

I hadn't had the chance to hop onto the computer yesterday, which was my roommate's birthday! She was my roommate last year as well. We're so different but we get along, I would say. I am so happy I got to know her. :)

Happy Birthday, Kristina!

Her boyfriend came over and they were being cute together. We went to have a birthday dinner at Noodle World (she loves Asian food...). A bowl of rice and pho later, we emerged with happy hearts. I got her some chocolate dipped strawberries as well, so I hope she liked that! I will be posting up her birthday card soon, for those of you who like printables. I didn't get a chance to print it out, so it's going to be a late birthday card from me... Oops. I finished it on time though! It's the thought that counts!
<3 Linda

Not Food for Thought, Just Food

When I blogged about "pigging out on Pizookies with a friend", a lot of you asked me what a Pizookie was. I didn't realize it was such an unknown dessert! Basically it's exclusive to BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse; based on this map it looks like they don't exist in Midwestern states. They give you ice cream and a warm cookie in a tin, and you pour the ice cream on top so that it has that perfect gooey hot and cold combination of dessert goodness in your mouth. They make the best cream soda as well, which I of course indulge in whenever I'm not gorging on Pizookies.... I digress. I found a few pictures I took a couple of weeks ago when I went with a friend to go eat dinner. She owed me money so she decided to slowly pay me back in dessert (Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We will see.)

I haven't been having the best quarter. Whenever this happens, I find myself "self-loving" a bit too much to make up for it, and this always takes the form of impulse buys in food. When my roommate and I trekked into Santa Monica to peruse stores, we came across a crepe place and of course, I had to have one. Did we miss our bus because I had to have one? Yes. Do I regret anything? Of course not!

And the worst part? This wasn't the first time I splurged on a crepe in that cafe. They have the best marketing strategy ever: Put tons of Nutella cans in the window so that you start to drool over the thought of a hot Nutella crepe with fresh strawberries. Sigh... I really need to learn to control myself, food-wise! Comfort food is the best food though, I have to admit. Haha!

<3 Linda
PS. Does anyone know how to insert GIFs into a post? I tried uploading it onto Flickr to get it on here but it was too large, and it's difficult to resize a GIF. Let me know, I had been so excited for it!

An Extremely Late Halloween

I don't quite want to post photos from the ridiculously amazing show my theater company just had because I feel like it would be overkill, but I do want to catch up with posting a lot of pictures that have been floating around on my desktop with no purpose. This set is from around Halloween.

My friends Yalda and Ivy are my two other "Marketeers", or Marketing Directors in the group, so we caught dinner. (As for the picture, there's only so much you can do to light up a dimly lit photo... my apologies). After that, we headed to the nearest Halloween store to play around with the crazy things you can find there.

 She had been happy to take a photo...

Until she saw the creepy clown in the background.

 Real or fake, rats have never scared me.

 Ladies and gents, I present to you my future as a cat lady.

Marketeers fo' lyfe. Or rather till the end of the year. Haha!

So many more pictures to post... but I'm going to try to keep it organized, so I'll end here. Overall it was a great date with good friends! There's nothing better.

<3 Linda

Yesterday, at 11:11...

I wished for happiness.

<3 Linda

Bamboozled: Semi-Portraits?

Hello everyone! I've been so busy making programs for my theater group that I haven't been able to do any actual drawing for the blog! I can't wait to show you the work I've done on it though... But I will have to wait until it's actually printed and given out at show. I don't want to ruin the surprises for anyone who is in the group who reads this! I must say, it was quite the challenge to do about 8 pages worth of design in one day, but we managed it and I am so proud.

For today, I wanted to post a printable for you, but once I took my tablet to the lounge, everyone wanted me to draw pictures of them! Here are two of them, using Corel Painter.

Clearly, this is not how either of them look in real life. Haha! Both of them wanted me to draw them as historical figures... On top is "Lewis the Dashing" and on the bottom is "King Vivek the Jolly". It wasn't bad for a speed drawing, but I can definitely do better... they look so cartoon-y, like a child drew it! And yes, there are some really random objects in the background, as per their request.  I love how they look, just because I know how silly these guys are.

Expect a printable or something of the sort from me by the end of the week!

<3 Linda

Happy Halloween!

Sorry I've been so M.I.A all weekend! I've been struggling to keep up with everything from academics to social responsibilities. I cannot wait until two weeks from now, when it's all over! I'll still have finals, but not as much of anything else.

Since I haven't been able to properly post, I decided to humor you all with this photo of my roommate and I. She's a trophy wife (with no one to be the other half as the husband--- which basically meant she got hit on all night. Hilarious but terrible at the same time... and oh-so awkward for myself!) and I am a mime. I was initially supposed to be The Riddler, and I had my outfit (almost) ready as well. However, my friends and I all had to cancel meeting up and gallivanting around town in villainous costumes because we accidentally put the wrong times on our theatre show flyers. This basically means we ended up sitting and sticking labels on flyers all night instead! It wasn't that bad, really. I find that I'm willing to do almost anything when I care about it, and I'm not stressed either.

Hilights from this weekend:

• Hot weather... I love L.A.!
• Studying for midterms... still.
• Wearing long, bulky over the knee socks! I am so addicted.
• Local concert sessions
• My last-minute mime outfit: A dress (rolled up), my roommate's vest, shorts, long socks (again!), a bowler, and gloves... along with some brilliant and slightly scary makeup! Oh how I love playing dress up. Pretending to be someone other than myself is so fascinating to me.
• Getting closer to people by seeing them more often... On Friday, my friend Ivy and I got together and basically just hung out, talked, and pigged out on Pizookies (what's new? This has turned into our tradition).
• Tech day from 12PM to 10 PM with few breaks. It was tiring but I feel much more prepared to go out there and make myself vulnerable.... It may sound odd, but I've always been more scared of being funny than being emotional-- which is exactly the reason why I auditioned for the role that I did. I still shake behind the scenes but I know it's going to make me a better person, so I'm proud of myself!
• Having people ask me to teach them how to crochet. I'm so excited about this! It makes me feel like I actually know how to do something well.

<3 Linda

What I've Been Up To

Warning! This is an extremely old photo due to my camera's temporary death.

On Thursday, my friend Sarah and I did a little bit of thrifting in a new store, came back to my place and had a sleepover. We went through all of my old things that had been packed away, (tried to) DIY, did tarot readings for each other, and even made vegan cupcakes that tasted horrible. We ended up talking through the night, and woke up the next morning super tired. We attempted to read, watched Project Runway wrapped in blankets and went to a lake in our city that we had both never visited before. It was nice getting our feet wet in the burning sun! Today was particularly fierce. Finally we finished it off with a late lunch and a trip through the hills. After that, my other plans got cancelled, so I stayed in and continued to read while drinking tea and enjoying biscuits instead. I'd say that made for a nice day! I like doing things with friends, versus the normal "what's on TV?" funk that a lot of people fall into.

I ended up writing a lot about friendship, actually, but I've cut it into different posts so that it's not too long. Excited for the weekend since I'm visiting a flea market tomorrow!
<3 Linda