Yo my dears, how is it going? Hope we all survive the weird May weather together (I have no idea about how snow in Finland going but in Hudson, WI, I don't think even this weather is normal for here) For me, it's been going pretty good. Last weeks of being a high schooler are getting chopped off nicely and finally, finally, I found where I am going next year! After so many months of porfolio-making, stressful processes, dead muses and several economic considerations later, we finally found one school which we thought to be the best and SUPER pumped to go already: Norwich University of the Arts It's a fairly small university, in small-medium size city, but almost all forums I saw said it was a good school and the teacher that I talked for the interview I did was super sweet and the school's way of teaching already appealed to be from the start- I'd say, it was the top of my England-list (aka, Plan B) Since American schools (Plan A) didn't really work, Norwich was the choice. I'm actually happy about my choice. Not only now I'm close to my family and friends... It's England, man! And Europe! All the history and resources. Even the idea is exciting! Also, it's closer to my dream destinations as well but we shall see about them *anxiously peeks at her wallet and upcoming schedules* Oh, did I also said I gotta study Animation?
ALSO, I woke an old beast about two weeks ago: Sampo, my first novel! Man, we finally get to discuss it with my main editor (my brother) and it's been good. As I re-read it after.. 1,5 years now? I now see more things, more things to improve and mistakes to clean. Yet, it's cool to see after many months, that I welcome my characters like old friends, still connected to them and understand them in a way. So odd yet so satisfying. I haven't gone to movies lately, being busy and such (Guardians of the Galaxy and Alien is still on my list!) but I still go on with my animu. Last season, ACCA ended bit better than it started yet still dull. Dunno, all the characters just sounded so bored and lifeless, and the ending was bit more too optimistic for my taste. I give it a solid 5 (rest is the gorgeous looking animation and probably the best opening of the season) not my ultimate recommendation. YOUJO SENKI PROMISED A SECOND SEASON, like oh my gods, this anime. I think Youjo Senki was the surprise of the season, a good one. So unexpected and brutal, cannot wait for the second season because I'M UP FOR MORE BADASS LITTLE GIRLS IN BRUTAL MILITARY SETTINGS. On the other note, Rakugo Shinjuu ended and... I was literally about to cry in the last 2 episodes. I came close. That closure of events, I mean, I expected most of it but... how can a series do it this gracefully? Man, I still get the feels when I remember it :'D
Other than that, I recently visited Minnesota History Center and gods wasn't that fun! So interactive and informative, fun to visit. There were exhibits on WWI in US perspective, The Great Depression & WWII generation, and kinda smallish one on Ojibwe Indians and "assimilation schools". The last one was pretty sad, how they snatched kids from their tribes put to schools to become "European". It was interesting to see WWI in US perspective too, as we don't really see/study that (since they came very late to the war) and WWII was pretty fun.
BUT, before that we had a gas leak at school, which distrupted a lot of stuff in the morning and (even after it got fixed and at least 4 companies made sure there wasn't anything else) many people left school. It was pretty relaxing, just doing small stuff an such. Made me realize that we need smaller classes xD AAAnd that concludes everything I have folks! Hope you are having a good day overall and last days of spring and school is treating you well. Stay safe and sound!
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Hello hello, ladies gentlemen and everyone in the spectrum. Welcome to my (long-overdue) Texas journey on Spring Break! *round of applause because girl, I'm hella slow* First things to say, I really enjoyed this travel to Texas with my host-family. Not only it was a nice bonding experience, but also a lot more... 'original' than going to New York or Miami like many other tourists do. Like seriously, which non-American tourist would think of going to Texas? It's like going to Paris and saying you saw all of Europe (still a utter disappointment for me, Paris. Go to Budapest, it's cheaper and more fullfilling! Or St. Petersburg, go cry from her prettiness. Srsly) Anyhow anyhow, enough venting! Let's beginnn~ The trip was made by my host-mother, two host-siblings and I, and we actually drove our van all the way down to Del Rio. It was an approximately 15 hour drive, with a break in Wichita, Kansas on both going and coming back. Because dang, 7-8 hour drives are hard O_O
We stayed with my host-parents' cousin in Del Rio. As being close to the border, you can feel the Mexican influence around, with the cool-beans Mexican restaurant and home styles. The weather was of course a lot nicer than our Wisconsinite home (3-hours to the Canadian border btw) First day was kind of exploring the town type of deal; walk in the park, visiting the man-made Del Rio lake, hunt for some Mexican candy on the market, taking selfies by the border and such. Our first sightseeing trip outside of the city was to Caverns of Sonora, 2 hours north of Del Rio. It's a long cave system made out of calcite crystals, found accidently by.. a dog, basically. And of course, people decided to raid the cave for a bit until government heard the news and said "Nay, people, we gotta save our natural beauties!" and turned the cave into a natural landmark. The photos here are pretty crap (due to the lack of proper light and guess who doesn't have a proper camera?) and is nothing close to the actual thing. It's a literal crystal palace, truly magical. Yet, the journey had to cut bit shorted since one of the elder ladies in the group just got too tired, thus we made a shortcut to exit. From the small shop there, I bought a whistle from caribou antler. Works awesome with dogs (Tried and true) and quality surprise value. Our second stop was to probably my favourite spot on the journey- Seminole Canyon. This place was named after the Seminole Negro Scouts. These guys were a group African-American who ran away from slavery and met with the Native Americans, who became best buds, married and learnt their customs. Later, they served the army to help with the area during Texan-Indian War, since they knew techniques and language of the people.
There's a good reason why the choose this location- the cave faces the east, getting all the warmth in the morning but in the afternoon, it's away from the sun since it's closed on top- super genius! These paintings are about 4000 years old and made by... some people. The thing is, we still don't know who made them. Researchers asked the local Native tribes such as Apache and Comanches but they all said "Bro, we have no idea too, these are not our styles." So, there's not much known about their meanings too. BUT, they did some DNA analysis on a few bones found there and tried to connect with an indigenous group of people in Northern Mexico. They called one of their elders, and the elder actually seemed to recognize the paintings. After a shock wave, he told a story of Transformation and Creation of the World, but suddenly stopped talking- because the mentioned the name of several of their gods and uttering the name of gods demanded sacrifices. Interesting story to me but for of course, research still goes on. I honestly loved this place a lot more than anywhere in the trip. Our guide for the Canyon was amazing and really seemed to enjoy his job, telling us all about the Canyon and the paintings. I loved to listen these stories and hear the wisdom of the people who lived there. Also, walking around felt so good after so many months of just going around in a car! NOW, if you thought our trip was over now, you are awfully mistaken. After we enjoyed our time in Del Rio, we stopped at two big places in Texas: San Antonio and *drumrolls* Austin. Honestly, I loved San Antonio a lot more than Austin, although is the capital and it a pretty cool looking city. The River Walk was absolutely beautiful (even in pretty rainy weather) and to me, it was so different than what I'd think of Texas! So, San Antonio was built by Spanish immigrants in 1691, near by the river by the same name. But, around 1920s and 1930s, after a big flood in San Antonio River, the city decided to built a channel to control the water and thus, River Walk came up. Over the years, it saw expansions and today, it's a popular recreation, touristy place with cafes, restaurants and small shops. As I mentioned, San Antonio is a pretty old city- and has an important part in history too. You probably heard Texans scream "Remember the Alamo!" once or twice for... dunno what. I heard it once and honestly, I (obviously) didn't know what it is. But here we are! Ladies, gents and people around the spectrum, the Alamo. "....OK Öykü/Uni, cool photo bro. But what's all this mean? Why the hell Alamo is even significant? All I see is a dang old church-building thing!" Well, my dears, that's why we travel. Long story short, in 1836 during the Texan Revolution when Texans were saying "Nein!" to the Mexican occupation (note that Texas was a part of Mexico during this time), people in Alamo decided to revolt against the Mexican government. Of course, Mexican president sent an army on the Alamo's defenders and killed all of them in the siege they've put. Later, with the news spread, Texan Army and many Americans were shocked and angered by this slaughter and marched to Texas to Mexican Army. And that was when the famous cry, "Remember the Alamo!" was sang during the last battle, which ended the Revolution with Texan victory and now, Texas is a part of US. This building you see here, is were the siege has happened and Texan revolters used as a base. After going around and learning about the Alamo and a last peek to the beautiful River Walk, we made our way to our last stop, Austin the state capital. Austin was... well, your classical big city. it was similar to many big cities in US I've seen so far tbh. BUT, there was indeed some special stuff that made it bit more special- like BATS. No kidding! Austin is built next to Colorado River and thus have many bridges that connect two sides of the city. One of them, the Congress Bridge, has a huge bat colony living under the bridge. And almost every night with the arrival of spring, the bat colony comes up after the sunset to hunt for some bugs and bites. It was a magnificent view! I only took one photo from there because I was too busy marvelling at the view :'D
And after that, we went back home, with a night-break in Wichita, Kansas again.
Long story short, it was a cool journey to see such a different part of US and learn about some US history. I also liked to bond with the host family and have adventures with them. I also get to go back to do some arting and heal my artist depression for the last 3-4 months prior to the trip. AND, I read and finished reading Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and... bro... what an amazing book. I shall buy the second one and read it sometime (my book list has gone up crazy lately!! So, that's all folks! This was my Texan adventure. Hope you'll have a good day full of adventures or simple joys (such as Eurovision, heheyy) Have a great day and keep rocking \m/
Meanwhile, I kinda changed apps for writing. For those who don't know, I'm more of a digital writer, using word-processing programs to write. One, I have terrible handwriting. Second, my process is super messy. I cross, rewrite, change orders of sentences all the time and making it digitally is cleaner and easier to organize. One catch is that it's not all on the computer. In fact, it's mostly on my phone! I was using OneNote to type anything that came to my mind (ideas to passages) on the way (because inspiration strikes me sudden- that's why I carry so many notebooks everywhere xD) Of course, later I synchronise the OneNote drafts to computer, while doing some editing on stuff I missed/awful wordings/etc. Lately OneNote was keep crashing and thus, didn't know what to do (because I have so many notes and drafts there!) But, I realized Google Docs have a mobile app and tried it. *It works wondrous. Pretty small and you can make chosen documents work offline, to be synchronised once you open up the Wifi. So, in case you wanna do some writing without carrying bulky laptops (like mine. Not complaining or so, it's a nice computer nevertheless) Google Docs looks nice so far* Other than that, I continue being a normal nerd. I still do research, continue with my anime (holy crap, we passed mid-season already!) and recently finished Name of the Wind (it just. Kept. Getting. Better. I'M HAVING POST-GOOD BOOK DEPRESSION HERE) while going to my movies.
Other than that, I recently started learning Finnish!! Holy crap, I finally motivated myself to push and start learning properly. I am still a bit rookie, learning basic grammar and trying to build up some vocab as well. It's been fun so far, I started making some simple sentences and dialogues (Not super long and grammatically perfect but practice makes it perfect, ey?) So, that's all for now folks! I just came back from Texas for Spring Break with my host family and will probably write a post about the trip sometime. Cannot wait to share the adventure with you guys!
Have a good day and stay awesome people \m/ No worries, it's me. Alive and mostly well. I'm perfectly aware of the fact that I didn't write here since... forever. Reasons being, nothing much crazy happened. I literally got trapped in the house doing nothing but other school works and going crazy with college apps. Combined with some host-family issues and vicious false advertisement (not gonna write it here but all you need to know, is that brainwashing comes in angel forms, that's what I saw) it was a rough few weeks. Now I'm in my next host family (amazing people btw) and finally settled down with most of my college apps. Only crazy things happened in that period was (other than Trump's election); a basketball game, visits to Science Museum and Russian Arts Center and a few cool restaurants around Twin Cities- all with other people. Oh, and I'm 18 now, an official adult. Yeey? Unfortunately, my art and writing suffered through the most. I can't imagine what would I've do if I didn't participated in the Writing club. My muse feels totally killed. I'm just left with vague storylines and small paragraphs or sentences, with nothing to push it forward. Not even "Go with the flow, rest comes naturally!!1!" thing works. I tried and it was a disaster. I hate to say but writer's block is too real this time, it's almost scary. I am also aware that I'm not much active on Instagram right now (not even talking about dA, urgh) I continue with my sketchbook adventures but I don't think they are worth showing. Honestly, I'm having an overall crisis with my art and needs a lot of time and work to break unfortunately. Oh well, I think it's the obligatory problem of being a storyteller
Other than that, what am I doing other than being a giant nerd depressed about her art? Well, just doing what a nerd does for fun: Movies, books, comics and anime! (I am trying on have a life, I swear!) Dr. Strange had disappointed me a bit. Not to disband it totally, it was a very good movie. Dr. Strange is one of my favourite comicbook characters and definitely a lot different than a lot of superheros we have. When they announced it with the premise "Fantasia of Marvel", I flipped out in excitement. Fantasia of Marvel, do you know what that means?! More artsy, more risks, bit darker but still Marvel but even more awesome! It came out to be a magical version of Iron Man which was... Just disappointing. Fun but lacking I've been waiting for Rogue One for a long time and holy crap, it paid! It. Was. Amazing. I think it was the perfect movie for Star Wars universe with all the gritty, dark atmosphere and risks it took (gotta keep this spoiler-free- go see it yourself!) It made me realize that this was the type of movies that Star Wars need: Stories from other parts of the Universe, not only Skywalker story. Because let's be honest: Skywalker legacy is suffering and if you at least take a peek at (now-banished) Expanded Universe/EU, it's like the less interesting story compared to others. Unfortunately EU is gone, time to write another good one, means creativity and effort! Sounds scary, right? *aggressively looks at Hollywood* Many of you who might be following me for a time, know that I'm more of a indie comic gal. I just think that indies have more interesting stories, characters and even art These days, beside Stand Still Stay Silent by one of my favourite artists Minna Sundberg, I'm usually on Tapastic. It is a mobile app/desktop site where you can read comics or even now, novels. It's kinda turning into the Wattpad of comics for me (people who've seen Wattpad knows what I'm talking about) so you really have to dig deep to find good stuff. But oh man, doesn't it pay well! My favourites so far are Bookwyrms, Grassblades, A Matter of Life and Death and as the only novel, Wolf Winter. Cool art, nice relations and mystery, all my jam~
I have 3 animes I'm watching this season. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu has a 2nd season so it was inevitable. Rakugo is basically a one-man storytelling art, equivalent with Turkish meddah, which is one of aspects that got my attention. The characters are lovable and art is beautiful. I know it might be boring for some people (especially in the actual rakugo parts) but it's worth a try.
New animes that I watch are ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka and Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil. My starting premises were very different while I was checking them on Livechart and here is why: ACCA is a political drama about our protagonist Jean accused for a coup against the government and (of course) plot is thicker than that. I thought it might be exciting with loads twists and badass one-liners but even after 6th episode, I feel like nothing much is happening and even characters seems so... bored. It's disappointing man. Where is my cliffhanger revelations and badassery :( Youjo Senki is about a little girl, reincarnated from a unemphatic businessman, who... basically blasts people in a very-WWII-but-definitely-not-WWII setting. Sounds like a perfect guilty-pleasure anime, right? I. Was. Wrong. On episodes 2 and 3, the story gets a very interesting turn and plot thickens. A LOT. I- I didn't expected this. Came for the booms, stayed for the plot. That's what it is. (Now y'all can go and watch it) Long story short, pretty empty yet surprising season so far. We are already half way through so, I don't want to have a final verdict yet. Endings can change everything! So, that's all folks! I might give a small throughout post for where I went so far (it's an awfully small list but anyway) but no promises atm. Oh well, I will try my best as I go out and do more than I used to at the new house. Fingers crossed. Take care people and keep rocking \m/ Yep, it's been a month since I started this adventure. I'm finally on your average student track, rolling with quizzes and homeworks and such. It's going fine for now, hopefully it'll continue like that without me exploding somewhere in college admission period (which is between *glup* November-February.......) Speaking of getting on track, I'm finally getting back to my sketchbook/digital art as well. I unfortunately kinda skipped on drawing properly on Bünyamin (name of my current sketchbook) this month and I always had a fear that I might get rusty (╯°□°)╯But now I shove off the dust and preparing myself for the upcoming Inktober! :D (For those who don't know: Inktober is a popular event among artists where you do a inked drawing, big or small, for every day of October. It's bit challenging but it's super fun and it improves you a lot!)
So other than me being just.. me, I also did some rather social stuff. Like going to cinema with my brother! We finally had the chance to see Kubo and the Two Strings and everything holy and sacred, wasn't that awesome! It was such a beautiful film- and a dramatic story! I felt very emotional at some point, which I usually never do in films (with very few special exceptions) Not only they made such a nice storyline, they also added some pretty mature elements and messages here and there- which is actually very smart for a so-called children's movie! (and whoever calls animation movies as children's movies, you don't deserve nice things)
It also makes so happy that there are still film studios that still write original stories (which is apparently 'risky' in today's entertainment society) and make films with traditional handmade puppets. Just as Chris Stuckmann (one of my favourite movie critic) said, if Laika Studios can continue this sort of quality in their next movies, they can be the next generation Ghibli Studios- and I really dig that idea. They really need support though, like actual financial support from tickets and DVDs. So, my suggestion is: If it's still available on cinema, go see it. If not, wait for DVDs and buy it. Although I might not be the right person to say but, this is not a movie that should be downloaded in my opinion So, that was my first month so far. How was you week? Hope you are all doing good! See ya soon (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Aww yeah, finally writing here! The school was getting in the way and finally bundled up a few words to tell about my experience so far. So, sit down in your chair, have a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy your stay First, for those who have no idea who I am; My name is Öykü Su (also known as Unistonen in interwebs) I'm from Turkey but currently living in Wisconsin as an exchange student in my senior year. In this website, you can peek over more about me but for now, I'll have a couple of words about my journey So basically my mom one day said "Honey there's this exchange program that enables you to go somewhere for a year, are you up?" I basically said "Yeah, let's do it!" So, I finished up the junior year, did a couple of preparations for my portfolio (since I wanna be an art student) and prepared to go to the free land of 'murica (tho, that visa waiting and only having to give 2 pages from 100+ pages. At least take a look at my school transcript, eh?) Of course, the leaving was a little emotional for me ("What did I tell you about crying, silly?!" - My brother helping me to calm down on phone) but at the end, I was ok and I was the real world version of Bilbo Baggins at that point Well, of course it wasn't the most comfy journey of all. The United Airlines planes were super cold (I thought I was losing my toes at some point) the sleeping was a little tricky, THE PASSPORT AND CUSTOMS (and I thought Russian passport control was scary, gods!) gates at obscure places (I thought the halls in Washington was neverending and hopping on a train in Munich was pretty interesting) but after 21 hours of journey, I was finally with my host-family! So, first 2 weeks were pretty crazy with going... almost everywhere in the city! The Minnesota State Fair (10-20 mins away from us) was HUGE with all the people (even bigger than in Istanbul like WOAH) and deep fried, super sweet food in big portions (gotta talk about those in a minute) I been in most of the parks like Prospect, Birkmose and Willow River- All super pretty!
Also, I got to meet with other fellow exchangers this weekend! It was pretty sweet, so many awesome people from all around the world! And exchanging a LOT of pins! (I actually run out of pins at some point. Hopefully I still have some more XD) So, here are funny/might be interesting things about my stay so far, small culture shocks you might call:
That's all for now folks! It was a pretty loaded 2,5 weeks in America! Hope I can write more frequently in here, probably with more 'normal' stuff like school stuffs with small talks and just me geeking on folklore stuffs, music and movies coming up in general. Hope you'll be enjoying too. See ya all!
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"Not all those who wander are lost."
- J.R.R. Tolkien |