Weekend Wrap-Up

I feel more exhausted after a four day weekend than I do after most regular two-day weekends. Maybe it's because this weekend was insanely busy. Not only because I got to see two amazing bands, Delta Rae on Thursday and American Aquarium on Friday, but my little brother was in town to see my dance recital!

Sadly, this is the only picture I have from Delta Rae since Verizon doesn't have any service in the Kessler. Lame.

Saturday morning, after spending the night drinking with the guys from American Aquarium, we picked up my little brother from the airport. And by "Saturday morning" I mean 2:00 in the morning. Meaning we didn't get home until three and didn't finally fall asleep until four. I'm getting too old to have nights like that and then be expected to dance for seven hours. Since it was the day before the recital, I knew I had to just suck it up and struggle through the first few hours until I got the alcohol out of my system.

Mending pointe shoes in between classes

After dance, we waited for our foster dog Parker to meet his potential new family. We've only had Parker for three weeks, two of those he wasn't even eligible for adoption because he was still recovering from getting fixed. The couple saw a picture of Parker and immediately new he would make a perfect addition to their family and submitted their application the day he was made available for adoption. Parker's new family did their research because they realized that Austin went to college with the brother of Parker's new dad! What a small world! It was bittersweet to see him go, but I'm glad that he has a home. And it is sad to think that this floppy, sweet dog wouldn't have had a home if we hadn't wanted to foster him.

Parker is living the dream life 

After we said our final goodbyes to Parker and his family, I dragged Austin to see the new Star Trek movie (which is awesome, btw) because my brother and I are nerds and wanted to see it. There weren't any problems with the theatre like there was when we went to see Iron Man 3, thank god. IF you haven't seen Star Trek: Into Darkness yet, you definitely should. Even people, like Austin, that never got into Star Trek enjoyed it. I am still a bit perturbed by the fact that these movies just threw out 40 years of cannon in order to reboot the series. But I'm not the one in charge of the story-lines and I will still go see them.

When did he get so tall?

Anyways, Sunday was the dress rehearsal/dance recital. I met Mel at SMU around eight in the morning to work through our nine dances and help out with the younger girls. We ran through the show without any injuries, so it was already an improvement over last year! The recital itself went as well as we could have hoped (although the general consensus is that there should have been less singing). Mel and I had a great time performing for our friends and family. And even though we were exhausted after the recital, I'm glad we were in it and able to be in as many dances as we were since we will be going to another studio and won't be performing with Arabesque at next year's recital. 

Another successful recital

It was a fantastic weekend, but I feel like I need a few more days to recover. I'm looking forward to a week without dance and school, I can use this time to start checking out other studios and relax.

First Reaction: Kindle Worlds

Like many other people across the interwebs, I heard about Amazon's "Kindle Worlds" today. For those that haven't heard, Amazon is opening a self-submission platform for authors of fanfiction to submit their work to be paid for it.

Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’sAlloy Entertainment division for its New York Times best-selling book series Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar; Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard; and Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith; and plans to announce more licenses soon. Through these licenses, Kindle Worlds will allow any writer to publish authorized stories inspired by these popular Worlds and make them available for readers to purchase in the Kindle Store.

The content guidelines for the program are listed on Amazon's website as follows:

• Pornography: We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.

• Offensive Content: We don’t accept offensive content, including but not limited to racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language.

• Illegal and Infringing Content: We take violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously. It is the authors' responsibility to ensure that their content doesn't violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.

• Poor Customer Experience: We don't accept books that provide a poor customer experience. Examples include poorly formatted books and books with misleading titles, cover art, or product descriptions. We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.

• Excessive Use of Brands: We don’t accept the excessive use of brand names or the inclusion of brand names for paid advertising or promotion.

• Crossover: No crossovers from other Worlds are permitted, meaning your work may not include elements of any copyright-protected book, movie, or other property outside of the elements of this World.

Even at first glance, Kindle Worlds seems like it benefits the corporations more than it does the author. Not only because of the ridiculous guidelines, but due to the fact that once an author submits the work, the characters and storylines they have created no longer belong to them. It seems like this is just an easy way for Warner Bros. to gather ideas for future episodes of their shows. Isn't that what they hire writers for? Authors that have their work selected will not get any form of compensation if their story/characters are used.

Amazon wont allow any sort of crossovers (ex: SuperWhoLock) because they don't have the licenses they would need, meaning some of my favorite authors won't be able to use the platform. Amazon won't allow any sort of pornography, but who is to decide what crosses the line in literature as to what is pornographic? Also, what is decided as "offensive"? Who is setting these standards? What I may find completely fine, others may find offensive, who is to decide the line? Are AU's (alternate universes) allowed even though they aren't part of the original World? Whoever is going to have the job of reading thousands of fanfictions are going to have quite the task ahead of them.

As it stands, there are many, many places fans can go to read fanfiction. They can go to AO3, tumblr, and FanFiction and read whatever they want. For free. So why would they want to go elsewhere and read fanfiction that is heavily regulated and pay for content? I'm all for giving authors that create some of my favorite fanfictions a way to make money off of their content. What I do not like is the fact that whereas fanfiction was a labor of love, is now becoming a way for people to try and make money. Whereas fans would create these amazing stories simply because they loved the universe and characters, it is now about making money. And making money for the company, not the author.

Many, many other people have already made the point that if Amazon and Warner Bros are attempting to stop the creation of "illegal" fanfiction, this is surely going to fail. The thousands of people out there typing up stories as I type this won't simply stop because of this. Websites devoted to solely publishing fanfiction aren't going to turn off their servers. Most fandoms will simply continue on as usual without this ever being an issue. Why? Because people like crossovers. Fans like AU's. Fans like things that may be offensive or graphic or even (gasp) pornographic. We know what our OTP's and ships are. Opening up this platform for companies to make money off of fans with little in return won't change any of that.

I'll be interested to see where this goes and how Amazon tries to expand this platform. But I don't see myself ever actually using it.

Bridesmaid Expectations

One of my closest friends, Mel, is in the midst of planning her wedding and has asked me to be a bridesmaid. I, of course, was delighted and immediately agreed. She was part of my wedding party two years ago and I couldn't wait to be a part of hers.

I then realized something: I don't know what to do. I know how to be a bride. I know how to plan a wedding. I don't know how to be a bridesmaid.

When I was planning my wedding, I didn't want to burden my friends with the stuffing envelopes, making seating arrangements, or even organizing big bachelorette parties. I didn't require them to go with me to every fitting. I picked a color and told them as long as their dresses were all in similar length and that color, they could decide among themselves what dresses they wanted. I didn't want them to follow me around during the reception or help me go to the bathroom. I wanted them to be able to have fun and enjoy themselves. I wanted them to be a part of my wedding but I also knew that I was the one that was getting married so it was my job to get everything ready. They weren't hired help - these are my friends.

Now, as I am on the other side, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I, of course, took to Google in order to figure out what a bridesmaid is. I've read a couple articles about what you're supposed to do in order to be a "good" bridesmaid and I'm just floored by the way some brides treat their friends. I completely disagree that as a bridesmaid, we're expected to be "willing servants to do her bidding." If a bride has a train on her dress, wouldn't it be bustled so why would anyone need to follow the bride around carrying it? If the bridesmaids are supposed to be getting ready for the wedding, how are they expected to run errands for the bride on the big day? The more I read about what my "duties" are as a bridesmaid, the less I know what I'm supposed to do. Am I actually expected to act as a servant for the next year or however long the planning process takes?

Maybe it is because I truly did not want to burden my own bridesmaids that I have such a jaded view as to what the role of bridesmaid means. I want to be able to be there and lend a hand when I can. I want to be able to help organize the shower and/or bachelorette party. But am I expected to truly be a "servant" during this entire process? Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. After all, I didn't have all of these requirements and demands.

I know planning a wedding is stressful and it can change a bride's perspective. I've been there. But I have to trust that Mel won't be one of those brides. And, really, if she does, I know I'll stick through it because she's a great friend and we will be after this whole party planning is over. 

Lifescouts Friday: Growing Up and Music Interests

Wait, its already Friday? How did that happen? I feel like the week just started! This has been a wild week, not only because I graduated this week, but it was also my two year anniversary! It is also exciting to think that next week is the dance recital, I can't believe its already here! Dance has been a bit crazy this week, one of the girls that is in 6 dances broke her foot so we're having to re-choreograph all of them. At least it didn't happen day-of. We'll make it through this. Anyways, here is this week's edition of Lifescouts!

Birthday Party 

Like many kids growing up, I had birthday parties and went to birthday parties. There were sleep overs, movies, bowling, roller skating, all parts of growing up that convince you that birthdays really are important. When they really aren't after a certain age.

 Concert

I love music. I love supporting artists by going to their shows. Unfortunately, my brain doesn't always appreciate being in a small, packed venue with hundreds of people I don't know so close to me. Even though I have a hard time dealing with these situations, I probably go to 10-15 concerts a year. What can I say, I just love music?

Karaoke 

 I've only sung karaoke a couple times. I don't really enjoy standing in a room of people I don't know and singing. I don't mind making a fool of myself in the confines of a friend's house while we play Rockband and pretend like we are the best band out there and we should totally try to do this while sober. Then we all come to our senses and realize that would be ridiculous.

Write a Song

As a kid I loved writing. As I grew into my pre-teen years, I thought I could try my hand at writing a song or two and make myself famous. Because who doesn't want that? It seems like this is a pretty common thing for kids to do since a lot of people I know also did the same thing. I think it might be a good thing that we were never recognized for our songwriting ability, we were shit at it.

Vocalist

While I don't really enjoy singing in front of people I don't know, it doesn't mean I don't know how to sing. I was actually in choir in middle school and I was in the church choir through high school. Anytime I'm in the car by myself, it is pretty much guaranteed that I will be either A) listening to talk radio or B) singing classic rock as loud as possible. 

ARTC 1353: Final Project - Large Scale Graphic Poster

The final project for my computer illustration class was to create a poster, something that used all of our skills  that we've learned in the class. Since I absolutely love John Green's The Fault in our Stars, I decided to create a poster for it. I used various layers and blending tools and shapes to create the finished piece. I used three different quotes throughout the piece, the main focus is on the quote "I fell in love the way you fall asleep - slowly, and then all at once" and then two other, longer, quotes that follow the paths of the clouds. I added a gradient to and a couple effects to the background, stepping away from the traditional all blue background that the book actually uses.