XXIX

Continuing into my 15th year !!! doing my personal "birthday" tradition of taking a mirror selfie with this shirt—and also as per tradition, it's late, seeing how my birthday was last month.

Gosh I really do not want to think about the fact that I'm 29 now LOL... It's too close to thirty, I can't do this. Not to propagate the ugly myth that one's life ends after your twenties but there are certain societal expectations that kick in; and I just personally don't check off the boxes in many departments such as life skills, aesthetics, independence, interests... There's so many things I can't do for myself and also don't necessarily care about nor have the energy for. I'm currently not interested in moving forward to any other "stage" in life. In general, my taste particularly leans more childish and less sophisticated, and I'm a late bloomer who only recently started to express things more so I wish to keep exploring that without probable judgment. Still don't feel like I'm even completely out of my shell or have shedded my social awkwardness yet. And I keep making more friends in their early-to-mid twenties and just do not want my age to ever be perceived again... 😣 I genuinely hate that I always feel so embarrassed of who I am (and pity my parents) for a stupid reason like not fitting societal norms even though I'm overall a hardworking, fairly responsible person and doing little harm. I could simply not care.

Funnily enough, I just revisited my post Twenty-eight from last year and not only did I use the exact same vocabulary, but also made a 180 degree swerve in mentality lmao. I'm weak now. It was easier to say all that at 28 than...y'know, that age that I am now. But those words do give me a bit more courage!

How quickly do things turn from "I don't need to check off requirements in order to feel worthy of my stage in life" to "I hate that I loathe myself because others will perceive me as unworthy."

I'm also not ready to watch my family grow old, or for things I've always known as sturdy to erode. I'm not ready to become the strong one, or to be fully confident in myself and everything I represent. I don't desire anything in my situation to change. Aging is terrifying and there's so little of adulthood that I want anything to do with...

Somehow this post went in an extremely grim direction, I'm so sorry LOL.

Like I said last year, right? In the end most of this stuff doesn't signify much. I'm really glad that I wrote that. ;u; Let's just do our best and be whoever we want to be in the precious time that we have.

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New in my style this year!!!

• I've committed to training my bangs to fall downwards so it's front bangs all the time now ✨
  
  
• Bought rings and started wearing 'em! My new favorite low-effort-high-visual-upgrade hack.
  
  
• Now almost exclusively wearing high-waisted pants and skirts 👌 (+ getting more into crop tops!)
  
  
• I won a Fitbit in the staff raffle from volunteering for Fanime :D!! I'd never owned one or a smartwatch before, so this was legitimately lifechanging and motivates me to try to exercise nearly every day. It is now a permanent attachment to this human body.

GI, pt. 1

Hello.... I'm just here to rant for a quick second. 😭

It's that time again where I be cryin' in my car after a doctor's appointment hahaha....... I need to go pick up meds and get home to continue my workday, but I wanna process my feelings first. Not bad news, just frustration!

So leading up to this I've been seeing an ENT about my throat issues since it really escalated last year, was diagnosed with laryngopharyngeal reflux (basically acid reflux affecting your vocal cords) and have been on medication and diet and lifestyle changes for 6 months. Typically with this treatment it should be resolved in about 3 months but even after 6 although it's improved tremendously, I don't think I'm quite "normal" yet?

The ENT referred me to a GI to get my stomach checked for any underlying/more serious causes to my reflux beyond the typical factors like food and certain lifestyle habits—but the nearest appointment I could get had a 3 month wait (at least ENT had the highest recommendation for this doctor) and today was finally, finally, fINALLY !! that day that I was hoping would give me progress and answers.

📸🎶

Um it was just March, I blinked, and now it's June...? Huh.......?
Thankfully life did manage to slow down a bit during April, but oh sweet baby jesus lordy—the entirety of May was a month-long nonstop sprint. Just running and running, kept going and going and going.

My month of May was characterized by... spraining my ankle, helping fome move to a new apartment, big work projects, 9 day long stressful but amazing business trip with lots of walking on injured ankle, a national tragedy, and then I ended it with a bang by helping volunteer for Fanime our local anime con.

Specifically it's because I have lots of friends involved with either running or performing for the Dance so I signed on to help with A/V and thought I'd try my hand at taking some photos as well!

Honestly I had dreaded this weekend, not for any external reasons other than that I knew I'd be exhausted. 😔 Going from preexisting exhaustion to a highly exhaustive, physically demanding gig with extremely long hours and high social pressure aaah. I wasn't wrong with these predictions; it felt like I was pushing myself to my limits and somewhere in the middle I even cried from fatigue......

(staff vest bright pink,,)

But what I didn't predict was that. I would.. end up.. feeling pretty happy about the entire experience? Despite the lows, it felt... fulfilling? What I'm left with is only.... glowing feelings? Is it Stockholm Syndrome?

This weekend I met a lot of cool people and made new friends—and I didn't expect that that would put me into such a state of giddiness. 🥺 I'm not necessarily the type of person to actively seek out new friends but how can I not be excited about having met and spent time with folks that I got along with well?! And the little community that formed out of all of us working on this event together and supporting each other warms my heart. Attending the shows was fun too since the performers gave tons of energy, bombass remixes, and it's awe-inspiring to see a huge room of people get hyped over their favorite anisong hits haha.

Admittedly I also have to mention that it feels amazing to see people using the photos that I took. Feels like validation that they liked my amateur photos and just being someone who's considered useful/helpful to others is what I live for. It's extra gratifying since taking photos was purely my idea, nobody asked me to do it, yet it ended up becoming something somewhat significant; I feel honored to have been able to contribute like that and help some of the performers be able to immortalize their experience from what sounds like was a meaningful stage for many of them 😭

Plus, I'm not a real photographer so every compliment I've received on my work has meant a whole lot!! There were certainly ups and downs in my photography—especially at the end of each night when I was most tired, the quality suffered—but I want to think that overall I can feel proud of myself. ;u; This may have been my first time experimenting with angles like this too!

Anyway I just wanted to share some of my favorite shots that I managed to take~ I'm not including every artist and it certainly doesn't reflect at all on my opinion on any of them or their incredible performances. 🙏 This is essentially from a photography standpoint.

Regrettably there were four nights of shows, from 6 PM til 2 AM, so unfortunately I just couldn't make it around to capture photos for every performer... And like I said, my work was really inconsistent—most of the shots came out poorly because of the dark room, ever-changing lights and haze, constant movements, my fatigue, sore arms, having to borrow fome's camera for one of the days and being unfamiliar with it, and not having fast enough shutter speed. These are the shots where luck aligned somehow!

NOISZ Dev Interview with Phoebe

A second post about NOISZ STARLIVHT in a row, only the difference is that this one wasn't written practically a month ago on a plane without me having had time to finalize it until now loooool.

I edited a highlights of a Twitch stream for the first time!! Well, it's not really a typical highlights—it's still pretty longform without too much editing since it's meant to serve as the VOD for the interview that Kternal (NOISZ's producer) had hosted by Phoebe (voice of Hikari and my fellow member of SUNRaiSE in the game ☀️).

The interview delves into the process behind developing the game, thoughts and values, LGBTQ and racial representation, favorite songs and what went into the lyrics of them, the difference between this game and the previous one in the series, and more~

I found the interview interesting (you might catch me in the comments section ahah) and they're both wonderful people so this is a rare case of me taking on a freelance video editing job. Took a 1 hour long stream, cut it down to 29 minutes, and did the closed captioning. :3

NOISZ STARLIVHT Livestream 💖

[Update: The official VOD of the livestream can be found here!]

If you've perhaps read this twitter thread of mine then much of this post will sound familiar, since I'll be talking about the same things but expanding on it!

In February I made a huge, significant, crazy, unbelievable step upwards in my personal growth. 🥺🥺🥺

For starters, I was blessed to be cast to provide the voice for a character in a game!! 

It's called NOISZ STΔRLIVHT, a mobile game for the NOISZ series which take on the genre mashup of visual novel x bullet hell x rhythm game. Out and playable now! ✨

It's full of cute idol girls and lovely LGBTQ stories told by a wonderful team of devs—and the main cast of STARLIVHT are all friends of mine from the youtaite community that I admire which is freaking amazing!!! They're KT (whom I hang out with very frequently irl now), Angela, k*chan, and Leon!

I'm in their rival idol group SUNR愛SE aka SUNRaiSE, alongside Phoebe (another irl friend!) and Snazzle/Niko who are both youtaite as well. 🥰☀️✨ Asuka-chan is the girl that I sing as~ My first paid vocal gig wowowow. Our songs aren't in the game yet but coming soon, apparently this month!

To celebrate the long-awaited launch of the game, we did something crazy.....

We held a livestream where all 4 members of STARLIVHT and all 3 of SUNRaiSE participated using live2D models of our characters !!! 😱😱😱😱😱

Admittedly when we were asked to appear on this stream, I was freaking out about it already since I have stage fright and a bad relationship with speaking... I'd misunderstood and agreed thinking I could just briefly pop in with "Hi I'm Eva, I provide the voice for Asuka" and allow others who are more comfortable with speaking to take over............ and then I found out that I had to act as Asuka.

Who is an overconfident, loudmouthed, cheerful, trendy, well-connected girl with "infectious energy," a longtime idol and pro on the stage. And I...am not an actor.... and I am absolutely none of those traits.

Ummm... Hi I'm Eva, and this is how I had to suddenly 1) conquer my stage fright, 2) learn how to act, 3) prepare myself to improv voice act, 4) overcome my fear of speaking, and 5) debut as a fake vtuber practically overnight.

Holy shit.

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...March

March 8th:
Huhu again long time no blog; I've been busy but with enough free time to spend enjoying playing games and being with friends. ^^

Writing this—and the next post—as I'm on a plane to my first business trip since the pandemic! ✈️

After two years of the STEM youth events being virtual, finally we can go back to working with DSLR footage and not crappy webcams via Zoom... As a video editor I'm so tired of boxes hahaha. 🙏 It'll be mighty interesting with how strict the COVID restrictions are on-site; we're doing either a PCR or rapid test every day and not allowed to see anyone outside our bubble. We've expanded our team (with me as lead editor) so I'm really hoping to be able to sleep more than I've done in the past!!

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March 16th:
Aaaaand then I got so busy on the trip that I never posted this from my iPhone notes.

I'm now on the plane heading home! 🛬

Exhausted but my heart is full. The first few nights I was so jetlagged I couldn't sleep, then afterwards I didn't sleep much from working late crazy nights and still having to wake up early to attend a shoot or take our daily COVID test...

My main job was editing a highlights video that was shown at the awards ceremony on the final day—comprised of all the interviews and footage our team filmed all week of the students' activities. It's a task that I take very seriously because it's how this super important week for these kids is immortalized and gives them an immediate perspective of how amazing their experience was. Everyone on the staff does their best to treat them like mini celebrities, since they've done so much to be celebrated, but I get the privilege of letting them see themselves framed like superstars which I think is quite special.

It's really, really touching to watch them watch the video. 🥺 Honestly makes all the exhaustion feel kinda worth it. It warmed my heart to hear their comments, clapping for each other, laughing at the funny parts, hugging each other and all the "awwww"ing.... And then at the end they applauded the video team and my boss FOR SOME REASON POINTED AT ME and gave me all the credit despite there being other team members too that did the filming and producing and assisting so the whole room turned and applauded me which was so mindblowing aaaaaaa I was insanely embarrassed!!! had no idea how to act!! but the recognition is gratifying. 😭😭 My team members also told me that I cut together an amazing story so I feel really happy about that.

There's so much energy, camaraderie, good food, and fun experiences from doing this in person that just can't be replicated to even a fraction during the virtual counterpart—and makes it possible to power through all the miserable things like stress and not sleeping.

Oh yeah, I pulled an all-nighter on the final night before the video was due lol. I'm sad about that because we expanded our team to prevent this... but we overlooked some things and there was also bad luck and a lot of troubleshooting and ugh....... I was pretty stressed the whole time and barely slept.

Anddddd then I never finished this post until now lmaolmaoalmaaooo my March continued to be busy stressful even after getting back but I think FINALLY... in April now I can take a breather! 🌸

(...until the next big business trip in May)

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Photo dump after the cut because I guess why not:

The Princess and the Malewife

Ehe a new post for my voice acting tag~ Another short Genshin Impact fandub—this time as a collab with Kuroノ who is one of my friends that I hang out with irl!

Twitter embed is very fickle—if it's broken, here's the direct link to the tweet and backup on YouTube!

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another short #GenshinImpact fandub, this time w/ Kuroノ!!! ⚔️

Thoma ⬩ @KuronoStuff
Ayaka ⬩ @waterpixieva

『Character Demo - Kamisato Ayaka: Camellia in Winter Snow』#evatriestofandub pic.twitter.com/J9BeIJR7ol

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) January 22, 2022

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Kurono posted a fantastic fandub of Kazuha back in July of last year (he did the entire thing and it's both timbre and acting perfection 👌👌), so we thought it'd be fun to collaborate on a fandub of something together—and so when Ayaka's trailer came out a week later featuring Thoma......!!

First of all, our friends and I all thought Kuro would already be a natural effortlessly good fit for Thoma and we were so right LOL. Good neighborly puppy boy energy!! But also slightly sassy yet dependable!! Kuro was able to record that lightning fast yet sounded "as flawless as ever;" I was so impressed ahaha. What a pro. So yes... he recorded that in July... on the same day the trailer came out.......

Cut to: me struggling to reach the Ayaka voice that I wanted to go for, trying it over many days through into August as a lower priority venture under my other projects, my voice wearing out quickly during the recording sessions both due to the whispery timbre (my ENT told me whispering is super harsh on your throat...) and unfortunate external reasons.

This was happening around the time I started realizing something was wrong with my throat... ;;;; I felt so bad for Kuro because something that was supposed to be quick and spontaneous got dragged out for so long—I told him and myself that I'd pick up trying to record better takes for this again once my throat felt better. In the meantime I finished up all the lines I owed and went on a recording hiatus... It fluctuated for a bit and then I watched my throat get even worse and worse.............

Now in February, I'm still waiting for it to get better. :/
(My reflux and allergy medications might not be effective enough for me, sigh, fingers crossed my ENT appointment next week will create some progress.)

So yeah, I went back to all of the B-tier takes that I saved but wasn't entirely happy with and performed extremely detailed surgery to stitch some syllables together and make something post-able at last! Also nixed two lines that I had no good takes for. I do feel that I didn't reach my vision for Ayaka's voice and my pronunciation bothers me, so I consider this an "incomplete version."

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Again I find it really interesting how the official voice actors for the various languages in Genshin take pretty different directions in characterization. Despite them being quite different, I genuinely really really really like both Hayami Saori and Erica Mendez as variations of Ayaka—they both did such an amazing job and sound very pretty. 😭

Hayamin of course has the perfect princess voice that's simultaneously "out-of-your-league" and "little sister" and she carries such a soft warmth and effortless whispery tone (LITERALLY, PHYSICALLY HOW??). I enjoy how her characterization includes some playfulness—the way she often sounds like she's slightly laughing feels so friendly, open, and affectionate. She's precious but also strong and reliable when need be. I could listen to her voice all day long.

Erica's version of Ayaka also has a really pleasant, airy, soft timbre that I was happy that they pulled off because I rarely hear such a tone in English dubbing. Her voice acting conveys so much all at the same time: Ayaka's seriousness as an important member of society and sword master (the English characterization seems to lean into this aspect the most?), formality, tradition, tranquility, yet still with a hint of the childlike purity that Ayaka has. It's so good. Compared to the Japanese version, the English Ayaka seems much more confident and strikes me as more of an observer than an experiencer.

(Btw I was especially impressed upon realizing she's also the English VA of Nico from Love Live, that insane range...!! Another side note, I love Christian Banas' Thoma as well—he does such nuanced performances and makes him so wholesome and energetic. 🥺)

"there can only be one"

For my rendition of Ayaka, I tried out several approaches—it started out comparatively closer to Erica's version and I did kind of a throat'y voice—but I ended up wanting to challenge myself to inch a bit closer to Hayamin's portrayal that was whispery, higher medium tone, slower, less confident, a "cool" timbre that has a grainy texture to it but warmer and slightly rounded delivery, a delicate balance of inserting some fullness into the voice while also remaining light. In the second half I wanted to slip in some of that openness and subtle playfulness into it. Also I didn't want it to feel like the exact same direction I did for Ganyu (though there's a lot of overlap)—I wanted my Ayaka to comparatively be a bit more grounded and full, yet more inflated with air, decisive, and less sweet. YES I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS A LOT LOL. AND NO THE EXECUTION WASN'T SATISFACTORY.

Aside from the pronunciation, one of my regrets is that I couldn't get "Spar with me some more" to hit that ideal balance of playful and assertive. And also unfortunately I'm not Hayamin herself 😔 Oh whales, I'm ultimately still fairly happy with what I achieved and am fond of this collab with Kuro. ^^

This was the toughest thing I've ever tried to voice act!!! And I will probably never attempt such a whispery voice again in my entire life because boy, it do not cooperate with me throat!! Please enjoy as it will never happen again!!!

2021 New Year's Resolutions Review

For those who don't know, starting all the way back in 2009 I've tried to write 100 goals for myself almost every year! It's one of my personal traditions and I'll often reflect on how I did before coming up with another set for the next year.

This was quite a year lmao I'm scared to see how badly I did. (That said, there was every excuse for doing badly, I'm forgiven, I don't care!!!)

The reason I'm bent on reviewing 2021 though is because I don't plan to do 2022 resolutions for now. ;v; It would just be, like, 70% health-related resolutions which is boring as heck.

There's too much uncertainty about whether/when my throat will recover and the other health things preventing me from working on projects or my skills much—I've been set back so much that I don't want to think too hard about distant goals. This year I really just need to take care of myself by staying disciplined and extremely careful about my lifestyle, appreciate the small things in life, and keep my pessimism in check believe that everything will get better soon!

- - -

— Highlights of my 2021:

[link to MV if embed breaks]

• After an extremely long editing and color grading process, I finished the Ph03n1x 4sh music video that I had the huge opportunity of directing back in 2020—and it premiered at Virtual Anime Expo!!! The biggest accomplishment of my life. 😭
  
  
• Vaccination! I'm very fortunate that most of my loved ones and I have steered clear of COVID. Just one friend that I see sometimes caught it right before New Years ;;
  
  
• Neither a high nor low but...... I... went to my high school 10 year reunion, omg.........
  
  
• Spent a good amount of time with friends to make up for 2020's lost time ❤️
  
  
• Before cases surged again (cries), I got to travel a bit again! Went to LA and Seattle and made lovely memories!
  
  

— Lows of my 2021:

• In the spring, workload was insanely overwhelming and I lost control of work-life balance and dealt with the worst burnout I've ever experienced.. Like, bursting into tears trying to write an email asking for time off because I felt so deeply uncomfortable and guilty about it sort of bad. What has this bloody pandemic done to our psyche?? Anyway I can't relate anymore; my work-life balance is great now! 💁🏻‍♀️
  
  
• Health sux I can't sing I see many doctor I sometimes feel not great blah blah blah blah

The future like the wind~ 🍃

YAAAAY! I've been looking forward to this collab more than anything and I'm so happy it's out in the world to be shared! 🥺💖 It was my huge honor and delight to sing the part of Shibuya Kanon for Mathew's English translyric cover of Liella!'s "Mirai wa Kaze no You ni" aka the ending theme from the Love Live! Superstar!! anime.

My heart was fully invested in this, in so many layers hahaha. First of all I'm a big fan of Love Live and while Liella's season 1 wasn't the greatest I still have fond memories from watching it and bonding over its ups/downs with friends — including Mathew. In terms of my personal taste in music, I'd probably say Liella is a close second to Nijigasaki for what I would regularly listen to.... Their songs just sound so lovely and light and refreshing and uplifting without going overboard. ;v; There are a few Liella songs I like a lot and the anime ending is one of them! It's such a nice song!! Plus you always get sentimentally attached to the theme songs after watching a show haha.

There is definitely a soft spot in my heart for Kanon's character and the first episode that introduced her as having crippling stage fright (fucking up performances and auditions) and yet having a passion for singing and making music and it destroys her that she can't do better. It was the first time I related so deeply to a Love Live character... And was totally unexpected for the protagonist, at that! For a silly idol anime, I appreciated how grounded and full of heart it was. 🥺

GUESS WHO REWATCHED EPISODE 1 TO TAKE THESE SCREENSHOTS AND ENDED UP SOBBING UGH. It hit me harder now than the first time. (Though of course the bad news is that they went on to ignore this super important piece of character development for like 9 episodes but who's counting--)

Given all this, it meant a lot that Mathew entrusted me with singing Kanon's parts and for representing the protagonist of the group....... Such a great honor 😭😭😭😭

And on top of everything, I've been listening to the covers that Mathew puts out for a while—I genuinely enjoy and admire them a lot! Every video of his is sparkling with passion and love and warmth. He brings together such lovely casts and writes touchingly inspiring lyrics and his mixes are magical (the blend is always amazing!) and it's so cool how active he is with idol cover projects and getting them finished at a time when many projects never see the light. :') 💕

That said, ofc I've been wanting to work with him but a few opportunities didn't pan out because they were at really bad times for me... And when this one came along...... I'd already been dealing with throat issues and taking a break after clearing my urgent projects........... but I just knew that if I said no I'd regret it forever?! My response to Mathew was literally: "My heart tells me I should say yes this time 😭" This was the only project I recorded in the middle of my vocal rest periods—I did try to be careful not to push myself too hard or sing for too long so it was recorded over many days and I tried to respect my limits.

After this was when my throat took a turn for the worse so this is the last thing I recorded before taking my serious vocal rest! And of course my thoughts lead me here... that if I never recover..... and am forced to retire......... I'd be happy that this collab is the one that marks my retirement. ❤️ THOUGH OF COURSE I'm GOING to recover!!! and NOT retire!!!! so yeah!!! ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ

Also I will admit that I'm actually happy with my solos in this,,, It's been ages since I could say that LMAO. Considering the circumstances it was recorded in that's surprising, but I think I managed to sound as well as I'd hope to sound—I don't dislike this timbre that was used to sound closer to Kanon and I expressed everything I wanted to express and don't sound like a bad singer quq Success, I'm actually quite proud!

The cast is just wonderful. Such pretty, lovely, adorable, sweet, soothing but energizing voices and I love everyone and hope I can sing with them all again. ;u; I'd absolutely still be a gushing fan even if I weren't involved since this collab is a delight to listen to—I've been looping the mix drafts for a while and now that the video is out I'm still not stopping!!

We will give our all, so let us take flight, you and I~ ✨✨✨!

Mirai wa Kaze no You ni (Liella!) ⌈english cover | Sepia Pro.⌋
Vocalists ►Eva @waterpixieva ►Hikari Kira @Hikari Kira ►Cheri Fish @cherifish ►Odin @❤ Shoujo Brave ❤ ►shoyun @shoyun Mix ►Mathew @Sepia Days Music English Lyrics ►Mathew @Sepia Days Music

The Not-So-Little Mermaid

praying for a full recovery from all your health issues Eva; you got this 🙏

tell your throat that K-pop idol mermaids need their voices regardless of what sea witches think 😤

— David Guthrie Music (@djguthrie5) January 2, 2022

 

Just wanted to share this analogy made by my friend David that BLEWWWW MY MIND AND POSSIBLY CHANGED MY LIFE LOL...... My throat issues may perhaps just be the chapter of my mermaid fairytale in which a nasty sea witch has stolen my voice, before I defeat her in the name of love and restore my place as princess of the seven seas...!!! ✨💫✨💫✨

You know those times when you have to explain something serious or disagreeable to children, so you make it sound way cooler and simplified by relating it to something childish and they're dumb enough to accept it?

That still works on 28-year-olds btw.

throat ramblings and maybe yet another existential crisis

So I've had a long history of throat troubles.

Temporarily-recovered-then-back-with-a-vengeance acid reflux.

Bad vocal technique. Sometimes on purpose because I don't like the way my voice naturally sounds.

Doctors that didn't offer meaningful solutions...

Regrettably, a lot of pushing it too far where I'd continue forcing my voice out when it's already worn, motivated by deadlines and limited recording time. ;; I'm too self-conscious to record when anyone can hear so I used to take any opportunity if my parents were out or at work—and nowadays only while they're sleeping which is rough and also means I'm bringing all the existing fatigue from that day to the recording session orz

-

And this year, my throat hit an all-time low ;;; The worst it's ever been without being sick... At one point I could hardly speak two sentences without needing a sip of water which really, really sucked for everyday life. For singing I could barely let out a note that didn't sound 80% like physical pain (not my favorite timbre of voice to listen to in a cover unfortunately 😔).

In the summer, I first tried taking vocal rest and went back on reflux meds... which did nothing this time because I'm a FOOL and no one/none of the instructions told me that you can't lie down for 90 minutes after the medicine, which is taken in the morning and 30 mins before eating; so I thought I was being so clever crawling back into bed to look at my phone, but no!!! I probably made everything worse!!! aaa

Anyway at some point I went to get my tinnitus checked out and oops—found out I was both anemic and have extremely swollen sinuses which explains why I often have difficulty breathing—would you figure that! 🤔 Apparently in this year of 2021, my body which previously was blessed with no allergies other than to cats.....has suddenly decided to become allergic to the world. Thanks, body, thanks, late 20's.

After things got even worse, I went to an ENT who confirmed that I don't have nodes, yay!! But there is indeed hella inflammation from laryngopharyngeal reflux and allergies so now I'm on new meds for both. Also started using a steamer, doubled down on reflux diet, and bought a mattress wedge so I sleep at an incline! 🤞

The ENT told me that I haven't suffered permanent throat damage and that I'll be able to sing again, which at the time was such a relief to hear... But now that it's been a few weeks...and while my reflux symptoms have calmed and I can speak without intermittent sips of water...it's definitely gotten better.........yet my throat still feels scratchy all the time; my voice still hoarse and I can barely sing; it's still worse than it ever was before this year. I'm absolutely the type of pessimistic person to always assume the worst—I just can't shake the possibility (and at least now I can say possibility when a month ago I thought it a certainty) that there could be permanent damage after all. The doctor can tell me that I'll get better, but I'm finding it maybe hard to believe, I don't know. ;o;

-

Back in the summer before it even hit the lowest point, when I took my first vocal hiatus, I remember...hearing a certain song and thinking about how I wanted to improve my vocal range and basics and build up better vocal technique. "As soon as my voice recovers I should work hard to become a much stronger singer that won't let other people or myself down!!"

Then seeped in the darker side of my mind: "Are you sure you want to look forward to becoming a better singer, because... what if you never recover?" So I've been trying not to give myself false hope.

That's really sad for a person whose life has practically revolved around singing and rapping and covers and music collaborations for 15 years. It's been my cherished hobby since I was a kid... and now all my friends are singers (all much, much better than me so I'll take all the improvement I can get lol).

I used to be a lot more depressed and I remember many days years ago when my throat was in bad condition and my heavy thoughts were driven by "What if I lose my ability to sing? What would I do if I lost this one thing that I actually can say that I love, when I don't love much else? This precious thing I used to do to lift my spirits is now becoming a stressor. What if I stop enjoying it? What if I have to give up this part of me that's been my life all this time? There will be nothing left." It felt a lot like heartbreak.

Now I'm more jaded, have come to more of an acceptance of such things, (and maybe I have more things that I love now?) but earlier this year I felt a renewal of such depressing fears when I had both throat and eye issues at the same time—what the hell would I do if I lost both my voice and eyesight??? Literally what could I do with my life? 😭 Because of all these issues I've been taking a long break from youtube hobbies, since I can't sing/rap nor stare at a computer long enough to work on mixing, animating, or video editing for fun. Eyes are reserved for my full-time job so that I can eat good food. But I'm on medications for all these things and making a recovery slowly!

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So that's what goes on in my mind, I'm sorry for the depressing post ... This wasn't meant to be a New Years-related blog, but now that we're here I want to hope that this next year will bring much improved health all around. To anyone who may read this, first of all thank you for sticking around and please take care of your health too! Remember not to push yourself too much; be kind to yourself and know that we all have limits for a reason. Be safe and have a blessed New Years!! ❤️

[Photo Log] Didneyrand ! ! ✨

[Once again the thing happened where I began writing a post in reasonable time after the described events, got busy, and let it collect dust..... Picking this up again after a month!]

Last week (as of November 27th lol) chiisa and I took a little trip to LA to spend time with one of our closest friends that had moved away a few months prior. ;u; My first time traveling since 2019!! It was super fun, though exhausting, especially with all the walking and not sleeping enough, and it was great to have a proper break from work which evidently only traveling can supply.

We decided to spend a day at Disney's California Adventure to check out the new offerings! 🤟 Since Disneyland in LA is separated into two parks (each requiring their own tickets) and one has the new Star Wars-themed area while the other has Marvel, it was a hard choice between the two but I looooove the MCU — so Avengers Campus was the winner!

It was interesting(?) to travel and attend a theme park during a pandemic; it certainly always kept me on my toes. Fortunately, chiisa and I were able to get our vaccine boosters before the trip and I tried to still social distance from non-friends but a few instances made it difficult and the plane was so uncomfortable?! At least it was somewhat of a comfort that Disneyland was very strict about everyone being masked anytime they were indoors—the attendants were vigilant about this rule with constant reminders, though they didn't do anything to encourage social distancing...

It was not intentional that I happened to have red-ish colored hair like my favorite Disney Princess but it worked out for the best 😆 This crop top sweater was a gift from chiisa and I was also wearing seashell earrings and a hairclip with Ariel on it! All the Little Mermaid paraphernalia ehehe

Check out how cute chiisa's Winnie the Pooh headband is 🥺

The rock-like object (unfortunately not Rock-kun) that she's holding is a... raspberry-flavored cream puff being touted as a Guardians of the Galaxy .. space rock?! orb?? It was surprisingly really yummy!

Shabondama 🧼🎸

A few weeks ago this collab with a bunch of friends came out!! It's of "Shabondama" by Morning Musume and I go way, way, way back with both this song and most of the others in the singing cast! Cinna (WHAT A TALENTED PERSON) I met recently in the group chat for this collaboration but Aerin, k, chiisana, and Samu I've known for years and years—we spent our youths covering Hello!Project songs!

"Shabondama" is an iconic track that I participated in covers of way back when I was a wee middle schooler and to this day often comes up in karaoke sessions when there are H!P fans present. Such a fun, angry, sassy, energetic song. And then Cinna did a rock arrange remix of it and cranked it up to 11 🔥🔥🔥 The instrumental and mix are incredible!

The video is so, so cool. The stylization of both the illustrations and the motion graphics work perfectly — and it's vibrant and badass and artful. Bless Jerry and Hibi's talents, and also Aerin for bringing together such a strong team :>

Personally I gotta confess I'm not happy with my singing in this, but that how it be... I just kinda zone out every time my solos come around haha..... I recorded it at a time when I was struggling with my recording circumstances and barely squeezed it in. At that point we were also working with a placeholder instrumental so I feel like I didn't bring enough aggression and drama to match Cinna's amazing remix and the others' powerful vocals T__T There's no point in regretting too much though, since I've been on vocal rest/recovery and wouldn't have been able to rerecord anyway. At least there's plenty of other aspects to enjoy 💕

(Edit: For some reason the embed is broken... youtube pls- it is linked below!)

【6人合唱】 モーニング娘。(Morning Musume ) - シャボン玉 (Shabondama) 【Rock Cover】

Cover Credits~ ⬇️

Post 1 of 6 (jk... unless?)

My blog count for this year was absolutely abysmal, oh man... 😆

Time to put up 6 posts in the next two days so I can at least surpass 2017, right?

red~

as once said by iz*one in their song La Vie en Rose...

"red~"

~

Oops I meant to post this like 2 weeks ago :D;; It's actually not this red anymore since these were snapped right after the session and there was still residual dye that hadn't been fully washed off. After a few shampoos, it's become a nice reddish brown which was what I wanted!

Haven't dyed my hair since 2018; it felt like the right time for a fun change! About the end of October I finished up another one of those STEM youth events where our whole team works super long hours for a whole week—plus I think I worked 10 days in a row...—and on my first day off I needed 1) a refreshening, and 2) something to distract myself with that did not involve looking at digital screens. So I stood in the bathroom for like two hours and tried to use a red box dye that made ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE LOL.

You must understand though why I was tempted to buy this box dye a couple years back—it's so cute yet so disappointingly ineffective (as are many things). Afterwards I asked a friend who works at a salon to help dye it for real and practically made her choke in anger with the story about my box dye attempt oops lolololol...

Back to the screens thing, my eye health has taken a significant hit from the pandemic lifestyle and working from home. My desk is set up in front of a wall so while I'm working all day, my eyes don't get much of a change of pace—whereas when I was in the office I would often look up at coworkers, look out the window. Simply too much time is spent staring at monitors and I rely on them to get my work done and also communicate/spend time with friends, so in the end what had to get sacrificed was working on hobby projects (and blogging). 😭 Shame that so much of my life is done on devices. Eye strain is a struggle.

Since then I had a few eye exams and scans done, got new glasses at higher prescription, trying out having a second pair dedicated to computer use, and started medicated eye drops and a compress treatment for my dry eyes! Hoping that all this helps 🤞🤞

New glasses, new look, feels very different, hate how much they shrink my eyes ?!?!