Ditto 💕

The other day I wrapped on something towards which I'd been spending a lot of my spare time, declared "I'M FREEEEEE!" and immediately recorded a yolo short cover hahahaha.

First time singing something for fun since Everything Goes On all the way back in July!

Practically half a lifetime ago; it'd been so long already. 😭

I've been obsessed with NewJeans' entire discography, and their latest tune on loop has been the comfy, sentimental, soothing, winter band arrangement of their latest song Ditto performed on It's Live.

This is something I've said frequently but I'll repeat it each time til my mouth runs dry: some of the moments I cherish most are those of feeling inspired, sparkling desire to sing something spontaneously, and then being privileged enough to have the time and health to do it. ;u; Even better if I actually finish something to share. Between inspiration, time, health, or a combination—from July until now I would cycle through lacking these things... Finally was able to experience that fulfillment again!

felt like singing a bit of "Ditto" by NewJeans (arrangement they performed on It's Live) 💗 pic.twitter.com/2b0bTHADnK

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) December 25, 2022

(also unlisted on youtube in case twitter breaks)

I do adore that next part of the song and hoped to include it but unfortunately my voice isn't up for it yet... Although I haven't been up to much proper singing in the past few months I've been doing vocal function exercises to try to rebuild/relearn the functionality of my vocal cords and breathing and the entire sound system. It definitely, physically feels like things have changed. Supporting my voice doesn't work the way it used to. My voice very easily breaks, becomes fatigued quickly, and the existence of my head voice keeps fluctuating... I'm considering seeking a voice therapist/coach to hopefully guide my recovery, but for now luckily most of the song was in a lower range I happened to be in condition for.

😭😭😭😭😭 People have been insanely sweet.............

Genuinely did not expect this short cover to receive this much love and resonate with so many people especially within my particular demographic reach (leaning more towards anime than k-pop) and considering it's a lazy bedroom facecam rather than compelling, pretty, illustrated aesthetics. Not to mention the lousy instrumental. I'm thankful that so many gave my singing a chance!

All of the interactions have been shocking...heartwarming...and tenderly raised my self confidence. Makes me happier with this cover than I'd been initially; it has set me all aglow. I'm so honored. 💗 Personally I do have a few reasons to be proud but none of them I think are necessarily reasons that others would appreciate this piece haha.

While recording I actually came close to giving up because I felt I didn't suit the song; only kept going on account that I already learned it and should record something even if not for sharing. Unlike the horrid lie insinuated by the video appearing like a oneshot, in truth it took a whole 92 recordings to piece together this tiny cover..... Took plenty of takes before figuring out the timbre and energy I ended up being satisfied with but I'm glad I got there—aimed for soft, hopeful, light without being too thin, slightly breathy, and relaxed! Personally I dislike the phrasing in much of my singing so I paid careful attention to that here, especially holding out notes to not sound rushed, and mostly am happy with those results. Also could possibly be my best pronunciation of Korean, as well as depiction of each line's meaning, yet?

Feels like I was able to thwart many of my bad habits in this little project. Progress. ✊

One final note: I'm pretty pleased with how the Medium Effort mixing of the vocals turned out. As long as you close your ears to the noise of this necromantic instrumental lolol. Pitch correction plays a huge part of a polished sound and I accidentally came up with this three-layer method that seemed to work: 1) applied natural-sounding autotune, 2) then did rough manual tuning fixes, 3) applied autotune again but extremely subtle. Each step just kind of cleans it up a little more without being too strong or sounding unnatural. Fairly polished without too much effort; I'll try it again on a future mix!

Bernard Park - "소년의 노래 (Neverland)" Lyrics + Translation

SPOILERS FOR ARTISTOCK GAME IF YOU'RE WATCHING THIS SHOW.

            ❝You're still young. It's not late at all for you to be starting your career.
So, don't pity yourself. Focus on making great songs.
You've worked hard.

❞            

I loved this scene so much. It nearly moved me to tears and punched me in the gut extra hard since Bernard Park is the same age as me; and I'm really glad he was told the exact words that he needed to hear. Thankful that he shared such a vulnerable story with all of us.

This comes after Bernard Park's delicate, emotional, beautiful performance of his new song "소년의 노래" which translates to "A Boy's Song." The official English name of the song seems to be "Neverland."

It's about his lifelong dreams of singing and making music, the innocence he had back then, how hard the journey's been, how jaded it's made him throughout the years, the hopelessness that comes with age. Or at least I think... It breaks my heart that I can't find any form of translation of the song, much less even the Korean lyrics aside from what's embedded in the performance video. 😭

The first few lines of the song are so potent that I wanted to try translating them—and found out how much fun it is deciphering and depicting something so bitterly poetic... Also surprised myself by knowing more Korean than expected! So although I'm not fluent, I'm challenging myself to attempt translating an entire song for the very first time!! As well as transcribing the hangul based on the video as typing practice.

No guarantees but I hope this'll serve as something until someone does the proper translation that this masterpiece deserves. Truly an underappreciated song.

By the way I just finished watching Artistock Game because Mnet's music survival shows have a chokehold on me, and I would certainly recommend it if you enjoy those shows! Rather than focusing on idols, the contestants are singers in various genres and industries, songwriters, musicians—and it's all about their creation of a performance. Whether it's instrumental arrangement, melody and harmony arrangement, choreography, conceptualization, lyric writing, storytelling, teamwork, forming close friendships through collaboration... Youtaite can relate lmao. I loved that this show gave a platform to a lot of talented musicmakers whom I would probably never have heard of otherwise and hopefully will kickstart many of their careers. Artistock Game is just wholesome through and through—full of talent, passionate creatives, good eggs, good music, and glorious performances!

버나드 박 - 소년의 노래
Bernard Park - A Boy's Song (Neverland)

An Update!

I know that there are kind people that check up on me here and ones that read my previous post but respected my wish to not discuss it. ;u; If by chance I concerned anyone by not updating for a while, I wanted to say please forgive me and thank you. ❤️

Doing much better now physically and mentally and emotionally! I'm feeling healthier in every way.

At one point there was a little bit of a scare on account of my heart health—not too surprising since my heart has a history of acting up during periods of stress and not enough exercise... though my dramatic little ass did tell people I loved them before I went to bed that night, just in case lmfaaooooo. And as I said I'd do in my last post, I went to the doctor and found out I have somewhat high cholesterol.

So I've been eating much healthier. Sleeping and waking up earlier. My ankle is finally 100% healed!!!! Now I'm working out every day, learning a dance, jogging, being more active in general even in small ways. My energy levels are improved. Mood improved. Not feeling as weighed down by obligations as before. I feel empowered to take my time and to freely chase tiny happinesses and to make responsible decisions for my own wellbeing's sake and also hopefully give back more to the people that've taken care of me. ;v; Fighting fighting.

Please take care of yourself now. The holidays can be a rough time for many people, but I hope we can cherish our own existences and the time we have with which to spend finding meaningful things, big or small. Also I'm sending y'all love regardless of whether I'm at risk of cardiac arrest or not.

PS;; Guess who's been eating a lot of sushi lately because it's like the only remaining tasty thing that doesn't cause reflux or bad cholesterol kek

Vent

Light and Shadow

Constantly giving the update of "I've been busy" but I seriously mean it for this year's entire autumn season lolol. Lots of traveling—business trips to Austin and Washington DC.... Chicago was a personal trip but due to deadlines I made the mistake of not fully taking the week off (never again) which resulted in working late nights after spending the day with fome's parents..... Next week is Anime Expo Chibi down near LA where I'll be reprising what I did at AX earlier this year—supporting musical guest performers and photography! And somehow I'm going to be challenging taking photos at a wedding for the first time later this month...

This week alone has been insane too lol. What the heck.

• Monday - worked til 6 AM to finish draft of video to send to client (thankfully still slept 5 hours instead of pulling an all-nighter like last time)
• Tuesday - finalized video, it plays at the awards ceremony, lots of great feedback!! 🌟 sometime during this evening, a nasty bug bites my ankle :/
• Wednesday - flying home from DC ✈️ during the flight my ankle swells up to a balloon.... blisters develop.... it hurts so much I limp off the plane.
• Thursday - it's my recovery day from the big biz trip but parents wake me up early to go to urgent care, am prescribed medications
• Friday - meds make my ankle tolerable enough that I still went to our San Francisco stop of BAR Con's Light and Shadow Tour where I helped sell artist merch and took photos! 📸 with some fucked up luck, our tire went flat so after waiting for roadside assistance and slowly crawling along the highway on a dinky spare, didn't get home til nearly 5 AM.
• Saturday - i stopped existing literally just sleep and ded on the couch
• Sunday - ...that's today!

---

Before leaving for DC, I also worked on this little promo video for the tour~
Isiliel's reaction to it was so precious I died and went to heaven. 😭😭😭😭

#moonbowgathering#californiadreamin
Thank you everyone who made it to Northwest Idolfest to kick off the Light and Shadow Tour 2022! Next stop is BAR Con Carnival Phantasm 2, on Sunday, October 30! pic.twitter.com/RnKGmnBvrk

— BAR CON (@boozeanimerock) October 25, 2022

Anyway, for this post I just wanted to compile some of the photos I took at the SF show. It was fun, all the performers were fantastic, and I'm happy that I'll be supporting them next week at AX Chibi as well!

Rambling thoughts

...Rambling thoughts about eating, our relationship with eating as affected by the pandemic, bloating, weight/body type, body image, health, etc. I know that it may be overly personal, potentially insensitive, and not something that people would want to read about—please do not feel obligated to! It's very much #firstworldproblems.

Even most of my close friends have never heard me open up about this topic and I've debated for months whether to write this post..... but for a long time it's been a frequent occupant of my thoughts, so consider this an honest diary of my various experiences in life that I may look back upon in the future. ;v;

(By the way I'm writing this on the plane to Chicago!!

...and now continuing it heading home from Austin LOL busy times; I've worked on this post over a total of 4 flights now!!! ....Make it 5 flights. 🥲 Hopefully finalizing as I land in DC~ This has been in progress for over a month and written almost entirely from 30,000 feet in the air hahaha.) 

"quarantine" diary page 7

 << page 6

I've been really dragging my feet when it comes to blogging the past few months (generally been busy in good ways: doing fun things and exercising and relaxing more!), but this is something that I want to document since I wrote so much about my early pandemic experience. ;u;

Firstly, I got the new bivalent vaccine booster this week and highly encourage anyone to get it if they can!! As far as I know it's readily available for everybody in the US! This vaccine is vital because it protects against omicron which the previous iterations couldn't. 💪

[My biggest brain move ever specifically booking my appointment slightly out of the way but next to a matcha soft serve place... the taiyaki was perfectly toasty and warm and fluffy but also crispy and just mmmm everything a waffle should be, help I can't stop thinking about this all week.]

This makes it my 5th dose of the vaccine:

May 2021 - 1st and 2nd dose

Nov 2021 - 1st booster

April 2022 - 2nd booster *

September 2022 - Bivalent booster

That 2nd booster in April I believe saved my ass.... None of my friends had it because they never made it eligible to the public while they were working on a new, more effective booster (aka the one that just dropped)—which I disagree with since having some extra protection even if unideal while waiting is still worth something, right? :/ I was only able to get it by citing moderate risk due to my lung issues.

Aaaand then all of my friends caught COVID this summer.

Notably at Anime Expo, most of my friends were hit by it—including the person that I shared a hotel room with, had meals with, rode in a car with, interacted with maskless up until the day before they began feeling sick... Basically my exposure to the virus was certain and there's no reason I should've been the only one to escape scotch-free except that I had a more recent booster shot than everyone else. 😭🙏

It's really incredible how much I've done between April and now and still managed to never get sick...? Multiple business trips including one where thousands of students flew in from all around the globe (specifically this was my biggest reason to get that extra boost). Multiple anime conventions, KCON, concerts... Of course every step of the way I tried to be safe and only unmasked around friends—but I can say that about others who did the same and still caught it. :c

Anyway, your local COVID-conquering girl is gonna sign off now to chill and try to sleep early! I'm now exercising a lot more, frequently walking, sometimes jogging, feeling them muscle gains, have made small steps towards correcting my sleep schedule, I will turn my life around and become a healthy Eva!!

Stay well, friends ♡

Turnt Up 🌸✨

Quick post to say: a collab that I sang for all the way back in 2016 has conquered all odds and released today!! A miracle baby 🥺✨✨

Everything is so, so, so pretty—I love it all.....

Absolutely enamored......

Everyone has such a lovely and pretty voice, the art is beautiful and looks straight out of a game, designs are so stylish, the animation aesthetics are flawless and smooth, and mix is stunningly clean with godlike blend. 👏 Really honored to be in such a high-quality collab like this!

(Meanwhile, I shouldn't be too harsh on myself from six entire years ago but wants to close my ears during my solos hhh..... it sounds like I'm singing a different genre from everyone else, cries. Wish I'd sung it more prettily like everyone else... At least I do think I've improved at singing since then! Also isn't this art of me super cool!!! The artists went with putting my hair up and using my glasses as a necklace accessory—they made me such a hottie!!)

【11人合唱】 Turning Up ! - SQUARE MUSIQ cover

vocal || ♥ lizzzy → (here) @lizzzynya ♥ 사기 → (https://www.youtube.com/user/sagisapon) @sagisapon ♥ chiisana → (https://www.youtube.com/c/chiisanauta) @chiisanauta ♥ hinoe → (https://www.youtube.com/user/AqueousSky) @yuibunni ♥ hanami [はなみ] → (https://www.youtube.com/c/hanamiseason) @hanamiseason ♥ ✦nike → (https://www.youtube.com/user/nikessi) @nikessi ♥ NONON → (https://www.youtube.com/user/xpomusume) ♥ eva → (https://www.youtube.com/user/waterpix...) @waterpixieva ♥ ATEL → (https://www.youtube.com/user/atelierfive) @atelierfiveYT ♥ Takara → (https://www.youtube.com/user/Official...) @Taka_Ramen ♥ 네루 → (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_H...) @konemeru mix || - hanami (time/tune) ♥ Eris (mix) → (https://www.youtube.com/serenityselixir) @squishyycatpaws illust || ♥ kao (sketch/line) → (https://twitter.com/tsukkaomi) -lizzzy (base) ♥ Siswrn (color) → (https://twitter.com/Siswrn_B) pv || ♥ Jaey → (https://www.youtube.com/c/Jaeyy) @BaeyYK script + initial organization || Takara revival organization || lizzzy

Everything Goes On 💫

The best part about being on hiatus as my throat heals is that although I can't join any collabs due to my unstable condition where I might find myself unable to sing for weeks at a time, it means that whenever I am able to sing I have freedom to record whatever it is I feel like!

My era of yolo short covers is back~ ✨

The Sunday morning before previous, I woke up to find that Chungha dropped a Korean version of Porter Robinson's "Everything Goes On" which is the new League of Legends song that I've been hearing everywhere, released for the new Star Guardian skins and animation!! And I do love me them magical girls!! And I love Chungha's gooooorgeous, emotion-driven singing.... And just this arrangement of the song is so beautiful, simply magical and enchanting and flowing. 🥺 I sighed and clutched my heart upon first listen, absolutely immediately fell in love, and had an inkling that I'd want to try to sing it if possible loooool.

While getting ready to go out, I couldn't stop listening to the song... Actually for nearly a month my throat condition wasn't great and in particular I could barely eke out or control my head voice which sucks because most songs are too high for me so I depend on it lol. Luckily it had been starting to come back so that morning was me testing it out along to this song—at that time I was skeptical that I'd be able to even sing the "looooonGER~" because it's a sustained note and then goes higher without any reset...

That was a super fun Sunday by the way! My friend pKotetsu (whom I wrote about in this post; he was one of our amazing animators for DREAM✦SCAPE) was in town for the Dreamcatcher concert so we spent a lot of time together hitting up good, good food spots. 😁🌟 I still think about that Sunday's food x friends adventure... My favorite matcha latte spot ever, mochi muffins, authentic Italian pizza, burnt brown sugar boba, mango sticky rice bingsoo, matcha warabimochi, unexpectedly really bomb wings that we got at the dessert place... Take me back to that day LOL.

I spent my 45 minute long drive home just looping the hell out of that song and continuing to test my head voice, began familiarizing myself with lyrics while getting unready, and then started recording it that same night HAHAHA. Until 3:30 AM... before a Monday... when I have work............

But it was too much fun. :3✨ I've said this again and again but I really think it's something special to cherish when you have something you desperately want to sing and you're able to spontaneously indulge yourself with it.

My condition wasn't perfect—in fact I would hate to give anyone the raw recordings in this when my voice often sounded scratchy or grating or unstable or not properly supported... And this song was exceedingly hard to sing... I got away with it(?) by doing the mixing myself and masking it with effects—used a lot of the same ones I showed in 0X1=LOVESONG and gotta say I'm pretty happy with how my "medium effort" mixing sounds now! It's a huge upgrade from before and sounds remotely polished enough despite not going much into the details or automating or having a clean instrumental. (I made this instrumental by taking an audio recording of the song off of youtube and removing the vocals in Audition...) All things considered, I'm fairly happy with how the end results sound 💖

short cover!! #youtaiteworks

"Everything Goes On" ✨

i absolutely fell in love with chungha's korean version of the new Star Guardians song (orig. by porter robinson) - the arrangement and lyrics are simply magical so i wanted to try singing it 💫 pic.twitter.com/VaZc4dmj1w

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) July 26, 2022

[or listen on Soundcloud!]

0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You) + Mix Breakdown

[Updated 7/26 with mix breakdown!]

 “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)” / cover by Eva ft. chiisana

Vocals (TXT’s parts) / mix / video : Eva (youtube)  

Vocals (Seori’s part) : 小さな (youtube)

Chorus Artificial Harms Tuning : Scylla (comms open!)

Vocal Remove Instrumental : https://youtu.be/vLGDbH5FY08

---

I truly do not know how this became an entire cover with a video uploaded to YouTube like this lmao.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been on-and-off vocal hiatus for the past year due to throat damage from laryngopharyngeal reflux! But esp the past few months with my condition fluctuating, I pretty much haven’t done any singing.

…Until one day I was in an angsty TXT mood (whom btw I've realized might have my current favorite discography among kpop boy groups?) and started singing this for fun… In fact, about 1/3 of the mains were recorded with speakers bc I thought of it as karaoke looool.

It’d been 1.5 months since I’d last sang so was basically testing my vocal condition—I expected my voice not to be able to handle low notes, pleasantly surprised, then I thought maybe rapping would be too much, was super happy since my last rap attempt my throat said nOPE, and DEFINITELY I thought I’d be skipping the chorus and loud parts, but big shock!!! Somehow….a cover came to existence!!

This was so fun—from the whole unexpected recording experience, mixing with lots of effects, getting to do a new yolo duet with the best friend (thank you chiisa for your angel voice and Sakura-chan!!!), pulling this video out of my ass…..

Thank you for watching and reading if you did ♡

I will sing lots more when I’m recovered!

---

PS: I got greedy and rushed to upload this the night before leaving for AX LOL. Kinda contributed to my dying but I'm glad I got this out there ;v; I'd like to do a little breakdown of the mix effects, maybe coming soon !?

---

Yaaaay I did it! Rather than a proper mix breakdown, I just showed everything that was on my effects chain—they're kind of the typical effects that I would use for vocals, especially kpop vocals that need to be thick and punchy, and ESPECIALLY since I only recorded one layer with no doubling!

mix breakdown ?! kind of !?

such a huge relief that ppl liked my mixing for the "0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)" cover tysm 🥺

it was fun haphazardly piling on all the effects - so here is a breakdown of what's on my Vocal Bus as requested!#youtaiteworks pic.twitter.com/taWhCEyesq

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) July 13, 2022

Also a little demo of how the pitch phasing works since it's not super common but I think it makes a world of difference!!

Anime Expo 2022 📸✨

{ Currently listening to: "Stay This Way" by fromis_9 🎶 }

Things been crazy again lolololol.

Despite attending Anime Expo every year since 2012—HOLY IT'S BEEN TEN YEARS ? ! barring the two years it was virtual..... This year I hadn't planned on it until a month beforehand because the team I work with for BAR Con was either managing, representing, or collaborating with a bunch of music performers and we just needed more personnel on-site. It was thanks to volunteering at Fanime, having a great time with the team, meeting cool performers, and having so much fun taking photos that solidified my decision and I'm glad I went ;u; Hindsight certainly says I would've regretted not going.

The thing to regret though... most of my friends caught COVID. 💀 It's hard to pinpoint how and when. Miraculously considering I shared a room with someone who's been bedridden this past week, my body seems to have managed to fend it off entirely..? Shout out to my 2nd booster vaccine that I was able to get by citing mild immunodeficiency from my lung risk—you a real one. 🙏

It was definitely a different experience; Anime Expo in the past always felt like a bonding camp where I'd squish into a hotel room with too many friends and we'd just chill together, I cosplayed pretty much every year, and we'd leave at the end feeling like a little family with the stupidest inside jokes. It was the central place where we could meet our youtitty friends from all over the world and I helped out with organizing the AX Youtaite Meetup, sometimes vlogged, one year we even filmed Youtaite React. Heartwarming, bursting with friendship and things that became wild stories, mostly wholesome. Many of my favorite memories are of AX!

This year most of my typical friends hadn't planned on going... until just like me: many ended up there for staffing, boothing, or networking/work-related purposes. Pandemic isn't a good time for sardine-mode hotel room so we did our separate things. Very interesting that we've spent enough years attending the con and gaining experience/rank that we now stand on the other side of the velvet rope—my friends have become so powerful hahaha.

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.

---

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