forget too many animals, i have way too many items in my wardrobe XD i hit the 15k mark a few weeks ago and it still keeps growing XD

oh don't worry about late replies, i was probably sleeping or trying to sleep anyway! and school work can really be so absorbing! i do not miss it XD

yeah i've seen some absolutely horrible things on those shows. still can't stop watching. i think that's one of the reason my mum and i were so adamant we got a rescue dog and not a puppy. plus, puppy farms are a big problem here. they are doing their best to abolish them and get the law changed, but it's taking a while. and it can be so hard to tell. i'd rather get a rescue dog any day.

woaaaahh 15k!! I can't even imagine my wardrobe ever getting that big haha how do you keep track of everything? Especially now since the V3 is so shitty you can't even find clothes in a specific color you want D:

School work is tiring, but I'm only taking Art classes and Japanese classes, both subjects I thoroughly enjoy, so it's not so bad ^^

What's wrong with puppy farms over there? Do they mistreat the animals? :(

i don't know how i do it, but i seem to manage some how! i just love wearables so much! :3 and you can find clothes in specific colours with V3, i do it with a lot of items. it shows up underneath the previews of the HA with the item on. with the colour selection underneath, you just choose a colour and hey presto. and you can choose a different layer and keep the colour selection.

ah that's good, i would have loved just art and japanese at school. in my final year i mostly did art, so i can't complain too much!

the puppy farms are basically where people who don't give a damn about animals and only want to make profit function. they pile animals into cages or pens, and constantly have the females pregnant so they keep churning out puppies, they tend not to bother with hygiene or vaccinating or anything, so a lot of the puppies die within days or weeks of their new owners getting them home. there are a bunch of signs to look out for, but sadly not everyone looks out for them. it's really horrible the state some of the dogs end up in.

maybe I just don't know how to use the V3 properly yet haha xD still 15k is impressive!

What did you study? ^^ and what art classes did you take? Did you like them?

That's so horrible :/ yeah, something should definitely do something about that.. Idk how people can treat animals like that and not feel horrible. Money makes people evil. I bought my guinea pigs from a pet shop and I just hope they didn't come from those kinds of animal mills D: I tried looking for a rescue but couldn't find anything

it's pretty good once you get used to it, i like it at least! plus it's easier to try an item on, for example, if i want to try a few different eyes with an outfit/hairstyle, but i'm not sure which to choose. i can stick a few on, then untick them so i can see one. it's good if the items are on different pages, so i don't have to keep looking for them, remembering the names and moving them to hide them under the HA XD it makes life a bit easier.

well in the my last year of high school i did Art & Design, and Photography. they were pretty good. at that point i was interested in doing jewellery making at uni, but then i decided against that, and ended up doing Filmmaking and Screenwriting at uni, which i was much better suited for. it was an amazing course. i enjoyed it so much! though i don't really want to go into that field now :P i really want to be a writer, but yeah... lots of stuff stops me :P

it's so hard to find animals these days that you can be sure they weren't mistreated, overbred, etc. it's ridiculous. it's getting to the point you need to start breeding your own pets XD i am considering doing that one day when i have my own place, with gerbils or rats. since i love rodents, but so often by the time you get them from petshops and things, they haven't been handled enough, and so become nervous and hard to hold. but if they are hand raised, they can be super friendly and playful.

seems that you're a very creative person! Writing can be so much fun. What sorts of things do you enjoy writing about? Or genre?

I can see why reputable breeders are pricier :/ but they're worth it. I think that's why my piggies are taking a while to tame, they never felt safe and secure around humans. Although they're slowly getting better.

i mostly writing fantasy, or historical with a fantasy twist. i'm not so good at anything modern day. if i write something modern day, i usually have to add a fantasy element into it, to make me feel comfortable writing it XD

what about you? what kind of things are you into, or want to do in the future? since you're obviously into the arty stuff too :D

yeah my last 2 gerbils, Tempest wasn't very sociable but Storm quite liked coming out for a pat and a run around. Tempest died 6 months after i got him, so it meant Storm got even more friendly, since he was on his own, he liked being talked to and handled for the company. my current 2, Ash and Acorn, they don't like being handled. well they did at first, then they decided they didnt and starting biting me a lot. now they aren't as bitey again, but a bit unpredictable. so i don't get to handle them as much as i'd like. which is a shame. Ash is easier to catch and hold than Acorn. Acorn tends to run away, and if you do get hold of him, he tries to kick-propell himself out of your hand back into the cage! XD

AWWW gerbils are adorable! Rodents can be moody little things eh? But at least you can hold them every now and then ^^ my piggy Momo (the less sociable one) tries to jump out of my hand too, but I don't let him until he calms down haha. It's especially dangerous for piggies because their bodies are so fragile :( Mura though, he's such a docile little creature (well they both are) He's the easiest to grab and he stays still when I hold him haha, unless it's one of those rare occasions where he's grumpy and doesn't want to be handled xD

Fantasy eh? Are you currently working on any story or anything eh? ^^ and I suppose we all have our own muses haha. For me, I like melancholic type of works, so I tend to make those a lot.

As for me, I'm into so many kind of Art haha. Painting, drawing, photography, sculptures, etc. I oroginally wanted to study filmmaking at NYU Tisch school of art, but I didn't have the test scores to get in, so I decided to come to Japan. I was originally gonna study here for a year and then transfer to NYU.. But things happened and I ended up deciding to just graduate here. I still love film, but in the future maybe I can incorporate it somehow. All I know is that I love art and traveling so anything with those two will make me happy xD

some of my previous gerbils have thrown themselves unexpectedly out my hands, and i'm always amazed as how sturdy the little guys are! even then, i still panic like mad when it happens! i would love to have little piggies though! they are so cute! i love the cute little squeaky noise they made! do you have any pictures of your piggies?

erm, it's hard to explain XD i have some health stuff, and it makes it hard for me to settle down to write. it's the only thing i want to do, but i really struggle to do it. i got through a lot of very long periods of not writing, and a few very short times where i can write. at the moment i'm not writing, but i got a nice bit of inspiration lately (a lovely note from my favourite author arrived earlier in the week, and gave me a little inspiration, which is making me feel more like writing), so i am hoping to give it a try again soon! i tend to shift between styles of writing, i prefer to write stuff with a little humour in it, but so often i find that i write the serious, depressing stuff better. even though writing it often puts me in a scary, dark place XD

there's loads of way to incorporate art into film. like costume design, set design, storyboarding, etc. so many ways to work it into these things! even going into animation or something. or making miniatures for movies! :D i'm always so jealous of people with artistic talents like yours, since although i'm kind of artistic, i can turn my hand to a lot of stuff, but not do it brilliantly, and i can't draw well >< but i had so many friends who were amazing at art, so jealous of them :P but it's so cool you went to japan to study! what a great place to go! i wish i had the guts to do that, but i'm a scaredy cat :P i got accepted to my course on filmmaking and screenwriting based on my artistic side. i did badly in my english exam, despite the fact that i was probably better at english than the rest of my class, and much better read too, but i don't test well. basically the markers have a list of words they are looking for in your answer. if your answer doesn't have those words in it, you fail. problem is, i was analysing the stuff too much, and therefore was actually answering at a higher level. i discovered this for certain when i tried to write my first essay at Uni, i told my lecturer i was struggling with it, she read it and said 'yeah, you are trying to write this more at the level of a 4th year university student. you are in 1st year, tone it down a bit' so there you go. too smart for my high school english class. made me feel better :P though i will always have that bad test score marring my record. evil exams.

just wanted to check up and see if you were still around! i miss chatting to ya!

Oh my! So sorry I went ghost on you! The last two weeks or so haaaave been insane just preparing for finals and my trip back home for the break. And I'm still not done! Lol just finally managed to find some time to kill xD Apologies for the rudeness

here are some pics of my piggies ^^

What if you treated writing more as a job rather than a hobby? do you think you'd write more? :) I bet writing humorous pieces of fun, but I always find the more depressing stuff seems to be more cathartic.

that sucks about your exam! I don't ever hear about people getting bad grades for being too smart for an exam xD perhaps your high school teachers were the dumb ones ;) or too rigid

it's alright! i was just starting to get a bit worried that something had happened, or i'd said something to offend XD

omg the piggies are so cute! :3 i want to hug and pet them so badly!

i think if i had the time to treat writing more like a job, it would be better, but with my current job, i'm usually too tired to do any writing, and i just keep putting it off ^^; i did manage a little writing recently, and i want to do more, but i keep putting it off because i'm too sleepy or not in the mood for it.

how have you been anyway? are your finals going well?

I see. Life can really get in the way sometimes. What are some of your favorite books or authors?

Finals are stressing me out. I fly out the very next day after my last final so I have a looot to do in terms of preparing, packing, finishing my projecys, cleaning.. Ahh! Most stressful week ever lol

haha don't get me started on books i might never shut up XD My favourite book is Good Omens - neil gaiman & Terry Pratchett my favourite author is Robin Hobb (i practically worship her XD ) I like a ton of other authors though and i always seem to be finding new books i love. i read a lot ><

here's a few authors/series i like:

Sarah J Maas (chaos and i both read them recently and they were awesome, and now we're having to wait for the new one to be released ><) Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next books are just some of the best ever) Gail Carriger (I love all her series, but mostly the Parasol Protectorate, gotta love that steampunk with werewolves and vampires :P ) Jessica Day George (Dragon Slippers, such a great new fairy tale) Mary Janice Davidson (Queen Betsy rocks) Victoria Laurie (reading her Ghoul Hunters series, and going to start the Psychic Eye series soon too) Kit Berry (Stonewylde just broke my heart!) Karen Miller Michelle Paver (the Wolf Brother series is amazing :D ) Soman Chainani (the school for good and evil was just...wow) Derek Landy (woo! skulduggery pleasant is so damn cool!) Darren Shan (I prefer the Demonata to the saga of darren shan) Rachel Caine (morganville vampires...i never wanted it to end) Harry Potter of course has to get a mention Discworld too, I love Pratchett. I cried when he died. ;-; and most of Robin Hobb's books, but particularly her series with Fitz and the Fool, who are just my favourite literary characters ever.

not a favourite, but at the moment i'm reading the Roman Mysteries series, which is kinda good. i like to read kids books sometimes, they make good bedtime reading to fall asleep to ^^ i'm also currently reading 'the name of the wind - patrick Rothfuss', i read it before but it was so long ago, and i now have the 2nd in the series but forgot everything about it, so wanted to re-read it before i started on the next one.

what about you? what are your favourite authors and books?

It always seems when there are exams and things on the horizon, everything suddenly gets really busy! it's like you could spend the whole year with hardly anything to do, then all of a sudden, everything happens at once! it's crazy!

that's an impressive list! :O I like that you read a lot of female authors haha ;)

I'm not sure I have one. It's not that I don't read books (I love reading!) I've just yet to encounter one that has had a big effect on me. Some I can recount is Catcher in the Rye, 1984.. But I don't like counting those because I read them in high school haha. honestly I haven't put the time in either! I would love to spend a whole month just doing nothing but reading but other activities seem to take over. Any recommendations? ;) I'm a fan of anything really, as long as the plot is compelling and I can feel for the characters.

I know what you mean :/ just three more days!!

Edit: scratch that, the last book I read that I loved was The Iliad xD

when i was younger i almost never read books by female authors, not sure why XD but now i mostly read books by women. I'm not so into the classics, i mean, i feel like I should read them, but i don't really want to. I find they hard going and dull. i'm sure some aren't, but the ones i have tried haven't caught my attention.

and catcher in the rye seems to be a popular books for people to read in school. my class didnt read it, but i think one of the other english classes did. we read the Pearl instead, which i kind of hated. we read a couple of Steinbeck books, but i'm not a fan. they were abridged versions though so maybe that didn't help. but we did more shakespeare than anything else, or at least, it felt that way XD

i'm not sure what to recommend, i mean, obviously most of the stuff on that list :P but specifically i'm not sure. most of what i read is fantasy in some form or another, it's rare i read anything outside that genre.

and the iliad is one i mean to read, along with Paradise lost, the faerie queen, stuff like that. i have copies of the last two in my room somewhere, but i keep getting distracted by other books XD

oh my you must have a big bookshelf :p I loved The Iliad. I normally don't care much for classics either, but I just loved the plot so much, and had characters I was really cheering for

Do you live alone?

i have too many books. i don't actually know how many. i have to keep storing them in boxes in my wardrobe. i think my wardrobe contains more books than clothing XD and nah, i still live at home with my parents. because my health isn't great, i can't work enough hours to earn enough to live alone. what about you?

is it alright if I ask about your health condition? :o

Yeah I live alone in a small studio apartment. But in February my boyfriend is coming to Japan to live with me, so I won't be alone for long ^^

of course ^^ it's not anything serious, i just have fibromyalgia. not sure if you know about it, but basically it's something that affects your muscles and mind, so almost my whole body is in some degree of pain all the time, and pain killers barely touch it. some of it is to do with my skeletal structure being just a little off too, nothing serious, so yeah, that's no fun. plus it means i get bouts of depression and also some pretty bad insomnia too, so i get very little sleep. it's one of the reasons that the pain is bad, because i can't get a proper sleep, my body hasn't got a chance to recover from normal aches and pains like an average person, so i'm in pain, so it's harder to sleep. vicious cycle. and i have tried just about everything to sleep and nothing works. it's incredibly frustrating!

i have been a little better lately, so i've been doing an extra day a week at work to test and see how i am coping, so far so good.

i keep forgetting you are living in japan! i have the worst memory for these things XD what's it like living there?

that sucks :/ were you born with it or did it come with something? I hope your good streak continues!

Haha most people forget I do xD so no worries. It's really fun, I enjoy it. the crime rate is really low, it's not too expensive, and so much good food here ^^ and also it's so clean! There are bad things too of course, like the city if way too crowded, rent is pretty expensive (I live just outside the city so it's not that bad) and the people are okay I guess.