Freedom From the Metal (A New Age of Art).

     Hello, all.  G-star here.  I actually could've posted this sometime on Friday, but since I posted on Wednesday I thought it might be a little much to write two large posts in the space of two days.  This is gonna be a long one.  (Besides, if I changed to a daily schedule I would feel guilty every time I couldn't go on the computer...I don't need the stress.)
      First things first: Thursday morning I got my braces off!  As my mom had continuously told me, if felt slimy.  I had to get a permanent lower retainer along with a nighttime upper one and the upper one hurts like heck to yank off my teeth.  They have to take a cast of my top teeth the make the retainer, which has got to be one of my top three things to avoid.  They have flavors for the pink stuff they use, but that doesn't matter because I can't taste it.  All I can taste is the icky metal tray they hold the pink stuff in.  Not only does it trigger my gag reflex, it makes my stomach sick, a combination that can come to no good.  But the braces are off and that's what matters.  I've also found out that when the lady who works on my mouth says "you're going to feel a little pressure" she means "it's going to feel like I'm yanking your teeth out of your mouth, but don't scream!" - _ -  Great.  I bet that's what they're trained in: reverse hyperboles.  
     To celebrate MC and I went to the grocery store across the street during lunch and bought sour gummy worms.  Well, I did, she bought sour gummy worms and fake tea.  Then, over the course of lunch she ate the entire bag of gummy worms and finished off the tea, and after she did, she asked if we could go back and buy another bag of candy.
     ...
     I thought I was supposed to be the hyper one?
     I only ate half the bag, and the rest's still in my lunch box.  (No, MC, you can't have any.)  That tea had a ridiculous amount of sugar in it, too.  She was pretty jumpy...
     I like drawing.  You could even say it's a hobby.  But I don't do it a lot.  Like, I'll doodle something when I have an idea or come up with something stupid when I'm bored...or I did.  Ever since I drew up the picture for Akira's and my contest I've been drawing a lot more, on full-size paper instead of in my sketchbook no less.  I even go over the drawings in softer lead to darken the lines and am considering inking a few of them.  I finish more and faster, too.  I think I may finally be on the road to actually continuing one of my comics.  I also found out part of why I don't finish a lot of my pictures; most of the time I don't like how they look because the eyes suck.  I love manga and all, but when it comes to the face the people have to be symmetrical, and that's nearly impossible with anime-style eyes.  So I've been taking a page out of Applegeeks's and Megatokyo's books and doing lazy yet expressive comic eyes, which mainly consist of a slightly curved line and a white circle.  And hey, it works!  I'm still using anime eyes every so often when what I'm drawing requires it, but mostly this comic style works great.  And I don't have to worry about changing the style too much when I go back to working on Zane's comic because their eyes are already like that, just a little bigger.  So it works.  I like it.
     Now that I have my braces off I can eat so many things I couldn't before.  Mom bought a huge bag of dark chocolate caramel pretzels from Costco.  They're DELICIOUS.  And just last night I got a caramel dessert when I went out to eat with my grandparents.  It seems that when they're here we eat out a lot.  Not that that's a bad thing, but...actually, maybe it is.  I'm stuffing my face with fattening foods every weekend, not to mention my frugality won't let me rest...  At least we're eating at sit-down restaurants.  But my mom used to make a nice dinner whenever they came to visit.  I wonder what happened to that?  Mmm, pork roast...
     I uploaded the cyborg picture to G+, so I can post it here for you guys to see, despite my being on a school computer.  Ah, the wonders of technology.  (I did promise.)  The hat and tail are based off things Piro wears in Megatokyo...I always thought they were so cute.  :3  So enjoy, and until next time, this is G-star, signing off!

Impersonal Opinions (I Lack the Strength/Layers Aren't All That Difficult).

     Pfff.  Hello, all.  G-star here.  Yes, I know, once again this is a day late, but because last night I wasn't able to go on the computer since the rest of the family was gone.  So let up.  Who am I kidding?  I'd be grateful if you criticized me.  JUST PLEASE COMMENT.  I'm getting desperate here.
     I think that I'm going to start being more casual about my "schedule".  I already stopped the weekend posts (mainly because I ran out of story bits to post), and now the Wednesday bit is going to heck.  So sometime from Wednesday to Friday is when I'll post.  But don't get me wrong, I really appreciate those of you who check the site every Wednesday for updates!  I'm so sorry you're always disappointed.  I'll try my hardest to post on time.  Just don't depend on my timeliness.  I'm not well-known for being dependable.
     In IHS Literature, we've been reading a pretty good book called The Samurai's Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama.  According to Smore, there's another book with the same name by a different author, and that one was made into a movie.  This one should be a movie, too, although if that were the case, I can name a few students who would simply watch the film instead of doing the required reading.  Anyway, almost every class we're given a reading quiz, each one in a different format.  The first one was just written answers, and the second was multiple choice, but then she had us do answers as haikus.  After that we had another of simple written answers, and this last one (we finished the book today) was a paragraph on whether or not we thought the ending was "satisfying".  If that wasn't odd enough, in this three-point paragraph, we were forced to refrain from using the words "I", "me", "you", and "your".
     Now you all know how opinionated I am, being a blogger and all, and the basis for this quiz (can I even call it that?  It was also open-book...) was the student's opinion.  So all of our "opinions" had to be stated as facts.  This worried me, and I thought of so many ways I could've made it better, although I am pretty happy with what I wrote.  I had planned to post what I wrote and what I wish I could've written in this post, but we had to turn it in at the end of the period.  Anticipating this, I attempted something I'd read in, oddly enough, a newspaper comic (ever heard of Slylock Fox?  It's in the Sunday paper): I placed the assignment sheet beneath my notebook paper (or more like Patveli's notebook paper) and wrote fairly hard.  Afterward, I went over the assignment sheet with the side of a pencil and the indents of my writing appeared.  Unfortunately, while it did turn out relatively legible, there was ink writing on the other side of the paper and so I couldn't make out more than a couple of words.  So I'm just going to do that in a couple days.  We should have it back by tomorrow.  Look forward to it!
     I'm working on a sort of poster art for that comic I've been "working" on (have I mentioned this?).  It's interesting, because I drew it in my sketchbook during school and then scanned it into the computer to work with on a manga art program I have (which I'm going to use for the actual comic as well, as it has panels and dialogue balloons and everything).  The first time I tried this, about a year ago, it got nowhere because I spent an hour trying to figure out why it wouldn't let me draw on the original drawing layer, then gave up.  Now, however, that I grasp (even lightly) the concepts of layers and such, it's much easier.  I may retry that old picture someday... I'm pretty proud of it, but I have no idea where the original is.  Just the scan file.  Anyway, when I'm done with this I'll put it up here.
     All of my teachers have been giving me big projects to do over the weekend...ugh...just thinking about it makes me feel the stress jumping up and down in my stomach.  I'll stop talking now.
     Apparently I was moved from Basketball third term to Strength and Conditioning.  Two words that make me tremble in fear.  The two classes switched rooms and periods, which really ticks me off, because they gave no warning.  Either way, I need a P.E. credit for this year, and seeing as I haven't taken any other exercise or sport classes this year, I need to take something other than Basketball that period, and that might have to be S&C.  Dangit, Basketball was the only sport on the list I was even vaguely interested in.... T-T  We'll see how this turns out.
     Well, I have virtually no time to access the computer, so I'll go now.  There was actually more I wanted to say, but none of it is important and only about half of it is interesting, so I'll save it for another day.  Likely the same one as the paragraph writing Mini-Ramble.  Until then, this is G-star, signing off.