Friday, July 27, 2012

Rookie Meet-up (Long Post)

Yesterday I went to a Rookie Meet-up at the Strange Magic exhibit located at Space 15 Twenty in Los Angeles. I've been a big fan of Tavi Gevinson for a couple of years, so it was soo amazing to meet and talk with her! I was super nervous and I have a terrible habit of talking really fast when I'm nervous...so I just hope she understood what I was saying. When she first walked into the room, not a lot of people were there. I made eye contact with her from the middle of the room, so she waved and kindly said "hi". However, I responded by making a stupid shocked face and by doing an awkward point/wave to her. I did not get to talk to her then and there, because she went straight to the employee's room. However I did get to chat with her for a bit by the end of the night.

I made her a franken nail polish that was inspired by her blue hair.
 
I forgot to take a picture of how I packed the nail polish up, which is a shame because I was kind of proud of it.

The set up of the exhibit was very cute because it had this nice teenage girl vibe, but it felt as if the teenage girl was involved in witch craft. Mindy Kaling, who was there for a Q&A session, dropped by early to check out the exhibit. A group of girls and I eagerly stood around her, hoping to talk with her. We ended up chatting for a couple of minutes. Mindy complimented us on our clothes and we apologized for being awkward. I was able to snag a photo with her!

Belle (my sister) and I went into a tree house that was part of the exhibit. There we met and hung out with three cool girls (Alexandra, Ryley, and Makenna), drew on the walls, and played with an Ouija Board.
There was an awesome Adventure Time reference, so I had to write "Awesome" and draw a Fin. I also drew a cartoon me.
I have never interacted with an Ouija Board before, so I was totally for it when one of the girls suggested that we played. One of the girls asked if someone was there, and the pointer on the board moved to 'yes'. We began asking questions and found out that the spirit was a 13 year old girl. We jokingly asked her if she was here to see Tavi like the rest of us and the pointer quickly slid to the 'yes'. In shock, we asked the spirit if she was a fan of Tavi. Again the pointer quickly slid to 'yes'. That could explain why there was a spirit present in an art exhibit located in the middle of a shopping center. She was a fan of Tavi like the rest of us! 

We began to ask the spirit questions relating to us, such as "What's the first letter of one of our names?", and she answered some of the questions correct. However, when my sister asked the spirit to guess her age, the spirit answered wrong. My sister is 23 so it was pretty freaky when the pointer went to 2. However, for the next number, it went past the 3 and slid all the way to 8. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. 

Maybe we were unconsciously moving the pointer ourselves or maybe there really was a 13 year old girl communicating with us...I'll never know. Regardless I had to tell Tavi, and she was very excited. Tavi said that it was a huge boost to her self-esteem to have a ghost admire her. I thought that was the greatest response ever.
Around 7pm, everyone went outside to attend the interview of Mindy Kaling by Tavi Gevinson. It was very interesting to see this huge group of (predominately) girls, and to look at the faces of confused people walking by. After the Q&A, all of girls either bunched up around Tavi or Mindy. I hung around Tavi and listened to her talk about feminism with other girls. I was too nervous to say anything, but eventually I got her attention and gave her my gift. She was real sweet about it and thanked me. I couldn't think of what to say, but thankfully I left a note with her present that fully expressed my admiration for her.

That is all.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Warning: Nerd Post

Last Thursday I decided I wanted to dye my hair after work, even though I had to leave for Comic-Con the next day. Brigitte and I ended up taking a long time coloring my hair, so I only had two hours of sleep (since I had to wake up at 4 am the next day)! I always get tired at Comic-Con, but this time I was extremely exhausted. On Friday, my friends and I were not able to get into the Legend of Korra panel, but we waited outside the room and my friend took a lot of photos when the panel finished. My friend Mark, who cosplayed as Amon, got to "take away" the bending of Sifu Kisu, along with a bunch of other people (and objects).


Afterwards, we walked around the exhibit hall (which is where a bunch of companies show off their stuff and hand out free swag). We saw Emilia Clarke, AKA Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones!! She was far away and on a higher location, so the picture is not that great.

We also saw Andrew Lincoln from The Waking Dead, but he walked by so fast we did not have enough time to take a photo : (. And we saw Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules from that old school live action series, but again we didn't get a photo.

One interesting exhibit was the Lego booth. They had a bunch of Legos and let people decorate their walls. My friend said I looked like a child playing with the Legos, but haters gonna hate. I wrote "Hi" on the wall. Also, you can kind of see my green tips : )

This year I decided to not grab as much free swag as the other times I've gone. I usually end up throwing away a lot of the stuff, so I only grabbed what I really wanted. First, I went to Chris Sander's booth (he's the co-director of Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon). I picked up the poster for his new Dreamworks movie and got him to sign my How to Train Your Dragon artbook. I meant to tell him how much I love his films and ask about his new movie, but I ended up getting too nervous and said nothing except a feeble "hi" and shakey "Thanks, so much!"


The Cartoon Network booth handed out Adventure Time maps that had a scavenger hunt on the back. The prize for completing the hunt was a super awesome medal. Best free swag ever.


They also had really cool posters to celebrate their birthday and handed out awesome Regular Show pins.


I can't remember where I got the Adventure Time pin.
On Saturday we woke up around 4:30 am to head over to the convention center to get in line for the Adventure Time panel. It was hilarious as usual and we all had a great time.

That is all.