Lord of the Silent

Amon-Re is the Lord of the Silent. Who is Amon-Re? He is the Ancient Egyptian god of the Sun, and a beautiful golden artifact found by the amazing Amelia Peabody Emerson in my most recently completed book.

I believe I have mentioned before that I am in love with the Amelia Peabody series written by Elizabeth Peters. I had started this series by listening to the audio books narrated by the fantastic voice talents of Barbara Rosenplat, but I had to switch to reading the books because Audible has a gap!

This post is mostly an update on what's going on in my life, as I have not been very consistent in my blogging (If you happen to have a twitter account, I've been slightly more consistent in getting tweets in...).

As I mentioned above, I just finished reading "Lord of the Silent" by Elizabeth Peters. It was a very enjoyable book, as they all have been thus far. I had the chance to finish this book because I read most of it in airports and in flight. I've recently started this thing while reading in which I write down words I come across that I either do not know the meaning of, or words that I am just curious of the dictionary's definition. In reading this book, I wrote down over 100 words that met the criteria I just mentioned, and I didn't even have my notebook with me for at least half the book! Here are some of the more entertaining words that I have had the chance to look up:

aggrandizement: to make great or great; to make appear great or greater: praise highly

picayune: something trivial, or little value; A Spanish half real peace formally current in the South.

surreptitious: done, made, or acquired by stealth

supercilious: cooly and patronizingly haughty

ungainly: lacking in smoothness or dexterity: clumsy; having an awkward appearance.

I'm happy to report that reading this series will be building up my vocabulary! You are probably curious as to why I was traveling, well, I just got back from a quick trip to Boulder, Colorado for a triathlon that Kambria competed in. It was a fun trip with the sisters; we got to see wonderful lightning storms, do some window shopping, eat bad Thai food, eat great Chinese street food, watch new shows, and see Kambria compete at a pretty large race! Kambria did well, though not as well as she would have liked. The most important part is that she qualified for another big triathlon at the end of the season. If you want to read more about her season, you should go visit her blog. She hasn't written about her Boulder Tri yet, but you can feel free to bug her about it!

I think this will be the end of my brief update. Coming up soon, I will write about my sister Devynn's Etsy store, and her self-taught glassworks business (she's making me an adorable pair of earrings!). You should check up on her store periodically, it's called Fallen Leaves Koi. Check her out on facebook and Twitter!

I will leave you with a picture of my newly acquired stickers. If you didn't know, I collect stickers to put on my sketchbooks (Cassandra does this too). I wanted to find a cool Colorado one, but didn't have the best of luck. These stickers are pretty cool though!

For the Love of Contests

One of my goals for this year is to participate in a contest each month. Contests are a wonderful way to give yourself a deadline, and push your limits to learn something new. Now that I am out of school, and  somewhere in between free-lance designer and employee for my parents' business, I find that I need to push myself more than I did when I was in school.

For the month of January, I failed miserably. I had intended to design a fabric for one of Spoonflower.com's weekly contests. If you have never had the opportunity to check out Spoonflower, I highly recommend doing so. They are a fantastic website that gives you the opportunity to design your own fabric and actually get it printed! There is also a wide range of beautiful designs available to chose from that other artists have already uploaded. My favorite part is the contests though, and at some point this year, I will enter one!

Because of my failure at making it into any contests for the month of January, I decided that I would just have to enter two contests in February. To my surprise, there is a wide range of contests on DeviantArt.com. I found two different fashion illustration contest groups to join, and designed something for each one. 

This dress was for the "Greek Mythology" theme for the "Fashion Illustrators" group.
My dress design is based on Heracles fighting the Hydra. If you want more of a description, go check it out on my Deviant Art account.

This dress design was for the "Ugly by Design" contest in the group "Catwalk Challenge" on DeviantArt.
There were several ugly patterns given for this contest, and the challenge was to use at least two in one design.  This was what came of my design, which I had to do all of the rendering on Photoshop to keep the patterns.

Back in January, I did some surfing on the web to see if I could find some design contests that required sewing and fashion shows and the like. I found a really cool one involving the "International Talent Support", which is located in Italy and has design labels that come to watch the show! I had to create a collection of 5 to 8 looks with a specific inspiration.

I have been quite obsessed with Ancient Egyptian Mythology lately, and after purchasing a book about it on my birthday, I found plenty of interesting topics to inspire a collection. I chose "the Book of Gates," which is a work that describes the passage of Ra (the sun god) through the Tuat (the Underworld). There are 12 divisions of the underworld, each with a gate and large serpent guarding it. Each of these serpents have a name, and in order for the deceased person to get to Amenti (sort of a heaven), they must have the names of the snakes to get through the gates. For Ra, he has to pass through all of the divisions to get through the other end. The 12 divisions represent the 12 hours of night, so when Ra emerges at the end, it is morning.

I designed a menswear collection inspired by the different divisions of the Tuat.

My collection for the ITS Fashion Show.

I mailed my package at the end of last week, and will hear in mid-April if I am a selected finalist. If I get in, that means I get to actually make all of these garments by July (when the actual show is), and the really awesome part is, ITS will fly me and my collection to Italy for the show! So send me all of your good energy so that I make it as a finalist!!

For next months contest, I am thinking I might try for a t-shirt design contest.

Anyone of my readers a crazy contest person like me?

Salumu Alakum!

Salum Alakum is the Arabic greeting "Peace be upon you!"

Recently I have become very interested in Arabic and Middle Eastern countries. Where did this inspiration come from? Well, it probably started with my listening to the Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters. 

I used to have this idea that I would never have any reason or desire to listen to a book when I could just read one. It probably didn't help that the only book I had ever attempted to listen to was a terrible written story narrated by mediocre voice talent. Then one day, I began working in the Outdoor Gear Repair Shop in Corvallis. The shop is a fair sized room made from an old garage of a building, and is filled with different sewing machines, various hardware, scrap fabric and materials and plenty of gear in need of repair or recently repaired. The man who owns this shop and works in everyday loves to collect and listen to audiobooks. So while I was employed there I got to enjoy quite a few good books with good and bad narrators and discovered how much easier it is to do mundane work while listening to a book. Expanding my vocabulary isn't a bad side effect either.

One of the last books I had the privilege of listening to was one of the Amelia Peabody books: "Seeing a Large Cat." I fell in love with the characters in the story. Amelia Peabody is an opinionated Brittish Egyptologist, that has a wonderful family of colorful characters placed in 1880s to early 1900s. Most of the books take place in Egypt and always have some sort of mystery that needs to be solved and usually some confounded young lovers that need her help. The narrator of the audiobook is a very good narrator. If you decide you should listen to these books, you should look for the versions narrated by Barbara Rosenplat. Elizabeth Peters in a wonderful author, and I would recommend reading the books if you don't want to listen to them. The author definitely knows what she is talking about when it comes to the history and relics of Egypt, which means in reading the books you are actually learning something about history. I am currently on book 12 of the 19 book series, and can't wait to finish them!

Listening to Amelia's passion for Egypt makes me want to go and see it for myself. A world that is desert is very intriguing. The other two books I have been reading this month have also inspired me to learn about the Middle East. The nomadic tribe of the Tureg have certainly captured my interest. I have also recently learned about one of the most expensive hotels in the world is located in Dubai, and it is interesting! Dubai seems to have a collection of unique and modern architecture. 

Burj Al Arab-- Luxury Hotel of Dubai

Now back to the phrase "Salumu Alakum!" In the Amelia Peabody books, a reader will become familiar with some Arabic words that the author has included in the story. This phrase is definitely one of them. Imagine my surprise when I was walking out of Corvallis's Dollar Tree and I heard and recognized this phrase! Imagine my further surprise when the person who said this phrase was a Caucasian gentleman, holding the door open for two Arabs! Hearing him say that to them, really made my day! I do not think I would ever be brave enough to try to speak someone else's language here, because I feel like I cannot differentiate between races that well and would hate to offend someone. If I was in Egypt, it might be a different story! 

Egypt is definitely a place I would like to visit one day, and Arabic might be a language I want to learn (It's at the back of the line though). I love how a whole new world has been opened up before me, thanks to a book!

Kambria's going to Nationals!

My very talented sister has qualified for Triathlon Nationals in Vermont this August! She leaves soon, and is working on raising the money for traveling. If you can help support her, please do! I made this lovely widget for you to donate money to her:



She has also recently started her own blog, so you should check that out if you want to see how she is doing in her events! Her race for Nationals is on August 18, 2012!!!

My Dream Job

It's very difficult to get anywhere if you don't know where you want to go. When I decided to pursue a degree in apparel design, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was to design disc golf wear for women. As I went through the program and was introduced to more areas of fashion and design, I wasn't so sure of what I wanted to do anymore. Now, coming to the end of the program and closer to graduation I know what I want to do again. The funny thing is, it hasn't really changed much, it's just including different things than I originally planned.

So, my dream job now is to design outer wear in Asia. I would love to come back and start my disc golf clothing company, but I feel so much more complete knowing I can combine the love of functional design with amazingly different Asian designs. This epiphany came about by watching this video: Big Bang & The North Face

Please give it a watch! It's great! And here's some photos in case you are too lazy:

And my favorite from Big Bang:

Year of Peace

So a couple of weekends ago, I went down to San Francisco to visit my little sister and watch the Chinese New Year Parade. The parade was awesome! I didn't realize that it would be set to be more at night, but it makes sense, because they have so many chinese lanterns and fireworks and the like. The parade started at 5:30pm and my sisters and I left at 8pm and it was still going! If we had prepared a little better for the cold, we would have stuck it out a little longer.

There were a lot of cute little kids with bunny ears (actually, lots of things with bunny ears). I also really enjoyed the tiger leaving (2010 was year of the tiger) and the rabbit coming in. Sadly, I used Kambria's camera instead of mine. Hers does not take very good pictures at night, and she has it, so I can't get any of the good pictures off of it! So enjoy the googled images!

Cassandra was saying that the year of the Hare is always a year of Peace. It comes before the year of the dragon, which can be a changing kind of year. So enjoy 2011, friends!

A Loyal Dog

I recently watched the movie Hachi: A Dog's Tale with my family. It's Christmas break, so I'm watching movies :)

Hachi was filmed in 2009 starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen. I was a little reluctant to want to watch this movie. My family came back from their day with a stack of movies, none looked very promising to me. Across the cover of this one said the immortal words "Based on a True Story," so it was obviously my mother's first choice.

I was pleasantly surprised, because I actually enjoyed the movie. Here was a movie with a fairly simple plot about a dog, that was done well (much better than that ridiculous Marley and Me). I was ready to give this movie a thumbs up until the end of the film, when the words on the screen said that the true story was actually about a Japanese professor at a Japanese train station. Pfft.

If you know much about be, then you know that I am currently obsessed with all things Asian, most of all Japan. So to find out that this movie could have actually been in a Japanese setting really put me out! To think I was excited about the one Japanese character in the film, and the discussion of the Japanese history of the dog!

If you don't want me to ruin the movie for you by totally revealing the plot, please, read no further. The real story of the dog Hachi started when he was born in Odate, Japan, in the Akita prefecture in November of 1923. He was sold to Professor Hidesaburo Ueno, an agricultural engineer professor at the University of Tokyo.

From what information I can gather between the film, the ever reliable Wikipedia, and other random websites, is that Hachi would walk with his master to Shibuya station everyday, go home, then at the end of the day come back to the station to pick him up. After two years of owning the dog, one day the professor boarded the train and then never came back. Hachiko waited for him to return, in fact, this dog came back to the station every day for nine years after his master died, every day until he died.

The loyalty of this dog is what makes this story so famous, famous in Japan. According to what I've read, there was more than one newspaper article printed up about the dog while he was alive, praising him for his loyalty. After the dog's death their was a film made in Japan in 1987 (Hachiko Monogatari). A bronze statue has been placed at the Shibuya station and is one of the most popular meeting places in Japan.

Every year in April there is a ceremony at this statue for this dog, where lots of dog lovers from all over Japan come to participate. There are also two other statues of this dog in Japan, one in Odate where he was born and one in front of the Akita Dog Museum. (Akita is the breed of dog that Hachi was, also Japanese).

This movie did lead me to a neat bit of history about Japan, so I am happy about that. I have one more thing to add to my list of places to visit when I go to Japan!(Maybe I could meet someone at Hachi's statue!)

Here is the statue of Hachi:


This post makes me think of two things: (1)this seems to me like the second Japanese movie remake that Richard Gere is a part of, and (2) we have an American dog hero statue... Balto. Perhaps I'll post about it in the future.

Adventures in Japantown

Back in September, I had the opportunity to go and visit my baby sister in San Francisco and attend the "J-Pop Festival" held in Japantown. It was a great experience and a lot of fun! The funny part about our trip, is that we had intended on going to San Francisco to take part in the "Moon Festival" held in Chinatown. Needless to say we spent pretty much the entire weekend in Japantown.

One of the exciting attractions for the J-pop festival, was that they had Mori Chack there signing t-shirts! What? You don't know who Mori Chack is? Mori Chack is the man who created Gloomy Bears. Let me give you a little background about Gloomy Bears.

I had not even heard of Gloomy Bears until early September, when I was staying at a friend's house for a disc golf tournament. One of the other ladies that was there, Miranda, filled me in on the exciting tale of Gloomy Bears. I noticed a cute little bear on her cell phone, and asked her about it. Miranda is a person full of amazing life experiences, like many people. If I were to start writing biographies on people, I would love to write one on Miranda, it seems that every time I spend time with her, I learn something new.

One of the experiences that Miranda had was living in Japan for a time as an Illustrator. When Miranda was telling me about Gloomy Bears she began by explaining that there is a district in Japan, where artists gather to sell their art. They might be really good, really bad, but they are all there. Apparently, Mori Chack started there as an artist, until someone discovered his unique artwork and the story behind it.

Gloomy was an abandoned Grizzly bear, who was adopted by the kid, Pitty. This child loved and cared for Gloomy, and Gloomy loved Pitty. Gloomy grew older and started growing claws, and teeth, and because bears will be bears, he attacks Pitty.

So all of this artwork that Mori Chack created was this adorable pink bear gruesomely attacking children, specifically, a little boy named Pitty. Miranda told me about a new Japanese store that opened up in the Bend area, and that when she made her first visit she told the cashier that she was looking for one thing. If they did not have this one thing she would not consider them a legitimate Japanese store. She asked if they had any Gloomy Bears, and sure enough, they had a whole wall full of Gloomy Bear merchandise. This is where Miranda found her cute little keychains that were on her phone and her keys.

I didn't end up being able to get an autographed t-shirt by Mori Chack, because the time we got there all of the shirts were sold out and they weren't allowing any other merchandise to get signed. But I did get a some sweet pictures:

Mori Chack signing a bear's head, there is even a little drawing on it! :)


Mori Chack and a fan!


And this was the back of her hat, so awesome!



In our shopping around Japantown, I found some of my own must-have Gloomy Bear merchandise:




I know that it's kind of horrible, the idea of this bear beating up this kid, but it really appeals to me. I think that part of it is that I have never understood the infatuation with Teddy Bears, because bears are only kind of cute and they aren't sweet either (same with Hippos, but that's another story). These Gloomy bears are ridiculously adorable, but still have the realistic side that they are bears and they are not nice.

What? Washington?

So today I find myself in Washington, not exactly where I had planned to be. The original idea was that Devynn would attend her class in North Bend, while I check out the local disc golf courses and maybe a little bit of shopping. To my excitement, I found that there was a 9-hole disc golf course located in North Bend, and another 9-hole course in the nearby town of Coos Bay.

Alas, this is not how the day would go. Just before 6am, while I was still gathering up my things to go, Devynn comes into my room to inform me that she was mistaken. This class she signed up for is not in North Bend, Oregon, which is a drive of about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it is actually in North Bend, Washington, a drive of about 4 1/2 to 5 hours. So not only were we needing new directions, but we were also pushed for time, as the class was to begin at10am.

We left immediately, I felt we had a chance of getting there in less time than predicted. I drove us up, speeding along the way where I could. (It's a lot easier to drive fast when there is no one on the road!) Along the way I had my mom look up local disc golf courses online so that I may still be able to play.

I wasn't very hopeful. The last time I tried finding a course in Washington was when Devynn and I came up to Seattle for a book signing. It ended up being a long drive, and since we took the train up, it was expensive too. Not only that, but the course was not well marked so I didn't end up playing the entire thing.

My mom began reading to me the nearby courses. The first one was in a place called Ravendell, a private 9-hole course only 13 miles away from North Bend, Washington. The next course, also private, was an 18-hole course about 20 miles away, and after that one a public 9-hole course about 25/30 miles away.

I weighed the options in my head as my mom read more information about each of the courses. At some point she mentions that the private 18-hole course is Crystal Mountain. Now it just so happens that I was recently talking to a guy aobut that course, in the interest that I might do the artwork for the upcoming tournament.

I am excited again! This is even better than playing the two little courses in Southern Oreogn! Now I'll get the chance to see this course and possibly get some great ideas for the artwork! My mom called and left a message, funny that they aren't open at 6:30 in the morning.

Happily continuing on our way, a non-stop 4 hour drive to the place in North Bend where Devynn needs to be. My mom calls back, letting me know that I can play Crystal Mountain and Dee is ther person she talked to. As fate would have it, Dee is also the person I had been talking to about the artwork, so what a great opportunity this was turning out to be!

With 8 minutes to spare, I got Devynn to her destination on time. Now to find more specific directions to this course. I called my parents, and upon further investigation, we discover that Crystal Mountain is not the mere 20 miles away like we thought, it is actually 68 miles away. So much for that idea. With no good attempt at finding another course, I decide to go find some fuel for my car and get some food.

One good thing that came of this trip is that I finally learned how to use my car's navigation system. I figured out where the nearest little town was and went to find some fuel in Snoqualmie.

Usually gas stations provide little means for an amuzing story but as I pulled up I remembered that I am no longer in Oregon, and therefore no longer in the state that requires the attendant to pump your fuel for you. I pull up to the pumps, pop the gas lid and look to the machine for answers. Wonderful! Directions on the screen! "Insert card or pull handle for cash." Ok, that's easy enough. I take out my credit card and try to shove it in the machine correctly ... "Try again." I put the card back in and remove it quickly as the instructions say, and again an error. I flip the card so the strip faces the other way and the machine starts beeping at me and reads "Get assistance from the gas attendant." I frantically push the cancel button to try and stop the thing, it silences the beeping. I look around the station, half hoping that a gas attendant does come to help because I have no idea what I am doing.

The screen goes back to the original message, which must mean it is safe for me to try again. I insert the card the flipped way this time, remove quickly, and watch the screen. Success! I look to the screen for further instruction. "Lift handle to pump gas." I remove the gas cap, as I try desperately to remember the one other time I had to pump my own gas but thankfully had someone to help me. I grab the nozzle and put it in my tank and lift the handle on the nozzle. Nothing. I fiddle with the nozzle a bit, figure out that there is a way to lock the handle on the nozzle, but still nothing. I must be missing something. I glance around the gas station again, this time looking to see who looks like the friendliest person I could ask for help. There's a guy with a vehicle behind me who is just finishing up his gas, he looks at me but doesn't seem like the helping type. Two guys with motorcycles on the other side of the pumps seem ok. They're older so maybe they'll be friendlier? I take one last look around the gas station and it seems those guys are my best bet. (Not to mention the guy parked behind me is now driving away.)

I walk over and ask for some help and they both leave their bikes and come assist me. I blame my ignorance on being from Oregon and they seem to understand. They tell me they have the opposite problem when they go to Oregon. They try to figure out how I need help and then one of the guys notice. I haven't lifted the handle. The handle refered to on the screen is the handle on the actual gas machine. The gas finally starts being pumped and my humiliation is nearly over with.

I was right about these guys being friendly. They make some conversation with me, tell me a story they heard about a guy from Oregon who pumped regular unleaded fuel into his diesel car. My tank is full, I thank them and bid them goodbye and now begin m quest for food.

Again, turning to my under-used navigation system, I find a place in town called Twede's Cafe, which has 50 different kinds of burgers! I tried the Cordon Bleau hamburger, it was great. The rest of the time I hung around town, looked at a bunch of factory stores including Nike.

Sometime after I was done eating, my mom called me to see how I was doing. She knew I was disappointed in how the day was going and suggested that we still go over to Crystal Mountain and stay the night there. After some conversation about it, I agree.

At 2 o' clock I go to pick up Devynn (which doesn't end up getting done until 3 o'clock.) I inform her of the plan and set my navigation system to direct me to Crystal Mountain. About 2 1/2 hours later, we arrive, check-in to the hotel and rest on the bed for a bit. After a few minutes of rest, we decide to go check out this place, it is after all a ski resort. I grab my map of the disc golf course and we go look for hole 1.

After a while of walking around we head back to the hotel and I get a call on my cell phone from Dee (who was playing disc golf earlier and was not at the desk when we checked in.) We decide to meet at the restaurant to discuss the artwork for the tournament.

I meet with Dee, and we talk a little about the artwork, but more about what sort of arrangement can be made for payment. I wasn't intending on getting paid for this sort of thing, it being my first real job in this line of work. We came to the agreement that we would do a little trading, I didn't have to pay for mine and Devynn's room for that night and if I decide to come up for the tournament or any other time I could get the room taken care of.

The deal was made. The next morning I went and played the course, losing 2 discs, my beloved dragon and one of my new favorites the sidewinder. Devynn did some exploring around the mountain. After that we drove home. What a weekend that ended up being! So much for planning ahead!