Black hEAVEN

Everyone and their mom has been posting their "Its a New Year so heres my recap of the New Year" posts lately and therefore I'm going to be lame and jump on the bandwagon. Not to mention I barely really do any 'personal' ish blurbs here lately. I feel like I abuse instagram and tumblr for those far too much that I just neglect this until I have something decent to talk about. Blah how pretentious. But it is the New Year and I haven't done anything productive since ALA. Not that ALA was very much productive on my end....godIhateConshootsbooI'mspoiledbyprivatelocationshoots QwQ

So I'm just going to randomly dump stuff in here that I already originally posted on my tumblog uhuhuhu while I wait to prep for a new adventure in the upcoming week...such as! 

 

lol. What?!

The San Diego Museum of Man is running an exhibit on torture instruments used throughout the ages.

They ran this exhibit a few years ago but I couldn't go (boo for being too young then) but I definitely don't want to miss this one! Hopefully I get to go this weekend.

I definitely feel that I take it for granted that I live in San Diego and that we DO have a decent amount of parks and museums to our disposal orz  back when I went to SDHS where the school is literally 2 blocks from the park, we'd use to go alot during one of my block periods. And I use to troll the park and museums when I was in school when I would ditch class :P 

I was complaining to my brother the other day how exhibits and museums are so expensive (The Titanic exhibit ran me almost $20 lol but I managed to use a student discount) but he did brought up a good point, the money goes into helping out the museums and exhibits orz;; so I nut up and shut up and guess I'll be going and trying to support my local museums more and educate myself lol 

Don't you sometimes feel that when you're not doing anything *productive* or education your brain is just simply going to turn into mush? Growing up my parents and grandparents always placed a huge emphasis on learning and that you should take it upon yourself to *learn* something everyday. Or exercise your noggin' and since I wasn't able to sign up for classes this spring, gonna try again for Fall and in the meantime. I signed up for Bartending school. Aww yeah. 

Another instagram post dump~ as my camera is sitting in the back gathering dust only coming out to play when theres a shoot. And even still I am reminded on how old my camera's model is lol.

  That clutch Doctor style bagggg omg. I'm so mad at it, I've posted about it on tumblr and instagram. I wanted it *grabby hands* only coz it opens ontop like a clutch and it *stands* on its own!!!!!!! But wasn't a fan of the handles and the price tag /: It was almost $40? $30? No. Not when I have a taobao order coming in lol. So next time! Pill box! You will be mine eventually!

Bought a handy little soft box for my external flash. One of the problems I encountered with the macross shoot and having to shoot indoors (in the same location as PMX) was poor poor lighting. You can't even illuminate the model properly since it would just be too harsh! And when I was bouncing off my friends light stands, it illuminated areas and created shadows in others )': I am hoping this lightbox would serve me well in preparation for a shoot at the end of the month. My friend also sent me a reflector kit! Finally! Huzzah~

Hopefully when I get back I'll be able to revamp the layout on this page. Its getting pretty old /:
hoping there would be a good turn out at the 'gathering' or the photoshoot. If not, then lol we'll have the whole place to ourselves. I always feel like theres a weaker turn out because a lot of the times people don't have rides and we always tend to pick /far/ away places. But if anything, we're the ones that have to drive pretty far LOL. Yes, the shoot once again is going to be in Los Angeles. Haha. Why do we never shoot in SD?! IDK....

Welcome the new year I also went ahead and tried to experiment with other flavors that I've been wanting to try for so long. ROSE! Inspired by Rose macarons from the macaron shop in Little Tokyo I wanted to recreate some cookies. Lucky for me I live in a very diverse Asian community with a lot of different markets.

Rose water is also a great skin care agent~ I wrote up a new article regarding using tea tree oil and rose water as a skin care. I was going to post it here but I ended up submitting it to my friends E-mag. I'll post up a link and screen cap of it when the article is published OwO;;

I used my regular cookie recipe for moist cookies, I also made another version thats Rose & Matcha. I think I put too much rose flavoring in it since my friend and roomate both commented it tasted like Potpourri.
Yeah, not all of us grew up eating that stuff LOL so we don't automatically assume anything rose or lanvender flavor is potpourri...

I think I want to redo this but more of a short bread type cookie consistency and not a moist cookie and less on the rose extract maybe. I wasn't to eventually make Macarons with it but my next experiment would be is to use a Earl Grey Tea recipe I found and using a few tea bags of Strawberry Rose Green Tea with it.

Can't wait to experiment with it. I'm gonna do this next week before I head to the shoot, since. I don't want to eat it LOL. I just want to bake. Not eat them hahaha. Feeds it to all my friends. I shouldn't be feeding the models before a shoot...

 I'll post up that recipe when I get a chance to try it out. Ideally in my head, the rose and strawberry would just give a light aroma to the cookies and the green tea would give it a nice smooth flavor. Since taste is, what? 60% smell? Stoked to try it out~

Also went to the Body Shop to pick this bad boy up:

Forever sold out but is finally back instock during the damn winter when you're skin needs it less but oh well, come summer I'll be ready! D8< it works great as a primer and keeps you from being shiny. But I don't like that its $18 for only 1oz of product. So I use it sparingly )': and well, thankfully in the winter I dont need it. In fact I need as much moisture as I can get. My skin has gotten to the point that its getting flakey and even my clinique dramatic moisturizer isn't cutting it. I went back to using Honey Yogurt and Oatmeal mask. And its woooorking~ whoo. Beat that winter skin!

After the shoot I need to get me the map pass for COD~