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My First Award!! What Do I Do!?!?

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I logged on to WordPress today and saw that little notifications alert was orange. I pressed on it and saw that Ash nominated me for the Sunshine Award! I am super excited so I am going to do the post now! (Despite being neck deep in assignments and final exam woes–but hey, this is a good distraction). Thank you Ash! I must say– I am probably just as surprised as her when she found out someone nominated her. The first thought that popped into my head was “Wow, someone’s actually reading my blog!!” So thank you for that Ash! 🙂 You brightened up what otherwise was a wet and dreary month, that bogged me down with midterm exams and projects! I would recommend checking her blog out, especially if you want to learn (or if you already do) how to appreciate manga and Japanese culture. She may not be Japanese, but she knows her stuff! 😀

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This award has two parts to it. I first answer ten questions about myself, and then pass the award on and nominate my favourite bloggers! So without further ado, here are my responses!

1. Who is your favourite philosopher?

It would have to be Confucius (unless if I am allowed to choose John Green. Then I choose YA author John Green. Go watch his videos on Youtube, you will see why.) Have you heard the amazing things this guy says? He is not only a philosopher, but he is so encouraging. I also find it amazing that a Chinese scholar’s influence can be found so significantly in Western culture.

“Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.”

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.”

-Confucius

2. What is your favourite number?

I actually do not have one. Here is a funny story though. When I was young, I thought you had to have a favourite number, and that it would bring you luck as long as you try to incorporate it into as many things of the things you do as possible. I chose the number 3. I would try to line up as the third person in line, take the third box of cereal in the supermarket, and would sleep with three stuffed animals. Glad I did not choose the number 97 or something. I would have suffocated from all the stuffed teddies.

3. What is your favourite animal?

My favourite animal…would have to be dogs. I love how loyal they are to their owners, and I also find a lot of them adorable. I have recently really taken a liking to pit bulls. They are the cutest thing ever. Sadly, I am allergic to most dogs, and I doubt I can persuade my family to allow me to keep a dog in the house.

NOPE, I am changing my answer. I love direwolves from Game of Thrones. They are huge, which will probably scare me in real life, but does not take away from the fact that I love them. The few direwolves that the reader encounters in the books show that they are very loyal to their owners. They also look pretty badass. I guess I liked regular wolves before I was introduced to direwolves, but once I found out about these larger and stronger wolves, I became a bit obsessed.

So that would account for my favourite type of animal. But I must say that if I had to pick one particular animal, it would have to be my late hamster. She was the only pet I have ever had (if you do not count the poor insects I trapped in plastic containers when I was young, foolishly claiming that they were my pets), and it is starting to look like she will be the last. This is mostly because my heart broke when she passed away. The worst part was not her actual death, but the days leading up to it. I cannot deal with loss, so I probably should stay away from pets.

4. What are your Facebook and Twitter?

My Twitter is fairly easy to find. I use the same username as my WordPress account: Kalyrical. I am not comfortable with sharing my Facebook, so this is all you guys get. 😛

5. What is your favourite time of day?

My favourite time of day is when the sun starts setting, and the world is right between being bathed in darkness and flooded with light. It feels like I am watching the world restart itself. Of course, this only rings true when we can actually see the sun in Vancouver. Otherwise, the whole day just feels like a lump of cloudy and grey sadness, and you really cannot differentiate between different times of the day.

6. What is your favourite holiday?

Definitely Christmas. Sure, my family may not be Christian or Catholic, but I see it as more than a religious holiday. The atmosphere around Christmas time is amazing. I wish it was like that everyday. People are packed in malls, and everything is decorated beautifully. Families come together and everyone has a reason to catch up. There are also presents. Yes, presents are nice.

7. What is your favourite physical activity?

I like cycling. I hate that feeling you get when you get off your bike and start wondering why everything is moving past you so slowly, and then you have to adjust to the fact that you are no longer on a speedy bike. I like feeling the wind on my face as I race by the world on a warm summer’s day.

But other than cycling, I hate physical activity. I cannot run for more than a block or two before I start wheezing. Of course, that is probably due to my lack of regular physical activity, but still.

8. What is your favourite non-alcoholic drink?

Either chocolate milk or Coca Cola (not Pepsi). I love chocolate milk–usually accompanied with a good novel. Of course, I like its hot counterpart equally, so depending on whether its hot or cold outside, I would either drink hot chocolate or chocolate milk.

Coca Cola is my go to drink when I am not sure what I want. Not Coke Zero. Or diet Coke. Or Coke light. And definitely not Pepsi. I like my regular Coca Cola thank you very much.

9. What is your favourite flower?

Classic red roses. I think that the world has reached perfection in flowers when it created the rose. All roses look nice, but I really love those deep red velvety petals on a classic red rose. I am pretty sure the roses I am referring to has a name, but I am not sure what they are actually called. You know which kind I am talking about. The ones that the guy always gets the girl when he tries to win her heart in movies?

10. What is your passion?

I have struggled in finding my passion for quite some time. I have always thought it would magically appear to me, and I would just know. Then came the first year of university when I had to start making decisions on what I wanted to do with my life. I started panicking because I did not know what my passion was, and had no idea which road I wanted to take on my academic journey. I believe I have found my passion in creative writing. I love writing fiction– always have, always will. I just did not think it would be an appropriate career choice. It seems so ambiguous and lacking in security to declare “I am going to be a writer.” I started taking Creative Writing courses this year at UBC and will be doing my minor in it.

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Now for the second part of my duties, I will now nominate several other blogs I want to pass this award on to! These are in no particular order.

1. http://nhanfiction.com
He frequently makes posts on one of my addictions: League of Legends. He also posts interesting pictures of quotes and bits of wisdom, most of which are motivating and just wonderful to see on your reader! Check him out!

2. http://nosajnawk.wordpress.com
I love the way he writes. It can be pretty sarcastic, but he hits the message home. This is a journal blog, and he explores topics that you can probably relate to, but was never brave enough to put it down in words. I say follow him, because he has interesting things to say 🙂

3. http://quieterelephant.wordpress.com
You never know what you’ll find on his blog. Some days, he may touch on serious topics, but a lot of the times he’s got some lighthearted reads that are pretty informative and fun to read! A lot of his posts also spark my imagination and gives me a boost of creativity.

4. http://dragoneystory.wordpress.com
He takes so really great pictures, and along with them, he will add a line or two of thoughts that we can take away. He is also super nice. Frequently, he reblogs interesting posts on other blogs, so he also provides a great hub for you to discover other bloggers!

5. http://itsthecookiemonster.wordpress.com
This girl is my real life friend, and her blog is filled with all these amazing pictures of baked goods that you can never have. But still, I would definitely recommend going to her page and drool all over your keyboard. Then you can attempt to recreate her cakes/cupcakes/cookies, fail miserably and cry.

I hope you guys accept the nomination! I found the questions fun to answer, and hopefully you guys will too!

-Karen

Musings After Sandman Volume 3– Gaiman’s Scripts

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I felt the need to just ramble about how I felt after reading Sandman. And here are my unfiltered thoughts (though I edited for grammar)– just thought I would share it with you guys! You may notice it is a bit different from my usual style of writing, but that is because I was just pouring out everything that went through my mind after reading the volume!
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I have nothing better to do on this fine Tuesday afternoon. I have braved through all my classes, and am now waiting for my HR meeting.

Anyway, I was at the gym earlier (shocker!) and instead of bringing my usual iPad to watch an episode of Supernatural while I run, I read volume 3 of Sandman. The stories were okay. Like the first book, I found myself loving certain parts of the book a lot more than the rest. I remember for book 1, it was when we were introduced to the Sandman’s sister– Death. She is amazing. Dare I say perfect? We see her again in one of the short stories in this volume.

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I still don’t entirely get Sandman. But I respect Neil Gaiman as a writer– a lot. He has that dark vibe to him, much like how you would expect Tim Burton to write if you got a chance to read his scripts. What was my favourite part of this graphic novel was the very last section of the book. Gaiman told us he would allow us a peek behind the curtains of how he writes his graphic novels. Actually, I’m wrong in saying that. He explicitly told us that this was not the Neil Gaiman style of how to write graphic novels, but simply how he writes The Sandman.

I did not think that writing the script for a graphic novel would be so intense. It seems like it would take ages to finish a page (I’m sure it does). I know I breezed through the pages of the novel, spending 2-3 minutes max on them. But the effort it takes to write one of these pages is commendable. He included notes from both him and his artist, Kelley Jones, in the margins of the script.

Gaiman writes his script out in a manner similar to writing a letter. To introduce each page, he would write to Kelley how he wanted the page to go. Additionally, he would also add random thoughts that he happened to ponder on. One of these included how he had a strange phone call the night before and it freaked him out. I loved this. It personalized the script, and made it so much more inviting to Kelley (or at least I would think I would feel that way if I was him). You are no longer reading stone cold instructions, but something from a friend.

After taking Creative Writing 203, we were told that we were not supposed to give the artist too much directions in our children picture book drafts. I wrote my story (which I was not satisfied with– and neither was my TA judging from my mark), and the only instructions you could get from what I wanted the illustrator to do was which page I wanted the text on. It was important that you allowed the artist freedom. Gaiman’s approach was completely different..

If you could read how detailed he makes each scene, it really is amazing. He not only tells the artist roughly what he wants the character to be doing, but he goes as far as to say that outside the window, we should get a lighting that suggests “early summer or late spring”. Each page’s panels have about half a page of text instructing Kelley on what he should do. Gaiman also says that he’d send Kelley reference pics (which us as the reader does not get to see). Gaiman does say that he has to first know who his illustrator is before he writes his scripts, so I am assuming he keeps in mind what he believes Kelley can produce.
I think this is amazing, but of course, I am thinking through the mind of the author. I would love for my artist to paint exactly what I imagined in my head. I wonder how Kelley feels. I wonder if this is the approach many other comic book/graphic novel writers use when they write their scripts. Or maybe it’s because Neil Gaiman is a such a big shot, so he gets to do things this way. Or maybe it’s a neutral agreement between solely Gaiman and Kelley. It’s weird how I refer to Gaiman by his last name and Kelley by his first. But I like it like that.

Seeing the script, I no longer think of graphic novels as very short pieces with several hundred words. Sure, each chapter may come in a small little compact booklet, and yes, we may only see the few hundred words that the writer chose to express physically with words in font.
But it is so much more than that.

-Karen

Marketing Post #5: Perfecting Your Dreams– Now Fit For The 21st Century

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A while back, I made a post on the Disney Princesses’ new look. I want to revisit that topic and delve into why Disney is recreating the figures that have always been a timeless part of many of our childhood.

Disney Princess Wallpapers 01

For a period of time, it seemed that Disney took a break from its franchise of princesses. The world was stuck associating six princesses with the whole line of Disney products; namely: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle and Jasmine. And then it seemed that Disney decided to reawaken every little girl’s dreams of being a princess by adding sequels to the original movies, as well as introducing new ones such as Tianna, Rapunzel, and our latest princess, Merida. They also opened up the criteria for who they considered a princess, allowing Mulan and Pocahontas to join their ranks.

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With the latest change, it was not only an introduction of new characters, but also a rework of their old princesses. They seemed to have opted to shower the new princesses with tons of sparkles. So why the rework? Why did they go through all this effort to change the classic images of the princesses dedicated fans have come to love? Marketing.

Disney Princesses sell. That is a known fact. The target market has always been little girls, but sadly, these girls grow up. A lot of us still retain our fondness towards the iconic characters, but of course, Disney recognizes that who is currently in their market is constantly changing. The late 20th to 21st Century also brought with it the attractiveness of teen pop sensations and celebrities. The old princesses’ hair styles and comparatively dull dresses seemed lacklustre compared to Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez plastered on magazines. Disney needed to change.

newdisneyprincesses

By improving aspects of the princesses, what Disney did was re-brand their franchise. Their marketing mix remains essentially the same, still producing the same range of merchandise, at the regular price, promoting them as they always did. However, stamping the new princesses onto their items help appeal to the modern little girl’s interest in fantasy and fairytales, and helps them to remain relevant in the market. They also integrated their princesses into new shows, such as Sophia the First, in order to reintroduce these princesses to the current rotation of girls in their market.

Although I was uncomfortable at first with the changes, I still stand by what I said in my last post in that I like the way the new princesses look (maybe because Cinderella’s original hairstyle has always bothered me), and I am interested to see where Disney will take their princesses in the future!

Sources: (x) (x)

Emerald City Comic Convention 2013 – The Clash of Fandoms

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At the beginning of this month, I went to the Emerald City Comic Convention! It was my first time at an American Comicon, as the other ones I have been to have all been in Hong Kong. Here is a recount of my trip!

Day 1

I woke up bright and early on the 1st of March (after only four hours of sleep), and took the bus down to Seattle (via Quick Shuttle). A 4-hour long bus ride was not the worst thing in the world, but I do wish that the bus would not make so many stops so that we could speed up the process. I ended up getting to Seattle half an hour late, which meant I was even later to the con than I had originally intended to be.

At 2:00pm, I arrived at my hotel in downtown Seattle– SpringHill Suites by Marriott. My friend and I chose this hotel because it was an 11 minute walk to to the Washington State Convention Centre– where the ECCC was to be held. I left my luggage at the front desk (I must say, the staff at the hotel were amazing. They were super nice and helpful throughout the whole trip!), and tried to make my way to the convention centre. Despite having printed out a million maps to guide me around the small area that is Downtown Seattle, you will not believe how many times I got lost. But soon enough, I got to the convention. What I was not prepared for was the line. I was in line for my badge for 2 hours. What happens is that you take your ticket to this counter to exchange it for a badge. Sound easy enough…except the line to the counter wrapped around the convention centre like a million times. I was forced to miss Felicia Day’s panel (but I guess it was okay, because she was to have another one on the third day with Wil Wheaton).

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After getting into the convention centre, I realized that it was very warm in there. It was my first day at the con, and my friend was skipping today, so I did not cosplay (we were cosplaying together). Instead, I spent my day taking pictures of other people’s amazing costumes. I am very impressed with the amount of work people put into their costumes, and for putting up with how hot it was. I was in short sleeves and I was hot– I can only imagine people walking around in full body armour and how gross it must feel.

DSCN1488 DSCN1489I left the con at around 7PM that day, choosing to take some time to explore Downtown Seattle. It was my second time there and I quickly got bored after entering random shops. I went back to my hotel, and realizing I had gone the whole day without food, I hastily picked up a lunchbox at a Japanese restaurant so I could eat back in my hotel room. My friend Michelle came later on in the night and we ended up watching the latest episode of Supernatural together! We had troubles falling asleep, but soon enough, it was morning.

Day 2

We woke up at 7:30 in the morning, as I warned Michelle about the line ups. We had our breakfast, and learned that there was actually a free shuttle to the convention centre leaving on the hour, every hour, from our hotel. I already had my badge, but she still had to get hers. Luckily, because we woke up early, the line for the badge was very quick (took her about 10 minutes), but we had to wait in line before they could let us into the centre.

Today, both Michelle and I were in costume. We dressed up as the same character from Supernatural, except she went for the more traditional look of the character, and I genderbended mine. I cosplayed as fem!Cas. It was very hot as our costumes required that we wore a trench coat for the whole day.

Castiel’s original outfit

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My spin on Castiel’s outfit

There was not too much on our agenda today. We mainly aimed to get our picture taken with Misha Collins (who plays the character we dressed up as), and to go to the Supernatural Fan Panel later on in the night. Misha Collins was amazing, and although you do not get a much of a window of time to tell him how you want to pose for your picture, he was very quick to understand. I liked how my picture turned out.

mishaandi

We went to the Fan Panel an hour early, but somehow, they only allocated the fans a room with a seating capacity of 220 people. They grossly underestimated our numbers. So we were turned away. However, after the panel started, I convinced Michelle that we should go back up and check if they had extra space. It turns out they did!

The fan panel consisted of a room full of fans discussing plot lines and raising hilarious questions. It also allowed for a bunch of people cosplaying from the same show to congregate together! I met a lot of wonderful people, quite a few of whom I still keep in touch in on Tumblr.

AND THEN MISHA COLLINS CRASHED THE FAN PANEL. It was against his contract, or something of the sort, but he still broke the rules and nonchalantly and quietly snuck into the room. It took about 3 whole seconds before the room started screaming. I love this man.

Misha Collins crashed the fan panel!

Misha Collins crashed the fan panel!

And that was day 2.

Day 3

Michelle and I had to wake up very early again, because Misha Collins’ panel was the first panel of the day. It starts at 11, but we got to the Convention Centre at 8. This again meant we had to wait in line before they let us into the convention centre, so it was this mad race towards the line for the main hall where the panel was to be held when they finally let us in.

We ended up getting pretty good seats– 3rd row behind the VIP area. Misha came into the hall and seemed surprised at the fact that it was so full. I skipped a lot of details in this post, but I was at quite a few other panels during the course of my visit– and none of them were as full as this one. The whole hall filled up, so there were thousands of people there. The panel moderator asked Misha questions for around 20 minutes, and then opened the floor up for questions. I obviously booked it to the mic, and was one of the first people to ask a question. Unfortunately, the girl in front of me asked the question that I wanted to ask, so here I was, freaking out because I did not have a question. So I improvised. The whole thing was ridiculous, but I guess it made people laugh. Someone recorded a video of my question that I found on Youtube…so here it is if you want to hear me sputter and stuttering.

Emerald City Comic Con: Misha Collins Panel Part 6 (Hunter Salon …

The rest of our last day was spent walking around and doing more shopping. I spent bucketloads of money on graphic T-shirts. No regrets there. Okay, maybe a little because I am extraordinarily broke now. I also took a picture with Felicia Day! Her panel was amazing, and I actually teared up when she addressed how female gamers/’geeks’ (I do not exactly agree with the use of the labels of being ‘geeky’ and ‘nerdy…) should do as they would like without being judged by others. Wil Wheaton also added a line on how he was seriously pissed at people who made Felicia have to clarify this to the females in the audience. I never applauded louder.

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Sadly, it was eventually time to go again, and Michelle and I made our way back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and headed to the bus stop back to Vancouver. Lots of amazing memories were made, and amazing people met. I hope that one day, I will actually be able to get tickets to the San Diego Comic-Con. But for now, the Emerald City Comic Con was an amazing experience!

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-Karen

Marketing Post #4: Let Me Tweet, Instagram, Share, Pin and Reblog This.

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The rise of social media is upon us, and it seems that every company– both big and small– are scrambling to establish themselves these platforms (if not all of them). But the question is, do they really need to force themselves onto these social media sites?

I have seen some businesses that are on every social media site they can get their hands on. But how effective is Blackberry and their twitter account, where they throw info on where their demos are, as well as constantly reminding the world that they simply need a Blackberry (urging you to go to their closest carrier)? Or a pet food company’s Pinterest where not know what they should pin resort to posting pictures of dogs and cats?

While connecting with customers through social media sites have proven to be effective, I agree with what blogger Amy Wray says: “It’s not about self promotion”. Going back to the Blackberry example, they simply decide to tweet in hopes of promoting their latest products to customers. On the other hand, it is evident that Samsung Canada’s twitter does a lot of interaction with their customers, replying to tweets and fostering a relationship. This is a clear example of not simply signing up for social media, for the sake of simply having social media.

Before deciding to jump into the world of social media, a company should identify their goals for having an account on a site. Maintaining these accounts take time, and if you do not understand why you are investing the effort, it will all go to waste. Different sites also may be best depending on who your target market is. Pinterest is known for being popular among women audiences, and Google+ has more males as its users. I agree that social media is important, but I would urge a company to carefully evaluate their options, and make decisions accordingly– or else they will simply be wasting their time, or worst– make huge fools of themselves.

External blog references:

http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/social-media-planning/

http://modprbyamy.com/2013/03/10/why-social-media-marketing-is-key-for-small-businesses/