Search the Community

Rejuvenation, because I'm stressed as fuck (again) and everything is blah. The only thing I find joy in right now is frigging around with Worbla, which is somewhat productive because a lot of cosplay things require Worbla. The last challenge was an epic failure on paper, probably because the grading system I was using was a bit...unforgiving. Some positive things that were accomplished include: - Defending thesis (stress level down!) - Breaking tumblr addiction (time management, lvlup!) - Mostly recovering from surgery without any injuries or scar stretching Current goal: FINISH THESIS CORRECTIONS BEFORE THE 26TH, WHEEEE And because of this corrections shitfuckery, I'm going to fail the finance class that I actually do want to spend time on. Unless I go with only 4 hours of sleep per night and OD on coffee daily. I'm actually really tempted to do this just to avoid failure, even though I did it last time and failed anyway. I'm so fucking pissed, though. THIS BULLSHIT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ALMOST DONE, but nope. One of the people on my examining committee essentially left the whole thesis dripping red, and I have to re-do or edit all of the figures, and write more paragraphs, and elaborate on shit, and it's never going to fucking end. I hate this. I hate this so, so much. I want to finally be able to do a challenge where there isn't thesis or writing clouding over everything. Anyway. Copying and pasting most of what I did last time for a challenge, because the goals aren't much different. Also, efficiency! -------------------------------------------------------- I'm usually more on the ball when there are cosplay-related things at stake. Is it a bad thing that the act of pretending to be a (usually terrible) fictional character gives me greater motivation to be healthy than my own well-being does? Don't answer that. It turns out that my only successful challenge so far, the one from the newbie area where I needed the body of a God had similar cosplay motivations. I wanted to lose 10 lb of fat so that I would make a better Loki. This involved eating more fruits and veggies, and greatly limiting bread and beer. Limiting bread and beer made me sad, but I got some freaking results! And by "limiting beer" I really meant that I switched from beer to whisky. Those of you who've seen my tumblr (or know me in RL) are probably aware of my newest obsession: Jupiter Ascending. This movie was filled with action, cheesiness, amazing costumes, and The Mary Sue describes it in the following manner: "This movie is like if [The Matrix, Dune, Star Wars, and The Fifth Element] plus the music video for the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life†and the really weird parts of the Mass Effect trilogy all got really drunk at a party and had a massive orgy while H.P. Lovecraft filmed it." Epic, no? Unfortunately, the critics wrecked Jupiter Ascending before it even came out, the marketing for the movie was done wrong, and the movie was considered a failure as far as money goes. I bet it'll make enough money back by the end of the year to break even, but whatever. My obsession with this movie specifically centres on one glorious, twisted, entitled space asshole of a character: Balem Abrasax. I can haz money, power, and ripped abs? Never fear, the Loki obsession has not gone away. I will forever love the Avengers Loki costume, and I'll also be making an Agent of Asgard Loki cosplay at some point (ie, after Balem and his bullshit of a collar is taken care of. I swear, that collar was designed specifically to piss off cosplayers.) Personality-wise, Balem will be much harder to roleplay than Loki, whose character pretty much came naturally to me. Both characters have some psycho in them, but Loki actually has a sense of humor and makes frequent use of snide remarks. Balem, on the other hand, is typically serious ALL. THE. TIME. Oh, and he whispers everything he says...when he's not hysterically rage-shouting, anyway. (Pic 1) (Pic 2) Top: calmly threatening someone. Bottom: FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU EDIT: IT'S NOT LETTING ME USE GIFS AND I AM RAGE-SHOUTING RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!11!111 I am not very good at being serious, so I will need to get some practice with that before November, which is when I want to have this costume done. The hysterical rage-shouting I can definitely do well, because I do it all the time when 1) the internet is slow, 2) this video is not available in my country, 3) I get stuck behind a dumbfuck driver in traffic, and 4) I attempt to prepare an under-ripe avocado. The bottom line is that, besides wanting to become a wizard, I also seem to have a desire to become an evil space lord who wears awesome clothes. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. First came Darth Maul, then there was Loki, and now there's Balem. (There will eventually be a Ronan, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) So, what will I be doing to overlordify myself over the course of the next six weeks? 1: Regeneration/rejuvenation! Because I'm vain. I've had a vanity-based challenge goal before, which I stuck to moderately well because priorities. Now I'm going to do it again, except better, and for a different reason: I want to be as healthy as possible for the final stages of surgical recovery, and I need to have ripped abs. The rejuvenation aspect and associated good looks is merely a nice bonus. I'm not sure if I want the abs for cosplay or just for the sake of having them. Why not both? In Jupiter Ascending, the entitled take baths in a substance called RegenEX. One tube (seen below) is refined from about 100 people. If I can get my hands on a long, hexagonal bottle like this, I'm pretty sure that 4 parts vodka to 1 parts Hypnotiq will make a liquid with the same color. Unfortunately, I am 1) not an entitled or a royal being in real life (yet!) and 2) RegenEX doesn't exist in real life (OR DOES IT??) Oh, and 3) the whole thing about RegenEX being made of people would probably not fly in real life, either. So I need to get a similar (but lesser, obviously) rejuvenation effect by using more mundane methods. 1.1: Minimal coffee use. Pass/fail. I will have no more than one cup per day coffee at all. Coffee interferes with collagen production, and apparently that's important during healing and general skin maintenance. I'll post more on this later, but I'm not sure how much later. Probably toward the tail end of the challenge. LOL I'm going to be kicking myself so hard tomorrow morning for this. 1.2: HYDRATE! Grade from 0.0 to 1.0 4L of water per day, or more. Simple enough, right? Especially if there's less room for coffee. My addiction to having a drink in my hand should make this doable. This was done successfully two challenges ago with 3L. Then I got bold last challenge and upped it to 5L, which resulted in a miserable failure. Now I am trying 4L, I have also noticed in the last challenge that I don't really like to drink water. This means I will have to make water more awesome. For example, in the morning I can have water with lemon and honey or something. Or maple syrup. 1.3: Diet! Have one JUICE, or BIG-ASS SALAD, or LOTS OF VEGETABLES every day. Pass/fail for the juices. I did well with the salads two challenges ago, so now I'm going to make this work for every type of vegetable. I enjoyed having the salads, but ever since I got sick during the week between challenges (wheeee, Norovirus!) I haven't wanted salad AT ALL. Opening this part of the challenge to all vegetables should still be easy because there is no cooking involved. I've also figured out that if all I bring to work are veggies and nuts, I actually eat my vegetables. This is a repeat of last challenge, with an added twist: I'm going to start juicing. We have a juicer at home and it's just been sitting there, unused. This needs to change. Juicing veggies will also help me get 4L of water into me daily. As an aside, it was mentioned to me that the optimal diet for healing was a raw vegan diet. I have no problems with the raw part since it involves less effort, but the vegan part makes me a bit sad because I rather enjoy eating dead animal pieces. When it comes to cruelty, ingesting dead animal pieces pales in comparison to bathing in a pool filled with liquid refined from tens of thousands of people, so all is good. The protein powder I normally use is labeled raw vegan, so that should work. It's also the elitist, pricey type of protein powder, which is good for two reasons. First, it fits well with the "I am going to cosplay an elitist jackass" theme. Second, the higher price ensures that I won't be over-indulging with it because I am not that much of a rich elite in real life. YET! tl;dr version: EAT GOOD FOOD, BECAUSE SPACE LORDS DO NOT EAT TRASH. 1.4: Skin care. Pass/Fail. I was going to get this RegenFX stuff just for the challenge theme, but their moisturizer can't be shipped to Canada. I have access to a PO box in the states, but I can't actually cross the border to get it because I have no passport, and I can't get a passport until my name gets changed and it's all a bunch of bullshit. I might order their other products in the meantime, but the moisturizer is the one I was really interested in. I tried contacting them to ask why they won't ship that ONE product to Canada, but received no reply. I think tomorrow will be phone call time...or at least it would be if their phone number was listed on their web site. Seriously, who doesn't have a contact number on their web site? X( Anyway, this goal will consist of the following: - Exfoliating and moisturizing/applying cream in the morning and evening. I'll have to get another type of anti-aging cream until I can get the RegenFX one. - Dry skin brushing and showering once per day 2. I can business! Seriously, I know NOTHING about anything even remotely finance-related, or business-related. I hate being ignorant, especially when it comes to something like money. Money sort of makes the world go 'round these days, and not knowing anything about it seems counter-productive to, well, everything I want. How does this fit with the cosplay theme? Well, it turns out that Balem Abrasax is an epic businessman, or at least that's what the movie hints at near the beginning. Unfortunately, he seems to be more and more mentally unstable as the movie progresses, so we poor viewers don't actually get to witness his l33t busine55 sk1llz--although I suspect it involves a lot of coercion, harsh negotiating, and threats. And probably murder. All fictional character shenanigans aside, though, I really do want to have more of a clue about how to deal with money in several aspects of life. Disclaimer: the Earth will not be harvested in the course of this challenge. 2.1: Basic financial literacy: watch (and UNDERSTAND) at least one video per night. I signed up for am "Introduction to Finance" class on coursera. It started on June 1st, and I don't meet some of the pre-reqs (how do I economy? I can haz accounting? Derp? Very statistics!) so I'll have to read up on things. The professor who gives the video lectures has mentioned several times that the course will be hard work, especially for an introductory course. It should also be noted that I am most definitely going to fail this course because I didn't have enough time to complete the last two assignments, and won't have enough time to do the next two either because of bullshit thesis corrections. Still, the videos are interesting and the class is very educational, so I want to keep watching the videos and taking notes. I can always take the class again next time it's up. 2.2: Number cruncher! Pass/fail. This will involve Lumosity Raindrops. I know that Lumosity was a spectacular fail last time, but maybe if I focus on just ONE GAME (Raindrops) then maybe I can succeed. This isn't totally related to finance or business, but being able to work with numbers more efficiently certainly can't hurt. Being better at math might also help me get rid of the feeling that I'm a fucking idiot. Knowing more financial things and being better with numbers may result in me having more money in the future, and/or result in me obtaining money faster. Filthy rich space royals need to have money, otherwise they wouldn't be space royals. Life is a game, and the game is pay2win. I want to fucking win. And when I have a lot of money, I can pay someone else to prepare my vegetables for me Won't have time for Raindrops this round, unfortunately. Will add it back in the next challenge. The Intro to Finance course involves math and stats, so I'll be doing my number crunching there instead. 3. Mindfulness. Again. 3.1: Five minutes of mindfulness, every day. Pass/fail. I'll just keep this in my challenges until I stop failing at it. It's got to happen at some point. 3.2: Hand control. Not graded. Being able to look like an aloof, arrogant space lord while walking around on a convention floor is only going to be a side benefit of this. The main reason for controlling what I do with my hands is to keep my hands away from my face. I've tried to tackle this terrible habit in the past, and failed every freaking time. There are obviously some psychological factors at stake that I am completely unaware of, and it's a shitty habit I've been doing since I was in elementary school. Right NOW is the time to give breaking this habit another shot. I was doing well at not picking at my face last challenge, but then there was ALL THE STRESS and I started to pick a bit more again. Not as much as I used to, but any picking is still too much picking. Additionally, I am currently getting hormone injections, which increase the likelihood of me having shitty skin. It's like second puberty, and I fucking swear if I end up getting acne I'm going to hate my face so much... Having my hands on my face all the time will greatly increase the chance of me developing skin problems, and thus DO NOT WANT. I won't be able to cosplay anything with a half-red, pus-oozing, crater-filled face. Right. Hand control. While in the midst of enlightening research (read, while fucking around on Tumblr) I've stumbled upon these things called Mudras, which are basically like hand yoga and apparently there's benefits to doing this. I'm still rather clueless about it all, so I'll just paste a thing that came up when I typed "mudras" on tumblr: Goggle also showed me this web site for mudras. And then it showed me other sites with the same hand gestures and different effects that they're supposed to give and...??? I'll figure this out as I go along, but so far I've memorized the all the one-handed ones on the Kundalini site (the one with the link at the beginning of this paragraph). I'm not sure how much I buy into the part about the energy flow and purported benefits, but those will be an added bonus if they do happen to work. I don't have anything to lose by trying the mudras out, anyway. Also, if anyone wonders how this part of the challenge fits with the pretend-to-be-a-finctional-character and cosplay theme, see for yourself: I don't know if he's actually mudra'ing, but close enough. Won't I look foolish steepling my hands like an evil villain in real life, doing day-to-day activities? Nope! Because unless it's gym time, I hardly ever leave the computer's side and thus nobody will see me. Other activities involve driving, or watching TV at friends' places, in which case nobody pays attention to where my hands are anyway. I can be a dramatic evil villain in a stealthy manner. 3.3: Epic fingernails. Not graded. LOOK AT THE PERFECTLY DONE FINGERNAILS, and not at the Backstreet Boys-like hair disaster! Bonus quest: maintain long and perfect fingernails. This will deter me even further from face picking, mainly because picking at my face with pseudo-claws will probably cause damage and be a little painful. If I pick at my face with long nails, I'll have to clean my nails, too. Effort. Ugh! This isn't being graded because long and perfectly manicured fingernails aren't quite compatible with my workout and crafting habits, so it's inevitable that some of the nails will get smashed, chipped, or broken. UPDATE: in the last twelve weeks, I've only broken ONE fingernail. To reiterate: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee 1.2 - Hydrate 1.3 - Diet 1.4 - Skin care 2.1 - Basic financial literacy 2.2 - Number cruncher 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness 3.2 - Hand control 3.3 - Epic fingernails Now, for the ones that are actually being graded: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee: 1.2 - Hydrate EVEN MORE: 1.3 - Diet: 1.4 - Skin care: 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness: Re-writing this here is mainly to encourage further laziness, because then I can just copy/paste this entire list for update posts. I realize that I have several goals that aren't being graded, but it's kind of tough to grade something like hand control :\

Weeeell, the inter-challenge challenge NAXIUS ASCENDING (Part 1.5) was a complete fail. This probably happened for two reasons: 1) it was my birthday week, and 2) let's pretend that I was getting all the fail out of the way before NAXIUS ASCENDING (Part 2) This challenge will have a heavy focus on time management. As a result, the initial post is mostly a copy/paste job from the last challenge, because I'm lazy efficient. I'm usually more on the ball when there are cosplay-related things at stake. Is it a bad thing that the act of pretending to be a (usually terrible) fictional character gives me greater motivation to be healthy than my own well-being does? Don't answer that. It turns out that my only successful challenge so far, the one from the newbie area where I needed the body of a God had similar cosplay motivations. I wanted to lose 10 lb of fat so that I would make a better Loki. This involved eating more fruits and veggies, and greatly limiting bread and beer. Limiting bread and beer made me sad, but I got some freaking results! And by "limiting beer" I really meant that I switched from beer to whisky. Those of you who've seen my tumblr (or know me in RL) are probably aware of my newest obsession: Jupiter Ascending. This movie was filled with action, cheesiness, amazing costumes, and The Mary Sue describes it in the following manner: "This movie is like if [The Matrix, Dune, Star Wars, and The Fifth Element] plus the music video for the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life†and the really weird parts of the Mass Effect trilogy all got really drunk at a party and had a massive orgy while H.P. Lovecraft filmed it." Epic, no? Unfortunately, the critics wrecked Jupiter Ascending before it even came out, the marketing for the movie was done wrong, and the movie was considered a failure as far as money goes. I bet it'll make enough money back by the end of the year to break even, but whatever. My obsession with this movie specifically centres on one glorious, twisted, entitled space asshole of a character: Balem Abrasax. I can haz money, power, and ripped abs? (Never fear, the Loki obsession has not gone away. I just can't wear the Loki cosplay for a while because of a recent surgery and associated looooong recovery time. My Loki game will end up much greater in a few months, though! I'll also be making an Agent of Asgard Loki costime for Animaritime this year (JUNE 26! DEADLINE! PANIC!) because fuck wearing several layers of leather in a summer heat wave. Personality-wise, Balem will be much harder to roleplay than Loki, whose character pretty much came naturally to me. Both characters have some psycho in them, but Loki actually has a sense of humor and makes frequent use of snide remarks. Balem, on the other hand, is typically serious ALL. THE. TIME. Oh, and he whispers everything he says...when he's not hysterically rage-shouting, anyway. (Pic 1) (Pic 2) Top: calmly threatening someone. Bottom: FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU EDIT: IT'S NOT LETTING ME USE GIFS AND I AM RAGE-SHOUTING RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!11!111 I am not very good at being serious, so I will need to get some practice with that before November, which is when I want to have this costume done. The hysterical rage-shouting I can definitely do well, because I do it all the time when 1) the internet is slow, 2) this video is not available in my country, 3) I get stuck behind a dumbfuck driver in traffic, and 4) I attempt to prepare an under-ripe avocado. The bottom line is that, besides wanting to become a wizard, I also seem to have a desire to become an evil space lord who wears awesome clothes. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. First came Darth Maul, then there was Loki, and now there's Balem. (There will eventually be a Ronan, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) So, what will I be doing to overlordify myself over the course of the next six weeks? 1: Regeneration/rejuvenation! Because I'm vain. I've had a vanity-based challenge goal before, which I stuck to moderately well because priorities. Now I'm going to do it again, except better, and for a different reason: I want to be as healthy as possible for surgical healing purposes. Then I can hopefully hit the gym again sooner and start working on getting ripped abs. The rejuvenation aspect and associated good looks is merely a nice bonus. I'm not sure if I want the abs for cosplay or just for the sake of having them. Why not both? In Jupiter Ascending, the entitled take baths in a substance called RegenEX. One tube (seen below) is refined from about 100 people. If I can get my hands on a long, hexagonal bottle like this, I'm pretty sure that 4 parts vodka to 1 parts Hypnotiq will make a liquid with the same color. Unfortunately, I am 1) not an entitled or a royal being in real life (yet!) and 2) RegenEX doesn't exist in real life. Oh, and 3) the whole thing about RegenEX being made of people would probably not fly in real life, either. So I need to get a similar (but lesser, obviously) rejuvenation effect by using more mundane methods. 1.1: Minimal coffee use. Pass/fail. I will have no more than one cup per day. Coffee interferes with collagen production, and apparently that's important during healing. I'll post more on this later, but I'm not sure how much later. Probably toward the tail end of the challenge. 1.2: HYDRATE! Grade from 0.0 to 1.0 5L of water per day, or more. Simple enough, right? Especially if there's less room for coffee. My addiction to having a drink in my hand should make this doable. This was done successfully last challenge with 3L, now I'm upping it. I considered making this pass/fail, but I've noticed rather quickly that getting 5L of water in me in one day is not that easy. I don't want to fail if I only manage to drink 4.5L because that would be demoralizing, so I'll give myself 0.2 points for every litre I drink. Max in one day is 1 point. 1.3: Tweak my diet, have one BIG-ASS SALAD every day, or LOTS OF VEGETABLES. Not graded. I did well with the salads in the last challenge, so now I'm going to make this work for every type of vegetable. I enjoyed having the salads, but ever since I got sick during the week between challenges (wheeee, Norovirus!) I haven't wanted salad AT ALL. Opening this part of the challenge to all vegetables should still be easy because there is no cooking involved. I've also figured out that if all I bring to work are veggies and nuts, I actually eat my vegetables. As an aside, it was mentioned to me that the optimal diet for healing was a raw vegan diet. I have no problems with the raw part since it involves less effort, but the vegan part makes me a bit sad because I rather enjoy eating dead animal pieces. When it comes to cruelty, ingesting dead animal pieces pales in comparison to bathing in a pool filled with liquid refined from tens of thousands of people, so all is good. The protein powder I normally use is labeled raw vegan, so that should work. It's also the elitist, pricey type of protein powder, which is good for two reasons. First, it fits well with the "I am going to cosplay an elitist jackass" theme. Second, the higher price ensures that I won't be over-indulging with it because I am not that much of a rich elite in real life. YET! I also have to look ripped in order to fully complete the Balem Abrasax look, but that'll be tough since my workouts are a bit limited right now. Next challenge, fo' sho'! tl;dr version: EAT GOOD FOOD, BECAUSE SPACE LORDS DO NOT EAT TRASH. 2. I can business! Seriously, I know NOTHING about anything even remotely finance-related, or business-related. I hate being ignorant, especially when it comes to something like money. Money sort of makes the world go 'round these days, and not knowing anything about it seems counter-productive to, well, everything I want. How does this fit with the cosplay theme? Well, it turns out that Balem Abrasax is an epic businessman, or at least that's what the movie hints at near the beginning. Unfortunately, he seems to be more and more mentally unstable as the movie progresses, so we poor viewers don't actually get to witness his l33t busine55 sk1llz--although I suspect it involves a lot of coercion, harsh negotiating, and threats. And probably murder. All fictional character shenanigans aside, though, I really do want to have more of a clue about how to deal with money in several aspects of life. Disclaimer: the Earth will not be harvested in the course of this challenge. 2.1: Basic financial literacy: watch (and UNDERSTAND) at least one video per night. Pass/fail. I signed up for am "Introduction to Finance" class on coursera. It started on June 1st, and I don't meet some of the pre-reqs (how do I economy? I can haz accounting? Derp? Very statistics!) so I'll have to read up on things. The professor who gives the video lectures has mentioned several times that the course will be hard work, especially for an introductory course. 2.2: Number cruncher! Pass/fail. This will involve Lumosity Raindrops. I know that Lumosity was a spectacular fail last time, but maybe if I focus on just ONE GAME (Raindrops) then maybe I can succeed. This isn't totally related to finance or business, but being able to work with numbers more efficiently certainly can't hurt. Being better at math might also help me get rid of the feeling that I'm a fucking idiot. Knowing more financial things and being better with numbers may result in me having more money in the future, and/or result in me obtaining money faster. Filthy rich space royals need to have money, otherwise they wouldn't be space royals. Life is a game, and the game is pay2win. I want to fucking win. And when I have a lot of money, I can pay someone else to prepare my vegetables for me Won't have time for Raindrops this round, unfortunately. Will add it back in the next challenge. The Intro to Finance course involves math and stats, so I'll be doing my number crunching there instead. 3. Mindfulness. Again. 3.1: Five minutes of mindfulness, every day. Pass/fail. I'll just keep this in my challenges until I stop failing at it. It's got to happen at some point. 3.2: Hand control. Not graded. Being able to look like an aloof, arrogant space lord while walking around on a convention floor is only going to be a side benefit of this. The main reason for controlling what I do with my hands is to keep my hands away from my face. I've tried to tackle this terrible habit in the past, and failed every freaking time. There are obviously some psychological factors at stake that I am completely unaware of, and it's a shitty habit I've been doing since I was in elementary school. Right NOW is the time to give breaking this habit another shot, though, for two reasons: - I will begin taking hormone injections during week 2 of this challenge, which will increase the likelihood of me having shitty skin. It's like second puberty, and I fucking swear if I end up getting acne I'm going to hate my face so much... Having my hands on my face all the time will greatly increase the chance of me developing skin problems, and thus DO NOT WANT. I won't be able to cosplay anything with a half-red, pus-oozing, crater-filled face. - I had a surgery last month, which left me unable to raise my arms (or hands) much for several weeks. This was the perfect power-up to begin this quest. I've been doing great at not picking at my face so far, and I want this to continue. Right. Hand control. While in the midst of enlightening research (read, while fucking around on Tumblr) I've stumbled upon these things called Mudras, which are basically like hand yoga and apparently there's benefits to doing this. I'm still rather clueless about it all, so I'll just paste a thing that came up when I typed "mudras" on tumblr: Goggle also showed me this web site for mudras. And then it showed me other sites with the same hand gestures and different effects that they're supposed to give and...??? I'll figure this out as I go along, but so far I've memorized the all the one-handed ones on the Kundalini site (the one with the link at the beginning of this paragraph). I'm not sure how much I buy into the part about the energy flow and purported benefits, but those will be an added bonus if they do happen to work. I don't have anything to lose by trying the mudras out, anyway. Also, if anyone wonders how this part of the challenge fits with the pretend-to-be-a-finctional-character and cosplay theme, see for yourself: I don't know if he's actually mudra'ing, but close enough. Won't I look foolish steepling my hands like an evil villain in real life, doing day-to-day activities? Nope! Because unless it's gym time, I hardly ever leave the computer's side and thus nobody will see me. Other activities involve driving, or watching TV at friends' places, in which case nobody pays attention to where my hands are anyway. I can be a dramatic evil villain in a stealthy manner. UPDATE, Part 2: Since I cannot use my arms at the gym for a while, I've been finding myself steepling my hands like an evil villain while on the stationary bike and while doing core work. It happens without me noticing it, and...it's awesome and a bit creepy. 3.3: Epic fingernails. Not graded. LOOK AT THE PERFECTLY DONE FINGERNAILS, and not at the Backstreet Boys-like hair disaster! Bonus quest: maintain long and perfect fingernails. This will deter me even further from face picking, mainly because picking at my face with pseudo-claws will probably cause damage and be a little painful. If I pick at my face with long nails, I'll have to clean my nails, too. Effort. Ugh! This isn't being graded because long and perfectly manicured fingernails aren't quite compatible with my workout and crafting habits, so it's inevitable that some of the nails will get smashed, chipped, or broken. UPDATE, Part 2: I DID NOT BREAK ANY NAILS DURING PART 1. NOT EVEN WHILE GOING TO THE GYM REGULARLY. Wait, wasn't this challenge about time management? 4. Time Management I was hoping to do the Intro to Finance course after my current degree was all done, but sadly this did not happen and now I'm doing this on top of the final preparation for my thesis defense. I will therefore be a hermit until June 22nd, which is the day of the defense. Did I mention that I also have to make a new cosplay before June 26 also? Yeah. Fun times. 4.1 - Thesis defense prep. 6h per week. 4.2 - Cosplay prep. 4h per week. ^ I'll make goal #4 more interesting to read later. For now it's fairly self-explanatory. Besides, I'm saving time by not writing! To reiterate: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee 1.2 - Hydrate 1.3 - Vegetables 2.1 - Basic financial literacy 2.2 - Number cruncher 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness 3.2 - Hand control 3.3 - Epic fingernails 4.1 - Thesis defense prep 4.1 - Cosplay prep Now, for the ones that are actually being graded: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee: 1.2 - Hydrate EVEN MORE: 2.1 - Basic financial literacy: 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness: 4.1 - Thesis defense prep: 4.2 - Cosplay prep: Re-writing this here is mainly to encourage further laziness, because then I can just copy/paste this entire list for update posts. I realize that I have several goals that aren't being graded, but it's kind of tough to grade something like hand control :\

I'm usually more on the ball when there are cosplay-related things at stake. Is it a bad thing that the act of pretending to be a (usually terrible) fictional character gives me greater motivation to be healthy than my own well-being does? Don't answer that. It turns out that my only successful challenge so far, the one from the newbie area where I needed the body of a God had similar cosplay motivations. I wanted to lose 10 lb of fat so that I would make a better Loki. This involved eating more fruits and veggies, and greatly limiting bread and beer. This made me sad, but I got some freaking results! And by "cutting beer" I really meant that I switched from beer to whisky. Those of you who've seen my tumblr (or know me in RL) are probably aware of my newest obsession: Jupiter Ascending. This movie was filled with action, cheesiness, amazing costumes, and The Mary Sue describes it in the following manner: "This movie is like if [The Matrix, Dune, Star Wars, and The Fifth Element] plus the music video for the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life†and the really weird parts of the Mass Effect trilogy all got really drunk at a party and had a massive orgy while H.P. Lovecraft filmed it." Epic, no? Unfortunately, the critics wrecked Jupiter Ascending before it even came out, and the movie was considered a failure as far as money goes. I bet it'll make enough money back by the end of the year to break even, but whatever. My obsession with this movie specifically centres on one glorious, twisted, entitled space asshole of a character: Balem Abrasax. I can haz money, power, and ripped abs? (Never fear, the Loki obsession has not gone away. I just can't wear the Loki cosplay for a while because of an upcoming surgery and associated looooong recovery time. My Loki game will end up much greater in a few months, though! A chest plate that will actually fit properly? Imagine that! I'll also be making an Agent of Asgard Loki costime for Animaritime this year. Fuck wearing several layers of leather in a summer heat wave.) Personality-wise, Balem will be much harder to roleplay than Loki, whose character pretty much came naturally to me. Both characters have some psycho in them, but Loki actually has a sense of humor and makes frequent use of snide remarks. Balem, on the other hand, is typically serious ALL. THE. TIME. Oh, and he whispers everything he says...when he's not hysterically rage-shouting, anyway. (Pic 1) (Pic 2) Top: calmly threatening someone. Bottom: FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU EDIT: IT'S NOT LETTING ME USE GIFS AND I AM RAGE-SHOUTING RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!11!111 I am not very good at being serious, so I will need to get some practice with that before November. The hysterical rage-shouting I can definitely do well, because I do it all the time when 1) the internet is slow, 2) this video is not available in my country, 3) I get stuck behind a dumbfuck driver in traffic, and 4) I attempt to prepare an under-ripe avocado. The bottom line is that, besides wanting to become a wizard, I also seem to have a desire to become an evil space lord who wears awesome clothes. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. First came Darth Maul, then there was Loki, and now there's Balem. (There will eventually be a Ronan, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) So, what will I be doing to overlordify myself over the course of the next six weeks? 1: Regeneration/rejuvenation! Because I'm vain. I've had a vanity-based challenge goal before, which I stuck to moderately well because priorities. Now I'm going to do it again, except better, and for a different reason: I want to be as healthy as possible due to an upcoming surgery so that I can hopefully heal better and faster. The rejuvenation aspect and associated good looks is merely a nice bonus. In Jupiter Ascending, the entitled take baths in a substance called RegenEX. One tube (seen below) is refined from about 100 people. If I can get my hands on a long, hexagonal bottle like this, I'm pretty sure that 4 parts vodka to 1 parts Hypnotiq will make a liquid with the same color. Unfortunately, I am 1) not an entitled or a royal being in real life (yet!) and 2) RegenEX doesn't exist in real life. Oh, and 3) the whole thing about RegenEX being made of people would probably not fly in real life, either. So I need to get a similar (but lesser, obviously) rejuvenation effect by using more mundane methods. 1.1: Cut down on the coffee. Pass/fail. I will have no more than one cup per day. For the few weeks after the surgery, I'll have no coffee at all (but may have green tea). Coffee interferes with collagen production, and apparently that's important during healing. 1.2: HYDRATE! Pass/fail. 3L of water per day, or more. Simple enough, right? Especially if there's less room for coffee. My addiction to having a drink in my hand should make this doable. 1.3: Tweak my diet, have one BIG-ASS SALAD every day. Pass/fail. This is like the vegetables quest I've been routinely failing at, but easier because there is no cooking involved. All I need to do is have ample amounts of lettuce and spinach. And herbs. I don't think I'll grow my own herbs, though, because I've tried that before and the cats ended up destroying all of them. As an aside, it was mentioned to me that the optimal diet for healing was a raw vegan diet. I have no problems with the raw part since it involves less effort, but the vegan part makes me a bit sad because I rather enjoy eating dead animal pieces. Hey, at least I'm not bathing in a pool filled with liquid refined from tens of thousands of people, right? The protein powder I normally use is labeled raw vegan, so that should work. It's also the elitist, pricey type of protein powder, which is good for two reasons. First, it fits well with the "I am going to cosplay an elitist jackass" theme. Second, the higher price ensures that I won't be over-indulging with it because I am not that much of a rich elite in real life. I also have to look ripped in order to fully complete the Balem Abrasax look, but that'll be tough since I won't be able to work out. Next challenge, fo' sho'! tl;dr version: EAT GOOD FOOD, BECAUSE SPACE LORDS DO NOT EAT TRASH. 2. I can business! Seriously, I know NOTHING about anything even remotely finance-related, or business-related. I hate being ignorant, especially when it comes to something like money. Money sort of makes the world go 'round these days, and not knowing anything about it seems counter-productive to, well, everything I want. How does this fit with the cosplay theme? Well, it turns out that Balem Abrasax is an epic businessman, or at least that's what the movie hints at near the beginning. Unfortunately, he seems to be more and more mentally unstable as the movie progresses, so we poor viewers don't actually get to witness his l33t busine55 sk1llz--although I suspect it involves a lot of coercion, harsh negociating, and threats. And probably murder. All fictional character shenanigans aside, though, I really do want to have more of a clue about how to deal with money in several aspects of life. Disclaimer: the Earth will not be harvested in the course of this challenge. 2.1: Basic financial literacy. Not graded. I was going to do a thing for this, but decided not to because I still have to cram for my thesis defense and I don't want to overburden myself. I signed up for am "Introduction to Finance" class on coursera. It only starts on June 1st, but I don't meet some of the pre-reqs (how do I economy? I can haz accounting? Derp? Very statistics!) so I'll have to read up on things. I will add these things here after I finish my current degree. The finance class is said to be pretty intense for an introductory course, but at least it won't involve a thesis. 2.2: Number cruncher! Pass/fail. This will involve Lumosity Raindrops. I know that Lumosity was a spectacular fail last time, but maybe if I focus on just ONE GAME (Raindrops) then maybe I can succeed. This isn't totally related to finance or business, but being able to work with numbers more efficiently certainly can't hurt. Being better at math might also help me get rid of the feeling that I'm a fucking idiot. Knowing more financial things and being better with numbers may result in me having more money in the future, and/or result in me obtaining money faster. Filthy rich space royals need to have money, otherwise they wouldn't be space royals. Life is a game, and the game is pay2win. I want to fucking win. And when I have a lot of money, I can pay someone else to prepare my vegetables for me 3. Mindfulness. Again. 3.1: Five minutes of mindfulness, every day. Pass/fail. I'll just keep this in my challenges until I stop failing at it. It's got to happen at some point. 3.2: Hand control. Not graded. Being able to look like an aloof, arrogant space lord while walking around on a convention floor is only going to be a side benefit of this. The main reason for controlling what I do with my hands is to keep my hands away from my face. I've tried to tackle this terrible habit in the past, and failed every freaking time. There are obviously some psychological factors at stake that I am completely unaware of, and it's a shitty habit I've been doing since I was in elementary school. Right NOW is the time to give breaking this habit another shot, though, for two reasons: - I may start to take hormone injections in the near future, which will increase the likelihood of me having shitty skin. It's like second puberty, and I fucking swear if I end up getting acne I'm going to hate my face so much... Having my hands on my face all the time will greatly increase the chance of me developing skin problems, and thus DO NOT WANT. I won't be able to cosplay anything with a half-red, pus-oozing, crater-filled face. - After the surgery I won't be able to raise my arms (or hands) much, so this will be an extra bonus that can help me succeed at not picking at my face this time around. I CAN DO THIS! Right. Hand control. While in the midst of enlightening research (read, while fucking around on Tumblr) I've stumbled upon these things called Mudras, which are basically like hand yoga and apparently there's benefits to doing this. I'm still rather clueless about it all, so I'll just paste a thing that came up when I typed "mudras" on tumblr: "HAND MUDRAS: Those familiar with reflexology know that by stimulating certain pressure points in your hands and feet, it is possible to revitalize and balance energy in different parts of your body; including your organs and glands. For instance, pressing a specific part of your thumb can relieve a headache. Massaging areas of your pinky finger can relax your neck and shoulders. Hand mudras work in a very similar fashion. The word “mudra†translates to seal orgesture. A hand mudra is both a symbolic and therapeutic gesture mainly performed with the fingers. By positioning our fingers in various postures, we can influence how energy is channeled inside of us. Think of it as opening an electrical circuit inside your body. Touching two fingers together can direct the flow of internal energy to where it’s needed and create healthy benefits and a mind/body balance. For more posts like these: http://yogamimi.tumblr.com" Goggle also showed me this web site for mudras. And then it showed me other sites with the same hand gestures and different effects that they're supposed to give and...??? I'll figure this out as I go along, but so far I've memorized the all the one-handed ones on the Kundalini site (the one with the link at the beginning of this paragraph). I'm not sure how much I buy into the part about the energy flow and purported benefits, but those will be an added bonus if they do happen to work. I don't have anything to lose by trying the mudras out, anyway. Also, if anyone wonders how this part of the challenge fits with the pretend-to-be-a-finctional-character and cosplay theme, see for yourself: I don't know if he's actually mudra'ing, but close enough. Won't I look foolish steepling my hands like an evil villain in real life, doing day-to-day activities? Nope! Because unless it's gym time, I hardly ever leave the computer's side and thus nobody will see me. Other activities involve driving, or watching TV at friends' places, in which case nobody pays attention to where my hands are anyway. I can be a dramatic evil villain in a stealthy manner. 3.3: Epic fingernails. Not graded. LOOK AT THE PERFECTLY DONE FINGERNAILS, and not at the Backstreet Boys-like hair disaster! Bonus quest: maintain long and perfect fingernails. This will deter me even further from face picking, mainly because picking at my face with pseudo-claws will probably cause damage and be a little painful. If I pick at my face with long nails, I'll have to clean my nails, too. Effort. Ugh! This isn't being graded because long and perfectly manicured fingernails aren't quite compatible with my workout and crafting habits, so it's inevitable that some of the nails will get smashed, chipped, or broken. I feel like I should have some kind of a conclusion paragraph, but I'm feeling lazy. I still managed to make an entire thread before the challenge started, though! If this keeps up, I might even get to making a spreadsheet before the challenge begins, too, so that I can actually keep track of my goals this time! To reiterate: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee 1.2 - Hydrate 1.3 - BIG-ASS SALAD 2.1 - Basic financial literacy 2.2 - Number cruncher 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness 3.2 - Hand control 3.3 - Epic fingernails Now, for the ones that are actually being graded: 1.1 - Cut down on coffee: 1.2 - Hydrate: 1.3 - BIG-ASS SALAD: 2.2 - Number cruncher: 3.1 - Five minutes of mindfulness: Re-writing this here is mainly to encourage further laziness, because then I can just copy/paste this entire list for update posts. I realize that I have several goals that aren't being graded, but it's kind of tough to grade something like hand control :\