She Came After YCon

Hellos to all the world!

Enjoy Kernel Mustang, one of my favorite pictures of all time.

This was quite a weekend. The weekdays were mainly at home, at the grocery store (🎶Grocery Outlet, Bargain Market!🎶), or looking at furniture. But the weekend I spent at Youth Conference!

Kay, so it was already a little scary because I hadn't gone to it before (which reason I think I explained last year when YC rolled around), but I also barely recognized anyone- AND I was all alone, without my sis or a close friend. I was often pitied by adults there, who would start chatting with me, and then eventually bring me over to meet kids they knew from their ward (because this was multi-stake). I actually think I made a few friends that way, like this one guy named Andy. I was sure we could really have a good conversation together, but he's one of those guys that's always hanging around a group of other people. I sat with that group anyways for two of the meals, but I rarely got a word in, and, without getting much chance to talk to Andy, I felt a little left out.

We all had to bring sleeping bags and stuff because we were sleeping in school gyms. Like I expected, I talked with and (hopefully) became friends with the girl whose sleeping bag was next to mine. Her name was Makenna, though I'm not sure if it's spelled that way. The poor thing was a little sickish with a cold. When she got the opportunity, she was in her sleeping bag, snoozing. If I was next to her, I tried to let her get her rest, but was also the one to wake her up if we needed to get ready for something.

A few of the girls I met at the Zumba thing were there, and one or two tried to help me feel included. I ate with her group of friends once (again, someone who always is with a big group!) and I also stayed with her during the dance. I tried to loosen up and maybe dance with one of the other people I was with at some point during the day, but it just didn't really happen.

Luckily, at the dance, I ended up with one of her acquaintances, Bryce. (She made us do one of the slow songs together. Speaking of, they played a ton of slow songs, and it was really annoying!) We struck up a conversation while dancing and basically stuck around each other for the rest of the dance. At one point, we actually left the dance floor and just kept talking at a table. I think it was for about the last half-hour of the dance that we just talked. It was pretty good, and I was glad to have a full conversation with some teenager while there.

But how butt is it that he was mostly Mexican and couldn't speak Spanish?! I mean, I'm not the most impressive Spanish-speaker, but I'm at least pretty decent, I think.

Really, I could describe everything that happened to me in detail, but I won't bore you with all that. I hope I can remember some of the most important things, though, like the things leaders talked to us about, and the singing missionary (and also his disappearing act! I wanted to ask the missionaries something privately, but I never found them!), and the things I wanted to do when I got home. Oh, and the guys on the bus and their crazy antics, including their puns.

And guess who was gonna get on a plane after I got back from Youth Conference (which was a 4-hour bus ride round-trip)? My sister! Where? HERE!

We went to the airport to pick her up (but before that we ate some Long John Silver's, which was pretty good) a few hours after my bus came back to town. It was funny how my dad and sister threw her luggage into the back of the car and then hurried to the seats to drive off.

It's a little weird but cool to know she's sleeping in the same room as me now. Now that I think about it, we haven't been roommates since I was in, what, 3rd grade? Besides when we're visiting family, of course, and have to share a bed.

This is even better cuz today my mom made pesto ravioli and her amazing limey cheesecake pie thing. That's the unofficial name.

Happy Father's Day to our whole family. *pleased smile*

(The title of the other thing I posted today is a reference to an FMA novel. I don't want to be blamed for stealing. Please don't sue me.)

The Ties That Bind

Hello, world!

This was what I planned to say if I actually shared my testimony at the testimony meeting in Youth Conference...

Hi. Um, you can call me Lily if you want... or That One Person. I don't really care. You probably can't tell from my voice, but I'm actually shaking to death. I also hope I can remember everything I wanted to say, cuz my brain tends to shut down while I'm speaking in public...

I don't think I've ever seen so many Mormon kids in one place. And so many have shared their testimonies. There's even some that are still waiting for me to get down from here. Seriously, the line is crazy long, longer than in any normal testimony meetings I've been to.

I just wanna say... the Church is here to make people happy. Some people have really pessimistic outlooks on life and death, and think that once a loved one dies, they'll never see that person again. But in the gospel we know that families can be together forever. I'm so grateful for that, because I know that even if my family isn't with me physically, we will be together again and have that tie that'll never go away. I'm always linked to my mom and dad and sister. I love them so much.

If every person in this room really has a testimony, whether they get up and share it or not, then... I think the future looks bright.

I know the gospel is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Only 1.5-ish hours to go on the Faith project!

Magical Dancing Dragon

Hello world!

I actually accomplished something this week! (But that'll come in later.)

On Wednesday, there was supposed to be a Young Women's activity where two wards were combined, but guess what? Only me and one of the counselors from our ward showed up and pretty much all the girls from the other ward were there. But at least I got to meet more girls, and they were all pretty cool. The activity was a Zumba class, and, while I wish I knew sooner because then I would've worn something more appropriate for dancing, I was pleasantly surprised to see all the other girls also putting in as much effort as me. None of them complained, and pretty much all of us were at least decent at the dancing (besides one or two of the other ward's counselors). They were nice girls. I hope I get to hang out with them every once in a while.

I thought some of the songs were kinda weird. One, for example, we did moves inspired by India and Ireland, basically... Another was that song "Waving Flag", but half of it was sung in Spanish, which I'd never heard before. The Spanish singer and the original singer just didn't really sound right together to me...

And, of course, a few songs in, my chest started hurting. Again. It happens every single time I've ever attempted Zumba and sometimes happened when running the mile in PE, I think. Nothing else ever causes it. I didn't really want to just stop dancing, though, so I just went to drink from the water fountain and danced a bit slower until I felt okay. After that I was good. *shrug* My mom's worried, though, that that hasn't been fixed yet and might be something serious. I hope it's not!

What's the thing I accomplished? I opened up my Lego set and built that Titanium dragon from Nashville! YAAAY! It was pretty complicated... More complicated than I thought necessary. Some of that complicatedness was just for the look! Of course I want my dragon to look cool, but really? *rolls eyes* Though, even with all the complicatedness, it took less time than I expected to finish. It's cool, though my mom said she expected it to be bigger. *deadpan* Well, sorry, that wasn't my fault! Maybe I thought it would be too! *runs away sobbing*

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like it looks like a white panther with wings or something... Not that that's a bad thing, of course. That's actually part of why it's cool. And it could make for an interesting creature if I didn't want to call it a dragon... I'm gonna think on that a little later.

I've ended up reading some Harry Potter and Fullmetal Alchemist crossovers lately. I rarely read any before because... well... I don't know much about HP, especially in the middle books. But I saw one that someone recommended, and another because I went on one of my favorite author's profiles and saw they were writing one (that actually happened a few months ago too), and now in the story's AN I was recommended to another... They're pretty good, honestly, and it's helping my HP knowledge. I mean, I'm pretty sure one of them was following everything that happened in the 2nd and 3rd year, so I basically read the books through a fanfic... I'm technically not a Harry Potter fan, but I at least know more characters and plot and magic now. *smile* And I now know that it's quite interesting for everyone if the Elrics somehow end up at Hogwarts. *huehuehue*

Remember that person who did FMA Lab Rats? They did it yet again, but now with the first episode of Glee. (I've looked at their profile- seems they just make a habit of doing stuff like this.) I don't think it's a bad thing to do stuff like this, but it could at least be done in a way in which it's not so obvious they wrote everything that happened in the episode and then changed the characters' names to the ones in FMA. It was funny and interesting to imagine what certain scenes would look like with FMA characters, but a lot of the time it just didn't fit... Olivier for Sue? Heck yeah. Paninya for Mercedes?... Not quite... Al for Kurt? NO! *shiver* Kurt's not bad, but Al is not Kurt and Kurt is not Al. Seriously. I didn't really enjoy imagining Al being Kurt-ish, because it is just not meant to be. Al is not gay! That night I was just imagining what would happen if Winry called him gay! He'd flip!

*The New Adventures of Lileh*

Yesterday, we went furniture shopping, but in the end never actually bought something. There was stuff we liked but just were not fully convinced on getting it...

We ate some dim sum! I think I liked it more than the dim sum in SLC.

We ate at the waffle sandwich truck again. This time my mom and dad got the same ones from before, but I also got one that was kinda Hawaiian, even though it was called the All Star, for some reason. It was also good, but maybe a little too sweet to be dinner for me...

The sister missionaries ate with us just, like, an hour ago. I like them. There's just something cool about them.

I forgot to say last time that we went to get registered at school the week before, and also went to the library that Saturday. I got to read a bunch of Adventure Time comics (among other graphic novels) and I also got this book called Sisters of the Sword that I actually liked a lot and plan to find the next book of. (PS- did you know Flame Prince's story? It's cool... or should I say hot? *buhdm ch* He was pretty hot himself, actually. *nuther buhdm ch* No seriously I don't know how he seemed handsome even though he only has dots for eyes. Dots for eyes. How did the author pull that off?! How can Adventure Time characters be attractive?! It's not logical, but it just happens! *grr*)

Visiting Homeland

Hello world!

I finally got the first two chapters up of "Visiting Homeland" (I'm sorry, I just can't ever decide whether to put my titles in quotations or italics), and the response has been... a bit underwhelming. I know I'm not exactly the most popular writer in the FMA archives (the amount of followers for some of the other authors is crazy, but most of the time they really deserve it; I look up to some of them and wish I could write as well as they do), but I know I had a few people that said they wanted the sequel. When I get on tomorrow, I'm hoping there's a few more reviews.

I'm not a review hog (and I can't really be one anyways since I'm not that popular) but I just want to know people actually are reading my stuff, you know? At least I'm not like this one author whose story I read last week who after every chapter made a big deal about wanting reviews, which I guess worked since they actually had over 300. Even though I actually did want to compliment them on originality, I didn't because the ANs ticked me off. I think people deserve reviews, especially when they're new to the site, but stuff like requiring reviews for the next chapter or just flat-out pleading for reviews is not cool and annoying.

I'd wanted to draw the sequel's cover pic on the same paper and same style and stuff as the first so it linked the two together more, but I ran into a problem. I'd already told my mom I wanted to keep my sketchbook. But, I guess she ran out of space or forgot or misunderstood... Point is, when I asked her if she knew where it was, she was like "Oh... Uh.... We might need to get you a new one." Yup. If we're on the same page, she threw out my sketchbook back at Mary's house. *deep sigh* At least I've already posted the pics of the good drawings in there on here. Otherwise, I'm a little sad I don't have that self-portrait I had to do in 8th grade in the sketchbook, cuz I thought it was cute and creative. It wasn't the most professional, but still cute. (I'd been having trouble drawing my eyebrows even, I believe, so I decided to just raise one higher than the other on purpose, and then to make sure my teacher knew it was on purpose, I drew my mouth into fish lips. Wait, maybe it was the lips then the eyebrows... Whatever. Basically, my portrait was of me making a silly face.)

Since I didn't have that, and I was pretty sure the only paper I'd find on short notice was lined paper... I used a sticky-note.

If that wasn't bad enough, I actually had to redo it a few times, unlike for "Family History". I used the first sticky-note to just rough sketch the boys and make sure I would scale them correctly so I wouldn't use too much space on the note, then the second for the actual picture. I managed to get them down decent enough, but then my pen freaked out when I tried to draw Rillie, a new character. The first two Rillies were just plain creepy... *shiver* I managed to get the third Rillie adequate enough. I then cut her sticky-note and the one with the boys and put them together before quickly drawing Lily on the bottom (and I didn't realize until later I could've made look better, or at least her arm) and used my mom's phone to email the picture to myself. *ugh* This was more frustrating this time around, let me tell you.

At least on the computer I could edit it so it had the same color as the FH pic (though I resaved more times than I would've liked) and eventually got it to the point where I was willing to put it online and put up the first chapter.

This is why I generally don't brag about my art skills. Most of the time, they're nonexistent.

Ze original photograph is above, the final version is below.

What I wanted to show in the picture was... Imagine that line to be the Gate, so the bottom is Earth and the top is the parallel world. Therefore, Lily is like "Come back, guys!" even though they're on the other side and can't hear her, obviously. But to screw around with Rillie, I made it look like she heard Lily and is like "Who said that?" In the actual story she can't, though, since telepathy doesn't work, no matter how much Ed wishes it did.

Speaking of Amestris, which is like Germany, earlier today my dad was trying to convince me to go to college in Germany. I highly doubt I actually will, even if I did two years of German classes in high school, but the fact that the school there is free is pretty cool. Rillie is actually a German name, because I looked up German names for new characters in VH. Her brother is Milo, but he's really difficult to draw right for some reason. After the second or third attempt I officially gave up. I forgot until a few days ago that there's a country by Amestris called Milos, so... Oops. Oh well, the name fits too well for me, so I'm not changing it.

This morning, upon waking up, I managed to write a whole song in... about 45 minutes. I was gonna put it here, but then realized it was actually a little lame, haha.

Last thing- we all ended up with the flu, though it's not as bad for me as for my parents, especially my poor dad who didn't go to work for most of the week.