Happy Mother's Day!
This week was kinda busy. Just a little. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
After all, there was a super-duper important wedding!~
But before we get to that, let's go to the stuff that's a little less super-duper.
On Tuesday, there was a short assembly to award kids (mostly seniors) for completing CTE classes and concurrent classes. I ended up getting a certificate for doing 3+ CTE credits, which I was surprised to hear. I was literally questioning if I actually deserved it as I went up to receive mine. (I checked my transcript afterwards during lunch to be sure. If they were counting Sewing and Cooking from freshman year, Career Prep from sophomore year, and Child Development junior year, then I suppose I indeed earned it?) I also got a cord for finishing at least one college class. The thing, though, is that they called me up for the medallion that signified completing at least 24 credits (since it counts as one year for full-time college students), but I knew right then that I did not have 24. I'd already counted my credits at the start of this semester- though I didn't remember the exact number then, I was sure I didn't quite make it to 24. (Later, I realized that I most likely had 22 or 23 credits, which is super close.) So, I went up and told the counselor real fast that I didn't earn enough for the medallion and she switched out with a cord. Apparently, no one noticed that I was standing up there with a bunch of medallioned kids wearing the cord instead. But hey, I'm still cool with rocking the cord over my cap and gown (which I picked up at school the next day- which, by the way, I'm a little salty about how they made us pay $40, and the cap and gown are apparently only for rent!) on graduation day.
I am happy to say that, this week, my brain was just about bursting with writing inspiration, and even drawing inspiration. Later this same day, I found the urge to draw for WFAM, but not just a mere portrait. No, I wanted to draw a scene. A dramatic scene.
...One that doesn't exactly exist in the story's canon (as of yet).
So, this is supposed to be Guinn and her little sister Emily. I think, in this scene, Guinn is coming home late in the rain with mask in hand, and for whatever reason, has to fess up to Emily exactly what the heck's going on lately.
This, of course, was more work than my typical drawings take, seeing as I honestly don't really draw backgrounds often, even the super simple ones. I really wanted to do my best with this, though, so I went through (almost) the whole process artists are supposed to take. In pencil, I drew out the actual bodies of both girls, doing my best to maintain proper proportions, then drew the basic background, then layered over the hair and clothes. Then, clearly, I inked it all in. I'd considered using more colors of pens besides the black (in lieu of colored pencils, since who knows where they are), but I realized that that would feel like it would be directing the attention to the wrong things (like the sky and Emily's pajamas). Plus, I figured it wouldn't be that bad to experiment coloring in with a single pen (which I regretted quite a bit later, especially with not really being able to color Guinn's clothes black or properly smudge the shadows, but oh well).
Of course it could be better, but I'm actually kinda proud of the result. For one thing, I think I did a pretty dang good job with their bodies with proportions and all. The hands could be better, and Guinn's head refused to look right due to being tilted down, but other than that, yay! And besides issues with coloring, (and Guinn's eyes not being open, but I didn't care either way as long as she was showing some sort of emotion,) this actually looks spot-on to what I imagined! SPOT-ON! Like, since when do I actually succeed at that sort of thing?!
I definitely want to see how I can fit this specific scene into the story. I have a vague idea of where it could go, which would be more like in the second half of the story. Hopefully, this scene can help shape the second half into something that makes sense!
On Thursday, I also got a little more written for the WFAM script/screenplay thing, and got further into the timeline for the story in general (I'm almost to when Guinn and Benji meet!). A couple small things got changed/added, including a new side-character who is kinda more comedic than anything truly useful (and mildly tortures Hageshi, who's now got the much radder name Hydra, by being a total flirt with him, which is part of the comedy). One feels so accomplished when more brainstorming and writing and drawing is done for the same story in the span of a couple days! (I also thought up a bit more about the magical properties of penguins for Azul's story. Yes, that's gonna be a part of his story after all, and so will the Ningen. At least, that's the idea.)
Yay, now to wedding stuff!
...I usually wouldn't sound very excited for that, but this is my sister's wedding, and I know she's getting married to a good guy, and though more and more she's obviously been hanging out more with him than us, this supposedly isn't the end of our sisterhood. (I sure hope I don't bother her too much while we're attending the same college next fall...) And, considering how she oftentimes has good taste in clothes, decorations, and food, I could feel a little more sure that everything would actually be done well and I wouldn't be super uncomfortable and I'd hopefully actually have fun at a wedding for once.
Up till now, I'd mostly been just listening in on the plans for the wedding, and didn't feel really like I was participating. Then, there was the wedding rehearsal on Wednesday, which I did my best to dress nice for (but it's become a little harder with my current dresses... *sweatdrop*). We didn't have to do much in it, though it was a little awkward. The part of that day that was longer and a little weirder was the dinner after.
I've mentioned before that Captain comes from a wealthier family, right? And their huge house and all? His parents had decided that they wanted to take everyone at the rehearsal (plus some more family members that had come for the wedding and were staying at their house) out to their favorite restaurant, which is the fanciest restaurant I've ever been in. I mean, bro, the fanciest I've been to would either be one of those rather sleek, contemporary sushi places we set foot in once or Olive Garden. This place topped both. It even had valet parking.
It was a little scary looking at the prices for everything, especially knowing that his parents were apparently paying for everything. (I mean, I don't think us normal folk would've dared to go here unless someone else had invited to pay, like in this situation, but it still makes you feel so guilty that they're paying, you know?) Most of my family ended up getting among the cheapest plates ($24), but they went up to $40, I think. If that wasn't bad enough, though, they first ordered 6 or 7 appetizers (?!?!), each about $20, beyond the complementary bread with dipping oil/vinegar stuff, and afterwards they encouraged us to get desserts that usually cost about $20 too! And with somewhere between 15-18 people (including the two little kids), that means those prices definitely added up. I heard my family later calculating about $500-800 for all of that food.
The meal wasn't entirely comfortable for all of us, either. I didn't really have anyone to talk to at that long table besides my mom and dad, since my sis was already busy chatting to Cap and her friends, and I think a couple other people oftentimes felt the same.
The worst part is- though the food was good, we just didn't think it was worth that much money. At all. (Our favorite part was the bruschetta appetizer!)
Frickin' rich people.
Skip forward to the actual wedding day. I woke up, ate breakfast, showered, then my mom and I rushed over to the little guesthouse (the one that Cap's parents have) where my sis was staying so she could do our hair as she pleased, then Mom left to start packing up everything that needed to go to the venue while I stayed, waiting for the other bridesmaids to arrive. I didn't even have to ask about whether I should take off the peach fuzz on my face, because that was always a requirement when I'm supposed to look super nice. I also knew I would never, ever, ever, be able to get away with not wearing makeup, especially being a bridesmaid.
The good news is, she didn't plan to put anything super heavy on me or the other bridesmaids. She also conceded to my wish of not putting foundation on. (That's definitely one of my least favorite kinds of makeup. UGH.) The bad news is, she still put mascara on me (which I despise approximately the same amount as foundation), and she had the audacity of plucking precious eyebrow hairs off of my face. I don't entirely get why, but she always hated how I wouldn't bother with such things, and threatened to do it to me for prom. As we all know, that didn't work out, but there's no way I can tell her "No, get away from my eyebrows, you buttface" on her wedding day. I was lucky enough she was okay with the no-foundation thing, but I have to let myself look the way she wants me to look on her special day.
I really did not appreciate it. I want all the "stray hairs" to grow back.
Seeing as she'd gotten a head-start on my hair and makeup before the other girls and before her own, I ended up being the one that had to go back-and-forth like a little errand boy when she needed stuff or needed me to tell Captain something in the main house.
Now that I'm thinking about it, why did I say "yay" before? Most of the stuff so far wasn't really all that fun.
Eventually, everyone else finished up, and we all packed into the car of one of the other bridesmaids (I have not mentioned yet that the others are three of the friends that she made when she was in China, so the one driving is the one that lives in the same state as us) to go to the venue. There, we all ran around, trying to figure out if we could help with the decorations or setting up for the food or what until it was time for my sis to change and for the ceremony to start. Even up to that point, people would ask Sis how she was feeling, and she'd say, "You know, it hasn't really hit me yet," and I silently agreed. Like, I knew logically what was soon to happen, but it didn't feel like it truly registered until the ceremony began and I walked down with Cap's brother (boi, you still don't know I'm the one sending trash memes!) and then Sis went down with my dad and Captain burst into tears.
At this point, I don't mind as much seeing Cap and Sis kiss; thank goodness, cuz they were doing a whole lot of it throughout the rest of the evening.
I finally got to say hi to my grandparents, and the aunts/uncles/cousins that were able to come, as they started doing the photo shoot of the happy couple with their families and friends. I also got to do even more running around, trying to see if I could help get things ready for serving the dinner.
Once we could start eating, I went to sit next to my sis at the table that included her other bridesmaids and a couple other friends. The food, as expected, was definitely yummier than the typical catering, considering my mom and family/friends were the ones responsible for making almost everything by hand. I am happy to report that people ate a lot. There were also some mini pan dulce (which my mom and I sampled the night previous, shhh), awesome cookies made by Flower's dad, and chocolate-covered things (mostly strawberries) made by Cap's mom out. That, however, is not even taking into account the gorgeous 3-tiered cheesecake I'd been hyped up for literally for weeks that came out when the reception was officially starting. MMMMMM!!!!!!!
After that, I went to talk with Flower for a while, and then with Klaus (who was there with his mom and Sunny). Eventually, they started with the first dance, parents' dance, and Dollar Dance (Hispanic tradition, look it up), then a lamentably sad amount of people out on the dance-floor while the couple took a break. They returned to perform the special choreography my mom made to a concert version of Juan Gabriel's "El Principio" (I think that's the name?) that included more traditional music from different states in Mexico. They didn't have much time to come up with it and practice, but it came out quite cool. Then, the rest of the night was supposed to be for dancing, but the dance-floor really wasn't particularly full most of the time, which I was frustrated about.
The cool thing, though, is that I got to not just dance with Klaus, Flower, Elenita, Lala, and Lia, but with my little cousin! Cam and Ash moved away with their parents to another state a few weeks ago, but the cousins from Nevada are still at my grandma and grandpa's house (along with their hilarious Sphinx kitty). They usually aren't very enthusiastic about things like eating properly (they are among the pickiest kids on the planet, jeez) and doing something they think is embarrassing. Therefore, it was to my surprise (and that of everyone else in our family still at the party) that the older one- since I'm feeling particularly uncreative right now, let's go with J- had actually gone onto the dance-floor! I did not want him to back out, so I went to join him and show him some simple dance moves beyond the most basic back-and-forth. We had to go real slow, since the poor thing's only 11 and hasn't done Latin dancing before, but I was so excited that he was going along with the stuff that I was showing him, and we talked quite a bit while dancing, even when everyone else had already abandoned the floor. Fortunately, a couple other people were supportive, saying he was doing a good job, and Lala even did a song with him! (As of now, I'm pretty sure J has no idea that his dad had been recording when we broke apart and danced ridiculously to "Funky Town".) So, honestly, hanging out with him was one of my favorite parts of the wedding.
We lined up outside the front entrance of the building to do a sparkler send-off for Sis and Cap. They rode off dramatically to the hotel, and everyone left behind started to clean up everything. We all started picking up trash, trying to figure out who should deal with which decorations, and getting some of the leftover food (which was quiiiiite a bit) to take home. The guests were rather generous with what they took home, but they still left a whole cheesecake (as there were more cheesecakes besides the tiered one), some salad, and some picadillo for my mom and dad.
With all that craziness finally over, we trudged home, and my mom and I barely convinced ourselves to take off the makeup before plopping into our beds. (I didn't do as good a job with taking off the mascara as I should've, but I seriously just did not have the energy to do any better.)
So, just like that, all the planning and anticipation for the wedding was over. I haven't seen if the actual marriage license/certificate/whatever got properly signed, but I'm guessing it did, so they should be officially married now. I'm tempted to come up with a stupid couple name so that I can stop saying "my sister and Captain". Even "Cap and Sis" feels like a lot of work.
SisCap? CapSis? Yeah, CapSis looks a little better. Hah, that's even worse than the nickname I've called them by a few times in real life!
Yesterday was kinda nice, since I basically spent the entire day reading and interneting in my room. (We discovered, though, that I won't notice Lala coming to Flower's room even when my bedroom door's open! That's even more depressing than me not noticing her presence the week before!) Annoyingly, though, I reached a point in the evening where I really wanted to do something, but just couldn't figure out what. I eventually settled for putting on Netflix. I'd had the urge to watch Oliver & Company, but it wasn't available, so I instead went to My List and found Silver Spoon there. If you're wondering, that is actually the series Hiromu Arakawa did before Fullmetal Alchemist, though the anime adaptation was apparently just barely made in 2013. All I really knew before watching was that it had to do with farming somehow and some of the characters look like prototypes of FMA characters. That farming part means that I would probably never touch this series if it weren't for the fact that Arakawa made it.
I made it through... 6 or 7 episodes, I think, but I had decided all the way back in the first episode that I actually liked this a lot. It shared more similarities with FMA than one would expect, since both have stuff about morals/ethics in relation to the worth of a life (the difference being animal or human lives) and very much showed Arakawa's brand of humor. As I imagine was one of the purposes, I'm also understanding more about the struggles farmers go through in our modern day, which hopefully translates into me holding more respect for them as well (but that doesn't exactly mean I want to become a farmer myself...). I'm excited to hopefully finish the rest of it tomorrow (I think it's only one season) and see what happens with all the characters by the end.
Last thing to mention is that we went to eat at Grandma and Grandpa's house today. I was mostly hanging out with the adults, since my cousins decided to ditch dinner early (of course) and were being rather quiet, but their dad eventually asked me to help J with practicing his lines for a class play. So, for a while, I was downstairs doing ridiculous voices for all the other characters in the play to entertain J and his little brother while the former practiced. (You don't know how tempted I am to make one of their code-names "Yee", considering the whole meme thing that happened a while ago.)
The post is finally over! I hope that's enough detail about the wedding to satisfy Future Me (besides the pictures and video that we'll hopefully get to see relatively soon), cuz I should seriously be going to bed by now. Bye, until next post!
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