It's been a while. I've been busy doing papers and practicing my butt off, but other than that, it's been going great. I have to get ready for my jury because I will be going to China with my orchestra and I won't be able to do anything there. I'm SO excited! It's so close. Man, I gotta start packing.

In our history club I'm in, we went to Rusk, where we dressed up as pioneers and cooked with Dutch ovens. There were fresh biscuits when I first arrived around ten, and they were SO delicious! It was really a melt-in-your-mouth sort of thing. We made banana bread (we didn't have nuts), and that was GOOD. The apple turnovers did not fare so well because we put in too much salt, and we sprinkled sugar on top of it. It tasted bitter! Everyone got tired pretty quickly, so we put everything up, changed, and left around four. Rusk was a two-hour drive one way, but I didn't mind it. As soon as we arrived back, we unloaded some of the materials. It was a lot of fun.

What's better? I have a boyfriend now. It's both of our first time to be in a relationship, so I am very happy that I found him. We met each other in anime/cosplay club (doesn't everything start in there?). My friends Jerry and Cindy got together earlier. Anyway, he seemed really nice when I first met him, but it's not like I liked him at first sight. I just really wanted to be his friend, and so did he with me. He was so funny, and he was made fun of a lot (in a good way). Over time, our feelings for each other just built up, and on October 13, he asked me out on a date after I came back from Rusk. We went to Luby's Seafood Diner, and the food was good. I could tell he really liked me, and I was showing him that I liked him back. He paid for the meal, and after dinner, we had our first kiss in the parking lot. We were talking about something (I forgot), and I touched his cheek. He asked me. I was shocked, but I was happy how polite that was since some guys would just move in. It was great. We went to the lake in the museum premises (he missed the main entrance, so we went in where I helped unload and stopped near the lake. We stayed in the car and smooched until a police car came by. The officer looked at our licenses, and he told us that we were on private property. He let us go, so it wasn't anything too serious. We decided to back to my dorm, and we ended the night there.

Last weekend, I went to my first anime con. It was quite an experience. I was going to dress up as Tyson from Beyblade (specifically, G Revolution), but I ended up not wearing it at all. Oh well. My boyfriend went down to the George R. Brown Convenion Center together that Friday. We didn't leave until around 2:00 because I had to finish my costume (this was before I knew I couldn't wear it). As for my classes, I gave them a note earlier saying I'll be excused because it had to do with a school organization. On the way, we stopped over at Cracker Barrel. It was my first time. The food was SO good. I had this chicken dish with some crunchy apple goodness on top of it, fresh carrots and green beans, and hot cornbread. I paid this time. Once we were there, he had to get his key into his hotel room (I was staying with my friend Ashley, who was also going). We went back (it's walking distance), and we wanted to go up the stairs and not the escalator because we wanted to get some exercise in. It turned out to be that we were on the FIRE stairs. We kept going up and down, trying just about every door, and but they were locked. There were half floors, which added to the fun. We decided to go down, and at the VERY bottom, we finally got out. There was a guy there, and he said, "Stop screaming." Jeez... After that three-minute romp, we got back in and met with Ashley for a bit. We went to the Dealer's Room and browsed around. We just mostly walked around to see what was there, and we hung out in the arcade. We played all these games. My boyfriend had my play against this one guy at this piano version of Guitar Hero, and I lost. I can't do very well even though I've played the piano for years. I felt bad I let him down, but he wasn't too bothered with it, or so it seemed. He then went against me, and I lost AGAIN. I'm such a bad sightreader. I found out later from a couple of other folks who play the piano, and they said they lost too, so I'm not alone. My boyfriend totally rocked at pinball, and he kept on getting multiballs. He was GOOD. He told me he wasn't trying to impress me, but I was glad he was enjoying himself. I played against Jerry at this one fighting game, and I won against him. He got really mad that he was defeated. Not like he was yelling, but he sulked. Big time. It turned out that my boyfriend and I tried it ourselves, and the left side was rigged. It kept on winning. We were bored, so we took pictures at the vending machine picture booth. It was our first and only picture so far. It was all in Japanese, so we didn't understand a thing it said. We got multiple prints, like sixteen. It was a GREAT picture for a cheap thing like that (it was free!). We decided to go back to his car to get the stuff we needed for the evening. We changed into nicer clothes, and he took me out to Vic and Anthony's for our one week anniversary (Saturday was busy, so we did it then). He made a reservation, but we were late because we had trouble looking for it (Man, he's SO sweet). We waited for around twenty minutes until we finally got our table. We shared a crabcake for an appetizer. It MADE the meal. It melted in our mouths, and it was just SO good. I had this spaghetti dish with shrimp, and he decided on having steak, but he did not like it too much since wasn't that juicy. It was too dry even though he asked for it to be on medium. He paid, and we went back to the con because Ashley was going to back to her home. I went with Ashley, Travis, this other guy (I forgot his name), and Kim. I took a bath and slept like a log. When I woke up, I learned I was supposed to be practicing for the skit at midnight. I was already asleep then. Ashley told me. I felt bad for missing it. I called my boyfriend, and I told him I knew. He told me that Rosie said I would be kicked out if I was late again. I got nervous about it, and when I met up with him, he tried to comfort me. I called Rosie, and she said it would be fine to just go with it even though we would have to practice it in the line. First, we sat in part of Derek Stephen Prince's session (he's awesome!). I would have had his autograph, but I didn't feel like it. We stayed for the Full Metal Alchemist session, and he saw I was getting bored. He got bored too, as a matter of fact. It was annoying because there were all these fangirls screaming when they got to see the guy who does Ed (this is why I didn't see DSP). Nonetheless, I was glad I got to see these people and more live. We went to the Dealer's room again, and I got a Naruto wallet. I am always afraid of losing my wallet, so I got a backup one now. I also got a Naruto figurine (which later I found to be Shikamaru, but that's okay). My boyfriend got some anime DVDs. We were getting bored, so we decided to go to a nearby food court. We ate there, and since it was part of a very small mall, we hung out there. We went to Walden Books and another bookstore next door that had bargain prices (the books were HUGE). We got this glass chess set that was eight bucks, and we played a game to kill some time. He won, but he is more experienced than I am. We dropped the game off at his room, and we returned because I had to get with everyone soon. We walked around until around 4:00, when we waited. Since we were going to be separated, I gave my badge and my bag to my boyfriend, and he joked about having to carry everything for me. It took forever-and-a-half to get everything going. We had to be lined up in the order we were called. There were so many entries. There were a LOT of walk-ons, but the skits went faster. We were seated, and the audience came in. We watched the walk-ons. Some were really good. Others were decent. Thankfullly, I was not in the audience because I heard yells and hollers when there was Kingdom Hearts and Halo characters onstage. My friends in the audience later told me they were seriously annoyed from this. We got excited when the walk-ons were done and the skits were up next. We were the fifth group. We were Team Rocket. Rosie, who was Snorlax, was the first to go up onstage. I urged the others to go because I had the first line. They were at the very bottom of the stairs when they could have started moving as soon as Rosie went on. I was late for my line. Another complaint I had was that there was not enough time of breaks between sentences, so it seemed rushed. When Rosie and Alissa put the recording together, they could have left longer gaps so we'd actually breathe before we spoke. Okay. Eddy messed up accidentally by saying aloud his line. We just went along with it, and the dance rocked. I messed up because I thought I had to turn on "back on her friends" when I thought it was just after that. Oh well. The ending was kind of messed up too because we were supposed to follow Jason, but he ended up on the wrong side, so we were all confused. I guess it worked out fine anyway. The ending was great, but I still thought it was rushed. As we waited for the other skits to finish, we took some pictures backstage. They were great. We did two more walk-ons after everything was done. Jason counted off, and we screamed, "Team Rocket's blasting off again!" It was really a crowd pleaser. The second time, Rosie had the apple and Nichole was chasing after her, and the rest of us followed suit. We listened to the awards. We didn't win anything. Here's the catch: if they gave out one more prize for the skits, it would have been us. Seriously. We were THAT close. I think it's rigged since there were at least three prizes for the walk-ons. Alissa told us this Wednesday at cosplay club. We took some more pictures, and we headed off six blocks to McDonalds, or what we tried. It was CLOSED. My boyfriend thought it would mock him saying he couldn't have the food, and it was quite true since it wasn't open (he just thinks that way, and he laughed at himself for it). We ended up eating at Frank's. It was good pizza. I didn't stay long, because Kim called my boyfriend saying that I need to be back at the convention center. They would leave without me if I did not come in thirty minutes. With my consent, he requested a little more time. Jason offered to help me get back there, but I preferred that my boyfriend go with me alone. We walked all the way back together, and we separated after we met with Ashley, Kim, and the guys. He walked with me until we reached the parking lot, which we passed when we told her we were close. How funny! I wanted to see Death Note with Kim and Ashley, but I konked out because I was so exhausted and tired. I woke up when the credits were rolling. I was like, "NOOOO!" We all didn't wake up until around 11:00. We left around 1:00. I told my boyfriend I wouldn't be going back to the con, and he tried to make it so we would get back around the same time. I rested until he was ready (he wanted to take a nap). We watched Kamikaze Girls together, one the videos he got at the con. It was funny. But it was the end of a great weekend.