October is a really special month. In all honesty, it has nothing to do with my Birthday being on Thursday. For some reason, October has just been one of those months where things are on the up. Unfortunately, however, the month immediately following it is November, and things seem to be pretty dangerous that month. ^^ But that is a whole other conversation. The important thing is, October is almost here, as is Ani-Magic! The outline for the panel is slowly forming, and I have a really clever idea for how to get clubs working together. The first trick is in the handouts themselves. The first side will be the information, but the back is the important one. It will have pairings of blank lines so people can write down club contact information. We then spend the first 10 or so minutes in more of a casual wandering around / introducing phase before we sit down for the panel. The next big thing is CAC announcements, which are mostly changes to the white pages that people need to be aware of. These are things like Renée having left Viz, and who the new contact information is. That will take about five or so minutes. The next 30 are pretty straightforward, as that is the panel information itself, focusing on the three P's of a successful club: Publicity, Purpose, and Passion. The target audience is geared towards academic clubs, especially since all schools have basically started by now.
Publicity will include advertising, ideas, weighing colors vs. non-color, strategic placing ideas, and advertising methods that involve no flyers at all! Purpose is the next piece, in which club will be thinking about why they do Anime Club. It could be as simple as to watch Anime, but some groups have higher objectives such as the promotion of Japanese culture, or things like that. There really is no such thing as a bad purpose, it is however important to be aware of the club's purpose. The last piece is Passion, which more or less goes without saying. So those are the primary topics for the 30 min or so. After that, the last 10-15 are club panel time, where we ask one representative from each club to come up and then it is a big Q&A thing for the all the clubs. Knowing that we may run over, we will prolly have to cut it short and move to the pool or something. (I wanna see Arty's Panel though! lol)
As far as my costumes go, I am quite pleased with how my costume is finishing up. I put my seam down the back of the coat, and sewed the tails into the end of the coat as well. I think I nicked the fabric slightly though, which kind of sucks. You wouldn't know it unless you were looking for it though. I am getting a feeling this also marks the kickoff for the Dragon Fang Gang's skit planning for the future cons. Basically trying to determine what exactly we want to do, and how we are going to do it. I know for AX we are doing Slayers, and I believe for Fanime we are having some fun and trying some more complex stuff. Thus the need for a few extra months for planning and such. ^^ I get to try and find a way to make shoulder armor, and I am giving serious consideration to polystyrene. Either that or fiberglassing. Heather needs to do the same for her Lina costume, so we may just have a big glassing party or something. While down in LA, I have to keep an eye out for a burlap style material for my Zelgadis costume. Right now, I am trying to figure out if I want to line it or not. While lining it would make it more comfortable, the risk is that it would make it heavier, hotter, and there would be a need for twice as much fabric, and about four times as much patience in sewing.
I think that's enough about costuming and AM, now onto the past few days. Please note the LJ-Cut, and proceed at your own risk.
Oh, wow, so you are here reading this? I didn't think anyone would. Since you're here, I may as well talk as planned about the past weekend in a bit more detail. I already covered Friday / Saturday morning, and the rest of Saturday consisted of me writing my Industry paper for my CST 300 class. Basically, I have to analyze and talk about Microsoft's .NET Framework, define it, and talk about its social and economical impact. The hardest thing about this paper? Quite simply - research. Nobody seems to know what exactly it is, and I came across several conflicting sources before I found what I wanted. Thank goodness the people at Ars Technica for having a very complete explanation and description of what it contains and how it works. I finished on the paper late Saturday, and decided to use Sunday morning for touch up work on my paper, and then I spent the afternoon collecting the last few pieces for my AM costume. Got the slacks, the shirt, and the tie. I have also decided it is really hard to find a simple plain colored tie. I finally did (thank you Mervyns's of all places) and that made for a day. Sheyne got the substitute she was looking for to a hoop skirt, and the day was really good costume-wise. I got home, did revisions on someone else's ITAP, and that about made for the night.
Today is classes of fun and joy, and thankfully all my work for them are done. I have a lot of emails to write today, and I will likely drop a bunch of them into my PDA so I don't forget. Then I can just check them off as I go. I also need to do my Cisco assessment today, most likely during my afternoon break between 1 and 4. I don't have a chance tomorrow because I only have one hole from 6-8 and I don't trust myself to do it the day before it is due. ^_^
And now, to get ready for class and go listen to Rick for two hours. (yay!) Oh, and as a closing note, I think Matt is the master of the $20 costume. I love how he did his six string samurai at AX. Take a power sander to a cheap suit. Oh how beautiful it was too. Okay, now I'm out to class and all sorts of fun. I still need to find that octopus today during my break.
In response to "my eyes bleed crystal tears":