The 2017 convention season has begun since last weekend I attended my first con of the season. MSP ComiCon is run by volunteers which is pretty impressive. I always sit with the Twin Cities Geek table so I am considered an exhibitor at the convention. I have never paid to get into this con and I get free lunch that’s cooked by the volunteers for this con. This con is one of my favorites and I always meet new creators each time I attend. I made sure to bring cash with me and I wanted to show off the comics and books I purchased.

Kim & Kim #1 by Black Mask Studios

Kim & Kim details the story of two young women who hijack some bounties and get into trouble. This comic emphasizes powerful female relationships while taking place in this punk rock, sci-fi adventure.

Lake Lurkers by M.P. Johnson

Lake Lurkers is a horror novella about creatures living in Lake Harriet which is located in Minneapolis. I have been trying to read more horror and I like how this takes place in areas around Minneapolis. I can’t wait to read this.

Big in Japan by Timothy Price

What would happen if a rock star/band traveled to Japan to fight a Godzilla-like creature? Once I read this book, I’ll let you know how it turns out. My first impression of this book is imagining Led Zeppelin battling with the Kaiju from Pacific Rim. This seems like a cool premise for a book.

RoboCatz vs. Thunder Dogs by Justin Cermak

Robot dogs are destroying robot cats and vice versa in this epic comic. I am rooting for the robot cats of course.

H.E.N.C.H (Helping Evil Nefarious Criminals Hire) by James Person & Chad Freund

Supervillains usually always lose against the heroes, so how about trying to hire villains for other job positions. I’m doing a terrible job explaining this comic because it’s more interesting than how I’m describing it out to be. I am linking the H.E.N.C.H. Facebook page so you can learn more yourself.

That is everything I purchased from MSP ComiCon this year. I am actually slightly overwhelmed by all the comics I have yet to read, but I know I will get around to reading everything eventually.

Hello geek friends and blog followers! As you can probably tell.. my posts have been somewhat irregular. I am thrilled to announce that I officially graduated from college at Winona State University! My B.S. is in Exercise Science with a minor in nutrition and I am currently in the process of relocating with the boyfriend to Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I wanted to reflect on my years at school and post plenty of pictures.

Freshman Year: Exciting, Overwhelming, and Lots of Socializing (2012 – 2013)

I look so young in all three of these pictures. The first picture was right before my family left me at school. I remember seeing them leaving and crying for a good hour. I was scared and I didn’t know what to expect. Eventually, I grouped with my floor mates and I figured everything out.

The one thing I will miss about freshman year is how exciting everything is. I’m in a fresh town to explore, new people, to meet and I took a lot of pictures. The last picture was with one of my very first friends I met in college. College forces you to meet so many new people at once and it’s overwhelming in that way.

Sophomore Year; Lonely, Battling Some Insecurities (2013 – 2014) 

The first photo is confusing, but during my sophomore year, I felt alone. There were friends I made in my freshman year that I wasn’t friends with in my sophomore year. Some say that you find your “group” in college, but it wasn’t until my junior year of college that I felt happy with my friend group. That’s okay. College is a different experience for everyone and I happened to have my own journey in meeting new friends.

I did join Astronomy Club my sophomore year of college which I really enjoyed along with volunteering at the local humane society. These experiences helped get me through.

Junior Year; Independent, Delighted, and Full of Memories I Will Never Forget (2014 – 2015) 

This was my absolute favorite year in college. I found my friend group, started a new relationship (the boyfriend & I have been together for 3 years since October!!!) and started my new major. My favorite memories this year include: meeting my boyfriend, “welcome week 2014”, visits to the St. Paul science museum, the homecoming parade, hiking in White Water National Park with a friend, Free Comic Book Day, and Living in Winona for the summer and so much more. My junior year of college would be a year that if I could relive all over again, I would.

Senior Year; BROKE (2015 -2016) 

It’s common for most college students to have that one year in school where they struggle to pay for food. That was my senior year. I took trips in the summer of 2015 that left me without much money. I don’t have anything else to say about this year so let’s move on.

Super Senior Year Impatient! (2016 – 2017)

I was impatient because I was taking a 5th year to complete my degree and overall, I was ready to move on to the next chapter of my life. I am so proud of earning my degree! It didn’t feel like I was graduating until I walked into the gymnasium filled with loved ones. I waved to my mom as I found my seat and that’s when I had the epiphany of being done with college. I started to tear up because I am sure in a couple months I will look back on these years and miss each year. Eventually, I want to write a post about the life lessons I learned from college. In five years, I feel like I have grown in so many ways.

I am so ready for whatever comes next.

I just got back from celebrating Easter with the boyfriend’s family. The boyfriend’s family lives near Milwaukee which is about a 4-hour drive from our college campus. Besides Easter, there is a lot of other life stuff that happened so I’m going to throw that into this blog post too.

First off, this past week I finished my internship hours for college! I am all set to walk in the next three weeks. I am anxiously awaiting graduation and a little afraid of the unknown. I have been applying for jobs because I need to make money, but I’m also going on a road trip with my family in June. I’m looking forward to the road trip while also enjoying moving back to the Twin Cities area.

As far as Easter, me and the boyfriend took a day trip to Racine, Wisconsin. Racine is right by Lake Michigan and downtown Racine had a bunch of cool art galleries, boutiques, and smaller cafes. We also went to this restaurant that’s right on Lake Michigan for beer and food.

I can’t believe I’m graduating from college soon!! The countdown has begun.

Happy First Day of Spring! It was 61 degrees on my ride home from work in the late afternoon and it was a nice change of pace. I feel on cloud nine from this wonderful day outside. As I was contemplating what to blog about I realized that I don’t write about health or wellness on this blog. Usually, I write about comics and books, video games, and general posts about my life. Today I wanted to write something a little different and share my health goals.

Eat More Vegetables

I eat plenty of fruit in a day, but veggies? Not so much. I love red bell pepper, carrots, and broccoli yet I don’t cook enough with veggies. I have a huge sweet tooth, so sometimes vegetables aren’t appealing to me. I find that when I cook vegetables with olive oil and some pepper they’re good to eat. It’s difficult for me to eat veggies raw and if you can, good for you!

Yoga/Spiritual Exercise Once a Week

I have been slacking on yoga. My workout regime is three days a week of cardio and two days of strength training. That leaves two days of active recovery. On one of my recovery days, I want to add yoga or I want to attend a yoga class at my internship. Yoga is beneficial and I feel that I need to try harder to make this happen.

I’m in a good mindset where I can set these goals for myself without feeling insecure about how my body looks. I’m grateful to have reached that place even though it took a while to get there. I would love to hear your health and wellness goals in the comments below.

This was certainly an unplanned eleven-day writing hiatus. My work schedule was chaotic and all I have been doing after work was finishing The Following on Netflix while reading books and various comics. After a relaxing weekend home I come prepared to write about a smaller local convention I attended: Blizzard World Comic Con 2017. 

Blizzard World Comic Con is a convention that offers up tables for super cheap. Artists can display their newly printed comics, art prints, and cute toys without spending a lot of money. Unlike other conventions that have panels and activities, Blizzard World is a con where you spend money. I had my budget as to how much I could spend and I was determined to spread that money across as many artists as I possibly could. I only ended up spending about $30 and I went home with a couple of comics and a cool sticker that I placed in my planner.

As for my first time being at this con, I liked it. It was small so I felt that I could actually talk with each artist at the booths. I could learn what inspires them to create art or detailed stories. This helped me make purchases that I felt really proud of. I will say that I only stayed for about 45 minutes because I spent my money quickly, so I wish Blizzard World offered more activities besides walking around the booths. Otherwise, I can definitely say that I will be back again next year.

The last part of this post is to detail what I bought because that’s always the fun part about attending conventions.

This book I ended up purchasing this not at Blizzard World, but through a GoFundMe page initiated by Phil Juliano. He ended up saving me this Velma print and isn’t it so cute?!

I stopped by Christopher D Schmitz’s table while at Blizzard World. He was describing his book, Wolf of The Tesseract which he stated had references to Cthulhu and other elements of HP Lovecraft’s stories.

Hopefully, I will keep a regular blogging routine as I really don’t like to go almost two weeks without writing. I can’t make any promises, but I do have some ideas about posts in the coming days. I wish everyone a good start to the week!

Science is the subject in school I struggle with but enjoy the most. My major is heavily focused on biology, anatomy, and physiology which are the branches of biology that comprehend how the body works. The Science Museum of Minnesota is a place filled with childhood memories of IMAX movies and featured exhibits. I was personally invited to interact with the newest exhibit Sportsology; the science behind sports medicine and biology.

A couple weeks ago, a fellow geek who reads my fit geek articles for Twin Cities Geek contacted me. She also is the coordinator for programs held at the Science Museum. She thought I would love to write an article on Sportsology since I write for the Fit Geek section of the site. I also got in for free and could bring my boyfriend who has never been to the museum before. Saturday, January 7th was filled with vertical jumping, balance activities, and racing against a T-REX… 😀

Sportsology at the MN Science Museum

Wait racing against a T-REX? Yep! There was one sprinting activity where you could select your favorite athlete and sprint alongside them to see how fast you were. Instead of choosing an athlete, I decided on a T-Rex. A T-Rex by the way runs at 20 mph. So I attempted my sprint but failed miserably against a virtual dinosaur.

A less exciting, but still entertaining activity was on balance. Interestingly enough this picture was an activity to show how your ears help you balance. My boyfriend walked to that circle shown above. He then spun around in circles for five rotations. Once he’s all dizzy, he will attempt to walk in a straight line following the left orange line. At this point, your body isn’t helping you balance because your brain is trying to send nerve signals to your muscles. Your vision isn’t helping you balance because you’re dizzy. The fluid in your ears is what will help you walk in a straight line. Cool huh?

This activity is a vertical jump test. Different basketballs were hung from different heights and you could jump to touch them. I was only able to jump to 8.5 inches while my boyfriend could jump to the 9-inch basketball.

This exhibit made for a fun Saturday. If you’re from Minnesota, I recommend visiting the museum. If you’re located in the other 49 states. . . you’re missing out.

I detest New Year’s resolutions so, I thought that instead of writing about resolutions I wanted to write about quests to pursue in this bright new year.

Quest – noun a search or exploration.

Doesn’t that sound more fun? This whole “new year new me” is a bunch of nonsense. I love how my body looks and feels and I don’t want to change that for anyone else and the standards that society upholds. Here are the quests that I want to participate in:

Buy More Cruelty-Free Makeup. 

As a consumer, I started to be more attentive to what I’m purchasing. I want to invest in beauty products that are ethical. Makeup lifts my self-esteem some days, but it’s not worth it to buy a product that may have hurt animals before arriving on the shelf. 

More HIIT Workouts

HIIT aka. High-Intensity Interval Training. I just did a HIIT workout yesterday and my muscles are sore. HIIT is something I don’t do often, but I’m enjoying the higher energy and feeling sweaty after I complete my workout. I want my body to adapt and get stronger and I think HIIT can do that for me.

Drink more Tea 

I’m enjoying a sweet tangerine tea along with my sleepy-time Vanilla tea for when I’m tired while reading my book at night. Tea is my go-to at night because it’s not sugary like hot chocolate is, but it’s still warm and flavorful.

Finally: Read more comics, read more books, play video games when I can and be grateful for everything I have.

In 2012, I passed my driving test at age 17. The car that I took the driving test in was a 2000 Ford Windstar Minivan. When I drove to college, a couple friends thought the name Bertha fit the car. Bertha became my car and I drove her everywhere. On the 28th, I traded in Bertha for my 2016 Subaru Forester.

As I drive my new car, I realize that this is the right decision for me. Two weeks ago, I drove Bertha home for winter break. I heard a strange rattling noise coming from the hood of my car. I was at the point where I knew I needed a new car but wasn’t planning on upgrading my car until next May after I graduate college. However, I decided that I wasn’t willing to put hundreds of dollars into a car that would be replaced soon.

On Friday, me and my mom drove to the dealership to pursue new cars. The car I ended up test-driving was the 2016 Jasmine Green Subaru Forester. Driving the Forester was easy and pressing the gas didn’t require so much effort. I have never been a car person really, but this car was amazing. Me and my mom ended up purchasing the vehicle that I drove.

Before I went back to school, I picked up my new car while also dropping off Bertha for a trade-in. The Forester has heated seats so my butt is cozy in the cold winter. There are also heated seats in the passenger seat too. Also, this car has way better gas mileage than my other car. All I can think about now is when I can go on a road trip with my new car.

I’m grateful to have been able to drive Bertha. I now have experience in driving a bigger vehicle so moving to a smaller car makes it easier to drive. It’s going to be sucky to have a car payment, but my car needed so many repairs that I just couldn’t afford it anymore. I cannot wait for all the new memories to be had in my car. It’s time to welcome Ripley Rey, into my life. She’s a beauty.