Volunteering is very rewarding. It allows you to donate your time to something you’re passionate about. For me, that’s cats. I grew up with two loving cats. Jasmine is a beautiful calico kitty. She will be 16 years old in August. She has little arthritis, but overall she’s doing really well. My other cat, Ellie, is a tabby kitty and she’s 10 years old. She loves to drink out of the faucet in the mornings.
It was during my sophomore year of college that I started volunteering at the humane society. I find this job very rewarding. I follow my humane society on Facebook. They often post updates of cats that have been adopted. It always makes me feel giddy inside when I see a picture of a cat I used to play with at the humane society. To find out that they are healthy, happy and in a good home is exciting.
Volunteering doesn’t have to take a lot of time out of your schedule. The humane society requires volunteering at least twice a month. There’s nothing better than going to play with cats after a long week. If there is something you’re passionate about, volunteer with that organization! It’s a really good experience and it’s rewarding in the long run. Volunteering gives me something to look forward to each and every week. Cats are my best friends and I can’t wait to own my own kitties someday.
Happy Fourth of July! I have been so incredibly busy in between my trip to Electric Forest (I hope to make a post about that soon) and going to my boyfriend’s house on the Fourth of July. My boyfriend is from the Milwaukee area. I have been to Milwaukee once, but I was happy to explore it again. Friday we drove down to the city. It was packed! Summer-Fest, an 11-day long music festival was still going on. We started our adventure by walking along the riverfront. It’s really pretty! It has a nice brick path for walking and beautiful restaurants to eat at. We also stumbled upon the Fonz statue. The television show Happy Days is a sitcom that took place in Milwaukee. So in honor of one of the television characters on that show, they built the Fonz statue. Of course, being typical tourists, we took a picture with the statue.
Besides the statue, we discovered an awesome Italian restaurant in the middle of the city. My ravioli was mouth-watering. We also stopped at this video game-themed bar called the 42 Lounge. Since I’m not 21 yet, I wasn’t sure if I was even allowed to set foot in the bar. The bartender said I could stay until 6:00. There are so many television screens on which to play video games. Me, my boyfriend and another friend played a couple rounds of super smash bros on a plasma TV behind the bar. My boyfriend got this fruity drink titled Kirby. I was super jealous.
On Saturday, I went to my boyfriend’s aunt’s house. We went tubing and my back is still sore. It was nice to see fireworks and eat a good amount of food.
It’s good to be back in Winona to catch up on reading and relax before my 21st birthday!
I’m feeling anxious, nervous, and excited all at the same time. In a week from now, I will be on my first road trip to go to Electric Forest. Electric Forest is a four-day music festival in Rothbury, Michigan. It’s taking place from June 25th-28th. We are leaving on June 24th to do most of the driving before making our way to the festival on the 25th. I purchased my tickets months ago and I can’t believe it’s happening in a week! My friend introduced me to the festival and in a split second, we purchased tickets.
The festival itself is beautiful. I have been looking at some of the pictures taken from last year and it’s making me even more excited. The stages are surrounded by trees and there are bright neon lights that light up the stage at night. Yoga will be taught on the stage in the morning.
I’m not an experienced camper. My mom considers camping as staying in a hotel for a night. We never did camping trips when I was little. This will be my first experience with camping for more than a night. That excites me and makes me nervous. Thankfully, my friends that I’m going with have had a lot of experience with camping. I plan on posting pictures and my experience after the forest! This will be my first road trip ever and I feel like an adult.
Yesterday, I saw Jurassic World with my boyfriend! I really enjoyed it. It was cool to see the dinosaurs on the big screen.
Finally, last weekend I played some Red Dragon Inn. I was first introduced to this board game at a video game club meeting I went to two years ago. I got my brother into it too and he let me borrow his second edition of the game. The goal of Red Dragon Inn is to not get wasted, don’t lose your health, and don’t lose all of your gold. Me and the boyfriend played it outside in a gazebo and it was really fun. Plus we saw the sunset and it was really beautiful.
Last weekend was the Console-Room’s Doctor Who Convention in the Twin Cities. It was my first convention other than CONvergence. It went from May 29th-May 31st in the Hilton Hotel. I am lucky in the fact that I live right near the hotel. I didn’t have to pay for a hotel room for the convention, and I just commuted there and back. I saved a lot of money that way!
On Friday, I picked up my badge! I got there really early so there was no line to pick up my badge! It has the four guests of honor: Ellie Darcy-Alden (daughter in the Snowmen episode), Colin Baker (6th Doctor), Gareth David Lloyd (Torchwood/Doctor Who spin-off show), and Joseph Darcy-Alden (son in the Snowmen episode). During the convention, I saw Ellie and Joseph and their commentary during the Snowmen episode. It was really interesting! When I re-watch that episode, I won’t watch it the same. The second picture is the program guide! I thought it was super cool so I took a picture of it.
I went to many panels throughout the convention. One panel was about Doctor Who-themed cosplay. Natasha, the moderator on the panel, made this Tardis/Victorian dress. I think it’s amazing! I cannot sew because I’m not that artistic. Whenever I cosplay, I usually go to a thrift store and come up with something. She said this dress took months to make. It’s cool that everyone has a different interpretation of their favorite aspect of Doctor Who. I also saw a cosplay titled “Tardis Prime”. It was a guy with cardboard blocks on his body and he looked like a Tardis-themed Optimus Prime. It was really cool and unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it.
One of my favorite parts of the Convention was the Dealer’s Room. I have never seen more Doctor Who items that I wanted to buy in one place. I wandered the Dealer’s Room for two days and I bought a lot of really cool stuff. The first items I bought were the Pikachu and Hello Kitty rings. Lately, I love wearing rings. Besides scarves, rings are my second favorite accessory. Sakura Blossoms is a website that sells really cool accessories. They appear at many conventions including CONvergence. They appeared at this con. Both of these rings are super cute and adorable and I knew that I couldn’t let them pass me by. Along with the rings from Sakura Blossoms, I also bought this really cute collectible unicorn. It’s currently sitting on my desk in my room.
Besides my purchases from Sakura’s Blossoms, I bought some Doctor Who-themed stuff. First of all, the stuffed adipose is ADORABLE! It’s so cute and squishy. The adipose episode with Donna Noble is one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes. I also found the Tardis water bottle. I also bought two books. The first book “Chicks Dig Time Lords” is a collection of women’s points of view from the Doctor Who series. The second book Companion Piece is more or less similar to Chicks Dig Time Lords. Finally, the last purchase I made was the Doctor Who lanyard. It says “I ❤ ❤ the Doctor”. The Doctor has two hearts which makes it even cooler.
Wandering the convention is super entertaining! I found a couple Daleks and an evil snowman. The Daleks were hand-made by people attending the convention. I also took selfies with the Dalek and the snowmen because they were awesome.
Overall, I had a really good time at this convention. The Dealer’s Room is cool and the panels were interesting. I was able to wander the convention by myself and still have a good time. I am definitely going to this convention again in 2016.
Living in Winona for the summer has been fun. Last weekend, we had a bonfire along the Mississippi River. In Winona, there is a bridge across the Mississippi separating Wisconsin from Minnesota. On the Wisconsin side of the river, there is a beach with a bonfire pit. Bonfires are awesome because it’s a chance to catch up with friends and make smores and relax.
The weather has been pretty mixed. Some days it rains for an hour and then it’s sunny for fifteen minutes followed by more rain. On Sunday, I was able to walk around the big lake in Winona. Winona has two lakes separated by the main road into the town. The bigger lake is around 3.2 miles and it’s my favorite lake to walk. I took some pictures because it was breathtaking. The clouds were a dark grey color and the sun was setting and reflecting off of the trees.
No matter how long I have lived in Winona, its beauty never fails to amaze me. Before living in Winona, I could never imagine myself living in a smaller town. However, Winona has really changed my view on that. Winona is gorgeous and has a great community. I cannot imagine how I will feel when I graduate and the sadness I will have when I have to leave this town.
Last week, I bought my tickets for a Doctor Who convention in May! It’s the weekend of May 29th-31st and I could not be more excited! Each year, I usually attend one convention and that’s CONvergence. This year I won’t be attending CONvergence because I want to do something else on the Fourth of July weekend. So I found out about this Doctor Who convention and I bought my ticket. I am super excited to meet more Whovians like myself and to cosplay. I’m planning an Amy Pond one for sure.
Doctor Who is probably the coolest TV show ever. I got into Doctor Who last summer because I just finished finals and I wanted something new to watch. I decided on Doctor Who because I heard good things about the show. I started with Christopher Eccleston. After watching the first episode, I wasn’t sure what I thought. It’s a really weird show, but I wanted to watch a full season before I made my decision. I was entranced after the first episode. Rose became my favorite companion and I absolutely loved the episodes in Eccleston’s season. I was really sad when he left the role, but then Tennant was amazing. I am currently on the last series of Matt Smith’s run and I am really enjoying him so I will be sad when he leaves.
As for cosplaying, I plan on doing an Amy Pond cosplay. I really want to buy a red plaid shirt and draw the tally marks to represent the silence. That’s a pretty simple cosplay that I could pull off. I also have my Tardis dress that I intend to wear for one of the days of the convention. I am really excited that I will be attending a convention this summer and I will definitely post the pictures that I take.
Until then, I will finish Matt Smith’s series… GERONIMO!
The week before finals is always the worst. I am so glad it’s the weekend. I think my stress level this semester is the highest it has ever been in college. I cannot wait for this semester to be over. In between studying for finals, I participated in Free Comic Book Day and I saw Avengers Age of Ultron today!
Today is a special day because it’s Free Comic Book day! My local comic book store had fun stuff planned. As soon as I walked in, there were two racks full of free comics. I picked up three new comics which included a Doctor Who-themed comic, Pokemon, and The Avengers. There were also comic book artists from the Twin Cities who showed up. One artist was drawing free sketches. I knew I had to get one because this guy was really talented. I asked him to draw Poison Ivy and the sketch looks really neat. Free Comic Day is one of the best days of the year because now I have three free comics to read.
After free comic book day, me and a couple friends went to see Avengers: Age of Ultron. Here’s what I absolutely loved about this movie:
Scarlet Witch!
I loved the Scarlet Witch. I think Elizabeth Olson did a really good job portraying this character. I really like how she interacted with the Avengers team, especially Hawkeye. It’s also really nice having another woman on the Avengers team. I really like how she isn’t sexualized in the movie as she is in the comics. I love the red leather jacket and the black dress. She’s there to kick some ass, but she is wearing a normal outfit. It makes the character more believable. I know I made a post earlier about her character, but she was one of my favorite characters in this movie.
Ultron
Ultron is a pretty cool villain. He is something that was created to help protect the earth. He still believes in protecting the earth, but he feels like the planet should be extinct and then reborn. Obviously, this is not what Tony Stark had in mind when he created Ultron. Tony created an artificial intelligence that eventually became almost more intelligent than Tony himself. It was interesting to watch this scenario play out on screen.
The Humor
Marvel really knows how to make its audiences laugh. The lines in this movie are hilarious. Even though humanity may be close to destruction, the movie is still really light. The cast members themselves have great chemistry with each other and that’s really nice to see. Some superhero movies can be really dark and gritty, but Marvel always knows how to make an audience laugh.
Back Stories
In Ultron, there are so many different backstories that are revealed. Especially Hawk Eye and Black Widow had some very personal details revealed in this movie. It was really interesting to see.
My personal opinion: Avengers Age of Ultron is a great movie! It’s a great predecessor of the 2012 blockbuster Avengers film.
I am definitely not a creative person. I am definitely more of a logical type of person. However, Pinterest has a lot of creative ideas. That’s how I found out about a date jar! Me and my boyfriend made one a couple days ago. Basically, both you and your partner come up with date night ideas and add them to a jar. When you have no idea what you want to do together, you pull an idea out and that’s what you do!
It was really fun to make! We both had really creative ideas to add. Also, our date jar is a Tardis because we both love Doctor Who! 😛 The first idea we pulled was to watch a scary movie. I am excited because I added a lot of cool ideas like rollerblading, canoeing, coloring, making crafts, and pumpkin carving! It will be cool to be able to do fun and spontaneous things!
Eventually, the “date jar” will run out, but our plan is just to do it all over again. I would highly recommend this idea to anyone! It’s really creative and it’s cool to see what your partner will come up with to add. Thanks, Pinterest for the cool idea.
I had a really fun weekend! The weather was absolutely gorgeous so I ended up skipping the gym to go on a nice long walk. As soon as you enter Winona, there are two lakes that surround the road. That’s where I ended up going on my walk. There is a bigger lake which is around 3.2ish miles? and the smaller lake is 1.7ish miles? Total it ends up being 5 miles. I love walking! I think it’s a relaxing way to be active and walking long distances is a really good workout. I posted some pictures on my walk. I even found some cherry blossom trees which are native to Japan. Apparently, our university has a good relationship with a Japanese university so they gave cherry blossoms to Winona. It’s super pretty now that they have finally bloomed.
On Saturday, I went rock climbing! In our recreation center, we just finished building this massive rock wall. I climbed up to the ceiling twice on two separate rock walls. I was pretty proud of myself actually. There were two other walls that I couldn’t figure out how to get up. I want to go back so I can get up those rock walls. I have been sore in my forearms for the past few days now, but it’s really worth it. I hope to go back again before finals!
Happy Belated Easter! I did not go on any Easter egg hunts or eat chocolate bunnies, instead, I went hiking and relaxed all weekend!
One of my good friends from home came to visit me on Easter weekend. I live around three hours from home, so I chose to stay in Winona. The first thing we did was head back to the Winona County Library. I already made a post about this so I won’t talk about this too much. I did take some really nice pictures of the library that will be posted below.
The other exciting event this weekend was hiking! Whitewater State Park is located about twenty minutes from Winona. I love hiking because it’s a workout outdoors and it brings such an accomplished feeling. I took some beautiful pictures on my hike and it was absolutely gorgeous outside!
Here are a few of my favorite pictures I took on Easter Weekend:
Bizarre Brunette 