For those of you in the HKO CB and those of you who actually read my blog, you may have noticed that I have been missing quite a bit. A lot has been going on lately, and here’s an update…

It is finals in school : I have my huge final project that I have been working towards since the end of March due on June 4th (Wednesday) and have been doing a lot of work towards that. On top of that, this past weekend was Memorial Day here in the states and my boyfriend and I went up to his hometown and visited friends and family. And together with that, our apartment complex has become incredibly worse and we are currently in the process of moving out and into a different apartment - all which has really started happening since Tuesday (2 days ago). I’m going to be packing, finishing up school, preparing for work, and moving in the next week and a half. So.. I won’t be online pretty much at all, especially when I move as I probably won’t have internet for a bit.

Don’t miss me too much!

I decided I wanted to make a tote bag.. but I didn’t know what. then it hit me. I always love cute little Haruhi things, so why not make the tote. You can see one of my other posts about stenciling or send questions to kitkatherine@hellokitty.com regarding this particular piece. Bag and paints bought at JoAnn’s Fabric and Crafts.

Color doesn’t lift color. Example : if you have dyed your hair a darkish brown (or soft black) even if it’s faded and washed out a bit, a much lighter color won’t “lift” that color and make your hair lighter. I know this, I knew this, I am just silly. This past weekend I decided it’d be REALLY great to go blonde. So I just bought a blonde color and dyed without thinking…. silly me. I almost ALWAYS go darker (rarely lighter) and usually when I did go lighter, my hair was already pretty light. So the last color I dyed my hair was soft black… no wait.. it was burgundy that didn’t really show. But, anyhow… I bought LIGHT BLONDE hair dye… here’s what happened.

After this, I cry. I pout. My mom says “duh” and let’s me go to our stylist to get my hair dyed - for the first time professionally (did I mention I’ve been dying my hair since the sixth grade?… silly sister started me early). I come out with a new color and highlights, and a pretty pricey bill ( - this is a one time thing). I am lucky my mother really loves me.

Probably most of you have these stores around you (they seem to be everywhere I go) - Cost Plus World Market. I don’t really know why it’s Cost Plus, but it is. Anyhow, since it’s a World Market, they have lots of cute stuff from Japan, including some Hello Kitty items. My mom, boyfriend, and I went this weekend (we had an hour to kill). Here’s what I got…

 
All the Swag includes:
2 Ramune Drinks (Regular Flavor and Strawberry)
Hello Kitty Hard Candies
Caplico Ice Cream Cones
Hello Kitty “Pocky”

The little Hello Kitty hard candies were SO cute! The wrappers and the candies. I ever took my favorite wrapper (a Hello Kitty in a purple cat hood) to school to pin on my desk board.

So I’ve seen a lot of posts and talks about Mac and PC stuff in the forums. I own and run a Mac, and I obviously still play Hello Kitty online. Now, some Macs won’t be able to play it no matter what. Unfortunately, you do need a kind of newer Mac, and you need to be running at least Tiger. I really suggest updating if you are still a few operating systems behind. I still run Tiger. So, given that you have Tiger, let’s start.

Parallels vs. Boot Camp

Boot Camp I personally run Boot Camp. Boot Camp splits your hard drive into two parts - one for a “Windows Side” and one for a “Mac Side.” You can choose how much Hard Disk space you want to be dedicated to each side. I chose a 50-40 GB set up because I needed about equal space on both. You can choose a lot less.
 
ParallelsBoot Camp is a free download (or comes with Leopard) and Parallels you have to pay for. I don’t know too much about it, but you can buy and read about it here. Paralells runs while you are in Macintosh, so both are running at the same time. It is an emulator rather than a more concrete thing like Boot Camp. Paralells is a little less stable, but for running something like Hello Kitty Online, it should be just fine. It also has been really improved lately, I hear.

Boot Camp

If you choose to install Boot Camp, PLEASE FOLLOW THE GUIDE. I can give you some tips. If your hard drive is NOT formatter to Mac OS (Journaled) you will have to reformat. Most should have this setting already, but if not, it can take a bit. Also, print the guide. When you start installing Windows, you cannot get out of the screen and you WILL mess up if you don’t have the instructions telling you what to do. I did :). The windows part is confusing because you have to click the right options - and there are different types of formatting for Windows. Most things you need to know are available here.

I seriously would consider having a Windows side if you are a gamer or want to play a few games. I have been enjoying games that I couldn’t enjoy in all my years of being a Mac user.

For those of you who don’t have the computer requirements to play, I really don’t know what to tell you. Unfortunately, by choosing a Mac, you (or whoever bought it for you, or whose ever it is) chose to not be able to play a lot of games. It is a well known fact that a majority of games are not released for Mac, and all the whining I see won’t change a thing. You wouldn’t buy an XBOX 360 and then complain when Wii games didn’t come out for you would you? No. This is kind of similar. Macs for a long time have been beautiful computers, and I have owned my own (personal, like no one else used it) since the 6th grade, or 1999. That’s almost 10 years. I’ve owned 4 Macintoshs all to myself. And I LOVE having Windows. It’s a great thing. So stop whining and do something - get yourself able to play Hello Kitty! Hurray!

In my major in my university, we are in the same room for all of our design classes. That means I have my own desk, which has a small cubby under it. I get a small piece of chip board to tack things to and what not. I have taken to kind of personalizing my space, and here is what sits on my desk each day.

The Hello Kitty Coin Bank was a deal - on sale for 9.99 at Urban Outfitters (which I live across the street from). The wooden organizer is from Ikea, and I put my stickers from Botan Rice Candy on it ^_^. And there is a ramune bottle and some of my perler art. Oh… and my MacBook Pro power cord… tehe.

I love Hello Kitty things, especially when they are done well. I first fell in love with the Rebecca Minkoff brown leather bag (which I still love… it is SO tasteful).

 
The whole collection..

As you can see, the clutch is pretty adorable too, and I love the kitty fabric used to accent the brown leather in this small collection. As much as I loved this design collection, I think the Hello Kitty x Tokidoki collection really hits the spot with me. I love the bright colors and gold accents (they’d go perfectly with my cute new gold sandals - that were under 7 dollars !!). I am a hand bag lover (I’m a girl, isn’t this a given?) and I think these would maybe be even cooler than the it bags that you see everyone carrying. Simply because it is so… me. High fashion + Hello Kitty. I’m in love. Tokidoki, an Italian designer with a love for Japanese culture, has some other stuff up online at his online site. He designs really adorable things, but his Hello Kitty collection - !!!. Currently it’s not REALLY available in the states, but with eBay, we can get it!

I am excited to inform everyone that I have accepted an offer for a co-op position. A co-op (short for cooperative education) is where companies team up with colleges to over students short term jobs (2 1/2 months, about the length of a quarter) and these jobs are to aid in your future career. My major is industrial design (basically designing 3D objects - think your cell phone, gym shoes, toys, notebooks, oh everything..). My offer came from Mead - the company that makes 5 Star notebooks, Trapper Keepers, and At A Glance planners. They have a few other brands as well. Probably, you have owned something by Mead more than once in your life. I am so excited to begin work. I enjoy school, but sometimes I feel kind of (really) wasteful, and I have been anticipating working for awhile. Just wanted to let you all know that I have been successful in my job search!
I did have to get a drug screening and they cut a chunk of my hair out You can’t see it but I can feel it and it’s been driving me crazy all day!

 
Seriously, how can you not love a ramune? Especially lychee berry? (Actually, my boyfriend doesn’t like them… so I guess I know the answer ^_^)

Yup! All my hard work finally got put into a movie! Hurray! I really hope you enjoy my trailer, it took me awhile to get all the work done on it.