Travel!

I will be traveling SOOO much in the coming months, its a bit ridiculous (but in a good way?)
First off, there's Chicago for 5 days beginning next week for a conference.  (I'm hoping to sneak away before and after my presentation for some sightseeing since I've never been there, but that may be difficult since my boss lady will be there too!)

Then, two days after I get back, I fly to Hana, Maui for my fellowship.  It was a bit stressful putting it all together, but hopefully it will be a great trip!  I haven't been to Hana in over 10 years.  The Hana trip will round out my April!

Then for two weeks in May, I will be holed up in the countryside/ on a mountain and isolated from everyone except my fellow cohort members to write up our findings and do reporting like mad!  It will be like I'm on a trip (I consider any period of time where I'm not sleeping in my own bed a trip!  I may even sleep in a tent, who knows!) even though I'll technically still be on the same island. 

Our final project presentation is in June (3 nights away on the same island again) and then...

IMMA GOING TO JAPAN!   I'M SOOOOO EXCITED.
So, yeah my sister and I are going after a long time of me not being able to go (thesising/ fellowships/ work, etc). She told me that if I didn't go with her this year she was going to go without me and then never travel with me again, haha.  So I made it work!  Late June and Early July I will be touring Japan, with extensions in Osaka and Tokyo.  I've never been to Japan before, but I imagine it will be mindblowingly awesome, since it is where all the cuteness comes from!  The trip itself is going to be quite expensive for me, but I know I'll have to start saving $$$ so that I can shop! Maybe in between all my traveling and work I'll be able to fill up my shop/ have a sale... one can only hope!   

Bamboo Splash

Huzzah!  For our Christmas party at work (yes, it was a little while ago) I won a $50 gift card to Best Buy (much to the chagrin of my non-winning coworkers, because I WIN SOMETHING EVERY YEAR!!!  last last year I won a Kindle Fire and the year before that I won a gift card to Macy's... I bet I'm jinxing myself right now).  Well I got a Wacom Bamboo Splash Tablet with my winnings!   For those of you who don't know, these kinds of tablets allow you to draw illustrations on your computer using a pen, rather than a mouse... it makes for way better control and ease of drawing.  The tablet I got runs around $89 so I did have to pay some out of pocket money, but it is sooo worth it!  I have a really old version of the bamboo tablet (the Bamboo Fun)... see there it is down there 

Anyway, the new one is DELICIOUS.
I mean, the bamboo fun was good, but the Splash is AWESOME!  The drawing surface is much bigger, and it seems more responsive to the stylus; it looks more sleek too!  The only drawback is that the tablet is no longer bundled with Adobe Photoshop Elements or Corel Painter (but I have Adobe Photoshop CS6 anyway).   Overall, I absolutely love it.  I can't wait for more free time, so that I can draw more cutie things!

I love it.  I am drawing many things using it.  Here is one thing I drew.  Hopefully I will draw many more things and this will jumpstart my fabric designing again.

Drawn with my new Bamboo Splash and Inkscape Vector Software :)