Happy Holidays

Christmas!!!




The only time of the year that an adult can act like a child. It is one of my favorite holidays of the year, then again who doesn't love it? I can only see maybe one individual not liking the holiday and that may be parents. A year where they have to buy presents for their kids and pretend that it wasn't them that did the labor to get everything their child wanted. Yeah, I can see why someone like that wouldn't love the magical holiday.




Too bad for them.




Christmas, as I have mentioned on my Facebook, was very kind to me. I had received a Macbook Air, an iMac and two FSU hoodies that I have always wanted. Not many presents in the eyes of a kid, but more than enough for me. I was surprise with the macbook, and then the iMac came and I was like "whoa,". I was even ecstatic to get the hoodies, because it was one thing I always wanted to get while attending FSU and I never got around to it.




Ah! I'm so happy!




Last year was also a good year for me as well. I got the Nintendo 3DS and three games which to me was a great gift cause I have many games for and I still heavily use it till this day. Getting chemo is a lot easier when you can be distracted by a good game. Chemo can take up the whole day sometimes when I go. The first day is always really long. It's the pharmacy that takes the longest whenever I go to the hospital. It's like they don't know what to do whenever they ask for my blood, platelets, or chemo. It takes hours! I'm sure they are very busy getting things ready for any emergency blood to the ER, so I don't really want to complain about them trying to save a life, but it really is annoying when they take so long.




I didn't get the PS4. This doesn't bother me because I actually don't want it. Now don't get me wrong, I do want to get it, but not anytime soon. Right now there is no game out that I really want to play for the PS4, seeing as they are still making PS3 games. I'm content playing my Kingdom Hearts ReMIX games for the time being. The only game that I want for the PS4 won't be coming out until June, so I have plenty of time to get the PS4. but if I can get it for only $275 then hell yeah I'll buy it right now instead of waiting. I can always play Little Big Planet 3 for now until a decent game that I will enjoy comes out.




Yes, I know that Destiny is really good and a lot of people really enjoy it, but to be honest I'm not that great at first-person shooter games. I like Halo, and I can play it, but that's the only exception and that's probably because my ex played it all the time, so I had to learn. Also FPS are easier to play on the Xbox. The controller is better designed for those games.




Another happy note is that I got to go to Universal and Islands of Adventure this past weekend for two days! That was extremely fun. Saw old friends and made new ones. I have to say that this was the first time I was in such a big group and enjoyed everyone that was there. We had such a great group of people and the weekend went by amazingly because of it. I finally got to see Diagon Alley! It was amazing!




If there is one thing that you have to know about me is my obsession with Harry Potter. There is only two things that I am obsess with: Kingdom Hearts and Harry Potter. I'm a little bit more obsess with Harry Potter, just because the universe for it is so big and a lot more international than Kingdom Hearts, but the passion is equal for both of them. I was so happy when they made the first park in Islands of Adventure. I went to the soft opening and it was awesome. Not too awesome every time they shut down the ride, but the stores more than made up for it.




Having the knowledge of the layout of the parks from past trips, I was really surprised the first time by what they did to bring Hogsmeade and Hogwarts to Islands of Adventure. Hogwarts for instance seems life-like in the sense of how big it looks. You think it's just as big as a castle, but in reality, the parts that are farther away are smaller to make the castle bigger than it really is. A nifty trick that really works to sell the image of a big castle. The portraits do move in subtle ways when they are not actively moving. They tend to twitch or blink all the time and then they act out whatever scene whenever they want. They made sure to make the videos look like an actual portrait. There are so many little things that they paid special attention to in order to bring the world of Harry Potter to us 'muggles' and they succeeded.




The same thing can be said for the creation of Diagon Alley in Universal. This past weekend being my first time going, I was extremely excited to finally go. I was a bit sad to notice that they had to get rid of the Jaws ride and world to make Diagon Alley, but I was so pleased with the new addition, I wasn't upset for too long.




You first walk into Muggle London. King's Cross is the first thing I see, before I notice the town homes that are next to it. The town homes are the street where Grimmauld place is located. Eek! I can't believe they decided to put this in the park! They always mention the Gringotts ride, but no one told me that they would have Number 12 Grimmauld Place! Every ten minutes they have Kreacher popping out in the window above the door. In front of Number 12, is the Knight Bus, there's not much there, beside the shrunken heads in the front that move at times.




The entrance to Diagon Alley is of course the back of the Leaky Cauldron, but this is where they made a mistake with the design. It says the Leaky Cauldron, but you are immediately walking behind a wall and then through the brick wall that Hagrid goes through in the first movie. To the left of the entrance is the Leaky Cauldron again, but it is the actual dining area of Diagon Alley similar to the Three Broomsticks in Islands of Adventure. Besides that design flaw the rest is very well done. They brought a lot of shops to Diagon Alley, which makes sense considering it's mainly a shopping district. Weasley Wizard Wheezes is there and I noticed that the version they had at IOA had a name change to Zonko's, but I remember that it was originally played off as a branch of WWW at Homemade. I don't feel that Zonkos would be extremely orange just like Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.




Gringotts is in the middle in the back and I very much feel that I am in Diagon Alley when I see it. It came as a shock when the Dragon actually breathed out fire towards the air. I had thought that it was just a commercial gimmick to get people to come to the park, but the dragon actually does breathe fire! Around every 10 minutes, it'll start to lowly growl and mumble before it lets out a tremendous roar. It's so cool. I didn't get to go on the Gringotts ride, it broke down right as we were going to get on and when we checked later to try to get on again, it was completely shut off.




So close yet so far.




I enjoyed Knockturn Alley, something I was happy that they included. It's small with only Borgin & Burke as a shop, but it has three interactive features that were really fun. This was something new. The parks now have an interactive feature with the wands that you can buy in the shops. I remember at first you could buy only a couple of wands, like Harry's, Ron's, Hermione's, Dumbledore, etc. Now you can buy Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang, Dean, Seamus, and more! I think this time you can buy all of the characters' wands. Also this time you have two options when getting your wand, either you can buy a plain wand, or you can pay ten dollars more for an interactive wand, that gives you a map where you can locate the interactive spells in the many places in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade.




I bought the Severus Snape interactive wand.




His wand is very simple and only has a small design on the handle. They look like kanji symbols, but none look familiar so I don't think they are. I love Severus Snape as a character and Alan Rickman played him superbly. So many emotions come attached to Snape that I could probably write a decent size blog on all of the feels.




The interactive spells are a lot of fun, once you can get them to work. They are a little bit tricky to activate, but the moment you get it, it becomes a lot of fun. I only did the spells in Knockturn Alley since it is mainly used for people to perform the interactive spells. I felt pretty nerdy performing them, but since I wasn't the only one pretending to be a wizard, I was fine for looking like a derp. The robes are still far too expensive and I don't know whether I will ever buy them. I now have an annual pass to the parks so maybe one day I might spend that chunk of money.....but I don't know.




The weekend being followed by an amazing Christmas, has really got me in a good mood. I'm going to be flying into 2015 on a high note. The fact that my dream from the Dream foundation will be happening right after the new year is another cherry on the top of this chocolate sundae.




Year of the sheep, here I come!

Good Things Do Come...

I want to start this post with a thank you to the man upstairs, because none of what has happens could have possibly been without his blessing.

It's the third week of December and Christmas is on its way, but I am already getting my presents. I was told in October of a great gift that would be coming to me soon and it wasn't until November that it actually happened. I was prompted to apply to the Dream Foundation for a dream. I am too old to do the Make-a-Wish Foundation, but there are some that provide for those that are 18+ and are going through a terminal illness, the Dream Foundation is one of them.

Everyone knows my dreams and what I aspire to be after I finish school. Everyone knows what I like and where I want to be for a long period of my life. Unfortunately the Dream Foundation does not have the ability to send people on international trips, they can do national however, and last time I checked, Hawaii is a state. It was basically set. I had to write down my top three dreams and of course Hawaii being the closest thing to going to Japan, it was at the top of my list.

When I was finally contacted for my dream, I was extremely excited. I couldn't believe that something I had always dreamed about would be available for me. It really was like a dream coming true. But, it wasn't. Well at least not that dream. They clued explaining the many risks factors involved in flying to Hawaii and the problems that could happen and not being able to have money straight up for any sort of possible problems. It was too risky, plus the flight to Hawaii from Orlando would be a 24-hour trip. If there was one thing they wanted to achieve it was making sure that I would always be comfortable in my dream and the flight did not sound at all nice. So I was asked about giving them another dream and of course I already knew the answer. 17 years living in Florida had given me one wish: to stay at a Disney hotel or a hotel on Disney property, for four days, each day one park.

Being Floridians, we've all been able to go to all four parks in one day. It's all great and everything, but I live here, why couldn't we just calmly go to the parks? Even better, lets stay at the hotels and go to the parks. I know I'm not the only one who rides the rail to Magic Kingdom through the Contemporary Resort and not want to be able to just get on the train from your room straight to Magic Kingdom. That shit is cool.

Of course this wasn't hard for them and it was automatically approved the moment I mentioned it. On January 5-9, 2015, I will be staying at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress and going to Walt Disney World for four days. Woo! This is going to be awesome. I will know Disney on a completely different level and for once I can actually be like "Yes, I live in Florida, and yes, I've been to Walt Disney World. Fully." I will know WDW like the back of my hand. Especially, because when they went to buy the tickets, the coordinator wanted to get the Florida Residents discount but couldn't since her credit card is not from Florida, and so she sent us a check with the money. Rather than just get one ticket per day, my mother (who is coming with me) and I decided it was easier to just get an annual pass for the both of us. Coming back home and not in school has given me PLENTY of alone time. This is giving me something to do, plus it helps that I know people who work at Disney that I can go and bother. This is a lot better than being home. Alone.

One of the great things that the Dream Foundation does is that they presented my dream to me at my house. Volunteers came to my house and gave me the tickets, plus some extra stuff. Two of the volunteers work for the Polynesian Hotel in Magic Kingdom and performed a hula dance considering that my original dream was to go to Hawaii.They even thought me the hula dance that they were performing right now at the hotel. I was I had more balance to move my hips. How I miss dancing! They brought me beautiful flowers, and leis. A bag of presents that, not only gave me and my mother our tickets and hotel reservations, but I had even received a Mickey Mouse ear hat with my name engraved in the back! Totally did not expect that.

It seems kind of surreal how things are going in my life right now. This weekend I will being attending Universal and Islands of Adventures for my friend's birthday and on Monday I will going to Disney with my little, who happens to work there and is getting the day off. I know I probably shouldn't partake in anything Disney before my week with my mother, but I want to spend time with her just the two of us because we have not been able to have many big/little dates, the neglecting needs to stop. Besides, the week at Disney will be a different experience completely and one that I want to share with mother who has been there since I was born, to be honest. Universal was actually supposed to happen in August so this a bit delayed to be happening and I agreed to it ages ago. I've had no hand in making my Christmas so awesome, it just came out this way. This has to be a work of God. I sure as hell know my own luck isn't this great.

I am beyond overwhelmed with everything that is happening. I totally did not even realize until the beginning of this week that all of this was happening during Christmas. I think this will be one for the books, one of the best Christmas I will have in a long time. I know what could top this, but this is pretty fucking great. I never saw this as a possibility with everything that I'm going through, because this not something you think about when you are going through the things that I am going through right now.

You think of health, you think of your goals, but you don't really think about your happiness. It's on the back burner. I'm just trying to get through life at this point and I know I need to be positive but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think about doing things that would give me happiness. Of course, I think of things that would make me happy at the moment, like a massage, but this dream is on another scale all together. This is a dream! Literally this has been one of my dreams since I can remember. that fact that this is happening to me is not reaching my conscious.this is something huge for me and until it happens I can't even process it.

Today was another great day (I'm telling you, my 2014 year is ending with a bang.) One of the surgeon Doctors at my mother's hospital that she works at, has a single-parent foundation. Clearly the foundations works with single-parents and my mother falls under that category. He made sure for me and my mother to be available today to see him, because he had a surprise for the both of us. We both didn't know what to expect, I definitely didn't know anything. My mother's supervisor escorted us to a room where the doctor and some others were waiting for us. Even my mother's boss was there. At this point I had been stopped many times for people to tell me kind words so I expected the same to be happening, but I was pleasantly surprise that this was actually more for my mother than for me. My mother was being recognize for being a strong single woman who works hard for her children. I was so proud of my mother, because I know how great she is, but its nice hearing others seeing the same thing. My mother has some really big shoes that would be hard for anyone to fill. They gave both of us gifts from Mary Kay and Starbucks, which were extremely nice, but there was one gift that got me right in the heart and made me cry like a little girl.

I don't know how to put this to words, but I really love my grandmother on my mother's side. When I was in middle school I thought about how she was getting much older and you know how that leads to thoughts of death and I just started bawling. The thought of my grandmother dying just brought me to tears (still brings me to tears, I'm crying right now!) I love my grandma! When I was recovering from my  surgeries, I remember crying because I wanted to see my brother, who at the time was living in Puerto Rico and my grandmother. I called her in tears. The moment I was a little better, I made the trip to Puerto Rico on my own just to see the two of them. In January 2014, me and my mother went to Puerto Rico on her birthday and this past October she came here to see me.

The best gift that they gave us was a certificate that would bring my grandmother here whenever she wanted. I was not expecting it and just gasp. My mother turn to me and teared up because any time she can get with her mother after being out of her home country for 25 years, is great.

2014 is turning out to be ending soon, but some really good things are happening to me. Yes, I had a recurrence of my cancer in the middle of the year, but it is breaking apart with the treatment that I am receiving. Yes, a sister from my chapter turned out to have ovarian cancer, but she has had her surgeries and her treatment is going well and strong. Yes, I am still not done with school, but I am in no rush because I know that I will be finishing up eventually. I am ending the year of the horse on a high note. Let the year of the sheep start and keep this high note rolling!

Computer Woes

A quick blurb. I need to talk about this.




I HATE DEALING WITH COMPUTERS!




This is why I didn't follow with continuing wireless when I went to college! I just spent three days trying to fix my Mac, which had decided to be so difficult updating the OS. Trying to update to the Yosemite OS X fucked up and before I realized it, I had lost the ability to get into my computer. Thinking that Time Machine had been doing its job, I opened it thinking that it had done its job and had a backup to my computer.




IT DIDN'T.




My only option to get out of the loop was to repartition the drive and try to install again through the internet. Yosemite wouldn't work no matter what and finally the the install from the internet noticed and changed to OS X Lion like I had originally when I first bought my Mac. Still didn't work. I looked up on my phone the Apple forums and saw what others were trying to do to fix the same problems and it all just came down to continuous restarts and hope that it would work eventually. I tried this for three days.




It took all day. Didn't help that I was also going through some problems with my bank at the same time, thinking that I wouldn't get back my money for the rent. I literally wanted to give up on life. Everything was going wrong. What a way to start the week,




Miraculously, the next thing I hear is my computer speaking with instructions on how to setup your Mac for the first time. Happy day! Right after that I got the money back in my band account and was able to pay my rent.




Hallelujah!




My Lord, today has to be one of the craziest up and downs that I have ever encounter. All in a matter of five hours!




OK I'm done.




I needed to say my complaint somewhere.




If you read this far: why? Leave a comment telling me cause this is more for me to rant than for people to read.