Happy 21st Birthday, Harry Potter!

June 26, 2018Leave a comment

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone Happy 21st birthday, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone!

I went back and reread the first book on my flight to work training yesterday with the hopes of completing the series before Halloween. Guess there’s a lot of time to devour the book when you’re doing 5 hours of flying in a small airplane. 🙂

One thing I was concerned about was not being as into it as I used to be back in grade school… it was a book my parents kept trying to get me to read when we got back to the USA, fresh from the Middle East as expats. Couldn’t just watch cartoons and play games all day long I guess. Not that I was complaining once I actually started to read the series!

Re-reading this for the first time in about 20 years was amazing. The book is much shorter than I thought it would be, but it was so easy to get caught up in the story that I just kept reading and reading and reading… even though I should’ve taken a good, long nap at some point. (I’m still tired!) I appreciate how easy it was to get back into, and how it eased you into the story, lore and characters. By the time I finished my trek I was done with the book, and I’m more excited than ever to get started on the second one.

Thankfully the first one was available for free through Prime. I’ve borrowed the second one and hopefully will be able to borrow the third. Whoop!

Happy birthday! 😉

Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride

June 23, 2018June 23, 2018Leave a comment

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michigan on the trail of a war bride Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride
by Julien Frey & Lucas Varela

I read this comic thanks to NetGalley. Greatly appreciated!

This is a quick review of this historical fiction graphic novel. It was published on May 16, 2018 (last month!) and it definitely deserves a look.

This comic starts off with a French couple who are visiting the wife’s family in the United States. As they get ready to leave, Odette’s story comes into play as a war bride: women who marry men during active service. The trip to the United States intertwines with Odette’s story in a beautiful way.

I found the art to be rather enjoyable. As a reader, I had an easy time discerning the characters and the background, and they were well drawn. Sometimes with comics, the style can be very messy and they meld together.

Beautiful, yet simple background work

The characters were also well animated. They did a great job on showing the relationships with minimum amount of space:

Just from the first page, you can tell their personalities 🙂

I think I saw some complaints about the characters, but I felt like this comic was more focused on the experience of Odette’s journey rather than totally on the growth of any one person.

TLDR: If you enjoy a good historical fiction with good art, I would definitely suggest adding this to your collection.

A quick primer on spelling Celiac Disease

June 21, 2018June 23, 2018Leave a comment

Something I’ve seen all around the interwebs is the mispelling of the autoimmune disease, such as Celiac’s Disease or Celiacs Disease. Let’s quickly make a correction!

The real spelling of the disease is:

Celiac Disease OR Coeliac Disease

The reason it’s spelled as such is thanks to Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who named the condition a few thousand years ago “koiliakos,” coming from the Greek word “koelia,” which means abdomen (Guandalini, 2007). The word was translated into Coeliac, then is now known as Celiac in some parts of the globe. Both spellings are correct.

However, the disease is not named after a person, so Celiac’s Disease is incorrect.

Celiacs Disease is also incorrect, but you can call a group of Celiac Disease sufferers Celiacs in normal conversation.

Reference:

Guandalini, S. (2007). A brief history of celiac disease. Impact: The University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center Newsletter, 7(3), 1-2.

Wednesday Drawings: 6-20-2018

June 19, 2018June 19, 2018Leave a comment

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No time to draw this week between getting glutened (yay happy Celiac life), work and trying to wrap up my first course in grad school. So here’s an older Reddit Gets Drawn of spookdoozy!

2018-04-18_spookdoozy

Wednesday Drawings: 6-13-2018

June 13, 2018June 13, 20181 Comment

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I pulled out the good ole Paint Tool Sai 2 today after (1) finding some new brush settings to try out and (2) finding out there was an update a few weeks ago. Not sure exactly was updated, but still looks pretty good. This week has been a doozy thanks to work so I’m finding this extra time to draw super helpful… I’ll get back to sketching out the next chapter of my webcomic at some point.

Today’s drawing is a drawing of Myrn from my other webcomic Pauthalian Adventure. (Needs a major overhaul 🙂 ) Done in about 1-1.5hrs, so could use some cleaning but I’m lazy so there!

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Currently Reading: June 10 edition

June 10, 2018June 10, 2018Leave a comment

I’ve been requesting a lot of books to read that look interesting, so this list is GROWING! A lot of these are ARCs, so reviews won’t be coming out for some time. Let’s get down to business. 🙂

The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America by Virginia Sole-Smith
Release Date: Nov 13, 2018 through Henry Holt and Co.

I’ll be writing a review for this book once the release date nears (likely mid-October), but this is a reading that I’m so pleasantly surprised by. As someone with Celiac Disease, I felt a bit called out because it is so hard to not get pulled into the whole food culture issue in America… but this is *not a bad thing.*

I have so many thoughts that I cant wait to share on this. 🙂

Confidence Creator by Heather Monahan
Won in a Goodreads giveaway — Thank you!

If you want to boost your confidence, take a peek at this! Although I’m not exactly a fan of the writing style, the takeaways so far have been great and I feel that although this is meant for women, men can definitely take some lessons from this book.

I’ve found myself quickly going through this, so if you’re short on time, you can easily read a chapter during a quick break!

Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted

5/27: A great read so far, this book is going into the issue of food fraud on a global scale and how this fraud is taking advantage of the people eating it. Who could’ve realized how much of an issue the name of products are?

6/8: Still a fantastic read, however this book can be very dry at some points with how much information the author shares about different types of food fraud. I’m currently slowly making my way through the wine chapter because it’s incredibly dry. Just taking a while!

America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

5/27: Another great read, this book feels all too real to how SF Bay Filipinos are in reality. I could seriously hear the voices of my in-laws when reading this book, complete with the Tagalog and other dialects that I have no idea what they mean.
There were some complaints about these not being translated, but it’s easy enough to pull up Google Translate and put in phrases so you know. Otherwise, for an authentic experience, leave it untranslated. 🙂

6/8: On hold to read other books right now…

Wednesday Drawings: 6-6-2018

June 6, 2018June 9, 2018Leave a comment

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Uploading a sketch/line art! Feel free to color, I’d love to see any results. These will happen every once in a while when I have free time or will be some older ones I haven’t uploaded. Please don’t erase my artist mark, thank you. 🙂

Today’s sketch: Sailor Moon w/ a parfait (click for bigger picture)

Review: Komi-san can’t communicate (古見さんは、コミュ症です)

June 2, 2018June 9, 20181 Comment

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古見さんは、コミュ症です (Komi-san can’t communicate) is a cute, fluffy comedy manga about a pretty school girl who has a communication disorder and her adventures with super-normal school boy named Tadano who tries to help her out.

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