Tragus Piercing Experience

So I've wanted my tragus done since before I got my cartilage piercing but my mom would never let me get it because she thought it was "gross." A little while ago I asked her if I could finally get it because I had the money to pay for it on my own and she said "Just wait until you're 18, then you can do whatever you want." So I waited a little bit longer until one of my friends from school texted me one night and was asking me all these questions about my cartilage piercing. Just giving her advice made me want my tragus even more. So I asked my mom that night AGAIN if I could get it pierced and she said "We'll talk about it." Without even talking about it, we went to the mall the next day and I talked her into letting me get it done. I wasn't nervous until I stepped into BJP at the South Hill Mall and then I felt sick to my stomach. I have always heard that the tragus is the most painful to get pierced but I was only comparing the pain to my cartilage which didn't hurt much for me at all. Long story short, the tragus piercing was definitely my most painful. I've had three lobe piercings in each ear, a cartilage in my right ear, and my lip and the tragus hurt the worst. A lot of people say they can hear a "pop" when the needle goes through but I wasn't really concentrating on listening to the pop, I just wanted to make it out of there consciously. The initial poke hurt badly enough, but the transfer of the jewelry hurt even more. My mom was watching and said there was a lot of blood, which tends to happen with facial/ear piercings but I didn't feel it dripping or anything, which helped ease my mind a lot. The piercing is still sore; I can't sleep on it, put headphones in, or even put the phone up to my ear without irritating it a little bit. I've been cleaning it religiously with salt water spray because I'm even more so afraid of infection since experiencing it with my lip piercing. I'm really happy with my tragus piercing and even though it hurt a lot, I'm really glad I finally did it.

Comparisons

Lately I've not only been comparing myself to people based on their appearance, but also the thing they're good at. One of my biggest passions is photography and I hope to make a career out of it in the future but recently I've just felt as though my pictures aren't as good as other peoples'. I know there will always be a better photographer than me, but these are people I know from school that also enjoy photography and just do better than me in general. Maybe it's just me because I am the biggest critic of my work, but I feel like I could improve so much and I have to if I want to be successful. I have few pictures that I'm extremely proud of and the others are just mediocre. I'm hoping that once I upgrade to the 60D it will improve the quality of my photos, but I'd really love to take classes to help me. In the mean time, I'm trying to come up with fun ideas for a photography project because I'm sick of just photographing the same cliche things that everyone already expects. I'm occasionally updating my Elizabeth Nyberg Photography page on Facebook and now that the weather is getting nicer, I hope to be updating it a lot more frequently.

Long Hair Don't Care

I GOT EXTENSIONS!!! I've wanted long hair for such a long time, but every time I grow my hair out it stops at a certain point and never grows any longer. I researched hair extensions for a good month recently and went back and forth between online companies SO MANY TIMES. YouTube is such a great place to get reviews on products you're unsure of buying because it isn't just a blog post with words that you're supposed to trust, it's a video showing you exactly what you're getting. The first company I found was called HeadKandy. After many hours of researching, I found a lot of bad reviews and a lot of good reviews, but the price was kind of steep for me. HeadKandy was on the top of my list for a while until I found another company called Foxy Locks. Foxy Locks had pretty good reviews and the price was significantly less than HeadKandy but they only had one length to choose from. Earlier in my research I found a website that I never heard of from YouTube but the extensions they were selling were the same price as Foxy Locks and came in a variety of colors and lengths. The website was called Pro Extensions but I didn't do too much research on them until I stumbled across a YouTube review on them while researching the other companies. I decided to look up more YouTube videos and all the reviews I saw were positive. For the price and length choice, I was pretty sold on Pro Extensions. I chose the 20" off black 100% Remy human hair from Pro Extensions and I'm really happy with them. One concern I had from watching a bunch of YouTube videos on them was that they weren't going to be much longer than my real hair, but once I got them they were actually longer than I expected. In the picture above, I have them curled so that takes off about three inches and I feel like they look more natural that way. I'm also thinking about dip dying them turquoise for summer, but I don't want to ruin them. In short, I love these hair extensions!!

Photography Challenge Day Three: Clouds

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT MY PHOTO. I'm just putting this here since I haven't gotten the chance to take my own picture of "clouds" and I really want to move on with the photography challenge.

Venting.

I know I talk about my weight/body image on this blog a lot. I created this blog solely to post my photos and blog about events in my life but I've found that this is the only place I feel safe enough to vent about personal things like my body image. I've been anticipating prom night for months now and the day finally came yesterday. I made the mistake of waiting until Friday night to try on my dress and was extremely disappointed when I found that it didn't zip comfortably. I was in love with the dress and how I pictured myself when wearing it but those dreams quickly disappeared when I was really uncomfortable just in my house. I felt like I was bulging out of my dress in all the wrong places and when I looked at the pictures my mom posted on Facebook I felt even more uncomfortable. Once we got to prom and people were complimenting me, I felt a little better about myself. Even then I couldn't' help but to compare myself to all the perfect skinny girls around me. I realized that unlike many other girls, I don't dress to impress guys. I dress to look as good as other girls, but I know I'm not capable of ever looking like them. I always set goals like "I'm going to cut out fast food and start exercising every day of the week" but I can never follow through. Being overweight is like a disease; a disease that's holding me back from experiencing the life I really want. I never want to get dressed up because I know that my fat is going to be hanging out of my dress, and that's kept me from going to any high school dances - except prom. I enjoy dancing, even though I'm not particularly good at it, but I'm even more afraid because I look stupid AND fat on the dance floor. The thing that I'm most frustrated with is that nobody understands what it's like. Unless you've been over 100 pounds overweight, you have no idea how I feel or what I have to deal with. Everyone always says "If you're unhappy, change" but it's not as easy as just changing your physical appearance. Unless you work at your mental emotions as well as your body, you're still going to have that disease in your mind. Right now I feel like I'm stuck. I'm stuck in a body that I don't want to be in. I don't want to keep feeling uncomfortable in anything without sleeves or pants that don't cover my thighs. I don't know how to get out of this body.

Spring Break 2012

In my 13 years of school, I've never looked forward to a spring break more than this year. When I started high school, I knew I'd be taking a trip to Disneyland with the band and ever since then I looked forward to my senior year just for this trip. I came prepared with my camera but realized that I only took a total of two pictures the whole time I was in California. I'm pretty disappointed to say the least. I guess I'll just describe the trip in as much detail as possible.

I woke up at 3:30 (yes, in the morning) on Saturday and got ready to leave by 5:00. My mom and I picked up Isaac from his house and we went to the school where we got on the buses and were on our way to the airport. For as early as it was, I was wide awake and ready to get to California. Our flight was the first one at 8:30 AM so we got through security quickly and got to ride the train to our gate where we sat for about 15 minutes before boarding. The time on the other side of the plane ride was not as easy. We sat in the Orange County Airport for five hours before the other flight arrived and when the buses got to the airport to bring us to our hotel, there were only two of them. The third one went to LAX which happens to be hours away, so a smaller group of students (including me) had to stay back for an extra hour waiting for one of the buses to come back. We got to the hotel where Isaac was standing outside waiting for me but I still had to change my clothes so I went as fast as I could without looking at the weather and got dressed in shorts. Later that night, I got caught in the rain. Saturday evening was the worst of all the days. I was cold, tired, and sick from the plane ride and I really just didn't want to do anything. Isaac and I rode a few rides, Space Mountain was one of them, and then ended up back at the hotel by 9 PM. We felt really lame for coming back so early, but two of my roomies came back 30 minutes after me so I felt a little better.

We didn't get to sleep in very late on Sunday morning either, so I was up by 6 AM and we left our hotel by 7:15 because we had to be in line at Disneyland by 7:45 for our performance. We performed at the Gardens Plaza Stage at 9:25 AM. I didn't think it was going to be that cool, but I was amazed at the amount of people that showed up to watch us play. We played a Disney medley in the middle of Disneyland and it was truly magical. I loved every second of it. After our performance, we had a couple hours of free time in the park. The weather was getting warmer so I wasn't too excited to march in the parade later that day. In full uniform, we marched down Main Street of Disneyland and even though my feet were killing me and I sweating like a pig, I had a lot of fun and I would probably do it again if I got the chance. I can only imagine how many bad pictures of me are floating around now, though... After the parade we had more free time until an 8 PM check-in. Isaac and I rode more rides including Indiana Jones and then we went over to California Adventure (first time for both of us) and went on Ariel's Undersea Adventures (cutest ride of all time) and California Screamin'. That roller coaster is the best one I've ever been on and I would ride it over and over if I could. We got back to the hotel fairly early again this night because of how bad my feet hurt. All that walking was ridiculous.

On Monday I was really excited because my boyfriend was going to be in Disneyland that day too so I knew I'd get to see him. We also didn't have to be anywhere until noon so sleeping in a little bit was great. Isaac wanted to be at the park early anyway for some reason so we got there at around 9 and went on more rides until noon where we had to go backstage to the recording studio. This thing was legit with headphones and everything. We got to play music from popular Disney movies including Beauty and the Beast, Tangled, and the Emperor's New Groove. The piece from Lion King actually made me emotional watching it back with the scene from the movie. The workshop was definitely my favorite part of the trip and I'm so thankful I got to be a part of that experience. After the workshop, we got more free time until the 5 and 8 check-ins. I spent this time hanging out with Mike and his family and I loved it. After 8 PM, all of us, including Mike, went to California Adventure to ride Screamin' California again. We also did the virtual Soaring over California thing which I was pleasantly surprised by, and we used our fast pass for the Tower of Terror. That ride was a must-do, and I loved it.

By Tuesday I was ready to go home and be able to sleep in my bed again. I knew I'd be leaving the sunny skies for rain in the Pacific Northwest but looking out the plane window on the way home made me realize how much I love Washington. It's really beautiful here and I'll probably never move away. California is nice to visit every so often, but there's only so much Disneyland a person can handle. I'm very thankful to my parents for paying my way to Disneyland this spring break and I am proud to be a part of the Puyallup High School band because if I wasn't, I wouldn't have been able to experience this life changing trip.

Experience Music Project

For those who don't know, the Experience Music Project (usually referred to as the EMP) is located in the Seattle Center with the Space Needle and the Monorail. It's the abstract mirrored building across from the "Ride the Duck" attraction. I've been to the EMP one other time a while ago with my mom, but this time my dad took me.

When I went the first time, I wasn't as much of a music appreciator as I am now. My knowledge of music has grown exponentially over the years and the genre no longer matters to me. I'm not a huge fan of grunge or rock and roll itself, but seeing all this stuff was really interesting anyway. The first thing you see when you walk up to the second floor of the building is this giant guitar structure. Those are really the only words I have to describe it... unless there's a real name for it. It's just how it looks; a bunch of guitars strategically placed around each other that goes from the ground of the second floor to the ceiling of the third. Such a novelty.



The EMP just added a Nirvana wing to their second floor and it is AMAZING. I've listened to a couple Nirvana songs but I wouldn't consider myself a "fan" in the least. I still thought it was really cool, mainly because I know Nirvana is from Seattle and that made it a lot more personal. There was a bunch of memorabilia including instruments, vinyls and clothing that Kurt Cobain actually wore. I just thought all of it was really cool, even though I'm not a huge fan of Nirvana's music.
The next leg of the tour was the Jimi Hendrix room. The look of the room
really caught my attention because it was retro and awesome. There was a TV playing one of his live concerts with a few purple couches in front of it. Behind that were four black and white blown up photos that represented him. I loved those because of my love for photography. On the wall next to that was a bunch of memorabilia from Jimi's musical career including photos, records, and little blurbs about his life. Just outside the Jimi Hendrix room was the orange and pink outfit he wore at Woodstock. The actual clothing that was on Jimi Hendrix's back..... SO COOL.



This is kind of off subject, but I remember hearing about Rogers High School's prom last year that took place at the EMP and while I was there, I found out the actual location of the dance floor. It was a wide open space with high ceilings and a HUGE TV. The TV was playing Jimi Hendrix's performance at Woodstock that I talked about earlier and in front of it were more chairs and couches. It made me feel like I was actually there watching him play and I loved it. It made me appreciate Jimi Hendrix, who is also from Seattle, so much more. Also on the second floor, the EMP had an Avatar exhibit. They change this section of the building out frequently so if you went back in a month or so, you would probably see something completely different. I thought the Avatar stuff was pretty cool though. There was a part of it where you could stand in front of a red screen and play the part of one of the characters in a certain scene. I didn't do it myself, but I watched someone do it and it made me realize how advanced we are in technology. Connected to that was a horror movie exhibit where they had a bunch of TVs playing old horror movies, random props from those movies, and a scream booth. I thought they spent way too much money on an exhibit that wasn't that interesting, as least to me. Upstairs was the Sound Lab. My favorite part of the whole thing. You could go into little booths with actual instruments and get a free guitar or drum lesson. They also had recording studios where you could go and jam out for 10 minutes at a time. I guess I'm more of a hands-on person which is why this has always been my favorite part. Also upstairs, they had a Battlestar Galactica exhibit with props and information about the show. I thought this was kind of random, seeing as how it's called the "Experience Music Project" and the only thing in that section related to music was a playlist from the show. All in all, I had a great time at the EMP and I hope to go back another time :)