DBZgirl88

[COLOR="#004a6f"]1. I'm in my fourth year at the University of Western Ontario 2. I'm doing a major in Conservation Biology and minoring in Japanese. After my third year, I took a year off because and went to Fanshawe College (in Canada, college refers to a technical school) and studied Multimedia Design and Production, which was great. But I'm back at the University now. 3. As you can see, the three fields I am studying are pretty different, which puts me in a real dillema. I really can't decide on one thing. So many subjects interest me, from the sciences to the arts (I also play violin, but at the amateur level since I only learned to play at middle school and highschool, not private lessons or those special music schools. I did apply to the faculty of music, but didn't get accepted). 4. I do like biology, but unfortunately don't have the marks to get into grad school, and no way in hell will I repeat those first year courses just to qualify. I've had enough trouble trying to finish my biology degree, and for now, a BA will do. I'm not really sure what my dream job would be, unless there's something that can combine my three subjects together. 5. I really enjoy photography and graphic design, and I love learning new languages. I just really enjoy learning.[/COLOR]

[IMG]http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/9721/wazzzupppkittyec0.gif[/IMG]

[color="#004a6f"]I believe in intelligent design. Species may or may not have evolved, but either way, nothing that exists today is possible without God. This is based on faith. If people want to leave religion out of the classroom, that is fine by me, since belief in God requires faith. However, I don't think the theory of evolution has proven to be fact yet. Yes, there is a lot of evidence to support it, but we don't know for sure, so I do have problems when it is presented as though it is fact. It has been proven that species can evolve, so at least that part is a fact. But it has not been proven that all species came from one common ancestor, so I don't think that concept should be presented a a fact, just as a theory.[/color]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I love that Anime!!!!! Hi five!!!!!! Sorry, but I don't have time these days to make a banner (maybe in the future if you still need want one). But I just wanted to show my appreciation for a fellow Yakitate! Japan fan.:animesmil Oh and Kuroyanagi rules. My favourite character next to Kawachi.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I love tea, but I haven't had the opportunity to try many kinds. My family drinks mostly orange pekoe. When we lived in Saudi, we always had Lipton, but we prefer Tetley's now. We drink so much tea. We have at least one pot every day, but usually 2 or 3 (or even 4 or 5!). I'm the main teamaker in my house, which gets kind of annoying with my mom and my brother always asking me to make tea. Apparently my hands are "blessed" and the tea only tastes good when I make it (yeah right, they're just too lazy to make it themselves!). In the summer we always add mint leaves to the pot, and in the winter we add dried sage. None of us like it with milk, except for my little brother. But I like to add lots of sugar. I already add 2-3 tablespoons to the pot, and the others like it that way, but I add an extra teaspoon to my mug (yes we drink it in mugs, ha ha ha). I enjoy other teas as well, but in the end, good old Tetley's Orange Pekoe really hits the spot. And it goes really well with our spicy arabic food. Especially falafels.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='boothten'][size=1]Activity in the Art Studio? haha, yeahhh. =/[/size][/QUOTE] I also second that. [quote name='boothten'][size=1]It's like this: every time you create something you wanna show it off. Hey, why not show it off at the Art Studio at OB! It's really popular, you'll get a reply in your thread with really detailed critique and constructive criticism in like 5 minutes. OH HEY, WAIT. :animedepr hahah[/size][/QUOTE]Yeah, it was pretty disheartening when I posted a gradient mesh portrait (took 4 all nighters and I got 100% on it in my illustrator class) and only got one response.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]This has been happening for at least a month so far, if not more. Even when my internet connection is fine and all other sites load, there are many times when otakuboards keeps coming up as "page cannot be displayed". What could be the cause of this?[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]Photoshop doesn't come with macs. Macs are apparently just better suited for grapic designers. Photoshop is pretty expensive (about 700 bucks I think), but a pretty decent and free graphics editing program is gimp: [url]http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/[/url][/COLOR]

[color="#004a6f"]I don't have much interest in sports, because I'm usually no good. I like track and field (I would say I'm decent at long-jump and sprinting, though there's a lot of room for improvement). I really need to work on my strength and endurance. I also get out of breath easily, so long distance running is very hard on me. I enjoy swimming mostly. It exercises so many of your muscles, and as an added bonus, you don't sweat![/color]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]My brother loves energy drinks, though my mom gets him in trouble when he buys them because they're bad for the heart. He let me have a sip of an energy drink once, I think it might have been redbull, but I'm not sure. It wasn't too bad in my opinion. It sort of tasted like minute maid's orange guava juice (frozen concentrate), but minus the texture.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I live in southern Ontario, so we get our share of blizzards and snow storms, though they never compare to tornados and hurricanes in damages. A few years back though, we got freezing rain out of nowhere, just after all the snow melted and we thought spring was finally here. Everything was coated in a thick layer of ice. It looked very pretty, especially on the trees, as they were starting to bud, and individual leaves were coated with ice. But the weight of the ice caused a lot of damages. Many trees lost entire branches (some of these branches landing on top of cars), and some of the smaller trees even split in two.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I feel like an idiot, because I still don't always understand certain customs. Is there a difference between a wedding ring and and an engagement ring? When a man proposes to a woman and gives her an engagement ring, is that the ring the woman continues to wear after they get married, or is a different ring used in the wedding ceremony? If the wedding band is a different ring, what happens to the engagement ring? [/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='Aceburner'][IMG]http://cherrythian.com/images/cookiemonster.jpg[/IMG] Me no see where there is contest.[/QUOTE]Ha ha, pure gold.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I'm usually prefer to have sweet snacks, but sometimes I'm in the mood for salty over sweet. But [I]come on[/I]. Cookies beat crackers any old day, no contest.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='GTK']I thought I'd mention something about the illustration though. The shadow under the hat? It's a bit too big (I'm not sure how to describe it, actually). It makes it look a bit like the top of the hat is floating away from their head. It's just a small thing though. It's just a teensy bit too far out.[/QUOTE]Yes, I noticed that and I should definitely fix it. I just didn't have time! I wish I had more time to do this illustration but we were only given a week to do it and I was did most of the work the two days before the due date because I also had other assignments due. I had done a stupid thing for a first time gradient mesh portrait ands that was trying to put the eyes on the same layer as the face. I ended up using so many mesh lines that I couldn't blend the colors properly down where the laugh lines were. The hair was pretty difficult to do. My teacher kept shaking his head and tsking when I showed him the photo I was using, lol.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]Rather than having series or genre specific forums, how about sub-forums for the types of topics we discuss about each anime? One forum could focus on plot, one could focus on character analysis, etc. Each anime could have a thread in those sub-froums. It could help the threads to stay on topic.[/COLOR]

[color="#004a6f"]We just started learning how to use Adobe Illustrator's gradient mesh tool in my graphic design class. We were assigned to do a portrait, and here is my first feeble attempt (the original photo is on the right and my illustration on the left). I know it still needs some work, but it's really hard to control the mesh when it grts so complex. [URL=http://img260.imageshack.us/my.php?image=areejobeidsmallgz6.jpg][IMG]http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4485/areejobeidsmallgz6.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL] And here is the mesh: [URL=http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=meshva5.jpg][IMG]http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1984/meshva5.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Has anyone else ever used the gradient mesh tool before, or better yet, did a portrait? I would love any suggestions on how to create a better mesh.[/color]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I usually have random abstract backgrounds with subtle colours, but my current wallpaper is simply a photo I took of my cat. When I took the photo, it was under pretty low light conditions and I used no flash obviously, so it was horribly underexposed and yellow at first, but somehow I managed to fix it in photoshop. Used a lot of layers and blending modes. [CENTER][URL=http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?image=desktophn6.jpg][IMG]http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7849/desktophn6.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER][/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I play violin, but I wouldn't call this a talent, just a skill. I've never taken lessons or went to music schools, so I don't have the level of skill people who take lessons would, because I just haven't learned all the techniques they've been taught. But I play pretty well for someone who just took music class in middle and high school (I was one of the few people who had good tuning and overall tone and musical expression in the orchestra, and usually got high 90's on our tests). But I would say my real talent is that I'm very good at playing by ear. Unless a piece has very complex and fast notes, I can always figure it out. But having a good ear has caused me to be pretty bad at sight reading, so I always used to fall behind in music class when the teacher gave us the notes to a new piece without letting us hear it first. One weird talent I have is that I can roll my tongue in a wave motion. I?m not sure if many others can do that, but it always surprised my friends when I was young, so I guess not many people can do it.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]I tend to use lol alot, but only when I find something amusing, so I'm usually at least smiling or laughing quietly to myself--not always, but I definitely use it only when I'm amused. Sometimes, I use ha ha ha instead.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"]Unfortunately, I rarely snack on fruits anymore. I stuffed my face full of fruits when I was a kid, and now I'm rarely in the mood for them anymore. My mom is always buying big, juicy, delicious-looking strawberries, and I never end up eating any while siblings finish them off. Fruits have this certain kind of sourness that usually turns me off. But sometimes on rare occasions I get drawn back to them (watermelon ain't bad :p). Anyway, I find my self grabbing handfuls of dry cereal when I need a quick hunger fix. Honeynut Cheerios and Oatmeal Crisp are my favourites. My mom always cooks big delicious meals (yesterday she made cabbage rolls), but I'm constantly hungry and always find my self snacking and spoiling my appetite before dinner. I love cheese, so I usually make a cream cheese bagel of melted cheese sandwhich. Or I have a couple of cookies if I want something sweet. And like Dagger, I can't live without tea or coffee. My biggest vice is the amount of sugar I put in.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='DeathKnight'][color=crimson]I disagree with your naive simplicity, lol.[/color][/QUOTE]And what is so naive about that statement?. I simply said that having a safe city is good, and therefore we should strive for it. But the laws and regulations we implement to make a city safe are of course a complex issue. We want to keep our citizen's safe, but not at the cost of our rights and freedoms. In addition, the right and freedoms we are given are also a complex issue. [quote name='lea']Out of curiosity, if say a government was to legalize something like prostitution and have strict health regulations on it, how would it make a city dangerous? How would it make a city less safe?[/QUOTE]I wasn't trying to make a connection between prostitution and its effect of the safety of a city in that post. I was simply acknowledging the fact that some of our laws don't always tie into morality.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='DeathKnight'][color=crimson]You are stretching it a bit there to make laws out to be unequivocally tied to morality. Many laws are subjective views that are amoral. The best example are ones that are enforced for stability and safety. For example, speed limits are amoral. Taxes are amoral. Limitations and regulations on public gatherings are amoral. There are many aspects of government that are morally neutral. Most candidates play to the ear of the electorate and overstate the level of morally-guided decisions that are made in Washington.[/color][/QUOTE]I didn't say that laws always tie into morality. I said they reflect what is good and bad for the society, and good and bad can refer to moral and immoral as well as morally neutral issues as you mentioned. Having a safe city is good, and having an unsafe city is bad, unless you care to disagree.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#004a6f"][quote name='lea']To those who insist that prostitution should be outlawed: You do realize that things such as drugs are outlawed, and yet there are still people selling and using them? Just because you outlaw something does not mean that act will eliminate the crowd that wants it. If there is a market for something, there will be merchants to cater to it.[/QUOTE]That's not the point. There will always be people who break the law unfortunately. If you're saying that things shouldn't be outlawed because people will do it anyway, then we might as well not outlaw things like theft and murder. People are less likely to do something if it's against the law. Are laws reflect what is good or bad for our society.[/COLOR]

[color="#004a6f"]I certainly didn't mean that young people were carrying around canes for no reason (Canadian trends????!!!!). They needed to use them. Sure, SunfallE, you're right, sometimes all one needs is a cane to get around after an injury. But canes are more often used because either the person has an injury that results in longterm problems or because the person is weak in their bones. Are young people getting themselves into more serious injuries that result in long lasting damages (for instance, they use crutches for a while, but when they heal, they still limp and need to use a cane), or cases of arthritis or other bone problems increasing in young people?[/COLOR]