Day 0

I mentioned in a previous journal that the night before I went to AX I was lagging on last minute charms (Ike charms that in the end melted in the car and became unsellable >.< and lost sleep. I knew the lost in sleep would kick me in the butt while I was on my way to AX cuz i felt like puking by the time I got off out of the car about more than an hour later.

The hotel my two friends and I stayed at was the O Hotel (or the Orchid Hotel) which is a posh business hotel. The stay there was very nice, though a bit cramped since it was a single room with a single bed. And the most horrible bathroom shower ever. Seriously, no door or curtain!?!?!?! I had to put my self in a little corner to take a shower so that the water wouldn't splash out of the shower.

Anyway, registration for badge pickup was SUPER LONG LONG LONG (LIKE THE LINE FROM HELL LONG) and made you WAIT IN THE FREAKING RIDICULOUS SUN!!! Not fun at all. We stayed in line for 3 hours just to get our badges. Never in all the time of going to AX did we ever have to wait in the sun and that was horrible. Though some staff members were kind enough to squirt us some sun screen and there was a spritzer boy walking around spraying water at us It was pretty funny.

Day 1

As if the line for registration wasn't bad, the line for checking in to artist alley was pretty long too, to the point that sellers were an hour or so late in setting up their tables right after when the AA was open to the public. I remember checking into the AA last year going by much faster. While waiting in line I met up with :iconAngiDaDistroyer: and me and my helper Minhthao chatted with her. I even met up with my staff friend Tam who was able to wrangle us up with AX official merchandise for 50% off which was sweet!

So it was a mad dash to set everything up at our table. I was in a snappish mood too from being rushed. Yet again, not fun. But after things calmed down I was able to introduce myself to and her friends. On the last day I got a picture with [link] They are such a sweet bunch of girls <3 <3 <3 I would be so lucky if I can have a table next to them next year, if I am going.

Here's a pick of me on the first day with my table: [link]

I got a fair amount of business, but I noticed that even though there seemed to be a lot more attendees, people were definitely holding back on buying. Of course that didn't really stop me from buying all the things I wanted. >.< I actually went over budget and spent way more than I alloted myself to buy in the first place.


Day 2

I got a fair amount of commissions this day. Which is awesome ^^ and reminds me that I have lots to do in the next coming days. Nothing on the top of my head as to what I can remember of what I did this day besides selling more stuff, meeting more people, browsing quickly through the AA to buy prints and buttons and bookmarks.

I did go see the AMV that day and it was really good. Especially watching Dead Fantasy II and seeing the previews to parts III-V. I'm not a gamer even though I try to acquaint myself with characters from games, but my friend minhthao is and she told me about dead fantasy before until i tuned her out when i found out it was just the girl characters. I mean why watch when there is no vincent??? How wrong i was, the action was AWESOME and now i need to watch part 1. The AMVs themselves were good, but not as gripping as Dead Fantasy.

Day 3

I finally got myself the picture of the Prinny that was prancing around the Exhibit Hall before my table. [link] It's soooooooooo cute! >w< Poor girl inside is an AX staff member from what Tam told me. My friend Bruce said more than likely she's walking blind in there, but it was still sooooooo cute! She would put her wings in the air and then twirl around it was SOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!!! I wished I had enough memory in my cellphone to record Prinny's movements cuz it was SOOOO damn cute. The girl in there is Heather and she was one of my customers and the dude is her boyfriend ^^

Day 4 (and the crash)

I never use to stay for day 4 before, but today I did since I still had a fair amount of charms left to sell and I gave discounts to get rid of much of them as I can. I made a good amount, packed up and me, huong, and minhthao headed for home. We had some trouble getting out of the macy's parking garage cuz our parking pass wouldn't freaking work, and if it didn't then we were to pay $122. So NOT fun. So we had to wait for my friend Tam who gave us the pass to figure out what the problem was, and it turned out all we needed to do was give the pass to the parking attendant and she would let us out. Okay cool. We thought were going good. Everything was packed, we didn't forget anything in the hotel, we had all our AX stuff we bought. I thought it was gonna be smooth sailing from there until I got home, took a nap and then finally got a chance to get on the internet.

On our way home I was gonna be dropped off first. I was sitting in the backseat on the right side and as I often do when I'm tired and in the back seat, I dozed off. Next when I open my eyes I see that I'm close to the exit leading to my house and so I sit up straight and start to wake myself up while my friend Minh is giving Huong directions on which exit to take. Huong was just about to miss the exit and she was going pretty fast considering your suppose to go 25-30mph on the exit ramp she was going about 35-40mph as she veered onto the exit ramp. now the ramp to the exit is a sharp curve, and huong going that fast and having veered panicked and lost control. before the crash came i knew it was coming (though in my head i was wishing that this was not happening) and then the car moved off the ramp and into the grassy/shrubby ledge where the car then tipped over to it's left side.

Now with me being on the right side of the car and seatbelted in, I was dangling and so pressure was put on my belt so much that i couldn't breath, so about a couple of seconds after the car stopped I unbuckled and gravity did it's work. I fell down on the left side of the car right on the window and crushed my AA prints while doing it (since the prints i bought were in a bag sitting in front of my feet before the crash). Minh in the passenger seat was dangling in her seat by her seatbelt and didn't get out cuz if she did she would have smacked into huong. Huong got out of her seatbelt and after we all assessed that nobody was seriously injured she took out her cellphone and called her dad. At this point I'm looking around trying to find my cellphone and Minh is just bracing herself on the seat with her legs propped out around her to stable herself sideways. After Huong called her dad to tell what happened and I finally found my phone, the three of us tried to see if we could open the door which was above us (i thought of rolling down the windows but at that point huong turned off the car and we didn't want to turn it back on in case something happened). the door was super heavy and since all of us are short and weak to begin with we were only to open the door maybe an inch or 3. A vietnamese man had called the police before trying to help us out, but he was short and weak as well, but at least he tried to find ways to open the car for us so that we could get out.

Less that maybe 5 minutes after the crash we heard police and fire fighter sirens. Several hefty police officers were able to open the door for us to get out. But after Huong got out first though she struggled to get out since there was nothing to stand on to heave herself out. minh was still dangling in the chair even though she told huong to use her as a human ladder. huong didn't want to do that and still tried to get out. later i noticed she got a couple of scratches. anyway i was still sitting on the window and i helped huong as best i could with steadying my hands so she could use my hands as step ladder. She then got out just fine but then the car door slammed back shut while the Vietnamese man's fingers were still in between the door >.< I felt so bad. The man didn't leave his name with us i don't think, so i don't know who he was and he left the scene before we did. I felt sooooo bad.

Anyway, minh got out next after she took her seat belt off and then i had to squeeze my way around the chairs to get to the opened door. I felt an odd moment of being the damsel in distress when the firefighter helped me to climb out of the car, and since it was a deep climb down he basically had me by the knees and thighs while my hip was leaning steady on his shoulder. He got me to the floor and I was helped out of the ditch. This is what I saw afterward: [link] The fall was actually much steeper, but i think minh zoomed into the car while taking the picture (since she had her camera in her pocket). Here's some police cars blocking the freeway exit ramp: [link]

after we gave our information and all that we were driven to an abandoned car dealership about a minutes drive from my house to wait for huong's dad.

riding in the back of a police cruiser is not fun, even though the idea of it was kinda fun at the time. the interior in the backseat is made with hard plastic instead of fabric or leather and the seats themselves had narrow groove to fit your butt in, but I was thinking to myself if i was a fat person there would have been no way that my butt would have fit into that seat. It like the cruiser purposely makes the backseat especially unpleasant for criminals as much as possible. Me and minh wanted our pictures taken, cuz months ago we were at a parade and there were police motorcycles that we wanted to have our pictures taken as if we were being arrested and led into the back of a cruiser. But Huong said she didn't feel like this was a laughing matter and didn't want to crack jokes so we toned it down and declined the officer who asked us if we really wanted our pictures taken when we told him before.

eventually we met with huong's parents and went to the towing place to retrieve our stuff before going home.

all this while i'm having trouble breathing and I have the strong urge to cough most of the time, but when i do or when i breath in deep and fast i feel a pain in my chest. so i tried to breath as shallow as i could. My mom and sisters were worried hens to say the least. after eating a late lunch/dinner i conked out at around 7 and woke up around 9 in the morning to find i got bruises from yesterday. Two are on my hips, one on each side that i suspect came from the seatbelt and from the fall i got when i opened the seatbelt. Also another bruise on my arm probably from either the seat belt being retracted as i fell down. and of course my chest that now even though it's easier to breath whenever i touch it hurts like a bruise.

i've already gone to the doctors earlier in the day and the x ray didn't show anything amiss. that calmed my mom tons and so i was just told to drink tylenol or advil for the pain which should go away in a couple of days.


So now after than long ass report, I shall indulge myself and show you all the stuff I got at AX!

Large prints and posters i got ^^ i totally love K-On! and i'm so bummed that i missed out on getting one from before she ran out on the first day T.T [link]

Next are small prints. I'm a huge SasuNaruSasu fan, hence the numerious chibi pics. [link]

My vincent bag and various buttons i accumulated this year. one is of toph that was nice to trade with me when i went over to her table to give her my last angeling charm. she was so sweet! and really cute in her America! cosplay. And she bought some pudding charms from me! <3 <3 <3 Thanks so much Also theres and octopus button that the dude from the spicybrown.com gave me right off his lanyard after i kinda complained about the fact that there were no more takoyaki shirts at his booth anymore and that the design was discontinued T.T instead i got a "miso tasty" shirt that cracked me up. check out spiceybrown.com They have really cute shirts and socks. kinda wish i saw the socks and bought a pair.

Now this is super cute and it was only $5! [link] a cutie hetalia bag in the brady bunch formation! so cute! i'm gonna use it as a purse for a short while. i just love the fact that it's $5 and super cute! I got it at 's booth in the exhibit hall. they have cool stuff and all their artists are so talented. I got two huge! posters of chibitalia and sasuke from that booth as well as the framed print of ciel and sebastian in Kuroshitsuji and one of sasuke with the kitties.

So that is it. That is all I have to share. Now off to put back some more tylenol and get some sleep. then it's off to Staples tmrw morning to get the posters i bought laminated @.@