Things I'm loving this fall

Okay, now that it is officially Fall (even though once school comes back around it's pretty much Fall)  one thing coming from my summer haul is a blanket that I purchased for my failed picnic. I purchased this blanket from Bed Bath & Beyond for $19.99 and I bought a second one during a sale for $13.99. One is a queen size and the other is a king size and they are a taupe color. I absolutely love them. I haven't used them on my bed yet because I haven't gotten the chance to change my room around yet but it's so comfy and fall-esque.

Another thing I am loving is my leather jacket and sweater combo. I got the leather jacket as a late graduation present Spring 2013. I use any sweater for this combo but the one I gravitate to more is a medium/light grey stripped sweater that I love. I've had it for a few years now and I think it was a gift from my aunt.

I'm also loving a makeup brush set purchased from Amazon and a 88 color eyeshadow palette that I purchased online from Tmart. The colors aren't very pigmented if anyone wanted to know that but at the price I paid I didn't expect much. I'm not even sure why I am including this considering I am completely clueless when it comes to makeup but I will try to get better with makeup.

Lastly I'm loving my Dakine bag that I purchased this summer with the intentions of using it as a camera bag. I even bought a camera bag insert from Amazon to use with it. (If you want to see a picture of the insert click the link.) I do use it as a camera bag when I hang out with my friends but i mainly use it as a day bag. I put my tablet and some other bits in it when I go out. I do however leave the camera bag insert in because it helps me stay organized plus it's a pain to remove.

Preparing to work in the field of Customer Service

     Since being a (summer) camp counselor isn't a year long job I'm in need of a new job. Before I started my summer job I applied for a training program that would equip me with a certification in customer service and prepare me to work in the field. It is a 14 week program split up in two phases. The first phase is four weeks of in class training and at the end you take a online test to get the certification. Assuming you pass the test the next ten weeks (Phase 2) is a internship at a retail store. It isn't a paid internship but you do get a stipend each week from the program. The first four weeks you get a $60 stipend and the the ten weeks you get a $110 stipend (weekly).
     I have been going back and forth to the place once a week for the past three weeks to sort everything I needed to do out. The first week I had to come in for them to explain to us what the program was going to be about (which I already knew). The following week I had to go back to take a TABE which stands for Test of Adult Basic Education which I thought was a trick at first because it looked identical to the standardized test I took back in 5th Grade. Afterwards it made me think about when I was in highschool and we (students) use to say "what are we learning this for not like we're ever going to use it again?!" when we had trigonometry.
     This past Wednesday when I had to go back there for a third time it was to speak with a case manager. She was going to be the person who--well I'm not quite sure what she said she would help me with. She however did tell me that I now--after my past two visits where nobody mentioned--will not only need to go to DMV and apply for a state ID but I also have to call my school to prove that I'm not in school. I went there two weeks in a row and now a week before I have to go to orientation I am told that I need to bring in other things.
     I'm not complaining but seriously that should have been on the check list or at least all the staff should have known because I was told that I was fine just using my former college ID. I also called my school by the way and was told I have to come in to get a letter stating I'm not enrolled because email is so old-school.
     Excuse my whiny tone I am still pretty psyched to start the program (if I am able to). I thought the certification would look nice on my resume and the extra cash wouldn't hurt either since I spent just about all my summer earnings (which is why I'm complaining about the back and fourth). Plus it would be nice to have some help with making my resume shine and getting a job.

A picnic fail and a creative "photoshoot"

Friday, August 22
      Me and a couple of friends hung out in battery park in Manhattan. My initial intention was for us to have a picnic which by the title you understand that it was a Fail. First of all I left the house without the blanket to lay on the grass. (I ended up buying another one that was luckily on sale.) It was more so my fault then anyone else because I tried to organize everything the morning of. I sent out text asking if they wanted to hang out and that I wanted to have a picnic. I told them each what to bring. I was of course going to provide the base of the picnic (sandwiches, grapes and carrots) because since it was last minute I didn't want to ask them for too much. I told my friend that was the only other girl to bring chips and one of the guys was suppose to bring cups and the other was supposed to bring juice. I already had grapes and carrots at home so I took them with me and I was going to get them meat and bread when everyone got to Manhattan so it wouldn't just be sitting in the heat. When I got with my friend that didn't bring the juice I realized I was going to have to buy it, so I did. One of my friends was already on her way and she had the chips. Which is good because she was the only person besides myself to bring there intended item. When my other friend got there without the cups I decided that we were going to just eat chips and drink juice because I didn't want to be the only one providing most of the food.
      After that failure of a picnic we (I) decided to take some pictures. I was shooting with my new lenses and since I'm not that familiar with them yet I missed out on some good pictures. The first idea they had was to do flips. I failed at this because I panned my camera way to fast and ended up getting shots of grass. The next idea they had was to do some more light trail pictures because they really liked that the first time we did it. We used a iPhone camera flashlight for all the pics. Our theme for these pics was Dragon Ball Z. If you know what it is then you should probably get the pictures and if you don't know what it is click here. If you scroll through the pictures you'll notice that in the fight scenes when they power up there is a burst of light and that's what we were trying to convey in our pictures. most of them are blurry because they couldn't stand still through the 10-15 second exposures because we kept laughing because they were making faces trying to get into character. Although the pictures didn't come out too great we had a blast trying. (These were all taken with my 50mm f/1.8 lens that I spoke about in a previous post.)

He wanted to take a "playing with fire pic."

New lenses for my camera

      As you may or may not know I have a Canon T3i. (The kit I bought is seemingly unavailable so I linked this one instead. It has more bang for the same buck.) Since my freshman year of high school I loved taking pictures. Not very good pictures because I didn't know anything about photography. They were really just snapshots and a billion selfies before the term was mainstream.
      Onto the subject matter, I purchased two new lenses from Amazon for my camera. I bought them together but first I will be discussing the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 (click the names for prices). I was very satisfied with my purchase before I got it because I knew I wouldn't regret it. At first I was a bit worried about buying it because the 50mm lens was a gray market item which meant I wouldn't be able to register it with canon for a US warranty. ("Gray market products are products purchase outside the US and then resold in the US. They do not come with US warranties, only international warranties" taken from the customer questions & answers section of the product.)

50mm f/1.8

      The other lens I purchased was the Opteka 85mm f/1.8 . I was very skeptical about this lens for two reasons. It is a fully manual lens which was a bit scary because I live by the "use auto-focus and tweak if needed" method that I had adapted. Also I liked being able to change the aperture on camera which isn't even a option because when this lens is attached my camera just says the aperture is 00. For a beginner that only using Auto I think that it would be a bit frustrating to learn but it won't take long to learn. My second reason for being skeptical was that I couldn't find any how-to or example videos on this lens. I like to do my research on tech related things for reference but I wouldn't say this was a huge reason. I just would have liked to find more than two videos on it. Although I didn't find the videos I was looking for I decided to buy it anyways. (SN: the thing on the top on the lens is a lens hood.)

85mm f/1.8

      In the two pictures of my lenses the DIY lighting I used was the light from my laptop (seen on the left side of each picture) and the light from my tablet which I held above and to the right of the lenses.