My 2015

2015 came and went, seeing the last sheet of paper on my peel-off calendar, I’m feeling a little blue. The feeling inside of me is the same every last day of the year, and is taken over by “Sadness”, because another year is gone. I always need some time to adjust to my emotions for the new year. Yes, I watched too much "Inside Out"… XD

So to summarize the positive and negative events of 2015, I can tell you that it was a roller coaster ride.

Starting off the year, I was so delighted to have met my idol, the Disney Legend, Master Animator, and creator of Ariel, Glen Keane! To hear him giving a speech in person was very encouraging and also very emotional for me. I grew up with Ariel and it was this character that inspired me to draw and sing. The first song I learned to sing was Part of Your World. This character meant so much to me, and it was created and drawn by Glen Keane. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet Glen Keane and it was such an inspirational moment. Already having met the writers, directors and producers of the Little Mermaid, Ron Clements and John Musker, at the Walt Disney Studios last year, and also Alan Menken and Jodi Benson before that, I felt that I’m a lucky girl to have been able to meet the whole team of my favorite childhood animation. I guess this is the Disney Magic (Dream, Wish & Believe).

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​In March, I was excited to be invited to the Walt Disney Company’s 2015 Annual Meeting. It was a unique and fun experience and not as boring as I thought it would be. Mickey Mouse was there to greet us along with Olaf, Storm Troopers and more! After the meeting, we were all treated to an early screening of Cinderella.  It was a wonderful experience.
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I loved animation and that’s how I started to draw. But unfortunately, I did not have the chance to study animation when I was young and settled for graphic design in college. I stopped drawing for a while and was working in the music industry. I felt that during this time, my art skill has deteriorated, and I’m always hesitant to present my artwork to great Disney artist because I felt that my art skills are not up to the quality of their standards. But thanks to my hubby, he gave a set of my Allure Series artwork to a Disney Artist, Mike Peraza, and received positive comments. This gave me confidence to help me continue to do what I like to do. I am now continuing to draw and also working on my new style of artwork. I don’t quite have a name for this style yet, but as some of you may have seen, it’s basically artwork with black background with high contrast colors and lighting effects. 

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​I attended the 2015 D23 Expo in August and was overwhelmed by Star Wars fans. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Star Wars, so this felt like a Star Wars convention more than a Disney convention. But other than the Star Wars makeover, there were many other events to keep me occupied. I saw many actors and actresses but was very excited to see another one of my favorite actor, Johnny Depp. He sure was mad as a hatter, but it was fun. One disappointing thing about this event was that the 
merchandise was very hard to come by. There was a D23 exclusive Pixar shirt that I really really wanted to get, but was not able to because of the many scalpers purchasing all of them and putting it on eBay for 3x the amount of the original price. I was down for a few days. But overall, it was still a fun expo and this year was definitely a new experience for me. 

This year was the 60th Anniversary of Disneyland and also the Diamond Celebration. I had high hopes for my visit this year, and with high hopes came with disappointing moments. Started the day with a bad experience at the parking garage. There was some accident earlier in the day and we were directed to make a detour to a different nearby parking garage which was a little further away and with all the commotions, we finally arrived at the gate almost an hour later. Then at the entrance where we were stuck for a long time. There was a malfunction of the ticketing machine and instead of directing us to the next line, the cast member just sat there waiting for the manager to come help without letting the rest of the line know about what’s happening and how long it would take. So we ask if we can just go to the next line and she said that we will have to go to the end of the line, which doesn’t make sense as we were already in line for a long time. So we waited and waited and finally another cast member came and we were let through. So with that out of the way, the rest of the day was great and fun… until… the fireworks. We were already excited to be in Disneyland and was waiting for the finale before we head home, the Diamond Celebration fireworks! But to our great disappointment, the fireworks had some technical difficulty and was cancelled. But we were told that it was cancelled due to high winds! High winds!!! We looked around, none of the leaves were even moving… it was a calm day all day long. But I guess Disney didn’t want people to know that they had technical difficulties. Oh well… it was just disappointing and it wasn’t the happiest place on earth for me this time.
Even though it wasn’t the best experience, but the force of the Disney Magic will bring me back to Disneyland again in the near future.

Looking forward to the new year of 2016 and wish everyone a Happy New Year! Cheers!