A lot of people ask me why I love conventions, and it really is a hard thing to put into words. It's an atmosphere of a lot of people who are excited about things and ready to share that excitement and spend money on it and talk to other people who are excited about things and find other things to be excited about. It's meeting the people behind your favorite things. It's a break from the monotony of everyday life. It's a place to make crazy memories that you'll laugh about later with your new friends.
I can describe a lot of aspects of a convention, like the dealer room, panels, guests, and events, but I can't really describe what is honestly my favorite part of convention life: the community. The best part of con is flopping down next to someone to wait for a panel and discovering that you some of the same things. It's being given the hookup to discounted arcade tokens from the owner whom you met an hour ago. It's almost having a wardrobe malfunction and having three completely random people instantly offer you safety pins, spirit gum, or hairspray to fix it. It's having someone you have never seen in your life tell you how awesome your costume is as you walk by. It's splitting a pizza with people you didn't know existed yesterday, but will remember for a lifetime. It's seeing those people at the next convention and catching up like you were never apart. Does that sound awesome to anyone else? Trust me, it is.
This is my crew chilling out in our hotel room at Ushicon. I love these people.
Another thing that people ask me quite often is that if I'm not entering cosplay contests, what's the point of putting all of that time, money and effort into costumes? That's another hard one. I love it, but it's hard to put into words exactly why. One thing is that it serves as a big neon sign that says "I LIKE THIS THING, TALK TO ME ABOUT THIS THING" so it's an instant icebreaker when meeting new people. I've always been a crafty person, so I do honestly enjoy learning new craft techniques and using them to make things. I guess another way to describe the appeal is this: Have you ever seen a character you like wearing an incredible outfit in a movie, TV show, or game and there's a part of you that just wants to wear it? Like, you want to wear something and look that cool in it? Cosplay is you doing that. Maybe not everyone has that desire, but I do. I want the experience of putting together that outfit and showing my love for the character. To be what I love about them come to life.
Maybe that was helpful, maybe it wasn't. I tried. And much like with my recipes, sometimes when we try, we succeed! So here's a nice, simple recipe that I made and froze so that I would have food for this week without having to spend even more money. It's cheap, takes very little time to put together, and it reminds me of scalloped potatoes and ham, a meal I very much enjoyed as a kid. And who doesn't want a nice soup recipe when it's cold out? This is just a nice one to add to the rotation.
Sprinkles of Kim:
-Honestly, you could make this recipe with whatever vegetables you have lying around. I added mushrooms, but you could also add peas, squash, whatever you like
-I used vegetable broth because I didn't have ham broth and it sounded better than chicken.
I hope my attempt at explaining my con obsession was at least somewhat enlightening. Con life doesn't generally include much sleep, so I'm going to go find the nearest flat surface and go into hibernation.
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