Misty's Blog

My Social Media Involvement - An Assessment

2012-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

Happy belated 2012 to everyone (and Happy New Year to those celebrating Chinese New Year). Sorry I haven't posted. Been kinda busy I guess.
One big announcement - as those who may be keeping an eye on the Blogaversary icon will have noted, 40 days ago my blog celebrated its 7th anniversary. Happy birthday, dear blog!

This being the month of beginnings and the beginning of a new year, I decided to do an assessment of my involvement in social networks, somewhat like what I did in this post. So here goes.

My Social Media Involvement - An Assessment

Unlike some people, I am not uber-obsessed with social media. Well, ok maybe I am. But the ones I'm involved in, I'm involved really more nominally in than I think most people are. Like, for example, I use Facebook to keep up with friends and family, follow some brands, and share things I find on the internet (articles, etc). I do not use it to, say, play Farmville. Frankly, I'm not enthralled with the idea of social gaming. It's just sort of the next step up from those annoying Facebook quiz apps people used to send to me.

I think the reason this is so is because I grew up without social media. As I pointed out in this post, the major social networks, except LiveJournal and DeviantArt, all came out after I graduated high school. And even after they came out I avoided them in favor of forums/message boards. I prefer forums/message boards because of their structure and because they allow for deeper and more varied discussion. Sure, they can have their problems (the codelyoko.com forum had so much user activity it frequently crashed, and the one I tried at totallyspies.com, which is part of the site's Totally Spies Club, wasn't the most user-friendly thing in the world). But I like them. (In fact, I wish YouTube had message boards, the way its equivalent SplashFace on iCarly does, because I think it would allow so much more discussion than can happen just in comments). My first involvement with social media, therefore, was when I joined Facebook on January 25, 2008. (Which means I'll have been involved with it for four years as of tomorrow....wow!)

I made a list of all the social networking sites I am involved with or have been in the past, and was kinda surprised at how large it is. But how much am I involved with them? Well, let's see.

Facebook

Facebook is the social network I've been with the longest, as aforesaid. I used it for the first year and 22 days under a pseudonym (Lara Larame). I then realized that all of my friends were actually people I knew IRL, so I switched to using my real name. I now have 40 friends, all but one of whom are people I know IRL now or people I went to high school with who I no longer see. I have also "liked" a lot of fan pages for brands and the like and follow those as well. And I have a couple fan pages I admin - the Facebook fan page for LAR Productions, the on-again-off-again YouTube band I'm a part of (which band founder Amy/Maria founded and which I co-admin with her and our other, currently inactive member Reilia), and the fan page for my website Myu Corner. My main profile is here.

On May 18, 2010, I started a separate Facebook profile for my writing persona, having not had much success with my Goodreads and MySpace accounts for that persona. Thanks to mentioning my intention to found that account on The Anomaly, a writing forum I'm a part of, I managed to gain 100 friends on the first day, due to two fellow Anomaly members showering me with friend recommendations. I now have 185 friends on that account, but I don't check it as often as I do my regular Facebook account, because I do most of my Facebook-checking using Facebook for iPhone on my iPod touch, and that app doesn't support multiple accounts (like most Twitter apps do), which I guess makes sense because most people only have one Facebook account.

Twitter

I joined Twitter in 2009, when I began to try to create an author platform for myself. I had avoided it before then. Nowadays, I mostly use it for the same purpose I use Facebook for - to follow people and keep on what is going on. Often times I have found out some news item on Twitter before I found it out elsewhere!

My personal Twitter account is Larabooklover. It was originally named Bgirldotnet, like my old YouTube account, but I changed it when I deleted bibliogirl.net, my personal website domain to which the name referred. (Larabooklover is also my AIM name). I have a fairly healthy follower/followed ratio (83 followed/68 followers) and as of today over 3,000 tweets. Most of these are auto-posts from Tumblr and GetGlue though, as well as articles I've shared and replies to and retweets of other people. There are also times where I had some thought that I wanted to express but it took several tweets to get it out. (I should probably just use Twitlonger for that - the Twitter app on my phone [MoTweets] does that automatically if you post a tweet that's too long, but the Twitter app I use on my iPod [Echofon for iPhone; I'm not a fan of Twitter's official app] doesn't).

I have a writing Twitter as well, waldenwriter. As with my writing Facebook, I don't update this much. In fact, probably 90% of my 587 tweets on that account are retweets of other people. People seem to be ok with that though, because I have a good follower/followed ratio (32 following/39 followers). And many of the tweets that aren't retweets are auto-posts of my writing blog posts from LiveJournal. Thankfully, no one has called me a spam bot yet!

Lastly, I also created a Twitter account for LAR Productions, since I'm the creator of the band's website (currently down) and have thus appointed myself as our social media manager. There aren't very many tweets on that account yet; most of them are auto-tweets from our Facebook page. The account is at: http://www.twitter.com/larproductions.

YouTube

As mentioned in this post, I have had a long and turbulent history with YouTube, with four suspended accounts in the 5 years and almost 8 months I've been with them. (Technically, I have 5 deleted accounts, because I just deleted Bgirldotnet myself). This is one of the few social networks where I am actively involved, rather than just using it nominally or passively. I have three accounts - my new main account LitTechGirl, my solo fandub account WindKnightFuu, and my group fandub account imagodeidubs (created primarily to house my Dark Mercury Arc Fandub Project, the group fandub project I started back in 2007 that is still unfinished, but which I intend to finish this year for sure - and which some people like but quite a few people dislike, it seems). I'm not uber-popular on any of these accounts - I have only 13 subscribers and 5 friends on my imagodeidubs account (as well as, it seems, a lot of copyright notices - which means my channel could disappear at any time...maybe I should just give up on the Dark Mercury Arc Fandub Project?) and 10 subscribers on my WindKnightFuu channel. But I do have a lot of views on those two channels (25,963 on imagodeidubs and 6,753 on WindKnightFuu), so I guess that's good. (I'm not counting LitTechGirl in all this, because it's still so new; I just started it earlier this month).

Other Writing Social Media

Besides my writing Facebook and Twitter, I also have a presence on a few other social media sites as part of my still growing author platform.

My writing blog/journal is on LiveJournal, here. I went with LJ because I had enjoyed keeping up the LJ for my school's French club. It also allows for a lot of community forming, which will be good when I get more of an audience for my writing, and also as a way of promoting my writing. Currently, I mostly use it to write about my writing and to follow communities about my interests, such as Sailor Moon, manga, and Hello Kitty, and some writing communities.

I also have an account on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/reneedlevine. I initially started it just as a general personal account to help me get a job, but then switched it to being focused on my writing. I may still use it for professional networking in general eventually though.

I also have an account over at the document-sharing site Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/waldenwriter. I use Scribd to post samples of my writing for promotion purposes, as well as to provide a link to longer pieces for review on The Anomaly.

I used to have a writing-related account with GoodReads, but then decided it wasn't working for me and closed it down.

Other Personal Social Media

Besides these major social networks, I also have accounts on a number of more minor sites.

Blogging

First of all, for blogging. I have this blog, of course, on Blogger, and have had it since before Blogger was bought by Google. I also have another blog here that I kept for my MAT 165 class last semester, and used to host Myu Corner and my site-in-progress Sparkle Moon on Blogger as well, but didn't like the lack of control I had over the look of it (this was before the Template Designer came along).

I now also have a blog on Tumblr, at http://www.starry-dreamer.tumblr.com. I started it on June 2, 2011. I mostly just use it for reblogging or commenting on things, which is what I think a lot of people use Tumblr for. I also use it to follow other Tumblrs, much like I follow brands on Facebook.

I also have a personal account and a writing account on the blog rating/directory site Technorati.

Media

I have a few media-related accounts as well.

Probably my oldest of these is on Photobucket, under the name of Dani17 (also an old forum username of mine). Technically, Photobucket isn't a social network, but now that is focusing more on community, I think it will become one. I use Photobucket mainly for image hosting for my blog and for forums, the way some people use ImageShack.

I also have a rarely used Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12360139@N04/. I actually started it so I could participate in a photo contest the local transit district was running. I don't know what I'll use it for now (though it's definitely easier to log into now that it's tied to Yahoo).

I now have a GetGlue account, which I am enjoying a lot.

Lastly, I have an account at the anime/J-drama viewing site Crunchyroll. I started this because I got tired of seeing ads when I watched Futari wa Pretty Cure on there. I haven't even fully filled out my profile.

Other Accounts

Then there are some accounts I have or have had that are neither blogging or media-related. Two of these are Livemocha and weRead, but I closed my accounts with those sites (Livemocha because I couldn't deal with all the requests from people for me to check their assignments for them, and weRead because I stopped using my weRead Facebook app).

I also have used Meetup and Ning. Meetup I joined because an Asperger Activity Group I'm a part of uses it to announce their events. Ning I've used a few times for school, and also to join the Nerdfighters community, though I haven't gone there in ages.

I have a StumbleUpon account, which is kinda fun because I've found some pretty cool stuff through it.

Last of these is MySpace. I created a profile there for LAR Productions (since, though it isn't as popular as it used to be, MySpace is still good for bands), which, like all our social media, is in desperate need of updating.

Conclusion: My Future in Social Media

I'd like to update my social media accounts more often. And with real statuses, not just auto-posts. I'll probably need to read some stuff on how best to do this. Or at least think about it more.

I may search out even more networks, such as Google+ and Pinterest. (Though the funny video below is making me think I shouldn't join Google+. Actually, it pretty much lays out my exact attitude about social networking in general).

I'll have to think about it for sure. For now, I will leave this post alone, sit back and "use my little gray cells," as Hercule Poirot would say. Then I will confront it.

***

Hope you guys liked that. Bye now!

Depressed and need to vent

2011-10-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

I am officially depressed. Not like diagnosed clinically depressed or anything, thank goodness, but just depressed. Enough for it to interfere with my normal functioning.

There's really no reason for me to be depressed - I mean, I'm on vacation from work, and I've gotten the two major things done I wanted to get done during this week: the French proficiency test (Test d'Évaluation du Français) at the Alliance Française and driving school through Mira Costa. I also had a very nice birthday (yesterday) and got to go to a great symphony concert with my dad on Wednesday in Mira Costa's new Concert Hall, where we heard world-premiere pieces by their composer-in-residence as well as Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. And Beethoven is my favorite classical composer.

So why am I depressed? Well, let's just say driving school didn't go quite as smoothly as I expected. I expected that after this I'd be able to get my license very soon (after some practice with my parents, of course). But now it looks like it could be forever till that happens, because while I'm not a horrible driver, I'm not sure the instructor has very high hopes for me either. He did think I did better than he had thought I'd do on the first day, but yesterday was the first day I had to do most of the steering by myself, so I didn't do as well, and today I did things like freak out over a bag in the road that I thought I was going to run over (and stopped suddenly because of it), put my visor down at a bad time due to the sun being in my eyes (it was early morning), and accidentally changed lanes after going straight through an intersection instead of staying in the lane I was in before I crossed the intersection. Plus I have problems with maintaining speed (probably because there are a lot of speed limit changes in the area we drove in), some trouble with turns, and some issues with lane position (though I have improved with that somewhat).

The instructor doesn't want me to practice with my parents until we get his report (or until he talks with my parents, whichever he decides to do - though I asked him to send a written report anyway cause I remember things better when they're written, personally). I'm just afraid that I may drive really badly with my parents, who won't have the extra brake the driver's ed car has and thus won't be able to stop me if I confuse my pedals or something, they'll never let me drive. And then my mom will get to glorify in the fact that she was right all along and I won't be able to drive EVER. And if I can't drive a car, then I'll have to work around the bus schedule my whole life, severely limiting my job possibilities, meaning I might not be able to make more money and be able to afford to move out.

And I want to move out. Because while I love my parents, sometimes they drive me crazy. Not my dad so much. He's great. It's my mom. She constantly gets on me about my clothes and how I need to take care of myself better and you should see how she nagged me to get a physical. Granted, I know she means well, but sometimes I just don't agree with her. I like wearing jeans and a T-shirt. And I'd like to wear a dress (like I used to) but I have trouble finding them in my size. I am NOT joking - it's like impossible to find plus size dresses, though maybe I'm just not going to the right stores cause we found skirts and stuff for me before when I worked at Loaves and Fishes and had to wear dresses or skirts. Plus, like a typical Asperger's person, I am very picky about fabrics (due to a touch sensitivity - autistic people have super-sensitive senses), so I only really feel comfortable in cotton. Plus, it's hard for me to wear dresses or skirts because I have to wear something under it, like pantyhose, so my legs don't rub together, and I find pantyhose to be very formal, so they wouldn't work with a casual dress. Of course, if I lost some weight, I could probably solve that problem, because I think my legs rub together because my thighs are really big.

Another problem I have with moving out is affording it. Unfortunately, SoCal is one of the most expensive places around, and your average apartment in our area generally starts at $900/month or so, and that's just for rent. I only make around $200-$250/week (depending on my hours and how much gets deducted for taxes, health insurance, and union dues), so that's about $1,000/month, maybe more because I actually make more than $12,000 a year. I would definitely need a roommate for it to work, unless I want to live on like $100/month after rent, which I suppose I could do (considering I'd probably qualify for food stamps if I lived on my own, which would help with food costs).

The driving instructor did point out that I don't need a car to move out (yes, we did talk about this) and I guess this is true since at least some of the apartments in my area are close to a bus stop. And I suppose I could advertise for a roommate. Too bad I'm not at Cal State anymore because people were always posting signs looking for roommates there. There is this ULoop thing I keep getting e-mails from on my school account that allows you to look for roommates on it too.

I just want to move on with my life, and I feel like I'm so stuck. I mean, I am in a transition period since I just graduated from college about 6 months ago. And to be honest, finding out I had Asperger's did kind of throw a wrench in the works, since I don't understand it very well nor do I know how to deal with it. I did recently read the book Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin, a famous animal science professor at Colorado State who also has high-functioning autism (and who the HBO film Temple Grandin is about), which did help explain it somewhat. She also wrote a book about careers, Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger's Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism, which I'm going to check out. Though it may be as un-helpful as the career books I found in the Career Center (Careers for Introverts and Solitary Types, Careers for Culture Lovers and Other Artsy Types, Great Jobs for English Majors, and Careers for Foreign Language Aficionados and Other Multilingual Types). We'll see.

My brother is in town and he asked me last night about how my writing was going. To be honest, it's on hold. I still haven't started revising my novel that I finished back in April, which I was going to distance myself from over the summer and pick back up in the fall. I did intend to, but then my online classes started and I got kinda busy. Plus, I've been writing content for my websites. I spent weeks - literally - writing character bios for Myu Corner. So much I practically got sick of it. I didn't even realize how many characters there are in SeraMyu. It's insane. Thankfully, PGSM doesn't have nearly as many characters, which is good because I'm writing character bios for Sparkle Moon, my PGSM site, now, though I haven't worked on it at all on my vacation cause I've been kinda busy. Now that I'm learning more web design techniques, I can hopefully make that site how I want it.

Today I watched the opening for Yes! PreCure 5, one of the seasons of Pretty Cure, a magical girl anime. In an English trailer made by Toei to promote that season (probably for the European market as Pretty Cure has never been licensed here, except for a dub of the first season in Canada), the main character, Nozomi (pink hair), is described as being "without a dream to guide her." I kinda feel like that. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but now I'm having second thoughts. I mean, I love to write, but the whole business part of getting a book published kinda scares me. For short stories or articles like one would submit to journals I might be ok on my own, but once it comes to novels I'd rather leave that stuff to my agent, assuming I have one by then (after all, I have to sell myself to the agent first).

I was just downstairs watching the most recent episode of The Office, "Spooked," with my parents. At the end of it, James Spader's character, Robert California, makes a good point about how we shouldn't let fear rule our lives, and that it's ironic that one day a year (Halloween) we dress up in costumes and celebrate fear. (That's my summary of the quote; you can read the full-on thing here). That is a very good point. I've known for a while that I was letting fear control me. Fear makes me afraid to do new things and take risks. Now, fear can be a good thing, obviously, in some situations. We all have a desire for safety, as well as an innate desire for self-preservation (there is some place in our brain that is wired for this, I forget where...although if this is true, then why do people commit suicide? You'd think the innate desire to preserve oneself would override someone's desire to kill himself or herself, since killing oneself would be the exact opposite of preserving oneself). But you can't let it rule your life. You just can't. Unfortunately, me saying this and me actually applying it are two very different things.

I think I need to take some time and really think about my life, do some soul-searching, talk to God about how my life is, and figure out a direction. Cause right now I don't feel like life is going so well. I'm not at rock bottom or anything, but I definitely don't feel satisfied with my life. Not that satisfaction is the ultimate end, of course. By Biblical standards, I should be more interested in the needs of others than in my own anyway. But I still feel very lost. I need help, though I know I hate asking for help cause I think I can do everything myself. I just don't know what to do!

Ok I think I'm going to stop here and try to cheer myself up in some other way, cause this isn't helping much. Good night.

P.S. Speaking of the Yes! PreCure 5 opening, it's apparently also featured in a cool-looking dance game for Wii called Happy Dance Collection (which seems to have only been released in Japan as far as I can tell). Check out the video below to see what I mean. You can also find out a bit about the game here: http://reggie21.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/happy-dance-collection-wii/.

Summer is Here

2011-07-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

Long time no post, again. Oh well, never was a frequent poster here. And now I have a Tumblr blog as well, so I've been posting there a lot lately and not here.

I can hardly believe it's July already (Happy July 4th btw to every American reading this!). Not a lot has happened since I've been out of school. I've mostly just been working a lot. I finally did start my summer writing practice, with mixed results. I went to Legoland for the first time. I've been attending the CWCW summer workshops on Tuesdays, though at the moment I've just been sharing old stuff. Other than that, I've mostly been vegging.

I have been thinking about the CWCW. I think I may move on from them when the summer is over. Considering I'm a CSUSM alum now, and the CWCW is a school group, I'm going to have to move on from them eventually. I do enjoy having a way to get feedback, and lately it's been my only way to hang out with my friend Jessica, who is also in the group. But eventually, I'll have to move on.

Future summer plans: at the end of July, my family is going to go stay in a cabin like 14 hours north of us for a week. That should be awesome. It'll be nice to get away. I may take this class at the church I've been going to with my parents, a class about S.H.A.P.E. (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Ability, Personality, Experiences), which starts sometime soon. And I may take a conversation class from the local Alliance Française in August -- I just took their online placement test to determine my level of French ability, and they got back to me about possibly taking classes. Since I'd said in my info (submitted with the placement test) that I wanted to work on my speaking primarily, I think that is why they suggested a conversation class. Because I can read and write French well, but my speaking and pronunciation fluency needs help because I took French in a mostly non-immersion environment. I took the test for B1 level ("I took French for anywhere between 4 and 10 years in school and managed to practice on and off until now (through reading, travels, classes, work assignments...) and/or In the recent past, I took French lessons for more than 3 years and less than 4 years with good results , then ..."), which seemed to best describe my level of knowledge. Hopefully, I can work on my fluency and get my proficiency certified, so that I can prove a certain level of proficiency on my résumé.

And - once again - I do want to work on my websites. It's just been put on the back burner at the moment. I have been thinking about it though, and this is what I'm thinking:

My main domain will be starry-dreamer.net. The homepage for this will just be a Flash interface/portal, similar to this one website I saw once that did that. I might have to figure out how to make a version that would work if you didn't have Flash (like on the iPod/iPhone), that is, if I think it's really worth it. I'll look into it. Anyway, this domain would be the one for my sites that don't really need their own domains, like fanlistings. The sites under this domain would be:

Capture On!, my planned fanlisting for the Pokémon Ranger video game series. Now that the series has three games, I can do a "series" fanlisting for it (that's TFL rules).
Liquid Mercury, the revival of my old Sailor Mercury fansite
Ayeka's Palace, a revival of my old Ayeka fansite, extending from the version created for my Writing to be Heard project
The revived LAR Productions website, which I may remake via WordPress or Joomla.
Any other fanlistings I decide to create or revive, such as Memory of Time, my old Fancy Lala fanlisting
A possible revival of pctroupe.net, my old PotterCast Acting Troupe fansite, since a member of the Troupe recently e-mailed me mentioning how much the troupe loves the fact that there was a fansite for them. (I'm waiting to hear back from this person before I revive it).

My writing website will remain at the same URL but I intend to update it not only content-wise but also in terms of looks as my web design abilities improve.
Myu Corner will also remain at the same URL but will get overhauled in terms of site design as my abilities improve. I'm going to try to re-determine the focus I want for the site and probably try to watch all the musicals before continuing with it.
Sparkle Moon, my planned PGSM fansite, will continue as planned. I think I will get the transcripts - the main focus of the site - done first and then worry about the rest of the content. Since I just bought the PGSM Memorial Book off of Ruth from Miss Dream, I should have a great start in the picture department. I may also buy the new 14-disc DVD boxset of PGSM that was announced recently; I'm just not sure I can afford it, even with Amazon Japan's 27% discount on pre-orders (it comes out in September). Brad from Moonkitty.net assures me that it is a great savings compared to getting all 15 PGSM DVDs (12 regular DVDs, Special Act, Act Zero, and Kirari Super Live) individually, since each DVD individually retails for like $60 US, whereas the boxset is, with the discount, about $285 US, not including shipping and the about $70 US in import tax that I'd have to pay. So it's about $355 with import tax plus about $25 for shipping and a handling fee, so about $380. Ouch. However, the individual DVDs, which run about $60 US apiece (which is WAY too expensive for a DVD) would go for about $900 altogether. So I just don't know. It may not be worth it.
Anime/manga guide site - This was originally going to be under my Starry Dreamer domain, but after discussion with a couple Miss Dream people it makes more sense to give it its own domain. Also per their advice, I'm going to make it a wiki to allow for an easy community-editing setup, which is what I'd like for this site since it's impossible for one person to watch all the anime and read all the manga that is out there. I haven't come up with a name for the site yet (WindKnightFuu's Anime and Manga Guides is its temp title). All I really know is that for the anime sections there will be episode and movie guides and seiyuu information, and for the manga sections there will be series overviews and writer and illustrator info. I'm not sure whether to do chapter summaries (the equivalent of the episode summaries in the anime section) because I'm not sure how to do that without giving away spoilers. And I want the site to be as spoiler-free as possible, since I've spoiled myself many a time looking up series on Wikipedia. The idea behind the site is to provide a "one stop shop" site where people can find info on many different anime and manga series - especially newcomers to anime and manga. I've found out about many series just by browsing Wikipedia myself, so I want to provide that sort of experience to others. I'll have to come up with templates for everything as well. I'm considering getting some practice on some of the many fan wikis for different series before I start mine, to get a hang for how it works.

I've decided to start anew with my main YouTube account as well, primarily because making a new account is the only way you can change your username. My current main account, Bgirldotnet, is named for my old personal domain (bibliophilegirl.net/bibliogirl.net), which no longer exists, so I don't want to use that name anymore. I also want to start new and get back to what got me into video-making back in 2005. I have a long list of videos lined up to make, primarily new ones though there are some re-makes on the list, like my Sailor Moon/Harry Potter fan trailers. After much agonizing, I finally came up with a new username today: LitTechGirl (from the fact that I'm a girl and I like literature and technology). According to namechk.com, it's available. (Namechk is an awesome site that lets you check the availability of a username across hundreds of popular sites). I'm going to make some videos before I officially open it, though, and also utilize the strategies mentioned in an article that I randomly came across which lists 8 simple ways to improve your YouTube channel. (For instance, according to that article, you can make your own header even if you aren't a YouTube Partner). My other two accounts, my solo fandub channel WindKnightFuu and my group fandub channel imagodeidubs, will stay intact, though I will definitely follow those "8 Simple ways" with them too. I'm also going to try to learn new programs, like Sony Vegas, a popular program among YouTubers at the moment (and which thoroughly confused me when I tried to use it before), as well as put my new skills in Flash to good use. Also, I'm rather interested in trying out the programs listed at www.youtube.com/create.

So, it seems like I have a good game plan for my websites and such. Finally! Praise God!

In other news, I recently bought a few Sailor Moon items from my friend Ruth at Miss Dream! They arrived on Saturday. The items are: the PGSM Memorial Book (a long-time want of mine), a shitajiki (a.k.a. "pencil board" - you put it under a sheet of paper when you need something to write on or to avoid writing on the pages below), and the CD single for one of my favorite Sailor Moon songs, "Watashi-tachi ni Naritakute" (the first ending to the fourth season, SuperS). My meager Sailor Moon collection is growing! Since my initial post about my Sailor Moon collection, I've acquired a few more things. I bought six cool SuperS magnets at Animé Los Angeles, one for each senshi in SuperS (though the one I got for Chibimoon is of her and Moon transforming), as well as a couple Sailor Moon pins from an artist in the Artist's Alley (Sailors Mercury and Pluto). I bought three books off Amazon - Sailor Moon: Friends and Foes, Sailor Moon Role-Playing Guide and Resource Book and Meet Sailor Mercury: Ice - all of which are English-made and are pretty good (though the Friends and Foes book was underwhelming info-wise but has nice pictures). Last Friday, I bought a couple more pins at the county fair, from the same booth where I got the Sailor Moon pin and the 12" doll - one of Mercury and one of Chibiusa. (I think I bought other pins with the initial Moon pin - I know I got a Totoro pin and one other pin, which may have been of Sailor Venus). And now I have the stuff I bought from Ruth. I hoped to get some stuff at Comic-Con this year, but I wasn't able to get a ticket so I can't go. Pooh. I also pre-ordered all of the new Sailor Moon English manga that is available for pre-order, which I should start getting in September.

Oh yeah, did I mention that before? I don't think so. The Sailor Moon manga is getting re-released in the U.S.! Starting in September. And it's being released by Kodansha USA, the US arm of the manga's original Japanese publisher, and headed up by the person who was head of Nakayoshi, a popular Japanese manga serial magazine, when Sailor Moon was originally being serialized in it in the '90's! Plus there's going to be translation notes and lots of other good stuff. I'm looking forward to it. AND....THEY'RE ALSO RELEASING CODENAME: SAILOR V!!! That came as a huge surprise! Unlike the regular Sailor Moon manga, Codename: Sailor V, the sort of "prequel" to Sailor Moon, has never been officially released in English in ANY English-speaking country. So now I'll have 2 nice English versions (the mangas being released are the 2003 "Revision" versions, in which Sailor V was condensed from three volumes to two) to go with my 3 French volumes. Sweet.

Anyway, I've pre-ordered the four volumes of the Sailor Moon manga currently available for pre-order, so I should be set on those till March 2012. I also pre-ordered the two Sailor V volumes already. I'm SO looking forward to having them!!

Well, it's late; I better go to bed. I have today off again (I had yesterday off too this week cause of the holiday) but I want to get up early because I was thinking I'd like to go to Disneyland this week (particularly California Adventure since I barely got to see that last time) and I want to go to my union's office and buy a Park Hopper there (where I can get it cheapest). I'm enjoying having the time to make little day trips! Though there are probably better uses of my time.

Good night!

Here Comes the Rest of my Life

2011-05-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

Dang it has been a while since I blogged here. But, as I mentioned in my last post, I was in the home stretch of school and had a LOT of work to do. The last three weeks of the semester were killer. KILLER.

Thankfully, it's all over - I just have to do Final Project critiques for my Flash class (the project was due yesterday) and I'll be done with school, at least till fall (when I'll probably continue my web design certificate classes, which I hope to have done by this time next year).

My Flash class did not go as well as I would've liked. I was late on a lot of things - including my Final Project, which I spent every spare minute doing prep work for and then was unable to get in by midnight last night - and it was hard to keep up since I had that class plus my three CSUSM classes, for which a lot of reading and writing was required. Mostly I hope I pass. I have a feeling I will probably get a C or something. If so, I may re-take it so that I can do better in it. Watching (or re-watching, in some cases) the tutorial videos for the class showed me the cool things you can do with this program - heck, you can make a whole website in it if you want. I may even take the Flash 2 class so I can learn more about ActionScript, the script that you use to make things happen in Flash.

(Ironically, tonight my parents were watching the episode of The Office where Pam fails art school, and the main class she failed was in Flash. :))

At the moment, I have taken two of my core classes for the certificate - Web Design 1 (which I took back when I was at MiraCosta originally, but which I was told I could still apply to this certificate) and Graphic Design 1. By the end of this semester, I'll have two of my emphasis courses done as well - Flash 1 (if I pass it) and CIS 191, i.e. Internet Presence for the Small and Medium Business (basically an e-commerce course), which I took last spring, at the same time as my Graphic Design class. So here are the classes I still need:

Core Courses

MAT 110/ART 247 - Digital Imaging 1: Adobe Photoshop
MAT 120 - Interactive Media Production

Emphasis Courses:

2 more classes - I've chosen:

MAT 165 - Web Design 2: Tools and Techniques
MAT 235 - Web Design 3: Site Design and Architecture

Advanced courses:

Need 1 class for this. I chose MAT 225, Dynamic Web Development.

All this plus MAT 290, the Portfolio Development class, which is needed to graduate.

It's recommended that you take MAT 290 last. Which I guess makes sense. Since I lost my old school files though (I'd moved them to a USB drive, which I was later forced to format), I don't have any work for my Graphic Design class or my e-commerce class (though my current writing website is a slightly modified version of the version I made of it for my final project for that class). Don't know how that's going to work.

As for the other classes...obviously the Photoshop one is a must in today's web design world. The other core class, MAT 120, is an introduction to developing (according to the catalog) "multimedia presentations and interactive programs" and includes learning "the basics of acquisition and digitizing video, images, and audio; an introduction to 3D modeling and animation; and a fundamental understanding of interactive program design and development." I may know some of the acquisition/digitizing stuff already, but oh well. This may be a good class to take in fall, as it's a nice leadoff from my Flash class, but the only drag is that it's pretty much never offered online, like the others are (having them online means I don't have to work my work schedule around in-person classes).

The two Web Design classes are the ones after the one I took in the summer of 2005 (Web Design 1). Web Design 2 "builds on the skills developed in MAT 125 and introduces the student to the more advanced tools and techniques for designing Web sites using industry standard web design and development tools." Now if that isn't a vague course description, I don't know what is. I suppose I'll find out what that means when I take it. Hopefully, I'll remember what I learned in 125. Most of it was stuff I already knew except for the mouse rollover stuff (which I can do in Flash now anyway) and some stuff with forms. (I still to this day don't know how to script forms in HTML). Web Design 3 focuses on "Site Design and Architecture" and teaches how to make "complex, professional level web sites."

The advanced course, Dynamic Web Development, focuses on making "database driven, dynamically generated Web applications using current database technologies." I don't know quite what that means unless it involves SQL databases, which have been the bane of my existence when attempting to work with PHP scripts like the popular fanlisting management script Enthusiast.

So, that's six classes. I could take 4 in fall and 2 in spring, or 3 in each, or some other combination. Of course, this all depends on course availability. There's always the option of getting ahead by taking a class this summer, but I have decided against that. Since my final CSUSM semester was so intense, I need a break.

Which reminds me, I GRADUATED COLLEGE!! That happened last weekend. I am very relieved that it has come and gone. People have asked me if I am excited, and I am. But at the same time, I'm a little scared. As I've been telling people, "it's like, 'Here comes the rest of my life'." No longer can I delay real life with school (well, I could if I went to grad school, but that's beside the point). I have to grow up and move on with my life. I have to get out on my own, and it would be nice to get married eventually. I mean, I'm almost 27; I only have 20-25 childbearing years left. At any rate, I need to start my career. And I am finally working on my writing career seriously. Plus I'm setting up a fallback plan (web design) just in case things don't work out. So I guess that's progressing.

It always sounds bad to me when I tell people - especially my Christian friends - that I am working on a Plan B in case my writing doesn't work out. Maybe I'm just a paranoid worrywart, but I worry whether it is practicality that is driving me to such a plan, or if I have such little faith that I don't trust that God would provide for me if I went with writing alone. I mean, is it wrong to have a backup plan? It's fine to believe God will provide, but you can't be stupid about it - it's like this joke I read about a guy who won't buy a lottery ticket but keeps asking God to help him win the lottery.

~~

Ok I'm going to move on to less depressing things.

Today I was off so I finally cleaned my room, which had become very messy due to me being busy. It took a while though because I was watching Inuyasha on my Wii while doing it. That's right, WATCHING ANIME ON MY WII. I can do so via the free Netflix "channel" for Wii (that I heard about in a Pandora ad) and the 30-day free trial I signed up for. This grants me unlimited Instant Play of the stuff the Netflix library has, including quite a lot of anime. I already put Inuyasha in my watch queue, as well as Hetalia: Axis Powers, a series that is very popular right now (as evidenced by the number of Hetalia cosplayers at Animé Los Angeles this past January). Hetalia started as a blog comic done by Japanese mangaka Himaruya Hidekazu while he was attending school in America (the Parsons School of Design according to the Hetalia fan wiki, which is the same design school featured on Project Runway) and has now been professionally published as a manga and made into an anime series. Essentially it's a historical and political allegory, primarily of the World War II period (though according to Wikipedia most of the main plot events occur in the so-called "interwar period" between the two World Wars), in which each country is anthromorphized, i.e. represented by a single character. The main character is North Italy/Italy Romano, a.k.a. Hetalia (which means "gutless/pathetic Italy," a portmanteau of the Japanese word hetare and the word Italia, the Italian name for Italy). The other protagonists are Germany, portrayed as a typical tsundere character (a character who's cold at first but becomes nicer as time progresses), and Japan, a reclusive man unused to Western ways. (Italy Romano also has an older brother, South Italy or Italy Veneziano). There are also characters for the Allied side, of course - the main ones being America, England, France, Russia, and (surprisingly) China. There are also many other minor "country" characters, including the often-ignored Canada, whose name nobody can ever remember.

Inuyasha has been very interesting so far. I've been watching it a couple episodes at a time for a while, but today I watched it all through cleaning my room and got through episode 24, which means I'm almost to the end of the first season already! (There are 6 seasons in all, for a total of 167 episodes - and they now have a new sequel series, Inuyasha: Final Act, meant to catch the anime up with the manga). I'm interested mainly to see how this series ends, because it was created by Rumiko Takahashi, and she's infamous for series with no actual ending. The original ending song, "my will" by the band Dream (whose songs we've been doing for LAR Productions) has been replaced by a familiar song for me, "Fukai Mori" by Do as Infinity, one of my favorite j-pop bands. Actually, I got into Do as Infinity through the songs of theirs used for Inuyasha ("Fukai Mori" isn't the only one of their songs that got used for the series). Checking out the opening and ending songs for animes (usually abbreviated as OP and ED in Japan) is a great way to get into j-pop, actually, as j-pop songs are often used for anime openings and endings. Of course, there are many animes which feature openings and/or endings by the series' actors too, some of whom may be popular music idols in their own right. Inuyasha features openings and endings by famous names Do as Infinity, Day After Tomorrow (famously known for "Starry Heavens," the opening theme song to the video game Tales of Symphonia), boyband V6 (who sings my personal favorite Inuyasha opening song, "Change the World"), boyband-esque duo Tackey and Tsubasa, superidols Namie Amuro and Ayumi Hamasaki, the aforesaid Dream, the band Every Little Thing, and the Korean pop star BoA, as well as the not-so-familiar hitomi, Nanase Aikawa, and Hitomi Shimatani (not the same person as "hitomi," despite the name). So it's a good place to start.

Basically, Inuyasha is about this half-dog demon (the Inuyasha of the title) from a dimension roughly equivalent to Japan's Warring States period, but with demons and other fantasy elements, and a girl named Kagome Higurashi who is from our world (modern-day Japan for her). Kagome gets pulled into the secret well on her family's shrine grounds by a multi-limbed demon and thus brought into Inuyasha's dimension, to which the well is connected. It is discovered that within her body is the powerful Shikon no Tama, or Jewel of Four Souls, a jewel that doubles the strength of any demon who possesses even a fragment of it. The Jewel had been entrusted about 50 years prior to a Shinto priestess named Kikyo, whose spiritual powers were extremely strong, so that she could purify it of the evil it had been tainted with. But when she was dying, rather than use the Jewel so that she could live, she had it burned with her body. Kagome is shown to be Kikyo's reincarnation, hence the reason the Jewel was in her body. Inuyasha wants the Jewel so he can become a full demon, and a lot of other people want it too - humans and demons alike - especially since the country/dimension is in a state of war at the time of the series. Unfortunately, when using an arrow to take down a demon who had swallowed the Jewel, Kagome accidentially breaks it into pieces, which go soaring every which way across the world (and even into Kagome's world, as an early episode shows). So Inuyasha and Kagome begin a journey to collect all the pieces of the Jewel so they can complete it once more. Inuyasha is pretty powerful on his own, but he needs Kagome around because she can sense the presence of the Jewel and he can't, a fact he doesn't seem all that happy about. They're later joined by a child fox demon named Shippo, a lecherous monk named Miroku, and a demon slayer named Sango and her fox pet.

The major plot elements, as well as the main characters, seem to be in place just in the episodes I've seen. The main traveling party - Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippo, Miroku, and Sango - have all been introduced, as well as the antagonists, the mysterious Naraku (primary antagonist) and Inuyasha's full-demon half-brother Sesshomaru (secondary antagonist). The main plot element of searching for the jewel shards has been set up, as well as the involvement of Naraku in not only the present but in Kikyo's death and the love triangle of Inuyasha, Kikyo, and Kagome that starts when Kikyo gets revived by an ogress in the middle of Season 1. Yet there are 143 episodes to go (169 if I count Final Act). So what else is going to happen? Just development of the characters and the major plot elements, I guess. There are also subplots, of course, like Inuyasha's rivalry with Sesshomaru, personal character backgrounds, and how all this is affecting Kagome's life back in her world (which provides some humor due to the strange diseases Kagome's grandfather claims she has to cover for her absences, including many elderly-people diseases like rheumatism and gout).

Overall, I find the series very deep story-wise but also with a lot of humor, which I guess I should expect from Rumiko Takahashi. The only other series of hers that I'm super familiar with is the 1970's/'80s series Urusei Yatsura, which produced the lovely tiger's striped-bikini-clad alien oni Lum Invader, who has become something of an anime icon that most anime fans know of:

I also started to read her series Maison Ikkoku, which is about a guy studying to take his college entrance exams who lives in an apartment building with a lot of crazy characters, but got bothered by the lechery of one of the neighbors. Pity, because Maison Ikkoku is the one series Takahashi did give a proper ending to.

Each Inuyasha character so far is well-developed. The interaction between Inuyasha and Kagome is interesting to watch - though they bicker most of the time, they do have moments where they seem to genuinely care for one another. Also, in episode 2 Kikyo's sister, Kaede, put a controlling bead necklace (sort of like a rosary) on Inuyasha that lets Kagome control him with a word. The word she chooses is Osuwari (Sit!), probably chosen - I think - because Inuyasha is part dog. This power gets used as a gag in pretty much every episode.

Then there are the other characters. Sesshomaru is very much the opposite of his half-brother - he's very proper and polite-speaking (unlike the brash and rude Inuyasha), much more powerful (due to being a full demon), and pretty much emotionless ("not caring for allies or enemies in fights," as his servant Jaken - who now that I think about it, plays a rather similar role humor-wise to Iago, Jafar's pet parrot in the Aladdin movies - puts it). I've read that he becomes more caring later though, which may mean he is a tsundere character. Naraku, introduced mid-season 1 (he's first mentioned in Miroku's debut episode), is the main villain, and while we don't know everything about him yet, we do know that he is a shapeshifter and that he was born from a fully paralyzed thief who invited demons to eat him so that he could gain a movable body and possess Kikyo and the Shikon no Tama. He's also a very crafty being and doesn't truly trust anyone (not even Sesshomaru, who he "helps" in one episode). He was also involved in the tragic incident that resulted in Kikyo and Inuyasha hating each other and Kikyo's death, as well as, to a lesser extent, in Miroku and Sango's stories.

Shippo is a kid kitsune, or fox spirit, whose father was killed by the Thunder Brothers, dangerous thunder demons. He knows some minor fox magic, including fox fire, some illusion tricks, and shapeshifting. After the Thunder Brothers are destroyed, he's so enamored with Kagome that he tags along with her and Inuyasha. Miroku is a Buddhist monk, but he's not exactly holy. He's a womanizer, for one, and he sometimes lies about spiritual beings appearing in order to get into a house to perform an exorcism or some other rite so he can get a rich reward (or close to a beautiful girl). He's very polite, though (he calls Kagome "Kagome-sama") and at times Kagome prefers him to Inuyasha. He has a curse laid on his family by Naraku, whereby he has a black hole-like "Wind Tunnel" in his hand that can suck in pretty much anything but which will eventually devour Miroku. (He controls the wind tunnel with prayer beads wound around his arm). This is why he joins Inuyasha and Kagome, so that he can kill Naraku and stop the curse. Sango is a demon slayer whose father and brother were killed by demons (something with which Naraku was also involved). I don't know much about her yet though.

One thing that slightly bothers me is that a lot of people and demons got possession of shards of the Jewel in seemingly no time at all. This seems rather unrealistic. But I guess this operates under a similar concept to CLAMP's Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, where Princess Sakura's memory feathers got scattered across multiple worlds all at different points in time.

I also don't understand how Kagome fit a bicycle down the well with her, or how she thinks that will help her in Inuyasha's dimension (though it does help them travel faster, I guess).

~~

Well, not much else to say, and it's late, so I'm going to go. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow before work. I got to work till midnight again cause they gave me the same schedule as last week. I hope that won't happen now that they know I can work whenever they need me to, since I'm on summer break. *sigh*

Long and Difficult Home Stretch

2011-04-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in the home stretch now. Only three weeks till graduation!! That is both exciting and scary to think about. Exciting because I've been waiting for this moment for about 8 years - 5 years of junior college and 3 years of university - and scary because now after this I go out into the "real world," which is pretty frightening.

There is a LOT of work to do for school. In fact, I probably should be doing that instead of blogging. But I feel like I need to blog because I am in a neurotic stress anxiety mode right now.

For LTWR 475 (The Writing Process), I am working on Writing Project 3 (which we turn in the packet for next week) and my Writing to be Heard project, which is due on May 13th (for me at least, since that's the presentation date I signed up for). I also have my Writing Portfolio due that day (because it's the last day of class), but fortunately that is made up of all the writing I've done throughout the semester -- which I've been saving all along -- so all I have to do is write a short paper to go with it, reflecting on how my writing has changed throughout the course of the class. Yay!

For LTWR 309B (U.S. Lit 2), we only have one book left, a post-apocalyptic novel called The Road. Since I wasn't that into Woman at Hollering Creek and Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros, I will probably write my 4th paper on The Road - though I think Dr. Keehn changed things so that we only had to write three essays. I'll have to double-check that.

For LTWR 460 (Cultural Studies), I just have my Writing Project to worry about, since I'm done with the reading blogs and I already did my Group Research Project presentation. (I know a few of my blogging weeks were late, though, so I should make sure I got credit for all of them). I wrote the first draft of it for last Tuesday's workshop, got feedback, and now have to write a Revision Reflection paper (due next Tuesday) and then revise the project and turn it in via the internet on May 17th (during finals week).

On top of these three, I have my Flash class (which I'm taking online on the side), which will probably last till the end of May since MiraCosta's on a different schedule than CSUSM. So far I'm caught up, but it's definitely a hard class to be taking along with my B.A. stuff. Oh well.

But good things have happened. I finished the first draft of my novel (FINALLY), my group's presentation for Cultural Studies went well, I still have a job, I'm getting my homework in on time for the most part, and my "working draft" presentation for my Writing to be Heard project a couple weeks ago went well, even though I wasn't as prepared as I would've liked. I also went with Tara and some other people from Chi Alpha to a concert on April 17th, which was really fun. It was for the Christian band The Katinas. I bought one of their CDs, as well as a CD for the girl who opened for them, NOVA. Yesterday I went with Sigma Tau Delta (and some guys from the professional fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi) to the Center for Children and Families for the last reading of Sigma Tau Delta's main service project, which involves reading books to the kids at the Center. The kids liked the books (though my group had the younger kids, which meant they had very short attention spans) and we watched them play on the playground for a while after, until the other group finished. One of the books that were brought to us was Robert Munsch's Love You Forever, a book I really like and which my parents read to me when I was that age. It's about the growing relationship between a boy and his mom and is actually quite sad. (The guy from our group who read it teared up toward the end).

The other books we read were Fish Eyes: A Book You Can Count On, Dog and Bear: Two Friends - Three Stories, Llama Llama Misses Mama, and Go, Dog, Go!: P.D. Eastman's Book of Things That Go. They have great books there!

The main thing I need right now is SLEEP. Unfortunately, I haven't been consistently taking melatonin (a vitamin my mom suggested I take because it would help calm down my mind so I could get to sleep earlier and sleep better - something she said a therapist friend of hers had successfully used with other autistic people), and that, coupled with all the work I've had to do, has caused me to not get as much sleep as I should. Yesterday was particularly weird, because I got up at 2:30 a.m. to watch the Royal Wedding live with my mom (it was at 11 a.m. London time, which is 3 a.m. in California). We watched it till 5:30 a.m. our time, after which there was nothing worth watching (since the wedding was over and the long-awaited post-wedding "balcony kiss" had already happened). All the channels with live coverage only covered it till 6 am Pacific Standard Time anyway (except for Good Morning America, which was listed as being on from 1-7 a.m. PST). Then we both went back to bed for about 45 minutes until we had to get up for real - my mom for work and me for school. So my sleep was a little wonky that day. Last night, I got a full night's sleep but felt rather tired all day today at work. So I think my body's out of whack. Not to mention I feel like I have to go to the bathroom a lot more often lately, maybe because I have been carbo-loading a bit too much.

Most of April, though, has been school and work. Not much to mention there.

As I mentioned, I watched the Royal Wedding live. It was a pretty cool experience getting up early with my mom to do that. I wasn't sure about doing that, but when my mom said she'd do it with me, I was much more into it. I'd asked for the day off for school and the Sigma Tau Delta reading, and when I got that off, I agreed to watch the wedding since I wouldn't have work that day.

I got up at 2:30 a.m. PST, and for the half hour between then and the actual start of the wedding there wasn't much to watch except watching people arrive. My mom got up a bit earlier than I did, so she actually saw the groom (Prince William) and the best man (Prince Harry) arrive, which I did not see. I saw the bride's mother, Carole Middleton, arrive, as well as other members of the Royal Family (including Princess Beatrice, daughter of the Duke of York, who will perhaps live in infamy due to her rather outrageous hat - that's her on the right below, with her sister Eugenie and father), and, of course, the bride and her father Michael.

This was the first time anyone had seen Kate's wedding dress, and I thought it was very nice. It was elegant and simple, unlike Princess Diana's dress, and made by Sarah Burton, a British designer:

It's not visible in this picture, but with the veil Kate wore the Cartier Scroll Tiara made in 1936 and purchased by King George VI (the king that The King's Speech is about) for his wife Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and was given to his daughter, the current Queen, on her 18th birthday. The Queen lent it to Kate for the occasion, making it Kate's "something borrowed." She also had new diamond earrings given to her by her parents (her "something new"), had tradtional Carrickmacross lace appointments on the gown ("something old"), and a blue ribbon sown into the bodice ("something blue").

The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey, one of the oldest churches in England (and probably the oldest in London) and the site of every British coronation since 1066. Prior to the wedding yesterday, it had also been the setting for 15 royal weddings since 1100 (although there is a 537-year gap between #6 and #7 on that list). It has also served as a site for many burials and memorials, including Princess Diana's funeral in 1997. So there's a lot of history going on there.

The wedding ceremony was rather brief, only lasting about an hour, and was conducted by the Dean of Westminster (although William and Kate were actually married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England). The actual marriage part only took about 20 minutes and was conducted using the marriage service from the Book of Common Prayer, the liturgical text for the Church of England. The rest of the time was filled with lovely music from the choir, a scripture reading by Kate's brother James, a great sermon by the Bishop of London, and a brief moment where the couple disappeared into the nearby Chapel of King Edward the Confessor to sign a wedding registry, which I guess is for civil records.

After the actual wedding, the wedding party left the abbey and traveled by carriage or bus back to Buckingham Palace. They appeared briefly on the balcony, where it had been announced that Will and Kate would kiss (they don't do the "you may kiss the bride" thing in Church of England weddings). The kiss was ridiculously brief - so brief that you would've missed it if you'd been looking away from the screen at that moment. Fortunately, they kissed a second time just before the traditional military flyover, which somewhat made up for it. Then the wedding party left for a small lunch reception hosted by (and paid for by) the Queen. Shortly after this is when my mom and I stopped watching and went back to bed.

After this, I guess, the bride and groom went and got changed for the evening party hosted by Prince Charles. Here was Kate's dress for that, also made by Sarah Burton:

Well it's pretty late. I better end here. Good night!

Oh, by the way, the smileys you see in this post are from this site: http://www.buddy-icons.info/ I love the sweatdrop one!

Self-Evaluation

2011-03-31T00:11:00.000-07:00

So, as I mentioned in the last post, I have been doing a lot of self-evaluation lately. This started from a half cry for help/half rant I made on the Miss Dream forums about being stuck regarding the revival of Liquid Mercury. I thought, "Ah! My friends the Sailor Moon fans can help me with this." But unfortunately, I have done this sort of plea before and the site's perhaps frustrated webmistress advised me that I should really think about why I make websites, and that because I don't know what I'm doing as far as coding I'm just shooting myself in the foot. This prompted me to think about myself for some reason and to start doing something that always seems to get my brain working: making lists.

I don't know if it's an Asperger's thing or just my personality, but I am obsessive about lists. I work best at work when I have a written list of things to do that I can cross off as I go. I think this is why I enjoyed doing the "list challenges" my friend Marina kept sending me on Facebook around New Year's this year (things like "Writers That Have Influenced Me," "Inventory of the Year 2010," and "30 Things" - where you write 30 random things about yourself). I make lists of lots of things. I have a running list of the manga I own, a running list of animes I've seen and want to see, and a few lists of what episodes I've seen of certain shows so I know when to stop recording repeats on the DVR.

So I sort of randomly decided to make a list of every book I own, going shelf-by-shelf on my huge wooden bookcase. A look at this list will show a certain organization in this list: the books on each shelf are grouped by related content - like the bottom left shelf is all fantasy books. I think this is part of the mentality which has made me so fascinated with libraries and which pushed me to try to get a library job before. (I even helped someone find a book recently at school when I was in the stacks looking for books myself). But the list is the work of an obsessive person. It has titles and authors, and sometimes ISBNs because I think I was planning to actually share this, so I wanted to be able to find cover pictures, and having the ISBN of a book is as specific as you can get (I wonder whether using book cover pictures for that purpose is fair use or not?).

I was going to stop with books, but I got into a list-making mood so I ended up cataloging my CDs, my DVDs, my VHS tapes, my video games, and even my cassettes (yes I own cassettes - quite a few actually) as well. It was kind of fun. A tedious task? Definitely. But I like tedious. Am I weird? Maybe. But reveling in details is an Asperger's trait.

This was my way of self-evaluation. Not exactly the best self-evaluation - evaluating yourself by what you possess. But I suppose it does clue you in on your interests and tastes. (And at least this list-making of my stuff will help me should I ever get robbed).

Maybe I should try a different method. Questions? A RPG-like profile? (Something Hiro Nakamura of Heroes did on his character blog, here and here...I read his blog as "research" for my second Writing Project, which is also character blogging). Just rambling? Not sure.

(Oh, speaking of RPG's, I started playing this game called Magical Starsign that I bought on a whim the same day I bought Pokémon White Version. It's got art styling very much like the old Final Fantasy games, but still up-to-date enough for the DS - kind of like the GBA versions of the old Final Fantasy games, such as Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls or Final Fantasy IV Advance, if you've ever played those. The plotline is similar to those old RPGs - venture out, create a party, journey, save the world - but with a sci-fi setting and with astrology mixed in, involving planets that move in and out of alignment with the five elements's "starsigns", which affects the strength of your magic. The drag is that the alignment stuff means nothing to you as the player character, since you get stuck with either "light" or "dark" element magic by default, based on your choice when you start the game, which is only affected by whether it's day or night out. It does affect the rest of the party though, which you do have control over. Anyway, I got a GAME OVER today in that game - wah! - while my character (who I named Laila) and this wind-controlling bunny character named Lassi were fighting this giant security robot that was guarding the prison we got thrown into for trespassing in this building, and strangely enough the security robot looked a lot like the AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport) imperial walker droids from Star Wars:

Magical Starsign robot (someone else's screenshot, not mine):

The AT-ST:

Maybe it was just me).

Anyway, hmm. Questions might work. Let's try.

What is your name? Misty. Well, that's not my real name. But I've gone for about 6 1/2 years without revealing my name on here, so I'm not going to start now.

How old are you? I am 26. So I am in that weird mid-twenties spot where I should be out doing real work in the real world, except that I'm not. That's because it took me twice as long to finish college as some people, and all because I spent 5 years in junior college trying to get all my IGETC classes. Trust me, 5 years in junior college is WAY too long. I mean, I was only taking 4 classes at a time most of the time, which is as much as the average student can usually manage without going nuts. But still, I should've been able to finish sooner than that. I think part of it was that I wasn't quite sure what I was going to major in - up till near the end I was still debating between English and History, and I took classes at junior college that would count for the lower division requirements for both majors at CSUSM. Finally, I chose English for the practical reason that it was probably going to be easier getting a job after college with an English degree (although you can go to law school with a History degree; one of my history teachers told me this).

Then once I got into CSUSM (after getting an A.A. in University Studies - basically a "transfer A.A." - so I'd at least have some degree just in case CSUSM didn't accept me right away), it's taken me three years to finish all my upper division stuff. I had hoped it would only take two years, but due to the difficulty of getting into classes in CSUSM's Literature and Writing Studies department, and also probably due to the fact that I also had upper division GE to take as well as classes for my minor (French), it took an extra year. Along the way, I took a couple history classes I didn't need but which I added when I couldn't get a class I did need. (Strangely enough, you can find a History class at CSUSM on pretty much every day of the week at any time. And they have a lot of interesting classes to choose from, too. It's like the perfect major for someone like me. But I didn't pick it. Oh well, too late now). One of these classes that I took was History of U.S. Foreign Policy, which was interesting but got really political at the end. We had to watch this horrible clip from a Palestinian kids' show where a guy dressed up as Mickey Mouse was saying horrible things about Israel and the U.S. I think it was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4&feature=related. The other I took was Interwar Europe, which was about Europe between the two World Wars. I learned a lot in that class. I have some of the books still. My favorite history class though was Society and Culture of Early Modern Europe, which I took as a course replacement for the elective required for my minor. The books were great for that class, and I kept most of them.

Where do you live? I live in sunny Southern California, near San Diego. I'd rather not say more than that. As such, I love the beach, though I don't go there much anymore because it's no fun going to the beach by yourself (unless you're a surfer like my brother, I guess). I seem to have inherited my grandparents' love of shells, though, because I like to pick those up at the beach.

Would I ever live anywhere else? I don't know. I haven't traveled much, so I don't know much about life outside California. I do know that sometime in my life I'd like to live in a place that gets real snow, because the icy slush stuff we get in some parts of California (like by Big Bear) is SO not that. Some sort of New England place, like Cape Cod or something, I might like. Living abroad would be interesting - like in Europe, though probably not in a major city since the cost of living in some big European cities is pretty high. Paris is particularly bad - the best places are close to the center of town, but they're also the most expensive. Someone like me could never afford anything in the first five arrondisements (city districts) or so. At least not on the amount of money I'm making now! I'd probably have to settle for the Quartier Latin (a district on the Left Bank that's popular with students, due to its proximity to the Sorbonne, one of France's top schools) or Montmartre (a nice artsy area on the outskirts of Paris). But even a city like Boulogne-Billancourt (where the factory and boarding school are located that Code Lyoko's factory and boarding school are based on) might be nice.

Who are your heroes? I always say Joan of Arc in answer to this question. She fascinates me, and I gave a speech on her trial at least four times in high school. Plus I am amazed by her courage and strength. But I also have people that I respect that I guess are heroes, though I'm not sure. I respect former Cabinet members Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell even though I know very little about them. I also am starting to have respect for Aung San Suu Kyi, the well-known resistance leader in Burma/Myanmar.

What are your hobbies and why are they your hobbies? I always have difficulty distinguishing "hobbies" from "interests" because to me they seem so similar. But I guess "hobby" has more to do with action. Dictionary.com defines "hobby" as: "an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation." Wikipedia even has a list of hobbies, as if that were something one could make a list of (which I find odd).

Anyway, my hobbies would be:

Reading. I learned to read very early on (at age 3 1/2), thanks to my parents teaching me. Since then, I have never stopped loving to read. I read everything - books, magazines, stuff on the internet, the backs of cereal boxes, stuff on the bulletin boards at work (mostly corporate memos), blog posts...it goes on and on. Bookstores and libraries are among my favorite places to be. Just walking through the stacks of a very large library is like heaven to me. It gives me that happy feeling, an almost transcendent feeling I guess, an immersive feeling. The kind of feeling you feel in every part of your body - from your mind to the depths of your soul. (Come to think of it, according to Star Wars Episode II, the Jedi have a library. Wouldn't it be awesome to work in that library? If I were a Jedi, I might actually want that job. And according to Wookiepedia - the main Star Wars fan wiki - the Jedi once had a much bigger library, but it was destroyed during the Great Sith War, which was about 4,000 years BBY. BBY means Before the Battle of Yavin-4, which is the battle that takes place at the end of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). I think this was why I enjoyed working in a bookstore when I did, even if I didn't do as well in other areas of the job.

Writing. Writing has always been one of my top hobbies. I write a lot more now than I did when I was a kid, but I did write some back then. I started writing seriously shortly before I turned 12. At first, I mostly wrote poetry, but I did attempt some novels back then. They weren't the greatest. I also wrote some short stories, including one written in relation to a picture of a staircase leading to a cottage when I was in eighth grade and we had to write a story about some object in the classroom. I did also write some fanfiction when I first got into anime, but, except for my "Ayeka's Choice" ones, they weren't that great. My triple crossover fanfic (crossing over Pokémon, Sailor Moon, and Tenchi Muyo) was particularly bad.

Since I started high school I've mainly focused on novels, but I have written short stories and poems since then, and I tried to write a comic but abandoned it when I realized I couldn't actually draw the comic (though I had a script written). I also got super concerned about how Christians would react to the idea of a Christian writing about superheroes and magic (some Christians are super anti-magic). Finally, I shredded everything relating to that story, and moved on. Nowadays, I have gotten better at writing, though I still have issues, primarily doing too much showing and not enough telling. I've even gotten better at fanfiction - I wrote three very good Code Lyoko fanfics (one of which, a Jeremie/Aelita fanfic centered around a song, is lost because I wrote it for a forum and didn't have a backup of it to rely on when the forum closed; I still have the other two, one called "Electric Shock" which was written for a 500-word challenge on Fiction Express, and the other a 4-chapter fic called "William's Escape," a fic I started writing one day in Biological Anthropology class, right after the Code Lyoko season 3 finale aired on Cartoon Network). I have good and bad days when I write, but when I have a good day it gets to my soul just like reading. I saw a quote from Isaac Asimov in my writing Twitter feed the other day: "I write for the same reason I breathe--because if I didn't, I would die." I totally echo that thought.

Listening to music. This may not seem like much of a hobby, but I do it a lot. Now I'm not what Wikipedia calls an audiophile hobbyist, the kind of person who's so into music I try to produce my own and stuff. I just like to chill and listen to music, to, as Corinne Bailey Rae would say, "put your records on, tell me your favourite song." Apparently I'm not the only one who has this hobby - there's actually a fanlisting for it, called Like Oxygen. Yeah, a fanlisting for the act of listening to music. Sound weird? I think it's cool. It's unusual, that listing, that and the one I once belonged to that was for fans of the simple act of "looking out the window." I also remember songs really well - if it turned out that I was a autistic savant (which I don't think I am), that would probably be my savant area. It takes me only a few times listening to a song, for instance, in a YouTube video and singing along before I have the song memorized.

Playing on the computer. This is my blanket term for my computer-related hobbies of web design, making videos, surfing the net, and (on rare occasions) playing computer games. I guess surfing the net isn't a hobby per se (though I guess it can be, since according to all the stuff on blogging I've been reading, the earliest blogs started out as annotated lists of links people found on the internet). But there are times I find a thread and I follow where it leads. This manifests most often as video-hopping on YouTube (starting with one video and clicking on various "related videos," following a trail until I get tired of it) or Wikipedia article-hopping, something I find myself doing often when I'm tired. (To someone who loves details and research, wikis are like a godsend, though of course they aren't guaranteed accurate, and some articles are better written than others - for instance, the Wikipedia articles on the Sailor Senshi are actually longer and more detailed than the ones on Wikimoon, the main Sailor Moon fan wiki).

I used to play computer games a lot more when we had games like the historical city-building games Pharaoh (and its expansion Cleopatra) and Caesar III or the educational game Carmen Sandiego Math Detective. I also tried to play Myst ages ago, but never figured it out (ditto with another RPG game I bought for PC, a multi-disc one that cost ~$30). Back on my first desktop, the one that ran Windows 3.1 and had Claris Works as a word processor (because the Office suite didn't exist yet), I had two preferred games: Taipei (a mahjong game, and the main reason why I now love computer mahjong) and a European geography game where you had to identify countries, capitals, and the countries' major exports. Also, my brother and I played this game called Pickle Wars, where you had to save the world from these pickle aliens, using a salad shooter as your primary weapon. It was a pretty silly game but I still remember it. Anyway, the only computer games I've played recently are the Christian PC game Light Rangers: Mending the Maniac Madness and a couple MMORPGs, Free Realms (which wasn't a bad game; it just got too addicting so I stopped playing it) and Fiesta (a game I couldn't quite figure out how to play, but which has a cool character job setup). I've also played some basic online games, like the Flash game on the official W.I.T.C.H. website, which I got really good at.

Making videos I talked about in the last post when talking about YouTube. I'm not sure what got me into making them, but I know that the first AMV I saw was this Card Captor Sakura one, set to "There She Goes" by Sixpence None the Richer:

From there, I decided to make videos. I use Windows Movie Maker primarily, though I've tried out Ulead and Sony Vegas, which were really popular among YouTubers once upon a time. I found them too complex though. I'm particularly intrigued by these new video-making apps YouTube is promoting now: http://www.youtube.com/create. They all look pretty sweet.

As for web design, oy. One of my fave computer hobbies but also one of my least developed. If I had been really doing it consistently since I first started way back in 8th grade, I'd be REALLY good right now. But I didn't keep it up, and now I'm years behind on coding knowledge and have nothing to show it except many short-lived websites.

It's late and I'm really tired, so I'm going to go to bed and continue this tomorrow (or today, rather; I have no school cause it's Cesar Chavez Day). Good night!

My Experience With Social Networks and Other Related Sites

2011-03-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

[started on 3/27/11]

Since I've been doing so much reading about blogging lately due to my second Writing Project being blog posts, and also since I've been doing some self-evaluation after a post from a friend on Miss Dream challenged me to think about why I make websites, I decided to write up a little post about my experience with social networks and other related sites (such as Blogger). I don't usually write essay-like posts, though, so bear with me.

My Experience With Social Networks
and Other Related Sites

I have not actually been involved with social networks for that long. The first site I joined that is properly known as a "social network" was Facebook, and according to my blog archive I only joined that in January 2008 (January 25, 2008, to be exact, based on the upload date of my first profile picture). And even then I actually operated on Facebook under a pseudonym (Lara Larame, a pseudonym I have used for many sites for the last 10+ years, ever since Amy told me it was the Pokémon character she thought I was the most like; Lara Larame is a one-off character who appears in episode 33 of the Pokémon anime, "The Flame Pokémon-athon!", and in the 5th chapter of the anime-based manga The Electric Tale of Pikachu...technically her last name is Laramie though, something we didn't know then) until February 17, 2009 (according to my Facebook feed), using a picture of Fujiwara Zakuro from Tokyo Mew Mew as my profile picture. Why would I be on Facebook under a pseudonym for the first year and 22 days? Well, back then - and still to some extent today - I was nervous about revealing too much personal info online. So I tended to use pseudonyms, usually Misty Waterflower (after Misty from Pokémon; her last name is never given in the dubbed anime - in Japanese I think it's Yawa - but Waterflower is one fans have come up with, based on episode 7, "The Water Flowers of Cerulean City") or Lara Larame. (Ever wondered why this is called "Misty's Blog"? Well, now you know...well, actually you could've just read my first post to figure that out). I ended up switching to my real name because I realized that pretty much all my Facebook friends were people I knew in real life anyway. I've used Facebook as my primary social network ever since. Most of my early posts are pretty short; early on I insisted on making all my status posts be "[Name] is" followed by a status, a practice I have since abandoned. Most of my Facebook posts to this day are links to articles I have found (since it is quite easy to share articles on Facebook now), though I've been posting regular status posts more often since I got my iPod touch and Facebook for iPhone. A lot of my posts have also been posts via WeRead (a fun and useful Facebook app for sharing what you are reading) and a ton of quizzes.

Before joining the world of social media, I interacted with the Internet in other ways. I think we've had internet at home at least since 1998, because my mom says I've been making web pages since I was in 8th grade, and I think I put up sites very soon after learning how to code. We had AOL at first (I know this because my first e-mail address was an AOL one) and my first sites were on Angelfire. Forums were my earliest mode of interaction. I don't remember which ones I was in except for the Fictionaddiction.net forums, a forum for writers which disappeared, without any warning to its members, in early 2005. (Fortunately, Dotfiction, one of the members of that forum, very quickly started his own forum, Fiction Express, and invited his fellow FA members, including me, to join...sadly this forum has also disappeared). Also, when I was around 16 or so, we switched from AOL to our current ISP and I went into a chat room for the first time. But some guy in there tried to hit on me, so I left (which may be partially why, to this day, I dislike chat rooms...I also dislike them because usually you enter and no one notices).

My online life, therefore, was pretty minimal all through high school, pretty much limited to forums and maybe some IMing. This is probably because I graduated high school in 2003, and all the popular social networking sites, except LiveJournal and DeviantArt, came out after that. Plus, I was more focused on school then because I didn't have a job, and also I didn't have my own computer.

Sometime in 2004, I apparently decided to start a blog. I don't know what prompted this decision. I had kept a diary before -- first a lockable Hello Kitty diary that I kept from age 8 to around age 11, and then various diary entries I kept in files on my computer, as well as a short-lived dream diary. And for some reason I decided to go with Blogger, maybe because it was one of the big blogging sites then (WordPress was still pretty new and not the big deal it is now). Still nervous about using my real name, I opted for the pseudonym of Misty. On December 14, 2004, the blog you are now reading, Misty's Blog, was born. And though I haven't posted in it every day (though I tried to for a while...but I've only published 275 posts in about 6 1/2 years, so obviously I failed at that), it has been good to me. Therapeutic almost, in a sense. It is a diary, basically, and always has been. Yes, it's public, but I haven't shared the link very widely (though until I purchased a personal domain I listed my blog as my website) and, while the blog has been indexed like crazy by Google (probably because I've been posting so long, for one, and also because Blogger is now owned by Google), I'm pretty sure very few people actually read it. That's why I feel safe blogging about very private matters here. Occasionally, I do make "break the fourth wall" sort of comments, where I acknowledge whatever readers there may be, but most of the time I just ignore them. Since I tend to be able to express myself better in writing anyway, having this blog helps me to work out ideas I'm processing, talk about things I can't talk to others about (either because they're too personal to talk about or because they relate to those geeky interests of mine that I don't share with anyone I know in real life), or vent. I do try to be careful, though, especially since my blog is so well indexed. When I talk about work, for instance, I try not to mention my workplaces by name too much (since if your work finds out you've been saying bad things about the company, it can get you in big trouble). That hasn't been a problem though, since no one at work knows I blog and even if they did find it, I blog under a pseudonym after all.

Between joining Blogger and joining Facebook, I still didn't have much experience with social media sites or even with similar sites. In October 2005, I started making videos and put them on Putfile, a video hosting site (which no longer exists). Later, I grew dissatisfied with my inability to change the look of my Putfile profile and decided to move to YouTube (according to my blog archive - via which I can pinpoint the date of almost every major event that has happened to me since December 14, 2004 - this happened on May 24, 2006), which has been my video host ever since. My first account was under the username Writer4Christ. Unfortunately, this account only lasted until December 2006, when it was suspended due to copyright violations on three of my videos - a Katharine McPhee video, an Inuyasha video, and a video about May from Pokémon (which I think was to "Mountain of God" by Third Day, since the song reminded me of her) - even though I was not trying to deliberately infringe copyright with those videos. The first two videos had clips I'd gotten from fansites. I forget which Inuyasha fansite I got clips from, or what song that video was set to. The Katharine McPhee one I think was set to her performance of "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree." Those I got from a Katharine McPhee fansite (this was before American Idol partnered with iTunes to release audio and video of the contestants' performances, so back then the only way to get audio and video of the performances was through YouTube or through fansites such as this one; in fact, I highly suspect American Idol did the deal with iTunes specifically to prevent such piracy). The May one had a couple clips from an opening sequence and a bunch of stills. Nevertheless, these videos were tagged and I moved back to Putfile. I didn't put up videos very often though, because for a long time I couldn't get past my home page on my laptop, so I was only able to post videos when I had access to a school computer.

I continued to be active in forums. I joined the forum at codelyoko.com, but eventually left it because it had a ton of members and frequently suffered server crashes as a result. I eventually moved to a smaller Code Lyoko forum called Tech Links (which sadly no longer exists; it shut down after the last episode of season 4 aired in 2007), where I became an active member. I think those were the only forums I was active in, aside from Fiction Express.

On February 28, 2007 (according to my blog archive), one of my friends from Tech Links, Gilbert (who I knew better under his forum username Kakeru), helped me get my laptop internet working again, via a VoIP program called TeamSpeak which he, I, and Wartonchan (the admin of Tech Links) had been using to plan a Code Lyoko podcast (a plan which never came to fruition). One of the first things I did after getting my internet working again was to create a new YouTube account, this time under the username AleraofRavenclaw (a name based on Alera Gynne, a character I'd created for a Harry Potter RPG on the codelyoko.com forums who was a transfer student from Beauxbatons; I later tried to write a fanfic about her but never finished it). I first started doing fandubs under this username, since this was the time of the PGSM fan boom on YouTube. You can still find fandubs done by me from that era on the YouTube channel for Fire and Light Productions, the YouTube group I did the fandubbing for. I got a bit of a reputation for playing Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen and Kuroki Mio from these fandubs; I was able to do Mamoru because I have a low voice, though I admit, in retrospect, some of my scenes as him are better than others. I also sort of developed this really over-the-top voice for Mio, trying very hard to imitate the way Alisa Durbrow (Mio's actress) said "Mamoru-kun." It was also under this account that I started the first fandub I've ever run, a fandub of the Dark Mercury arc of PGSM called the Dark Mercury Arc Fandub Project. (This project remains unfinished to this day, though I still have all the recorded lines, except for my characters and the ones for my YouTube friend AmyMizunoPGSM, who now plays Usagi in that project, and I do intend to finish it). Unfortunately, this account was also suspended, again due to copyright infringement that wasn't my fault, later in 2007 (probably October or early November based on my blog archive).

Shortly after losing the AleraofRavenclaw account, I opened two new YouTube accounts: OwlPostMistress, my primary one, and BibliophileGirl, a backup to fall back on should my primary one get deleted. Also, as an extra cushion, I created an account on Veoh, a video-sharing site that's kind of a combination of YouTube and Hulu, but smaller and with less restrictions. I continued fandubbing on these two accounts, primarily on my backup account, which I used for solo fandubs. These accounts survived the longest of any of my accounts so far, lasting till sometime in 2009 before both being suspended at the same time, pretty unexpectedly. I think it did have to do with copyright again, this time for the songs since YouTube has started cracking down on that real hard in the last few years. The Veoh account (under the name CYAAgentAshela, after a character in the "CYA story" as it existed at that time) I ended up closing on my own.

Also in 2007, I was involved with the Christian anime/manga e-zine Anime Angels, which had a Yahoo group for members of its staff.

This brings us back to 2008, when I joined Facebook. Joining Facebook was a major step, since as I've said, I primarily just did forums and YouTube before. Coincidentially, I joined Facebook shortly before I transferred to CSUSM, and I am now Facebook friends with a number of my CSUSM friends. My first friends on Facebook, though, were old high school classmates, as is most people's experience on that site, I think.

In April 2009, I ventured into the area of business networking and created a profile on the business social networking site LinkedIn and a similar site, ZoomInfo, after reading a Fortune article reprinted on Yahoo that recommended doing so. ZoomInfo didn't work out, but I still have my LinkedIn profile. I originally started it to make professional connections in my normal life (putting my résumé up and everything), but now I primarily use it as networking for my writing.

In June 2009, I began branching out in terms of social media as a way of promoting myself as a writer. I joined Twitter, creating a personal account under the name Bgirldotnet (originally to refer to my personal website domain name, bibliogirl.net, since I deleted that domain I've changed my username to Larabooklover, the username I use for AIM) and a writing account under the name waldenwriter. Soon after, I put up my writing website, created a writing blog on LiveJournal (I chose LJ because I had become familiar with it during the Spring '09 semester when I was secretary of the French Club at CSUSM and as such had to post meeting minutes on the club's LiveJournal; probably I should've chosen WordPress or Blogger like most authors do), and set up a MySpace account (I didn't do a Facebook account because I didn't want to mix my personal and writing personas more than was necessary). I quickly learned though that MySpace wasn't going to work (though I liked their blogging setup a lot, which let you set a mood like with LJ but also let you list what book you were reading, what movie you were watching, what music you were listening to, or what video game you were playing - whereas LJ only lets you set a mood and what music you're listening to). In October 2009, I joined Scribd, a document-sharing social site I'd heard about, and started putting writing samples up there. Then finally, on May 17, 2010, I moved my writing persona to Facebook (after going through the not exactly painless process of deleting my MySpace account - they make it rather hard to do). Thankfully, I'd told people on The Anomaly, a new Christian speculative writing forum I had joined in May 2009, that I was going to do this, and two of them - William Hayes and Grace Bridges - showered me like crazy with friend recommendations, resulting in me gaining 100 friends on the first day.

Also, in early 2010, I became friends with Elly and Jen of Miss Dream (as a result of this post about Miss Dream's debacle with Sailormoonfansubs.com) and in February of that year I appeared on episode 4 of their site's podcast to advertise my new site Myu Corner, and then shortly after I joined Miss Dream's forums under the username Mizusenshi. A few months later, after volunteering to do some French translation for them, I got added to the staff. My work for the site has been sporadic, though, and I'm now just a contributor to the site (though still staff), which suits me just fine.

In August 2010, I got made a blogger for the Sailor Moon fan blog Family of Moonlight, after sending them pics from Comic-Con 2010. That was pretty cool, as it is my first guest blogging stint since my job writing Pokémon TCG articles for The Pallet Tribune (which you can read here; look for the ones marked "by WaterRangerLara") went on a sort of hiatus due to me having difficulty communicating with the Features Editor. Oh yeah, I'd joined the Pallet Tribune forum in December 2008, shortly after it opened as part of version 2.0 of the site, after listening to the site's podcast, WTPT, for a while. However, partially because of the difficulties with my feature and also because I felt the forum was becoming too large, unmanageable, and full of hard-core Pokémon players (which I am not), I stopped participating in it.

So, here's how things stand with me and social media (and similar sites). I have:

a Blogger blog
three YouTube accounts (one primary, one backup, one for group fandubs)
a LinkedIn account
two Facebook accounts
two Twitter accounts
a LiveJournal
a WordPress blog (for Myu Corner)
Scribd account
Two accounts on the blog listing site Technorati (one regular, one for writing; an account is required to add your blog to the listings there)
a pretty much ignored Flickr account I created to enter a contest being put on by the local transit district
my new account on the link-sharing site StumbleUpon

I'm also an active member of two forums, The Anomaly and the Miss Dream forums. And aside from my own YouTube accounts (my primary account Bgirldotnet - which like my personal Twitter was meant to refer to my bibliogirl.net domain which I later deleted; I don't have any way of changing my YouTube username though - my backup account WindKnightFuu, and my group fandubs account imagodeidubs, all founded in December 2009), I have access to two more accounts - ReiliaAmyLara, the YouTube channel for LAR Productions, a YouTube singing group I'm a part of (and now, according to founder Amy-chan, the leader of), and tsukifamily, the YouTube channel for Family of Moonlight. I also operate the LAR social media, which consist of a Twitter, a MySpace Music profile, and an iLike account, all in desperate need of updating, as well as a Facebook fan page Amy-chan created and more or less runs (although both I and the last member of our group, Reilia, also have admin access to the page).

So what do I think of social media? It's too early to truly tell, I think, but nearly 2 1/2 years of Facebook status posts and 600+ tweets later (on my personal account), I'm liking Facebook and Twitter a lot (although I don't like the "new Twitter" setup, or Twitter for iPhone, which I anxiously awaited only to feel underwhelmed by it). Both are useful for sharing articles and other online finds - in fact, links to articles and retweets of other people's tweets make up the bulk of those 600+ tweets. (I haven't done as much of that with my writing Twitter, which has a better follow/followed ratio than my personal account and only a little over 200 tweets). StumbleUpon I just recently signed up for, and have found tons of interesting stuff as a result (basically how that site works is that you tell the system what topics you're interested in, and then you "stumble," either using the site or a button you can download for your browser, and it brings up random Internet content related to those topics, which you can rate with a thumbs up or thumbs down to help better tailor the system to your preferences).

I will say briefly something about social media and their mobile apps. Some are better than others. I've tried various iPhone ones on my iPod touch, with mixed results. Facebook for iPhone is really well done; it was one of the first social media iPhone apps and it is made very well for the platform. Twitter for iPhone, as I said, is underwhelming; you're better off using third-party apps like Echofon (which I use now; I used to use Twitterrific, but it stopped working). LiveJournal has a very good iPhone app - their original one ("Livejournal.app") was very good, but their new expanded one (called just "Livejournal") is better because it lets you see posts from your friends and communities and send messages as well as post to your own journal, whereas Livejournal.app just let you write a new post. MySpace Mobile for iPhone is pretty well done too.

In short, that is my personal experience with social networks and other related sites.

~~~~

Well, it's really late, and I literally spent all day writing this because I got distracted. Good night!

There is Hope

2011-03-10T23:49:00.000-08:00

Those three words best sum up my day today. Granted, it had its hiccups - I had to wait in the really hot sun for a bus that seemed awfully late (but maybe I missed the one that comes around 20 minutes till the hour), and I was late to my Cultural Studies class because I was in the cafeteria looking at stuff on my laptop and lost track of time. But overall, it was a very good day.

The day started with me sleeping in to make up for my lack of sleep the previous night, one of the luxuries I have thanks to having afternoon classes on Tuesday and Thursday. I got up, got ready, ate breakfast, and even got around to making a lunch, something I don't always feel up to doing.

I had to get to school a little earlier than I usually do because Chi Alpha - the Christian club I'm now actively a part of - was having a pizza party today and Tara, our club director, wanted me to help her set up. So I met her and we carried things to the room we were having the party in. Later, I had to go out and help carry the pizza in while one of the other girls parked her car.

The party went ok, although there wasn't much of a turnout - three new people and then all but two members of the club. At one point, Tara shared her testimony, which got my attention. It was quite a story. Her talking about God being there for us and his Spirit being in us and everything made me feel like there just might be some hope for me, even though I've lost a lot of trust in God. My testimony isn't nearly as amazing as hers is; I grew up in church and a Christian school and "prayed the prayer" at age 7. For some reason, I didn't get baptized right away; that didn't happen till I was like 13. I was pretty close to God during junior high and was going to church pretty much every week. In 8th grade I was even on the leadership team, S.A.L.T.

In 9th grade, things were still going pretty strong - my dad had overcome cancer, and my prayer, along with many other people's prayers, had helped bring healing to the dying daughter of this one leader guy in the junior high group. Then in September of my freshman year, my grandma (mom's side) died. We'd known she was sick for a long time, but her death was still kinda sudden since we'd just gone and seen her the week before. At that time, I was rather angry at God, since I'd prayed and prayed for my grandma to get better and she didn't. I'd also prayed for her salvation, but, as far as I know, she died unsaved. So that made my anger worse.

The anger - and accompanying bitterness toward God - just got worse. In 10th grade, I became friends with a guy I met at church. His name was Kyle. I was friends with his sister Rhoda and she introduced us. We pretty much just talked on the phone a lot since we went to different schools. I did go to the movies with him (and my parents) once, and we also went to my school's Sadie Hawkins Christmas Progressive Dinner together, though that was very awkward because my friend who'd convinced me to ask him and her boyfriend were supposed to be there to hang out with us, but they never showed, so Kyle and I just ended up alone most of the time. He actually put his arms around me to "warm me up" at the ice-skating rink (a stage of the "dinner"), which felt both nice and awkward at the same time. That's the first and only time I've let a guy who wasn't my dad or my brother touch me like that. I also went to his house once or twice, and one of those times he taught me how to shoot a BB gun. He also introduced me to the anime/manga Project A-ko, which is a series with a somewhat confusing plot (involving a friendly rivalry between the title character and her "friend" B-ko, a kid named C-ko who's caught in the middle, and a mostly unexplained alien invasion) and art that borders on porn.

Unfortunately, things ended up not going well with Kyle. I started developing feelings for him, but had to hold them back because at the time he already had a girlfriend. Then, after about 5 months as friends, I found out - while being the passive member of a 3-way phone call between him, me, and a friend of his - that he wasn't a Christian like I thought he was. This made things difficult after that. The fact that he denied any concern over the "Winter Formal incident" (me telling him on the phone that Winter Formal was happening at my school, only to get chewed out by his girlfriend, who thought I was asking him to the event, instead of just telling him about it) was troublesome as well. My parents finally advised me to end it. The day I was going to call him to tell him "not to call me for a while" was Valentine's Day. He actually called first, to wish me a happy Valentine's Day, and I almost lost my nerve. But I finally did it. He tried to protest, and finally I just hung up. (This might be the real reason I dislike Valentine's Day - not just being single, which is the reason I usually give people).

Nothing happened at first, until a few months later when my best friend wanted to call him to ask about Comic-Con (this was in 2001, the first time either of us went to that con). For some reason, I hadn't told her about the "breakup." I protested, but finally gave in. This gave Kyle reason to start calling again, and finally I had to tell him to stop calling me altogether.

I tried to forget Kyle, but he popped again a few times once I started school at Mira Costa, most infamously when I was at a Bible study for InterVarsity. I just told me to leave me alone. The last time I saw him he said he was going to move somewhere else in the state. I haven't seen him since.

So, back to high school. So the Kyle thing was a fiasco, and I was mad at God again for not stopping me before I developed feelings for Kyle, so that I could've avoided a broken heart. I also realized I became too easily emotionally attached to boys and decided to try to remedy this before having a relationship again.

My junior year was a tough year school-wise - probably my toughest - and of course, 9/11 happened that year too. I'm not sure if I had a faith crisis then but I might've. During my senior year, my grandmother (father's side) passed away, after having not fully recovered from a stroke.

Somehow I have survived 8 years of college and the loss of both of my grandfathers and an uncle since then. But while I still believe God exists and all that stuff, it seems all mental - like there's no heart to my relationship with God. And I'm not sure how to apply his Word, which I still read regularly, to my life -- especially the parts which seem to have no application, like the laws in Leviticus or the genealogies in the history books. And, perhaps due to my history with unanswered prayers, I've stopped praying regularly. And I can't grasp the idea of praying for seemingly "normal" things - like how my mom prayed when she couldn't find one of her boots. I'm also scared to trust God with every aspect of my life, including my future and especially my finances. I even worried that me coming up with a "Plan B" in case my writing doesn't work out (i.e., taking web design classes) was a sign that I wasn't willing to trust God to provide for me, though Mum said that what I was doing was ok.

So my testimony's nothing amazing, like some of the ones you hear. Just a long-time Christian with problems. And unlike most people who give their testimony (including Tara today), I can't bring myself to tell people my story publicly and especially to tell people that my story proves there is hope for humanity. Granted, evangelism isn't one of my top spiritual gifts (according to the tests I've taken) but Missionary is, and isn't that kind of the same thing? And aren't all Christians supposed to witness? It's a constant worry for me, that.

But anyway, now I'm getting all bummed, and I said this was a GOOD day!

Another good thing is that I got caught up on my homework - even my Flash class, which I was having trouble keeping up in - which means I can take a bit of a breather. Yay!

Today, I was thinking again about reviving my old sites Liquid Mercury and Ayeka's Palace. The Ayeka one is particularly on my mind, since the roots of its Ayeka-POV blog is the focus of the project I'm currently working on for LTWR 475. I'd also put out a desperate plea for help on the Miss Dream forums regarding Liquid Mercury the other day, so it was on my mind too.

I decided that it was worth looking at some examples of Sailor Moon character shrines - after all, a lot has changed since 2000 or whenever it was I had that site up last. So I looked at examples from the Deep Submerge Directory (now known as Ten(sen)shi), the most well-known Sailor Moon website directory (Myu Corner's listed there!), and The Worst Sailormoon Pages Ever, a site known and respected throughout the Moonie fandom for pointing out the best and the worst Sailor Moon websites. (It used to be a big deal if you won one of their awards. They haven't been actually active since 2004, though). And I found a lot of good examples! That gave me hope that even though character shrines aren't as popular as they used to be, it can still be done.

Unfortunately, shrines specifically to Mercury are a bit hard to find. Based on the links I found on sites that were still up, there were quite a lot of them at one point, but many of the ones that stayed up were hosted on GeoCities, a service which has since been shut down. I did find a few good ones though - Into the Water, Rainstorm (a site which seemed rather familiar to me), Second Ripple, and The Sailormercury Shrine of Water (which I think may be where I got all the old screenshots of Ami-chan no Hatsukoi that I found in an old folder I'd copied onto a CD-R).

There being a lack of Mercury shrines, I decided to look at shrines for other characters. I was particularly impressed by Emerald Star, a Sailor Jupiter shrine made by someone named "Kotono." The depth of that site was amazing, and the layout was nice and clean. I particularly liked the "Always, Makoto" section, which featured a fanfic done by Kotono where she imagined the girls' lives after Stars in a series of letters written by Makoto to different characters (including her mysterious sempai). The letters looked like real letters too! It was awesome. Having been impressed by this site, I was pleased to later discover that the same webmistress was responsible for Crimson Mysteria, an equally deep and well-laid out shrine for Sailor Pluto (one of my personal favorite senshi).

My search continued, from sites I knew like the famous Memoirs of a Fish (a shrine to Fish Eye from the Amazon Trio), to ones I'd never seen before, like the clever wedding-themed Usagi shrine A Soldier's Policy and three good Sailor Saturn shrines, Eventide being the most visually interesting. (That there are several Saturn shrines kind of surprised me - I thought she was kind of a forgotten character in the world of character shrines, being upstaged by all the Uranus/Neptune shrines and even perhaps by the several Pluto shrines).

Well, I got to go to bed because I have an early appointment with Dr. Wilson, my Writing Process teacher, tomorrow morning. (I had to change to an earlier time because of work). More on this stuff later!

Oscar results, blogging, Mercury shrine

2011-03-02T00:22:00.000-08:00

Hi again everyone!

So I forgot to post the results of my Oscar picks yesterday, so I better start with that. (You can read more about that in the last post).

Here's how I did:

Best Actor: Chose right! Colin Firth did indeed win Best Actor. I bet Eisenberg was shocked he didn't win. Ha ha.

Best Supporting Actor: Chose wrong. I guess my passion for The King's Speech didn't go as far as I'd like. My pick, Geoffrey Rush, lost this award to Christian Bale for The Fighter, which I guess makes sense as he was a fave pick for the award anyway.

Best Actress: Chose wrong. Poor Annette Bening is award-less again, losing this award to Natalie Portman for Black Swan, just as many others were predicting.

Best Supporting Actress: Chose wrong (on both counts). I had a tie between Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech). Best Supporting Actress went to Melissa Leo for The Fighter, but nobody cares because she botched her speech by accidentially dropping the f-bomb, an Oscars no-no. Though my mom thinks she did it on purpose.

Best Animated Feature Film: Chose wrong. I chose How to Train Your Dragon. But Pixar (and Toy Story 3) won. Of course. They always win. Darn Pixar.

Best Art Direction: Chose right! I kinda knew that would happen; with Alice in Wonderland's amazing sets, there was no way the other nominees had a chance (except maybe Deathly Hallows).

Best Costume Design: Chose right! Again, not surprised. The costume design in Alice in Wonderland was award-worthy all along.

Best Director: Chose right! Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) won. I am very happy about this, especially since David Fincher (director of The Social Network) was the favorite for this award. I'm so glad Tom Hooper won.

Best Film Editing: Chose wrong. I picked The King's Speech. But The Social Network won this one, one of only three Oscars it won. It's a pity, because I thought the editing in The King's Speech was quite good. Eh well.

Best Foreign Language Film: Chose right! In a Better World (a Danish film) did seem like the most interesting one.

Best Original Score: Chose wrong. The Social Network won this one. I am scratching my head as to why it did. (My pick: How to Train Your Dragon).

Best Original Song: Chose right! As I said in the previous post, animated films do well here, and since Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature Film, this award was probably expected.

Best Short Film (Animated): Chose wrong. This went to The Lost Thing. Not sure why as I haven't seen that one. The Academy must've just liked it better. (My pick: Pixar's Day & Night).

Best Sound Editing: Chose wrong. This went to Inception, which also won three other Oscars. (My pick: Tron: Legacy, since I didn't notice any great sound editing in Toy Story 3, the one Sound Editing nominee I had seen).

Best Sound Mixing: Chose wrong. Also went to Inception. That movie dominated the sound category, apparently. (My pick: The King's Speech).

Best Visual Effects: Chose wrong. This also went to Inception. I was very surprised that Alice in Wonderland (my pick) didn't win here, but my mom (who has seen Inception) said the visual effects are REALLY impressive in that movie.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chose wrong. This went to The Social Network, and was the only one of the "Big Five" (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Writing/Screenplay) that it won. Seeing as it didn't have The King's Speech to contend with in this category, I guess it was pretty clear that it would win there against its competitors, though 127 Hours would've been a possible contender. (I picked Toy Story 3 for this because the only two films in this category that I'd seen were that one and The Social Network, and I didn't like The Social Network).

Best Original Screenplay: Chose right! This was one of the four awards that The King's Speech won, the most for any one film. Again, not much chance for the competition here imo, except maybe Inception, which did beat out The King's Speech for the Sound Mixing award.

Best Picture: TOTALLY Chose right! While it lost 8 of its nominations, The King's Speech (my pick for this award) won the biggest prize of the night - Best Picture - and that's what matters.The main competition here was between The King's Speech and The Social Network anyway. I am SO glad The Social Network didn't win. That would've just been wrong. And, the Best Picture/Best Director trend I mentioned in the last post was proven once again, since The King's Speech won Best Picture and its director, Tom Hooper, won Best Director. (This generally happens 9 times out of 10).

Awards I didn't make a clear pick on or choose at all:

Best Cinematography: Went to Inception. Inception and The King's Speech were the only films that won four Oscars, but The King's Speech is the one they said "dominated the night" because it won four of the "Big Five" awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay - the one it didn't get was Best Actress, which it wasn't nominated for anyway).

Best Documentary, Feature-Length: Went to Inside Job, the documentary about the recession. Not much of a surprise, I guess.

Best Documentary, Short-Subject: Went to Strangers No More, the film I liked about the school in Israel. Yay!

Best Short Film (Live-Action): Went to God of Love, about the guy who gets the love darts. Not that happy about that.

Best Makeup: A.k.a., the category I didn't care about. It went to The Wolfman.

So I got 7 right and 10 wrong (I counted the tie for Best Supporting Actress as 1 rather than 2), as well as 5 I didn't pick a winner for. Not too bad, I guess.

Total number of awards per movie for the major contenders (aka the Best Picture nominees, because those are the ones people care about, as well as non-Best Picture nominee Alice in Wonderland).

The King's Speech: 4 (nominated for 12)

Won: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay.
Lost: Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing.

Inception: 4 (nominated for 8)

Won: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography.
Lost: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score.

The Social Network: 3 (nominated for 8)

Won: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score.
Lost: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography.

Alice in Wonderland: 2 (nominated for 3)

Won: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design.
Lost: Best Visual Effects

The Fighter: 2 (nominated for 7)

Note: Despite its disappointing number of wins, The Fighter is the first film to win Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress in one year since 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters.
Won: Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress for Melissa Leo.
Lost: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actress for Amy Adams.
As strange as it may seem for The Fighter to have two nominees for Best Supporting Actress, this is actually not unheard of; "double" nominations for Best Supporting Actress (i.e., two actresses from the same film) have occurred 22 other times in the history of the Oscars, the earliest instance being in 1939, when both Hattie McDaniel and Olivia de Havilland were nominated for Gone With the Wind. (McDaniel won the award, actually. She played Mammy, the O'Haras' black housemaid in Gone With the Wind, and was the first African-American to win an Academy Award. de Havilland played Melanie Hamilton).

Toy Story 3: 2 (nominated for 5)

One of the 2 awards Toy Story 3 won was for Best Original Song, for the song "We Belong Together." It was only the third animated film to be nominated for Best Picture (after Beauty and the Beast and Up) and is the first sequel to win Best Animated Feature Film.
Won: Best Animated Feature Film, Best Original Song
Lost: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound Editing

Black Swan: 1 (nominated for 5)

Won: Best Actress (Natalie Portman)
Lost: Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Director

Films nominated but with no wins: True Grit (10 nominations), 127 Hours (6 nominations), The Kids Are All Right (4 nominations), Winter's Bone (4 nominations).

So the obvious upset is True Grit, which got 10 nominations but didn't win any awards. Black Swan, which only won 1 of the 5 awards it got nominated for, is also a surprise, considering it was a favorite all awards season. The Fighter and The Social Network also did a lot more poorly than anticipated.

~~~

Ok, moving on. That's why I don't do those sorts of posts normally. Not here anyway. They're majorly tiring!

I don't know why I did the post on my Oscar picks. I think, in a fit of temporary insanity, I posted on something I thought would bring all these people to my blog, since I was just reading a book on blogging as part of my "research" for my second Writing Project for Dr. Wilson, where I am writing fictional blog posts from the point-of-view of Ayeka from Tenchi Muyo. (I just finished the book today - it was Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro by Tris Hussey. It's very good; I highly recommend it). I realize now it was kinda stupid to do that post. Oh well.

Finding books to "consult" on blogging was not as easy as it sounds; while many books have been written on the subject of blogging, most of them were published in 2006, when blogging really went mainstream. And when it comes to researching tech topics, you want to find a book that's as new as possible, since things change constantly in the world of technology. So I'm going with books published within the last couple years (Hussey's book came out in '09), since that's as current as I could find. Fortunately, I was able to find almost all the books I wanted to look at in Kindle format, which made it much more convenient for me to get them and read them. (The exceptions are a few books my school has full electronic access to and one book I got from the school library, The Rough Guide to Blogging, which is circa 2006 but which was highly recommended on Amazon; I looked through it though and there didn't seem to be anything useful in there that I hadn't already read in Tris Hussey's book).

At any rate, though, this "research" should help me as a blogger on any blogs I start in the future and maybe even on this blog. Technically, this is the only real blog I have on the net; my only other one is the updates blog for Myu Corner. I can't figure out how to integrate that blog into the site itself, or how to do that with any site, actually. In Tris Hussey's book, it sounds like you can do it with a self-hosted Wordpress installation, which is what I have through GoDaddy. But I still don't know how to actually do it. Before the Myu Corner blog, I did have a couple "blog sites," like my lame attempt to do a blog-within-a-blog for my personal site, and a couple small Wordpress sites I had - one a personal site called The Walden Chronicler's Tower and the other a fansite for the PotterCast Acting Troupe. But they're all gone now.

This blog, though, was my first and is my preferred one, even if the "Edit HTML" function isn't the best (it tends to do annoying things like add DIV tags where they don't need to be and stuff). Since December 2004, this blog has been my place to turn to when I need to get something off my chest that I can't talk about with other people for some reason, even my parents. It's like a replacement for the diary I once kept, first in that little Hello Kitty diary I wrote in from age 8 to around age 11, and then in some isolated Word documents. Sure, it's public, but my blog is so unknown that I don't think privacy is a huge issue, and plus I blog under a pseudonym. Up until I revealed my real name on Facebook, I pretty much always used an alias online, generally Lara Larame or Misty Waterflower, because I was uncomfortable using my real name online. In fact, when I first signed up for Facebook, it was under the name "Lara Larame." I only changed to my real name when I realized that my friends list was made up entirely of people who knew me or had known me in real life. To this day, I use an alias a lot online, or if I use my real name I use my first name only. (The exception to this is my writing site, which uses my first and last name, but that is because the site is for promoting my writing). In fact, many people who know me via social media such as YouTube only learn my real name when they have to e-mail me for some reason (since e-mails from my main address show my first and last name...I must have it set up that way). Weird, I know. But it makes me feel more comfortable, and I'm sure it makes my parents feel more comfortable too.

Anyway, these books will likely inspire me to create other blogs - and not just ones to show site updates. Many people have topical blogs, such as Brad from Moonkitty.net, who has a blog devoted to his Starbucks mug collection, or my friend Elly, who started a cooking blog. I'm not sure what I'd do a blog about, technology maybe.

Oh duh I do have a writing blog too. But that's for my writing, a persona I try to keep separate from my everyday persona.

Man I'm tired. School has been tiring lately, and I've had to get up early pretty much every day for work or school, especially school now that I'm meeting Tara from Chi Alpha (Christian group on campus) on Tuesday mornings to do this Bible study called Springboard, a Bible study developed by Chi Alpha that's specifically for graduating seniors about to move from college to the "real world." At least I don't have to work before school this week.

My schoolwork - mostly lots of reading, including dry, rather boring theory articles for Cultural Studies -doesn't leave much time for things I want to do, like work on my websites. I either spend my free time doing schoolwork or I'm so tired when I get home that I don't feel like doing fun things like website stuff. I either sit around restless or end up watching TV, either by myself or with my parents - in which case I end up watching one of their shows, like Pretty Little Liars or Say Yes to the Dress. I don't quite understand why my parents are interested in a teen-Desperate Housewives show like Pretty Little Liars, but the show is strangely enticing to me, maybe because it's a mystery story. I find myself following it - a little sidebar interview in TV Guide (a magazine I often look at while waiting to clock in at work) with Ian Harding, who plays this teacher named Ezra in Pretty Little Liars that main character Aria is romantically involved with, even caught my eye - and with each episode I see I find myself hating "A" more and more (and yet, also been impressed by A's cleverness). I have no idea who "A" is myself, though I like to think it's Alison, except that she's dead. The interview with Harding suggested the possibility that Ezra might be "A," which would be an interesting twist. (Harding himself thought it was an interesting idea). It could be that blind girl Jenna too, an idea that's been toyed with in recent episodes (and the episode preview for the next episode revealed that Caleb, Hanna's love interest, was paid by Jenna to spy on her).

Ok, my eyes are burning. I should go to bed. I was going to write about reviving my Sailor Mercury shrine, but I'm too tired. Good night.

My 2011 Oscar Picks

2011-02-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually one to do award picks, but the Oscars are tonight and there is a lot of people out there doing award picks for it, so I decided, what the heck, I'll do it too. Here's my picks, in the order the categories are listed on the official Oscars site.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Otherwise known as "Best Actor." The main battle here is between Jesse Eisenberg for his role as Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and Colin Firth as King George VI in The King's Speech. The other contenders are Jeff Bridges for True Grit, Javier Bardem for Biutiful, and James Franco for 127 Hours.

Now, granted, I've only seen two of these films: The Social Network and The King's Speech. And they seem to be the only ones that matter, although Jeff Bridges is a pretty well-known actor and could win, I guess. My pick though is Colin Firth. If you have not seen The King's Speech, SEE IT!! Ok, so I'm a big fan of historical films, so maybe I'm a little biased here, but this film, which tells the true story of England's King George VI (father of the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II) and how he overcame his problem with stammering, is amazing. Colin Firth is a great actor anyway, but he really hits it out of the park here, capturing George (or rather Albert, since he's a prince for most of the film)'s frustration with his stammering and his brother's controversial relationship with an American divorcée, as well as the softer side he shows to his children. They couldn't have picked a better person to play this role. It kind of reminded me of his role as Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest, which was also a well-played mix of seriousness and lightness.

As for Eisenberg...well, I didn't think much of The Social Network anyway. It was an ok film, but it didn't wow me. And Eisenberg's performance makes Mark Zuckerberg out to look like a real jerk. Now, granted, the movie is based on a book called The Accidential Billionaires, and the only person from Facebook who helped with that book was Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (played in The Social Network by Andrew Garfield), who ended up suing Zuckerberg after Zuckerberg drastically cut his holdings in Facebook while not cutting any of the holdings of the other shareholders. So Saverin may not have painted a very rosy picture of Zuckerberg. But still, his performance just didn't wow me the way Colin Firth's did.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Also known as "Best Supporting Actor" (people just love to shorten these award names, don't they?). The nominees here are Christian Bale for The Fighter, John Hawkes for Winter's Bone, Jeremy Renner for The Town, Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right, and Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech.

Again, I haven't seen many of the films here - only one actually (The King's Speech). Bear with me; I don't make it to the movie theater as much as I'd like. I have school and a job. Anyway...

Interesting race here...I particularly noted the snub for The Social Network - after all, it's nominated for 8 Oscars, so wouldn't you expect a Best Supporting Actor nod for Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake (who plays Sean Parker, founder of Napster), or even Armie Hammer (who played the Winklevoss twins, the ones who originally recruited Zuckerberg to create the site that later became Facebook)? Guess they can't win everything. :) True Grit got snubbed too.

Christian Bale has shown he can win tons of awards before, but I'd really like Geoffrey Rush to win. He plays Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, the speech therapist/actor who helps Colin Firth's character overcome his stammer, and he does a really good job. I'm not familiar with his other films, but the fact that they cast an Australian actor for the real-life Logue, who was himself Australian, shows a great attention to detail. He does a great job. Hands down.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Or "Best Actress." Unlike Best Actor, The Social Network got snubbed here (as well as for Best Supporting Actress). But then girls aren't a big part of the cast in that movie.

Anyway, the Best Actress nominees are: Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right, Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole, Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone, Natalie Portman for Black Swan, and Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine. Essentially it's a battle between two older, experienced actresses (Bening and Kidman) and three younger, not-as-experienced actresses (Portman, Lawrence, and Williams), with Bening and Portman being the faves.

Sadly, I haven't seen any of these films, though I do like Natalie Portman as an actress. I guess Williams's nod is the unusual one, because Blue Valentine is an indie film. Both Williams and Lawrence are TV actresses-turned-movie-actresses (Williams was on Dawson's Creek and Lawrence on The Bill Engvall Show) that I don't know if anyone has ever heard of. I've never heard of Bening either, but I guess she's a pretty well-known actress (her filmography is pretty long). Nicole Kidman I do like, and she has won Oscars before. And I do like Natalie Portman, as I said, though my favorite role of hers is still her early role as Padmé in Star Wars; her more recent roles I haven't been as into.

As I said, the front-runners are Bening and Portman. I haven't seen either of the films they're being nominated for, but they both look good. Portman's nom is for that creepy ballet movie Black Swan, while Bening's is for the more light-hearted The Kids Are All Right. Knowing the Academy, they're probably going to go for Black Swan because it's a more artsy film, but you never know. Bening has a really long career and she's been nominated for Oscars many times (including for American Beauty, which swept the award season in 1999) but has never actually won one. It would be nice to see her win one. So, provisionally, I'm going to pick Annette Bening for this award.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Or "Best Supporting Actress."

The nominees (I'm just copying-and-pasting at this point):

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Amy Adams I've seen before in Drop Dead Gorgeous (where she plays cheerleader Leslie Miller) and in clips of Enchanted (where she stars as Giselle). She does seem like a good actress. Both she and Melissa Leo are nominated for The Fighter, a film I know nothing about.

I guess the two I'm interested in for this award are Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech (she plays the Duchess of York, the wife of Colin Firth's character) and Hailee Steinfeld, the young girl from True Grit. While I haven't seen True Grit, Steinfeld does seem like a strong actress from the trailers I've seen for the film. At only 14, she'd be among the youngest to ever win an Oscar if she does win. (The youngest person to win an acting award was 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal, and the youngest to win an Oscar was Shirley Temple, who was 6 when she received a Academy Juvenile Award). But Helena Bonham Carter does do a good job in her role, and I've seen her do well in other films, such as her role as Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films. I call this one a tie between Steinfeld and Bonham Carter.

Best Animated Feature Film

As a category, Best Animated Feature Film is still very new; it was created in 2001 and basically created for Shrek, which was really the only notable animated feature film that year anyway. But the field of animated feature films has grown, so it'll be interesting to see how this category goes in its 10th year of existence. Surprises do happen, like Spirited Away's surprise win of this Oscar in 2002 (that's why everyone automatically thinks of that film if you mention Hayao Miyazaki to them, I think).

There are only three nominees for this category: How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, and The Illusionist. The Illusionist is a French animated film which only had limited release here and which I haven't had a chance to see, unfortunately. It looks good, though. I have seen the other two, however. They both have the advantage of having been available in 3-D, which The Illusionist didn't have, which may increase their chances of appealing to the Academy.

I can't speak for The Illusionist, but both of the other two contenders are very good. It's once again a faceoff between Dreamworks (for How to Train Your Dragon) and Pixar (for Toy Story 3), which should be no surprise since they are the two main animation companies out there, besides Disney of course. If this were a fight about whose use of 3-D was better, I'd say How to Train Your Dragon wins. But it's not, of course.

Not sure who to pick here. I guess I did like How to Train Your Dragon better than Toy Story 3, though. So I guess I'll pick that.

Interesting note here: Considering Studio Ghibli's success in this category - a win for Spirited Away and a nomination in 2005 for Howl's Moving Castle (which lost to Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit) - I'm very surprised to not see a nomination for Ponyo in this category. (Just checked. I guess it came out in 2009. I could've sworn it came out last year though...I guess the DVD did).

Best Art Direction

Art direction is a very tricky thing, so it's always interesting to see who is in contention for this. Art direction, by the way, basically includes set dressing and all that good stuff. Anyway, the nominees are: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Inception, The King's Speech, and True Grit.

I'm actually surprised at the last two, since much of True Grit appears to take place outdoors and I never really noticed the set decoration in The King's Speech because I was focusing on the great story and the acting. But then again, the sets do look nice in at least the trailers of True Grit that I've seen, and the details in the backgrounds of The King's Speech are very nicely done and actually look correct for the time period. As for Inception, I haven't seen that yet, but as I understand it much of it takes place in the world of dreams. I don't know if that allows for good set dressing or not.

As much as I love The King's Speech, I think the real contenders here are Alice in Wonderland and Deathly Hallows (I'm abbreviating the title for convenience's sake). The set design in Alice in Wonderland is mind-boggling - particularly the palaces of the two Queens and the battlefield for Frabjous Day. Those three sets deserve awards just by themselves. Of course, Alice in Wonderland was also the first 3-D film I ever saw, so that may have impacted my view of it too.

As for Deathly Hallows, it's hard to speak of set design for that film since it takes place completely outside of Hogwarts. But there are some great sets there, like the interior of the camping tent, Malfoy Manor, and the Lovegoods' house. Stuart Craig, the production designer for all of the Harry Potter films, is excellent at his job.

Man, it's hard to choose my pick here. I think I'll go with Alice in Wonderland here though, and not just because I'm a huge fan of Carroll's novel and will go see any adaptation of that story that comes around.

I am surprised at there being no nomination for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for this category though! That movie had awesome set design! Perhaps it didn't make the cut for this ceremony because it was released in December 2010?

Best Cinematography

Cinematography (basically all work involving the camera) is hard to judge because, like art direction, it's an art. But there are some really good cinematographers out there.

Anyway, nominees...

~Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
~Inception (Wally Pfister)
~The King's Speech (Danny Cohen)
~The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)
~True Grit (Roger Deakins)

Again, I've only seen two of these films, The King's Speech and The Social Network, so it's hard for me to make a pick. Like the art direction, I didn't notice the cinematography much in The King's Speech because the story and the acting were so forefront. There were certain shots, like during Firth's first speech as King, that were really good, though. And as for The Social Network, I can't say it had as good of shots, to be honest. But then I am kinda prejudiced in that regard; I didn't like that movie and I don't want it to sweep the Oscars like it did the Golden Globes (where it won 4 - the most of the night for one film).

So, no clear pick here.

Best Costume Design

This is one of those categories that seems superfluous; does anyone care about costume design or makeup in movies? (I still remember the year The Passion of the Christ was only nominated for one Oscar, Best Makeup, and lost to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events). Apparently the Academy does, though, because this category continues to exist.

The nominees:

Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood)
I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)
The King's Speech (Jenny Beavan)
The Tempest (Sandy Powell)
True Grit (Mary Zophres)

While I did like the costumes in The King's Speech - they looked very period-accurate - again, it's something I didn't really notice in the film. I don't know about I Am Love, The Tempest, and True Grit because I haven't seen them.

I think Alice in Wonderland is the clear winner here though. Like the sets, the costumes are exquisite in this film - as if all the posters of the Mad Hatter weren't enough evidence of that. Alice's dress is very nice too, and I love her Frabjous Day armor. So that's my pick.

Best Director

This is always a big category; it's one of the "Big Five" at the Academy Awards, i.e., the five awards every filmmaker or actor wants to get (the other four being Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writing, a.k.a. Best Original Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay). Generally whoever directed the Best Picture winner also ends up winning Best Director. That's the trend, anyway. Not that this is always the case, of course. Anything can happen. But it's what usually happens.

Anyway the nominees are: Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan, David O. Russell for The Fighter, Tom Hooper for The King's Speech, David Fincher for The Social Network, and the Coen Brothers for True Grit. Fincher is the big favorite, of course, because for some absurd reason the public is in love with that darn Facebook movie. The Coen Brothers are contenders because they are almost always up for some award with every film they make. They've only won Best Director once before though, for No Country for Old Men (which, per the trend I just mentioned, also won Best Picture). Aronofsky could have a chance with the good press Black Swan has been getting thanks to all the awards Natalie Portman has won for it. And even Tom Hooper has a chance, since The King's Speech has done well all award season too.

I think I'm going to pick Tom Hooper for this one, just because I want The King's Speech to sweep this show so badly. If it wins all the awards it's up for (12), it will break the 11-Oscar record held jointly by Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That would be AWESOME. *fingers crossed*

Best Documentary, Feature-Length

Also called "Best Documentary Feature." Best Documentary is a category I never know much about, since documentary films don't usually get wide distribution, with the exception of films like March of the Penguins, though they tend to run the film festival circuit. Thus, I haven't seen any of the nominees. And they are:

Exit through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

So film #1 there is for a film about a street artist, despite the museum-sounding title. Gasland is about the dangers posed by natural gas drilling. Inside Job is a documentary on the current recession we're experiencing. Restrepo follows two journalists who covered the war in Afghanistan for Vanity Fair. (Not a topic one would expect to be covered in Vanity Fair, is it?) Waste Land documents a Brazilian artist who creates art out of items found in the garbage. (Fits the current "green" trend, I guess).

Not sure who should win here, though Inside Job is definitely relevant. It's hard to predict this.

Best Documentary, Short-Subject

This is the version of Best Documentary for shorter documentaries. I haven't seen any of these either. The nominees are:

Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

Killing in the Name is a documentary about Islamic terrorism. I wonder what stance it takes on that, if it takes one. Poster Girl has a related focus, being about a Iraq War vet suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (Odd that two films related to the War on Terror should both be nominated, not to mention the award for Restrepo, also War on Terror-related). Strangers No More documents a school in Tel Aviv where children from many countries and backgrounds come to learn together. Sun Come Up is about the effects of global warming in the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea (which, it seems, have had flooding issues recently). The Warriors of Qiugang is about a Chinese village which took action against chemical companies poisoning their land and their water supply.

As with Best Documentary Feature, I really don't know who to nominate for this. It would be cool if Strangers No More or The Warriors of Qiugang won, though.

Best Film Editing

Also called "Best Editing" or something like that. Editing is as big of a deal as anything in the making of a film, so it's good that it's celebrated. Nominees:

Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
The King's Speech (Tariq Anwar)
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
The Social Network (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter)

Noticing a pattern here? The same films again: The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Social Network, Black Swan, plus a wildcard - in this case, 127 Hours (which is not too much of a wildcard - it's also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song). This is how films can be nominated for ten or more awards - they get a nomination or two in the major categories and then get nominated in all these little categories too.

Again, editing wasn't something I really noticed in The King's Speech, though it did have some good montage work in it. The Social Network also had some good use of footage with voice-overs, probably the only good thing I will say about it this entire post. I can't say anything about the others because I haven't seen them.

I think probably my pick for this will be The King's Speech, because...well, by now, you can probably tell how I feel about The Social Network.

Best Foreign Language Film

Since foreign-language films rarely get big distribution here, I generally have never heard of any of the films that get nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. The Mexican film Biutiful, one of the nominees, has probably got more notice than others due to the surprise Best Actor nom for Javier Bardem. The other nominees are the Greek film Dogtooth, the Danish film In a Better World, the Canadian film Incendies, and the Algerian film Outside the Law/Hors-la-loi.

Biutiful is about a guy with cancer who is trying to reconcile all the parts of his life before he dies. It sounds good. It was also nominated for a number of Goya Awards (Spain's Oscars) but only won one (Best Actor for Bardem). Actually, it's been nominated for a lot more awards than it's won. So we'll see how it does.

Dogtooth is about parents who keep their children captive on their property even into adulthood. It won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, an award given for innovative and daring films. I don't know whether that says anything about it. It sounds daring.

In a Better World, or Hævnen ("The Revenge"), as it's known in Danish, appears to be about a doctor who splits his time between small-town Denmark and an African refugee camp. Sounds interesting. It did win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film so it will be interesting to see if it wins the Oscar in the same category.

Incendies is, as I said, Canadian. I didn't know Canadian films counted for this category. It's in French and Arabic, though, which may explain it. Basically the plot has a lot to do with family relations, love, and rape (based on the Wikipedia summary). Sounds like not exactly my kind of film.

Outside the Law, known as Hors-la-Loi in French, is a film about three brothers set in the time of the Algerian war for independence from France. I wonder whether the recent revolts in that same area (not in Algeria specifically but in Tunisia, Egypt, and Sudan) will influence anyone's feelings about this film?

I really don't know which one to pick here, but I guess I'll pick In a Better World just to see if it wins this award as both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.

Best Makeup

As I said with costume design, does anyone really CARE about this award? Anyway, there are three nominees for this award: Barney's Version, The Way Back, and The Wolfman. I've never seen any of them.

Should I even pick something in this category? Probably not. Next!

Best Music (Original Score)

Also known as "Best Original Score." Any person who creates scores for movies wants this.

The nominees: How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, The King's Speech, The Social Network, and 127 Hours. There's that pattern again, except with two exceptions. Inception was nominated for other things, but How to Train Your Dragon is the real wildcard, being an animated film among four live-action films up for this.

I haven't seen Inception or 127 Hours, so I can't say anything about their scores. I didn't really notice the score in The King's Speech, same with all the other little things it's nominated for. And I don't think the score was that great in The Social Network. So I'm going to say How to Train Your Dragon for this one.

Best Music (Original Song)

Also known as "Best Original Song." There is some correlation between this and Best Original Score; sometimes if a film is nominated for both, it wins both. That depends on whether a film has a score and an eligible original song. So, the nominees: "Coming Home" (Country Strong), "I See the Light" (Tangled), "If I Rise" (127 Hours), and "We Belong Together" (Toy Story 3).

Animated feature films tend to do well in this category since they often have great vocal songs (especially if, like Tangled, they are Disney films). So the songs from Tangled and Toy Story 3 have a good chance. For 127 Hours, I haven't seen that film so I can't say anything about the song (other than that the title is very pertinent, considering the film is about a guy stuck between two boulders for five days). This is the only Oscar nod for Country Strong, a film that got some attention because it was the first time Gwyneth Paltrow had sung in a film. But I haven't seen that film either.

I think for this I'll pick Toy Story 3, because it's the only one of these films that I've seen.

Best Picture's next on the Oscar site list, but I'll save that one for last. So, next is...

Best Short Film (Animated)

Or "Best Animated Short Film." Unlike the Best Animated Feature Film category, this category has a long history with the Oscars, being offered since the 5th Oscar ceremony in 1932. The nominees are:

Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let's Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, un carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

Day & Night is the only one of these I've seen, as it was shown in theaters before Toy Story 3. (It's tradition with Pixar to show a short film before their feature films). It's a cute film featuring these two identical characters against a black screen who show day and night scenes through their respective transparent bodies, and how they interact. It's pretty cute.

The Gruffalo is a BBC short about this mouse who scares the other animals with a tale about a "gruffalo," as told by two squirrel parents to their squirrel children. Sounds cute too.

Let's Pollute is a film by animator Geefwee Boedoe, who did animation for Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and Beauty and the Beast. It's a satire of the problems with pollution and consumerism, done in the style of those old educational films from the '50's.

The Lost Thing is about a kid who finds a creature on the beach but can't get anyone to pay attention to it. And Madagascar, carnet de voyage is about the customs of Madagascar.

I better hurry with this, because it seems that Oscar results are already coming out on the internet. Pick for this: Day & Night.

Best Short Film (Live-Action)

Nominees: The Confession, The Crush, God of Love, Na Wewe, and Wish 143.

Haven't seen any of these. The Confession is about a guy worrying about not having any sins to confess to his priest. The Crush is about a young schoolboy who falls in love with his teacher, only to find out she is engaged. God of Love is about a guy who receives magical darts which he can use to make people fall in love with him, which he intends to use to make his beloved fall for him. Na Wewe is about the 1994 civil war in Burundi. Wish 143 is about a terminally ill boy granted a wish by a Make a Wish-like charity who wishes to lose his virginity before he dies.

Not sure which to nominate as I haven't seen any of them. Not going to try.

Best Sound Editing

Nominees: Inception, Toy Story 3, Tron: Legacy, True Grit, Unstoppable

This is a tough one - I've only seen Toy Story 3 out of these. But I'm sure the sound in Tron: Legacy is probably amazing, so I'm going to pick that one.

Best Sound Mixing

Is there a difference between this and the previous category?

Anyway, nominees: Inception, The King's Speech, Salt, The Social Network, and True Grit.

Not sure how The Social Network got this nom. I'm voting for The King's Speech though because it does do some great things with sound.

Best Visual Effects

One of the big awards the last couple years thanks to the 3-D revolution.

Nominees: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Hereafter, Inception, and Iron Man 2.

All of these films have great special effects from what I've seen or heard of them. But I think my pick will be Alice in Wonderland, because its visual effects are just as awesome as its art direction and costume design.

I'm very shocked that Tron: Legacy got snubbed in this category. If any film should've been nominated for this, it would be that film.

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Also known as "Best Adapted Screenplay," and one of the Big Five. Since many movies are adapted from books, there are always films to choose from for this category.

Nominees: 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

I'm not sure how Toy Story 3 got in the "adapted" screenplay category...anyhoo, I'm going to pick it because as I keep saying, The Social Network stinks. So, Toy Story 3.

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

Also known as "Best Original Screenplay," and one of the Big Five.

Nominees: Another Year, The Fighter, Inception, The King's Speech, The Kids Are All Right.

Finally, a category The King's Speech does not share with The Social Network. Anyway, The King's Speech is definitely my pick here, hands down. The story is AMAZING.

AND FINALLY, THE BIGGEST OF THEM ALL...

Best Picture

This is the Big Kahuna. Win this, and you've got it made as a filmmaker. It's also often the biggest category because sometimes the Academy just can't narrow the category down to just five.

Nominees: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone.

Yes, you counted right. That's TEN films in line for Best Picture. Dang.

Also, you'll notice it's the same films you've been seeing nominated for a bunch of other Oscars. That's not uncommon for the Oscars. It makes the Oscars look rather fixed, but oh well. Nothing we can do about that.

Anyway, the two faves are The Social Network and The King's Speech, which are nominated for 8 and 12 Oscars overall, respectively. Third would probably be Black Swan. Unusual to see an animated film like Toy Story 3 in there though.

Anyway, if you've put up with me this long, you can probably guess my pick for Best Picture. Yep, The King's Speech. Because it's (as the Vlogbrothers would say) MADE OF AWESOME.

~~

So, in summary, my picks:

Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
Best Supporting Actor: Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Best Actress: Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right)
Best Supporting Actress: *tie* Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) & Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Best Animated Feature Film: How to Train Your Dragon
Best Art Direction: Robert Stromberg & Karen O'Hara (Alice in Wonderland)
Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Best Director: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
Best Film Editing: Tariq Anwar (The King's Speech)
Best Foreign Language Film: In a Better World (Denmark)
Best Original Score: John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon)
Best Original Song: "We Belong Together" (Toy Story 3)
Best Short Film (Animated): Day & Night
Best Sound Editing: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague (Tron: Legacy)
Best Sound Mixing: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley (The King's Speech)
Best Visual Effects: Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips (Alice in Wonderland)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Michael Arndt (screenplay); John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (story) (Toy Story 3)
Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler (The King's Speech)
Best Picture: The King's Speech

No clear picks:
Best Cinematography
Best Documentary, Feature-Length
Best Documentary, Short-Subject
Best Short Film, Live-Action

No pick at all:
Best Makeup

The results tomorrow!

Overwhelmed...I think

2011-02-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

Man. Who know that as soon as week 4 of the semester that I'd have all this work? I've already had big writing assignments due! One was an essay for U.S. Lit, due this week, which I wrote on The Great Gatsby. The other was for my Writing Process class, but then I have writing due pretty much every week for that class. Not to mention my Flash class, which has been difficult because I had trouble even getting Flash to install - I ultimately had to ask Adobe for a refund of the money I spent buying that program (I'm using a trial version now). I should've known better than to try to take classes for my web design certificate in my last semester at CSUSM, but since I was unable to take any classes for it last semester (because I ran out of money after Comic-Con), I'm trying to catch up. I wasn't able to get into the Photoshop class I put myself on the waitlist for, so I'll have to take that probably next fall (I am definitely not going to take a class like that in the shorter summer semester). But given the work I have so far this semester, I'm almost glad I'm only in one web design class. Two would've probably been WAY too much.

I worry though...I feel like school is becoming the only thing I work on lately, while my websites, my novel, and any attempts to further my relationship with God (like Bible memorization) are falling by the wayside. Now, I am going to Chi Alpha (a Christian group on campus) and I'm going to try to do this Bible study for graduating seniors that Chi Alpha came up with called Springboard. And I've started going to church with my parents, if only to spare them the hassle of having to take me to North Coast Carlsbad and possibly being late for their service. But is it enough? I don't know.

And I have been working on my novel in bits and pieces. If I have the energy to write and the willingness to put off reading The Sound and the Fury (the novel we're currently studying in US Lit), I might work on it today. I'm almost done with it, and I think once I get over the "falling action" (the part I'm writing right now) and into the dénouement, it will go more smoothly. Then I can finally leave it alone for a while. I'm going to hide the notebooks somewhere so that I can distance myself from the work before I revise, as all those writing books advise. Though how I'm going to make myself forget where I hid them is tough. But I suppose if I put them somewhere I'm not likely to look, like on top of that big blue box on my closet shelf - or even better, inside it - maybe I'll be able to do it. As the French say, Loin des yeux, loin du coeur ("Far from the eyes, far from the heart," essentially the French version of our saying "Out of sight, out of mind"). I'll have to hide the folder on my computer that has the typed manuscript too, come to think of it.

Some weird process just started on the Macs in this lab (I'm in the Academic Hall computer lab at school, writing this before my Writing Process class; Dr. Wilson doesn't allow laptops, so I didn't bring mine). Oh wait it's stopped now.

I wish I didn't have to go to work after school today. Last week I was able to deal with because Jose said he "needed me" that day - but this week they gave me the same exact schedule as last week, which is weird. Especially since they put me back on the Courtesy Clerk schedule after one week of finally being back on the GMC schedule, and they have a bunch of new Courtesy Clerks now, so they shouldn't need me to do that stuff. Plus, they have me starting at 2, and my class gets out at 12:45. I barely got there in time last time because I missed the 1:30 303 because the train was delayed at some point. I might be able to leave a bit earlier because we're having a writing workshop in class today, so we might be able to leave once our workshopping is done. Not sure though. Anyway, I stayed up late last night finishing my second draft of my first Writing Project, but had to get up early this morning because my class starts at 10. So I'm really tired. It doesn't help that it's also my time of the month. So I'm not really in the mood to work.

To be honest, I'm not looking forward to the workshop. I don't do well in writing workshops because I'm not good at giving feedback, other than really surface stuff like "I really liked this metaphor" or grammar and mechanics stuff. Maybe Dr. Wilson will give us some guide to go off of, like Dr. Breuer did last semester. Or even better, one that people can fill out themselves, like the one Dr. Berghof had us use for our research paper in LTWR 333 last semester.

Gah I feel so restless. I'm thinking about stupid things like the cover art being off for some of the songs on my iPod, which then leads to thoughts of my frustration over not being able to upgrade iTunes, which I don't want to think about right now. That or why my cursor randomly jumps on my laptop, resulting in me typing in the wrong places constantly. This just started happening recently and I don't know why. I keep glancing at this girl across the way who is looking at some Tumblr blog with a lot of Japanese-related pictures. Or at the huge pictures of Earth on the screens of the nearby Macs. Is that the default wallpaper for all Apple products? My iPod's default wallpaper was the Earth too.

As for the websites, my main concern right now is how to make my revival of my Sailor Mercury shrine stand out. I guess the info on Mercury as a planet, a god, and an element is unique, as well as the video game clips. I did look at a few other Mercury shrines last night, and there are some good ones still out there. Mostly old ones from a time when simpler web design was still ok. The only really current one is Innocent-ami.com, run by the fansubber Innocentami. That one is also the only Mercury shrine with any info on Ami in the musicals and PGSM. I guess I just need to find a layout I like. I was going with a pre-made one for a while, but the way it's designed is really limiting. I think the basic premise, of being the ultimate site for info and media of Sailor Mercury, is something that can work. I shouldn't have much problems getting images for the gallery, since the aforesaid shrines all have plenty of them, and I found a bunch of old scans I did for the original site on an old CD-ROM backup of a folder I had on another computer. I should be able to find scans for the musicals and PGSM at Seramyushop.com and Three Lights respectively, if they'll let me use them, as well as some stuff for her PGSM actress Hama Chisaki/Rika Izumi on the official fansite for her, A Fruitful Spring. As for the info, I still need to write most of it. I think I'll get rid of the International dub info page, since I can't find much info for most of the dubs, and most of the info is from a site that hasn't been updated in quite a while. I'll need to borrow Warriors of Legend again too (or buy it, maybe along with that French Kiki's Delivery Service poster on Amazon that I want, which just got marked down to 90% off) for the section about her special places.

It's getting late. I better go to class.

How You Spend Your Time, Part 2

2011-02-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

-Started on Tuesday evening, the 8th-

So I kinda cut the last post short because I had to go to bed. I'm not exactly more awake now, but I figure this will help me kill time while I wait for Flash to install. That or while I wait to AIM chat with Tomi-san from Family of Moonlight, cause he e-mailed me asking to chat about my con report. I've got AIM open, but I'm not sure if he's on because I don't know his username.

I guess my main dilemma is about how I should spend my time. Is it wrong for me to make websites about such temporal things as SeraMyu or (in the past) Pokémon when people's eternal destiny is at stake? Shouldn't I be spending my time getting in people's faces and telling them what I believe, like those Jehovah's Witnesses people who try to get you to take a copy of their magazine The Watchtower? (They don't actually preach to you, though; they just try to get you to take their magazine).

And yet spending every free minute doing stuff like that doesn't sound appealing to me. If I met someone like that, I just might tell them to get a life. Not that being all on-fire for God is a bad thing - I wish I was on-fire for God too. And I know we're supposed to give God control over every aspect of our life. They frequently quote Proverbs 3:5-6 at North Coast:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths (ESV).

Just now when I looked that up I noticed the two verses after that as well (Mr. Pichette said always to look at a verse's context):

Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh

and refreshment to your bones (Prov. 3:7-8, ESV)

The same verses in my "Manga Bible" (which has the text of the New Living Translation) says:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart;

do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will in all you do,

and he will show you which path to take.

Don't be impressed with your own wisdom.

Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil.

Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.

Same verses in the NIV:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

Do not be wise in your own eyes;

fear the LORD and shun evil.

This will bring health to your body

and nourishment to your bones.

And in the King James Version (sorry...I have more Bibles than the average person; please indulge me):

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.

It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

(The "navel" thing there is because the actual Hebrew word used there means "navel").

-After several hours, during which I IM'd with Tomi-san, ate dinner, and took a shower-
I guess they're all basically saying the same thing. The NLT puts it in the easiest-to-understand words (part of why I like that translation).

-Continued the next day-

I went to bed without finishing this because I had to be work at 6am again.

These verses seem to stand out to me now. I'd heard verses 5-6 before, tons of times. It's the classic verse someone pulls out when you're faced with a tough choice or loss of direction. But I didn't look at the next two verses, the ones that tell you not to rely on your own wisdom but to fear the Lord (though what fearing the Lord means no one seems to have agreed on) and do what's right, because that will bring you strength and healing.

That reminds me of Micah 6:8:

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good;
and this is what he requires of you:

to do what is right, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with your God (NLT).

To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. The ESV makes it slightly clearer:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

To do what is right/do justice - that's obedience. It has to be. To love kindness/mercy is, I think, how you act towards others. To "walk humbly with your God" is to be humble, and to walk together with God. Not just for God, but with him. I think God has wanted us to walk with him from the beginning; Enoch - one of the two men in the Bible who never died - is said to have walked with God: "Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away" (Genesis 5:24, NIV).

I realize I'm not good on any of those counts. I don't always obey; while I try to act kind towards others, I know sometimes my mouth gets the better of me and I gossip or say things I shouldn't; and I wouldn't consider myself very humble. (I hesitate to say I have a "problem with pride," because that phrase has become a bit of a Christian cop-out).

So where do I go from here? Well, to be honest, I wish I could go away to the mountains somewhere and think all this through, but I can't.

I think I definitely need to change the negative way I think and (sometimes) talk. And I definitely want to study the Bible in a deeper way and actually start to memorize it. I do know some verses, either from church or from an old cassette (which, sadly, I no longer have) that had a bunch of them put to music.

The other day I was listening to my Christian music playlist, and the first song was "About You" by ZOEgirl. I found it very fitting for my frame of mind right now (you can hear the song in the video below)

I've been thinking lately about You
When it hit me from nowhere, out of the gray
Everything's been coming together
Now that I've moved beyond myself
And wrapped my head around something else

It's not about me, it's gotta be about You
(Everyday and...)
All I wanna see is who You're turning me into
(In every way and...)
I will not forget that You said You'd always lead me through
To who I wanna be, making every part of me about You

I’ve been spending so much time disconnected
I was searching for perfection inside myself
But I finally turned away from my reflection
I saw Your world outside my door
And everything that I'd been looking for

So I'll lay down my pride 'cause You laid down Your life
And I'm giving up all that's holding me back
And clinging to You
And You'll lead me through
'Cause You always do

~~~

In other news, I went through an annoying day trying to get Flash installed so I could do the Flash assignment I thought was due today - only to find out that it's due NEXT Wednesday. What a relief! Oddly enough, only after that did I get Flash to install, when I found and installed files for the CS4 version of Flash (the version before the current one). I think it might be a 30-day free trial, but that at least buys me some time. Since I got that to work and wasn't able to install the one I spent $179 for, I'm going to call Adobe tomorrow and ask for a refund. Then I'll order the cheaper physical-copy one over at JourneyEd. I just hope I don't end up on hold again for half an hour like I did tonight. I do not get that, but then again it was right before they closed, so maybe the lines were really busy. (Ironically, I was on hold for less time calling Microsoft about the Windows Installer issue the guy in my Adobe Live Support Chat - who I think was from India - pointed out than I was calling Adobe...I'm still amazed I even got a real person at Microsoft).

I have my first draft for my first Writing Project due Friday. I've decided I'm going to do film reviews for Project 1, since we're supposed to do one project in a mode of writing that stretches our abilities, and reviews aren't my strong suit. But I really like film, so I think it will be interesting. Since I just bought a DVD of Bandslam, this awesome movie I first saw via a Redbox rental (they had the DVD for $7.99 at Albertson's), I think I'll do my first draft review on that film (and maybe another one, if I can't meet the page requirement with just that film). I will probably do multiple reviews, as Dr. Wilson suggested; I just don't know how many yet because I don't know how long the first one will be. I'd like to do at least one foreign or anime film. Maybe one of the many foreign films they have in the Media Library, or maybe La Vie en Rose, the docudrama about Édith Piaf that I own (that movie is quite intense, actually).

I'm becoming less sure about reviving my Mercury shrine. Innocentami has done quite a good job with her Mercury shrine. Maybe I'll put it off for now and focus on Myu Corner and my writing site.

I still haven't made my personal site/domain hub, and recently I thought about making it a Tumblr blog. I'd read about Tumblr and even made an account there but then wasn't into it. But I just read about it again in an article in Laptop magazine called "101 Social Networking Tips." It does look pretty cool. Plus I follow Frankie Franco of PotterCast on Twitter, and he frequently tweets things from his Tumblr blog. I checked out a couple Tumblr blogs that this one article said you should definitely follow, and one of them, Daily Dickinson, provides a different Emily Dickinson poem every day. As that blog shows, you can have a Tumblr blog with a custom domain, though Tumblr's staff admit that it's hard to set up.

While doing whatever I could to curb my boredom today, I ended up checking out and signing up for the "web discovery site" StumbleUpon. It's kind of a social network combined with the link sharing aspects of bookmarking networks like Delicious (formerly known as del.icio.us). When you sign up, StumbleUpon gives you a list of topics, and based on what you check, it will then "discover" sites for you that are on the topics you check. You find these by "stumbling," either through the site itself or through downloading the StumbleUpon toolbar for your browser (which is probably the more convenient way). I downloaded the toolbar and started "stumbling." It brought up some great stuff, as well as a couple weird videos - one of a skateboarder "wiping out" and landing butt down on a bench, and one of a girl playing an awful prank on a guy (her brother probably) where she spread butter on the floor just outside the shower while he was in it, which then resulted in him slipping on the butter and hitting his head. That's gotta hurt!

(Gah...lately my cursor just randomly clicks in the wrong place a lot. I don't know why that is. Maybe I'm just typing too fast?)

Wow it's already 11pm. I should go to bed so I'm well-rested tomorrow. Good night!

How You Spend Your Time

2011-02-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

I've been going with my parents to the new church they've been checking out, Mission Hills Church, for the last couple weeks. It works out better for them because then they don't have to be late for their service because of dropping me off at the Carlsbad campus of our old church, which I've been going to since they merged the off-campus site in South Carlsbad with the one meeting by our house at Madison Middle School. Interestingly, the sermons the last two weeks have been on the subject of time. I think there is some providence in this, because time is something that has been on my mind. I am quite certain that I am obsessed with time, not in some weird pseudo-science, time-travel-loving sort of way, but in the sense that I try to get so much done in a day in order to please everyone, including myself, and if I don't accomplish everything, I get upset at myself.

The pastor cited a study that says that productivity in American workers has increased since 1987 (when they started this study), and that our rate of productivity shows that we are working as if there were 31 hours in the day and not 24. An extra 7 hours. That's crazy. I guess in a way we're all workaholics, aren't we?

To be honest, there are only so many things I have to do in my life right now. I have school, work, and church. I have made commitments to those things and I keep them. Granted, I don't have to go to school, go to work, or go to church if I don't want to. No one's forcing me. But I go because I have made a commitment to those things. Then there are the responsibilities that grow out of these three big things - showing up to school on time, doing my homework, showing up to work on time and in uniform, following the rules at work, etc.

But in the hours of the day when I'm not in class, not at church, and not at work, my time is my own. Or rather, it is God's, since he "numbers our days" as it says in the Bible (in Psalms 139, I believe). But he has given me the time. It is because of him that I am fortunate enough to wake up every morning and to live in this great country where I am free to worship him (despite whatever other woes this country may have; I won't go there).

So how should I really spend my free time? The time I'm not in class, in church, at work, or engaged in responsibilities branching from those, such as homework? Wisely, I guess. But what does that mean? Like I've said before, I'm not the kind of person who goes out and evangelizes every person I see. Yet, with all this supposed free time, I should be doing something that matters for eternity, right? Not just sitting at home with my face in front of a computer screen, watching YouTube videos or randomly grazing Wikipedia. (Yes, I do do that. I'll find one article and then jump from that to a related one, and then another, and then another. I did that the other day and read a great deal about the Japanese Imperial Family). But what does that mean, doing something for eternity? Most people assume it means going out evangelizing or doing community outreach or what-have-you. I think. And to be honest, who am I to judge people who think that?

Life is so complicated. Everyone's trying to tell you how to live, how to have better sex (and it's not just Cosmo that's to blame for that one), what to eat or what not to eat, how to think, how to dress, how to do your hair...the list goes on and on. It is quite literally sensory overload. And for someone with Asperger's, sensory overload is something that can quickly become untolerable. This is because Aspies have heightened senses, which makes things stand out more for us than for other people. In my case, every sense seems to be enhanced at some point in time except for smell, but this might be because my nose is usually stuffed up or something, making it basically impossible to smell anything half the time. I'm particularly sensitive to taste and touch, which makes me picky about what I eat and whether my clothes are comfortable. Thus, I tend to eat the same things all the time, be picky about what water I will drink, be picky about flat soda, and wear a lot of cotton (the added bonus with cotton is that it breathes, which helps because I seem to have overactive sweat glands). I also notice more than other people when I am touched, even if it's my dad putting his around around my back or kissing me on the cheek. My sense of sight is somewhat impaired by my nearsightedness, but like a typical Aspie I notice everything. My hearing is also not always the best because I have an earwax problem (sorry...I know that's gross, but it's true), but again, I tend to hear everything. I think this, combined with my seemingly incurable reporter's nosiness, is why I have a bad habit of eavesdropping. As if that wasn't bad enough, I don't always watch what I say and I also have a bad habit of gossiping, which I know is a really bad thing.

I think it is when you consider these issues that you really can self-reflect. It's as they say at North Coast, the Bible is meant as a mirror to see your own heart, not a pair of binoculars for you to use to point out everyone else's problems. In my Writing Process class this last week, we were given an in-class assignment where we had to read Mary Pipher's "diagnosis" of the United States, written in the style of a psychological assessment report (Pipher is a psychologist) for a client named "Mr. USA," and then write our own diagnosis of someone or write a letter to Mr. USA. I chose to write my own diagnosis, and for some reason I did it on myself, more or less following Pipher's formula. It's always hard to write about yourself in the third person (actually, it's harder for me to write in third person rather than first person period), but the exercise was pretty enlightening. I wrote way more than I probably needed to, using almost all the class time except for when Dr. Wilson called me to talk about my writing project proposal agenda (we have the first draft of our first project due this Friday, so she wanted to give us feedback on our projects last Friday so we could do our drafts). I'll be curious to see what Dr. Wilson thinks of it (yes, we had to turn them in). I also got into a spirited talk with my CWCW friend and fellow classmate Derek, first about poetry (a favorite subject of his), then about linguistics (a favorite subject of mine). One thing Aspies are known for is being able to talk in great depth about their "restricted interests" (hence Hans Asperger's term for the children he studied; he called them "little professors"), and I know I can definitely do that.

I suppose it's not a sin to have interests and pursue them in our free time, be they music, web design, art, taking Zumba (as my friend Marina does), or running (like my mom does). As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes:

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13, ESV).

Well I have to be at work super-early tomorrow, so I should go to bed. I think I may have to give this matter much thought and prayer.

Back in school

2011-02-02T20:35:00.001-08:00

So school has started again; this is the second week. I managed to get into Cultural Studies, which I need to graduate but was unable to enroll in pre-semester because it filled up in the first week of registration. The bad news is that the focus of the class changes depending on the specialty of whoever is teaching it, and because I have Dr. Breuer, whose specialty is feminism and LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual) studies, the focus is feminism. Not exactly my cup of tea. I would've done better with Dr. Moukhlis (postcolonial studies) or Dr. Stoddard-Holmes (disability and cultural studies). It doesn't help that Dr. Wilson, my teacher for "The Writing Process" (the one elective I need), also appears to be a feminist. That class isn't specifically about feminism though, and actually looks like it'll be really good for developing my writing.

I'm also continuing my web design certificate, after being unable to take any classes for it last fall due to not having money for it. I got into a class in Flash and am trying to get into a Photoshop class. I got waitlisted for both, and I'm still waitlisted for the Photoshop class (I was fortunate enough to get sent a permission code for the Flash class before school started). I realized that last night I forgot to do my Flash assignment for today last night -- in fact, I don't even have the program yet. So I tried to buy it really quick before work this morning, only to find out that I had to verify my PayPal account before I could do anything with it, because my account got randomly selected (I think) to be checked to ensure no one had used my account fraudulently. It's just so stupid. Thank goodness I only have to create a short animation for this exercise (5 seconds long, I think), because I switched to an early morning shift for tomorrow because of school, so I can't stay up very late (I get off at 8 tonight). But I have to do reading blog comments for Cultural Studies too (though we only have to do 10, so if I have to I can skip this week). *Sigh* I wish I got off earlier today. At least I don't need to add an extra half hour to a shift (to make up for switching from a 5 1/2 hour shift tomorrow to a 5-hour one) because I had to work some overtime on Monday because I had to close bakery because the girl who was supposed to close, Christina, got burned when a rack of hot bread tipped over on her (it didn't totally fall over; it just tipped).

Other than that, school seems to be going ok so far. But it's still the beginning.

I haven't done the work on my websites that I've planned, though I made to-do lists for all my current sites. I also need to renew the hosting plans for Myu Corner and Sparkle Moon, unless I decide I want to host them elsewhere. I think I may stick with GoDaddy though, for now.

We have to do three writing projects for my Writing Process class (at least I think you have to do 3 for the A contract; like Dr. Breuer, Dr. Wilson uses contract grading), and it was mentioned that we can do blog posts for a fictional character. It got me thinking about whether I should make my Ayeka-POV blog idea (as a resurrect of my old shrine to Ayeka from Tenchi Muyo) one of my projects. I suppose I could propose it and see. We can do copyrighted characters for that; Dr. Wilson mentioned that someone had done a Twilight-related Twitter project for one of her previous classes. So I guess I can try!

I asked for advice from the Miss Dream staff about how to approach my anime/manga guide site. Both MarioKnight (a contributing staffer) and Elly-san said a wiki-style site would be best. Now I just need to find good wiki software and figure out how to set up the site and (perhaps more importantly) promote it.

I've gotta go to work soon, so I should go. I'll write more later (perhaps when I am both less stressed and more coherent). Bye for now!

-- Posted from BlogPress

Need a New Start, continued

2011-01-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

So I interrupted my last post because the dryer was going off and I was hungry. I meant to write more later in the evening but instead found myself working on the re-working of my Music Land Maestress story (the re-working I came up with when I realized a Christian may be able to write about magic - though people disagree on that - but probably shouldn't write about reincarnation). Today I slept in (having stayed up a bit too late again) and then ordered my textbooks. Then I went out to try to get this one textbook they only have at the Discount Campus Books place across from school, only to learn they did not have it. I also got my student ID validated, asked admissions what I needed to do to crash a class, and got my bus pass for February (the super-discounted ones go fast, so I decided not to wait till next week when school starts). I also need to order the book for the one web design class I've gotten into so far, Flash 1. I forgot to do that this morning.

Ok just did that. It was cheaper on Amazon than at the school bookstore, almost $20 off the new price. Not bad. Plus since I have Amazon Student, I get a free year of Amazon Prime, which allows me to have free two-day shipping. Yay.

So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah about my walk with God.

So the fourth thing was that I don't feel close to God. I like to call this the "Gummiberry Juice Dilemma," after an old episode of the kids' show Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears that I remember. In that, the character's dilemma is that she has the recipe for Gummiberry Juice, a juice that allows the Gummi Bears to bounce very high for a short time, in her head but needs to have it in her head AND her heart to make it the way her grandmother makes it. Only once she has it in both places is she able to make the juice successfully. In my case, I have all this knowledge about God in my head, but my heart, on the other hand, is lacking something. They always say "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship" and it's the heart-relationship thing I don't seem to have much, if any, of. I must've once because when I was a kid, I feel like I was much closer to God. Then again, I was more trusting then as well. I know I'm definitely less trusting now.

The fifth thing is somewhat related - I'm seriously lacking in Christian friends around me at the moment, thanks to not going to mid-week groups. I haven't met really any Christians at school other than the Chi Alpha people, and the girl in charge of that is one of those uber-happy people that rub me the wrong way. I don't know any Christians at work, and to be honest, I'm not very open about it at work. The closest thing I know is my friend and coworker Adam, who's a Reform Jew and not, it seems, very religious.

If anyone is even reading this, answer this question for me. Is it ok to not be one of those Christians who tries to witness to everyone they see, wants to pray with you about every little thing, and gets a little too over-happy when praising God for the good things? I hope so, because I can't see myself as one of those people, and frankly those sorts of Christians turn me off. If I ever were to witness to somebody (an opportunity which has not presented itself yet), I think I'd be more the "let me sit down and reason with you" type. Or, to borrow an analogy from one of my pastors, the type who takes you to Starbucks to have a chat over lattes (not that I would ever do that). Of course, we're supposed to share the gospel with everyone - as Christians, that's nonnegotiable. But the Bible also says to be prepared to defend the gospel when people ask. I don't think we're supposed to go up to strangers and beat them over the head with the Bible if they don't want us to. They'd think we're weirdos. Besides, most people have some inkling of what Christianity is and who God is and stuff thanks to living in this country - a survey project I did with a group in 12th grade where we asked people a few of the "big life questions" (where do you think you'll go when you die?, etc) more or less showed me that. (Overseas missionary situations, obviously, might be a little different).

The saying "Actions speak louder than words" applies here I think. Christ said that it is by us loving each other that people will know we're his disciples. He also asked in one of his final prayers (the one in John 17, sometimes called the "High Priestly Prayer") that his followers be united, an action. Also, Paul tells Timothy, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young. But set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity" (1 Timothy 4:12), a verse that seems to emphasize action. We have to earn the right to be heard by someone, right?

Maybe I'm just futilely trying to excuse my own inability to witness. It's not that I'm unwilling - it wouldn't matter if I was; we're commanded as Christians to do it. I just don't know how to go about it, and growing up in a sheltered Christian environment, I didn't really have practice. Yet I must have some capacity for it, because all Christians do, and also because I took a spiritual gifts test and my #2 gift (after Knowledge) was Missionary.

I think deep down this is why I hope to be able to witness through my writing, because I don't handle social situations well face-to-face and tend to ramble when I talk. But, as the CWCW so pointedly noticed, my current novel is a bit too straightforward in giving the message. To be honest, I was even a bit turned off by a book called Spirit Warrior, written by a local author, because its message of Christianity seemed too blatantly spelled out, to the point that it stuck out from the story instead of being integrated into it, much the way moral lessons were in old literature that suffered from the "Dear Reader" syndrome. (I did keep the book, btw, mainly because it's autographed by the author). Books like Kerry Nietz's Darktrench Trilogy, on the other hand, integrates a Christian message into the story that develops gradually in the consciousness of the not-quite-human protagonist, a character brought up in a futuristic Earth enveloped in the rule of strict Islamic law. Much more subtle case there.

Speaking of my novel, I'm seriously thinking of not getting it critiqued in the CWCW anymore. I've realized that at the rate that is going, along with the page limit on what we can share, my CSUSM career will be over before we've finished critiquing half of it. Plus, after the negative reaction to the strongly Christian chapter mentioned above, I realized that perhaps this isn't the best audience for this work (though they do point out good things in terms of general writing, such as awkward sentences or paragraphs). I'm going to try it out on the online critique group for the San Diego Christian Writers Guild instead, as well as a group called Anamalous Sandbox, run by a guy from the Anomaly, a Christian speculative fiction forum I'm a part of. It may be a while before I do this, because I'm almost done with the first draft, and once I finish it, I want to put it away and forget about it for a while before I revise. (I still need to find a good place to hide it).

I also need a new start in terms of YouTube video and website making. I hope that I can get into the Photoshop class I put myself on the waitlist for; I managed to get into the Flash class (which I was also waitlisted for) because the teacher sent me a permission number. Learning Photoshop and Flash will greatly enhance my capabilities as a designer. Having worked my way through a basic-to-intermediate-level book on CSS, I want to learn advanced CSS (if it makes sense to do so) as well as the CSS3 additions, and then after that PHP. Those are goals for this year, late resolutions if you will.

As for YouTube video making, I haven't been doing it consistently for the last couple years. I'm going to finish the Dark Mercury Fandub Project because that project is nearly 4 years old and needs to be put to bed so it will stop haunting me. (It doesn't help that YouTube muted or deleted all the parts, resulting in me having to remake the whole series). I need to figure out exactly what kind of video maker I am. Do I really want to be a vlogger, or do I just want the popularity (and relative safety from getting pegged for unintentional copyright infringement)? To be honest, I attempted vlogging about my writing, using my cell phone for the videotaping, and I found myself with very little to say and what I did say seemed very scripted.

I have a better idea of what to do with my backup/solo fandub channel. While I want to keep doing SeraMyu songdubs as I have been doing, I'm also going to try to do more non-song fandubs, since I've noticed when looking at my videos by "most watched" that my top two most watched videos are my two non-song fandubs (my French fandub of "Garage Kids," the pilot for Code Lyoko, and my fandub of a scene from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne). I still want to do the fandub of Sailor Moon episode 46 that someone requested; I need to find the person who made me the extended "Carry On" for that because I've lost the mp3 for it. (Ok, just found him and sent him a PM through YouTube. Yay!). For those who don't know what I'm talking about, episode 46 of Sailor Moon features the final battle between the Sailor Senshi and their enemy Queen Beryl. In the original Japanese episode, a full version of the show's theme song "Moonlight Densetsu" played from the time Serenity opens her eyes to the time Beryl is destroyed. In the English dub version of this episode (which was extremely edited down), a much shorter song called "Carry On" was used instead. While I love "Moonlight Densetsu," "Carry On" is my favorite English dub song from Sailor Moon and so I wanted to use it instead, except that it's too short to cover the original scene. So I put out a call for someone to help me out with an extended version, and a YouTube user named codeblackhayate answered the call.

His video with the mix is still up. Check it out!

I feel better now having blogged about all this. Now it's late so I better get to bed because I have work tomorrow. Good night!

Oh, P.S. lately I've been getting into a series called Pretty Cure or Precure, watching the transformations and stuff like crazy on YouTube. And their newest series (called Suite Precure and due to start airing in early February) has music as its theme, which is awesome since I'm writing my own series about music-based magical girls right now. I don't know how I'm going to actually watch it as it airs, though, unless someone is fansubbing it. We'll see. Not much is known about it at this point; the only video we've seen of the new Precures is supposedly in trailers for the new Precure DX movie, due out in March. This is the best video I could find that show what the new Precures look like:

This video, which I just found tonight, shows all the transformations from Precure seasons two (Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart) through seven (the most recent season, HeartCatch Precure). The "Yes Precure 5" one (the one shown in the shot in the video window below) remind me of Tokyo Mew Mew with how they say "Metamorphose."

Ok I really need to go to bed now. Bye!

Need a New Start

2011-01-20T16:20:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted since Christmas. It's probably because right after Christmas I was preparing to go to ALA, and since then I've just been working a lot. This is the first day off I've had after 8 days straight of working.

Not much to say about ALA. Nobody recognized my cosplay. I told people it was fun and it was, but in many ways it was just like most large social gatherings I go to - I didn't know anybody, nobody knew me, and I was more concerned about what I wanted to do than actually trying to meet people (which had been a goal of mine for that con). The only person I had any sort of long conversation with was Gina Biggs, and that was because I was interviewing her.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood - I am a bit tired and I'm getting over being sick (I think I caught whatever bug is going around work, because a lot of people at work are sick). But the con just didn't meet my expectations. There were a lot more negatives than positives. I wrote a long feedback post about this on the ALA forum at cosplay.com already so I'd rather not go into it here.

I considered going to Anime Conji, a con they were promoting at ALA, which happens here in San Diego at the end of March. But I'm just not feeling it. The more I write about ALA the less I want to go to an anime con again, at the very least for a while. I may feel differently later. I'm still going to go to Comic-Con as usual, and probably the writers' conference again in September if, like last year, lack of money doesn't prevent me. But that may be it for me this year.

I am at, like a lot of people this time of year, in a state of contemplation about my life. Even more so I think for me because, assuming I get into this one class I still need to graduate that I'm waitlisted on, I'll be graduating from CSUSM this semester. I still have classes to take for my web design certificate (because I started that late and also wasn't able to take any classes for it last fall) but, Lord willing, I can be done with that by next spring - even sooner if I take a class or two this summer. (That depends on availability and on whether I'll want a break from school after this semester, which I probably will). I wonder if there's a way to get that certificate but not have to go through a second Mira Costa graduation ceremony (I went through one for my A.A. already). I'll have to ask.

Speaking of computers, I just watched The Social Network, a.k.a. the movie they made about how Facebook was founded. They portray Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's founder) as kind of a jerk and portray him as having stolen the idea for Facebook from these three guys who'd approached him about creating a site called HarvardConnection. The frame for the film is Zuckerberg's depositions for the two lawsuits filed against him in regards to Facebook - the lawsuit filed against him in 2004 by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narenda for stealing their website idea and the lawsuit filed against him in 2005 by Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's best friend who co-founded Facebook with him and Zuckerberg's roommate Dustin Moskovitz, after Zuckerberg diminished Saverin's stock holdings in Facebook to less than 1% as well as his influence in the company, which it seems largely went instead to Facebook's main investors, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Napster co-founder Sean Parker. The movie was all right but I had trouble believing that things were not overdramatized. I will say, though, the acting was good. Justin Timberlake, who I've never seen before in a movie (that I remember), does a good job playing Sean Parker.

At any rate, I'm planning to watch the other movie I got from Redbox - Ramona & Beezus - with my mom tonight because she really wanted to see it. So for now I'm just hanging out at home. I figured that since I'm getting over being sick I should rest a little. Tomorrow though I will probably go out. I'm going to order my textbooks tomorrow also as I have to wait till I get paid to order them, because my bank won't let me transfer money from my savings to my checking right now, since I seem to have reached the limit on how many transfers you can do between share accounts in a certain amount of time (probably a month). I had to transfer money from my line of credit just to give me a cushion when I went to enroll in the Flash class I was waitlisted for after the teacher sent me a permission number (Mira Costa requires that you pay the same day you enroll), and I really don't want to have to do that again.

(Now I owe more money toward my line of credit because it transferred money to cover my tithe, which automatically comes out of my account. Shoot).

So anyway, as I was saying, I'm in a state of contemplation about my life. And I do not like my life. I'm 26 years old and I live with my parents. I don't have my own place or my own car - I don't even have a driver's license. (And getting my license was a goal of mine for this winter break - which due to lack of money and having to work so much failed miserably). I'm working at a grocery store and I'm been in college since 2003 (almost EIGHT years) just trying to get a B.A. Some people spend 8 years trying to get a master's or become a doctor. Online, I am involved in a gazillion and one things and popular at none of them, which for some stupid reason really bothers me. It's like I can't feel like something I'm doing is worthwhile unless I get some recognition for it. And in my head I know that that is just the stupidest thing ever! Life is not about being popular, gosh dang it. Life is about leaving a legacy - doing something that matters for eternity. And although I know that, I have a hard time getting myself to believe it.

I think I was always wanting to be accepted one way or another, but when I was younger it didn't seem like such an issue. I think in high school I was okay with my small group of friends and with being different. Ok granted I did want more friends definitely. But I wasn't obsessed with the idea, as I seem to be now. What happened?

I think a lot of things happened. That teenage identity crisis that apparently skipped me in high school hit me in my college years. Finding out about my Asperger's didn't help; it was just something else I had to figure out how to deal with in my still emerging identity. When I started at Stater Brothers in 2007, my work schedule became so unpredictable that it was hard to plan anything, and my church attendance began to become less regular as I was forced to accomodate my work schedule, which sometimes required me to work on Sundays. After the first few months at Stater Brothers, I'd pretty much given up going to mid-week group, since schedule-wise it wasn't working too well for me or my parents (my chauffeurs to this group). I was kinda getting burned out with the college group anyway now that most of my friends had moved on. While I haven't given up on Christianity, I think it's become less and less dynamic by the year. I got burned out by InterVarsity and am not sure about Chi Alpha, the new Christian group I've only had the chance to go to once. InterVarsity seemed to be more about witnessing (not a strong point for me) than about strengthening those who were already Christian, and Chi Alpha seems to be more about hanging out then getting into the Bible (though they do have speakers, and I haven't been there when they had one).

But I know that God exists, and I believe that, and that is a big part of faith in God - as Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (ESV). And seeing the recent change in my brother since he got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ up at his school in San Luis Obispo makes me see that people can change, even after years of not really living for God. If he can change, I can change.

I want to change, but I hardly know where to begin. So many things are wrong with my Christian walk. For one, I'm not witnessing, nor have I ever to anyone. Sadly, I'm not one of those on-fire Christians who tries to talk about God to everyone I see or relate every topic to God. In fact, people who relate everything to God annoy me as much as people who are uber-happy do, maybe because they are often also uber-happy. I mean, there is nothing wrong with being really happy and joyous about being a Christian - more power to you if you are. You've got something I sure as heck don't have. But people who are just TOO happy annoy me, I think because they don't seem real.

Secondly, I have next to no prayer life, and I don't really know what is the best way to pray. Almost all the time when I pray I feel like I'm talking to the ceiling.

Thirdly, I don't feel like I'm getting much from the Bible, other than the occasional moment of insight where a verse stands out. I'm still stuck on the Old Testament and how much of it applies to us. In a recent sermon from North Coast that I listened to via podcast, they said that the Old Testament laws don't apply to Christians unless they're repeated in the New Testament. They're meant to show us we can't measure up to God's standards and thus we need a Savior. I guess that makes sense, but why am I still stuck then on the idea that I must somehow apply the laws in Leviticus or the genealogies in 1 Chronicles to my life?

On the other hand, there are some great stories in the Old Testament that have lessons for us today, from the patriarchs all the way through. I've always found great insight from the Psalms and also Proverbs to a lesser extent. In the last few months, as I was finishing up the "Read-the-Bible-in-a-Year" thing again in my ESV Bible, I found verses jumping out at me in some of the prophetic books - Isaiah particularly - in words written to be heard by people either in exile or about to be.

Right now I'm using this devotional I bought called Faithbook of Jesus. I'm not sure about it because it just dives right in, with nothing on how you're supposed to use it. So I'm confused. It gives you verses to read for each devotional, but they're often just a few verses, which makes me feel like I'm spending less time in my quiet time than I was when I was reading whole chapters of the Bible for my read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan.

Fourthly, I just am not feeling close to God at all. There is no deeper connection there, it's pretty much all mental, with maybe the basest level of non-mental connection. And it's sad.

Ok my laundry's beeped like five times, and I'm hungry. Maybe I should continue this later.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

We all got up around 6:30am to open presents, since my aunt (who was in town for a couple days from Vegas) was coming around 7:30. After presents, we ate breakfast - a full breakfast, not just Pillsbury Orange Rolls like we traditionally do - and then we talked and stuff and my dad and my aunt messed around on Google Earth for a while.

Anyway, time for the typical present list I put up here for Christmas:

-Black sweater (early gift)
-Black casual pants
-Dark wash jeans
-Orange baseball cap with flowers & butterfly
-$50 cash
-Gold clip bookmark with black cross and cloisonné detail (I think it's cloisonné, anyway)
-Triangular highlighter
-2 packs of the Write Dudes ballpoint pens
-3-pack of Pokémon TCG booster packs, HS Triumphant set (with special Porygon holo & a game coin)
-Allscripts pedometer
-NLT Manga Bible (see the box and the cover below)

-Jones New York in the Classroom T-shirt (that's a model wearing it btw, not me)

-Style & co. blue T-shirt w/ faux white layering (i.e., it looks like you have another shirt on underneath, but you really don't)

-The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader Aslan poster

-Godiva Gems box (I got Dark Chocolate originally, but I swapped with my dad for Milk Chocolate since we all got Godiva Gems boxes from my aunt)

-Starburst Sweet Game Book

-Two packs of "wedgie free" underwear (it actually says "wedgie free" on the package. I'm not making that up)

-2-pack of Volumes 1-2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender Book I: Water

-Glass Coca-Cola cup

-Light green pajama set with pink trim and cute white sheep on it

-Various mini candy - Mini Milky Way, Mini Milky Way Midnight, Mini Twix, Mini 3 Musketeers

-Fluffy peach-colored robe

-1 Fry's Turkish Delight

(yep, Turkish Delight exists! I'm glad, because trying to make it yourself is ridiculously hard; trust me, I tried)

-1 roll of Mentos, mint (original) flavor

-Timbuk2 Villiage Violet/Barley Nylon Kindle Envelope Sleeve

(I got an Amazon Kindle for my birthday, and now I have a case! No more worrying about it breaking in my backpack)

-GelaSkins Little Red Kindle skin

(this shows it on the Kindle, mine didn't come that way obviously)

-Movie clapboard keychain

-Black headphones

-Trader Joe's 73% Belgian Dark Chocolate Non-Pareils

(It's become a yearly tradition that I get non-pareils for Christmas. I used to always get a Life Savers Story Book too, but that didn't happen this year. It's ok though because they only do the Life Savers Story Book now with the Gummy Life Savers, which aren't as good as the classic hard ones).

***

We had a smaller Christmas this year - since none of us had much money - so there were fewer presents, but that's ok. Somehow, I don't mind so much. Having pants - and especially jeans - that fit is great, as lately the only pair of jeans I've had is this pair I got at Torrid (a store for plus size women that is cool but SUPER expensive) that is a size too big and keeps slipping down because I don't have any belts to wear with it. I don't know why I bought the wrong size jeans; I think the day I bought them the clerks brought stuff to me in the dressing room, so I wasn't paying attention. The Kindle case was much needed; I was constantly worried when I took it to school in my backpack that the screen would break. The skin I got for it was a surprise, though I had been looking at them online; it is really cool actually. It kinda goes with my floral-design iPod case too.

The Manga Bible was really cool. While I don't need another Bible (I own 4 already - my old NIV Bible that I had to tape the cover back onto, a KJV one in leather that my friend Emily gave me, the paperback ESV Life Recovery Bible that I got from this guy who I'd helped at Loaves and Fishes and told that I was looking for a good Bible, and the ESV Study Bible I got from my parents for I think last Christmas), this one is kinda unique with the cover and the manga pages. Unlike the initial Manga Bible that came out when I was at Loaves and Fishes (this one, I think), this one has not just manga representations of Bible stories but the whole text of the Bible as well. And the manga part is done by NEXTmanga, which (according to their website) employs actual Japanese artists. It shows - the art is really well done, very manga-like, and surprisingly accurate (Jesus and his disciples are shown reclining on the floor at the Last Supper, which is what they would've done for a meal in first-century Israel, and in Eden the serpent is shown more like a lizard, with arms and legs, which is what many scholars think it looked like since it was specifically cursed by God after the Fall to slither on its belly in the dust). The translation is the NLT, which is great because I used to have an NLT Bible back in I think junior high and I really liked it. It's one of the "dynamic equivalent" translations (meaning a translation translated more so you can understand the concepts rather than translating word-for-word; "dynamic equivalent" is the geeky industry term for that which I had to learn when I worked at Loaves and Fishes), but that's ok. It also has a dictionary/concordance in the back and a list of "Great Verses to Memorize" (which is good because I was going to try to memorize more Scripture anyway).

Gah I need to stop eating these Mentos. But they're soooo good. Though if we had some Diet Coke I'd be tempted to sacrifice a few for a scientific test, Eepybird style. (Although Mythbusters already tested this scientifically).

(For those who have no clue what I'm hinting at here, stop reading and check out the video below)

I ate the whole thing of Mentos. I'm bad.

I'm still trying to plan websites. I'm blanking on names for my website collective (I figured out that's what I want as a personal site/domain hub) and for my anime/manga guides site. I tried to brainstorm, but to no avail.

We might go to a movie today, it's up in the air. Speaking of which, something else is apparently up in the air - I could end up going back to bakery department. Jose, our new manager, hinted as much to me either yesterday or the day before. It would definitely be better than bagging. Nothing's for sure on that though. Not yet, anyway.

I'm bored. I may watch my neglected videos of the Project for Awesome live show or my new Avatar: The Last Airbender DVD's. Later!

Short Thoughts Before Going to Bed - Christmas Eve Eve

2010-12-24T00:24:00.000-08:00

This has been a crazy week. I went from not a ton of work hours to full shifts every day, and it's a big switch. Plus, it's Christmas week, so there's lots of anticipation and suspense. It doesn't help that Christmas is on the weekend, so you have to wait the whole dang week for it.

But...*deep exhale* It's Christmas Eve Eve (and will be Christmas Eve in about half an hour, as it's about 11:30pm as I write this). Only one more day of work before Christmas. Yay!

I know I need to go to bed because I have to get up early to go to work, but thanks to the WAY too many sodas I had today, I am still very awake. But I'm restless too...I couldn't even make myself sit through the four 40-minute videos making up the live show of the Project for Awesome (an annual project headed by John and Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers where they essentially "hack" YouTube by posting all these videos to increase awareness of charity organizations) or through the 2-hour-long first part of Alice (a Syfy miniseries where they imagine how Wonderland might've changed in 143 years...I've never seen it, but I've read about it - it's a weird, kinda dystopian take on the story, not unlike the previous Syfy series Tin Man, which did more or less the same thing with The Wizard of Oz), which my dad recorded because he thought I'd like it.

This morning I marked pages for further study in The Web Designer's Idea Book, which I checked out once again from the library when I went there yesterday to return a few books. Though it was published two years ago (and thus may be slightly out of date), I still think this book is awesome. It gives five different ways of categorizing websites: by type, by design style, by theme, by color, and by element, and gives examples for all of them. It's a great reference. If I end up actually getting through my web design certificate in one piece and becoming a designer, I'm going to get it as something to keep with me.

Speaking of computer books, when I went to Barnes and Noble to Christmas shop yesterday, I ended up getting a book for myself too. It's called The CSS Pocket Guide, and it looks like it's by the same people who made the similar pocket guide I got for the iPod and iTunes. I thought it was cool because quick references to CSS don't seem very common. Also, this book covers CSS3 in depth, and as I haven't had a chance to really explore CSS3, this book will be useful. I plan to try to improve my CSS skills over winter break. I checked out two books for this purpose from the library. I tried to renew them both (since I hadn't used them yet) but there's a hold on one of them so I'm going to have to either do a marathon session of the lessons in that book or put it off till later.

My refund check from school came today. It was $1,800! Woohoo! The reason it's so big (and why I already have it so soon after the most recent semester ended) is because due to some reevaluation of my financial aid eligibility I got approved for another grant, one I'd received the last two years but didn't get this last semester. These grants are applied to the whole academic year, so while it was applied to next semester (spring), it was also applied retroactively to this semester (fall). But since I already paid for fall (with my Pell Grant, which covered some of my tuition and fees, and a tuition payment plan, which I recently paid off), the money from that grant isn't needed for fall, so it gets refunded to me. (The rest of the money from the grant - minus the $1,800 they sent me - will go toward covering me for spring). Normally, I get a refund check from the school for the difference between what tuition and fees cost and how much the grant is worth, if there is any difference (generally these checks have been around $600). I may still get that check as well, depending on how my aid for spring works out. Then there's the scholarship I applied for from Sigma Tau Delta. I don't know if I got it yet, but if it ends up that my grants cover everything and I don't need the scholarship, I don't know what I'm going to do if I end up winning it.

At any rate, it looks highly likely that I will graduate college without any school debts. Very few people can say that. I might even graduate with honors - I've had almost straight A's so far at Cal State, except for two B's (in History of Foreign Policy, a class I took for no real reason other than interest, and in LTWR 465, which was a hard class anyway) and a C+ (in Human Heredity, because the class was so dang hard and my group kept failing the quizzes and tests - group quizzes are a bad idea anyway). I got almost all A's at Mira Costa too, with a few exceptions - three C's, a D (in Sociology, because I missed a bunch of assignments), a couple "no credits" (in P.E. because I didn't finish all the hours and in Legal Environment of Business because I dropped it), one F (in College Algebra), and 13 B's.

Ok given that I was totally tired tonight (and yet also too awake due to drinking too much soda thanks to our Christmas potluck at work), I will have to wrap my presents on Christmas Eve after all. Oh well.

Ok it's getting late and I'm just rambling at the moment. I should stop. Good night.

Oh and apparently my "blogoversary" came and went on the 14th. My blog is now officially 6 years old. Happy birthday, blog!

A Rainy Christmas Season

2010-12-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. It's four days before Christmas and it's raining buckets here in "sunny" California. It's been raining fairly consistently for five days. It's driving me nuts. I don't like rain AT ALL. Rainy weather makes me feel sleepy and depressed. Plus, having to get carts from the parking lot in the rain is NOT FUN. They have a poncho for us to wear, but it's useless. It's somehow gotten torn on the bottom and the hood won't stay on. Plus, I have to put my hair down in a ponytail in order to get my head through the head hole of the poncho, and risk having my hairtie slip off. (It actually did the first time I wore that poncho. I had to put my hair up with a rubber band for the rest of my shift, which does work but hurts a lot when you try to take the rubber band out). To top it all off, I'm quite certain I left my umbrella - the nice one I JUST bought - on the bus this morning. I'm going to try to track it down at the bus lost and found, but that's probably not too promising.

At least I'm off tomorrow. I have to finish Christmas shopping, but as my mother said we were going to not buy as many gifts this year (since none of us has a ton of money), I don't have a lot to get. I bought the rest of the stocking stuffers today - all stuff from my work. (Grocery stores are resourceful places for things if you really look around. I remember a challenge on HGTV Design Star - I think it was the infamous "White Box" challenge - where they had to only use stuff they could get at a grocery store as decoration, minus the provided paint, furniture, and tools). Now I just need both of my dad's gifts for under the tree and one gift for my brother for under the tree (I bought the other one already). Then I need to wrap the stuff going under the tree. Nothing I bought is super huge except this one gift I bought for my mom. (I'm purposefully being vague about the gifts in case anyone in my family reads this blog). Plus we have quite a lot of wrapping paper so I don't really need to buy more, plus I still have gift tags left over from last year that I added to our storage bench full of gift stuff. Other than shop - which I can probably do all at two stores - I'm going to return a few library books and also probably go get my umbrella if Lost and Found does happen to have it. I just hope it doesn't rain too hard - my iPod weather thing is now saying it's going to THUNDERSTORM tomorrow. Dang. Scary.

Speaking of weather things, did anybody see the lunar eclipse this morning? It happened on the day of the winter solstice too, which is really unusual. Astronomers say it's very rare for that to happen. Just watched an AP video about it - the last time a total lunar eclipse happened on the winter solstice was in 1638! That was 372 years ago. Wow. I admit I did not see the eclipse. I'm not the sort who gets up pre-dawn to see eclipses and meteor showers and the like, though I do like astronomy. I would have to go to the mountains to see this stuff anyway.

Fortunately, I am no longer required to call the number for my federal jury duty instructions. I had rescheduled my service to this week, but when I called last night, I got this message: "Your jury service is over. You are no longer required to call this number." Just verified this online as well. Kinda weird, but a nice surprise for Christmas at least. I don't know why they would have on-call jury service to begin with.

I've been reading bits and pieces of magazines when I come down too early to clock in for work or from lunch. I read some of Nintendo Power (whose latest issue's cover is devoted to Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded), some of Sparkle World (a magazine meant for girls ages 3-8 that has stuff from the Disney Princesses, Rainbow Magic, Polly Pocket, etc), and some of a special edition magazine made about Prince William of England and his new bride-to-be, Kate Middleton. I admit I have sort of been following their story through the magazine headlines and such, maybe because I used to have a crush on Prince William. Also, I watched a documentary about "Wills and Kate" (as they're called) that my mother recorded.

I've found you can follow a news story simply from the headlines on magazines at the grocery store checkstand, because with the stories that make the cover of People, OK!, Life & Style, etc., nothing is truly exclusive. You will see some variation of the same headline on every one of those magazines. Like this week the news is the new Teen Moms, the supposed budding romance of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (Edward and Bella in Twilight), and the miracle pregnancy in the Kardashian family. Oh and Tom and Katie appear to have "separated." (Good for them).

Speaking of Twilight, I finished reading the second book in the series (New Moon) - which I finally was able to get from the library after months of checking - not too long ago. Despite New Moon being 563 pages long, I finished it in like 3 days (about the same time it took me to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). It was more fast-paced than book one, which helped the story along immensely. Also, it was nice to see Bella on her own for a good portion of the book. I like Bella. Edward I don't care for. As my friend Jessica said to me recently, he's intense. But Bella I can relate to - I mean, you should see how much this girl talks about literature. It's actually cool. Bella Swan is a very smart girl. She could totally go on to college and have a successful life. And yet she wants to become a vampire and stay a teenager forever with the intense, a-bit-too-perfect Edward? Is she out of her mind? I mean, granted, she loves the guy. He loves her too - after all, he goes and tries to get permission to die when he thinks she's thrown herself off a cliff. But honestly?

Fortunately, Bella is a bit more sane in New Moon, and I think this is largely due to the increasing role of her childhood friend Jacob Black. He's a cool guy who likes Bella for who she is. Bella seems actually like a normal person around him. Granted, Jacob turns into a not-so-human character later on in New Moon (I'm not going to spoil that), but for some reason I'm more ok with that than with Edward being a vampire. Maybe because I already encountered that in Harry Potter with Professor Lupin. And as Jacob says in the Eclipse trailer (which, thanks to TV spots, I think I've seen at least 50 times), Bella wouldn't have to change who she is if she went with him rather than Edward. I would like that better.

So, basically, I'm "Team Jacob," as the Twilight fandom calls it. Though I'm not completely anti-vampire - I like Alice and Carlisle Cullen quite a lot. Just not Edward. Maybe cause Alice and Carlisle are more controlled? I mean, Edward seems so...passionate I guess, like you know that at any moment he could totally bite Bella because gosh darnit her blood smells so dang good (but of course he's afraid of sentencing her soul to eternal hell). He should just take some of that synthetic blood stuff they take on True Blood, for goodness' sake, or the blood pills the vampires take in the anime Vampire Knight.

The Volturi were interesting. I'm kinda curious as to what the heck Jane's power is. In the scene with them we learn that Bella's thoughts are immune to even the power Aro (the head of the Volturi) has. (We already know she's immune to Edward's telepathy).

Oh dang, it's midnight already. I'm going to stop here and get some rest.

Katie the Little Jedi, Web site reflection

2010-12-12T16:22:00.000-08:00

I read a sad story today about a little girl named Katie who was bullied at school for having a Star Wars water bottle. The bullies told her Star Wars was for boys, not girls.

Thankfully, Katie's mom blogged about this, and Katie's been getting a ton of support, even official merchandise from the people behind Star Wars: The Clone Wars and special made-for-girls Star Wars gear from Her Universe, a community for female sci-fi fans run by Ashley Eckstein, the voice actress for Ahsoka Tano (Anakin's padawan in Clone Wars). [That's Ahsoka on the left].

I'm glad this story is turning out well for Katie. But it raises the issue of bullying once again, just as the recent "gay student suicides" did. I think that there is nothing wrong with a girl being into geeky things. But then, I am a geeky girl. However, I remember being teased as a kid for being different too, so I feel for Katie. Poor thing. May the Force be with Katie (as the Twitter hashtag her supporters are using says).

I think this bullying comes from a fear of difference. Popular marketing writer and blogger Seth Godin talks about this a lot, usually using the idea of the lizard brain vs. linchpins/tribes. Even Star Wars itself suggests this; I'm thinking particularly of Yoda's line in Episode I, where he warns the young Anakin Skywalker about fear: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." And, not surprisingly, it is fear that ultimately leads Anakin to embrace the Dark Side - Anakin is afraid because he's been having dreams that Padmé is going to die, and Palpatine promises to help him prevent this. Palpatine's infamous order in Episode III to kill the Jedi (known to Star Wars fans as "Order 66") is also an example of hate of difference in Star Wars.

While bullying can't be 100% stopped - after all, we're all born with a nature that tempts us to sin - I'm glad that it's becoming an issue in a way, because now maybe measures will be taken to deal with it. It's like the whole childhood obesity crisis, another issue that's being dealt with years after it initially arose. The publicity that's getting is prompting people to do something about it. It's all really a matter of educating people. Even the Bible says this when talking about preaching the Gospel: "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'" (Romans 10:12-15, ESV).

People say we need tolerance. But how exactly that's defined is a fine line. It's been used in this postmodern way to suggest we need to tolerate everyone because no one should judge anybody else's way of living. I think we need acceptance more than tolerance. I could tolerate you if you annoy me, but that's different than acceptance. Acceptance means that I accept you, with all your eccentricities. Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter is an excellent example of this. Even though she knew people thought she was weird, she embraced her weirdness and was still nice to everyone. Of course, someone's lifestyle shouldn't make you hate them anyway (the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" principle). For instance, while I don't approve of homosexuality, that's most likely not why I don't have any homosexual friends (that I know about, that is). I probably don't have homosexual friends because the ones that are really open about it annoy me. These are usually those overly effeminate men - lesbians seem to be less overt.

Ok maybe I should stop talking about this now. Here's some articles about the Katie story:
*****

Okay, moving on.

Last time I posted about website plans. I did some thinking about it and this is what I have determined:

I had said I want a personal site/domain hub. What I realized is that I should do a site collective. Basically a site collective is a launching place for all the sites branching off from a certain domain. Most people do it with fanlistings, but regular site collectives exist as well. Most webmasters of site collectives put a little bit about themselves on these sites as well, so it could kinda serve two purposes.

After reading the personal site case study in Building Web Sites for Dummies: All-in-One Desk Reference and some online articles about types of websites, I realized that my idea of a "personal site" was slightly off. They're really for promoting businesses, like with the cellist in the case study, or for posting photos and such to share with friends and family, like the example website in the kids' book I taught myself HTML out of. So my writing site really is a personal site, since it is meant to market me as an author. So that's a relief to know.

As for the anime guides site, maybe having something like Screen It would be too much to start with. Having the episode/manga guides would be good, and then maybe start out with a basic little info area for parents, with something like The Librarian's Guide to Anime and Manga. Or maybe just a list of resources? I'm not sure since I'm not a parent myself and I don't know any otaku that are (except Elly-san and maybe my best friend Amy, though I'm not sure she's still into anime). And I still don't know what the guides site will be called; I initially was going to call it WindKnightFuu's Anime and Manga Guides (my YouTube backup account username came from this) but that sounded kinda stupid, and the proposed URL (wkfguides.bibliogirl.net) didn't sound right. (I was afraid people would think of WTF).

I had also been worrying about hosting, but today in church, I remembered HomeWithGod, a Christian web hosting service I once had a site with. They do domain registration there now. They also have a search engine, though I'd probably submit it to Google first. If I can think of a good domain name, it could be a possibility. I think they're even cheaper than GoDaddy. Then there's DreamHost, which a lot of people use; I don't know if it's any good though.

Not really anything else to say at this point. I should be working on homework but I'm really tired all the sudden. I did get an outline written for my final paper for Lit Theory and sent it to my teacher to see what she thinks, and I got the last two plays for Drama class read, but so far that's it. Maybe I'll do something else for a bit and have more energy later. Not sure though.

Website plans, again

2010-12-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I keep posting about my plans for websites. But I find that this blog is a good place to work out ideas.

My main enigma is my personal site, which was originally at bibliogirl.net. One error I made there was that I forgot the e-mail account I had tied to that domain also disappeared, and my main YouTube account was tied to it, so now I can’t login to the account. Yet, I don’t know how you change the e-mail address your YouTube account is tied to. I can’t change it to my primary e-mail because I think one of my previously suspended accounts was tied to that e-mail. I guess I must have some kind of Google dashboard that I can change it at. But I was able to get into that account before yesterday, so maybe it was just a glitch.

Anyway, my personal site/domain hub is on the back burner right now, as I don’t know what to do with it. I imagine if I go through with my web design certificate and complete it, I’ll want to have a portfolio site of sorts. I imagine I’ll be doing that in the Portfolio Development class I have to take for the certificate. (I just realized I don’t have my work from last semester, because I lost all my old college work when I was forced to format my flash drive. Shoot! But I might have the final stuff for my e-commerce class still in my author site folder, and the MAT 135 Ning might still have my graphic design stuff, but I doubt it). But the idea I initially had for bibliogirl.net was of a personal rather than a professional nature. I just can’t figure out how to go about it. I thought about doing a site offering translation or transcription services, since I have experience in both though I’m not licensed or certified in either. Again, though, that seems more business than personal. I may have to do some research. I’ll look at the personal site case study too in the Building Web Sites for Dummies: An All-in-One Desk Reference book I got from the library a couple days ago.

So my main sites right now are my writing site and Myu Corner. My writing site’s fine, though it needs some updating, and I need to do something about the Javascript I put in so that I could avoid having to manually change the “updated on” date on every single page every time I updated the site (I have to do this because every page has the same basic layout coding; only the content is different), since it updates every time someone refreshes the page, which is not what I want. I also realized I need to make the most recent documents I put up on Scribd excerpts like the others.

Myu Corner hasn’t been updated since the end of October. Since I got busy with school and was constantly being late with the Song of the Week feature, I decided I needed a break. I also need to reevaluate the mission of the site in light of the feedback I got from the Miss Dream forum. Do I want it to continue to be a comprehensive information site, or do I want to zero in on something, like the omake segments or character info? At any rate, I’ll have to change up the navigation situation so it is less confusing. I like having the navigation on the top, but maybe I can make more of a banner with navigation integrated into it. As for displaying updates, I need to figure out how to do that. Maybe I’ll need a Content Management System, as I said before. I could do them by hand, but I tried that and it didn’t look good.

As for other sites – ones I haven’t made yet – there are a few of these. One is Sparkle Moon, a site about PGSM (the Sailor Moon live-action series) and the sister site of Myu Corner. I have the content all planned out and even have most of the character profiles written already. I just need to actually make the site. I am unsure of what sort of layout it will have at this point. I do know for sure that it will be information-centric and that I am going to try to start some sort of community around it if I can garner enough interest in it. The main draw of the site is going to be transcripts, but there will also be a “creative” section for creative things inspired by the series, such as recipes (which Elly-san has graciously offered to provide for me; I will make this open to others as well). If I can figure out how to do the sort of table-esque side navigation that Kirari-PGSM and Serebii.net have, that would be good. I think when I peeked at the code for Kirari-PGSM it was pretty basic.

I have had troubles making fanlistings thanks to Enthusiast, the PHP fanlisting management code that EVERYONE uses for their fanlistings nowadays. But I definitely intend to go ahead with my Pokémon Ranger series fanlisting, which I can do now that three games have been released (a game series has to have had three or more games released for you to have a “series” fanlisting, according to The Fanlistings Network’s rules). It will have basic info about the games, as well a walkthrough for each of the games. I considered resurrecting one of my old fanlistings Memory of Time, a fanlisting for the anime series Fancy Lala, but now I’m thinking I won’t.

Other than this, I’ve planned to resurrect two of my old character shrines: Liquid Mercury (which was, among other things, my first and only Geocities site), my Sailor Mercury shrine, and Ayeka’s Palace, my old shrine to Ayeka from Tenchi Muyo. I’ve started remaking Liquid Mercury using a very nice premade layout from Manga Angels. Generally, I like to have as much control over the layout as possible, doing all the coding and such. But since the site is primarily content-centric, I decided to go for using a premade layout. I got anxious about it though, to be honest. But now, I realize it’s something worth trying. If I don’t like it, I can change it once I know more about doing layouts. As for the content, I have a lot more content available to me than I did back around 2000 when I first created Liquid Mercury, now that I know about the musicals and the live-action series. But I am going all-out as far as video clips go, even including video game clips (if Maraviollantes of Sailorvgame.org, the ultimate site on the Sailor Moon video games and the source of pretty much all my clips and video game book scans, will let me do so).

Ayeka’s Palace I need to decide on a direction on. Fortunately, there is only one other Ayeka shrine on the web – The Ayeka Fan Club – and they haven’t updated since 2007. I suppose I could go for a similar info/media focus like Liquid Mercury. Or I could do something different. I did consider a sort of blog-in-character approach, where I post blogs pretending to be Ayeka. I guess I should watch more of the series before I decide; I really haven’t seen as much of Tenchi as I have of Sailor Moon.

I'd also like to do a general anime and manga guides site, a sort of way of fulfilling my long-held desire to create a site encompassing my whole anime and manga interest. (Makes me think of Freud - was it Freud? - and how he said literature is a wish-fulfillment). I'm thinking this will consist of basic guides and info, as well as maybe a section for parents with something akin to Screen It!, that site that has guides to movies for parents to look at and see what their kids are really watching. Probably I'd build it with Wordpress or something to make building a community easier. I considered a wiki, but I'm too baffled by the wiki-making process to even try.

I’d also like to go forward with my two stories about magic that aren’t specifically Christian-based. I know, sounds awful, doesn’t it? Heresy! But I got inspired to write two stories – one a sort of “otaku senshi” series about a group of music-based magical girls from a long-ago kingdom in the constellation Lyra, and the other a series called “Enchanted Supermarket” that is meant to be part memoir in that the stories will mostly be based off my real experiences working at a supermarket but will feature a supermarket run by a group of people who come from a magical land (tentatively called “The Archlands”) and run the store as a cover so they can investigate the activities of this evil prince who’s trying to destroy them. The main character’s name is Alice (who, I admit, I probably named after Alice Cullen, Edward Cullen’s precognitive “sister,” since I came up with the character names for this series right after reading the first Twilight book…which reminds me, I finally was able to get my hands on a copy of New Moon, which has been checked out of every public library in the county system since the summer. I had a librarian request it for me, and lo and behold they were able to get it). She has powers over both wind and time, and her power object is this “windglass,” kinda like an hourglass, that she wears around her neck. (I guess it would kind of look like the Time Turner prop from the 3rd Harry Potter film). Kinda like the kid from Sky High (great movie btw), her parents are the strongest magical people in The Archlands, the Windsinger and the Timeweaver. Unfortunately, the evil prince has them locked up in his dungeon. I haven’t developed it much more than that because I’ve been focused on my novel and, more lately, on the music-based senshi series. I will probably base the characters on some of my coworkers, and as I said, most of the stories will be inspired by real events.

Anyway, I may make mini-sites to feature these two stories. I had envisioned “Enchanted Supermarket” as a webcomic, but again the lack of artistic skill on my part is a snag in that regard. The other story, called “Music Land Maestress,” I already have plans to make a site for. I even started doing profiles for the senshi characters, using the templates from a great site called Create Your Own Otaku Senshi, which walks you through all the steps needed to complete the templates, along with a lot of other useful things.

So I have a lot of sites planned, and doing them could take a lot of work. I would like to try to pick up where I left off with my web design certificate next spring (a lack of money prevented me from taking classes this semester, and it’s just as well), if I can take it. If I can do that, and if I take a class or two in the summer, hopefully I can have it finished within a year of getting my B.A. That would be good. I could hang onto my current job for another year, I think. I'm going to try to do some self-education over winter break as well, using the two other books I found at the library -- Hands-On Design: CSS Web Site Design and HTML Dog: The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML & CSS -- both books intended for CSS newbies like myself.

Okay, I’m kinda tired, and I’ve been writing out this post in Word intermittently for two days, so I’m going to end here. Good night!

Secret menus

2010-12-06T23:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I found this amusing article about secret menus at a number of restaurants, so I thought I'd write about it.

First up, Arby's:

•Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich - This spin on the cordon bleu is a chicken breast with a piece of ham on top of it with melted Swiss cheese.

•Wet Fries - Hot fries smothered in cheese sauce.

•French Dip – This is a classic Arby’s menu item that is off most menu’s but can still be ordered.

Ok first of all, the idea of ham with cheese does not appeal to me AT ALL. I strongly dislike ham. And that on top of chicken?! Ew.

The "wet fries" sound kinda like the "animal-style" fries at In-n-Out (more on that later) or like any other kind of cheese fries. At any rate, I like my Arby's fries just the way they are, thank you very much.

Now, I'm surprised that they don't have a French Dip on every Arby's menu seeing as they specialize in roast beef sandwiches. I mean, a French Dip is like the quintessential roast beef sandwich. I seem to recall seeing it on the menu at least one Arby's though. But I guess you can still order it anyway.

Next up is sandwich chain Blimpie:

•Cheese Trio - This sandwich is a no meat alternative to the normal Blimpie sandwiches, and combines three different types of cheese.

To be honest, I've never been to Blimpie (I'm not sure they even exist out here). I'm not sure why you'd want a sandwich with no meat, unless of course you're a vegetarian (or have some other dietary restriction - for instance those who eat kosher can not eat certain meats, either at all or combined with other menu items). But to pile on the cheese instead doesn't sound like a great alternative.

Next, Burger King:

•Mustard Whopper - This is a normal Whopper with one difference, mustard is spread onto the sandwich instead of mayo.

•Veggie Whopper - A great alternative for vegetarians who love the flavor of Burger King, the beef is substituted for with a veggie patty.

•BLT - A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich that comes in either a small or medium size.

•Ham and Cheese - A classic sandwich option that you can have served either hot or cold.

•Frings - An order of frings will split your French fry order with onion rings.

•Suicide Burger - This is a large burger including four meat patties, four slices of cheese, bacon and special sauce.

•Rodeo Burger - A burger assembled with onion rings and bbq sauce on it.

•BK Club - This sandwich is the Original chicken sandwich with bacon, tomato, and cheese.

Ok, starting with the Mustard Whopper. I wasn't aware that the Whopper didn't usually come with mustard. Pretty much every fast food burger there is comes with mustard. But hey, if you like your mustard, go for it.

I applaud Burger King for offering a veggie patty option though. I don't eat there often, but I will say that their burger patties are pretty greasy. Maybe this is because I get the Double Stack (that small burger that's combo #11 or something like that).

The BLT confuses me, but then again not many fast food chains have BLTs, so it's nice that they offer it.

Ham and cheese I have already condemned above.

Frings has got to be the weirdest portmanteau I've ever seen. So with this I guess you get half French fries, half onion rings? Like how when my dad orders double rice for his side at Mexican restaurants?

The "Suicide Burger" is probably named that for good reason. Generally, I avoid anything with more than two burger patties on it. Plus it has bacon to boot, and cheese. And sauce! Totally not good for you.

The Rodeo Burger I don't quite get. They don't already have a burger with onions and BBQ sauce?

I could've sworn I'd seen the BK Club somewhere before, like on the actual menu. Maybe I was wrong. Still, one should really not put cheese on chicken. Tomatoes and bacon are one thing, but cheese and chicken just should not go together.

Next, a fave of mine, Chick-Fil-A:

Fried Club - This is their normal club sandwich with the fried chicken substituted for the grilled chicken.

I wasn't aware they even had a grilled chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A (I usually just get their regular chicken sandwich), but then again who doesn't these days? I guess the Fried Club is a way for people who would normally order this grilled chicken sandwich to cheat a bit on their diet.

Next up, Chili's.

Chili – This food is the name sake of the company, so even though it has been off the menu for many years they will still make you a bowl of chili if you request it.

I find it terribly ironic that a place called "Chili's" does not actually serve chili.

Next, PotterCast host John Noe's favorite restaurant, Chipotle:

Chipolte will make you any combination of ingredients they have available to them. Listed below are some of the favorites.
•Nachos - Made with tortilla chips, your choice of salsa and meat, beans, and topped with a layer of cheese.

•Quesadilla - These come in two sizes, the children’s size which is made with two soft taco shells layered with your choice of fillings, or the full size which is a normal burrito tortilla folded in half with your choice of fillings. You can get a side of salsa or sour cream for no additional charge with these.

•Quesorito – A quesadilla with any of the fillings used in a burrito, rolled together and baked in the tortilla warmer. This is a crispier version of a quesadilla.

I find it strange that a Mexican restaurant would not have nachos and quesadillas on their menu, but then again they do mostly focus on burritos at Chipotle. A quesorito actually sounds like it could be good. Another article states that you can also try to get taco salads and single tacos at Chipotle, and that some locations are trying out quesadillas as a regular menu item.

Next, Dairy Queen!

•Chocolate Chip Blizzard - This blizzard sounds like your basic chocolate chip ice cream, but its not. It is made with quick to harden chocolate usually used on the dipping cones.

•Banana Split Blizzard - All your basic banana split flavors blended together into a blizzard.

•Jack and Jill Sundae - A classic sundae with marshmallow and hot fudge.

•Lavender Blue Sundae - This is a blueberry sundae with marshmallow.

•Frozen Hot Chocolate - In some places this is still on the menu seasonally, but basically it is hot chocolate blended with ice to give it a frozen crunch.

•Peanut Buster Parfait - This is a multi level sundae combining fudge, vanilla soft serve, and peanuts.

Naturally, it's all ice cream and frozen drinks. "Frozen Hot Chocolate" sounds like an oxymoron. The Chocolate Chip Blizzard sounds like it's made with Magic Shell (that stuff you can buy at the grocery store that is also "quick to harden chocolate"). Overall though, it sounds like a lot of marshmallow is going on here.

Here's a little coffee item from Dunkin' Donuts:

Turbo Hot Coffee - An extra shot of expresso in your coffee.

Woohoo. I could get that at Starbucks.

Here's a fun one from burger chain Fatburger:

Hypocrite - A veggie burger topped with bacon.

This one made both me and my parents laugh. It's a perfect name - because if you're eating a veggie burger with bacon on it, you are a hypocrite. Good for a inconsistent dieter or vegetarian.

Next we come to the granddaddy of all secret menus: In-n-Out Burger. Now this is not really so secret anymore; it's posted on their website now for goodness' sake. But people in SoCal (where most of the In-n-Out locations are located) have known about this menu for years. Here's the scoop:

•Double Meat – Two beef patties, lettuce, tomato, spread, and bun. You can always order onions either grilled or sliced.

•3 by Meat – Three beef patties, any veggies and sauce you desire with no cheese.

•3 x 3 – Three beef patties, three slices of cheese, veggies and bun.

•2 x 4 – For those who love cheese this is a great option, two meat patties with four slices of cheese.

•4 x 4 – Four beef patties, four slices of cheese, veggies, and a bun. A cure for anyone’s hunger

•Grilled Cheese – 2 Slices of cheese melted with lettuce and tomato and a bun.

•Protein Style – A low carb alternative to any burger wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun

•Animal Style – A beef patty smothered in mustard before its cooked, with lettuce tomato, pickle, extra spread, and grilled onions.

•Animal Style Fries – Cheese, spread, grilled onions, and pickles piled high on top of fries.

•Flying Dutchman – Two meat patties and two slices of cheese, with nothing else not even a bun.

•Fries Well Done – Fries cooked extra crispy, almost like potato chips.

•Fries Light – Fries cooked less, they will be more tender and oily.

•Neapolitan Shake – Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream blended together into one shake.

•Extra Toast – Buns that have been left on the grill longer until they are extra crispy.

•Veggie Burger / Wish Burger – This burger has no meat or cheese, but lots of grilled onions lettuce and sauce along with double tomatoes.

•Cheese Fries – Fries with a layer of cheese melted on top.

•Untoasted – Any burger with a bun that has not been toasted.

•Mustard Grilled Patty – A burger with mustard spread on it before grilling.

•Chopped Chilies – Diced jalapenos can be added to any burger.

•Large & Extra Large Shakes – Although they are not on the menu they are available upon request.

•100 x 100 Burger – Although they are not on the menu they are available upon request.

You'll notice these are pretty much all burger things, since that's what In-n-Out specializes in. The "Mustard Grilled Patty" sounds gross. The "100 x 100 burger" I can't even imagine eating. The Animal-Style Fries I have seen for myself because my best friend and I went and got them for her boyfriend once. They look kinda gross. The "Flying Dutchman" I could go for since I usually order my burgers plain anyway, though the lack of a bun would be a strange experience. I guess it would work if you wanted to use your own bread (like sourdough; I had a burger on sourdough bread at Bourdin SF a few days after my birthday and it was really good). The rest I can't really comment on.

Next is Jamba Juice. Apparently they have some not-so-healthy hidden drinks. Because Jamba Juice is very tight-lipped about its ingredients for these drinks, we only know the names.

•Pink Starburst

•Raspberry Dreamin’

•Pineapple Dreamin’

•Bluetopia

•Sourpatch Kid

•Now and Later

•Peanut Butter and Jelly

•Apple Pie

•Fruity Pebbles

•Strawberry Shortcake

•Red Gummy Bear

•White Gummy Bear

•Chocolate Gummy Bear

•Push Pop

•Skittles

I don't go to Jamba Juice (or any juice place) with any regularity, so I really can't say anything about this. The idea of a gummy bear drink sounds good (since I love gummy bears) but then again it might not make a very good drink.

Next, a dish that you can get at KFC and A & W restaurants:

Poutine - This is a Canadian favorite that includes French fries, fried cheese curds, and gravy layered together.

Gravy is something that ought not to go on anything but potatoes. I know, fries are potatoes, but it's not the same. As for fried cheese curds, I've never tried one, but I know what they look like, and I can't imagine combining those with gravy and French fries could taste good.

Here's something from pizza chain Little Caesar's:

Stuffed Crust Pizza - If you ask for it they will make you a pizza with the cheese stuff crust made famous by Pizza Hut.

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Not to mention that Little Caesar's is probably less expensive than Pizza Hut overall, so you'd probably get a good deal on this.

Next, an amusing item from seafood fast food chain Long John Silver's:

Side of Crumbs - This is a (Free!) box of fried batter parts that have fallen off the fried fish or chicken. Great to put on top of salads.

Now, some people might be surprised that these "crumbs" are actually edible. But they are. I've tried fried chicken crumbs; they're not bad. Now my only concern about this is where they get the crumbs from. I would assume they don't get them from the floor or the trash, though, since that would be a sanitation hazard, something fast food chains (or any food establishments for that matter) desperately want to avoid. But hey, it's free, and if you like salad, it's probably worth your while. It beats croutons.

Next up, the great and mighty McDonald's. I was surprised by the length of this list!

•Biscuits and Gravy - This one may only be available in the South – but it’s the classic combination of gravy smothering hot biscuits.

Again, gravy belongs only with potatoes, really. But they do like their biscuits and gravy in the South.

•McKinley Mac – A big Mac with quarter pounder patties.

Essentially the same thing as the "Big Mac with Quarter Pounder Patties" below.

•Grilled Cheese - A bun grilled with American cheese inside.

No way! They have a grilled cheese sandwich? I want that!

•Big Mac with Quarter Pounder Patties - This is great if you are looking to decrease the cost and calories of the classic Big Mac Sandwich. You get the entire flavor with less meat.

Essentially the same as the "McKinley Mac" above. Now, they make a good point about less meat - generally you want to go for smaller pound amounts of burgers if you have a choice. The Big Mac has two 1.6 oz patties normally.

•All American - This is a normal sized hamburger with only pickles and ketchup.

I'm not sure what's "all-American" about pickles and ketchup.

•Big McChicken - This is a huge sandwich in which the chicken patties replace the bun.

This is interesting. I get the McChicken a lot now because I figure chicken's healthier than beef. Still, the lack of a bun bothers me.

•Fries with Big Mac Sauce - Fries smothered in the secret and special big Mac Sauce.

I don't get why people put anything sauce-like on their fries. (They do this a LOT in Belgium, where the supposedly "French" fry had its beginnings). Anyway, for those who don't know, the secret "Big Mac sauce" has been identified as a variant of Thousand Island dressing. So, yeah, picture having salad dressing on your fries.

•Chicken and Waffles - This is a McGriddle sandwich with chicken in the middle.

Just the name sounds unappetizing. A McGriddle, btw, is basically a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich served on these little pancakes that have maple flavor already in them. Not a bad idea to start off with. But adding chicken? Yeah, not too sure about that.

•Neopolitan Milk Shake - 1/3 vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice creams blended together into one shake.

You'll notice above that In-n-Out offers this too. I've never seen a McDonald's with strawberry ice cream though.
•McLeprichon - This shake is only available in March and is composed of the shamrock shake mixed with the chocolate shake making a mint chocolate shake.

Mmm this sounds good.

•Pie McFlurry - If you purchase a pie you can have it blended into your McFlurry.

Hm, I wonder if my dad knows this; he actually likes the pies at McDonald's. They don't have a big selection of pies at McDonald's (I think just apple and cherry) but still it's a good idea.

•McGangBang - This is a double cheeseburger with a chicken patty in between the two beef patties.

First of all, the name is really bad. Second of all, a double cheeseburger WITH chicken in there too? That just seems like too much meat. It would probably top the Big Mac in size.

•Land, Sea, and Air Burger - The Land, Sea, and Air burger, has a beef patty, chicken patty, and fillet-o-fish patty all piled high onto a bun.

This is an even worse idea than the McGangBang. Beef, chicken, AND fish. Yeah, wayyy too much going on there.

•Root Beer Float - You can pick any size of root beer and they will add the vanilla ice cream on top.

Do they even have root beer at McDonald's? I guess so.

•Coke Float - Any size of coke with ice cream. You can even get it with chocolate ice cream.

Ooh, sounds good.

•Monster Mac - A big Mac composed of 8 meat patties.

Dang, isn't a regular Big Mac enough? This is like the Big Mac times four. It does not sound good for you at all.
•2 Cheese Burger Meal Mac - Two cheese burgers, fries and a drink.

Otherwise known as combo #2 on your typical McDonald's lunch/dinner menu.

Moving on...now Popeye's Chicken!

Naked – Any Popeyes sandwich you can order “naked”, meaning their will be no breading on the meat.

Breading is kinda a big part of what makes fried chicken fried chicken, though the average person is probably better off not eating all that breading anyway. KFC proved it could be done with their grilled chicken.

Next a place called Potbelly's, apparently a sandwich chain:

•Cheeseburger – This is a meatball sandwich with ketchup replacing the marinara and the addition of mustard, cheese, and pickles.

•Fireball – A meatball sandwich with chili on top.

•Wrecking ball – A combination of both the meatball sandwich and the wreck sandwich.

Sounds like basically variations on one sandwich (or maybe two with the Wrecking ball). Not sure what to say here.

Next up, the famous drive-in place Sonic:

•Frito Pie - This is a southern favorite with layers of chili and fritos.

•Grilled Ham and Cheese - This is your basic warm gooey ham and cheese sandwich.

Ok, the Frito thing is just SO wrong. Fritos are not even that good. As for the second one, I've already said how I dislike ham and cheese.

Next up -- the mighty Starbucks!

With the large variety of different Starbucks franchises it is important to know what’s in any hidden menu drink you order. Many should know these options however, since they are not all the same just remember the ingredients in case they do not know and they will be happy to make the drink for you.

•Biscotti Frapuccino - This is a typical frapuccino but it has a biscotti blended inside. You will have to purchase the biscotti separate when you are checking out, but you can have it in any flavor frap.

•Short Drink - This is a less expensive version of any Starbucks drink. It is smaller than a tall with a lower price.

•Red Eye - This is a shot of espresso in regular drip coffee.

•Black Eye - This drink has 2 shots of espresso in regular drip coffee.

•Green Eye - This drink includes 3 shots of espresso in regular drip coffee.

•Poor Mans Latte - We recommend you do not tell your Barista you are planning on creating this drink when you order. Order an iced Americano with no water and half ice, then use the free milk on the side to mix it up to your standards.

•Poor Mans Chai Latte - Same recommendation as above applies here. Order a Chai Tea Misto with extra foam, two tea bags, and half cinnamon and half vanilla syrup.

•French Pressed Coffee - If you want coffee served fresh from a French press you may have it with any variety in the shop.

•Chocolate Cream Frapuccino - This is a frapuccino made with chocolate syrup and chocolate frapuccino base.

•Cake Batter Frap - Order a vanilla frappucino and ask for both the vanilla bean and almond flavorings. It will taste just like cake batter.

•Crunchberry Frap - Flavored like the crunchberry cereal, this is a strawberrys and cream frappucino with hazelnut flavoring.

•Strawberry Blended Lemonade - Although this had been taken off the menu, most locations will still blend the strawberry flavoring with lemonade for you.

•London Fog - This is made with vanilla flavoring in Earl Gray Tea.

•Zebra Mocha (also called a Tuxedo or Penguin Mocha) - This is a mix of the white chocolate and regular chocolate mochas.

•Red Tux Mocha (also called Bleeding Penguin) - The same mix of white chocolate and regular chocolate mocha with raspberry flavoring.

Now, I am not a coffee fan and do not usually go to Starbucks. But that there are this many secret drinks says something about the ones you can normally order. I like the "poor man's latte" one; I've known about that for a while. I also was not aware there was a size smaller than Tall. But it makes sense.

Next, Subway:

Pizza Sub – This sub was taken of the menu in most locations when Subway began marketing itself as healthy alternative to fast food. However, upon request you can get the Pizza Sub which combines cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni.

I actually remember when this was on the menu. Of course, the whole Jared thing - and probably their painfully obvious sponsorship deal with The Biggest Loser - forced Subway, much like Jamba Juice, to market itself as healthy.

Next, Taco Bell:

•Cheesy Gordita Crunch – This is a seasonal favorite for many, however it can be ordered year round.

•Green Sauce – Although this sauce is still available in most South West locations, if you request it at your local restaurant usually they will have it on hand.

•Double Grilled Quesadilla – An extra crispy quesadilla.

•Chili Cheese Burrito – A burrito filled with chili and cheese instead of the usual mixes.

•Enchirito – This is a enchilada of beef, beans, cheese, diced onions, and red sauce.

I think they actually have some of this stuff at my local Taco Bells - they definitely have the Cheesy Gordita Crunch, though only seasonally. The name "enchirito" reminds me of the "chimirito" named by Ron Stoppable of Kim Possible as a menu item at Bueno Nacho in "The Naked Mole Rap." (I think Bueno Nacho is meant to be a sort of spoof of Taco Bell anyway. Which reminds me, it would be awesome to have a ringtone of that cool guitar riff that plays whenever the establishing shot of Bueno Nacho is shown. I should hunt that music down).

Next, some place called Taco John's:

Ranch Burrito - We’re not certain what exactly is in the ranch burrito, however it appears to have either a beef or chicken option.

Ok that wasn't very helpful.

Moving on to my old workplace, Wendy's!

•Grand Slam - This burger has a total of four meat patties.

•Big Bacon Classic - This is your classic burger with bacon.

•Value Crispy Chicken Club – A reduced price Crispy Chicken sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo.

•Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe – This value sized burger includes lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and ketchup.

•Barnyard – A spicy chicken sandwich with ham, bacon and beef separated by cheese.

Since I used to work at Wendy's, I can definitely comment on these. They still did have the Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe and the Big Bacon Classic on the menu when I worked there, however they have made changes to the menu since then. The Value chicken sandwich doesn't surprise me - one thing I do like about Wendy's is that they do have cheap burgers/sandwiches you can get (like the Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe and this sandwich) that are good alternatives for the big, more expensive combo sandwiches. No one really matches Wendy's in terms of value menu stuff, except maybe McDonald's with their Dollar Menu. The Barnyard I've never heard of, though again UGH HAM AND CHEESE. Trust me, the Spicy Chicken Sandwich is just fine by itself. The Grand Slam I've also not heard of - Wendy's usually draws the line at three patties on a sandwich, as with the regular Triple Burger or with the Baconator Triple. Honestly, I don't see why you would need four patties, thank you very much.

I don't think I ever had the Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe, though it's a nice choice if you just want a cheap, basic burger. The Big Bacon Classic I can definitely recommend, though the Baconator (which IS on the menu) is more or less the same thing.

Ok, last one! White Castle:

Seasoned Fries - Classic fries with additional seasoning for flavor.

Wow. I'm impressed. Seasoned fries, what a concept!

Ok, I got that analysis out of my system. Going to go to bed now.

iStart a Fan War, school stress, and other thoughts

2010-11-21T00:57:00.000-08:00

So I just watched the newest iCarly episode, "iStart a Fan War," and I just feel compelled to talk/write about it so I'm going to. WARNING: NERDY FAN ALERT. Oh, and since it just aired yesterday and not all fans might've seen it, SPOILER ALERT!!!

Okay, so basically the A-story is that Carly, Sam, and Freddie are going to be guests at Webicon, the con they tried to go to the previous year but were unable to because they got kidnapped by their crazy fan Nora (in "iPsycho"). This commitment spoils Carly's chances of a date with a dreamy guy named Adam (who sort of looks like the guy Carly was into in "iDate a Bad Boy"), but Adam ends up showing up at Webicon as a surprise. Anyway, after some issues at the front entrance (during which Freddie gets pulled - twice - into a literal mosh pit of fans), they get into their panel. A chance question from a fan about whether Carly and Freddie are dating, and Sam's joking response, ignites a raucous fan war in the panel that goes on for most of the episode. Adam, who's there, gets disgusted and leaves. Carly tries to reason with him but can't, so Sam goes out to talk to him and ends up bringing him back in tied up with an extension cord. Anyway, Carly gets a motivational moment to try to change the fans' minds, but one of the fans accuses her of lying and the fighting starts again (this time with Adam as the victim, as the fans think he stole Carly from Freddie). Security personnel quietly escort Carly, Sam, and Freddie out of the room.

The main B-story is about Gibby, who's now a regular on the show, and his brother Guppy, who are getting a ride to Webicon with his grandfather. They're very late, but Gibby can't get his grandfather to understand this. Gibby's grandpa ends up having an argument with a drive-thru attendant at Inside-Out Burger (obviously a spoof of In-n-Out Burger, a burger joint they have all over California and also in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah) about why they don't have soup on the menu. In the end, Gibby has to lie and say they have soup at Webicon to get his grandfather to get him to drive Gibby and Guppy there.

The other sort-of-B story involves Spencer, Carly's brother. He's totally addicted to a MMORPG called "World of Warlords" (obviously a "World of Warcraft" spoof; resident geek Freddie's also into it, naturally) and attends Webicon with Carly and friends to go to a World of Warlords costume contest. (Or " 'stume" as he calls it). He comes dressed as Aruthor, the most powerful warlord of this one people group in the game, and is told he might win the costume contest with his outfit. But, someone says, he might get beaten by the guy dressed as Aspartamé, Aruthor's archnemesis. (I saw the name spelled "Aspartamay" in an article, but "Aspartamé" makes more sense for a fantasy MMORPG; I'll wait till the creator posts on this episode to confirm the spelling; same for "Aruthor"). The Aspartamé cosplayer, played by guest star Jack Black, comes out and they begin to duke it out (after a lot of trash talking), to the amazement of all the "World of Warlords" fans gathered there. Some people are even playing medieval music in the background! Anyway, once Carly and co. show up after being escorted out of their panel, she tries to stop the fight but can't until a quick-thinking Freddie tells Carly to yank off Aspartamé's medallion, which contains his lifeforce. After a parting song, Aspartamé "dies" and Carly, Sam, Freddie and Spencer leave. The "World of Warlord" fans look at the "dead" Aspartamé and then all depart, leaving him on the floor.

I admit I laughed a lot during this episode. I can't speak for MMORPG fans - I've only tried a couple (Free Realms and now this fantasy MMORPG called Fiesta that I found out about from a Facebook ad) - but the "World of Warlords" fans here still made me laugh; I guess because I know how nerds are. I also caught a lot of references to fantasy game tropes that are in non-online fantasy games too. Also when one of the fans said "Aruthor's getting pwned" I got what that meant. I also could relate to the fan war over Creddie vs. Seddie because I know some things about shipping thanks to other fandoms. Shipping even with made-up characters can get out of hand, let alone "real" people like the iCarly trio.

Other things I caught:

Comic-Con signs? In a shot early in the episode of the exhibit hall at Webicon, there are signs hanging from the ceiling that look just like the signs used to indicate rows in the exhibit hall at the San Diego Comic-Con, a con I've attended four times. How did those get there?
Yet Another Socko Relative: We still have never seen Spencer's best friend Socko, but here we see yet another of his relatives, this time a welder who appears during the scene where the webshow is being shot to demonstrate how to properly blowtorch a pickle. How many relatives does this guy have anyway?
Great Wit from Carly: In the scene where Spencer is making his Aruthor costume, Carly has some great witty lines. First she says "I'm drinking diet soda" when the guys are talking about World of Warlords and why Aruthor and Aspartamé can't meet. Then when Sam spits out the soda and complains that it's diet, she says, "I told you it was diet. Now will you please get a sponge." Awesome.
References to other episodes: This is what reminds us this is not an episodic series. There are a couple references to "iPsycho," the last time the group tried to go to Webicon, and a reference to "iSam's Mom" when Sam mentions the therapy incident with her and her mom in that episode. There are a few Fat Cake references too, which refer to a cake kinda like a Hostess Sno-Ball that's appeared in other iCarly episodes (like "iMust Have Locker 239"), including the appearance of a Fat Cake Shake, which Sam says is "like drinking heaven through a straw." (It doesn't sound good to me at all).
DanWarp Sign: A sign saying "DanWarp" (the online name for iCarly creator Dan Schneider) is shown prominently in several shots of the World of Warlords booth.
Jack Black as Théoden? Jack Black's Aspartamé getup, the beard particularly, somewhat resembles King Théoden from Lord of the Rings. (I just thought of this).
The PearPad Appears Again: The iCarly world's version of the iPad, which first appeared in "iGot a Hot Room," appears again during the iCarly panel, held by a fan. One thing that amuses me is how much bigger the PearPad is than its real-life counterpart.
Guppy Repeating Things: Gibby's little brother Guppy has a tendency to repeat what people say, to the frustration of his older brother. Also at the very end of the episode, Guppy says "Happy Birthday," a reference to "iPsycho" where the iCarly trio sent a urgent message to Gibby to get him to let them out of Nora's house, disguised as a birthday message.
Blow-dryer on Carly's Desk: When Carly's room was remodeled in "iGot a Hot Room," this button was added to her desk that is sort of like a blow-dryer. We see it again here.
Carly's Table Has Water: Apparently Carly's sea-theme coffee table has real water in it, as Freddie asks if he can drive a remote-control boat on it.
Aspartamé's Rivets: Spencer says Aspartamé is supposed to have 12 rivets on his breastplate, but this Aspartamé has 13. The 12 rivets are supposed to represent the Elf Lords. 12 is considered a number of completion in some traditions, so that number would make sense. 13, of course, is an unlucky number.
Aspartamé an Elf?: It's suggested that Aspartamé's people are elves, but Aspartamé doesn't look like an elf at all. He also doesn't use a bow and arrow, which elven warriors in RPGs usually use.
Vegetarian Elves: When Aspartamé says he had a corn dog (to explain his mustard stain), Spencer mentions that Aspartamé's people are vegetarians. This might be a reference to the elves in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, who don't eat meat. Or not.

Oh dang it's really late. I better stop here.

Career Doubts

2010-11-18T13:42:00.001-08:00

I went to a workshop on interviewing at the Career Center on Tuesday. I did this because I have a suspicion I'm doing something wrong in interviews because I tried to get office jobs - ones I was qualified for - and ended up working at a grocery store for about ~14k a year (but with great health benefits). The points made in it were good, though I was so busy trying to write everything down I wasn't really paying as much attention as I should've been.

Last night, I leafed through the "Career Guide" I got at this workshop. It was discouraging, because I realized I'm not doing any of the things they mention, except maybe dressing nice for an interview. I was particularly bothered that one of the things employers said is bad for interviewees is lack of eye contact with the interviewer during the interview, since I've always had problems with eye contact (as any teacher I had to do a speech for can tell you).

I wonder if my Asperger's Syndrome makes interviews difficult. I think I read somewhere that it does. Yet during the workshop when I asked if I should mention my autism during an interview, the lady running it said she didn't think I should.

Obviously, I could get help getting a job from organizations that help people with such conditions, something like the group that my friend and coworker Adam (who also has Asperger's) gets help from. They provide him with this guy who shadows him on the job and makes sure everything's going ok. But I think Adam's condition is a little more obvious; Lisa (a coworker of ours) asked me once if he was "autistic or something." Also the CSRs and other front end people seem to have more problems with him than with me (though I'm no angel myself...I've been talked to more than once about not talking so much when I'm bagging, and just recently Augie, our store manager, told me to focus more on the task at hand). I have heard autism is harder to spot in girls than in boys (similar to ADD), and at any rate, it's less common in girls.

I'm actually doubting whether I am going to continue with my web design certificate. I like doing it and it's a marketable skill, but after almost 8 years I'm a bit tired of school, and finishing the certificate would require more school after my BA.

I may go talk to a career counselor too (even though I did do this at Mira Costa, as well as researching careers almost ad nauseam). Maybe it will help. Hard to know. *sigh*

-- Posted from BlogPress

Support Autism - Communication Shutdown

2010-10-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

When I was writing the previous post, there was a link in my Zemanta plugin leading to an article titled "Steven Seagal to Shutdown Facebook." I was intrigued, perhaps taking the title literally, and checked it out. It turns out that Steven Seagal is one of many celebrities participating in a charity event called Communication Shutdown, an event being held online on November 1st (tomorrow) to raise money to help those with autism around the world. Basically, you donate a minimum of $5 (I donated $20 because I thought this cause was worth donating that much) and get an app called "Chapp" (short for "charity app"). Then, through the use of this app, you go without Facebook or Twitter for one whole day (the app lets your friends know you are doing this through connection to your Facebook and Twitter accounts), the idea being that doing so helps you experience the communication difficulties those with autism experience every day.

Being autistic myself, I thought this was an awesome thing and, as I said, I decided to join it myself. So, if any of you friend/follow me on Facebook or Twitter, well you won't be seeing anything from me tomorrow there. I posted something about this on my other two Twitter accounts (I didn't want to have to donate more than once to link all my accounts) and on my LinkedIn account. I'm going to add something to my writing Facebook and my LiveJournal some time today, and maybe even a YouTube video to spread awareness (though I may not give up YouTube tomorrow).

So, anyway, just wanted to spread the word about that. Happy Halloween!

Hmm just thought that Halloween should be an autistic's favorite holiday - you'd have to go out in public (which autistics hate) but you'd be in costume so it would be ok.

Reminds me of when we were watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown the other night. The kids go out trick-or-treating (except Linus, who's waiting for the Great Pumpkin, and Sally, who out of her love for Linus, is waiting with him), and poor Charlie Brown gets nothing but rocks. Sad.

So, anyway, Happy Halloween! Oh and check out these articles on this event, including the original one I mentioned.

Thinking about autism

2010-10-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Temple Grandin with my parents tonight. As an autistic person, it is a very interesting movie to watch since Grandin is herself autistic. My mother and I saw a preview for it a while back - it was an HBO movie - but as we don't get HBO we weren't able to see it. But it's out on DVD now so my parents rented it. Anyway, my mother thought it would be worth checking out because she, like me, is very interested in finding out more about autism. In fact, it was she who first diagnosed me really; she learned about it when she was getting her degree in psychology and felt that the symptoms matched me. She had "studied" me before, doing a report on my exceptionally high grades in Reading on the Stanford Achievement Test (an annual test, kinda like the STAR); I was scoring Post-High School in reading in elementary school. I think there might've been some other subjects where I was PHS too, but that's the one I remember. I guess something about the doctors' diagnosis of me with "borderline cerebral palsy" didn't fit with her, and to be honest, it doesn't fit with me either.

It does seem odd. Obviously, they didn't know about Asperger's Syndrome (the autism spectrum disorder I specifically have) in 1984 when I was born - that didn't happen till the '90's - but they knew about autism. I mean, Grandin was diagnosed with it in NINETEEN-FIFTY for crying out loud. Granted, they had some wrong ideas about it back then, according to this movie, but they knew about it. (We started watching the movie with the audio commentary after watching it the first time, and we watched the scene where she was diagnosed, and Grandin herself - who is part of the group commenting on the film - makes a very big point of saying how wrong those theories are). Maybe it wasn't obvious? I mean, to diagnose me with borderline cerebral palsy means they must've thought something was wrong. But on the other hand, that "borderline" diagnosis seems like they didn't know what to make of me and just slapped on me whatever label made sense. If they'd known I had autism sooner, I wouldn't have had to go to physical therapy at a place where I was the only young person there. (I did physical therapy because of the wrong CP diagnosis).

I do wonder if they would've caught it sooner if I'd gone to a public school where they have school nurses who check your health every year - or is that just in movies? I forget. Adam, my coworker who also has Asperger's (I met him through the Asperger's activity group), wasn't diagnosed till high school. And autism's supposed to be more prevalent in boys, kinda like ADD is. In my Human Heredity class, when we did our presentations on genetic conditions at the end, one group did theirs on autism, and they said that it's harder to detect in girls because girls are better able to mask it by imitating the "normal" behavior of their peers, whereas boys are not. This makes a lot of sense to me (though, as my mom was saying just now when I told her this, it may just be an interpretation); I mean, it explains why they catch ADD in a young boy who can't sit still.

I could relate to some of the difficulties Grandin has in the film - the sensual hypersensitivity (to sounds, touch, etc), the social difficulties, the panic attacks in large groups or when overstimulated, associating words with things, taking phrases literally, etc. Also, Grandin tended to think in pictures -- in fact, the film is partially based on a book of hers called Thinking in Pictures (it's also based on her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic). I'm not sure that's how I think, but I do tend to think in terms of associations. Like when Grandin's science teacher shows her French teacher her pictures of eels - Grandin had burst out in class previously, saying "why are there so many fish in France?" - I got the idea of the "eels ate" as relating to "il ait" (as her teacher says, French is full of "ils"). I don't draw out concepts though. I don't know whether it would help or not. The only doodling I do is what I have labeled "typographic doodling" - basically writing titles of sections of my notes in big block letters or something. (There probably is a name for that, or maybe there isn't - I just made up the name so that I could better explain it to people). Occasionally, I doodle geometric shapes, and one time when working on my novel, I wrote about a carrot being the size of a daikon (a very large Asian radish) and then doodled a daikon on the margin. But that's about it.

I can't claim to be an expert on autism. I am just trying to learn what I can to understand myself and my condition. I do wonder why I am this way; as many Christians say, God must've had a reason. (Now that I think about it, that argument's in Pastor Larry's book 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe so maybe it's not so valid). Temple Grandin went on to design humane holding pens and such for animals - and still contributes a lot to our knowledge of animal behavior - but I don't know what career my skills would best be used in. I don't have a special affinity to something like Grandin does toward animals. Well, to trees I guess, but I'm no botanist.

I don't usually talk about my writing here, but a thought just came to me. With my extreme attention to detail - even Grandin agrees that autistic people are extremely attentive to detail - I should be able to be really good at showing. I should be able to describe things well. And yet I keep getting told I tell more than I show. Now why do I do that? I think it is because of being told to write more concisely when I do reports, particularly by Dr. Cucinella. I struggle between conciseness and showing. They tell you in writing books to show more than you tell, but they also tell you not to take ten pages to describe a room, like they used to do in novels. It seems stupid that something someone told me to do in reports would seep into my creative writing, but it did. The problem is, I don't know who to talk to about this. My parents, who I talk to about so many other things, don't know much about my writing, and there wouldn't be time in the CWCW meetings to ask for advice about it; we're always pressed for time as it is. I guess I could talk to the people at The Anomaly, but they might not be much help as they haven't seen a lot of my writing (I haven't posted much up there). I want to talk to SOMEBODY about it, but I don't know who and I don't know how to break out of such a habit. I imagine a number of editors or agents will tell me the same thing when I send this thing out.

But it's not right to blame someone else. Something must be wrong with me. My writing ability's not developed enough. It must be that. To blame this issue on Dr. Cucinella telling me to be concise is stupid. Reports are reports. Novels are novels. They're different. You write them differently.

I seem to write short stories and some poetry pretty well. Maybe I'm not cut out for novels? That's what I want to write though. Oi, as Hamlet said, "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!"

Amy-chan messaged me today saying "Lara we need your vocals for the songs we have to upload." This means I have to record my vocals for all the songs whose lyrics she's been sending me for ages. I'll probably do that tomorrow. I confess I'm not looking forward to it. I don't know any of the songs, and most of the time Amy-chan either gives herself most of the lyrics or her voice comes out the loudest, and let's just say she's not a very good singer. I kinda cringe when I hear her sing. In our first group song (our last so far), you could barely hear my voice because I didn't sing loud enough when I recorded myself, but you could definitely hear Amy-chan. She said once that she wanted me to be the leader of this band (LAR Productions) but when it comes down to it she created it and she picks all the songs and stuff. Heck, she maintains our Facebook page more than I do. I haven't updated our website since July, and I haven't done anything to our pages on iLike, Fanpop, and MySpace Music since I opened them, and very little with our Twitter. I just am not good with social networking marketing.

I'm going to stop now and take a shower, then decide if I'm going to continue reading along to the LibriVox recording of The Importance of Being Earnest, or save that for tomorrow. If I do, I may go make some toast to have. I concentrate better sometimes when I'm eating.

Anyway, good night!

"To Save a Life," priorities

2010-10-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

My parents and I watched the movie To Save a Life tonight. It was produced by New Song Community Church, a church in our area, and was filmed in the area as well (in Oceanside - I recognized Oceanside High School particularly). Basically, it is about this guy named Jake who has everything going for him - a basketball scholarship, popularity, the best girl in school - until his world is rocked when his childhood friend, who'd he stopped hanging out with in freshman year, commits suicide. After a big basketball game, a youth pastor named Chris - who had taken Jake to his friend's funeral - comes up to him and gives him his card. Jake blows this off at first, but finds himself calling Chris for a ride when his friends ditch him at a party and his girlfriend steals his truck. They become friends, and Chris invites Jake to church. Jake starts checking it out, which gets him into conflict with his girlfriend. He befriends a loner named Johnny, an artist who is secretly a cutter. Things seem to be going well for Jake, despite his issues with his girlfriend, until his parents' marriage, which was always strained, starts really falling apart, and Jake's girlfriend Amy stops by his house to tell him she's pregnant, the baby's his, and she's not planning on keeping the baby. Jake then begins to wonder if this Jesus thing is worth it, then after praying in desperation, he decides to give up his dream to go to the University of Louisville to stay with Amy through her pregnancy. The kinda sneaky pastor's kid at Jake's church tries to stir up some trouble, telling Johnny Jake was just using him, spreading a smear campaign about Amy when he overhears Jake talking to Chris about Amy's pregnancy, and framing Johnny for a school bombing. When Jake figures out Johnny was framed, he chases down the police car Johnny was in and (similar to how his friend who killed himself did when they were kids) stops the car with his body. The pastor's kid gets in trouble, things get better at the church, Amy and Jake decide to give their baby up for adoption to a family Chris knows, and then Amy and Jake graduate and Amy has her baby. The film ends with Jake about to leave for school, with Amy telling him she's got to decide if going to school with him is really her dream. Jake's dad then shows up and offers to ride up to school with him. Right before Jake leaves, Johnny gives him a letter. Later, at a rest stop, Jake reads it and learns that Johnny was also thinking of killing himself, but thanks to Jake befriending him he decided not to do it.

The movie made me think. How many people have I ignored? Were there people out there who were hurting that even in my unpopular high school experience I ignored? What about at college?

It also made me think about suicide and how serious it is. Like Jake's friend Roger and like Johnny, I have thought sometimes that my life wasn't worth it, that no one was ever going to accept me no matter what I did, that I didn't belong. I never made any concrete plans to kill myself, though, and in fact I'm scared of dying. I worry often that I'll die without having accomplished anything in life. It's like that one ZOEgirl song ("Forever 17") that goes:

Can someone wake me up?
I haven't lived yet
I'm only seventeen
God, did you forget?
I'm just a baby
And I don't wanna be
Forever seventeen

I was also thinking today of the poems "When I Consider How My Light is Spent" (Milton) and "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be" (Keats - which considering he died at 25 and knew for a while that he was probably going to die young from tuberculosis, makes some sense).

Here is Milton's poem:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Now, Milton was writing about his blindness here (this is generally agreed), but I think it is a good poem overall for those feeling useless to God. Kinda like that song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day": "Then pealed the bells more loud and deep/God is not dead, nor doth he sleep/The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,/With peace on earth, good will to men."

Keats' poem:

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Keats' poem sounds less hopeful than Milton's; Keats' constant sense of impending death may have something to do with that, I guess.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've never made actual plans to commit suicide. Why, I wonder? Is it because I've had God and church in my life since I was a kid and thus knew there was more to live for? Maybe. I used to have more faith in God when I was younger, now I don't know.

One of the new baggers we hired is this girl named Catie (short for Catherine). The other night I was doing carts and she was in the lobby/entrance area handing out our new monthly savings flyers. I brought in some carts and she saw the ring I wear on my left ring finger, my purity ring. She, like many people who have seen my ring, asked me how long I'd been married. I quickly said that I wasn't married and that it was a purity ring. It bothers me that I feel uncomfortable saying this often. She and I got to talking and she said she used to have faith in God but then things got tough and she turned away and partied and stuff. Then she got pregnant by some guy she thought was "the One." When her son was born, she said, it brought her back to faith. Now she realizes she hasn't found the "One" yet.

I didn't really say anything during this exchange, and when I went back out to the parking lot, I inwardly berated myself for not saying anything. I've heard people talk about the whole "secondary virginity" thing and how God can forgive you even if you've had premarital sex and stuff, and I probably could've said something about that, but I didn't. I hated myself for it, which is probably stupid now that I think about it. But Christian people - those people who see God in everything, something I haven't really got the sense for - always talk about "divine appointments," people God brings into your life so you can do something for his kingdom through doing something for them. Or something like that. What if that was a "divine appointment," and I brushed it off? How many such "appointments" have I not taken advantage of? How does one recognize one anyway?

There are so many things about the Christian life that don't make sense to me. Like what exactly are we supposed to do with the Old Testament, especially the laws in Leviticus and stuff? When I went with my parents to check out this other church last week, the pastor said that the Jewish law was put in the Bible to show us that we couldn't fulfill it all, that we couldn't get right with God through works. I guess that makes sense.

Another thing I struggle with is how much God is supposed to be part of our day-to-day life. I know people who insist on consulting God on every little thing. But, as I've said to people before, as a Christian do you like have to ask God what you should have for breakfast? I asked someone (one of my parents, I think) this once and they said they didn't know. I mean, obviously some stuff must be within our capability to reason or God wouldn't have given us the ability to reason. And God acknowledges our ability to reason too, like it says in Isaiah - “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isaiah 1:18 ESV). Plus he let Adam name all the animals, which suggests an ability to reason. We're not like robots or zombies (oh and, according to these Facebook quizzes I took last night, I'd last one day if there was a zombie infection going on and a week in an "undead world." Go figure). So how much should be left to our reason and how much to God? It's kind of like that old saying "Heaven helps those who help themselves." Some things we must be able to figure out on our own, right?

Another thing I think I must've been struggling with is discerning God's will, because according to the inventory of my bookcase that I decided to do, I have two books specifically on this subject (Thy Will Be Done: God's Will for You by Robert Lloyd Russell and Listening to God in Times of Choice: The Art of Discerning God's Will by Gordon T. Smith), four if The Purpose Driven Life and The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You (by Dr. Henry Cloud, in response to the bestseller The Secret I think) count. Like many Christians, I want to know God's will for me, and I'm having trouble figuring it out.

Then there are prayer and evangelism. I haven't prayed regularly in a while, mainly because I feel like my words aren't genuine or they just hit the ceiling - not unlike Claudius (I was just reading the Arden version of Hamlet for drama class) when he's trying to pray for repentance of his crime and ends with: "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;/Words without thoughts never to heaven go" (3.3.97-98). I'm also confused about what to pray for; I can pray about myself but not well about other people. I never tell people I'll pray for them because I know I probably won't. And praying for my enemies? I don't even do that.

I once saw a comic in Brio magazine that illustrated the "five-finger" prayer method, where each finger represents someone to pray for. You start with your thumb. Since it's the finger closest to you when you pray, this reminds you to pray for those nearest to you. The second finger is your index/pointer finger and reminds you to pray for those who instruct you, like teachers and pastors. The third finger is your middle finger and the tallest. This finger is supposed to remind us to pray for our leaders, like the president. The fourth finger, our ring finger, reminds us to pray for those who are weak or in pain, since many - including many pianists - believe it is our weakest finger. The last finger, the pinky, is our smallest and is supposed to remind us where we ought to place ourselves, after God and others, and to pray for our own needs. (I suppose the ring finger could also work for praying for those close to you, since it was once believed a nerve led directly from our left ring finger to our heart, which is why wedding rings are worn on that finger).

As for evangelism, I don't even know where to start with that. I'm not very social anyway, and my Asperger's makes it worse. I suppose I'm trying to be evangelical with my current novel-in-progress (which is basically a conversion narrative, or a story about someone becoming a Christian). But that's not quite what I assume evangelism is supposed to be. I know from the spiritual gifts tests I've taken that evangelism is not high on my list of gifts (it was ranked #8 on the test I took for the Spiritual Gifts class I took at church), though the gift of "missionary" is (it's #2, after knowledge). In the course material we got, "Missionary" is defined as "to minister whatever other spiritual gifts they have in a second culture" while "evangelism" is defined as "to share the gospel with unbelievers in such a way that men and women become Jesus's disciples and responsible members of the Body of Christ." So I guess there is a difference.

In this class, they talked about a "gift mix," which the teacher interpreted as your top three gifts. My top three are knowledge/missionary/service. Knowledge was defined as "to discover, accumulate, and clarify information and ideas that are pertinent to the growth and well-being of the Body" and service as "to identify the unmet needs involved in a task related to God's work, and to make use of available resources to meet those needs and help accomplish the desired goals." I don't know how they all work together, our course material said usually there are at least two of them that compliment each other. Missionary and service maybe? Don't know.

I was also thinking today about priorities. I am thinking of maybe taking a break from some of the things that are giving me a lot of stress right now, like the Song of the Week thing at Myu Corner, translation for Miss Dream, and the interview for Family of Moonlight with Sailor Moon Abridged that still hasn't happened (and which I had qualms about in the first place, since that series is full of innuendo and stuff), so I can focus on the truly important things, like school, work, family, and God. But I know deep down that my need-to-be-accepted/routine-loving self would never let me do that. I make commitments and I keep them, even if it stresses me out. But I have a hard time saying "no" to things, even if I know I probably can't handle them. So I get overwhelmed and panic.

I am not even sure the SMA interview's going to happen; things have hit a communications snafu since the only way their leader's been communicating with me is over Family of Moonlight's YouTube account, which I rarely check. Maybe I should e-mail my editor and ask him what I should do? It's been nearly a month since we've heard from SMA's leader Megami anyway. At any rate, if this assignment fails, I can maybe make it up with a nice report on Animé Los Angeles. (That reminds me, I should contact Gina Biggs and see if I can get an interview with her there; she runs a major Sailor Moon fansite).

Translation for Miss Dream I can set aside for a bit now that I'm re-classified as a contributor. Even Song of the Week I can delay if I can convince myself not to freak out about it as I usually do when it's late (like it is this week). I mean, it's not like Myu Corner is super popular or anything.

The other stressful thing besides these things is my novel-in-progress, which I won't talk about too much here because I've committed to covering it on my writing journal. I would like to continue that since it will continue to be on my mind since I'm workshopping it in CWCW. I am worried about the reaction to the last bit I workshopped, since it was rather obviously Christian and got a somewhat negative response from the audience (which is secular because it's a secular school) for that. They asked me to make it less blatant. I mean, I guess this is good feedback because the last thing I want this novel to be is preachy. Once I finally get around to putting it up for the Anamalous Sandbox, a Yahoo group tied to the Christian speculative fiction forum The Anomaly (not to mention christ_writers on LJ), maybe I can get some help on that from people who know how to write these things better than I do.

Well, it's late, I better start getting ready for bed.

Some parting words from Gandhi that I saw on someone's sweatshirt today: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So true.

Thoughts after sharing my collection

2010-10-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

So for the last two posts, you've gotten to see all the anime stuff I have, which I'm realizing is actually not too bad of a size, considering that though I've been into anime for 12 years, I haven't been a gung-ho anime collector. For instance, I don't own a lot of anime on DVD because I watch a lot of it online or have watched it on TV, on Kids WB (Pokémon, back in the day), Cartoon Network (Pokémon more recently, including some of the movies; Tenchi Muyo back in the day; my first episode of Sailor Moon; The Prince of Tennis until it stopped airing), and the International Channel (the "Tenchi in Tokyo" season of Tenchi Muyo in uncut English, except for one episode I missed).

The rest of the stuff is pretty much just things I've picked up here and there, mostly at Comic-Con. I've never been one of those überfans who haunts eBay auctions (actually, I've never gotten something off eBay, unless getting textbooks off Half.com counts, since that site's run by eBay) and the like to find some rare item. I don't know why. I guess money was part of it; it wasn't until college that I got a steady job. I also lost some interest in it once my best friend Amy - who has gotten me into a number of series, though I still can't understand her interest in Serial Experiments Lain - moved away and we stopped seeing each other on a frequent basis. I know that I lost interest in Pokémon at some point because I never bought any of the games between Gold and Silver and Diamond and Pearl (except the first Pokémon Ranger game, which came out before Diamond and Pearl), and I didn't start collecting the TCG again until fairly recently. It was actually through listening to the podcast at The Pallet Tribune (a Pokémon news/fansite) and hearing the podcast's hosts Jowy and KC talk about Diamond and Pearl that I decided to give the games another chance. Now I'm into them again, though I'm by no means a hardcore Pokégamer (one clue: I don't EV train, and pretty much every hardcore Pokégamer does that).

To be honest, I've been collecting more manga than anime. I was into manga when I first got into anime, but I only really read the Pokémon manga, except for a copy of Smile (Tokyopop's old manga anthology mag before Shoujo Beat) I got for free from Comic-Con (with chapters of Sailor Moon Stars, Juline, Peach Girl, and Clover in it) and a single Sailor Moon comic book (#26) with Mugen 6 (chapter 6 of the "Infinity" or S arc) in it. That was all I had for manga for a while. Amy sold me her Pokémon manga too along with other anime stuff, so for a while I actually owned censored and uncensored versions of the first two Pokémon manga comics (the uncensored version mostly had some big bosom shots, since Toshihiro Ono, the author/artist of this particular Pokémon manga series, seems to like to draw his women well-endowed; I think those were an early print run though, because in later print runs of the same books - like the ones Amy sold me - these things were altered to tone them down).

I "rediscovered" manga (if that's the right word) when I was at the bookstore one day in 2003 and came across a series called CLAMP School Detectives. I looked at them and was interested. I can't remember if I bought those one-by-one or together. At any rate, they were some sort of limited-edition ones because they came with fold-out posters (as did my copies of Dukylon CLAMP School Defenders; I have one of those on my wall next to my door; on the opposite side of my door is a similar poster that came with my copy of the novel xxxHolic: AnotherHolic). After that, I started reading manga quite constantly, mostly CLAMP because it was one of their series that got me back into manga. I pretty much just got my manga from bookstores; I "haunted" the Barnes and Noble by my work for weeks trying to collect all the volumes of Chobits. Now I have almost all my CLAMP series completed; I have not been able to track down volumes 5 and 6 of the first Card Captor Sakura series (Card Captor Sakura: Master of the Clow being Tokyopop's name for what is volumes 7-12 in the original release) at any bookstore yet. As for Tsubasa and xxxHolic, since those series were still going in in Japan when Del Rey Manga got the US license for them, I've been having to wait on Del Rey to catch up with where the series are in Japan. (Tsubasa is completed now in Japan, and xxxHolic is ahead of us but not completed yet as far as I know, though I think CLAMP will end it soon since xxxHolic is a sister series with Tsubasa and Tsubasa is ended now). I might go the omnibus route for Card Captor Sakura since Dark Horse Manga is going to release omnibus volumes of the series it has gotten the rights to, which I think is all the series that were/are released here except for Tsubasa and xxxHolic, the rights of which Del Rey owns as aforesaid. It would clear up storage space for sure. I wish they'd do that for Tsubasa since it's 28 volumes long. I only own up through volume 21, and even that takes up a whole dang box on my closet shelf. Plus xxxHolic is approaching 20 volumes (it's at 17 now) and may even get there as CLAMP has reported that finishing xxxHolic is taking longer than anticipated, delaying the silmultaneous release of their new series, Mangettes, in the US with Dark Horse and in Japan with Shueisha.

Ok my bad, I guess xxxHolic's at 18 volumes in Japan, as of two days ago. (Thanks to the LJ community Clamp-Now for this). The 19th volume is due out next year to coincide with the release of the new OAD (Original Animated DVD) for the xxxHolic anime. Dang! It could hit 20.

For my non-CLAMP mangas, those are mostly complete too because most of them are short series (the longest completed one being Tokyo Mew Mew, which is 7 volumes). For Pichi Pichi Pitch Mermaid Melody and Full Moon wo Sagashite (dubbed Full Moon in the US), I haven't been able to find the volumes I need to complete them at the bookstore; I need three volumes each to complete both those series (which are both 7 volumes long as well). The Pokémon manga is an issue since the older stuff's all probably out of print now. I did find a site the other day with a lot of the Pokémon manga on it as well as a lot of the old books like the "Let's Find Pokémon" books, but I haven't checked it out too much. I also used to have volumes for Angelic Layer (a CLAMP manga) and The Good Witch of the West (a non-CLAMP manga) but as I was having a lot of trouble finding volumes for those I gave them away. I've seen the anime versions of both so I'm not missing out on the story by giving them away.

I also have what I called "Western-produced manga," which means manga-style stories produced in the West rather than Japan or another Asian country. The W.I.T.C.H. graphic novels are my main collection here at the moment; unfortunately they've only released 8 graphic novels of it here in the U.S., which goes only to the beginning of the Nerissa Arc, which the original Italian version passed by long ago. Fortunately, the manga is still available in English since it was published either in the chapter books or in Disney Adventures magazine (I can't remember) and I found a couple sites where I can read it online, so I should be ok there. I'll probably keep the original volumes for scanning (I used a picture from one of them for my plexiglass etching for Printmaking class a couple years ago) and occasional re-reading.

I also own a couple Christian manga series. Christian publishing hasn't ventured too much into manga yet, but they're waking up. Serenity was promoted as "the first Christian manga" since it was the first Christian series specifically drawn in manga-format, though Christian comics certainly existed before then. Now there's The Manga Bible for goodness' sake. It's still not at the level of the secular market, but it could get there if sales are good. Anyway, the two series I own are PowerMark and Tomo. PowerMark is actually drawn in a slightly more traditional-comic format, but since they've released 2 graphic novels collecting the individual comic books into single volumes, and since the story is manga-esque, I guess it counts. I bought the first of these two volumes some time ago and then bought the remaining single comics when Loaves and Fishes - the only place I knew who sold them - was going out of business. It was when I did this that I realized they were releasing another graphic novel volume with those single comics in it. So I'll probably get that and give away the single ones. Tomo, on the other hand, is more specifically manga. They started selling it at Loaves and Fishes when I was there, and I bought the first two volumes before the place went out of business, but I haven't gotten the others yet. I also used to own comics of Archangels: The Saga (a spiritual warfare story where angels and demons were the main characters) but I didn't get into the series much. I also read Serenity at Loaves and Fishes (on my downtime) but never got around to buying it.

Other than this, I own two volumes of the Manga Shakespeare series - basically manga renditions of various Shakespeare plays; I own Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet - and two omnibuses (omnibi?) of a series called Amazing Agent Luna. Amazing Agent Luna is released by Seven Seas Entertainment, a fairly small publisher in the wide array of manga publishers out there. I discovered their booth at Comic-Con last year and at the same time came across a series they were selling that was on sale - Amazing Agent Luna, a story about a girl created in a lab and trained to be the world's ultimate secret agent. She's never seen the real world until she is assigned to keep tabs on developments at Nobel High, where she poses as the daughter of Control, the agent who trains her and keeps an eye on her (her "handler" I guess), and Dr. Andy, the psychologist tasked with maintaining Luna's emotional and mental well-being. According to what I heard from the actual authors this year at Comic-Con (since I got to meet them and have them sign both my volumes!!) is that they'll publish one more volume (volume 6) of the Luna series and then do a spin-off called Amazing Agent Jennifer that explores Control's past as an agent. I'm looking forward to that! (I guess they initially intended for volume 6 of Luna to be in the second omnibus, but it wasn't ready in time, so the second omnibus only has volumes 4 and 5).

****

Wantlist

Having cataloged my collection, I have been thinking about what else I would like to get, if anything.

First off, I want to complete the manga series I've started collecting that need completing. This will be hard for Pokémon and basically impossible for the W.I.T.C.H. series unless I can find English books published elsewhere, such as Canada or the UK, since the original comics are in Italian and I can't read Italian. I guess I should consider that one complete since it doesn't look like the graphic novels will be published in the U.S. anymore. (Ok, just changed my "manga I own" list to reflect this).

Full Moon, Card Captor Sakura, and Mermaid Melody I can probably find online somewhere, or wait till January when I go to Animé Los Angeles (I made my hotel reservation the other day, so that's set finally, and yesterday I put in for the days off because I had waited to do that till I had my hotel room reserved, so now all I have to worry about is getting there and my cosplay costume. Yay!). ZGraphicNovels.com has info on where to buy Tomo. With PowerMark I'm not sure; I'm having trouble finding the second graphic novel online. For Pokémon, I will check that site I mentioned earlier. Tsubasa and xxxHolic I will check the bookstore for.

Aside from that, I need to decide, as Mousie from Miss Dream said in her tips for collecting, what I want to collect. Based on what I already have, I'd say I like books and DVD's, though I'm open to little knickknacks and toys as well. I know there are a couple PGSM books I want that I read about on Sailor Dream. I'd like to complete the five-book set of the senshi guides (the series Meet Sailor Moon: Crystal is from). I want to buy the book Warriors of Legend that the people from Genvid did (I borrowed it from the library and read it and now I want it). I want to collect more of CLAMP no Kiseki as well as the actual CLAMP artbooks (North Side, South Side, and the series-specific ones that I saw mentioned on Wikipedia, unless the art from those are in North Side and South Side too). Other than all that, I want to say soundtracks, but I really don't have much storage space for more CD's (I own way too many CD's already). There is at least three Sailor Moon CD's I want to get - SuperS in Paris, Best Song Collection PrettyCast, and Uranus - Neptune - Chibimoon PLUS, since I like the songs on those CD's - but I don't have to get them as I can get all the tracks off those from Sailor-Music.

So, books and DVD's I guess, with the occasional doll or knickknack.

*sigh* I am both tired and bored; rainy weather makes me that way. I do need to do some school reading, so I should probably do that. I'm going to get some sort of snack and settle down to that. Bye!

Misty's Blog

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