guerrilla optimism.

Bang, etc

2010-03-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

So I quit.
Well, this blog anyway.
Thanks to everyone who's been reading and all that, but if you need me, Steve and I started a joint tumblr account called zombie imouto so he could help me with writing. It's been really fun so far, and maybe I'll be able to try a blog on my own again in the future.

So yeah. I might try the H-doujin panel thing again on a separate account or something, but yeah.

This one is done.

2010-02-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've been setting my expectations too high for this thing.

2010-02-14T11:38:00.001-08:00

there are no multiple meanings.
happy valentines day.

2010-02-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

i feel like i've fallen into a trap.
but in a funnier, punnier way.

_{when did writing become so difficult? i'll have something soon.}

2010-02-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

2010-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

2010-02-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

one day, i'm gonna make a blog where

i only post h-manga and doujin panels

that cryptically describe my current life or

how i'm feeling

2010-02-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

what the fuck am i doing with my life?

...

2010-01-27T18:56:00.000-08:00

...Well, fuck.

short post: maria holic episode 1.

2010-01-26T23:28:00.000-08:00

So I watched the first episode of Maria + Holic. Under the impression that it would be a completely shitty show, I was pleasantly surprised.

Then I looked up the director.

...Oh, right. Of course it was good.

I don't really have much else to say right now, so I'll leave you with the best ED I've ever listened to. (I mean, next to 'Don't Say "Lazy"' or whatever.)

Hidamari Sketch.

2010-01-17T14:47:00.000-08:00

[gelbooru.]

So I watched the first episode of Hidamari Sketch yesterday.
I did enjoy it. A lot.

The "main" story was cute, and something that most people can identify with. The animation was nice, and even somewhat relaxing. I found out after watching that Shinbo Akiyuki is the director, which explains a lot. It seems he chooses to be more subtle in his visuals than with Bakemonogatari or even Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei. I especially loved the characters, from Yoshinoya to Yuno, Sae, Hiro, and Miyako...

...Oh dear god, Miyako.

[umekichi.]

I'm in love. Probably one of the most interesting characters -- not just in Hidamari, but anime in general. She seems incredibly carefree, bordering on the childish side, yet she lacks the frustrating quality that, say, Yui Hirasawa has. She gives a whole new meaning to the boke archetype, in my opinion, and she actually makes the "energetic" character archetype likable.

I really can't wait to watch more, and I'm glad there are more seasons of it to catch up on later.

Oh, and the notebook writing experiment didn't work the way I thought it would. It does, however, distract me from classes when important lectures start, so I think I'll have to just try this again.

quick edit note: i'll be writing a lot more on this later, when i watch more. i just wanted to throw out the fact that i absolutely adore this anime already.

experiment 1 - notebook freewriting

2010-01-11T02:25:00.000-08:00

I notice that the most trouble I seem to have with writing is what I feel comfortable with writing about. This becomes a big problem when I sit at my computer, fingers rested on the keyboard, thinking about what I want to write in this little box under "guerrilla optimism". I go blank, as I've mentioned before, but for the most part only because I suddenly become uncomfortable. Every single thought becomes something I'm afraid to express, as the first question I'll ask myself will be;
"I wonder who'll look down on me for saying this."

For example, Saturnity's recent post describes his disdain for those who compare themselves to Satou from Welcome to the NHK and refer to thsmelves as hikikomori for it.

Of course, this just so happened to be right around when I was going to dedicate a post to such a
comparison. Not to Satou, per se, but to social recluses in general. Georgia wasn't entirely "chronicled" in that post, and there are still many facets I still need to write about, in specific, becoming avoidant of anything outside of my house, the internet, or anime. Which is not to say that I identify as a "hiki" because I'm also an otaku. That's bullshit. I try to avoid the use of that term as much as possible, unless it makes a good euphemism for "hermit". It was a painful time, but god damnit if it wasn't comforting to avoid everything outside.

I digress.

I say that because my first thought after reading said post whilst writing mine was "...Hm, I wonder if he'll look down on me for writing this." -- Not to say I won't write it.

However, I noticed that even after all this time of typing over 125 words per minute on various blogs during the last decade, I still actually prefer writing what I have to say. You know, with a pencil and paper. When I know I'm not speaking to an open audience (of which I have none, I realize, but potentially. also god there are a lot of italicised statements in this.), somehow, I manage to avoid writing the verbal equivalent of 2girls1cup, and I write what I want to say. How I feel. What I think. Whatever.

So I bought a small notebook, just like I always used to when I was younger (I guess I'll get into that later), and I plan on writing in it, then transferring it to this blog. Perhaps it'll help. Call it an experiment, as one of this blog's goals is to help me determine how I write and improve, right?

Oh my god, this makes three posts about intent to write. I think I'll have to write something here to avoid that being the only topic.

So I started watching anime again after a two-season hiatus (thank Haruhi 2 for that. It gave me so much butthurt I just stopped watching everything altogether.) Perhaps it'll give me something to write about, but I'm only now starting to appreciate production value, quality of animation and voice acting, story, etc.

I'll take Seitokai No Ichizon for example. The character designs are pretty nice, almost Broccoli-esque, and the music was actually very interesting. I was put off very easily by the amount of references made in the first minute and fourty-five seconds. It seemed to overdo the already overdone "self-aware slice-of-life anime-is-now-a-moe-parody-of-itself" genre. But I'm told it gets better, so I'm sticking with it.

The Slice of life genre seems to be my thing, so I tried something else: GA - Geijutsuka Art Design Class. It's actually very informative in terms of the science of art, like a 30-minute-long version of a Miyuki lecture in Lucky Star or something. I enjoyed the first episode, so I'll be watching the rest of that, too.

Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has a place upon my "top 5 favorite anime", as it's humor, characters,
direction, and, well, EVERYTHING else is just -- perfect, to me. So of course, as I'm waiting to watch the newest season, Zan, I took up the OVA of it instead. Unfortunately, the sound quality was terrible (probably the rip), although the music was superb, as usual. The humor seemed to be more deeply rooted in NEEHAWNGOH wordplay, and too much was lost in translation. It was still enjoyable, and it didn't disappoint, but I'm certainly hoping the whole season isn't like that.

I still have yet to watch anything from the winter '10 season, but I did have the chance to watch, like, seven minutes of Ladies Vs Butlers -- which is a piece of shit, I can already tell, but the drill hair requests, nay, commands my attention.

I suppose that's all, aside from Genshiken 2 (which is easily ten times better than first season, and definitely worth watching, if I'm not the only loser in the universe who hasn't seen it), but I suppose it'll be easy to write about this kind of thing more.

That said, I think I'm going to go to bed. I'll start writing in this small notebook tomorrow, and we'll see where this experiment goes.

...If anything, I'll tell you how much I enjoy Hidamari Sketch when I watch it.

A new year.

2010-01-01T18:05:00.000-08:00

First off, Happy New Year. I'm extremely happy that 2009 is over, and I'm feeling optimistic about this year. In fact, this is the very first year I've ever had more than one resolution, and I spent most of New Years Eve typing them into my phone.

Now, this morning I decided to read a few blogs when I came across the winningest digitalboy post since Anime Generalism - True Otakudom?. Keeping up in the spirit of "SHIT IS GONNA GET DONE!", I'd like to share mine, as well.

In no particular order:

1. Stop imagining how to impress people to be accepted and live for myself. (This is probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever had to admit to the internet. I'll just say it's a very silly habit of an introspective social reject.)

2. Learn the dances to Kero ⑨ Destiny and Gee. (Fuck all y'all.)

3. Return to a positive lifestyle.

4. Write more.

5. Read at least four books in queue.

6. Make good on promises and obligations.

7. Stop smoking (although it's more of a casual thing than a habit, I'd like to stop altogether.)

8. Talk to the pink moped girl.

9. Study harder, and continue to pass classes with A's and B's.

10. Use less internet, spend more time outside.

11. Be more adventurous and spontaneous.

12. Exercise more.

13. Finish or progress on old projects.

14. Learn to play ukulele.

15. Get back into art, photography, FL Studio, Photoshop, etc.

16. 1440x900. With a new background.

17. Give more love and pay more attention to friends and family, treat everyone better.

18. Take better care of self

19. Beat a Mario game with no save state

20. Put effort into interest in physics.

21. Stop thinking so much about the past. (Georgia, exes, etc)

22. Find time for anime, eroge, etc.

23. Create a hardcore track, a breakcore track, a lolicore track and a hip-hop beat.

24. Participate in more protests.

25. Learn to speak my mind.

26. Stay calm. (Prone to panic attacks, etc.)

27. Get back to learning Japanese.

I have a feeling that this year is going to be the start of something great.
Something big.
I have a whole lot of goals, and I plan on meeting every last one of them.

the most consistent blogger in the world.

2009-12-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

This makes two posts about intent to write . I'm not sure if I'm more frustrated or amused by that fact.

Once again, I've been trying to think of something to write about for a month, and I'm blank.

I've tried going through ideas in my "potential blog post list" and taking suggestions as per other bloggers, I've tried reading my favorite blogs for ideas (and bugging my friend Bri to start writing again -- hint hint, girl.) and I still can't properly write something -- anything.

I can't call it writer's block, as I spent two hours this morning typing up a fucking novella about my sudden intrigue with older women, the color purple (not the book or the rain), and a thought of a predestined life based on atomic structure for some stupid personal blog. I had no intention of writing any of the aforementioned here, for obvious reasons;
a) Really, why on earth would I write about any of that for public view?
(Well, come to think of it, shit, I just might.)
and
b) If it wasn't already incredibly apparent, I'm very self-conscious about what I write here.

I want to rediscover my "balance", but that's very hard to do when nothing sounds good to write about, and if something does, my ability to express my thoughts and feelings about it usually sound so ridiculous that I just delete all the drafts and give up.

Evidently I consider blogging srs bszns, and that shouldn't be. I seem to keep forgetting this is just a project, and I should be experimenting with the ridiculous subjects.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this in mind and not worry too much about impressing anyone -- I'm sure that's an impossible feat on the internet anyway.

...I'm working on something, I promise.

Something Personal.

2009-11-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this piece of shit as per the suggestion of some shitty anime blogger

This experience is something I've been trying to repress for the past six months. But the more I think about it, it's something I feel I need to share. While this post is riddled with disclaimers, I might as well say now that this is more-so for me than for the reader, a hope that it will have some sort of cathartic effect on me. I realize that it will sound dramatic, but I can't make this shit up, let alone exaggerate it. This will be really hard to write, and I can't promise it will be the most interesting thing to read, but god dammit it needs to be said.

I'm a California boy, born and raised (While my family and I are rather -- nomadic Californians, I consider my hometown Huntington Beach). As a child, I never liked California. All I knew about California was that I was very easily singled out and picked on, no matter where I moved. I based my opinion of my home state on the cruelty of children. Which was stupid, I realize, but again, I was a kid. I hated this place. I just wanted to leave.

Then, somewhere around the age of 11, my mother and I had fallen on hard times. She couldn't afford the home we were living in anymore, and my grandfather was planning to move to Georgia for retirement. This was as per the suggestion of one of his friends. Said "friend" was a real estate agent, and lied to trick him into buying one of the houses he was selling. My grandfather offered to take us along to so we could stay afloat. We needed a place to stay, and when we lived apart from him, we had a wonderful relationship, so I figured it'd be a nice experience. To get out, to leave what I thought was the worst place in the world, and go somewhere new.

We moved to Georgia a few months later, in the summer.
...this is around the time every moment I've ever hated in my life started.

It took about a week to drive there, hotel stays and all. The house that was so conveniently sold to my grandfather was in a quiet (at the time) little neighborhood in a small town called Lithonia. The whole city was predominantly black (this is a lie, every single resident of Lithonia was black.), but being half black, I felt it would be a great opportunity to connect with the other half of my own culture. It seemed wonderful, a quaint little southern home. When people would drive by, they would always wave to you, we had a backyard full of wildlife -- rabbits, deer, (you,) and foxes would appear all the time -- these things and more were entirely foreign to a Californian. It felt like such a strange land. It was exciting.

...Until we made the mistake of going into public.

In our first outing to a local plaza to pick up uniforms (I was lucky enough to avoid Georgia's public school system for a year by attending a charter school), my mother, a very nonviolent person, nearly got into a fist fight with a woman whose child was named Hennessy. I could seriously end this story with that and it would accurately describe the experience.

...But I won't.

We tried going out more, we were only an hour away from Atlanta, but even that proved to have nothing but obnoxious and ignorant people.

It was around this time we realized we needed to go back, we didn't belong here, and almost immediately, I started to appreciate California a little more. Every single time my family and I went into public in the first few months, we were always disappointed, frustrated, and left in a shittier mood than before...but we couldn't leave. The house was just purchased, and it would've been impossible to sell it within a reasonable amount of time.

My grandfather has always been a bit of a stoic grump, but he was always very kind and loving to my mother and I. As more time went by in the summer months, my grandfather became less kinda and much more...angry towards us. Passive-aggressively telling us not to go anywhere, yelling about every possible discrepancy in the house, and so on. It felt like living with him suddenly gave him an excuse to be an asshole. He never left his room unless it was to get food or to buy more. It wore down on us and put me in a similar state of frustration, but also fear. My shoulders would tense and I'd hold my breath every time I heard him step down the first creaky step from the top of the stairs. A few months after this, I came down for dinner to hear sobbing from the kitchen. I thought my mother (who has bipolar disorder) was having a low, but she was actually holding my grandfather -- the toughest man I know, while he cried into her arms. That's when it dawned on me: wasn't being an asshole -- he was depressed. He, much like my mother and I, couldn't stand it anymore, he was just as homesick, frustrated, and afraid as I was.

...Then summer ended. Admittedly, southern weather patterns are beautiful, but not even that could make up for the state. I went to school, and that's when I started to lose my faith in my own race (a precursor to me losing my faith in humanity entirely).

I'm going to reiterate that I realize this sounds overly dramatic, but I swear to god, I'm not exaggerating this. Given that I've been trying to act like this never even happened, I'm leaving out many details and many specifics.

It was just like the other schools, except now I wasn't just being singled out for being different, I was being singled out for being completely foreign to them -- a mixed guy who looks (for the most part) white in a school full of black kids, with long hair and the word "otaku" written on his forehead. You'd think it was a joke at first -- "Ha ha this is a bumfuck backassward town in the south, nobody knows anything about anything, speaks in broken and slurred english and reacts to anything different with stupidity" -- like in the books, TV shows and such -- but I couldn't possibly make that shit up. I walk into a room and people laugh at me for not walking with a slight limp. I read in class and I get laughed at for not sounding like an illiterate dickshit (I'll throw this out there now, even up to my senior year, I was the only person in my class reading without stuttering or pausing to phonetically spell out a word.) The more I tried to make friends the more I realized I was just being patronized by the people who seriously thought I was going to bomb and/or shoot up the school.
-- I never mentioned doing so, and I never gave off the impression. It was just the assumption because I looked white.

...Again, I really wish I was making this shit up.

For those seven years, every day was exactly like the next, the only things keeping me to date with the calendar were the weekends, where I would go to a local card shop and spend time with the closest thing to decent people I could be around. It was still typically Georgia, but they were somewhat nicer -- I'd assume because people who play nerdy card games in small, musty rooms don't have much room for ignorance.

I don't remember a time where the main thought in my mind wasn't another futile wish for some sort of miracle to take us back home -- back where the average IQ was above 80. I became so frustrated and depressed that I became somewhat of a misanthrope, where every day I made a conscious effort to avoid people altogether -- anyone talking to me would be met with a "Fuck off". I hated it, because I'm not like that at all, but I figured, if I alienate myself as much as possible, nobody else could do it for me, and maybe people would leave me alone.

Sadly even that didn't work.

I wish this only applied to school, but unfortunately, anywhere in public, someone would laugh or shout things. Every time I walked to EJ's house (one of the only real friends I managed to make there. A New Yorker. We're still really good friends.), someone with poorly-made dreadlocks and a white t-shirt that may as well be a nightgown would shout something out of a shitty car at me. "AY WHITE BOY" , "FUCK YOU DOIN HERE?!" and etc.

Let me reiterate my shame for my people.

The isolation got to me, I was always alone, no matter how many people were around me. Half of me wanted to die, and the other half didn't want to give that fucking place the satisfaction. I couldn't go anywhere but the mall with the card shop, full of the same people at the schools I attended. My grandfather, still depressed, continued to take it out on us, but so did my mother, whose bipolar disorder started spinning out of control -- I'll leave it at that.

Leave out some details of some fucked-up relationships, some short-lived friendships, a huge falling out with EJ, a few years of smoking weed and even more family issues, among other things, and we're at the stage where we're so desperate, my grandfather is willing to absolutely destroy his credit in order to just pack up our things and leave, without even selling the house. It continues to be delayed over and over again, but some sort of hope exists. This is also around the time I graduate high school. I was taking a year off before college (quite against my will) and I had to get a job.

Which was nice at first. I thought "Hm, a few hours a week, make a few bucks, pass the time until we move back...that'll be alright", which turned into "God I fucking hate people." all over again pretty fast. Adults there were big assholes, just like teenagers and kids. I was written up twice for complaints (I deserved them, yes, and I say fuck them. It got to a point where customers, much less anyone in Georgia, didn't really count as a "person" to me.), and the only things distracting me were marijuana and the internet. I became a borderline hikikomori. I never talked to anyone. I avoided talking on the phone as much as possible, I avoided interacting with anyone unless I absolutely had to. I kept myself locked inside the house, only coming out to work.

Delay after delay after delay, I came home one day and noticed the kitchen had a few brand-new folded U-Haul boxes. We were packing. It was time to leave. I put all of my belongings into four boxes and waited. My grandfather struck a deal with one of his childhood friends who said she'd let us rent the house she lived in as long as she could keep her stuff in the garage. June 1st, 2009 rolled around and that morning, we left. We abandoned the house and left.

It took us a week to drive to Georgia. It took us two days (straight) to drive back to California.

We got to the house in Riverside, and suddenly everything was clear. The sun was just a little brighter. The air was just a little sweeter. We were finally out of that fucking place. We were home. We were happy.

My 19th birthday came around a few months later, and my mom and I drove through every city we used to live in. I looked around at everything I saw and scowled at as a child and marveled as an adult. It was beautiful. We went back to Huntington Beach, and I let the waves wash over my feet for the first time in seven years. It was cathartic, in a strange sense. I finally appreciated my home. I finally appreciated California.

I can't live anywhere else.

Once again, I realize how stupid this sounds. It sounds like nothing but butthurt. Believe me, I'm beyond butthurt, but it was such an emotional time for me that I had to write it as such.

There.
I'm done.

Hopefully I'll never write anything like this ever again.

God I love this place.

Reality, Perspective, etc.

2009-11-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

Much like when I speak, I write with a great lack of knowledge of the topic at hand. I manage to bullshit the majority of it, or get by with bad reasoning that others seem to accept. I have a belief regarding this topic, but as I write about it, I will probably leave many holes in logic as well as just general thought -- so I will consider this a practice post. This also may or may not end up being incredibly boring...just saying.

In a completely literal sense, we can't create the world just by looking at it, as it already exists. It's right here, in front of us, and every organism with sight sees this. But the question is also vague enough to interpret it in a variety of ways -- the first one that comes to my mind is reality and perspective.

We can create the world, subjectively, by the perspective we choose to have.
(which is just a convoluted bullshit way of saying "I believe in optimists, pessimists, realists, pragmatists, etc".)

I take that back, it's not that we can create the world by perspective, we do create the world by perspective.

Thanks to the concepts of coherent and organized thought, there are many different ways to interpret every detail of the exact same world. Take, for example, a book, specifically, a biology book, as it's the closest object to me right now (that said, fuck Biology midterms. seriously.)

This book, essentially, is a bunch of paper held by a spine and two covers.
But it's also a wonderful source of information, a waste of space, a disgusting attempt to force feed so-called "facts" to the masses, a good object to keep on a shelf to make yourself appear more intelligent to guests, and a grand form of entertainment to the science enthusiast, among other things.

These are all different perspectives of the same thing. Whichever you choose (or form for yourself) is what you create by looking at it. Essentially, by looking at this book and conjuring your own initial thought and definition of it, you've created a part of your own subjective reality.

The same, I would assume, works for anything else we look at.

In essence, no, we don't create the world, as in physically, from nothingness by looking at it -- but we do create from what exists. In a sense, we manipulate the world to fit each of our own realities with our own eyes.

I'm sure there's much more of a psychological/philosophical/metaphysical version of my answer somewhere, but I think I'll leave it at this for now. Perhaps I'll revisit it later.

Tonguetied.

2009-10-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

Writing has become even more of a challenge than I remember it being.

It used to be a great hobby of mine, as I constantly had the inspiration of the angsty, misanthropic teenager, but the only things I've been writing in the past two years have been bullshit school papers and stream-of-consciousness private journals.

I created this blog, for the most part, to revisit writing. To see if I could somehow manage to bring it back into my life. However, something's in my way here:

My skills have dwindled. Expressing my thoughts, much less my opinions, has become a rather difficult task (as proven by the fact that it took about seven drafts to properly type this exact sentence.)

So although I won't have a whole lot of time to write, thanks to college, I think I'll be using this blog to practice those skills again, and hopefully I'll improve enough to write a proper post without any problems. Of course, I'll also be using it to ~~be an over-opinionated asshole~~ discuss a wide variety of both public and personal topics and how I feel about them, but recently I've had the idea to use this opportunity to occasionally practice "finding the hidden meaning" in both intricate and infinitesimal things (songs, articles, anime, etc) -- I figure it may help with learning to comprehend philosophical concepts (for PHL 210) and may make for a few good posts.

That said, I'll try to make an actual post fairly soon.
Eyelids are getting heavy.

(oh p.s. I'll have the layout, title, and all that changed soon too. sorry about that.)