Living a life of Satire

It's been a constant downward spiral. I really wonder how low I'll keep going until I finally pick myself up. I wonder why I stopped visiting my own blog. The internet is such damned place sometimes, maybe that's why I try to stay away from expressing my thoughts through blogging, after all anyone could be reading it. But maybe that's why I get the urge to come back once in a while and do a blog, only to delete it when I realize it's really stupid to share my pointless thoughts. How many times have I done this? Too many =P. It'd probably be better to just keep a personal journal. Shit, but the allure of someone on chance to stumble across this blog is so attractive and exhilarating. They would be like "haha, get a load of this shit guys". Being a little cynical here? Well it's true isn't it? I can't count how many times I've shared those "fail" videos and images to my netizen friends. If anything at least it's proof that they've acknowledged my existence.

But honestly I only get the urge to actually go out of my way to blog when I get that "forever alone" type of feeling. That's kind of how I feel today, it's been a horrible day. Such a shitty day. Before I blogged because, you know, it'd be a fun little project to record my thoughts over my life. But sometimes it's not just fun, sometimes its fucking necessary to reach out- even a little bit, to prove to yourself that you're still alive.

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I don't know. Today sucks. I won't say why, because I'm talking to myself here. I already know why. But leaving a note behind saying that this specific day sucks will be well worth it. My life keeps spiraling down. How will I be in 2 - 3 years? I don't know, I really just don't know. I hope that if I do happen to look back at this blog maybe I'll be able to finally come to terms with myself and just do SOMETHING.

I feel like I'm in a silly satirical cartoon. Ever watch the movie Taxidermia? That stuff is like a big mind-fuck. And my mind is doing some serious fucking right now. Nothing good has been happening. I don't have anything good to share. Well maybe I could say I'm a fucking amazing actor, for putting up a smile while working at my shitty job, and saying "How are you doing today?" as if I'm the happiest person in the world. Shit the liquor store guy next door seems to have been pulling it off for fucking years and he looks just fine.

At least I'm not alone. I read a blog about a 28 yr old guy who works at a pizza place as an assistant manager. He makes $37,000 a year. He has not finished college, nor is he enrolled into a college. All his friends have moved on. They have good career jobs. Some are married, some even have kids. And here he was, all alone, at the pizza parlor. He reached out to his community to ask for help. They gave good advice. Just DO SOMETHING.

Do something. Good idea. I don't know when, but one day I'll do something.

Or here I go again. I almost deleted the blog. I lay back in my chair. Brood over my cynical thoughts. Maybe I should try to pick up writing? What an awful writer I'd make, haha. I lean forward in my chair again. I highlight the entire blog. I don't hit the delete button. Lean back into the chair.... Well today must be a really shitty day for me to actually do this....

*sigh* =_=

What is Normal?

I'm tired, I really am. Maybe it's just those random mood swings or something. This has been the most fucked up week I've ever had. It's not life drama or anything, it's just so abnormally surreal that I don't know what to make of it. I don't even know where to start to describe it. At the beginning of the week I knew I had a ton of work ahead of me, I was super pumped to get it all done. I had a nice schedule put out for me to divide up my hobbies and work. My intention was to go quickly and thoroughly through all of my homework and review notes, and then play games and relax. But after I finished my work I didn't play games nor did I watch anime. Instead I just sat there and aimlessly surfed the web like a robot. My body was doing one thing and my mind was doing something else. I was thinking about what to do, and kept looking over to the clock and watched the hours past by. Eventually I picked up the guitar and played til 3 in the morning before I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and was like "WTF" out loud. I went to school, then to work, and returned home. This time I didn't study, I just sat there and watched Starcraft commentaries and anime- but I didn't even touch any games. The next day and night were the opposite. What the hell is going on with me... Then I started to go through that "thinking" phase again, FFS I friggin hated it. I sat there drinking tea and just drew in my sketchbook. I didn't sleep at all for 2 days straight, 2 days after that I went to bed at 4 or 5 in the morning everyday. Obviously I couldn't go to class in the morning in that condition, so I missed out on the last few classes of the semester.

Now I'm here sitting in the library trying to figure out why I haven't been myself lately. Today I ran into Connie and we talked for a little bit. We bumped into each other at a pretty bad time though... Well she asked me what I was doing around Downtown Crossing, and I told her I was just walking around- she gave me a funny face and said that I shouldn't be walking around "on a day like this". That totally caught me off guard, I was just walking around aimlessly just thinking about what the hell was going on with my head. I didn't even realized that it was a really cloudy and gloomy out today until she said that. I don't know why but I was really freaked out by it so I told her I had to head off- which I regretted right after because 1. it felt a little rude to not talk a bit more with someone you haven't seen in a while and 2. I kind of needed someone to talk to, not about my weird mental crisis but just to have a normal conversation. After I ran away =_= I went to Chinatown to get some Avocado Bubble Tea and met one of my economics classmates. I had never ever talked to him before but he greeted me nonetheless, and I greeted him as casually as I could. I actually really enjoyed talking to him, he was my kinda guy to talk to. I'm positive that we could have been great friends, but we had only just started talking today... at the end of the semester...

So I went home, on my way home I tried to figure out what was bothering me in a logical fashion. The days and nights when I was just acting abnormally, I felt very lost, very frustrated, and very confused. I'm not saying I was depressed or anything  because I really wasn't, I just sat there trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me, why the hell would I suddenly lose the spirit to study, go to school, and play games? Plus I'm very biased towards the topic of depression, I've got that "Man up, and move on" sort of attitude towards it- hence why I sat there trying to figure out a way to fix myself rather than dwelling on it like a diseased shellfish. But I couldn't figure it out at all until I had a few hints from that afternoon. When I bumped into Herman and Connie I felt happy to see them unconsciously even though in my mind in the moment I was more like "o.o Er..uh... wut... oh heeeey! * =] * ". So why is it that I felt better once I started to talk to other people?

My goal after high school was to live a normal and uneventful life. I didn't want to go to parties or anything, I just wanted to live normally. Go to school, study, work, go home relax, hang out with friends once in a while, and enjoy what I love to do on the side. Hmm.. but now I see that my friends department has been lacking compared to everything else. What is Normal? Really what is it...? If what I typed up above me is the definition for a normal life then shouldn't I be fine with that?

Here's what I've come up with: Everything I've experienced and gained this year in terms of School - Work - Hobbies has increased in value. A simpler way to put it is that say for example: in high school my nominal values of school, work, and hobbies could be measured in monetary units (at least for this example)- So School would be worth $50, work could be measured by $40 and hobbies at $100, these values are adjusted according to how happy I am with those categories in my life. This is an extremely macro-economical way of thinking so it's a good brain exercise. This year these values have increased to the following: School - $100 Work - $60 Hobbies - $300. So basically this year I'm happy with classes I take, work is less of a pain, and I thoroughly enjoy my hobbies a lot more than I did last year. So I should be significantly happier right? Well I found that there's another category, my social life. In High School my friends were around me all the time, in college, all my old friends are scattered, and after seeing Connie and then Herman right after, I realized that I have made ZERO new friends in college. I made myself realized that just talking to them in class is not okay. I need to make real new friends that I can consistently talk to about school-life and other things in general while I commute or just walk around Boston like I did today. My social Life last year: $150 My Social life this year: $50- Conclusion? I occasionally talk to old friends but no longer have any solid friends to talk to consistently.

So the deficit of happiness in my Social department may be the problem here (I logically think to myself...) I only have myself to blame for that... Just focusing on school and coming home to play isn't enough I guess. Everyone has their own version of happiness. I'm probably still too young to figure out my version of it, but little by little I'll figure it out, and once I do I can start getting to work on making it. Ya know what, this is why its good to blog. As cheesy as I find it to blog about this shit, it really does help. Blog first for yourself before others. I remember when I used to use xanga, I would try to make it more popular, I socialize with total strangers like 100 times a day for that interweb attention. So stupid. It's another reason why I despise using facebook, networking is fine (that's why I have to use it) but I get the feeling that a lot of people use it for that publicity factor.Ugh, well I'm just biased in that area so *shrug* w/e. I took my blogger link off it recently, I wanted it there just incase people were curious about what I was up to- which was good for the first few weeks but then the wrong people started reading it, and its just really embarrassing....

I feel better now. I really do. But sometimes I feel a little crazy when I think about this stuff, but I need to remember that I'm not alone in this matter. A lot of people have these kinds of problems too... Thank god I'm smart enough to take care of myself, even if its through blogging (so lame imo) =_=. Well what to do now... maybe now I can get some sleep, my face is really puffy from the lack of sleep. I'm still a little confused, but things should work out somehow...

A Shy 16 year old Boy

Lol. A few days ago my dad's friends came over with their family to hang out and relax. They made some really good fish stew and some other fish cooked with rich sweet sauce, I'm not too sure what the name of the dish was. What was really interesting about that day was the fact that one of their daughters, or maybe nieces was the same age or a little younger than my little brother. My little brother is a week away from being 16 and the girl is probably either 14-15 years old, she was pretty tall for her age =_=, but then again I'm pretty short. Anyways my little brother refused to walk around the dining room and living room and stayed in either his room or the basement. I literally had to bring him his plate of food and drink to his door. The kid was so shy he didn't want to come out lol. To be honest I was a little surprised. He's going through that phase in High School where you establish your personality and make your temperaments well known. Lately he gives me an attitude now and then, but I completely ignore it, he hasn't seen the world yet so I'll forgive him for the disrespect.

But because of that attitude I thought he'd be more assertive towards other people, or at least more comfortable talking to others. Hmm its tough to figure out.. When I was 15 or 16 I was fine talking to anyone. Before that I was shy and sensitive when talking to girls but after I made some really close girl-friends it all went away. In my little brother's case I've only seen him with 2 girls! Well outside of school of course, I have no idea what he did inside. But judging from his super obvious shyness on that day I'm a bit worried about him lol. It's fine not to be an aggressive-assertive type of guy to charm  girl, but being shy of girls is a problem. Whenever I feel a little down about a sensitive issue I turn to my girl-friends for help rather than talking to the guys. Guy on Guy talk is... kind of awkward so it's nice to talk to a girl. For that reason I don't want my little brother's shyness to get in the way of making friends with girls. I wonder how I should fix this...He keeps to himself whenever I have girls coming over too =_=, well they're older and more mature so it could be understandable for him to be timid... God I hope he doesn't become the worst kind of NEET.

I'm pretty sure the majority of the few readers that come to my site are girls, so this will be a nice new POV of how boys can be shy to girls lol. I find it pretty funny and cute, its like one of those comedy/romance anime where the guy has so much trouble just talking to the girl he likes. I've had this issue though... ugh makes me want to bury my head under a mound of sand... it was my freshmen year and I had this huge crush on a girl. I could speak perfectly fine with any other girl, but that one girl had me sweating and stuttering. God if I could go back in time I would just take a shovel and smack the side of my head. I wonder if girls have the same problem. Being shy of guys, I haven't seen many girls who are shy of men around my age, even in high school. The only time I might have seen it is when girls around 13-15 come over with their parents to visit and they're a little shy of me, I just wanted to feed them and make them feel welcome =[ (cmon everyone loves Kim Chi Ramyun!). But maybe it has more to do with how much exposure people get to the opposite sex that determines how shy they are. 

Well here's this weeks set of sketches. Yet again I've barely managed to make some time to do some sketching. I've got a research paper coming up, economics test, and a fatass Math Exam to study for. At least it's really good practice in time management. for this sketch above I actually did some inking for once. Sadly I failed to but more detail in the clothing to make it more interesting, but more importantly I figured out a new flaw in my drawings. From the front or the side the flaw would be tough to spot, but from the 3rd angle view I realized that my waist (especially for girls) were waaay too small in width. The wrist was also a bit too extented but that can be easily fixed. What's great about this piece is  the inking. I was pretty happy with the sweet inking job I did, it looks very empty but at the same time very neat and tidy. If I were to tone it in it would look almost perfect.

Here's a great pencil sketch. Using what I learned I made their hips wider and managed to keep their love handles in check lol. The main reason my waist were so small was because I didn't want them too seem to overweight. I changed that and it is looking really good. Because my clothes looked so plain and ...boring I had to do something about it. Here I added in those creases you would see on anybody that's not wearing skin-tight clothing. It's a real challenge to figure out where the creases go, but one of best ways to get around that is look at your own clothes and think about how they hang off your body.

I'm seriously getting really really comfortable with drawing full body anime characters. A few months ago, drawing a character in a pose like this would be a pain in the ass.But now that I understand where the joints are, where the legs are suppose to be, it was too easy baby xD. Nothing special here, simply just another sign that I'm making good progress on the mountain sized Learning Curve for manga-style artwork.

The last sketch here was an attempt to draw my characters in different sizes. So here's the onii-chan and imouto-san. I made her arms thinner, smaller hands, compact shoulders. If I drew her standing up with her brother I think she'd only be a little shorter than the guy, or I could be totally wrong and there would be a head-sized gap between the two. I honestly think I should put more effort into the hands now though... I follow a pretty systematic method to draw my hands with ease, but it still takes a good amount of thinking and effort to sketch them out cleanly. Her hands in this one were acceptable (minus the fact that I forgot to erase some lines) but I should start to experiment more.

I wish I could blog more often, these long blog posts take up a lot of space =_=.

It's a Balancing act!

Final weeks before exams... busy as I expected it to be lol. My hands were so tied up with work and play that I could hardly find any time to blog or even visit any other blogs. It's been a really eventful week this time around. Eventful as in busy, productive, and best of all~ fun. When a week passes by so quickly its got to be a crazy week. Literally, I honestly thought that yesterday was Tuesday, but today is already Friday o.o. The week started off with a presentation, massive amounts of homework coupled together with studying and general work at the store. I usually don't openly complain about excessive amounts of work, but this time around I was fully justified to do so lol. But just because I was super busy doesn't mean I didn't sneak in a few hours of play. I just love my friends, without them I think I would have gone crazy a long time ago.

Well apparently my guy friends were able to find this blog... I'm completely fine with my girl friends reading it but its embarrassing as hell when the guys get a hold of it. We all have different images in society, and we tend to choose which image to put on in the face of another person. In real life, I'm probably seen as a carefree guy, my mind up in the clouds, just living life aimlessly like a lot of other guys. Not a lot of people would expect me to be blogging so extensively with proper spelling and uppercase letters (not to mention the length of these posts =_=). I avoid publicizing my blog because I don't want people to have that awkward underlying opinion of me. There are certain stereotypes out there for people who blog. For example in my English course my classmates and even the professor himself were bashing on the blogging community for being "Self-centered, egotistical, attention-whoring, negative monstrosities" =[ . So yeah, that made me pretty timid about using my blog... However when my friends found it (when they did I was SUPER embarrassed) and read it they were very understanding of it. They weren't like "wow you're such a fag, this shit is so stupid" or "Who the hell do you think you are?" kind of thing. That's why I love 'em so much, true friends can learn to accept these hobbies without making any further judgment on your character. So thank you Andy, Hugo, Tuan, Harry, (there I mentioned you guys lol) and anyone else who happens to read this blog. This is who I am, and I'm glad that you respect it.

So what did I do when I snuck in those few hours of play? I PLAYED FRIGGIN STARCRAFT II BABY YESSSSS!!!!! Again, my wonderful friends provided me with an invite beta key for the game, and I went completely nuts. I threw aside all the homework I had that night and went wild with the game. But... the fun didn't come without a few consequences. I ended up procrastinating heavily by Wednesday I had a whole night of Homework to finish off, I was so busy that I couldn't even meet up with my classmates to work on another presentation (I had to schedule it for next week). So I spent a sleepless night getting a mound of homework and studying done. Thursday was a nice day of relief. I finished everything and only had night classes to worry about. So I went over to Harry's house, ate Wendy's, and played Starcraft II for like 4 hours. In other words we had a "Bro-Out" lol.

Despite all the work and Starcraft II I had on my hands I still managed to find a little bit of time to scratch out a few panels. I couldn't practice extensively but I was still able to make a few panels for fun. It was also a good way to make myself more comfortable with drawing out a story.

I did a whopping 5 pages of panels! The story pretty much revolves around a Tsundere character being teased, which is one of my most favorite fan-service themes lol. It's not properly done obviously, I really didn't have any time at all to make straight lines with the boxes, or even do any inking- forget toning lol. But what I really loved about these 5 pages, is the fact that I went beyond the one-paged sitcom and extended it. It can be seen as another step forward =), in other words- Progress. Of course it's littered with inconsistency and messy work as usual but overall I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out. I'm gradually getting more and more used to drawing characters using less and less effort to do so. Eventually it'll be second nature and I can focus being more consistent with character design. Plus once the summer comes around I'll have time to sit down and tone things in, regardless of how bad it may be- when things get toned in it brings them to a totally new level of quality. I really wonder how much more I'll improve throughout the rest of the year...

Alright that will be enough for this weeks blog. I still have a lot more I want to get out of my system, but its already 9 PM (got home at 7:30 PM from work) and I want to watch this weeks new wave of anime. Lately I've been watching a shoujo anime.. yes a guy watching and enjoying shoujo. I rarely do genuinely enjoy shoujo because of how they portray the guys some times; like entangled men embracing each other at an onsen =_= There was also this one time I watched an anime with no prior knowledge of its genre or even a synopsis. The first 5 minutes consisted of two men (who I thought were women at first) in bed sweating and groping... my eyes burned out from my socket lol. But then again I can't complain since some ecchi anime do equally gross things for the girls =P. Lately in my opinion the ecchi has been getting out of hand... I'm guessing the ecchi genre couldn't find new ways to adapt to this new era of Anime and decided to make it borderline hentai. Its just awful =(.... sweet Kaichou wa Maid-sama! just finished downloading. Yet again its time to sit back and  relax... haaaa~

Getting Older

Yesterday I went to a party, played some beer pong- I had a blast. Today I woke up in the morning, cleaned my room, and went off to work. I got home did my homework and put together my financial papers and study abroad application papers. I'm all ready to start the week. But it hit me... I'm being more and more responsible. And my days are getting duller and duller.

I'm in college now, the most independent years of my life, my prime years. It's pretty damn safe to say that I'm nearing the peak of my youth. In a few more years I'll be working my career and I'll be looking for someone to marry, --> in a few more years. Sure I still go out to eat and hang out with my friends but never before in my life have I ever worked so much and had so much on my mind. Not only do I have more "actual real" responsibilities but I also perceive things differently. When I was in high school, like in my sophomore and junior years, school and the friends I made in school were my whole world. If I were to picture it in my mind it would be me stuck in a globe surrounded by images, memories, and friends- on the top of a mountain. Now I visualize my world as me standing over a cliff, my memories of high school and my friends are behind me, and a massive valley of nothingness is in front of me. I take a step out over the cliff, and the cliff expands with new memories made, new ideals, new values, and different morals. I look over my shoulder and say "So High School is over eh?"

 So what got me thinking about this... Well the events of the past few days, weeks, and over the year have been new and has changed me a little bit inside. In other words I matured a little. When I pick-up my little brother from high school I look at all the kids running around. I realized that High School, at least to me was a sheltered place shunning my eyes away from how REALLY big the world is. I was already curious about what was really in the world at that time. I questioned things like, "Is High School Drama really important?",
"How shocked should I be when someone gives me 'Shocking News'?". Some people in school obviously embraced drama and some others began creating their pretentious images. I always just sat in the back and asked why? Of course I never made any of that known to anyone, if I started ranting wouldn't that make me another one of those pretentious fools? So I just kept it to myself, which was good, it helped me see whats important and what isn't. If only I found the energy to study lol.

And so I graduated... Picked up smoking and quit since it caused problems for me when I worked out. IMO smoking really is just a social thing to do rather than something to enjoy- at least until you're hooked. But ya, I was free of all those questions I had in High School, I didn't even keep a High School Year Book I didn't want any of those memories to drag me down on my way up to success. One of the greatest realizations I made after High School was how big the world really was. After traveling to Vietnam, walking down the poor streets, I think the problems kids have their are far greater than ours. They have greater obstacles to climb in order to reach their dreams, unlike here in America.

Other than looking at things that way I noticed that things around me are changing. For one thing is the respect I get lol. One time I was looking for my little brother at school. I spotted some of his friends which are probably around the age of 15 - 16, and they talked to me.. really politely. It's like how a underclassman would talk to his senpai in Japan. I was really surprised, when I was at that age no one talked to me in a polite formal tone, it was always the friendly informal one like you would have in a normal conversation. But they talked to me like I was a teacher almost o.o That wasn't the only time I've had High Schoolers speaking politely to me, even with some underclassman I knew were pretty formal, unless of course if I joked around with them. But if it was a proper conversation they'd be pretty attentive. Even adults put me on the same level as them in a conversation. In high school you could get the feeling when an adult would talk "down" to you. Now I talk on par with them. It feels very normal when you don't think about it, but when I realized it I was kinda taken aback.

 *sigh* I'm blogging about getting older huh... Right now I'm looking at how I was when 16 and reflecting on it... years from now I'll look back on the day I hit 18 and reflect on it... and then on another day I'll be looking back on my memories as a 25 year old. I just hope that by that time I'll be traveling around the world. I hate being confined to this state, and to this country. It all seems so small and insignificant. I went to Vietnam and it opened my eyes a little. When I go to France to see the other half of my family that I've never seen in my life I hope that'll open my eyes even more. And then I study abroad in Japan I hope that it'll further broaden my horizon.