All goods things must come to an end. I just finished the Durarara anime yesterday, and was briefly at a loss for what to watch next, before remembering that I'd meant to watch Spice and Wolf, so I'm watching that now. I really hope it gets more exciting; I've only seen two episodes, but right now I don't feel that interested in it.

I always get a little disheartened after finishing a good series. I was really excited while I was watching Eureka Seven, Code Geass, and Boys Over Flowers in the first semester, but once I got close to the end of those shows, I always seemed to enter a gloomy period (might just be coincidental, but I like to think that there's cause and effect going on here). Well, I guess I could easily remedy that by watching and reading nothing but "good" anime and manga. But if I were to always spend my time dabbling in the best of the best, wouldn't I become unable to appreciate how good it was? After all, I just read somewhere earlier today that there has to be dark to see the light.

But anyways, I thought Durarara really came into its own in the second half of the anime (I can only speak in these terms because I haven't read the manga...I would like to read more manga in the future, but it's sometimes hard to find a good one that's already finished and doesn't have a ridiculous amount of chapters.) I liked a lot of the characters, and at first I wasn't sure what I thought of Shizuo because he smoked and seemed to become violent for no reason, though I have as of late become quite fond of him. I'm a big fan of Celty ♥

Though I wouldn't really say that Kida is one of my favorite characters in Durarara, I feel like I have the most connection to him. There were, in the past things he did - or didn't do, and he tries and tries and tries to move on, and yet he's still his own prisoner. It's one thing to forgive someone else, but it's another to forgive yourself...For failing to act at an important moment. What would you rather do? Regret what you've done, or regret what you didn't do?

When I get depressed, which is unfortunately pretty often, all the things I messed up in the past come back to me. It's like I keep opening my wounds all over again even after they healed, just like what I always did with the part on the other side of my knee - you know, on the back of your leg, the place where your leg bends? It often got itchy and I couldn't help but scratch it, and sometimes it turned red and pretty nasty. At least the pain kept me from scratching it, but while it was healing it would be itchy again, and so the wounds never really closed (well, until the weather changed, that usually made it less itchy so I'd finally stop scratching it). The body does have important messages to tell the mind, and I'm not just referring to problems dealing with your past, but also to health problems not having to do with the brain... These days I've seen many people coming down with illnesses and having to be hospitalized...I'm not able to discuss anything more than that, but it has been a very misfortunate time indeed.

Labels: anime, appreciation, celty, characters, depression, durarara, fear, good, health, itchy, kida, past, problem, questions, regret, shizuo

While I was in Australia, in one of the earliest days of the trip, we visited a place called the Twelve Apostles. I checked the dictionary for the meaning of apostle and it has a lot to do with Christianity...You wouldn't expect the Twelve Apostles to actually be huge rocks in the ocean, but they are. There were 12 of them in the beginning but now there are only seven. In fact, one of them collapsed only four years ago because the erosion had become too much. I wonder what they will do once there are only one or two of them left. I mean, it's already nowhere near being twelve of them anymore.

Here is a photo of six of them (this was taken before the one on the very left, closest to you, disintegrated. There are two more on the other side of the viewing walkway). Click here.

Anyhow, if any of you ever decide you want to take a trip Down Under, whether you visit the Twelve Apostles should depend on how far from them you're staying. The Twelve Apostles can be found in the state of Victoria. You will have to drive for quite some time to get there from Melbourne (which is where Andrew's - my dad's friend - house is). Besides the nice photos of it you can take there's not much else to do over there. So it's up to you whether you want to go see it. (But if you're nearby it, you really ought to.)

All of that aside, just the other day I had a very close encounter with one of my allergies, peanuts. One of my friends was over at my house along with her sister and mother. Her mother bought us sandwiches for lunch and I had a choice between two. I picked one, but I picked the wrong one, because that was the one that had peanuts in it! So we ended up dumping out the rest of the sandwich and I ate some of the bread instead. This time I didn't react strongly but I did feel a little funny in places, which is to be expected since my body thinks of peanuts as not food but invaders. I can never understand why people like peanut butter but I suppose they have their reasons. (And apparently there's two different kinds of peanut butter, chunky and smooth. Have you tried it? Which do you prefer?)

My mom is trying to feed me seeds these days because she believes I don't have enough zinc. She read somewhere or other - probably one of her Chinese books or the Chinese newspaper - that the reason why my skin is so easily affected is because I don't have enough zinc or something. It's not my fault I'm allergic to peanuts, which I think have zinc or at least other vitamins in them... Anyhow, since I can eat seeds, my mom wants me to eat pumpkin seeds and pistachios and things like that. I am dubious of my mother's sources of information about health but I guess there's no harm in eating seeds. (Right? Because seeds won't grow in your stomach, right? XD)

It seems like the small gift bags we have at our house have disappeared. Sometimes we use them to give, say, a birthday present or something, by wrapping an item in tissue paper (not always) and putting it in the bag, then giving someone the bag. But it seems like our bags have mostly disappeared by this point. I figure we probably used them up last year when I gave my teachers Christmas/New Year's gifts. That reminds me, it seems like unless we have a Teachers' Appreciation Week or something, the teachers don't really get that many gifts. I kind of feel bad for them since teachers have to deal with people - not an easy task - and don't get paid much besides that. (Though not all teachers are very nice about it, and I do want that summer vacation...Hehe...)

Labels: allergies, appreciation, australia, collapse, gift bags, health, number, nutrition, peanut butter, peanuts, rocks, sandwich, seeds, teacher, twelve apostles, zinc

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