I always seem to be addicted to one thing or another...Such has been the pattern since I was a young girl. Most of the addictions I had were having to do with video games and other electronics.

Anime (which led to japanese pop and rock)
If you count Pokemon and/or Sailor Moon, then I first watched it before I was in kindergarten (I remember watching Pokemon with a preschool friend of mine). I think I was the most aggressive about watching anime during 6th and 7th grade; I kept watching in 8th grade, though not nearly as much. And after going into high school I haven't had as much time for it. But I still managed to get some in here and there.

Pokemon games (which led to other video games)
Started when a friend introduced me to them around 2nd grade or so. I was obsessed up until about 8th grade, where I lost interest for a while, but had a few phases of readdiction to an older Pokemon game, LeafGreen. (Unfortunately, I have since fallen off the bandwagon and I am no longer actively keeping up with Pokemon. All I know is that Black and White are supposed to come out soon, and that there's some dude called N with green hair who seems to be popular.)

Neopets
First played it in 1st grade, made account but never got rich and kept forgetting the password. Finally stuck to one account and worked very hard on it. I did accomplish a lot, but now I don't think it was worth the time because I no longer do much on Neopets (got too busy in high school and didn't finish the most recent plot). Probably not going to pick it up seriously again, but who knows?

Nutrinopets (which led to role-playing and graphics)
Actually was bored by the site at first, but returned some months later and decided to become more active. I was invited to a club, and that's how I discovered the forums of the site. It used to be quite active, but I saw people leave and move on with their lives as time went on. The site went down when I was in 8th grade and it's not here anymore. It's through Nutrinopets that I discovered role-playing, graphics, and my obsession with big numbers, particularly when it comes to forum posts (I had well over 20,000 forum posts, though sadly it's all gone to waste, but I'm glad that I no longer have the obligation to visit the site).

Gaia Online
Another forum; I think I was addicted to this before I got into Nutrinopets, actually, but I didn't stay on Gaia nearly as long. I think that's how my childhood innocence got spoiled. Got my first taste of seeing lots of swearing and more inappropriate stuff. -_-;; Mostly I just liked to make money and get items for my avatar. My account got deactivated because I was too young, and I had trouble getting it back once I did turn 13. I still go to Gaia sometimes, but it's really not that interesting to me. :\

The Sims 2 and 3
I really enjoy things that I can customize and control at my will, so making virtual people achieve things was pleasing to me... (If only it were that easy in real life to become a master chef, buy a huge house, or be friends with with 30 people... Though the third one's already too much work in video games XD)

Crunchyroll
Originally joined the site because they had an anime episode that I was having trouble finding elsewhere on the Internet. Abandoned my account for a long time before a friend of mine encouraged me to become active on the site. I don't have a very positive view of the site anymore (though I haven't completely quit because I'm too attached to it D: ). There's really a lot of people there, though, as well as many talented graphics-makers.

DeviantArt (which led to PHOTOGRAPHY!)
Another site that I was inactive on at first, but later became a frequent visitor. I started out only posting graphics, but then I decided to put up a few of my old vacation photos, and eventually photography became the main focus of my gallery. I'm grateful to DeviantArt because I probably wouldn't have been inspired to get into photography without it.

Youtube/Vocaloids/Nico Nico singers
A friend of mine suggested some Vocaloid songs to listen to (I believe Magnet was one of them; I forget the rest. But Magnet was the one that stood out to me; although it's not my favorite song, I know more of its lyrics than any other Vocaloid song). I knew about Vocaloids from seeing the artwork (particularly on Zerochan.net) and I'd listened to one or two songs of the Vocaloids before, but I guess those songs weren't very good since I hadn't liked Vocaloids back then. I'd thought they were too robotic-sounding and that I preferred "real" Japanese singers. Then I was made aware that there are actually members of the site Nico Nico Douga who make covers of the Vocaloid songs: basically, they sing the Vocaloid songs themselves and put it up on the Internet. They're quite talented and some have actually become professional singers. (Just see Pico, he's even got his own Vocaloid based off of himself now!) Well, you already saw my Valshe spam. I'll probably post more videos of the Nico Nico singers' music in the future.

I've had a bunch of other mini-addictions as well, to series such as Angelic Layer, Sola, Ouran High School Host Club, Pretear, Skip Beat, Durarara!!...and to video game franchises like Harvest Moon, Super Smash Bros...I wonder, will I ever break free from this cycle?

I can already feel myself being sucked into it again. I've seen two websites for the Dollars. It's a fictional group from the series Durarara!! but people have taken it upon themselves to make an actual site. There's a Dollars forum and a Dollars BBS. (If you don't know the password to get in, just ask me or whoever else you know that's a Durarara!! fan) You may realize that many of the sites I frequented in the past were sites with active forums. I've always preferred forums to chatting (chatting is too fast-paced, a bit harder to multitask), and I can't help but be attracted when I see a forum that might suit an otaku like myself.

I probably won't join the Dollars, at least not yet, because of the amount of users (not quite enough...it seems like the size is like Nutrinopets was when it was waning in activity, and I don't really want a repeat of the past). There is another prospective that looks very good to me, Vocaloid Otaku. It's a forum focused on Vocaloids and it's more active than the Dollars forum...If I join, though, I'm bound to get addicted and waste even more time on the Internet, which really is not in my best interests. It's so tempting, though! It would give me an excuse to make graphics (I could make myself an avatar with a matching signature banner). And making new accounts is always interesting for me. I'll hold back for now.

Labels: addiction, anime, crunchyroll, deviantart, dollars, durarara, forum, gaia online, internet, music, neopets, nutrinopets, otaku, pokemon, the sims, video games, vocaloid, vocaloids

I would have titled this post "London Bridge is Falling Down", but that bridge is still fine, as far as I know. (I prefer the Tower Bridge in London to the London Bridge anyways. I personally consider the Tower Bridge to be prettier.)

The bridge I'm referring to is the Internet. What other thing connects people from all over the world better than this does, in our modern age? But lately I've been having trouble with it, because certain sites that I frequent have been misbehaving.

The first of the sites to go down was Tumblr. One day I decided I wanted to do some posting and reblogging, but Tumblr apparently had other ideas. I kept getting errors, and sometimes pages wouldn't even load. Eventually I became frustrated with it and gave up. There was also a time when it was down for maintenance, which was also quite annoying. I know it really can't be helped, but all the same, I want to blog while I still can. (Summer vacation is nearly over, and who knows how much free time I'll have when the school year gets under way.)

DeviantArt was next to go down with errors. And I made some mistakes of my own on the site. There's a badge that you can give people called a Llama badge. It started out at the beginning of April. There are now a lot of people who give and receive llamas, myself included. The problem is, I have a tendency to act before I think, so sometimes I give a llama before reading a person's journal. I've already messed up by giving llamas to two people who didn't want to receive llamas. I wonder why I didn't learn from my mistakes the first time. I would think that after messing up many times I would learn to be careful, but it never seems to happen.

Well, anyhow, the third site that had problems was Beauty in Everything, a website with many beautiful photos (the photos come from Flickr users). I was trying to access it so I could perhaps look for some nice pictures. However, the site would not load, even when I came back to try again later on. It seems to be back up today, though, and I'm glad. I guess I've gotten attached to things all over again, even though I've been trying not to. But maybe it's something a person can't help doing.

Imagine, though, if the Internet really broke down, if all the sites crashed and no one could get on the web anymore. I figure it would really cause panic all over the place. People have become so reliant on the Internet, and it's become a part of life...I wonder if people would ever be able to adjust to not having Internet, like in the days before it was invented. (Then again, there are also many people who don't use the Internet, which can be bad in some ways, although at the same time I figure if I had never gotten onto the Internet, I wouldn't have wasted so much of my youth.)

Labels: adjust, attached, badge, beauty in everything, bridge, deviantart, error, internet, learning, llama, meltdown, mistakes, photography, problem, tumblr, waste, website, what if

One day, at lunchtime, I noticed that a few of my friends seemed to be writing on something. It was a piece of binder paper, and a girl was writing on it in cursive. Upon listening and watching, I realized that she was practicing signatures over and over again.

She was not just practicing her own signature. She also imitated the signature of one of her friends, and I think she got pretty good at it, because the person whose signature she was practicing writing said, "Now you write my signature better than I do."

It kind of made me think of how risky it can be to let someone get a good look at your signature. With practice, a person could probably replicate your signature pretty well. You either have to have a really wacky one or you have to keep it hidden from other people in case they feel the urge to forge it. Imagine all the things they could sign without your permission! And even if the person was caught trying to use your signature, it'd still be a big hassle.

Speaking of other kinds of signatures, I recently started submitting some of mine to some groups on DeviantArt. They're all pretty old by now seeing as I don't make graphics that often anymore (and when I do I am reluctant to post them on DeviantArt, because something I read suggested that perhaps it could be interpreted as art thievery if the artists making images used in graphics did not wish to have their art used in graphics). Well, I know that I have a long way to go (I've seen some people who make amazing graphics, and I applaud them) but it does tick me off a bit to be given criticism about older graphics, but I suppose it is better that I just swallow my pride. After all, I am sure no one is purposely trying to bring down my self-confidence, they only am trying to offer tips, so I figure it's just another challenge that I have to overcome. I would like to get back to making graphics more actively. Perhaps I should take a look at some tutorials. (The only thing is, I feel bad if I rely on a tutorial heavily since I feel like I'm doing nothing more than imitating someone else's graphics. But then again, imitation is one way of learning...After all, once you've improved you can then focus on developing your own unique style.)

Well, I guess it all goes back to that whole "small fish in a big pond" kind of feeling. At times I can be quite overwhelmed by how many amazing people there are in the world - or, on the other side of the coin, how many really harsh people there are (and I'm not talking about what I mentioned in the previous paragraph in this case). But seeing a lot of talent can inspire me to try harder too, so it doesn't always have to be something harmful. And perhaps by having to deal with unpleasant people will help me to harden myself and get "thick skin". I only hope that things can turn out well in the end.

Labels: art, challenge, criticism, danger, deviantart, feelings, graphics, harsh, old, people, problem, pros and cons, safety, signature, style, thick skin, tutorial, unexpected, world, writing

It's a book by Katherine Paterson, which I read a long time ago, sometime back in elementary school. I don't think I fully understood what I was reading. But I doubt I'll be rereading the book to get another look at it (there are so many good books in the world out there that I haven't read, and I'd like to get to those first).

Well, I am not a fan of Jacob Black from Twilight (or, more specifically, the actor for him in the movies, Taylor Lautner) but I ended up with him on April Fool's Day. On DeviantArt, every user's avatar was replaced with a joke avatar. The possibilities were Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Team Seeker, or Lady Gaga...It was so hard to tell who was who. It goes to show how I rely on pictures to recognize things. It's hard for me to remember so many names.

This week is my spring break. I'll be staying home for the break. Seeing as I had a trip to the Grand Canyon/Las Vegas in February, and a Yosemite trip in March, I think I've had enough of the excitement of traveling. (And it is costly, so I was hoping to save up more money for my retirement by not spending it on travel costs now.) Also, I do have some homework which I need to work on. I'm rather reluctant to do research for an upcoming project because this is supposed to be my time off, but I guess it can't be helped. Work must be done, and someone's gotta do it.

Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of catching a cold, presumably from a student at my school (due to frequent changes in weather, some students have fallen ill). I really hate having to spend my time off sick. Still, it's better than being sick during the school days, since then you either have to miss school and make it up, or you have to go to school and be miserable all day long. Indeed, my history teacher has gotten sick several times this school year and he was always having to spit in the trash can. (Not pleasant to watch. But he said it was either that or he "literally stopped breathing". Actually, I think a few students didn't think it was such a bad idea.)

I was meaning to write more, but it seems like all of a sudden my ideas have dried up, like an old well. I only hope that if I keep typing, my ideas will return to me, and this will not be a waste of your time. (Time is money, and time is what we want most but use worst. So of course you must understand its value.)

Recently, I finished watching an anime called R.O.D. the TV. The ROD part stands for Read or Die (sounds rather disturbing at first, and it is related to the storyline, but it's not horror). I had been reluctant to watch it at first, it being a fairly old anime from 2003-2004. However, I started watching it one time when my mom's friends were over (they had two children) and found it to be more enjoyable than I expected. Sometimes I don't think an anime will be good, but I decide to give it a chance and watch it, and then it turns out to be better than I expected. So you should always try something out before you dismiss it completely since you could later regret not doing it.

Just to give you a bit of an idea, R.O.D. the TV is about three sisters who are paper masters that can control paper. The sisters are supposed to be "bodyguards" for an author, and end up involved in the plans of Mr. Joker and many others, who are trying to revive a great man named Mr. Gentlemen. When I was younger (and I still do this sometimes) I'd often imagine myself with some kind of special power. It's too bad that it never does happen in real life that way. What we think of as magical is often Mother Nature at work. But at the same time we can never let go of any fanciful dreams. (Just look at all the science fiction and fantasy books that are published to this day. In fact, fantasy is a pretty popular genre of books.)

Labels: anime, april fool's day, book, break, deviantart, expectations, fantasy, homework, jacob black, read or die, rod the tv, sick, spit, surprise, teacher, time, travel, trip, twilight, value

"French Laugh

A laugh that comes deep within and sounds like "ah hoh hoh hoh." Contrary to Santa's laugh, this is more to make fun of others with.
From the Simpsons
Lisa: Oh no, I'm at the wrong school! (at a french school)
Students: hahhaha
Teacher: En Francais!
Students: A hoh hoh hoh hoh! (French Laugh)"

This is what was on Urban Dictionary. People tend to think of a "Aw haw haw" or "Oh hoh hoh" kind of laugh when it comes to French people. (Whether they actually laugh like that, I am not sure, though nasal sounds are common in French, I think)

I thought of the French laugh because of what a student brought up during a meeting. Some of us French students have been meeting up once in a while at lunchtime to discuss ideas and organize the French Week we have planned for later in October. One of the students said we should all go up to people and laugh "Oh hoh hoh!" at them. The teacher shrugged and said, "Well, I guess this is what we do in eighth grade, we go up to sixth graders and laugh, and they'll think, 'Who is this person?' " It would be really funny if we did go up to people and laugh at them, though.

Oh yes, and I noticed something about the Urban Dictionary definition for a French laugh. The definition that I included in the post mentioned Santa Claus style laughing. I used to be renowned as Santa Claus in disguise. In fact, when I did my evil laughter during basketball practice earlier this year, someone said it sounded like an evil Santa Claus. And so I thought I'd mention what my DeviantArt signature is right now...

"There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus; he does not believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus.
- Bob Phillips"

However, my role has changed recently. I am no longer Santa Claus, but instead I am the Queen. Apparently, the Queen of Pwnage. D: In my language arts class, people take turns deciding which students do what roles (jobs could be taking out and putting away our journals, or keeping the table quiet, or getting the textbooks). Today my job was to be Queen and "pwn everyone". At lunchtime I stood up and announced that I was the Queen of Pwnage. The reaction was blank stares and the "..." kind of silence, before the people in my vicinity returned to eating and talking and doing homework and such. (Y'know, I never use the words "own" or "pwn" in that way, so pretty soon I might forget about this, and I'll go back to being regular old me, I suppose)

Labels: claus, deviantart, eighth grade, français, french, french week, identity, laugh, laughter, nasal, pwn, queen, queen of pwnage, random, role, santa, santa claus, simpsons, sounds, stages of man

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