CORRECTION: Whoops, this is actually the 299th post. My bad.
This post marks 300 posts in this blog. It's amazing how much I've been able to write over time, and I'm glad that I got this far. I hope you've enjoyed the ride too.

I thought I had better back up some of my posts on my computer, in case Blogger ever blinks out of Internet existence or my blog accidentally gets deleted or something like that. I was looking through my posts and I realized I had used the title "Walking on the Moon" twice. Oopsy. I try not to ever repeat post names, but I unintentionally do so... I guess this is what happens when your quantity gets too big. As for the quality, I hope it has not gone down over time. When I look back at some of my posts, I think, "Oh, that was a fun time, but it feels like so long ago." There are some times when I don't have much to write about, like the post "Ansel Adams", when I was lacking for inspiration, and it was a drag to write the post. (I felt like I should write something, to prevent me getting rusty from less practice writing) And there are also times when I have so many things to write about, I'm churning out posts everyday and I feel like I'm on top of the world. I wonder if I can grasp that feeling again.

There's something I'm always wondering about, and that is my appetite. It seems that even if I eat too much at one time and get full, later on I'll feel hungry again. (I might not really be hungry, only as soon as I see something yummy, I feel the urge to eat it.) I guess I have to ration what I eat since it seems I will always get hungry at certain times regardless of how much I ate earlier. This is rather dangerous and makes me feel like a fish or something. I bet my fish would keep eating beyond their capacities if I gave them a ton of food. (That's why I tend to "starve" them by only giving them the bare minimum at feeding time. I don't even feed them daily.)

While I was walking home today, I overheard a girl talking about how her dog had vomited. (Sorry to give you that mental picture if you were eating) I kind of thought about how people really still behave a lot like animals. I've heard dogs can sneeze and cough too (not sure about cats), like us. Both animals and humans scratch themselves when they're itchy. And we certainly do vomit as well. In the end, no matter how humans try to control and dominate and become "civilized", they're still animals.

I remembered something today that I hadn't thought about in a long time. When I was in elementary school, I used to go the YMCA daycare on the campus after school, where I stayed until my parents came back from work and could pick me up. There were sometimes questions we could answer, for instance, since I mentioned itches earlier, there was once a question, "Do you scratch an itch or itch a scratch?" We would write our answer on a slip of paper, as well as our name, and put it in a plastic box. Then, one day, one of the people working at the YMCA (we called them "leaders"), would randomly pick out a piece of paper where the question was answered correctly (I believe it was sorted for correct answers first), and then the person or people chosen would get a prize of some sort. It feels like a long time ago now.

Even sixth grade seems far away. I still have plenty of memories, but they gradually become fuzzier over time, more surreal, more distant. After a while I end up thinking, "Those were great times. And I'll probably never have them again." I still enjoy things in my daily life. But it's rather clouded by all the knowledge of the world you get, because when you're young everything's fresh and simple, everything is clearly defined. The lines get blurred when you're older, unless you can still keep that innocence, and I long for those days when things were not complicated. I don't know if I can have that kind of life again. I think that you don't realize how nice it is to be young until you get older.

I feel worn out of having to deal with stresses and concerns, and that's why I want to retire. I'd thought that if I didn't have to work any longer, and be able to focus my attentions on the little things, things that I want to do but don't get around to doing, things would be easier. Maybe they would be, and maybe they wouldn't. I'd still like to see for myself. And I don't want to wait more than fifty years for it.

Labels: 300, appetite, blog, complicated, fish, food, innocence, inspiration, life, memories, old, retirement, scratch an itch, simplicity, stress, time, walking on the moon, winner, YMCA, youth

In science class the other day, my teacher was absent, so we had a substitute, and we watched a movie called Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon. (Actually, it was supposed to be an IMAX movie, but since we don't have an IMAX Dome theater at my school, we had to settle for just looking at the movie being projected) As the name implies, the movie was about going to the moon.

I thought that the movie was quite touching. I would like to be able to go to the Moon someday, to walk on the surface and look at the rocky surface going on into oblivion. And I'd like to peer into a crevasse that could rival the Grand Canyon of our Earth. But then again, it'd be a lonely place. No one has traveled to the Moon since the 1970s. In the movie, the narrator (Tom Hanks) said that the Moon confuses one's optics, because there are no trees or anything that you can use as a reference for size. But I would like to go the Moon and be able to see the Earth, so small and far away. I've only ever seen pictures of the Great Blue Marble.

I was inspired by it, particularly where a 7-year-old girl said she was going to be an astronaut someday, and in the end where Tom Hanks said something along the lines of the next person to go to the Moon being one of us viewers. But the other students, as always, seemed pretty emotionless. I really don't understand young people these days. You'd think they would be emotional, since teenagers are all moody and rebellious, but no, they don't react at all to the movie. (Not that this movie was one of the more inspiring ones. It's not like I cried or anything, which I would do over a Pokemon movie. XD Particularly that Lucario one.)

We have also been watching another movie about the Moon in class, Apollo 13, which features Tom Hanks yet again. (Except he plays a character instead of being a narrator.) Apollo 13 was the second Apollo mission to make it to the Moon, I believe. It's old enough to be on a video tape, but my dad says it's not THAT old. Whatever is that supposed to mean? My dad is several decades older than I am, after all.

Speaking of the ancient video tapes, my language arts teacher made a great show of them. We were going to watch the movie The Outsiders in class. She explained slowly and demonstrated how to stick a video tape into the slot where you put it. Now that I realize it, video tapes are long gone nowadays. I watched them when I was little, but then they were replaced by DVDs, just as music cassettes were replaced by CDs. I feel kind of sad thinking children nowadays wouldn't really know about video cassettes, which for some reason feel like much more of a novelty to me (even if rewinding them is annoying).

Well, anyways, regarding the topic of Outer Space, I actually came up with an idea for a story. It was sort of science viction, I suppose, which is unusual. I was always planning to write a story that took place in present times and without any fantasy stuff. But you know, beggars for inspiration can't be choosers. I wonder if I'll actually be able to write this story or not. I started a story a pretty long time ago but stopped because I really didn't know what kind of plot I was looking for. This is my biggest problem...I envision characters and a setting and a few dramatic scenes and detailed descriptions I want to put into a story, but then I have no ideas at all about what kind of conflict will be in the story... -_-;; How will I ever be a true writer if I can't even come up with one of the important parts of writing?

It was easier when I used to role-play. If you aren't familiar with the term... It's where multiple people (sometimes only two, sometimes a lot) join forces to write a story. But it's not like co-authoring a book. It's more like each person controls one character (or more) and they can only control that character. The characters will interact, and so the story does progress. (Though there are certainly role-plays without a specific plot. Some have very complicated plots that are multiple paragraphs long, just to explain it, and others just say "This is a boarding school," and that's it for the plot) I used to role-play when I was a member of the site called Nutrinopets. But that website is gone now, and so is my role-playing. I've looked at another site's role-playing but it's not like what I'm used to, so I probably am stuck without role-playing. I think I wrote better when I had the aid of role-playing as practice. I really miss it and get nostalgic for it occasionally. (I heard that several Nutrinopets users moved to a site called Misticpets, but I don't want to join. I'm afraid the same thing might happen eventually like what happened to Nutrionpets, and besides, I don't want to get addicted. XD That's also why I won't join Facebook despite the urging of various people)

Labels: apollo 13, astronaut, cassette, emotions, facebook, imax, lucario, magnificent desolation, misticpets, movie, nutrinopets, pokemon, roleplaying, tom hanks, video, walking on the moon, writing

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