Not sure if anyone remembers but I did an update talking about how I would be working, only to do another one saying how I am apparently not. Well this summer has been weird. Really last summer was a little weird too.
Before I begin, I would like to say two brief things. The first, being that on here I never wanted to complain about something personal in a post, so sorry in advance. The other being that I hope I do not complain about something here again.
I am not really sure what to say. This could just be me worrying too much or whatever it is. It could be the fact that after this week school is done for the semester. I am not really sure what I would call this feeling exactly. I am not sure what it is. I do not know if it is depression, helplessness, or hopelessness. It is odd. At the same time writing this it is a week before when it is actually posted. So I do not really know if I will still feel the same way when it goes up. I am sure I will put something right after this sentence that says so. (I feel better now) Either way do not comment until you read everything. I always jump the gun, hopefully you will not.
I just have been thinking a lot lately. With my ADHD and the medication I have been taking, well not being the right dosage I guess, I will not go into more details other than the fact I am getting a little tired and sluggish by the end of the day, which did not happen until a month ago.
I am getting a little side tracked, sorry about that. But I have been doing a lot of thinking lately as I said. Thinking not about my past, such as the past that I have been talking about in some of these posts where they are half a decade or more ago, but recent years since starting college. I did say that this is the last week, well technically when this goes up I only have one more day till I am done with classes. After that I will only have senior year left.
Now, before I go on and people think I am depressed or not and could be worried about me. I would never think about suicide. Typing that last part was hard. But how I look at it, which what a teacher I had back in middle school said, is that it is a life time solution for a short time problem. There is that and being the Christian that I am, I do not want to go to hell. I might not have gone to church since, not sure when the last time it was I just know it might have been elementary school.
Alright hopefully now I am done with the tangents. I should probably mention that writing at times for me can be a little therapeutic so for all I know by the end of writing this I might feel better. Probably should have put that sooner, but oh well.
The more I try talking about what I want to talk about, the more I realize that in this word document I am almost at a full-page of writing stuff with tangent after tangent which even includes this part right here.
I am done now. What I want to get at is I have no idea where I am going with my life. Looking at the last few years, they have been similar at times. I wake up, go to school, work on my book between classes, get home and watch anime. Each time I try to join a club it tends to fail. The times I try to make friends or thought I made friends on campus, well we did not talk to each other after that class or even outside of the classroom. Although I would like to avoid this topic, it is inevitable here. There is also the fact that with every girl I either like or ask out I get rejected and have yet to of even been on a date yet despite being twenty-two years old.
Of course at this point several hours passed since my Spanish Tutor showed up, I got home, ate supper, typed up these few words, and ultimately will stop right now to watch Gintama before hopefully come back to this to talk a little more since I was right and this was therapeutic.
Back to what I was getting at the next day, the last few years as I said have been similar. Now that I give it some thought the last time I really felt like this was over a year ago. I was unsure with the direction I was heading in my life. Writing about it did help. Although I was a little confused and questioned what was going on and what I should do, life seemed to quickly change.
My grandmother passed away that same month. It was due to three types of cancer. Again writing about it did help. The loss of her made me get away from what I was uncertain about. The following month my grandfather passed way, heart attack. It was almost right down to an hour a month after my grandmother passed away. I sort of viewed it that he loved her so much he just wanted to see her again so his heart just broke. I still miss the two very much. It is still weird all this time without them.
The following months evolved me living on my own, at my grandparents place. Someone had to since the insurance was still going on. My older cousins all had places of their own. I being the oldest who does not live on their own, and close by had to live there. It was nice. Weird since it was just me, but I never really felt alone. School if I am alone it bothers me. If I am home alone it does not. It is really weird.
It could be my isolation from people who I can have a conversation with in person. Although I do love having comments, and talking to people on twitter, it is really fun and I like it. Deviantart and Wattpad I do not get that like I do here and twitter, which is why I am stopping with Deviantart since no one comments. Wattpad I am contemplating on doing the same once I complete Volume 1 of Hero Team in Training, which is a more edited and final version compared to the one on Deviantart. I just want feedback to know if I am doing it right or to have a conversation about my story or what people think about it. It makes me worry about my novel I wish to publish.
I got a little side tracked and went to fix one thing and it turned into a whole paragraph, the next one was actually written before that last one.
I think the only thing that is different from this time last year, or any semester so far really comes down to a few things. How I go about liking a girl revolves around liking her mentally over physically. All girls are similar until there is something that clicks that makes me like them. The last few semesters I have found, and been rejected by a girl who this happens with. Last semester after another one of the situations, and easily the worst rejection, I wanted to just not try. I did, since my heart and mind had other plans. Ultimately I asked her out, and easily given the nicest rejection ever when I found out she was a lesbian. I was glad for the change of pace. (This is of course written after the post, but it turns out she is unlucky as well since we are club mates and she says guys keep asking her out even though they know she is a lesbian) This semester I really stuck by on not wanting to try. I would like to, but no girl really made that spark happen. So, perhaps there is where a part of this feeling is coming from. I always try to feel motivated to try to ask them out, I get nervous, my mind is more focused on what could be, this semester that is not there. There is no motivation from that.
Then there is anime, this season is rather odd. Last two really. I normally have one show I really get to look forward to and want to see the second that episode ends. That is sort of why I watch so much in order to give me something to do while I wait for the next big thing that I really want to see, Death Parade I started late and that was really one that I really looked forward to last season. This season has Fairy Tail finally canon again, and Fate Stay Night returns, yet I am not really looking so forward to them like I want to watch the next episode immediately. It is odd. At first anime was a means of enjoyment. Then it became a means to give me away to escape from thinking about what is going on around me and think about how other things can be different in my story. Now it is back to an enjoyment, but even then it is coming a little tricky. It is odd. I want to watch anime, but I am unable to find one where I really look forward to it like I used to that airs on a weekly basis. This might be due to it is still early in the season. Hopefully I will find one midway through. This also might be due to now I am reviewing and posting about anime and it is a major change in how a view anime as a whole now that I write about it.
There is also the fact that as I said my summer job is coming up. At this point, as in this morning it really felt like my mom nailed the final part into my coffin of actually having to work there. The people are nice. I get paid. I do not like how exhausted I feel, the fact I cannot feel like I am going to write, and yet it really gets me distracted from what I really want to do in just general. I either work on the paint line taking the same object off or putting the same object on or I work in shipping which is making boxes or putting the same object into a box. This goes on for eight hours forty hours a week. I wake up at four in the morning and do not get home until after four. Working there really got me to know how my dad does it all. I also know just how much my dad does not want me to end up like how he is. He does a lot more around the house and does a lot at work too. So I will stop there for this subject.
I always view that something happens in April. Something seems to always happen. This year nothing seemed to happen. Change is something that can be odd. The only thing that can never change is the fact that there will be change. For me, when I try to make something change it feels as though I can never make it change. I apply for jobs, but do not get hired due to a lack of experience in retail. Half the time I can never find the courage to ask a girl out, and when I finally do, well I already explained that. Although it is better than getting the news before I ask them out, so the few times I did find the courage where better than the times where I got rejected before doing anything. Change never seems to come when I want to make it. The only thing that seems to change is small things. Sure I could argue that I starting this blog was a rather big one, but I do not know.
Again I am at a moment where I need to stop typing. I will find out either later tonight or even not for a few more days on Monday if there was a change.
It really feels like I am lacking something, be it motivation or something to look forward to.
So, umm, it is now the day prior to scheduling and posting this. In other words four days have passed since working on this. Personally I think it was just that time. So many months of pushing away my emotions just got to me and I got depressed, uncertain, and everything else. It would not be the first time this happened and it certainly will not be the last. Although I will admit what I wrote did hold truth to it. I did find it in a way relaxing and a way to to focus on my thoughts. Posting this I actually am hoping will be better for me, being able to respond to comments I always like be it good feedback or bad, so thank you. Maybe now that I am back to my typical cheery self I can start actually trying to focus on those problems one small step at a time. Sorry if what I wrote bothered anyone. Hopefully this will not happen again.
If you like what you read, well I mean you are probably a sadist since this was me talking about being depressed and if you enjoyed that, well never mind. Anyway I suggest you check out my other posts before you would think to follow me.
– Joe
Well, a lot has happened to me in April. There is always something that happens, even though nothing has happened yet this year. It does not change what has happened. From the happy times like when I started writing my book. To the sad times like what happen last year when my grandmother passed away. There seems to also be something that happens in April for me.
I think it is safe to say that we all have childhood friends. Be it if it was a boy or girl that we knew when we were little. At the same time it is a familiar concept in anime, but that has nothing to do with it, although I am thinking of talking about my thoughts on that idea later. Anyway, I have not seen mine in almost a decade, well nine years, but still. Sometimes we grow apart not because we want to but for other reasons. Just like that idea of a childhood friend it is something that is easy to hold onto as well as lose.
Well, for starters it comes down to two things that made me know that today was the last time I saw her. One, my memory is always super good when it comes to random things, not sure why it just is. The other being, the fact that a few years ago I found something in my old wallet that I got the exact day when I last saw her.
It was an odd meeting that day. It was the first time in several years that we saw each other. Back then I had no idea who she was. We were only friends since our moms were high school friends. Her mom actually pushed my mom into asking out my dad. She was even the bride’s maid at their wedding. So, it was sort of inevitable that in our early years we would be together and know each other and play together time to time.
My memories of my early years are vague. I know why, and I stated before that this is the cause for my lack of trust in people. It is also something that I will never mention here as well. Anyway, I do have faint memories of us playing together. It was always over her house. Not sure why, then again they lived a little far away and I am sure my mom just wanted to get out of the house.
It was when not only my mom became pregnant, but my friend’s mom became pregnant as well which made us no longer see one another. Since they lived sort of far away and my mom being pregnant she did not want to drive down there anymore. Then being busy raising two kids got in the way. It was the same for her as well.
There was a time when I would have dreams. I never mentioned this to anyone, so the internet makes a logical place for whatever reason. Clearly my sense of this sort of thing is a little off. However I am just going to ignore that and continue anyway. The dreams were always about me trying to find my sister. I only have two younger brothers, although one has long enough hair and could look like a sister from the back. At the same time that sister was not someone my brothers knew. She was older than them, yet younger than me. The same thing about my childhood friend, she is a year younger than me.
I doubt that it was from watching so much anime that it was at the point where I wanted the little sister troupe in my life. A part of me hopes that it does not turn out that she is really my sister and we were just separated, since there are a few memories that are hazy that I remember but do not understand why they happened. Anyway I think it was because all that time together in our younger years she felt sort of like a younger sibling. She had no siblings of her own, and neither did I, so it might have been fitting.
Still, after all this time we have not seen each other again. I do not know what will happen, if we will meet again or if we will not. I do not know what I would say to her. I doubt she remembers me anyway. Still, it is odd that I still hold on. Could it be my trust issues that want me to hold onto that one person that I could trust before that cause? I do not know.
Anyway before this gets any weirder I am going to change-up these posts for once and talk about other stuff, even though it still deals with the childhood friend. I think it is safe to say that a majority of the anime I watch are comedy, romance, or harem most in which always seem to bring up the childhood friend. It is only now where I am realizing my only option when it comes to this since almost always revolve around dating said childhood friend. So, I am stopping here from keeping this to be any weirder.
As always if you like what you read feel free to follow. Also although I do not take suggestions for these posts, I do for my others. Thank you. Also no images this time, since I really do not know what to add for this one for images.
– Joe
Friendship is an odd thing for me. I am a naturally introvert person. I have trusting issues caused be something in my childhood that I will never bring up here. There are very few cases even now that I am certain that a group of people that I have hung out with that I can call friends. With today being a lot of things dealing with online and I am a little internet-ly challenged in some cases. I do not go on Facebook often. I still know for certain that the group of people that I was friends with in high school I am still friends with. I still hang out on Spring and Summer break last year a few times. Yet this is not about that. I still do not know when it can be counted as a friend. I do not know if someone I talk to online could be considered a friend as well.
I stayed back in first grade. I although it was due to me not understanding what was happening, looking back at it now I view it little bit as karma. I was a little bit of a bully. Years later the person I was a bully with, bullied me in high school. It was my past coming back to haunt me, my sins finally coming back, while his never left him. Each year after I stayed back my friends changed regularly. It seemed like they were trying ways constantly to get rid of me or leave me out in the games we played. The greatest example that I can think of was in the summer between fourth and fifth grade.
Where I am from there is this thing known as School Choice, which means if you are out of the school district you can still go to that school. The school in my town was not the greatest. So all the people I went to school with lived in several towns away. So, during summers I would not really be able to see them.
In my town there was a sort of day camp. You basically go in the morning and then leave in the late afternoon. A lot of kids where in the town go to school together, and it is divided by grade so people of the same grade play with one another. There were these kids I called my “friends.” Compared to back then I really believed we were friends. Looking back on it now, it was clear it was a lie.
The grounds of the day camp were the town’s high school. The bathrooms that we were allowed to go to were the locker rooms, which had lockers obviously. So in order for me to be one of them I needed to stay in the locker for ten minutes. They ran off, and since they did I went to find them. They were of course surprised I followed them. They did not know that the lockers could be opened from the inside, since there was no padlock for them. I did not realize this until years later it was just their way of trying to get rid of me.
Now that I am a junior in college I am still uncertain for people that I can call my friends. Being online now here at the Reviewer’s Corner, I am still uncertain if I can call any of the people I talk to on Twitter as friends, since we mostly met through here on my blog or on one of their posts. I have always been confused with that. When do you go from acquaintances to friends?
I am even uncertain about the people I have met in my classes if I can call them friends. I have tried. I have found people I have some things to talk about. After that class, we just stop talking. We do not see each other after that. Even if we add one another to Facebook we still do not talk to one another after that.
I mentioned I tried to join the anime club at one point. Although this is more of a story for another day, I found it hard to talk to people there. I could not really fit in. I joined a club last semester, and although I get along with my club mates, since it is a very small club, I do not know if they are considered friends either. Outside the club I do not talk to them, with the exception of when they are in my class. I am not really sure what to call them. They do not feel like acquaintances, but they do not feel like friends either, just something in between.
Friendship is rather confusing. Looking at my stories, some things tend to mimic my natural life. Sure there are some characters that are known as the childhood friend, and thus why they are friends has been established for some time, a part of it is due to the fact I have not seen my childhood friend in years and she more than likely does not remember me. The other characters join the team or are forced to know one another due to circumstances. They become friends naturally, but the transition feels like it happens behind the scenes. I will not touch upon dating, since I am equally confused with that, but I do not want to talk too much about the fact I have never been on a date at twenty two, since that has nothing to do with this particular conversation.
I am not really sure what dictates friendship. I know it does not have anything to do with what you have in common, since all my friends from high school we have very little in common. We are a bunch of rag tags thrown together. One was on the football team, another on the track, one is a redneck and will admit it, and one is a Marine, and so on. We just get along, it is that simple. Other than that I am not sure. Looking back on it now I have no idea how I became friends with all of them.
In my last year of high school I worried about the fact that I would not have any friends come college. We were all going our separate ways. The “Redneck” went to the same school as me, which was a huge sigh of relief for me, only we did not have time to talk to one another during the week, we did somehow by a miracle share a class together, which was nice. After that semester though he decided to drop out and go to a different school. He was also switching majors constantly as well. After that I was alone.
I will admit I became more used to the isolation. When I see other people all that is on my mind is how I want them to talk to me. When people finally do talk to me I wish they did not. People naturally form into groups in classes, yet I can never seem to get into any of them. No one tries to include me in their group either. Even if it is only for that class, I still cannot simulate having friends for that short amount of time or have the opportunity to form a natural bond that could be considered friendship.
The world is not meant for socially awkward people. I hate to say that but it is true. Human beings are naturally social by nature. I will not deny once I finally warm up to my surroundings, which seemingly has to reset after each semester, it can take a month or two to get used to the people around me and talk. It is always too late though. We are creatures that crave to be recognized and talk to one another. It can be odd sometimes. At the same time when you are alone you can realize things that people that are together would not have realized. I never know what to say to people. I never know what to do to start a conversation or hop into one that I could easily talk about when I hear people talking about it, although it more depends on the place and even how many are talking.
One thing I know, it all comes down to that courage to take the first step. At the same time when that first step is taken, I do not know what happens after that. Life is always confusing. Yet, it is also about taking that first step no matter what it is for, whether it is to make friends or something else entirely.
That is all that is on my mind for now. So, until next time, hopefully next time is a more uplifting one.
-Joe
The word Otaku in Japanese is used as a derogatory term for someone who is obsessive about one particular subject. In America and some other parts of the world it has a slightly different meaning. It means someone who is into anime, manga, and other Japanese forms of culture. I am an American Otaku. I might actually be just a normal Otaku as well.
This is a secret that I have been keeping for some time. Although my presence online has been growing with the fact I am into anime and manga, my offline presence is not. Why I keep it a secret, well there are some reasons.
Anime sometimes does not have the greatest reputation to say the least. Although only my younger brother knows this secret, he still holds up the stereotypes of it as well as what other people see anime as. For example I walk into a room and there is some sort of tentacle monster on the television that is being used as a joke for a children’s cartoon. My brother giggles only to look back at me.
“I’m not even going to bother at this point,” I responded.
“I know, but it is still fun to tease you,” he replies.
I guess being teased by my younger brother comes with the territory. I am the oldest, and yes although I tease them from time to time, it only makes sense that he teases me. It is just one of those things. The reason why he does not get past that stereotype comes down to the deeper problem, which is he does not feel like it. I get used to it, and he gets annoyed when I bring up anything, but do not reveal the fact that I am into anime out loud, this always annoys him.
Now, back to my main point where if I were to mention Pokemon and the fact that is an anime, people have an idea what it could be. Although I do not consider hentai anime, people think that form of pornography is anime nevertheless and thinks that is all anime is something to do with tentacles and girls. Fan services as well, which in all honesty although the extremes of fan services have raised in anime in recent years, content that has less fan service has still been there always. But still, it is a small percentage of a medium and an already small group of people who are into it can be targeted as scapegoats.
Anime is different. There is no changing that. Manga is different. There is not changing that either. Yet, the small fraction of what people believe takes away from the fact on what it really is. It is a different form of storytelling. There is countless number of ways to look on it beyond just that, from characters, to concepts of changing genres. Yet, there is still the small fraction that people think about more.
Three years ago I got into anime. I will not lie and say that I did have the perspective that I just said on what I thought anime is. Without a doubt in anime, out of the several hundred that I have seen the number of stereotypes I could count on a hand or two at most, which can be focused more on a single genre rather than the medium itself.
Three years ago was when I first watched anime. What led to that was a sort of interesting story.
It was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. The days were hotter and hotter the more time passed. My birthday that year I was given a laptop, so I was able to finally start writing my story. It not just pen and paper anymore but instead in the fashion of being typed on a computer screen. A part of me misses those days. Those simple days where I could write a single story over the span of months spending afternoons working on it in that chair that was never good for my back. The pen would be going against the paper with no worries of spelling or grammar errors. It was a different time before I entered the keys. Now it is not a single story, but several simultaneously. Although I am on the third draft of the series I want to publish now, I can say with confidence after this draft I will begin my search for an agent and try to get that life out into the world for others to experience it.
My story has always been important to me. I write about superheroes, and have been molding this particular story since seventh grade. I always wanted to be a writer, ever since second grade. It is my dream and my passion. So, with the fact I now had a computer it opened up a lot to me, namely one of the greatest inventions that exploded with my generation, the internet. So, with my ever growing passion for superheroes and movies being plentiful by the year, it is no surprise that that summer I was watching superhero cartoons to relive those glory days of my youth, even though I was only eighteen at the time.
The stories of heroes always inspired me. Fantasy stories as well. I would read fantasy stories or read comics regularly. Eventually my need of watching superhero cartoons was not just limited to that, but ones with fantasy elements as well. So going ahead a few months I saw a cartoon on television. That cartoon I decided to watch online, since finding time to myself on the television is rather hard when you only have two televisions, and two younger siblings with the youngest constantly watching a history based channels and the middle child complaining about the youngest. Once I finished watching that particular series I discovered it was an anime. Something clicked inside my mind. It was conflicted.
One side of my brain said, “No, that is not an anime, it is nothing like what anime is.”
The other side of my brain was saying, “Yes, it is an anime, so why not check out more series to prove to yourself that it is not what you believe it to be.”
I am a person that loves to prove myself wrong. I am also a person that loves to prove himself right. My mind is just like that, full of contradictions sometimes. Without the two sides ever conflicting and contradicting one another, I probably would not have taken that next step forward and watch anime. With that, and the help of the brilliance of abridge series, I would not have gotten into as much anime as I did.
There has been countless number of events that has happened in the last few years that got me to the point to where I am now. I have questioned this countless times before on why I watch it, why I find it interesting, and why I still keep it a remote secret. I am not really sure where my life will really take me, a current twenty two year old who besides being mature can be very immature at times, and I am not sure what will happen no matter what. I do not know how long I will enjoy this sort of medium. I do not know about a lot of things. I do not think anyone really does. But that is what life is about.
So, for now, this is only the beginning possibly starting at the middle of it all.
Well, that concludes this first post in the journal like post that will be documenting my thoughts and my everyday life.
Please comment on anything, if you want me to go into more detail or talk about a certain concepts and here my thoughts about it. Let me know, since this is something I plan to do for some time and getting ideas to make this more enjoyable for people would be appreciated. I want to try to get at least two out a month, but sometimes there might be more with things on my mind, or if people want to here me talk about a certain subject.
-Joe
The Reviewer's Corner 