car sketches while waiting for the bus

Everything I've read in Jan. 2024

Yona of the dawn

Yona was the first story that i read this year and damm was it the right way to set the tone for the year. It's a story that has all of the elements that I adore in the fantasy genre, its got the action, political drama, the multi-facted characters. I won't be saying much about this manga because i have already have an older post talking about my favorite aspects, so if you want more in depth thoughts you can search for that

Kashoku no shiro

Now here is a fun setting, Taisho era Japan with supernatural elements. Quick run down of the story, people are being affected by a mysterious disease that makes flowers bloom all over their bodies, once the flowers wilt so does the person but there are cases where they recover and become even healthier. But plot twist, the ones who survive will become demons who feast on human flesh. So thats where our protagonist Shiraume comes in, she acts as 'bait' for these demons, essentially luring them out for her master to slaughter

If i had to tell you what drew me to this story, it would be the art style, like it is drop dead gorgeous. Also the design of our heroine is just my type too which is a bonus

Plot wise it does feel a little all over the place, it jumps persecptive quite often. Like it jumps form a detective story, to a josei love story, to Demon slayer which feels kinda jarring for me. But the backstory of our protagonist was done quite well, one thing i can praise is that our heroine isn't a simpering doormat. It's true that she has lived a hard life but she just keep living in the best way that she can manage. Shiraume is never the type to mope around or bemoan her fate, she takes charge and endure, she does everything in her power to live for her loved ones.

Its a good read all in all, but since theres only about 20 chapters that are out i can't really tell if this is gonna flop or not. I'll be keeping on eye on it to see if the author manages to get it together.

Bibliophile princess

The most mediocre otome isekai story i've ever fucking read. Its vanilla, like 'sex with the lights off no kinky shit' vanilla.

Story-wise, it's a very simple set up. Book enthusiast Elianna is in a contract fiancee relationship with the crown prince who i cannot be bothered to remember or google the name of. She is beloved by all of the staff memebers, all the secondary male characters love her and she has a great family but oh no! It seems that the prince has fallen for another woman, which means that her engagement with the prince will be ending soon. Yeah if your an otome isekai reader you can guess where this is going, villainess tries to ruin our heroines rep by spreading false rumors yada yada yada...

Similar to Kashoku no shiro, what drew me in was the art nouveau style. I mean the amount of details in the illustrations are amazing, coupled with the dreamy pastel color palette it creates this feeling that you really are in a fairy tale world

One of my main problems with the first volume is how weirdly structured the story is. Like it begins with the prince asking Elianna to enter a contract relationship with him and them jumps to a four year time skip for no apparent reasoning? Like we don't get to see alot of romantic development between them so now suddenly Elianna is in love? But moving on, i felt like Elianna has like little to no self awareness or agency. The first volumes conflict is about how this noble girl is rumored to be the princes lover and is planning to take Eliannas place. At this point you would expect to see our heroine stand up for herself and assert her place in the court right? Wrong. She was basically left in the dark about whats truly going on until the end of the volume. It was revealed that the noble girl was a villain all along who was trying to frame Elianna for shit she didn't do, also conveniently our MC has a mile long list of accomplishments that we as the reader didn't know about, and apparently she didn't either. So yeah, the male leads basically was protecting her for the whole story and she just wandered around feeling insecure about being replaced

Cold game

Do you like the story of king Henry the eighths six wives? Do you wanna see all six of them do a battle royal for the chance to become queen? Do you like crossdressing heroines? Well look no further than Cold game

Our MC is princess Aruna of the B kingdom, yes i know weird name but bare with me here, who is meant to be engaged to the king of the E kingdom. But here's the sus part, he already has a queen from the S country but he's demanding another wife from the B country? Quite the odd request but since B is weaker than E they had to comply with the demands. Aruna knows she's being sent as a sacrificial lamb but her lord father told her to hang on for a bit, one day he will get her out of that place. So to protect herself, Aruna swap places with her handmaiden and pretended to be crossdressing knight.

One of the best things about this story is the political intrigue. Like from the get go, we are shown that the court is a brutal place where an inconspicuous letter can be the cause of your down fall. People here will always watch your every move, everyone fears one another to an extent. Also the side characters are so fucking cool, like these people can star in their own spin off kinda cool.

ORLEAN THE INFORMANT

the player can trigger orlean's meeting event by eating lunch at the cafeteria. whatever pc responds, they wont make an good impression on orlean. to initiate orlean's route, pc needs to at least has one established fame or scores a* on all the subjects.

orlean is a beautiful and popular student at school but their vindictive and judgemental nature doesnt make them very approachable. they seems to value beauty (mostly themselves) the most on the surface. its a rumour that orlean runs an information service with their friends, page and ripley, and makes quite a fortune. orlean also takes a liking to talk bad about students, if pc is affected by the rumours, their status at school will decrease.

the chance of a rumour becoming bigger can constantly happen if pc's reputation is lower than 200. beware of your interaction with orlean.

orlean is paired with five attributes: dominance, trust, love, lust and hatred. when pc meets the requirement to initiate orlean's route, they will be forced to be part of orlean's information service and will be rewarded at the end of weekday depends on the work pc has done. orlean's dominance will starts off at 50% along side with trust at 0%. working with orlean's clique equals a tremendous amount of work (which includes weird kink related topics and illegal underworld's information). orlean will manipulate pc into doing what they wants if pc refuses to work on the requests which will raises dominance and makes it harder for pc to refuse later on.

trust will be increased if pc has successfully done the work. there will be at least one costumer request and one orlean's request a week and they have to be done by monday next week. if pc fails to complete them, they have to pay back orlean the service price or orlean will actively decrease pc's reputation for the next three days if pc refuses to pay . pc's salary will depends on how well they do their weekly work: putting up service poster, spreading rumours, finding "work" material and the requests segment, the wages will range from 150£ to 2000£.

orlean's friends will also be an advantage for the player. page the omniscient, will provide the player information about one-time outside work to gain a huge sum of money with the cost of 100£. ripley the guile will gift pc clothes on random occassions.

when trust reachs 80% and dominance to 0%, orlean will have conflicted feelings for pc and love will appear to replace dominance. orlean wont face pc as much as before to the point their friends have to be the one to inform pc about work. when pc asks about orlean, they will always respond back with nothing more than reassurance. instead pc will encounter with orlean more in the orphanage at night, usually after 21:00pm.

orlean will come back to school to confess to pc, after love reaches 40%. if pc refuses, their relationship will be continued as colleagues. if pc accepts, orlean's route will step into its climax. building up love with orlean is similar to any other love interests. although its impossible to increase their lust as it is not available at the moment. orlean eventually let pc do less work and gives them money above 300£ every week.

the route will have two quests to determine orlean's persecptive on pc when love reaches 90%. pc will be approached by the strange man who threatens pc to leak out the r*pe fame that orlean has been hiding to protect their popularity. if the player choose not to side with him, they will process "beginning of youth", they have to protect orlean and themselves from harrassment (encounter rates for both will increase) and if successfully do so after a week will make lust appears as orlean moves on from the rumour. if the player choose to leak the information themselves, "ending of youth" will begin, orlean's route will enter its state.

hatred will now appear at max of 100%, replace all the other stats and cannot be decreased. if pc comes to their room, they will notice page is stealing all their clothes and will be knocked out by ripley. page and ripley will not be approachable. orlean wont be seen at school and orphanage instead will actively seek out pc outside and attempts to kill them. if the player escape from orlean's encounter, the rate will gradually increase and makes future encounters more dangerous. the only solution for the player is to dismiss orlean by killing them. if orlean notices pc is planning to dismiss them, npc initiating nonconsensual encounters with pc will raise. after dismissing orlean, the player can bury their body in the garden of the orphanage (where they will find a rustic knife also buried down there), this will increase pc's crime for 800.

if the player accepts orlean's and jesse's confession on the same day, their dual route will begin.

OPINION

low trust, low dominance: orlean finds you uninteresting.

low trust, high dominance: orlean thinks youre pathetic.

high trust, low dominance: orlean respects you.

high trust, high dominance: orlean thinks youre annoying.

low love, low lust: orlean starts to open up to you.

low love, high lust: orlean wants to compete with you.

high love, low lust: orlean loves you.

high love, high lust: orlean doesnt want to leave your side.

hatred: orlean will kill you.

If you could change on thing about cursed child what would it be?

[OOC: So, so many things Anon. I'll have to be honest and admit that I haven't exactly read CC in it's entirety, but I know enough to get the gist of it. I'm not sure how exactly to put this into words, so I'll do a brief insert below: ]

“If you were my daughter, I’d know of you.”

“I am of the future,” Delphi insisted, again. “The child of you and Bellatrix Lestrange. I was born in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. A battle you are going to lose - I'm here to save you.”

With his back turned to Delphi, Harry, pretending to be Voldemort, frowned.

“I am familiar with Bellatrix,” Harry admitted evenly. “And there are certain similarities in your face - but without proof..”

Delphi took a deep breath.

She knew exactly how to show him, had been holding these cards the closest of all since she first adopted the 'Diggory' persona. She felt the familiar tug of a transition tickling in her hair before she even began focusing on bringing her true features forward. Silver strands slowly gave way to unruly black curls, brows thickening, the entire shape of her face changing, her eyes shifting from a dull brown to the familiar emerald of Tom Riddle's own.

"A metamorphmagus." She stated in plain parseltongue, noting the look of horror that flickered across her Father's face. Strange. "I believe that may be passed on through Bellatrix, but Salazar's gift, that came of you.. Father."

[OOC: End Scene, or whatever. Would have been nice for Bellatrix to have any sort of nod for being Delphini's parent, too. Also, I would have lived for the absolute horror it would have caused Harry & Co to come face to face with a Bellatrix look-alike, speaking parseltongue and magically flying with a prowess to match her Father's. Their actual worst nightmare come to life. Fucking hilarious. Plus, I think the metamorphmagus aspect would have been a nice add just strictly from Harry's persecptive. A reminder of Tonks, and the glaring fact that Delphini and Teddy are so closely related, same with Draco. The book entirely ignores this. Sad.]

IM A DHARMA BUM WHO WILL TEACH YOU ABOUT KARMA SON THE MOON SHOWS US SIGNS IN THE EYES OF STRANGER SKYS LEFT MY LOVE LIGHT ON NO TELLING WHY I THROW WORDS AROUND TO SEE THEM FLY STAY ACKNOWLEDGING FRESH vision the quest I guess less is more more or less NOTHING TO SAY ALOT ON MY CHEST BREATH REPLACE SPEECH no SPEECH REPLACE DEATH SWOLLOW your egotistic pride PRIDE LET IT ride n swirl from sides CONVERSATE WITH THE SPIRIT INSIDE VISION QUEST LEARNING LESSONS FROM THE WICKED OR the WISE EXPERIENCE the ultimate cosmic teacher unique galactic guide n universal preacher moments the ONLY THING YOU gonna TAKE WHEN U DIE from thee illest low life to the most rightous guy jus a casket of bones so I'm jus laughing alone .I'm jus a poem writer to enlighten writing poems buffalo Souljah dying jus to roam

Coastal breezes essence like sweetest memory that u really never owned easy wind molded concrete right into soil grew negative ions that were always loyal to the side walks crooked lines the lineage is royal

see things from different angels like a prisim white light reflects infinite

combine rise raise up lives daily

FESTIVAL OF LIFE where strangers all COLLIDE WISDOM with reason love the lows and highs do not deny till it's a effortless action evertime that you try with a inate second nature to consistently thrive easier than breathing to live better lives consistently challenge principals apply

the farmers almanac abide it's a natural disasters don't look in its eye listen clear listen up n hear when MOTHER NATURE'$ TRANSFORMATION is WHISPERING my dear move in sync .

HER METAMORPHOSIS opposing opposite opposition magnetic at times desire EARTH WIND FIRE for the elements we train but jus shift the paradimn to get over THE GRAIN stay AGAINST ALL ODDS Never give up maintainin your self jus build trust the power you give to words at any given time alters personal persecption in your inner mind 👁️.. sonic chakras awaking vibrating magnetic fields wavelengths, n auras re-creating laws of attraction depends how we deal it's the naked truth no labels will reveal..read the ingredients like a holistic shield then jus before u eat research your meal

one of the hardest things for me right now while getting evaluated for scizoaffective is realizing everything i thought was a personality trait is a symptom

Hello there anon,Boy is this ever a mood. I absolutely get where you’re coming from, and it is at times very frustrating to see things you perceive as intrinsic to who you are, being called out as pathological symptoms.That said, remember that just because something is also a symptom, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t also part of who you are. Mental illness is not like a virus that has taken over your brain, it’s a pattern in your behavior, mood, personality, persecption etc., which is maladaptive and extreme enough that someone would consider it a symptom.But it’s still you, and there can also be upsides to these traits, even if they are also symptoms.You definitely shouldn’t start feeling like all of “you” is wrong, because that’s a painful and dangerous path to go down, I can say as much...Cat

Of all the different cultures and socitites within the Throne of Glass and and A court of Throne and Roses universes their is none as interesting to me as the Illyrain one. Equally fascianting is outside persecptiv if it, and the relationship of Cassian, Azriel and Rhysand with their people.

The Illyrains are the worst. They are misogynistic and hierarchical and brutal and nothing more. Except I, espiecally as an indigenous person (Māori - New Zealand) who has being told her own people and culture were savage despite all my experiences of them being to countary, can't totally buy that. No culture is black and white, totally bad or totally good or really superior or inferior to other cultures, and everyone who tries paint a culture as simply one is missing shit. And i believe the same rings true here. We see plenty of edivence of prejudice and brutally in other cultures/communities with the ACOTAR series, both human and fae - The racism and treatment of "lesser faeries," a consistent patriarchy (eg. Feyre vs. High Lady), the court of Nightmares, fucking Calanmai. But no one else is antagonize, so stripped of any beauty within their society, so alienated by outsiders and even insiders, as is the case with out boys Rhys, Az and Cass.

I can't help but to see the parrels between this persecptive and how Europens, both in the 1800s and still today, views Māori, and the societal prejudices at large within both. I'm not saying Sarah J Maas has totally antagonised the Illyrains at large. She's done at great job of protrating the boys complex relationship with their people, how they still love them despite their faults. She's made it clear it's not just the Illyrains that suck, but quite a few society. But I want more.

I want Cassian and Rhysand working out their discontent for their culture isn't just due to their experience but also influenced outside persecptives, from Rhys growing up and hearing how he's is one of those "savage mountain men" and not quite knowing what to do with that identity. I want to learn before the blood rite they have a cemomany under the stars that sends a chill up your spine, but we never heard about it because the boys dimissed it as savage alongside everyone else, the some way europeans consricted over haka (type of Māori dance - you can watch one here) to a war dance and called our chants ugly until we some of us started to believe it. I want to learn more about those tattoos. I want see Illyrains for love their people and their warrior spirit more than anything who see everything beautiful in their culture, and working to change whats wrong and I want to know once again that love and wanting things to change can live side by side.

I’d like to apologize real quick since I couldn’t send this question through the means asked for in rules, but since I don’t have an account here, I didn’t have much option.

I stumbled onto here after bumping into dead end after dead end while searching info on the authors. So I’d like to thank you first and foremost for this collection of quotes and trivia.

Well, I’ll try my best to keep this as short as I can muster.

At this moment I’ve been hunting down information on the wives to be precise. Dazai-sensei’s Michiko for instance, I breathed a sigh of relief after finding myself here. Most sites I visited tended to only skim over her to get part involving Tomie for instance.

During that hunt, I did find the work [Kaisō no Dazai Osamu] listed with her name as the author, so I can only assume that its about their life from her persecptive, but unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, it remains untranslated.

So what I came for now. It’s a similar reason to Michiko. I’ve been poking around both other sites and your respective tags, but haven’t found much, thus I wanted to ask directly.

Do you perhaps have any info on both Enomoto (Kunikida’s second wife) and/or Ueno (Chuuya’s)?

On a side note, from the information I had gathered on Enomoto before, I was convinced she hadn’t had children. So when I read a brief presentation elsewhere mentioning they had one, I thought “Oh, that’s good.” but once I took a look at your Father’s post, I nearly choked on my drink after reading the word “five”.

As for Chuuya and all his crushes. It was both kind of cute to think of him going after actresses, but at the same time I found myself thinking. “Chuuya, sweetie, why do you do this to yourself.”

Oh, right, while I’m at it. I did read that bit about Oda being jealous over Miyata and some Ex if my memory doesn’t fail me? I assume there wouldn’t be much additional info on that. But I just found myself wondering how that would’ve played out.

Anyway, I’ll cut myself off here before I ramble any further, I get too excited over these things. Have a good day!

–R

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

Thank you for your message! It is always nice to hear from someone who is enthusiastic and researches Japanese literature!

Yes, Michiko’s book Kaisō no Dazai Osamu is still untranslated and I haven’t heard about any plans to translate it. And all that I know about here is contained under the tag Dazai and Women, so you have probably already read everything there.

^ Chuuya and Ueno at their marriage ceremony in 1933

All the information I have on Chuuya’s wife Ueno and their life together is from the introduction to The Poems of Nakahara Chuuya translated by Paul Mackintosh and Maki Sigiyama:

“In December 1933 Nakahara married Ueno Takako, a distant relative... in October 1934, his first son, Fumiya, was born. Despite his bohemian tendencies, Nakahara was devoted to his firstborn - as he was to all children, whom he regarded as embodiments of prelapsarian innocence... But in November of [1936] Fumiya died of tubercular meningitis. Nakahara was shattered and suffered a nervous breakdown. The birth of his second son, Yoshimasa, in December did nothing to mitigate the grief... in September, fatigued both mentally and physically, he decided to return to Yamaguchi... On 5 October Nakahara fell ill and was hospitalized.. he died on 22 October 1937 for tubercular meningitis. His second son died in January 1938.”

So all that I know about her is that after Nakahara-sensei died their only surviving son also passed away. 

^ Enomoto Haruko, Kunikida’s second wife

There is a little more information on Enomoto Haruko on the Japanese wikpedia. Bascially it says that she was an author as well (she wrote for about 10 years before and after the time of her husband’s death), she married Kunikida-sensei in 1898 (who was a lodger next door) when she was 19, They had four children (the eldest daughter Sadako in 1902, the eldest son Torao born in 1904, a daughter Midori born in 1904, their last son Tetsuji was born in 1908), and after Kunikida died she provided for the family by working at a cafeteria and teaching flower arranging. She lived her last years with her daughter Midori. 

And the introduction to River Mist and Other Stories translated by David Chibbett says this about the how Enomoto and Kunikida first met:

“It was also during 1897 that Doppo met the girl who was later to become his second wife, Enomoto Haruko. While Doppo was away on his trip to Nikko, [his brother Shuuji] acquired new lodgings for them both in Tokyo and when he returned in June, Doppo discovered that Haruko and her father, and artist, were among their next-door neighbors. Haruko was in many ways similar to Nobuko [Kunikida’s first wife], being of very emotional temperament, but had a stability which Nobuko lacked and it seems more than likely Doppo turned to her hoping to find again the love he had once experienced with Nobuko. Although they were eventually married in August 1898, Doppo found trouble again with his prospective mother-in-law who was as opposed to the marriage as Nobuko’s mother had been. However, until the time of the marriage Doppo seems to have spent almost all of his time in writing...but although [his works] began to acquire him a reputation, one problem they did not solve - his financial problem. This was made worse after his marriage when he had a wife to support.”

I hope that this can help satisfy your curiosity! Thank you for your support and for your kind words about my blog! 

My Thoughts on Social Media

A long awaited blog topic: Social Media.

This is a topic I’ve had so much to say about for a really long time, but I’ve never had the courage to write about how I feel about it. But recently, I’ve watched some of my favourite Youtuber’s come out, such as TTLYTeala and BubzBeauty, and explain the same way I feel about social media. They have inspired me to finally share my own opinions on it.

Disclaimer: I am sharing my past struggles, certain struggles, and what I would like to overcome in the future. Whatever I state on here is not singalling out a person and/or trying to make anybody feel bad. But hey, if the shoe fits, wear it. You might want to re-consider some of our own decisions regarding social media and the way it plays a role in your life. I only hope that this simply helps you.

First of all, let me start with the fact that I am very lucky that I grew up without social media. I still experienced having a childhood by playing outside, talking on the actual phone with my friends, and honestly just using my imagination to pass the time. I was about 7 when we got our first computer, which I really only used for “paint”, to type non-sense on Microsoft word, and illegally download songs from Limewire (remember that?). I was 14 when I started using Facebook and MSN, so my childhood was over by that point and I was entering my teenage years. I watch my sister now who is 12, and who has been involved with social media for at least the past 4-5 years. You might think that isn’t normal, but it is. And that’s scary. If social media was destroying my mental health at 14, imagine what it can do to a 9, 10, 11, or 12-year-old.

Social media made high school hard. I wish I grew up in a time where it missed my teenage years as well. I can say I wasn’t the most popular, had a small group of friends, and had a hard time fitting in for a few years, so seeing people and their “perfect lives” through a screen only increased my anxiety, and I always wonder how my life would have been if I didn’t have anything or anybody to look at and compare myself too. In elementary school, yes of course I compared myself to other people, but it all stopped as soon as I got home. I was happy, and I went along my way and did whatever I wanted, without checking my phone every 2 minutes to see what everybody else was up too, outside of seeing them from real life (does that make sense?) Throughout high school, it became a constant comparison and competition to everybody’s life, making sure my life looked like theirs and who’s was better and so on; making sure it looked perfect, becoming so obsessed with it at one point it was all I thought about. Only caring about how many followers I had, if I didn’t get enough likes on a picture (especially selfies) I would delete it immediately, spending so much time taking the perfect pictures only to impress everybody else, but never to impress myself. I was so concerned about how everybody else pictured myself and my life, that I didn’t realize how my mental health was completely deteriorating. Instead of actually talking to friends and working out problems face to face, it turned into just a block, unfollow, and having arguments through text… which are the worst, if you ask me.

Of course, I’m guilty of all those things. We all are. I’m definitely not proud of it, but it’s the way our generation had become. I can confidently say that for a very long while now, I couldn’t care much about my likes or followers. As long as my feed is mentally healthy for me, I find it’s okay… or don’t I?

Yes, 100%, I will unfollow someone I had a past relationship with that didn’t work out for the sake of moving on. I don’t find that being childish, I find that growing up and moving on. No human will ever move on from a friend or a significant other if their life is constantly up in your face. Humans become obsessive, competitive, and jealous, and that’s a normal thing. We all do it. So, in that regard, I find that healthy. But being petty or rude is a different story; and ya’ll know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been there and done that.

I have found time and time again; people live a whole other life on their social media accounts. Isn’t that crazy? For example, I’m sure we all know of couples who argue, fight, maybe even cheat on each other all the time but if you looked at them on social media you would think they were perfect. Although I learned this late (because I can also be gullible as hell), please always remember: not everything is how it seems, and you never know someone’s life behind closed doors. Anyone can make their life look perfect and amazing through a picture they’ve taken, but you never really know what they’re going through. A picture can say 1000 words; real, fake, good, bad. Imagine if people put every single side of their life on social media. You would be getting a completely different persecptive; negative, positive, the good times and the bad times and you would realize we are all the same. We are all humans, we hurt, we cry, we have downs we have ups, so people think and assume someone is happy so they hate on them. Just be nice. It’s not hard. Or don’t say anything at all. I’ve never left a nasty comment on anybody’s picture, video, or post, and I tend to leave it that way. I’ve also met a ton of people in real life, followed them on social media, and have watched these people put up a completely different face to the public. Don’t get me wrong; I used to do that. Honestly, I think we all have at one point in our life. But it’s really sad, because I wish we were able to just be comfortable in our skin and not be so concerned about what everybody else thinks. Again, this applies to myself as well, because I know it’s still an on-going issue for me, even though I’m proud to say that I think it has become a lot better.

Something I find this hilarious, but in such a sad, sad, way, is that as much as I have become better at really not giving a shit, I still hear that voice in the back of mind saying “if you don’t update or post this, people are going to think this”. Example: if I don’t post a picture of my boyfriend or best friend in a while, people will automatically think we’re fighting or we’re not friends anymore and I think that’s crazy. I shouldn’t have to think that or feel that way. I should feel like I’m able to post whatever I want, whenever I want, because I want too. Not because I need to keep up with everybody and make sure they’re satisfied. I find it so sad that before, in order to feel some sort of acceptance, I had to post the perfect “selfie” and get a certain amount of comments or likes, and if it didn’t, I felt ugly. And I would try again the next day, hoping for some sort of ridiculous validation from people on the internet, some being I don’t even know. It’s been an on-going problem, which leads me to my next point.

For the last 4-5 months or so I keep going back on forth to wanting to delete all my social media accounts, to maybe starting with one, maybe just keeping them but deleting the apps off my phone; so many options. I just feel like time is a problem. I spend so much time on them when I know I can be doing other things but it’s really hard. I had a student of mine tell me she deleted Instagram, and I asked her why. She said “it made me feel very anxious to see what everybody else was doing. I felt left out, and I always spent so much time on it, so I deleted it. It wasn’t easy, but I knew it would benefit me mentally.” And I was impressed. It’s one thing to say you want to do it, but another to actually do it and I was proud of her. Because having social media is such a normal thing today, and if you don’t have it you’re considered the weird one, and it’s hard to be the odd one out. It’s really hard. And I think right now I’m just finding better ways to control my time usage, and to really get to a place where I do not give a shit about what others think under any circumstance.

All I know, is that it is hard to keep up. It’s hard to feel like your own individual when everybody else around you is something completely different then you. I grew up in a town where everyone was the same and followed the same path when it came to popularity, partying, significant others, the things you had, the way you looked; it all had to be a certain way, and I was very different. It took a super long time to be okay with it, and I won’t lie and say that there are more days then less where I’m sometimes still not okay with it, but I’m okay with not putting up a fake front on social media. I’m okay with posting more than one picture a day if I want too, I’m okay with posting more pictures of my dog than of me, I’m okay with getting 50 likes on a picture, I’m okay with a life that I love; not that anybody else makes me feel like I should have. I’m happy I’m living through choices I’ve decided, and I tend to continue making that better every day. It sounds dramatic, but think about it- a lot of your “social media” choices change you as a person as well. If you keep up a fake front on social media, you got to try and keep that up in real life too and not everything is a fantasy.  You won’t be able to keep up, and it will be hard to realize that your life is not what you painted it to be. And I know, because I went through it.

Look, I don’t even know if any of this made any sense. But this has been on my mind for a while so I thought I’d just type all these clustered thoughts out and hope it makes any sort of sense. I have a blog, why not use it? So here it is.

Billions of People

People you've been interwined with, you will think about them from time to time. It's a funny thing, really, because they're so minor but you always wonder how other people you've known are doing. Billions of people in the world, it's kind of strange and funny, isn't it? What if you had the chance to get to meet every single one of them? Each person whose trying to survive on their own. Billions of people and not a chance to be able to speak to half of them. I wonder how everyone is doing? Like "hey, how's life on the other side?". Have you ever stopped and just stared at everyone scurrying along the way? Well, I have. Yesterday I went to Costco--it's like a superstore that sell things in bulk. I was at the grocery section and I was idling there with the cart while my mom went into the colder sections with the fresh fruits and vegetables. Everyone was doing their own thing: they were on their phone, talking to their dad about what to buy; children were running around; and people were rushing everywhere to get their errands done. Basically, just a whole lot of people buying groceries to feed themselves. Looking at everyone I thought, "Huh, this is what it means to be human. Everyone is just the same." There were so many people just in their own world that in a larger scale you kind of realize, "wow the world is bigger than I thought" and that, there are billions of people out there but you'll never be able to talk to all of them. You'll only be given the chance of getting to know a few of them and that, "this is what it means to be human, grocery shopping". I mean, I guess it's all the same everywhere, huh? Can you just imagine what it would feel like to be something else but human, something else that didn't orginate from Earth and to come to this planet to see billions of these things that we call Human, scurrying around places to survive (to find food, to make money, to go to work, to go to school, etc). What would we be like then? To an outsider's persecptive. Would we be a funny sight? How peculiar we would be.