House Invasion

So I said I would start going to people's houses.  Even though I have been friends with people for a long time, I never really hung out with them after school.  So I decided to go to their houses.

Sam and Victoria's house.  Awesome and fun.  Enough said.

Elizabeth's house.  Disorganized and organized at the same time.  Didn't know how scared I should be of her mom, so I played it cool.  Sisters knew of me so that was fine.

Marilyn's house.  Dad is a big VT person, but I don't care about schools that much so that was fine.  He seems to love everybody sport but soccer, so I had to lay down the law to him.

Casey's house. Monopoly and Just Dance.  Was fun.

Mike's house.  Watched Battle Royale with some of his gaming buds.  Not really part of that circle but it was fun to joke around with them.

Indian houses are assumed, but I'll list them anyway.

Surika's house. Been there all my life so it is always fun.  We play ALL OF THE BOARDGAMES!

Shannon's house.  What we always do there.  Exercise on all her fancy equipment, play table tennis and air hockey, and jam out on some instruments.

Abhinav's house.  Sit around and play video games.

Yeah that is really all for the month of June.  I'm really bad at this.  It seems awkward to ask people to go to their houses when we don't really interact outside of school.

A Nice Ending

So happy and sad right now.  Let me explain.  There is this group called the Speed Gamers, which holds video game marathons for charity.  They play the games, stream them online, and take donations for different causes.  I’ve only seen one marathon completely and that was the Pokémon Marathon back in 2008.  They collected $5,923.69 for ACT Today, which is a charity for autism.

The last couple of days, the Speed Gamers did another Pokémon Marathon, also for ACT Today, but with a goal of $50,000.  The catching of the Pokémon is fun, and the earning money for charity is fun, but the most fun part is the community.  While some of their members are playing the games, other members are talking with the fans on chats, or doing crazy things on the other screen.  There are contests, auctions, raffles, drawings, singing, random goofing off, just everything awesome.  Having fun while giving to a good cause.  

The goal of this marathon was to capture 646 Pokémon, which they did with about 3 min. to spare.  On the previous day when the donation was getting close to 50,000, Bulbagarden, a website dedicated to Pokémon, donated 1,000 dollars, pushing the donation to the goal! The last raffle of the show was an Oshawott doll.  People had to donate in the name of one of the members of the Speed Gamers.  The fans went crazy, donating almost 4,000 dollars just over that doll; bidding went past the deadline by 1.5 hours.  Y3llow deserved it, he did sing “Call Me Maybe” on a previous day.  

As per tradition, the marathon ended with “The Final Countdown.”  The community was just so awesome.  No flame wars, no evil, just people who had a genuine love of Pokémon and helping charity.  It was sad to leave the group, but alas the event was over.  So congratulations to the Speed Gamers for capturing 646 Pokémon and donating $57,543.50 to ACT Today, a record for the Speed Gamers.  

Awesome Job Guys

Maybe Something You Will Not Agree With, But It Was On My Mind

First month of summer started and I feel the decay.  Knowledge I acquired is slowly draining from my mind.  We learned all of this info and worked so hard in our lives just to watch it crumble away in the gentle winds of summer (or the huge storm we saw today).  I feel I have to struggle to maintain my current knowledge, with little hope of acquiring more by myself.  What is the point of grasping this info?  To be different.  

On another topic, for some reason this summer feels lonelier than previous summers, though it really isn’t.  Maybe because I don’t have books to read.  Why do I feel this way?  I was content all the other summers, why is this the summer that makes me super bored?  Again, I feel it is a method to be different.  

Then I guess the real question is: why do we try to be different?  Let’s face it, only a few people in the world will actually be different, people who are amazing and will be in the annals of history.  Everybody else is just a reiteration of another.  We live mediocre lives.  Yeah I know you are thinking “you can’t know until you try” and all that crap.  Yes I’m an idealist like that too but I know and you should know that sometimes being special is beyond our own control, even if the ideals of our society and capitalism say otherwise.  

That is the paradigm of our society.  We always want to make the next day better than this one.  Why not just be happy and content with life as it is?  Unless you are one of those great people, this is all you are going to get.  To live without wishing to be special is harder than expected.  We always feel we are special, as individuals and as a species.  But it is the destiny for humans to strive for this specialness, only to fail.  

The hard thing for people to understand is they are not special.  Someone can probably do what you do better.  Doesn’t mean you should quit everything, but it means find enjoyment without the expectation of being special.  It means to strive to be better without the expectation of surpassing humanity’s bounds.  To live without hurting others, without stealing (not in a material sense), without causing a wave, that is hard for humans to do.  This is the ordinary, mundane life we live.  Best leave the pain of thinking yourself special and live life as it really is. 

Brain Dump

The air is stagnant, suffocating.  I unconsciously curled into a ball a few times.  I turned on the AC, but that made me curl up because it was too cold.  What a pain.

I guess I should say what I’ve been doing.  I finished reading and watching Kara no Kyoukai, finished reading Fate/Zero, finished reading City of Lost Souls, and finished watching season 1 of Nodame Cantabile.  What a productive two weeks.

I have my bible on my desk.  Both Fate/Zero and City of Lost Souls like to quote the bible.  I’ve actually read the Bible so I know biblical stories, but my understanding is literal.  I never was a Christian so I was never taught biblical interpretation; what I know is what is written in the book.  So I used my copy to look up the passages the books were referring to so I could see the context.  Sometimes they used the sentences literally, sometimes interpretively.  

Been playing guitar a lot.  I didn’t play guitar for almost 2 years, yet for some reason I’m doing it again.  Even with that hand problem hiccup, I’m still going.  I was playing every other day to give my hand a break, but now I’m playing every day.  My hands feel really, really tired; I should take a day break from it.  I only have a few guitar books, and I’ve been playing the same etudes over and over again, not even caring about technique.  I know my fingering is wrong, my tempo is wrong, my dynamics are wrong, my emphasis is wrong, my rhythm is wrong, my phrasing is wrong, but I don’t care.  I don’t even know why I’m still playing it.  

I learned one reason why my parents and I don’t see on the same terms.  Our sense of humor is different.  If I say something as a joke, they take it seriously.  If I say something serious, they take it as a joke.  I don’t know what I did to create this impression on them, but I don’t really have any plan on fixing it either.  

I got bored today, so I walked to the lake.  The lake at this time is really nice looking.  The sun setting gave the lake a cool shimmer.  I recalled a conversation I had with Surika yesterday.  Her Sweet 16^th party is in November, but I didn’t get an invite.  We have known each other since we were born, so it is assumed I am invited, but I wanted to tease her anyway.  So I brought it up and acted fake hurt that I didn’t get an amazing invite, but then she responded, “but you are going to be at college during that time.”  

That thought didn’t even occur to me.  I don’t really have any connection with Stephens City or Winchester, but it has been my home for most of my life, and some things such as this are just…assumed.  But no, I’m not going to be here during that time, the normal assumptions do not apply anymore.  So I stood there by the lake, a place I also cannot assume to be always in walking distance, thinking about things again.  Being alone is an interesting feeling.

Shiny

Boy Fisher

Adult Fisher

 My computer autoshut down because my battery ran out.  I thought I lost this blog post, but I know now that I wouldn't that sad if I lost it.  I would have just chalked it up to fate.  I guess fate wanted me to post this.  I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.

I just realized that I didn't really say who Surika is.  Anh told me once that I should explain who the people I mention in my post are.  I shall respond to that by tweaking the words of Anh's sole expectation of me.   Surika, and a few of my other friends, are people I expect to be my friends no matter what.  People come and go in our lives and I, more than anybody, am ok with that.  But some people, no matter how much we change, I expect will still recognize me and consider me a friend.


I've said more than I thought I would, but less than I would have wanted.  I'll just end this here.  Oh wait, because I made a promise... VICTORIA IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! (and best friends with Abhinav).

"Whaddaya Mean You Want Some ID?"

I have three situations that are my best thinking times.  One of those situations is resting on my bed.  Not really relevant but if you want a mental image of me thinking, there it is.  So I was doing what I do when I’m bored, writing stories that I have no plan on sharing to the world.  Because I don’t plan to share the full story, I’ll share the relevant parts for the sake of this post.  Orphan girl kills a boy’s parents because she has her sadistic side, so afterwards they have to find a way to coexist in the hidden-from-the-law world they live in since there is nobody else to help them but themselves.  A pretty uneasy alliance if anything.  So in my head I always thought to myself that the girl was like a year younger than the boy, but then while thinking on my bed, I realized “How in the world would I know that?”  

In my mind, she wouldn’t have known her birthday or birthdate, she is a street orphan, so how am I to say how old she is?  If I believe it, then the other characters would unconsciously believe the same since I’m the writer and decide how they think.  For some reason, this thought really threw me.  

If I didn’t know someone’s birthday or anything about them (such as year in high school which would give away age), could I still guess how old they are?  I really doubt it.  I wouldn’t assume Aarti was 15 by looking at her since there are girls smaller than her but older.  I felt it was weird that there is this number that holds so much weight in society, but has no practical use.  

So many things get decided based on age.  From driver’s license to year in school to legal limits for certain…activities.   In addition, Minors get punished differently than adults…I could keep going.  If that is how society judges age, what about without society?  Age doesn’t signify growth; I can’t judge people’s ages based on their height and weight.  Age doesn’t signify maturity (I am a great example for this).  Is there any innate significance to age?  Anything that we can feel on a different level than on the level of society?   If anybody has the answer, tell me because I couldn’t think of anything (or maybe I fell asleep before I could figure out the answer). 

Time to Lay Some Schooling

An object can change.  Any object, even an eternal one.  We perceive the object, adding our own meaning to it.  But because of that, the object isn’t eternal.  The object’s value is dependent on the perception of the person.  What seems magnificent in a moment becomes normal over time.  What is beautiful seems commonplace later.  How sinister it is for us to impose ourselves on the world.  What is even worse is that it is necessary.  Without our thoughts, without our views, objects would have no worth.  They wouldn’t even be eternal, for being forgotten forced them to exist in nothingness. 

There is a good poem “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens, that sums up this idea.  

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Stevens uses the precision of imagery of Imagism and the dissociation of Cubism.  He has the “mind of winter”, seeing things through different senses.  He slowly fades away as each sense escapes.  First he uses sight, then touch, then hearing, until he is “nothing himself.” Stevens is completely disassociated from the scene.  He cannot impart his own thoughts and ideals on the scene.  What is left? “Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” The only thing there is the physical objects, hence the first part of that phrase, but I’m obviously talking about the second part: “the nothing that is.”

THE nothing, not just nothing.  The only thing left is a blank, a void.  Nothing has meaning, so the winter scene is just a null.  By removing himself from the scene, Stevens is saying there is nothing in the scene.  Only through humans can value be derived in objects.  Without people, the scene is bare of anything except the physical object, while before he describes it in great detail.  Things we associate with nature, such as a beauty and grandeur, is gone without people, and this is true with any object.  Just something to think about. 

Music Stuff Part I

Another post about how I realized something.  This time I felt like I should tackle music.  I’ll try to explain it better this time. 

As a kid I just listened to the radio, so basic pop.  I didn’t really have any musical style I liked more that another, it was just “oh something is on right now.” This idea didn’t really change for a long time.  The only minor change I could say occurred is I really liked classical.  First reason is because if an elementary school kid said he liked Dvořák  or Mendelssohn, then he is known to be smart.  Second reason is because it just sounded cool.  Classical music forces people to go through the whole emotional band.  A whole orchestra is so dynamic (pppp to ffff if you know what I mean).

Sadly, I thought I could mimic this ability on the guitar, but boy was I wrong.  One can’t compare guitar to an orchestra, can’t even compare it to a violin and piano.  Go to a recital and all I heard is “oh that violin was great” or “that piano was amazing.”  What is a middle school guitarist supposed to do?  Guitar doesn’t have the dynamic capacity as other instruments, so we were pushed back and were forced to play simplified versions of classical pieces. 

My Guitar for Seven Years

Still, at least I could play music.  Instead of just hearing it, I could actually mimic it.  The most fun was guitar quartets.  Yes we had guitar ensembles, but unless I was first chair (which I was only a few times), I just felt like one of the crowd.  Being in a quartet was much more fun.  One plus is four guitars are louder than one (take that violin and piano!).  Second is I got the feeling of playing in a group.  It isn’t just learning notes and regurgitating them out.  No, I had to listen to others and mold my playing to fit in with the overarching music (they did the same for me).  In the end, we didn’t sound like four guitarists, but one collective. 

Guitar Ensemble.  Here I Played Guitar 3, but Previously Played Guitar 1 when in a Trio

Don’t really know where I was going with this.  I have a lot of stories from my guitar days, but there is no point talking about my past.  I guess the point was my shifting viewpoint of music from something I passively listened to to something that I actively created. 

What do You Mean Twilight isn't Good Romance?

I was reading Kara no Kyoukai and this line pretty genius.  Shiki, the main character, says “I’ll tell you something someone once told me.  He said that ‘it’s those unseen, unvoiced things that form love.  And it isn’t right to give voice to them, or else they might turn into lies.”  Ahh so true, so true indeed.  Now, I read books, and some of those books end up being romance books.  I, like many other people, get annoyed when the characters constantly profess their love for each other (cough cough Twilight).  When an author knows how to weave in love through actions and interactions, attitudes and unspoken traits, that is true romance.  A bond of mutual respect doesn’t need to be constantly brought into the forefront in a novel, it is obvious, and it is unnecessary to constantly repeat it. 

When did I start to understand this storytelling as more profound than simple love stories?  Maybe the Sword of Truth series started me down that path.  The main female, Kahlan is strong and can hold her own.  Her love with the main character is present and integral to the story, but there is respect of both of their talents.  

Kahlan Killing Someone I Assume

Yet with any novel based on Ayn Rand’s philosophy, the women end up seeming weak in subtle ways.  Don’t know why, but Rand really likes to put her women in more emotional turmoil, maybe because strong women have to face that.  In the Sword of Truth series, Kahlan can never surpass the archetype Randian character (who is the main character Richard), and is usually subjected to humiliating events like kidnapping and memory loss.  As one can see, this isn’t really that relatable to the romance I was explaining before, but it was a stepping stone.

What really made me realize the superiority of this rendition of romance was Megan Whalen Turner’s the Queen’s Thief.  Great series and I would recommend it to anybody.  Has some political intrigue, but not nearly as much as the Song of Ice and Fire series.  Premise of the story is there is a thief Gen who is part of the royal family.  His job is to basically be a spy/thief/destroyer of careful enemy plans.  His most greatest “theft” is the “stealing” the throne of a neighboring country, Attolia (long, long story and the premise of the second book).  

Best Way to Get a Woman To Marry You, Kidnap Her and Tell Her how Much You Love Her

Little does anybody know, but the Queen of Attolia and Gen actually love each other.   Gen didn't even want the throne, he just wanted to marry the Queen.  The throne is more of a burden he must carry for having his wish.  If you must know, Gen loved her since childhood and the Queen slowly started to love him after she cut off his arm (but they made the love so realistic as her inner turmoil started to grow). 

So as king and queen of Attolia, they end up having to face the politics of dealing with a nation almost at the brink of war.  Their affection for each other in the novel is only shown through trust and actions. They rely on each other when there is no other helpful hand to turn to.  Also, when someone hurts one of them, the other strikes.  Their love is so unspoken that most characters actually think they hate each other since Gen is seen by most as a usurper.  I’m not doing the books any justice, but the love was an undercurrent but ever-present, which was just awesome.  Way more realistic than people professing their love all the time.  

Sorry I did a horrible job explaining my thoughts. 

Summer is Upon Me

So today is the first day of summer for me.  Why? It is because it is the first day I felt really bored.  to fix that, I played a flash war game.  Just think Risk but with flash graphics.  I was really bad at the game before, but I’ve gotten much better at it.  I’ve learn some strategy: always try to get a good hold of a section of the board, make the enemies fight each other, and don’t overreach even if possible.  Better to play defensive.  The game has this war music playing all the time, but I switch that off and put some nice, soothing classical.  Helps me make proper decisions and not be rash.  This is the same as when I tackle homework.  If I have some music, even menial tasks are not boring.  

Another Great Victory

I could have been doing other stuff.  I have so many unfinished books just lying around.  Still have to finish Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/Zero, On China, some fanfiction.  I just don’t feel like finishing my reading list just yet; that usually starts to get done mid-summer.  

Not like I wasted all my time today.  I was tabbing a song that I wanted to play on the guitar since my hand has gotten better.  The pain of staring at a screen watching somebody play the same notes over and over again, this is what guitarists face.  In the end, tabs are pretty meaningless after a while.  I learn music more through hand shapes.  That is probably why I’m bad at sightreading.  Not to say I can’t do it, but I rather like watching somebody play the song before I do it.  I used to ask my guitar teacher to play the songs first so I could watch her and see what I had to do.  Eventually, the sheet music ends up just being a subconscious marker of my place instead of piece of paper I’m playing notes off of.  

My Beautiful Tablature

Watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”.  It is a movie about people retiring in India and how it changes them.  Don’t know why it has such good reviews, it wasn’t that good.  Maybe because people were fascinated by the Indian setting and how different it is from America while I just thought “been there, seen that.”

Did other stuff today, like listen to K-pop with Anh, but nothing really worth writing about.  First day of a long string of days left of summer.