Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Why, World?
I have recently discovered Avatar: The Last Airbender and......

I. LOVE. SOKKA.

He is amazing. I mean, how can I not love a guy who got in a haiku spouting competition?

My name is Sokka
That is, in the Water Tribe
I am not an oaf

Rock on, Sokka.

Anyway, it's a genuinely well made show with great art. I love the facial expressions, and all the scenery is gorgeous.

So, my question is this.

Why didn't I start watching it sooner?
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Monday, February 4, 2008

The Retard-itude of People
Why are people so stupid?

I mean, not like they can't help it or they have bad grades, but when they CHOOSE to be idiotic.

Like when someone looks at a venemous snake and thinks, "Hey! I think I'll go step on it's tail, just to see what happens!" or when a really skinny dude goes up to a jock and insults his mother. Both VERY BAD ideas.

Do you know someone who is painfully stupid in a manner similar to this?

I sure know a couple....
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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Why wasn't I born Japanese??
A brief history of me, before I address the above question. I will break this up into a few posts because the overall project turned out to be much too long for one post. Please read them in the order they appear on the page. If you start at the bottom, it will be backwards. That's how I posted it.

The names herein have been changed for the privacy of those involved. lol

I was always a happy child. I talked too much in school and didn't get horrible grades, but they weren't good either. By 4th grade I still talked all the time but I had worked my grades up to being straight A's. Go figure.

I had two very close friends, Short Blonde and Tall Blonde. I had known Short Blonde since birth and Tall Blonde since 5th grade. SB and TB got along better with each other, so I ended up having my sister alone for a friend. TB moved away, and I get along better with her now and SB went mildly crazy during the summer before our Junior year and we don't speak much anymore.

The summer before 9th grade, my brother had some major eye surgery. Before that, however, we had begun watching this thing called "anime". It was a new creature that I had very little contact with before, aside from crazy little boys in 3rd grade drawing big dudes from "Dragon Ball Z" and insane girls pretending to be "Sailors" during recess. I quickly became engrossed in my new world of orange-clad ninja and teeny metal-limbed alchemists.

Due to my new found obsession, when I entered 9th grade, I was watching upwards of 12 episodes of Naruto a night, and going to sleep at midnight. Prior to this, I had always gone to bed when I was tired, which just so happened to be right around 10 PM.

Also, as a side-effect of my new "pass time", I became aware of the wide world of fans I was immersed in. Ah, yes. In my very own Biology and Orchestra classes I had a kindred spirit. Baka-kun. He was a spaz, like myself, only slightly more subdued. We were both in Science Olympiads, a science competition club. It was during one of the club meetings that I mentioned Fullmetal Alchemist and a friendship was born.

The year progressed and Baka-kun got me more and more interested in the Japanese language and persuaded me to believe that I too, like he, could draw in the style of anime. I have continued to draw since then. But don't search too hard, I may never post my pics on theO.

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Speaking of Greg Ayres...
The summer after our 9th grade year I took a summer coarse in Japanese, because I was planning on taking Japanese all three years at my High School. I met some more anime fans and even one girl that would later be in my Japanese class all three years at High School, even though she now hates me with an inexplicable fiery passion.

Just before entering High School as a sophomore, I finally became interested in manga. Fruits Basket and Prince of Tennis, henceforth to be known as PoT, to be precise.

In High School my net of otaku associates grew even larger. We had a system of exchanging and borrowing manga and anime whilst helping each other with our ventures in the world of Fan Fiction. I went to my first ever "Japan Fest" and saw my first "Anime Vendors Room". That was quite an experience. I also joined the school districts High School Taiko group, and I still meet with them weekly.

At my first ever Japan Fest, I learned of my soon-to-be first ever Anime Convention, as well as my first, and sadly last, experience with cosplay. It was Naka-Kon. The only convention that I know of in Kansas. I decided instantly that I would have to be my favorite anime character ever, Son Goku from Saiyuki. As such, my brother would be Hakkai, because they look sooooo much alike it's scary, and my sister would be Gojyo. She was somehow extremely offended by this at first, but she became an avid Gojyo fan as a result of it, and of my first attempt at fan fiction. A Saiyuki fic that she co-wrote. Lastly, Short Blonde who was still currently my friend, would be Sanzo. It was perfect. She was crazy skinny and had a strikingly similar facial structure to that of Sanzo.

So, we spent ages preparing our costumes, and one day, a close friend of mine, Ichigo-chan, informed me of something that changed my entire mood about Naka-kon.

Greg Ayres would be coming.

I just about died. Greg Ayres was BY FAR my favorite voice actor, and he still is. I smiled a lot for the rest of the time between then and Naka-kon. Finally, when the day came, we looked perfect. We walked into the room where they were having the Cosplay Contest and every one looked at us instead of the people who were actually participating in the contest. My brother hugged more girls in the following two days than he ever had before.

Greg thought we were amazing. HE actually tracked US down. Talk about awesome. We got to talk to Greg so much that I thought my brain would just about explode. Not to mention I got to hug him multiple times.

Now, skipping forward to the beginning of my Junior year. Just before school started, Short Blonde (who had previously had some mental problems and needs to take medication) went even farther in her insanity and decided to swear off all forms of anime and the related and say that we were bad for enjoying it. Go figure. So, that was the end of my cosplaying. Rather than cause a big uproar with everyone I knew outside of school, I decided to be much quieter about my love of anime.

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Will I answer that question....?
Life in school went on in much the same way. I enjoyed Japanese greatly and I was determined to go to Japan. In March of 2007, my Junior year, a group of students from my cities sister city in Japan came to my city. I was lucky enough to host one of the girls. Her name was Reona, and I miss her greatly. There was one boy that came in the group and he stayed with Baka-kun. His name was Hayato. He was pretty wicked cool and I still talk to him in e-mails. He is in school in Canada right now. Pretty awesome.

After that experience I REALLY knew I had to go to Japan. And soon. Baka-kun had gone to Japan the summer before in a sort of student exchange. I was fortunate enough to do the same thing this last summer. The summer between my Junior and Senior years. I stayed in Japan for three weeks with the family of a girl named Aika. She was 15 years old and her two brothers, Hideki and Takashi, were 20 and 22 respectively. I loved them both but Hideki was an absolute riot. I spent most of my time with my host mom, but I did get to go to school some of the days. Because it was the same school that Hayato and Reona went to, I was able to see them again.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and Aika and I had to fly away from Japan back to my home. Aika stayed for three weeks and we were both dead tired the entire time. Her flight back was delayed a day and that only made her departure more stressful. She did eventually leave, however, and I have not stopped missing her since. I had never had a LITTLE sister before.

So, in relation to the initial post title, it would have been much easier if I was Japanese, what with my extreme love of Japan, even though I did not go into great detail on it. I promise you, it IS there. My brother and sister and I are going to Japan this coming fall, and I do indeed plan on living in Japan in the not so distant future.

Even if that means finding a little Japanese man who will marry me so I can stay. lol.

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