Today my parents are driving to Portland to take our collie (Eli) to a special veterinary hospital. He has damaged his lower spine (we don't know how, but it could be due to all of the rough-housing from our puppy Arwen), and vets in Eugene don't know how to help him. I hope that things will work out okay. My mom has a very special attachment to this dog, so I would hate to see anything happen to him. He's also a big sweetie, the sweetest dog we've ever owned. 

My class from UH is finally over. It was difficult towards the end, as the professor almost completely disappeared. It happens sometimes with online courses, and makes it hard to finish.

I am loving White Collar. My mom and I watched it together every night, and we are so attached to the characters at this point. She adores Neal, and I equally adore Peter. Such a fantastic dynamic between those two.

Often, I neglect to post. 

It isn't out of forgetfulness. I remember. Daily, I remember. 

Then I sit down, at this desk, staring at the blank computer screen. And the words stop. They flow through my brain and my heart, screaming, crying, dying to get out. Yet something stops my fingers. Some unseeable, unknowable force stops my fingers from typing, halts my heart's words from getting their relief. 

I was prescribed, by a new doctor, the anti-depressant Wellbutrin. This is not an SSRI, like Zoloft or Prozac. He calls it "a-typical" and says that even doctors and psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies do not know exactly how it works or what it is capable of. But I trust him, and I trust this. 

I have been watching White Collar, a series on USA about the White Collar Crime division of the FBI. I like it because the characters are fun, interesting, and have a great dynamic. I am also a massive fan of Tim DeKay since Carnivale. 

I am transforming my environment. 

I want to live and breathe my creativity and let it seep slowly out of the depths of my soul, where it has sheltered for far too long. 

Also, it is DOMA day. One step closer to pure equality.

I got the line work of my Naruto tattoo done yesterday. It took only around 2 hours, and I was reading The Island of Dr. Moreau throughout. My tattoo artist is named Reed. He also did my Ranma 1/2 piece and my two bows, as he is renowned for his color work. I can't wait for the outline to heal so that I can get some poppin' color put in. 

中納言家持
 

かささぎの
渡せる橋に
置く霜の


白きを見れば
夜ぞふけにける 

 

 

That is my favorite of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. Poem #6. 

 

If I see that bridge
That is spanned by flights of magpies
Across the arc of heaven

Made white with a deep-laid frost,
Then the night is almost past. 

So I am taking a break from work for the summer. It is such a relief. And as a result, I pushed my supervisor into allowing my coworker/friend Lillian to work in my place. She desperately needed a reliable job for the next few months in order to pay for rent, so I am super happy to help her. She's really an incredible lady. 

I am also close to the finale of Mass Effect 1. I can see all of the mechanics that they scrapped, or changed to make them more efficient. Driving around in the Mako all the time is killing me. I can't seem to play as a non-female Shepard. In my mind, Shepard just is a woman. Which is so strange, because I was always mixing up the character gender for Dragon Age (and character species), but I try to start as a maleShep, and it just doesn't work for me. I think some of this has to do with the fact that I worship the femShep voice actress (Jennifer Hale). She is incredible!

I'm also loving the anime Chihayafuru, revolving around the classical (yet still prevalent) card game Karuta. I used to play karuta with my sensei as a child, and it was my most.favorite.thing.ever, so I have a personal connection to the series. The characters are all realistic, the relationships are realistic, and the depth of the series is mind-blowing. Highly recommended. 

I am getting my Naruto half-sleeve tomorrow! Narutooooooo. I'm so thankful to Chase for getting me hooked on Naruto again. I definitely survived this past year and a half in part due to the awesomeness of this series. 

Captain America is my favorite superhero. He gets his strength from his compassion. That is awesome. 

I got an A+ in my English class this term. And an A in my other class, so 4.3 GPA awww yeah.

Got a bubblegum pink, Nintendo Gameboy phone case. Love itttt.

I am not okay. 

Sometimes I pretend like things are fine. I just write about things that are happy or enjoyable in my life. And when I'm not writing very much, you can be sure that it's because I'm not finding many things happy or enjoyable. 

Since coming back from Korea, I have been having more and more difficulty getting through life. I am anxious to a greater degree, and on top of that, I now have near-crippling depression, hyperventilating panic attacks (my panic attacks before never involved a lot of hyperventilation, so this is new), and possibly worst of all...I am disassociated with my own body. I don't register my physical self anymore. This is very disconcerting, and hard to explain for anyone who has never experienced it. I can't tell anymore when I am hungry or full, my body seems like a separate entity so my reaction time is diminished, and I feel like I can't...feel. 

I am having trouble completing everyday tasks, and I am sad a lot. More than 60% of the time, I am very very sad. 

There is one thing keeping me going, and that is video games. I love stories. I love them. Any and every story-telling medium is an act of beautiful creation. I love books, films, theater, television. But most of all, I love video games. They combine visual story-telling, with written story-telling, with an interactive component that you can't find anywhere else. They are truly unique, and truly limitless. 

I want to make them.

Memorial Day 2013

Raining like clockwork. 

I am addicted to Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive". I listen to it whilst playing Mass Effect 3, and it makes me feel like a badass. I love my Commander Shepard. She is a hardcore bitch. Garrus also loves her. Just sayin. 

I saw someone get the Paragon and Renegade symbols tattooed on their shoulders and I was like...oh hell yes. 

"I have plans for us to become best friends".

 Me too, Lillian. 

<3

Reconnecting

I am reconnecting with people. 

The process is arduous. And not simple. 

How do you begin a new relationship with an old friend? 

My friendship with Ian is being rekindled slowly. 

He was the Syaoran to my Sakura in middle school. We had such a cute crush on each other. 

I remember he transferred to my school from New Zealand in 7th grade, and we instantly connected over our love of fantasy and the fact that we had almost all of our classes together. We were almost inseparable for that year, and remained close through 8th and 9th grade. 

We each liked different people during those times, yet our mutual crush on each other remained, hidden away in the background. 

Now he is graduating from Oregon State with a degree in Engineering, and thinking of Med School. 

It's interesting to see what has become of him. We are no longer the people we were. But back then, we were cute.

I have a coworker named Lillian. She has such a beautiful heart, full of love, life, kindness, and generosity. 

She is a person I want to be like, and a person I want to be close to.

I think of her, and I feel better about the world. 

I would like to say to her: "I am counting the days you have added to my life".

My mother bought me Mass Effect 3 yesterday, and yesterday I also finished Mass Effect 2. I have very mixed feelings about the game. On the one hand, I felt very easily connected to all of my party members. BioWare does a consistently great job creating characters to whom you are instantly drawn, and each character is so unique and wonderful, it adds a great deal to the entire experience. 

However, I found the game entirely too short. I completed as many side missions as I could find, but the majority of the game seemed devoted to the loyalty missions, and then the three "core" missions, and that fell flat. There also was a lack of party dialogue. In the Dragon Age series, I've always felt that there was enough party dialogue to keep me happy, and to make me feel like I really knew my companions. But in Mass Effect, I was only able to have one or two conversations to get to know my teammates, and the romance was pathetic (I chose to romance Garrus). I got so tired of waiting for each level of the Normandy to load just to end up hearing "I'm busy, can we talk later?" 

Overall, BioWare is still a company I admire a great deal, and I will finish out the series. It just isn't my favorite, and I'm surprised that ME2 got as much praise as it did. 

I need to finish reading The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents today. I also bought Dan Brown's new book (Inferno), and I am reading more Terry Pratchett for fun.