Since I'm not going to do homework tonight

I thought I'd share some things with the internet.

In the last two weeks, I've had the privilege of working with one Mr. Stewart Stern, screenwriter of works such as Rebel Without a Cause and Sybil.  While I cannot discuss what exactly went on in the classroom because of a promise I made at the beginning of the quarter about keeping it a safe zone, I will say this: in order to make us better writers, Stewart had us look at our own pasts and what troubles we had.  In doing so, I realized something important about myself.

I stopped after my fallout with my father.

Looking back, I can say now that my writing really slowed after I had my quote-unquote "nervous breakdown" when all the feelings I had about my father came rushing to the forefront.  I say quote-unquote because, to be honest, I don't know what constitutes a nervous breakdown.  I do know that I couldn't function for a good long while and I was sitting and crying like I had been told that someone in my family had just died.  Until recently, I felt like I had since moved on from my issues with my dad and it didn't matter anymore.  Then other problems started coming up: I wasn't writing anymore, I didn't have much motivation to do anything, and I started to put more and more emphasis on finding a relationship, even though I was less and less comfortable with being open with people. 

In essence, I was running on autopilot.

I don't know whether realizing this helps anything.  I do know that by recognizing this, I have some new things to try with my writing.  I feel like I've opened up more emotionally.  Hopefully, this will make a difference in the future because, right now, I need to make some serious changes to my life style.  I can't be the person I have been.  I need to grow stronger; otherwise, I think I'll stop growing and just be satisfied with whatever comes easy.  I didn't like that before; I shouldn't like it now.

David

Two days, two interesting experiences

So yesterday, I was at work at the IMAX, waiting for the previous show to get out so I could let the new one inside.  It's my job; it's what I do.  Anyway, about 40 minutes before the show gets out, I hear a couple coming down the ramp.  As I listen, I start to wonder: "Is that Mandarin Chinese?"  Once they reached the bottom, I could see they were indeed Asian, but it would be bad of me to simply assume that they were speaking Mandarin because they looked the part.  After all, they could be any generation of Americans and not know a lick of Chinese.  In fack, the guy had almost no foreign accent.  So I answered their questions and they went off a little bit.  But as they went off, I began to listen again, and they were speaking Mandarin!  So, in an effort to be polite, I asked them what language they were speaking.  They told me Mandarin, and the next thing out of my mouth was the Mandarin phrase, "You can speak Mandarin?"

From there, we had a half an hour conversation almost entirely in Chinese about China, my experiences there, the woman's life there, her job as a teacher of Mandarin, and why I chose to study.

It was glorious.  I understood almost everything.  And really, that's why I took the language. :)

Bad part of China; it has somewhat made me immune to sirens.  I swear, I did not even consciously hear the siren of the ambulance until someone pointed it out to me as I'm halfway into the street with it coming down the hill.  I didn't even notice!  I felt like such a jackass, but I remembered that in Suzhou, we'd often hear sirens, but we could still cross the streets simply because the streets were so full of cars, there was no way for the ambulance to drive through them.

A bit of a reverse culture shock there.

Today was a good day

It really, truely was an excellent day.  Despite drinking last night, I woke up with almost no hangover this morning.  I also got a good night sleep, something I've been lacking a lot recently.  I relaxed at home until I went out later.

Why did I go out later?  Because I had to dress up as the Joker.  OBVIOUSLY.

Okay, sarcasm aside, I did actually dress up as the Joker to help promote the Dark Knight's return to IMAX.  Dressing up like this is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I finally had the resources and time to do it.  Plus, I got PAID to do it.  It would have been a bit more fun if it hadn't been strictly for advertising...but that's where the future comes in, no?

Quick pic of it

After doing that for a couple of hours, walking up and down downtown and Capitol Hill, I returned home, got all washed up...and went to Video Games Live! with Coran.

HOLY HANNA!  I've been waiting for this concert for FOUR years, people.  FOUR YEARS.  I heard about it right after it left Seattle, and when I chose Seattle U, I thought for sure that it was going to return soon.  I was so very, very, very wrong...very wrong.  You have to understand this about me: I love video game music.  I've been an advocate for it since I was a young child.  This is an event where I am around other people who think the same as me.  I get to listen to an ORCHESTRA play MY kind of music for two hours.  This event was quite possibly made for me.  And it did not disappoint.  It was AMAZING.  My ONLY complaint is that there was no Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross music.  To make up for that, though, they premired their Metroid set, had tons of Final Fantasy music, and, oh yeah, that guy who did the Mario songs blindfolded?  Yeah, he was there on stage as well.  Even more exciting: they said at the end, very quickly, "See you next year!"  Next year?  NEXT YEAR?!  YEEEEE-HAAAAAW!!

Then I came home and played Skies of Arcadia.

Life...is a many splendored thing.

So here's me...in life...trying to write a blog again.

It's so strange that this is more difficult to write in America than to write in China.  I suppose part of it has to do with that "awww, but it's not EXOTIC" thing that we all do.  Also, when you do things that don't seem out of the ordinary, then it doesn't occur to you to write them.  At least, that's my case.

Regardless!  Here's some news for those of you interested.

-I've just dyed my bangs.  It looks very interesting.  I like it so far, but we'll see how everything turns out in the long run.

-I'm working at the IMAX again.  Pretty good, really.  Met the new workers, and most of them are pretty chill.  And hey, I like the job.

-Classes are going well.  One class a day seems to work really well for me.  And I don't mind the longer classes sessions...well, for the most part.

-Oh my goodness, NEW COMPUTER.  I love this thing so very much.  The screen is beautiful, the hard drive is huge, and it just makes me happy.

Um, that's really all for now.  I'll try to get back into the swing of things with this as soon as I can.

-David

Oh. My. Goodness.

Where has this summer gone?

I haven't updated this in a long time for several reasons. One is because I've been too damn busy. Two jobs and a play have really taken it out of me. I'm enjoying having the money, of course, and acting is fulfilling for its own benefit...but that does not change the fact that I'm damn tired. My sleep schedule has also been completely screwed over by all of these events, namely the release of The Dark Knight. Have I said what my two jobs are? One is the same school job I've had all along. The other is working at the IMAX. So yeah. When Dark Knight came out, my life kind of fell apart. Working until 3 AM, getting up again at 8 to go to work/go to a play. Where did my free time get to? Sorry, I'll stop griping. I know other people have it worse; I just wasn't expecting to have everything get all wonky.

The other reason I haven't updated is because when I upgraded my Firefox to 3.0, I lost ALL my bookmarks, including this one. I operate on the internet rather strangely; if it's not in my bookmarks, I don't check it very often, or at all. So when it went poof, I kinda forgot about doing this. Forgive me.

Anywho, to my two friends who check this blog: are we going PAX'ing this year? I want to. I just don't want to go alone.

Do you have the time to listen to me whine?

Actually, I'm not going to whine. Well...maybe I will. It will be a whine sandwich. I will start out with the awesome thing, put in the middle a bad thing, and then finish it off with another good thing. The bad will be outbalanced by the good, yet still there, leaving a taste in your mouth that you don't quite know what to do with...okay, I'm done with the food metaphor.

So. I went to Emerald City Comicon. JEEBUS H. CRICK, I wish I had more money/had gone to comic conventions in the past! It was so freaking awesome! Basically, it was a place I belonged. The webcomic artists I saw there (Gabe and Tycho, Jeph Jacques, Sam Logan, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, David Kellett, Brad Guigar, Alina Pete, and some others whom I can't remember at the moment) were awesome. I even got Jeph and Sam to draw me! They are my two favorite webcomic artists, so I pretty much almost melted right after that. Oh, and...I bought a Jinxlet. Look it up. I also got plenty of art from everyone; a Sam and Fuzzy poster, couple of limited prints, two T-shirts. I would have spent more if not for my fiscal responsibility.

Now, I'm not a Star Trek fan by any means (though some people seem to think so...), but I also got to see Wil Wheaton. Basically, dude is know for being one of the coolest geeks around. And even though I wasn't sure about that, he seriously is. He's so geeky because he has these fanboyisms that get the better of him, but he's so...proud of it, that you can't help but admire him. Basically, now I want to grow up to be him (did I mention he's a writer as well?).

Now for the bad: Caitlin. My ex girlfriend. If you don't know the story, I'll make it short. She broke up with me on April 1st (aka, April Fool's Day), saying that we were moving too fast (we had known each other for 4 years), while the real reason was to be open to date someone she had only known for a week (though she denied it at the time and still denies it, I believe). Oh, and to top it all off: SHE DID THIS ALL OVER A MYSPACE MESSAGE. Can you say "cowardly"?

Now, although I might give the appearance of a guy who is perfectly comfortable with himself, I'm really not. I have major self-confidence issues, especially when dating. So when this all went down, I went down...hard. It's taken me until just a month or so ago to really build up my confidence not only to the point where I was before Caitlin but above even that. I'm keeping all my options open at this point in time concerning the dating world, and I like it a lot. I feel like I'm finally a nice guy who won't settle and is not always doing the chasing.

Back to the present. Tuesday night. I'm on MSN, talking with some friends, when all of a sudden, an IM from an unknown source pops up. Except...it's not that unknown. It's one that I had deleted almost a year ago. Caitlin was trying to talk to me again.

All my doubts about myself, everything that happened, it all came rushing back to me. All the pain and anger and everything else. Here was a girl I let close to my heart, only to have her hurt it, and she was contacting me for the first time in a year, saying she "missed our friendship" and that she felt bad for what she did.

I basically said as little as I could, waited until she got off-line, and then called my mom and proceeded to have a panic attack. I was crying, I was cursing, I was feeling bad about myself...I was broken, and all it took was this stupid IM screen. Was I really that weak?

It took me the rest of the night to calm down again. I kept talking with my friends over the internet, and they all essentially told me two things. 1) I was better than her and I needed to tell her to go away forever. 2) She was probably trying to get back into the relationship (something I had suspected as well). So after I came to a spot that I could finally be stable, I wrote her a Facebook message saying she should never contact me again. I really wanted to call her and tell her that so I wasn't as bad as her with her freakin' Myspace breakup, but I deleted her number, and in no way wanted to try and talk with her long enough to get it again.

So that was the bad news. Now for the other good news.

I HAVE AN APARTMENT!

Coran, Clair, and I just (as of two hours ago) signed the lease for our totally awesome two bedroom apartment. I. Am. So. STOKED.

And now I run out of words. I'll have more later, I promise!

Universe Man, Universe Man, Size of the entire universe Man

Blogging...blog blog blogging...

Well, I'm trying to think of what's new in life. It doesn't seem as if there is much. I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do with this freaking hurt neck that is preventing me from doing much of anything, especially swing (which is bad considering we perform in less than a week!). I had my Chinese midterm today. I didn't do absolutely fantastic on it, but I tried my best and I think it went over fairly well.

Oh, and I think my sleep schedule is completely messed up. I just took an hour and a half nap which was FABULOUS. Still need to do laundry.... Oh, and my dad emailed me back. So we're on talking terms again. Which is a good thing, I hope. We'll see how it goes.

Sorry, no deep or profound thoughts in this little ditty. And I STILL need to get my picture taken for this. And I REALLY want to write a review of Iron Man...but I'm going to wait until I see it again. Because I am going to see it again...oh yes....