Emboldened by the Night

Days come and go.

People win and people lose.

People get what they want and others don’t.

People come and go.

What’s left after we’re gone?

Madame Bovary is so meta. We haven’t made it very far, and Mrs. Kottke has tuned me to look for statements about how the characters and their actions are meaningless. It’s happened already in the book. The book tells you that it’s worthless. Flaubert tells you the book is not worth reading because the events haven’t changed anything.

So why read it?

No damn clue.

Why do we read any book?

When I talk to myself, it’s usually meta.

I make turns of phrase I don’t even mean to.

I wish I could just dictate my thoughts to something that kept track of them.

I’m afraid to freestyle rap because I want to remember what I said in case it was worthwhile.

Am I supposed to answer these questions I pose?
Are we supposed to have answers to the deep questions?

There should be discussion on these deep questions, but to hope for a real answer is not the way to have those discussions.

Where do you draw the line between poetry and prose?

I send

Chat messages

Like this sometimes

When I want to emphasize

Or keep attention

As I type

A long sentence

Or something.

Every day I learn something

Something to see every day

Something to do every day

Some reason to be every day

Every day can be the best day ever

Every day can be better than the last

Someday I’ll learn

I could write Emo Poems™ all day, baby.

Maybe I should show you my old ones, from 8^th grade.

Who are you?

Is someone there?

The Sky's the Limit

I love the sky. It does so many wonderful things and has more color changes than anything on the earth.

I would love to photograph the sky, keep memories forever. I would get lost in all the sky, so many spots to capture, so many colors swirling about. I would never get a good shot in the short amount of time during a certain color phase. Also, these photographs lose some of the magic that the real thing has.

The sunrise is best viewed from the ocean, as is the sunset. The light hits the water and spreads all around. This is just in perspective of the sky and its colors. If the sun hits the horizon on a rocky crag, the little nooks and crannies go dark, sparking the imagination. You can see the light moving across an open field in the morning, and retreating in the evening.

That time right after sunrise looks the same no matter where you are. A deep breath brings crisp air to my lungs. There is a grand feeling of power; you think of all the things you can accomplish in the day. But as the cool air drifts around and chills you, you think of all the things that can go wrong.

In winter, that dread sets in easily, unless the sky is spotless, or with a few puffs of cloud. The sky’s the limit, as they say, so if the sky seems bright and unending, the cold will not bother you. But gathering clouds and gathering ice bring a profound grief for great ambitions.

In the spring, a dewy morning could be spent going for a run, or sitting inside, waiting. There are many things to wait for in the spring. Spring brings, most of all, renewed life to flora and fauna. Waiting for rain, to frolic in or to ruin your parade, is also a springtime wait. Waiting for old friends to return, like the birds in the sky. Waiting for classes to end so you can go play outside. Waiting for school to end and summer to begin. Waiting for love to find you.

The early summer mornings bring the most hope. With no school to worry about, an early morning may come as a surprise, but it is a wonderful one. A morning run is best when you see the sun rise and wake everyone else up while you go for an adventure. So many things seem possible when you’re up before everyone else. An anxious feeling may be felt in these early hours, a much better worry than those in previous seasons. Excitement comes from sun or storm in the summer.

The fall brings the crispest of air, the sharpest of wind, and the bluest of sky. An early fresh whiff can set you off to a new day and a new school year.  Some may feel despair at the thought of a return to all the cold, but it is something to be relished as you know that the good feelings will return.

If I could reach the sky, it would

Smell Like Freedom

Robot Unicorn Attack

I played Robot Unicorn Attack today.

Last year, I would play it when I wanted a break from thinking. I think I’m okay at it, but I couldn’t catch up to Greg and Amogh once they developed the skills. I also think it’s fine that I’m just okay at it. I just zone out and zoom on by.

I said I play it when I don’t want to think. Naturally, this time I started thinking while playing. And to my dismay, it didn’t affect my playing, even though it had been six months since the last time I played.

It’s not like I needed to block out my thoughts, it’s just that another junior memory is disappearing. There was some magic last year that doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe I always wanted to be a junior, to make believe as a junior, and have peace and harmony. There wasn’t the pressure of being top dog, and there was a carefree attitude of one more year.

But I love being a senior, too. It’s great to be looked up to, and I know I’ll be able to improve myself even more. I've finally fulfilled one of my high school goals.

Mr. E passed out the drum major audition packets today.

BLOG POST

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IAN

Diablog

7:12 AM

“Ian, I don’t want to be here right now.” It wasn’t a complaint; it was a statement of fact.

“But you say that all the time! You don’t want to be anywhere.”

“It’s Monday, and I’m tired, and waking up sucks…”

“If we weren’t here on Monday, then we’d be here on Tuesday, complaining—"

“Oh, don’t start using your dumb logic on me!” She smiled and laughed. It was quiet as we dodged someone walking the opposite way.

“I was up late last night, and I still haven’t got some of my homework done.”

“I know; I underestimated my homework and I was up till 1.”

“Ugh! I just hate math! He doesn’t explain anything, and… I…”

“Yeah you’ve told me how much you hate math. If I wasn’t just dozing off during class and winging it every night on the homework, I would gladly help.”

“I know. Thanks, Ian.”

The sound drifted off until there was a sudden uproar.

“IAAAANNNH!”
“Ian! Ian!”

“Do you know when the T-shirts are coming in?”

“Hi Ian!”

I put my cases in my locker and walked to class.

***

12:51 PM

“Hey, how was your day?” She twisted her arms and fingers with a pained expression on her face.

“That’s what my day was like. We have a quiz in math tomorrow, and I still have NO IDEA what we’re doing!”

“You know, I really don’t either… Sorry.”

“What’s the problem?”

 Cringe.

“She’s having a bad day.”

“My day was like this:” She contorted her hands and face again. She laughed.

“Aww, I’m sorry. Do you need a hug?”

His voice dripped with false concern.

She sidestepped and put her one arm on his back. He closed both around her. I turned to check the board. I looked back and he was gone.

“What are we doing today, Ian? Are we going outside?” She ducked around me. “YES! We’re going outside!” She threw her arms around my shoulders and I patted her on the back.

“You know, if it wasn’t so nice out, you’d be complaining about how we have to go outside.”

“Don’t remind me!”

***

4:45 PM

Alex and I stood out in the drizzle while he played Taps on his trumpet.

SuperCowCow

Today is middle school story day~       

In the summer before eighth grade, my brother and I had the crazy idea to make videos using music we found on Newgrounds. We got our neighbor in on the project. We pumped out videos every two weeks.

It wasn’t about artistic genius or having a point. We were having fun going through the process. It was the greatest waste of time we ever had. I don’t really mind that we never got found, because I don’t know if we could have kept up with the same style.

Eventually we discovered that we could record with sound, so our videos took a new direction. They were even more fun for a while, because we added a new output for funny. But—with great power comes with great responsibility, or so they say. I think because now we had to have dialogue go perfectly, we started arguing more. Our best videos was where we just told Mark to say whatever and let him go with it.

Fabulous Beasties has so much potential. We were going to go places with it. It might have even been a musical at one point. Mark was full of random quips that we thought it would never end. But as time went on, things grew stale, and with school and lack of interest, we stopped making videos.

I haven’t stopped wanting to make videos. In ninth grade Communications I made two videos for class with my friends. One was a news show based on short stories we had read in class, and that one was successfully filmed and edited and appreciated. The second attempt was a modernization of Romeo and Juliet, but since our Juliet got grounded, the best we could do was make two trailers—which turned out decently.

I realized film is what I want to do for two reasons. One is because of the fun I had doing these YouTube videos, and the other is because every time I tried to write a story for a book, it always sounded better as a movie.

Hopefully I can get like 30 more views on SuperCowCow’s videos from this—before you all get bored and run away. YEY COME WATCH PLEASE

Film, Fun, Freedom
Ian

El Cheapo

El Cheapo was the best thing that happened to me in middle school. If you don’t know what El Cheapo is, it’s a company that provides the most exorbitant products at the most exorbitant prices. El Cheapo does all of its own advertising, and it has many different branches that provide for every needless need.

Examples of their products include the El Cheapo Ec Cube, El Cheapo Beat Stix, and the El Cheapo Doors OS.

We made our own ads. We thought of the most useless products, like a solar powered electric blanket, and spent homeroom drawing and writing our ad on a piece of lined paper. Sometimes we even made them during real class. This was how I met Ishmam and Jeff. Most of my time in 8^th grade was spent doing El Cheapo related shenanigans.

We showed the ads to our other friends, and they got a kick out of it. At first that was enough, but we wanted more lulz. We started hanging them up outside on lockers. We hung them on our own lockers, and we asked permission from other kids to put them on their lockers. It was great at first.

Then all of a sudden they were getting torn down. Without mercy, and with scraps still on lockers, the ads disappeared soon after we hung them up. It wasn’t the teachers or the janitors that were tearing them down. It was other kids. Other kids who thought we were posting the ads randomly and vandalizing other kids’ lockers. We were most definitely not. We asked everyone if we could use their locker beforehand. These misinformed vigilantes were obstinate. They listened to no one—and they never got the jokes.

That didn’t stop us, though. We became—if the word had existed back then—cheppier. There were even more bizarre creations, and they went under the El Chep branch of El Cheapo. Soon we left El Cheapo behind, because El Chep grew bigger. So big, that a new word had spawned out of our mischief: “chep.”

Chep can be a noun or an adjective.

Something can be “pure chep,” or “full of chep.”

Something can be “cheppy,” “the cheppiest,” or “cheppier.”

Chep means something is poorly created, but with humor in mind.

On a rough comparison, “cheppy” and “shoddy” are similar, but something “cheppy” is also hilariously stupid.

We didn’t realize at the time that we were manufacturing vernacular, and I think that’s important to how “chep” stuck around.

Frindle is an act of rebellion, and an act of replacement.

We at El Cheapo filled a hole in the vocabulary of the people. We created a new word that others started using without our direct encouragement. It was a need we did not realize we needed filled, but there it was, full of chep.

The last time I was involved with making El Cheapo products was in 9^th grade, but El Cheapo lives on in all of us.

Friendship, Chep, Freedom

Ian

Hello Again

Awkward.

I hate that word.

People always use it when there are better words to use!

In this context it would actually fit: I’m resuming blogging after almost three months of inactivity.

It’s difficult to find things to say, because, as is happening right now, you want to talk about how you’ve been gone for so long.

And of course, I’ve wanted to start again, but at some point there’s a line between being able to casually slip back in and having to make an apology post.

It’s hard to say “hello” again.

I’m starting to think it’s bad that I connect with a lot of sad songs.

It’s also bad that I wish life was more like movies sometimes. I think that’s from watching too many movies and writing too much.

I think that could actually turn into some schizophrenic false life situation.
And then I think that would be a cool plot for a movie.

I want to blog about the things that are happening and make social commentary, but then I realize I’m still falling into them.

As a hypothetical example, if I blogged about senioritis but then began to have symptoms myself, I would be frowned upon.

So uh, even though things are happening, I’ll probably restrain myself from blogging about them. That’s why I haven’t blogged in a long time.

In other news, once Wind starts I’m going to start lobbying for a band arrangement of the Super Mario Galaxy theme.

I think even just writing this mish-mash pish-posh-post has inspired me to write more.

Yay!

Freedom
Ian

PaperBlog 7/13/11

I finished rereading HP7 on the car ride to the airport and finally resumed journal-ing.

So that's the five day gap in the entries. First page is immediate thoughts after finishing HP7.

P.S. I may be posting what I wrote during most of the plane ride, but honestly I haven't made it to the exciting parts yet, so that might be on hold.

PaperBlog 7/8/11

Only one Entry today, and then it was a while before I wrote again.

BONUS CONTENT WHAAAT (Links and Such)

Rango has good music. Incidentally, not because, Hans Zimmer was in charge of the music.

Y'all should get your ears listening to Team Teamwork. In particular, their albums Ocarina of Rhyme and Vinyl Fantasy 7 (don't worry, they're free) are my favorites. They blend video game music with rap and hip hop, and it's usually quite enjoyable.

I dunno what I think about dubstep. Chrome doesn't even think dubstep is a word.
Maybe I'll do a post or two about next level shit music once the PaperBlog is done.

PaperBlog 7/7/11

Day 3: Now with even more pages!

PaperBlog 7/6/11

Day 2: Prepare for some moodiness.

P.S. I forgot one page yesterday, so it's been added to that post.

PaperBlog 7/5/11

Day one of the trip, and I blogged quite a bit!

Doing entries one day at a time since individuals are relatively short.

No other comments (judgments) by me will be made, as these are supposed to be as they were written.

BOOM! 

P.S. I don't think anyone got my pun from the intro post (either that or no one is paying attention to me *creys*).

PaperBlog

I'm going to California tomorrow, and in an effort to fill more of the page, I will be writing a paper blog every day.

Hopefully it will be exciting!
Ian

P.S. Marie Antoinette thought it was "chic" to go into the city dressed as a man to avoid detection.

Chapter 1: Biking

So, I haven’t written in a long time.

I haven’t biked in a long time either.

Both of those things, I did today.

Last year, sometime in the spring, I got home from school but didn’t want to do my homework right away. So on a whim, I grabbed my MP3 player, and went on a bike ride. I rode for about half an hour. Being my first real exercise since fall, it was exhausting.

But it was exhilarating. I biked every day after school and most days in the summer until I left for Europe.

Around my neighborhood, there is a large network of parks and trails that twist and turn and are never boring. They pass through a wide range of terrain and present interesting paths through the area. You should come over to Maple Grove sometime; there is a lot to see.

As I bike and listen to my music, an adventure is happening in my head. I could be imagining a real adventure unfolding in front of me. I could be on a race against time, trying to reach a certain spot before the song I’m listening is done. I could be scheming about some sort of shenanigans for some other day. I could be trying to sort out my thoughts, with the cool breeze to refresh my brain.

Exercise awakens your senses and helps you think more clearly. I biked to school on the last day, and I felt so much more awake and alert. I plan to bike to school more often.

Wind, Adventure, and Freedom

Ian

PS. This time, my thoughts drifted to an imagined JRock cover band, but next time I may think of more to write. I think this is more of a warm up; there will be more words for you in the future.

PPS. Phew! I made it! One day more, and it would have been a month without posting...

Chapter 1: Band

The Hobbits, Johan de Meij
Life is the first great adventure. There are a few afterwards, but most of us here are currently on the adventure of life. There are so many places to explore, people to meet, and one ring to destroy. We can’t do it alone. We’ve got each other. We all need a band of heroes [gesture backwards] for our magical quest. The exciting events of our journey are much more meaningful when we experience them together. Tonight, our fellowship will guide you through one last journey in this leg of our adventure.

Nimrod, Edward Elgar

[First speaker]

If we cannot embrace one another

What hope do we have of life?

What hope is there to survive at all?

Love of another human being—

It cannot be wrong.

[Second speaker]

We all live together

And come to embrace

The splendid variety of life on earth

Good and bad

Sweet and sour

Take it for what it is: the glory of life. And this, this cannot be wrong.

(Taken from Big Love, a play by Charles Mee)

Colossus of Columbia, Russell Alexander
Twirling, tumbling, falling. Flung from one event from the next, it’s easy for us to slip and fall from the tightrope onto the hard ground. But if, laughing and smiling, we fly from one trapeze to the next, everything seems a little easier. Here it is, the giant big top of high school, and we’ve climbed to the top again, ready for the finale. We’re as exited and anxious as you are.

Will There Really be a Morning?, Craig Hella Johnson
At night, full of the day’s darkness, you yearn to be refreshed by the soft, morning sunlight. Morning is the most beautiful time of the day. The sky is full of all the light and hope that it lost over the day. The sky welcomes you home with its bright and joyful colors. The air is fresh and inviting. In the morning, you are free. The darkness is gone, and as you venture out into the day, you are comforted by the sweet remembrance of that peaceful morning.

Esprit de Corps, Robert Jager
Playing a piece that is full of life is what finally caused me to practice like I meant it. When all your hard work comes to life in the space of the auditorium, there is no feeling quite like it. I found this feeling when high school band showed me how friendships, camaraderie, and great music were made. We will bring the music of teamwork, the strength of friendships, and the power of band to life in this auditorium tonight. Here, we will demonstrate the joy of making music.

The Turtle Dove, Donald Krubsack
I’m going to hate being a senior. My role models, my friends, my mentors will all be gone. My disillusionment will continue. I’m going to have to leave once this is all over. I’m going to be the one who has to show the young ones the way. I’m going to be a leader. I’m going to be admired and remembered. I get to do this one last time. I’m going to love being a senior.

Synergy Rising, Ryan Nowlin
We all can think of something we care about. A person, a group, a cause, a faith. One of the things I care about the most is this band. We’ve all come together from different walks of life to make music every day in second block. Something more difficult to think about is why we care about something. I care about this band because we represent the best and brightest of this school, the promising future, and the value of the human spirit. We must all remember to band together to create a deep and composite meaning. With so much variety to sound and color, band music has so much soul. We hope the soul of our music has found you tonight, as we bid you a triumphant farewell and soar on to new horizons.

Adventure, Journeys, Freedom
Ian

P.S. Once I have the recordings of us playing these pieces, I will put those up instead of these YouTube links.

Chapter 0: Priorities

I’ve started to become addicted to YouTube instead of anime. I haven’t watched anime since only a few days after spring break. I haven’t been watching YouTube more profusely since then—this is actually fairly recent. And I haven’t been far reaching with my YouTube adventure. I have watched more of some familiar faces, but the biggest change is that I have become engaged in the activities of the Vlogbrothers, John and Hank Green. I am learning how to be entertaining from their vlogs and also from Hank playing video games on a separate channel of his.

The problem is that I’ve somehow lost motivation to watch the anime that is probably simpler to get to than the stuff on YouTube. I wouldn’t have to wait for the video to load or buffer or whatever you want to call it, and it’s got higher quality and lasts longer per episode. I just haven’t been motivated. Part of the neglect is possibly the lack of decent shows this season, but even the one show I couldn’t wait to watch the second episode for (and still haven’t) doesn’t draw me away from the YouTubes or other sites on the interwebs.

I guess I have given myself a lot of new things to do. This blogging thing takes up a lot of time, especially when you throw out your first four drafts. I stopped playing Pokémon religiously recently, and I haven’t played Guild Wars in a long time. I have been practicing with greater frequency, however (though I didn’t today :L ). Maybe my priorities have switched. Maybe it’s because my normally mobile laptop is confined to the back room in the basement. Maybe when summer rolls around I will be back to how I felt at the end of sophomore year.

Yeah, right.

How I’ve digressed from a comparison of YouTube adventures and anime into some other depressing thing is evidence of how draining being a junior can be. I have fond memories of summer last year. I was full of adventure and exploration and love of nature. I went to Europe for 14 days, (oooh, now that is something to blog about later) I expanded my social horizons even more, and summer was good.

This summer I have big plans, too, and I hope that I’ll be able to shake this feeling of anxiety once I’ve left the high school for one last time as a junior. I don’t want to be anxious all summer. That would be ruinous.

So cheer up! We’ve made it somewhere—maybe not somewhere that can be called “this far,” but somewhere. Somewhere is a great place to have an adventure in. Let’s make it through this last leg, and let’s make it an adventure.

Adventure, Dreams, Freedom
Ian

Chapter 0: Premonition

I don’t think there are multiple ways to live your life. Certain aspects of life are up to chance, but when given the exact same circumstances, a person would take the same action every time. Time travel is not one of the circumstances. If you knew what you knew in the future, of course your decision would be influenced. We always have thoughts about what we could have done differently, but we didn’t have those thoughts at that point. We will have the exact same thoughts if a scenario is replayed over and over again. (In Fire Emblem, if you take the same moves every time, even though events are up to chance, they will always happen the same way.) I am not insinuating that we don’t have free will. We are all free to make our own decisions; I do not believe in predestination. The power we do not have is premonition. Premonition always suspiciously happens after you make a choice—after the damage has been done.

I can think back to a thousand different things that could have, should have, would have gone smoother, better, wonderfully, perfect if I had said this or done that. Too bad. I can’t change it now that it’s happened. And you could take that positively or negatively. You could cry in a corner, thinking that there’s always a better way to do things, and never try again for fear of failure. OR you could go out and explore, knowing that there’s always a better way to do things, and always try to make yourself better.

When you erase what you’ve written, you’ve learned something.

            Regretting the past is no way to get into the future. It’s never a good idea to forget your mistakes, because then you’d make the same choices over and over again. There is a difference between learning and whining. I complain about things with the best of them, but I’ve got to tell myself that tomorrow is always there. If you think about how things sucked or how they suck right now, there’s no way you’ll end the suck later on. The inverse is also true. If you think about how it’s all going to be better later, you don’t realize what good you have right in front of you. I could quote a certain reptilian kung fu master here, but I’m sure you get the point by now.

I have happy memories. I have sad memories. I have moments I’d like to relive over and over again. I have regrets. I know that it would all happen again, if it did happen again. If you had the ability to know the outcome of all of your important decisions, you would never do anything again. Everything is going to have downsides, and everything is going to have upsides. What I did is who I am. What I do is who I am. I am Ian, and I am going to be myself.

"We all live together and come to embrace the splendid variety of life on earth. Good and bad, sweet and sour—take it for what it is: the glory of life. And this, this cannot be wrong."

Life, Love, Freedom
Ian

Chapter 0: Pokémon

            Pokémon is a video game franchise with spin-off games, toys, and other media. That is the hierarchy for thinking about Pokémon. Nothing comes before the storyline games. Everything about Pokémon is based on the cartridge games where the point is to collect Pokémon, gym badges, and compete against your friends.

           Pokémon is one of my biggest hobbies. I would list it as separate to video games on my list of hobbies. I like Pokémon, and you can’t convince me it’s a kid’s game or other biased comments. I’m also aware that I can’t convince the outright haters to stop hating. They’re gonna hate till the end of time. I can give reasons why you should like Pokémon, but everyone’s heard those before.

           

            I am directing this post at those of you who think something “wrong” happened with Pokémon somewhere along the way, and now you’ve decided to turn your back. I’m going to tell you why Pokémon isn’t bad— why it continues to be an entertaining and engaging video game.

            I know your arguments. I know where you think Pokémon turned sour after ten years, but that’s actually where you turned sour. This is what I hear all the time about the new Pokémon games:

“All the new Pokémon look ugly!”

“There are too many Pokémon now!”

 “They’ve lost all their creativity!”
“They’ve made the game too complicated!”

            A lot of comments and those of the same ilk stem from not accepting changes as good things. A good example of this is Facebook. My Psychology teacher showed us a Facebook page and prompted the class “Facebook made some changes a while back, right? And everyone complained? Can you remember how the old one looked?” There was an energized silence in the room as everyone struggled to remember what the Facebook page used to look like, but to no avail. In this situation, there was the disadvantage of not being able to reference the old page, unlike being able to play an older Pokémon game. Referencing the old page could unearth features that were good as well as bad.

           

            Pokémon games keep what is good, and make changes for the better. We can go back to the older games and see why improvements were made. Gamers are quick to criticize sequels for not being up to par with the original game, but in sticking close to a formula that works, Pokémon games improve with each new generation.

“All the new Pokémon look ugly!”

            I know you’re all attached to your favorite “classic” Pokémon that you thought were “badass” before you even knew what “badass” meant.

I’m not making the claim that Generation V Pokémon are the coolest, but when you take a comparison of the video game images for these Pokémon, I dare you to make the “ugly” claim.

                         

I’m not dissing the design of the Generation I pokemon, in fact, I do think Charizard looks cool. The Sugimori art is great, and that is probably the image you have in mind when you think of Charizard. That’s great, except that’s not the “classic 150” Charizard that you know as “badass.” It’s an improvement.

“There are too many Pokémon now!”

            Is 649 Pokémon too much for you? Why is having so much variety a problem? There are so many different aspects of Pokémon that 649 possibilities (and really a lot less since battling involves mostly fully evolved Pokémon) is only scratching the surface. Around one hundred total new Pokémon, and maybe sixty fully evolved ones, every three years is not a difficult task. With the easy access to online Pokédexes everywhere, all you need to memorize is a name and associate it with a type, ability, and certain key stats and moves. Competitive battlers don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge, but they do learn to remember key points of each Pokémon from experience.

“They’ve lost all their creativity!”

            Here again we come upon the complexity of the Pokémon universe, and how there are more uncreated Pokémon than real ones. New moves, attacks, and type combinations add to the depth of the game every time a new generation of Pokémon is released. No one knows how Game Freak comes up with new Pokémon. They might come up with ideas based on how the current game is played or they might just come up with ideas straight out of their heads. The one thing for sure is that not all of the ideas they have can be put in a game. There is no guarantee that the “Original 150” that you love are the whole picture of the original concept. A Game Boy game cartridge is severely limiting once you’ve stored information on 151 different characters. There are plenty of creative ideas that are tested in each new game as new technology emerges. The ability to invent increases the creativity of the developers.

“They’ve made the game too complicated!”

            I won’t say Pokémon isn’t complicated. In fact, that’s why I play it. There are complex data behind every Pokémon that we had no clue about back in elementary school, and the games have stayed that way. If I asked an “Original 150 lover” what DVs or EVs were, all I would get in return would be a blank stare. Sure, DVs changed to IVs and have 31 values instead of 15, but I bet none of those involved in the “complication” claim would have any idea about that. I didn’t know about IVs and EVs till late Generation III, and all the knowledge did was make me love Pokémon more. There’s so much to Pokémon that is easily understood but mastered over time that makes it an addicting game. So to all you naysayers, complication is good.

Who the heck doesn’t like breeding? Who the heck doesn’t think Dark and Steel Pokémon are cool? Who in their right mind would tell me it’s more fun to play a game where you have no idea what to expect out of your Pokémon except they look “badass”? My Pokémon look badass and can kick yours.

Childhood, Victory, and Freedom

Ian

Chapter 0: Prologue

I always regret things that I write post 11 o’clock. Mrs. Hagen told me I shouldn’t apologize in my writing, but this isn’t an apology. It’s an experiment.

                                                                

I come up with schemes, plans, and complaints all the time. And none of my plans hatched entirely after dinner are ever executed. There are so many things I have been planning to do (and writing a blog is one of them). Earlier this evening I wrote up a new Pokémon team that I will probably never follow through on. As I sit here eating pretzels, I’ve already thought of three other things to do. Alice’s father believes six impossible things before breakfast, and I plot six impossible things before bed.

I myself even object to writing out that I’ll never start on that Pokémon team, since I probably won’t after I’ve announced it. I’m always telling myself and others not to think that something won’t work because they will convince themselves to fail. But maybe we all need to be a little more realistic. I’ve not thought about how my plots will actually turn out, and I’ve forgotten about a lot of them. I think that’s the issue. I’m just a dreamer, and I have to involve others before I can guarantee I’ll complete my objective.

Here comes the distraction. I turned away from the screen too long, and I almost gave up there.

I’ve got tons of ideas, grand ideas and crackpot schemes alike, but I don’t have the guts to do everything I want to. I consider myself an extrovert now, but from being entirely awkward up until 8^th grade, I have to fight myself to engage with others. I like talking to people and making new friends. I like acting and performing for others. It just took me a while to figure that out. Now I’m stuck inside a shell that I wish I could break out of at any time, but I’m conditioned to hang back and observe.

I don’t know if people like me. I’m sensitive to being called a nerd, a loser, a creep. Yet I tend to operate under the belief that people are generally good. It’s like I’m living in two different worlds. There’s a confident me that shows himself in selective situations with close friends and by myself, and the nervous me that is uncomfortable almost everywhere else. If I’m not with people I fear am judging me, I’ll be confident and have fun. But I can’t tell what a lot of people think of me, so I get apprehensive and don’t know what to do.

I’m not someone who thinks everyone hates me. Hell no. I just don’t feel comfortable if I don’t know where I stand with a person. Not many people are mean to me, and maybe that is what concerns me. I don’t know who to open up to, and honestly I would like to open up to a lot more people. (There’s confident Ian talking; all talk, that one is.) I know I certainly have made a lot of friends in high school, but just like friends on Facebook, except for the ones that write on my wall, I don’t know what to do with the other hundreds.

I’m not a depressed person. This is a downer of a first blog post, but I think it may be helpful (for you and me) to get this over with. I enjoy life; that is not an issue. I just think I can enjoy it better with others. I refuse to think that my life sucks, or that I have no worth, but I think there is even more to life than I have right now. Clouds have silver linings, but they’re not always there for the taking. I can create my own silver linings, but that’s no substitute for a genuine success in life. Someday I will succeed, and that starts right now, with little baby steps.

Fear, Hope, and Freedom

Ian