The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

When your boss tells you “You know what? You shouldn’t take that shift and should go home and sleep instead,” I guess it means you are working too much, huh? I type this as I sit at the computer before going back to work and nearly falling asleep at the keyboard. Yay.

Recent dumb shit made me feel all whatever. Brer said “Do what you need to do to feel good!” So I took action and wore a skirt to work. I had originally played to wear this skirt while seeing Into the Woods, but my mother freaked out at the idea. But screw it, I said. The only thing that got them used to me having breasts was just by stopping the babying of them and just doing it. I just went for it. My mother got really upset, but whatever! I went to work.
It was weird. Not having pockets was really weird, as well as just moving around. This is the first time I had worn a skirt for any length of time, being previously confined to nervousness locked in my room. What really got me, though, was how not a big deal it was to me. There would have been a time in my life when doing something like that would have scared the shit out of me. This didn’t. I just decided to. It felt very natural. I looked good. (Mom even admitted as such, though she didn’t want to say it because she didn’t want me wearing it or whatever.) Aleda at work even asked me what took me so long to try stuff like that. It was nice. It’s something I will do again. Though maybe not too soon, if it starts getting cold like it should be.

Steve Jobs is dead, I hear. While I didn’t have some sort of magical affinity towards him, and I would never think of switching to a Mac full-time, there’s no doubt he had a hand in some amazing products I enjoy and carry with me every day which begin with the letter i. There’s also no doubt he was just a genius. So, you know. I’m sure he’ll be missed.

Finally, my mother got a new printer. It is better than the older printer in basically every way. It works, for one. It looks really badass, for two. It has a scanner built in that actually works, for three. We’ll see if it suddenly breaks in a week or something, but I was very happy with it’s first day of heavy use as I prepped for class, sent off paperwork for the house, and so on. Maybe I won’t spend my days screaming at a printer now. I kind of want one for my house, too. I’ll need a printer to make shit for class and whatnot.

Anyway, that’s it. I’m exhausted. Have a lovely day. I’m sure I will, as I finally got in my Pony shirts. PONY SHIRTS. Bye!

Today I was prepping for my class. I wanted to bring in another article to discuss, you know, to expand the discussion from what the book has. Standard stuff. I was looking for things at places I know that writes entertaining things, and I stumbled upon this column. I couldn’t pull myself away. I had to read. I read two articles before I was nearly in tears and I forced myself away. It was good stuff, but… but I just couldn’t handle it, even though I also couldn’t ignore it.

I want to read stuff like this. I want to know I am not alone, and more importantly, that there are other people out there, making it, and being successful. I want to be able to give people something more well-written than these stupid blog posts and say “Look, it’s like this. This is what’s going on.”

But it hurts me to read this sort of thing. It makes me want to cry almost immediately, even if something happy is being discussed. I almost feel like I’m punishing myself. I can’t handle it.

I’m no stranger to empathy. I try to be that kind of person. I try to understand people. But with this stuff… I know this pain too well. I know the situation too well. I’ve lived it, or am living it. Trying to feel what they feel, my own pain, my past, it mixes with it. It amplifies it. It overwhelms me. If something bad happens, I remember all the times something similar happened to me, and I just want to collapse and give up. When something good happens, I am just so overwhelmingly thankful that there is good in the world that I can’t express it. I can’t keep it inside me. Either way, I cry.

I have probably said this before, but I try to think back a few years ago, or even a few months ago, to how I felt. The person I was, the depression that ruled my life, it already seems like a dream, to be honest. It’s hard to believe I was ever that much of a mess. I don’t know if anyone else sees it in me. I may seem mostly the same. But there’s no mask anymore, and I’m not hiding my emotions. It feels so right, I can’t believe I used to always be hiding. I have already come so far. I am so fucking thankful.
But when I read these things, I do remember. I remember how terrible I felt. I remember how trapped I felt in my own life. I remember how pointless going on living seemed. It all rushes back to me, and it makes my current problems, like trying to get everyone on the same page with pronouns, feel even worse. They’ll never call me the right pronoun. They’ll never accept me. I’ll never be me, and I have been foolish to try. Just like that, I can’t escape these thoughts. These people I’m reading about are successful, but they aren’t like me. I’m too much of a tomboy. I’ll never pass. My parents will always think it’s okay to call me by my old name. Or even worse, these people have problems, and aren’t successful, and I will, of course, be just like them. I can’t win.

One of the articles I read talked about how little she talks anymore, and how she no longer sings because she’s worried her deeper singing voice will give her away. Suddenly, I’m worried. I sing all the time. Like, all the time. Am I giving myself away? Should I stop? I have a higher voice, but not that high. It probably is a problem. But the idea of not being able to get into music like that is extremely depressing. I have another thing to stress about, on top of everything else, now. When I click on another article, what else will I suddenly be worried about?

I read these articles looking for something to bring to class right before class, thinking my lesson plan was a little light. There was a moment there, about an hour before, that I felt so terrible, I didn’t know if I could teach. I didn’t know if I could really do it. Could I have the enthusiasm? The energy I needed? I felt like I couldn’t. I felt like I did when I used to skip every single one of my classes as an undergrad, and just curl up under blankets and hide. I went to class, of course. I taught fine. I am past the point in my life where I give in to thoughts like that. I just didn’t feel like I could. I really considered giving in, staying home, and feeling sorry for myself.

I just can’t do it. I can’t handle reading this stuff. Maybe I’m not strong enough. Maybe I’m still too much in the middle of it, and in a few years it won’t be a problem. Maybe I’ll never be strong enough, and I’ll always be scared. I don’t know. But I can’t do it, as much as I want to. I just can’t do it.

The #souppro hashtag will catch on, I swear!
Anyway, inside jokes you probably don’t get aside, I got to see a performance of Into the Woods on Saturday.

Mom had mentioned that her and Dad and Jonathan and Shauna all had tickets, and I had learned I was off, so I figured, why not? I grabbed a ticket, and we all went to the show. I have always been a big fan of Into the Woods, but this was going to be the first time I was going to see a live performance. I wasn’t sure how professional it would be, being put on by the collage and all, but I was willing to give it a go.

Besides one thing, it was a really good performance.

First off, I was just really impressed with the set. I mean, I know we’re talking about skilled people here who want to do this kind of thing for a living, and I shouldn’t underestimate them, but goodness, I did, and I was blown away. It was a complicated and really nice looking forest. Trees moved around on set. The mossy steps of the background looked really nice. The limbs in the trees shook and shed leaves when the giant was walking around. A top quality act.

Similarly, I thought the actors all did a great job. Some of them seemed to be doing their best to replicate the style of the original actors from that original version I watched on DVD all those years ago, such as the Witch, but she did a good job at it. Others had their own takes, like the Narrator, and did a really solid job at that, too. They even had a slight technical hitch, where Milky White’s legs went out a bit before the cue for that, and they ad libbed to cover for it extremely well, to the point where I’m sure anyone in the audience who didn’t know the show probably didn’t know their was a problem. Quality stuff.

Now the sound…
The sound crew was just not doing a good job at all. Granted, anyone who knows the show knows it wouldn’t be an easy one to mike and run: people are moving in and out of song all the time. There’s lots going on. But goodness, it really takes you out of the show when, say, the final “I Wish!” in the finale isn’t miked and so you can’t hear it because someone forgot to turn it on. Or where you can’t hear parts of lines because their mike is only one for the end bit. Or when someone forgets to turn down someone’s mike a bit before a scream or screech. It really hurt what was otherwise a really great performance, and that’s really a bummer.

Still, it was a really great night. We went out and ate a bunch of appetizers at Applebee’s after and had a very nice time. I’d do it again, most definitely. Then again, who knows when they’ll put on a show like Into the Woods I actually care about again. Heh.

Let me just explain how the last couple of days went for me, frustration-wise. A little venting never hurt anyone, yes?

So, like, a month ago, I ordered some Pony shirts because I am that kind of person apparently. I got this one and this one. There was no notice that these were preorders or anything. I was hoping to have them before the new season started. That didn’t happen. It took about a month, and when the box got here, it had shirts in it that I did not order and would certainly never wear. I called the company, and was told that I should leave a message and would be called back “in a few minutes.” That didn’t happen, and I had to go to work.

This story has a happy ending, or at least the start of one. The customer service person DID get back to me, gave me a free shipping label for the wrong shirts, and said she is sending out my real order today by a quicker shipping method. She was very polite and nice when doing it, so I can’t fault her for that. Still, I’m certainly going to rethink ordering shirts from them again, as that as kind of crazy.

The other story is more up in the air.

For the past month, I have been trying to get this home loan thing finished. I’m closing on the house on the 7th, and everything needs to be good to go then. Throughout this month, I have had many panic moments, mostly having to do with a mutual fund I have. See, I gave them a statement for it, but it didn’t have page 3 and 4, which my mother destroyed because they had no information on it. I have, during various points this month, given them at least 3 OTHER documents with the information about the mutual fund on it that they would need. However, they are holding up my loan because I don’t have pages 3 and 4 of the original document.

Today, I found out, via a statement for an unrelated mutual fund, what is on pages 3 and 4 that my mother threw away. It’s ads. Pages 3 and 4 are nothing but ads for other services the mutual fund wants you to sign up for. My loan is being held up because they don’t have two pages of ADS. Makes me want to crack my skull against my desk.

I think we’ve finally got solutions in place (although this is about the third time I’ve thought that about this bullshit) and everything should be fine now. But gods, what a pain in the ass. I mean, yes, I am borrowing a bunch of money, but goddamn. They do this everyday. Something so stupid shouldn’t be an issue.

Hi! This paragraph is from me many hours after I wrote the previous one! Guess what? I’m totally screwed because I went to school! Isn’t that great?
Basically, we dealt with that bullshit, but then they decided that they have to use the amount of money I was making when I was a full-time student to determine the loan, as opposed to what I am making now. Because that fucking makes sense, right? So because I wasn’t working 40 hours a week while also teaching 20 hours a week and going to school full time, I now can’t get a loan. Which I was basically promised would not be any sort of issue for me to get. HOW FANTASTIC. *bangs head against desk*

Anyway, those are some of the anger-inducing things I’ve been dealing with! Hopefully your time is going a lot better.

List of Fighting Games I Am Excited For, Ordered By Amount of Excitement.

1. Persona 4: The Ultimate In Mayonaka Arena
2. My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic
3. Skullgirls
4. Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3
5. Street Fighter X Tekken

List of Japanese Shows I Am Currently Following, None of Which Essner Approves of

1. Mawaru Penguindrum
2. Usagi Drop
3. Nichijou
4. Game Center CX

List of Candies I Purchase Too Often

1. Mike and Ike: Tangy Twister
2. Sweettarts
3. Nerds
4. Fruit Mentos
5. Laffy Taffy

List of Games I Wish I Could Buy On Launch Day This Year, But Shouldn’t Because of Money

1. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland
2. Professor Layton and the Last Specter
3. Solatorobo

List of Tumblrs I Check Daily

1. Fashion It So
2. Fillydelphia
3. Ask Pinkamina Diane Pie
4. Ask Princess Molestia

List of Things I Don’t Really Know How To Use Properly But Use All The Time Anyway

1. Tumblr
2. Fashion Sense
3. IRC
4. Microsoft Excel
5. Anger

There is a fundamental difference between how I look at the world and how my students look at the world, I am finding.

I assigned what I thought would be a super-easy and fun paper: play some games, including some on a list I gave you of free online games if you don’t already have access to stuff, and tell me about your experiences playing them and how those experiences reflect on the overused “are games art?” question. I went out and put together a list of art games I really enjoyed, and got a lot out of, as well as some silly stuff I put in there for fun. I was really looking forward to seeing how my students interpreted the games.

Well, I’ve read several drafts of their essays now. None of them are “doing it wrong,” really. But wow, I am not getting the kind of essays I was expecting.

When I play something that is supposed to be an art game, I play it, and then I sit back and, like I do with poetry or literature, I go “what is this trying to say? What does it say?” I look at the parts and see what kind of deeper message might be hidden there. I piece things together. I make theories. I do close readings. I analyze.

This is what I expected my students to do, but looking at things in this way just doesn’t seem to be in their vocabulary at all. They don’t read into anything: they take what is there. In a lot of these art games, there is not a whole lot going on on the surface, so they find them stupid, repetitive, or otherwise boring. This is as far as they go.

There’s nothing wrong with that. There are definitely movies, games, and whatnot where that is the level of engagement I have with them. I am not trying to find deeper meaning in Crysis 2. I am just trying to shot mans, and that’s as far as I go. However, when you present something to me and tell me it’s art, I assume this is how I’m supposed to approach it. I assume there’s something underneath the surface. They haven’t been trained for that. When I look at something like Today I Die, I see a message about how changing your outlook on life can CHANGE your life. They look at it and see a dumb game where you swap some words around for no apparent purpose.

I wonder if all my schooling and English classing trained this in me, or if it’s just something I’ve always done. I certainly can’t think back and think about myself as someone who would approach these games this way. I also wonder if it’s something I should be trying to teach my students. I mean, it’s not completely necessary to look at art like that, outside the sort of circles I roll in. Still, maybe not having that indicates a lack of trying to look through and understand any message, or how anything works. I don’t want to presume this about my students, but I wonder.

In any case, this assignment has been a seriously eye-opening experience. I’ve also been fairly impressed by how well some of the people who keep going on and on to me about “not being able to write essays” are doing, as they’re doing better than some of the people not telling me these things. I’ll keep on teaching. We’ll see what else happens.

Debated whether or not to write about this because I feel like it makes me an asshole. But whatever. I can trust you, right blog? You understand me, right? So I’m going to talk this out, and we’ll see where it goes. If you don’t like me being extremely personal and diary-like, this is not a day to read this blog, I guess. Come back later! Anyway…

At work, we often have coupons going on. By often I mean “always.” Over the past few days, we had a “friends and family” coupon going on, that we were supposed to give out to, you know, friends and family. Of course, we have some at all the registers in case people forget theirs. We do this for all our coupons.

Basically, though, this leads most people to just automatically ask “do you have any coupons I can use?” any time they come up to the register. Which is fine, I suppose. Kohl’s would much rather have them come in thinking “well, surely they have a coupon so it’s okay to shop” than not. When they ask, there’s nothing wrong with giving them the coupon. It doesn’t hurt me for Kohl’s not to make as much money, and it makes the customers happier, so I guess there’s that.

But there’s a part of me that’s kind of annoyed at the assumption that there’s always going to be a coupon there, and I’m not totally sure why. I think it’s the way in which a lot of people ask me for it, like they deserve a coupon and will be unhappy without it, instead of wondering if I have an extra bonus for them. It’s a difference between “hey, do you think you could do me a favor?” and “give me my discount, slave.”

The point is, all weekend, I’ve been telling people there are no coupons. Not every person. Whenever someone met criteria I didn’t quite understand I’d tell them about it, and get them their discount. Like, if they made a mistake, and pulled out their coupon for later this week, and looked sad instead of upset, or took the news well, then I’d offer them the other coupon instead. If nothing about them struck me as whatever, I didn’t mention its existence unless specifically asked for that coupon. Then I pulled it out, of course. I wasn’t about to get in trouble. But I held the power of 20% off in my paws, and I wielded it like I wanted.

The way it happens, though, is just… strange. It really is an almost subconscious decision. I’d smile at the customer and immediately fall into one of those two roles, and I could not break from it at that point, even if I wanted to. I couldn’t ruin the illusion. The lie. Even when there wasn’t any lie. It was so much faking it, something I’ve done so much of in my life, and have worked hard to get rid of. But here was a chance to do that, with no consequences and no reason not to, and I jumped on it. I jumped on it, and wielded this stupidest of lies to keep a barrier between me and these people who are all nice enough, and whom I have no ill-will towards, but who love to punch me in the gut and knock the wind out of me with mentions of me off-hand to their kids, for example.

Believe it or not, I like customer service. I like interacting with people, and the vast majority of people I see every day are awesome, nice people. I don’t mind working the register at all. But my own problems get wrapped up in these interactions. People I may never see again don’t know what they’re getting into and what they’re doing to me emotionally. So I keep coupons from them in order to feel distance from them so I don’t feel as hurt. I guess that’s basically the scenario I have talked through here. Maybe I should be doing other things to protect myself. Maybe I should be going overboard with my appearance so there’s no fucking way anyone could make a mistake. I don’t know. It’s silly to take it out on others, even with something as trivial as a coupon. I should really stop that.

Today, Jonathan came over and was like “Seriously, boot up LoL right now, and try Dominion.” That’s what happened. He coached, and I played, and I died a lot.

I was really happy when they announced Dominion. I mean, I like League of Legends quite a bit. I’ve put a lot of time into it and I’ve got what I feel to be my money’s worth out of the 30 bucks I gave them. At the same time, I was hoping they’d do something with it to revitalize it. The three lane thing is fine, and a solid, strategic game. But I wanted them to experiment more like with Twisted Treeline. I wanted variety. Dominion looked like it was going to be that, and I was all for it.

Let me just say that Dominion is fucking ridiculous. If you think normal LoL is fast-paced, this will blow you out of the water. It is a non-stop, relentless game mode where you are fighting other champions immediately. There’s no rev-up period. It’s just go, go, go. It feels extremely different, and that is cool.
Basically, there are five points on the map. You capture them by clicking on them, and your champion shoots some energy at it until it’s yours. If you get hit by anything, you stop capturing and have to restart, though it does keep your progress for a little while. The more points you control than the other team, the faster the other team’s life bar ticks down until one side loses all their life and dies.

They’ve done some super interesting things. Capturing a point turns off the turret while it’s being captured, making combats around points very interesting. If you can sneak one guy to capture while the rest are keeping the other champions busy, you don’t have to worry about turret fire turning the tables. If I had any sort of skill at all, it would really make those combats more dynamic and interesting.

I got trounced, of course. I played Alistar, because I knew him, but I just had trouble figuring out the new dynamics of combat. I’m so used to being support and focusing more on taking out towers than fighting other champions, but this is all champion-fights and I was really no good at it, much less while being as rusty as I am. I’m not quick on my feets. Still, I’m looking forward to playing more. This new mode is totally going to make me look completely different at some builds and really rethink things, and I hope they’re willing to keep mixing things up like this. I may not have the staying power of Summoner’s Rift (that’s always going to be the main draw) but I think it’s going to be a lot of fun when it’s out in the wild.

I am kind of in a lot of pain right now! I do not know why, but I hope it will pass. In any case, I am just going to write a little tonight and get back to watching shit with Brer on Synchtube.

But what is Synchtube, you don’t actually ask but I will answer anyway because this is what I’m writing about tonight deal with it.

I find Synchtube really awesome. One of the reasons I sort of wanted a Google+ Account, but not really, was the Hangouts. The idea that I could instantly sync and watch youtube videos with my internet friends is a benefit, to be sure! But then again, most of the stuff I watch isn’t actually on the youtube. Thus, when it was pulled into a Synchtube group the other day doing the pony-watching festivities, I was intrigued and excited.

It really works exactly as advertised. You don’t need to make an account to watch or make a group. You just dump the link into a chat and people are there. You can put just about any type of video you’d want on there: it supports stuff like blip.tv, making it good for all sorts of the content I watch on the lines. It’s just incredibly friendly to use, and it works. Apparently you can stall out of their little chat after awhile? But just don’t use their chat. The video stuff works just great. You’re synced up, and watching shit with your friends.

I like it. I will probably use it more often. I’m glad Phenwah showed it to me. You should use it to.
I’m off to bed.

Let me tell you about Shockers.

I purchased Shockers as part of a mix of candy from an expensive movie theater machine, and it reminded me that Shockers are pretty good, though I rarely have had them. I like sour things, and they were basically Chewy Spree with a sour oomph, which is right down my alley. It was a nice surprise and treat at the movie theater.

Then I made the first mistake of trying to figure out where I can find them. I couldn’t find anywhere selling them in Cape, but I did find places on my way to St. Louis that sold them. Of course, I wanted them, because they were good, and kind of a treat for when I did my commute. The problem is, I can’t buy them in Cape, so I always seem to end up buying two. That’s my second mistake.

Shockers destroy my tongue. Everything is basically okay for one tube, but a few pieces into tube number 2? Your tongue just becomes useless for the rest of the day. It becomes hyper-sensitive, and it’s frustrating to eat anything after that point.
I always intend to have one now, and one later when I buy more than one. That’s always my intention. But I have been having fucking horrible cravings lately. It’s frustrating, but I haven’t really experienced it before. I am just overwhelmed with a need for something sweet every so often, and when my body finally gets some sweet, it wants all of it. So, of course, I bust open the second tube and then I am in agony for the rest of the day.

Let’s be honest: this is about the stupidest problem a person could have. I really need to just quit buying Shockers, now that I know where to find them. But I keep doing it every time I go to St. Louis. Time flows like a river, and history repeats. No, wait, that’s the Mana Fortress. Well, something like that. I’m an idiot when it comes to buying candy. That’s all there is to it.
And now I imagined what a movie-theater box of Shockers would be like. Gods, I wouldn’t be able to eat for a week if I came into possession of something like that.