"It's Not A Phase, Mom, It's Who I Am!"

(Via Stanford Solar Center)

I've had a different obsession each school year since the 5th grade.  I call them phases.

Also, I'm the type of person that's gonna give 100% or 0%.  So that means when I was obsessed with something, I went all in.  I would let the whole world know I really liked d this one amazing thing and how I was the expert on it.  It was a really defining thing for me. 

So let's start with the 5th grade.
In the 5th grade, one of my good friends and I was obsessed with this book series called Warriors.  Basically the series is about a bunch of cats who lived in clans in the forest (looking back they were terrible books).  I mainly got into it because of my friend, but I ended up liking the series a lot on my own.  This was my smallest phase for sure.  All I did to promote it was read the books and draw some art with my friend.  Little did I know this was the start of a long road of phases.

The 6th grade was by far my worst.
I was obsessed with a thing called anime, which is a type of Japanese cartoon. I probably spent around $200 on anime related t-shirts and action figures.  I even taught myself Japanese.  I thought I was so cool.  But looking back now, I was the biggest nerd ever.  My 6th grade self was so cringeworthy I can't even talk about it anymore.

My 7th grade self was slightly better.
I really liked a thing called SuperWhoLock, which was a combination of the television shows Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock.  I was more lowkey about this one, but I still spent a lot of money on t-shirts related to these shows.  This phase was obvious to the people around me, but I was (hopefully) less annoying about it.

And then onto my 8th grade self.
This was probably equal to my 7th grade self, except last year I really liked bands, specifically Panic! at the Disco and Fall Out Boy.  I also had a lot of their t-shirt and would excitedly scream the songs when they came on in public.  This is the phase that has lasted the longest by far, and I think it has pretty much died down.

Basically, these are some small descriptions of my most cringeworthy phases.  I think they're cringeworthy, but that doesn't mean I don't wish they didn't happen.  My 5th grade phase got me into reading books.  My 6th grade phase got me into drawing.  My 7th grade phase got me into tv shows.  My 8th grade phase got me into music.  All of these embarrassing phases have made me who I am today, so I'd say it was all worth it.

Sucking At Something Is The First Step To Being Sorta Good At Something

For a teenager, I don't really care about driving.

My 15th birthday was back in September.  I didn't get my driver's permit until this new year in January.  I pretty much put it off for four months out of sheer laziness.  And since then, I've barely used it.  When I first got it, I drove up and down my street a couple of times.  But my parents and even I didn't trust myself doing anything beyond that.

Visual representation of me driving.

So my driver's permit has basically been sitting in the corner of my room for the past two months.  Although, I've started to use it recently.  Almost everyday after my track and field practice, my mom would pick me up and she'd pull over once we got off of Kearns Boulevard and turned onto a calmer road that I believe is called Old Highway 40.  I would drive from there and pull over in the Home Depot parking lot and my mother would take back over from there.  The first few times I pretty much sucked.  I kept accidentally swerving into the other lane, driving too fast or too slow for the speed limit, and making extremely sharp turns which almost lead me to drive off of the road and in a ditch.  But eventually after a week or so, I pretty much got the hang of driving on the country road.

A couple of days ago, there was a change of plans.  My mother pulled over in the same spot and I proceeded to drive on the same road I had been practicing on for a couple of weeks.  Except this time, instead of pulling over at Home Depot, she told me to continue past it.  She wanted me to continue driving and pick up my little brother at his friend's house.  I was anxious, but I knew I couldn't drive the same road forever.  So I drove past Home Depot.  Right after it, there was a roundabout that was generally pretty busy.  Luckily for me, it was relatively quiet and there was only one other car in the roundabout before me.  So I awkwardly drove in, accidentally driving exactly in the middle rather than staying to the left.  From there on, I drove on an overpass above the highway, and continued on Highland Drive.  

From there, I was doing okay. Except there was this pissy car behind me.  I, an amateur driver, drove very poorly.  I kept forgetting the speed limit, and when I realized I wasn't at the speed I needed to be, I'd abruptly accelerate or decelerate.  This caused the driver of the car behind me to start honking.  I didn't have to look back for me to know that the driver was ready to flip a table because of me.  Eventually, when I turned into the driveway of my brother's friend's house, the car was able to pass me.  The driver gave me a couple of good honks just to let me know how much I sucked for the final time.  One of the worst parts is that the driver probably got a look at my face and observed two things about me: I'm asian and a woman.  Unfortunately, I was living up to two stereotypes I'm strongly against.  I also felt bad because I was probably close to giving my mother a heart attack.  But hey, I probably didn't do that bad considering that was my first time driving for that long.

Overall, it's kind of sad that I started driving so late.  If I actually cared and got my permit on my birthday like most kids my age, I would probably be a lot better than I am now.  So because of the skill level I'm at now, I probably won't get my actual license when I turn 16, which is a bummer.  I guess that means I'll have to work hard to make it happen.  And sure, random driver behind me, I know I suck at driving.  But as Jake the Dog would say, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something, right?

(Via Sadmoment)

Bands And What They Remind Me Of

(Via Colossal)

Sometimes when I listen to certain bands, I get a specific feeling.  Sometimes it's a feeling of nostalgia, back to when I first listened to the band and where I was in my life at that moment in time.  Other times the vibe of the band reminds me of a force of nature or a season.  

Once I start to analyze my favorite bands and classify them in such ways, I get carried away in deep thought.  So I decided I'd write a blog post about my a few of favorite bands and what I think of when I hear them.

Fall Out Boy

This band reminds me of wintertime.  A scene I visualize when I listen to them is fresh snow falling from the sky in the middle of winter.  It's the dead of night, and you're trudging down the street with the only the Chicago city lights illuminating your way.  The pollution from the dense city prevents a majority of the stars to shine through.  You exhale and watch your breath freeze in midair. It's cold and you're tired and you had a tough day.  Maybe it was a rough day at work. Maybe you had a bad breakup.  Regardless, all you want to do is get home and hope tomorrow is a better day.  You watch the storm rage on, knowing you still have a long way to go.

Panic! At The Disco

This band reminds me of fall.  A scene I visualize is an evening on the strip of Las Vegas.  Generally, the weather had been really hot considering you were in the desert.  But once fall had begun, it had become the perfect weather.  You had just had a great day.  Whether you had been promoted at work or you found a new significant other, you felt like you were on top of the world.  So for whatever achievement you made, you decided you deserved a reward.  You walk down the strip, gazing at each neon sign, while simultaneously avoiding the early hustle of late night party goers.  Some signs were for casinos, others were for bars.  It didn't matter where you went, all you knew is you were going to have a good time.

Twenty One Pilots

This band reminds me of springtime.  A scene I visualize is a dirty room before spring cleaning.  Spring was meant for new beginnings, so a good first step was to clean a musty room.  As you sift through all of your old belongings and memories that were catching dust, you realize you don't need them anymore.  You throw out your past, eager to start anew.  Once everything you once knew had been washed away, you open up the windows and allow the brisk air to flow in.  You sigh, excited yet anxious to start again.

Walk the Moon

This band reminds me of summertime.  A scene I visualize is a road trip along the California coast in the extreme heat of summer.  It's evening, and you're cruising down the Esplanade on the edge of the ocean with your closest friends.  You can see the orange sun glisten off of each ocean wave as they crash on the shore, inching up and then being dragged back into the vast ocean from which it came.  The salty air billows through your hair while you also breathe it in.  You decide to pull over and go to the beach before the sun sets. As you run with the sand getting in your shoes, a childish grin plasters across your face.  You have no worries.  You have no destination.  Life is an adventure, and you want to live it that way.

These were just some scenes I visualized while listening to the music.  I suppose it got a little too philosophical.  I guess you'd be surprised what you think about if you analyze what you listen to.

40 Year Old Cat Lady In Training

(Via Panels)

I recently stumbled upon a very fun yet low maintenance game: Neko Atsume.

Neko Atsume, the name meaning "Cat Collector" in English, is a Japanese app where you, well, collect cats.  You basically have a backyard, and if you put out items for the felines to play with, they will come and chill in your yard.  From what I can tell, the point of the game is to collect as many regular and rare cats and you can and make your house the most aesthetically pleasing as possible.

There are 49 cats in all, and only 17 rare cats.  On top of that, you can upgrade your house's yard so it has a different theme.  Beyond that, there isn't much to do.

Now I know this sounds like a terribly boring game.  Most people I've talked about it with have dismissed after I described the gameplay. BUT IT IS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MOST FUN GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.  In fact, it's the only game I have on my phone.  It's really hard to describe how enjoyable this game is; people just need to try it out for themselves.  So, I will try to vividly describe how interesting the game is in this post just to prove my point.

One of my favorite rare cats: Guy Furry,
a play on Guy Fieri.
(Via Neko Atsume Wikia)

First of all, the graphics are insanely adorable.  The 2D yard and cats don't seem as impressive as they sound, but they truly are simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing pieces of art.  On top of that, the music is cute.  It gets a little repetitive and annoying after awhile, but if you're only on it for a couple of minutes, it brightens your mood.

Secondly, and my most favorite part, is the search for the rare cats.  As I stated earlier, there were 49 cats total and 17 rare cats.  The rare cats have different personalities, different outfits, and interesting names that are usually plays on real life people's names.  Typically, the rare cats require specific items to come to your yard compared to the regular cats, who will come on a variety of cheap items that you put out.  It can be a struggle to get the rare cats to come, but when they do, the reward is worth it.

Finally, I appreciate how low maintenance it is.  I enjoy playing video games, but I rarely have any time to.  But, you can check Neko Atsume for a couple of minutes a day and you feel satisfied.  On top of that, it takes up a very small portion of space on your phone.  So, if you're someone like me that has absolutely no space, you'll still be able to download it.

Neko Atsume still might sound boring.  Don't knock it 'till you try it.  You'll instantly fall in love with the seemingly pointless game where you collect cats. And I'll be sitting here, still sleep deprived, telling you "I told you so".

Emo Yet Important: Gerard Way Appreciation Post

For a school assignment, I am required to write a post dedicated to someone I admire and someone who would enjoy my blog.  There are a lot of people I admire, but they are nothing like me and would probably not enjoy the content I provide.  And then there are a lot of people who would enjoy my content, but I don't admire them.  It took some of thought, but I finally decided on my person.

Dear Gerard Way:

(Via Dalje)

As odd as it is, I admire and appreciate you in several ways. You created the band that got me into music: My Chemical Romance.  In 7th grade I was an obscure kid who didn't really know their place and didn't have many passions. But because of this band, I found something to enjoy; I found a favorite band and I begun to like music. And from that band, it opened up a whole new world of music to me.  The music My Chemical Romance created not only helped and inspired me, but inspired thousands of other kids who felt the same way. If it weren't for you or My Chemical Romance, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today.

But that's just the start of my appreciation for you.  The more I learned about My Chemical Romance themselves, I began to learn more about you and your other work.  I learned that before you started a band, you wanted to be a visual artist. When that didn't really work out, you became the lead singer of a popular band instead.  What I admire though is that you still pursued your dream of being an artist while being in a band and having a completely different career. You wrote and drew several amazing comic books while in My Chemical Romance, which must have been a difficult task.  But somehow you still managed to simultaneously create both music and art at the same time.  This is very inspirational to me because it shows me that I don't have to have just one solid career.  You show me that I can achieve whatever and as many things as I want with hard work and dedication, even if it doesn't work out at first.

I also believe we have similar minds, which leads me to why I think you'd enjoy my blog.  Based off of your Twitter, you've talked about a lot of random things.

Umbrella Academy Signing
(Via Umbrella Academy Wiki)

Whether it's conspiracies on extraterrestrials, slightly disturbing photos of popular things during the 80's, or your random thoughts you get at 3 am, I feel like they all reflect the basis of my blog.  Honestly, your existence on Twitter itself inspires me.  Your positive tweets always send good vibes that encourage me to do the same.  Your unexplained thoughts and photos remind me to not care what others think about my opinions; they remind me to be bold. Your fanboy moments over other people, specifically David Bowie, remind me that it's okay to be super passionate about things.  You've shown me to be a better person in a bunch of tiny ways, and I appreciate that.

It may not seem like you inspire me, but you truly do.  Before writing this, I didn't realize how much I admire you.  But now that I'm finished, I appreciate you more than I did before. And for that, I want to thank you.

Marketing Ploy or Not: Conspiracies on Brendon Urie

(Via Wikipedia)

Contrary to my last post, there is one thing that will get me through this week. Friday is technically the release date of Panic! At The Disco's new album, Death of a Bachelor.  I've been eagerly anticipating this album for several months now. I mean, I've been looking forward to hearing at least half of the album.  The other half has already been released as singles or they've been leaked, which leads me to the basis of this post.

When Panic! At The Disco released the song and music video for one of their singles "Emperor's New Clothes", the album title, song titles, and official release date was also announced.  Because of this big announcement, Brendon Urie, the lead singer of the band, did a live stream on Periscope.  He was answering the usual questions from buzzing fans about the album and the songs, and at one point he even said if it was up to him he would release the album against his management's will.  And perhaps, over the next couple of months, that's exactly what he did.

After the album announcement in October, everything else had gone relatively normal.  There were a couple new music videos made and another single was released.  But around December, that's when things started to get shady.

First, one night on Tumblr, my friend found a peculiar audio clip and sent it to me.  It was the high quality and full length version of one of the songs "Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time".  There was no hint to this being released early at all on any of Panic! At The Disco's social media, so I was curious as to where it came from.  At first I was weary to listen to it because I didn't want to be a bad person and potentially listen to pirated music.  But hey, why not; Brendon Urie would be proud considering how many times he's told his fans to rip his songs off of Youtube.  So I listened to it once and let it be, and about an hour later, all of the audio clips of the song were taken down.


The second shady thing that has happened recently was during a football game. I didn't personally watch it, but according to the internet, a clip of one of the songs called "Golden Days" was playing during a football game before a commercial break like many songs do.  Yet again, they didn't hint this song was going to come out any time soon either.  So why would a sports station have a Panic! At The Disco song that wasn't supposed to be heard until January 15th?

And finally, the most bizarre thing that has happened thus far occurred this week.  A couple of days ago several fans went to Target and came across physical copies of Death of a Bachelor out in the CD section; a little less than a week before the actual release date.  For instance, this is just one of the fans who found a copy and posted it on Twitter.

(Via Ruhquel on Twitter)

Some Target employees have realized that the CDs aren't supposed to be out yet and they've prevented fans from purchasing it, other stores have let the fans get away with it.  This wasn't just one store though, this was several across the nation.  So if that's the case, why would a large corporation like Target mess up the release date of an item in several of their stores across the country?

You've seen the evidence.  Now comes the question.  Is this all an unsaid marketing ploy by Panic! At The Disco?  Or, are all of the leaked songs and miscommunications on the release date of the album a simple coincidence?  In my view, there's no way a sports channel would take unreleased songs without Panic! At The Disco giving it to them first.  I also don't think this many Target stores would mess up on the release date of an item.  Maybe it was Brendon Urie himself who somehow flew to all of the stores and put them there (just kidding).  Basically, it wouldn't surprise me if Brendon Urie was just trying to screw with us.

Blogger Has A Lot Of Problems (Like Me)

A visual representation of sarcasm.

Blogger has a lot of flaws.

Over the course of a couple days, I had been working hard on a blog post about a different rant.  I read and reread it several times, making sure it was perfect and ready to post. I found one solid high quality photo to go with it as well. Everything was sorted out flawlessly and I was proud I had completed another blog assignment.  Wow, it looked as if my life was finally coming together.

Haha, I guess not.

When I knew the post was good to go, I clicked the publish button.  No results. So me, being an impatient teenager, started to click the publish button dozens of times in the span of just a couple of seconds.  And yet again, the post would still not publish.  So after spamming the save button just to be sure it saved, I clicked the refresh button so maybe I could submit it the next time around.

bUT BOY WAS I WRONG.

By refreshing the page, I lost all of my work.  Every single sentence I worked hard on was gone.  Every period, comma, and semi colon I placed systematically had vanished.  I was so frustrated.  I should have known better too, this happened to me with another old blog post except last time it only deleted half of the post.  But I suppose my naïvety got the better of me.

So after the fact settled in that I'd have to redo my assignment and I lost at least three days worth of work, I pretty much lied on the floor while listening to music and stared at the ceiling for a solid twenty minutes.  At that point, I was just done with everything.  It is finals week and the last week of the semester after all, so losing all of my hard work only brought me more stress (check out this post to see me elaborate on this more).  Maybe if I were a better student and I got all of these assignments done earlier, I wouldn't be as stressed or reckless.  But I don't see that happening any time soon, unfortunately.  So instead of using the time I took to rant about a rant blog post that backfired, I could have been doing some other homework.  Also, I could of spent three hours doing more homework if I didn't decide to draw.  I drew a person with three eyes.  Three of them.  My life truly is a wreck right now.

Basically, Blogger has as many problems as I do.