Monday, April 13, 2009

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

New Full Metal Alchemist series started on the 2nd of April and came to America on the 10th.

Watch it on this site:

Its going to follow the manga. 

Its kickass.

Cleo

My cat Cleo, also dubbed Bootsy by Grover and Miss Cleo by Sean, passed away around 9:30 this morning. My mom and brother were sitting down at breakfest when Cleo, much like she always does, tried to jump up on a chair behind my mom when she came to a sitting position, she fell right off and was on the floor. My mom goes to pick her up and as she does, she hears the final breath.

Meanwhile, Andre calls me in the middle of History of Music and although slightly worried (he never calls me that early in the morning) I thought he wanted to talk about his upcoming cruise and the fact that I might be taking his car for a week. So I hit the ignore button only to find a text 20 seconds later, "Can you please call asap." I was starting to get really worried but I had 5 more minutes before class ended so I thought I'd be fine. Then I get a call from my mother a minute later. I rush from the class and immidetely call my mom and when she doesn't answer I call my brother. He is in tears and choked up he explains to me what happened. I understood, but at the same time I didn't like what I was hearing so my only response was, "I don't understand." He explained to me one more time choking even more over his words and I couldn't listen any more. He said he was sorry and I hung up explaining I'd call him later. 

For the next 10 minutes, I walked around the music building trying to figure out where I was going and what I was doing. I retrieved my sightsinging hearing from a friend and then called Mikey for help. My mom called me and I could barely talk so I hung up on her and then I went to my professors telling them I needed to take a personal day.

A few minutes later I was a little more cohearent and called my mom back. She explained to me the situation:

Apparently Cleo had a heart problem that we didn't know about and she wasn't able to take the sudden change of the seasons. Her heart just crapped out on her.

I don't know what to think. Cleo was always so tough. Even yesterday, she was attacking Dixie (or Frederick or Mimzy depending on who you talk to). I have had her since I was in second grade and I have seen her get so many injuries and make it through them. I got her from a kennel and apparently she was found wandering around the streets before being brought there. I liked her because of her spunkyness. Even though we had her declawed, she always got into fights in the neighborhood even leading to an injury needing stitches. A few years ago, we suspect she even got hit by a car. But she got through them all. I just never believed she'd go without a fight.

I feel so conflicted. On one hand I know I should move on. I have had my time to be upset but life moves on. I have a meeting with my advisor and a sightsinging hearing today. Juries are in only 3 weeks. Elections for Phi Mu Alpha positions are in a week. My little is being initiated in less than a week. I need to work on summer jobs. I need to work on my schedule for my next semester. This is the absolute worst time for me to worry about things outside of my control. For this reason, I have not been pining. However, I still feel horrible. I wonder if I trying to move on too quickly... Yeah it was a cat, but she was my cat. I chose her. She was my first pet. She was a family member. Then again, am I being too much of a pussy? ...It was a pun, you can laugh at it.

Later

Thursday, April 2, 2009

30 before 30

My 20th birthday is less than a month away and I've realized that I will be thirty in 10 years. I know it is a long way away, but I wonder how much I can accomplish in those 10 years. here is a list of everything I want to do before I'm thirty. If I can accomplish at lest 5 of them, I will be happy.

  • Finish learning Japanese
  • Learn the harmonica
  • Professionally voice act
  • Professionally direct
  • Professionally sing
  • Enter peace corp
  • Get into a fight
  • Go to Japan, Ireland, or Germany
  • Go to England again
  • Road trip to California and back
  • Live in New York, Chicago, or somewhere in California
  • Snowboard in Utah or Switzerland
  • Watch a Lord of the Rings or Star Wars (IV,V,VI) marathon
  • Sleep under the stars
  • Hold a meaningful relationship
  • Learn martial arts
  • Learn more parkour
  • Learn to juggle
  • Tandam bike ride
  • Mud sledding
  • Revisit Acadia
  • Climb Mt. Washington
  • Climb the presidential mountains
  • Backpack across Europe
  • Make a difference in someone's life
  • Own a cat
  • Own a dog
  • Own a cat and dog who get along with each other
  • Climb to the top of everybuilding on Ithaca College's campus
This is it for now. There are so much more that I want to do, that I will keep on adding them as I think of them. I'm going to mark off the ones that I do as I accomplish them.

Later.

Watashiwa Amerikajiin desu

In regards to my last post, I was feeling very existential and was just curious to see how people interperated the quote "One from all." Dan won. Easily.

Life is good though. I am almost done directing my second play ever, so that is really cool. Its looking alright and is really funny but the show's plot is shallow and it is occasionally poorly written. Still, I'm glad that I did it because it gives me more of a chance to stretch my directing muscles.

Juries are a month away and I am getting kind of worried. I have only memorized two pieces and I have 3 to go. If all else fails, I will just make up the words. The songs are in a different language anyway, I don't think the professors will understand them... right?

So. I'm sure you are all wondering what the title of the post means? It means: I am American. Thats right bitches! I'm learning Japanese! Probably going to run away and live there. But seriously though... probably not. I don't have money.

Thats all I gots for now.

Peace

Explain:

One from all.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Disney is cool again!

Here is the status of the new disney hand drawn animated movie!

http://movies.ign.com/articles/957/957888p1.html

Apparently they are going to also come out with a new hand drawn movie every 2.5 years!!!!!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Trophy from a reconstructed life

There is a reason I haven't posted in a while. I sort of went through an identity crisis about a month ago. I was at a point in my life where I didn't know if I was a good person or bad person or if I was just cut from a generic mold. Its something that I've always kept inside and really effected me.

Recently, I have really broken from that unyielding mindset and I would love to diagram the events for everyone to hear. That means you Brian!

Background Info 1
So anyone who knows me (ie. all of you) knows how well I can keep my composure. I don't know if anyone has seen me ever get truly mad, especially since I can count only a few times when I've actually been mad. (This of course doesn't include the times I have gotten angry due to the stupidity of people.) Anyway, I chalk it up to the fact that I am not phased by much and I don't really sweat the small stuff.

This however has lead me to believe that I am apathetic towards almost everything. For a long time, I believed that I didn't care about anything least of all myself.

Background Info 2
More often than not I place other people before myself and I rarely ever give myself a break for other people. For this reason, I don't get walked over by people. I get trampled on by people. And the worst part of all is that if I fail while getting trampled on, I apologize. Granted I may have nothing to apologize for, but I still inevatibly apologize.

Now here is the story.

Over the past weekend, the theatre school held auditions for two short shows, called No Bucks. The production schedule of each show is 2 weeks and as soon as one ends, the other begins.

The second show, the show I am directing, is a comedy called Ollie's Inferno. It is hilarious and totally suits my personality. I was really lucky to get such a good directing gig because I didn't know anything about the show when I voluenteered. My thoughts were, if the show is good, I will have a great time, but if the show sucks, I will learn how to deal. It was going to be a sink or swim show.

Now, the first show, The Death of Bessie Smith is a show regarding racism in the deep south during the 1930s. it has 2 black (male) characters and 4 white (2 male and 2 female) characters.

So, last weekend, as I said, was an audition weekend. We sat there as wave after wave of girls came into the audition. Honestly, no guys came in to audition (let alone any black guys). But the auditions went along anyway.

However, The Death of Bessie Smith started work yesterday so there was no time to hold anymore auditions and to make matters worse, there is already a mainstage show, involving raceism in the 1850s, that apparently took all of the black male actors in the Theatre School.

So, the director of the show calls me, desperately asking for my help. I said sure; not really putting too much thought into it. So yesterday we had a readthrough where I realized that I will be playing the part of a black person. I left the read through, mind reeling and halfway back to my dorm, I turned around. THERE WAS NO WAY IN HELL that I was going to play a black person in a show about racism. It was about the most distasteful thing I have ever heard in my life. I was getting sick just thinking about it.

So I talked to my director and she said, well the part I was to play would show that the oppressed person (me) was able to be the better man and that she had faith that I could bring dignity to the role.

Fine. I said I would think about it, but the more I thought about it, the more disgusted I got with the situation. I was about to trivialize hundred of years of black oppression in 2 weeks. Not happening. So I called up some friends to ask their oppinions and they aggreed with me. I called up one of the black acting teachers (who is actually on Sabbatical) and she aggreed with me. Then I called back the director of the show and she didn't understand. You would bring dignity to the part, she kept saying.

Anyway, me being the sucker I am, I said I would continue to think about it. Finally, I woke up this morning, very tired. I honestly had trouble sleeping over the whole thing. I called her up and told her no. I refused to be in her show. It was morally against what I believed and I would never respect myself or her if I did it. She breaks down in tears saying that her show is falling apart and she didn't understand why I promised to help her out and then broke the promise. However, the most shocking and ignorant thing I have ever heard was what she said next. She said that if she was ever asked to play a black person, she would do it and she thinks I am being unreasonable.

I lost it here. I actually yelled at her for about 5 minutes even while she was crying. This is something I never believed I would ever. In my life. Do. Finally, she asked the question, "Would it be alright to change it to a jewish person." Reluctantly, I said yes, knowing that she was in desperation and that I wouldn't hate myself if I took the role after the change.

Anyway, I hung up and ...well... here are some pictures of what happened after:
The Wall I punched. Looks pretty sharp and pointy? Yep... Sounds about right.
My bloody finger wrapped in a bloody bandage.

This is a bad picture, but I ripped off all the skin on my joint after 3 punches. You should have seen my finger directly after I punched the wall.


The bloody bandage. Gross!

Anyway, so what does this have to do with my identity crisis? Well, after I hung up and punched the wall, I realized that I wasn't angry. Actually I was very happy. Then I was sitting through my Shakespeare class and realized why. I have a very strong identity. I know who I am and what I want in life. I know when I should get angry and when i should just look the other way. I know how I want to view myself.

I know exactly what I like about myself, and what I don't like about myself, but I understand that there is a necessary balance between the two and more importantly I accept it.

I look back at my identity crisis and realize, there was no need for it, and yet I am eternally grateful that I had it. It made me want to prove to myself, all the more, that I am in fact a strong person.

My identity crisis was a manifestation of my own lack of trust and confidence in myself. I'm going to trust myself from now on.

PS. I also was so happy to be angry! It is a side of me that I have never really seen before and it was nice to experience it ... although as soon as I got angry, I lost it because I was happy that I was angry.