Now, I'll need to actually go and hit "publish" for the site to go live from my understanding, but I figure I'd best type up my blog entry here. So introductions are in order. My identity isn't going to exactly be a secret, but I'm not going to explicitly give my name away. (It really won't be that hard to figure out, though.) So I wouldn't call this an anonymous blog, but it serves a similar function.
Knowing my own mind, it is quite likely that I'll end up abandoning the notion rather rapidly down the line, but the idea is for me to write something here every day, be it trivial or soul-crushingly deep, a short one-liner or a MASSIVE wall of text. So I may write barely anything, and have the writing be the cliches my Personal Communications book mentions, or a lot, or maybe I slip up and don't post much at all, I do expect frequent post-midnight posting (this would be my Tuesday entry, yet it's technically Wednesday), thus making me late, but I want to be there.
Me talking about something. Which is nothing new. I can talk to anyone. But I want to give as close to 100% disclosure as possible. Everything from my real life (work, school, tae kwon do, dancing, familial gatherings, etc.) to personal life (writing, art, poetry, etc.) to gaming life (mainly, Kongregate) to Mafia stuff (as long as not referring to any ongoing game, of course) to my feelings about ComicFury (needless to say, I should go back) to how I'm doing both mentally & physically (including my status as trans), basically, me divulging my entire life in this intimate blog.
...Obviously, not 100%, since I'm going to have some very slight restraint name, time, and location-wise, but any stalker worthy of the name would be able to see right through that with even the slightest amount of effort, so close enough to it that it's risky, borderline stupid, to do. But the idea was just too appealing.
So here, late at night, I am going to be talking about a lot of stuff, when to be honest I probably should be doing some reading in advance about my class. Seeing as how there's an assignment due and all, which I have done absolutely zero percent of the work on. (Ah, the life of a typical college student. To be fair, I typically give myself plenty of time for the assignment; I've been slacking off thanks to distractions including being physically ill.)
A bit of a warning in advance: as hinted at above, expect literally anything from blog entries in the future. They may be nothing like this one. They may be entirely like this one. But I have a LOT on the agenda for my first proper blog entry. All of this was just on the creation of the blog, which is the first section on it.
I was recently asked to describe myself, and yet, like most people, this is a difficult task to do. You'll get a much better sense of that as my blog progresses, but for now, I suppose I'll lay the groundwork with some basic information: I am 21. I am a student attending college, and hold a part-time job as a lifeguard (a job I hesitate to talk about, to be safe). I am decently-involved in the square dance and round dance communities, and do tae kwon do at one of the hardest TKD schools you'll ever see. (I've been told students half my rank are equivalent to blackbelts of other schools. For reference, I am at precisely the half-way mark to my black belt, having recently done my test to obtain that rank; it took two years to earn, and I've been doing TKD for basically half my life.)
I wouldn't say that I'm particularly athletic, though. While I did do track, cross-country, and swimming (swimming being what inspired me to get my job as a lifeguard), and earned Most Improved in them because of how phenomenal my skills apparently were at getting better...they were activities that I didn't get into at an earlier age, and thus, wasn't good enough to get into a college program continuing, nor do I have the discipline to maintain them on my own. (I was mainly a soccer kid when I was younger.) I'm skinny, tall, underweight, and yet while I apparently have perfect body fat composition levels in me according to a test I took, the jiggling skin on me makes me suspect I'm a bit fat. (Though given the choice between being a bit fat yet still skinny and a little underweight, and being incredibly skinny and underweight, the former is preferable. Obviously, the preferred of the preferred is to be muscular and not too bulky,)
I'll be going into the other important stuff in my life over the course of this blog entry, and of course future blog posts. But the above are details unlikely to get much focus. So without further ado...one thing I immediately want to bring forward is that I am a bit of a messed up person. This is explicitly not a self-fulfilling prophecy, since I have had it well before I even knew of mental conditions existing, and in fact being made aware of it has helped reduce its effect and make me pass for being more normal. But to start out with, I am strongly suspected by family, by me, and even by past professionals (not giving an official diagnosis, but stating it all the same) to be autistic. Unlike most people who say they think themselves to be autistic, I am quite aware that claiming it off of "research" carries a stigma, and a negative stereotype has formed thanks to it, which alienates those who DO have an official diagnosis and don't appreciate the stereotyping. So saying it is something that is a bit...ugly. Yet I'm clearly not just "shy" (I'm actually incredibly outgoing), certainly not antisocial (I love socializing!), and it goes beyond simple awkwardness. I have issues communicating with others verbally, and even in written form, can have difficulties.
I have notes that a blog would be perfect for on that, but for the time being, I'm instead choosing to move on to a second aspect which makes me messed up: my medically-confirmed (as in, diagnosed by a psychiatrist and taking medication to assist with) bipolar disorder. Long story short (I'll make a follow-through blog), I have very poor mental health, which wavers all the time, and can degenerate rather rapidly. (The worst part is that I can feel the degeneration happening, and yet feel powerless to stop it, silly as that may sound to someone sober to this.)
Because of my poor mental health, I am constantly on the edge of losing things I hold dear. The closer they are to me, the more risk, in fact. I fear losing them. I'm afraid. I let that fear get the better of me. They slip away from me, bit by bit, as I become increasingly worried. There are a ton of examples. I fear losing my job, so I slack off on the things necessary for it, having trouble with it. I'm a bit lazy with my email, since I dread the task of cleaning my inbox. I hold investment in mafia games, so fear being wrong to the point where I lurk, even getting prodded and risking replacement. (As alts and hydras, I've actually flat-out fallen out of the game.) There's pressure to keep up on theory, on discussion, which I impose on myself, and the stress coming from feeling obligated to do my best is tremendously high. You wouldn't believe how many times I've made this sort of mistake.
Yet most of all, there's my ever-growing desire to return to ComicFury. The break I had was because of it. I was tired, stressed out by events in my life. I had a lot going on, and was doing more and more and more on CF, feeling obligated to do more and more and more, and eventually, I had time available but chose not to go out of knowing that I wouldn't be able to get everything I wanted done. Then, it became everything I "needed" done. And from there, it got worse and worse. My desire to return has been growing stronger and stronger (rather than, as time spent away would make you think, weaker and weaker) each and every day. And I do mean literally every single day; I cannot go a day without thinking of my art or my stories or something relevant to the site, and thus, cannot go without thinking about it.
But the more I think, the more I fear. I am 100% positive that if I returned, they'd just go, "Hey! Ranger's back!" It's that kind of community, one which would welcome me back with open arms. They know me there, they care for me, and frankly me being away probably worried or may still be worrying some of them. Like a family. Yet every time I try, even knowing that I'd be accepted, nerves and irrational fear of rejection overwhelm me.
So it's mainly a battle of me mustering up the willpower in order to actually go back. I honestly don't think it'd be healthy for me to try right now (I've got a full plate between life, college, and other stuff), because I lack restraint: if I went back, I'd try to fully integrate myself, forum, other comics, and my own webcomic included. But I have life, college, and other stuff to deal with. Were I to try, then I'd overwhelm myself, collapsing once again and repeating history yet one more time. I...don't want that. When I go back, I want to stay back.
Which is why I'm trying to make gradual changes for the better. As one example, I have considered logging into chatzy some time. (I've held back because it may give people false hope of a return that if it does happen isn't happening any time soon...and because chatzy is a large time sink I frankly can't often afford.) Another example that I did do, and plan on continuing doing, is coming frequently to movie night. We watched a couple of horror films, but I was more interested in the commentary. It was only three other people aside from myself, all who're more chatzy people than on-forum people, but they helped me a lot.
Another thing that I want to do is to get my art more organized. Now, there's a TON of stuff I need to take from my old computer onto my new computer. But I've continued drawing, and improving. I recently did a doodle of my character, Davos, which had an AWESOME face, so awesome, that I think I want to make it his official face. In fact, I want to draw a perfect Davos (well, as close to perfect as my abilities allow), using all the techniques I have learned.
Still don't have a tablet, but I'm considering getting other neat things to help instead. For instance, an idea I had was to check out DAZ studio to see if making 3D models of my characters could help me as an artist. (Assuming that it doesn't require something like a lot of rendering, since this would be a REFERENCE tool.) Helping determine height, anatomy, perspective, consistency, and maybe even lighting.
And while there is a TON that I need to get transferred (among it being my script work), another thing I'm considering is just drawing pages as they come to mind, even if they're nowhere near chronologically-wise. (I could always completely redo them later.) And to more refine the script I have to be a bit more precise than it is, see what can be streamlined, and if I can make panels be a lot more professional than they are.
So even after all this time away, I'm still going on my artistic business. Yet honestly, my art has taken a bit of a back seat to my other passion, that being my writing. I know it's not NaNoWriMo, yet, but I got heavily inspired to begin writing my novel again, and want to spend more time, there. I've done two chapters and the prologue (that amount is more impressive than it sounds: over 30 pages), and I want to keep pushing further and further, do more and more.
Problem is, I don't have the time. Well, sort-of. To say I don't have time is a bit of a lie. I'm not spending time doing it, and I'm not wasting much time in my day, but I AM using my time in ways that are...not exactly productive. (Reading TVTropes and/or cracked articles is only the tip of the iceberg.) To put things simply, I'm addicted to a few flash games. A game called "Versus Umbra", inspired at least partially by Ratchet & Clank, drew me in because I was able to instantly feel the inspiration and deeply, deeply loved the game. Even then, I haven't played it much because of my time being consumed elsewhere. "Heroes of the Realm" is another game consuming my time, an MMO where I'm trying to climb into the top-2500. (I'm wavering around 5000 right now.) And most addicting of all (yet fortunately least-attentive-needing), Clicker Heroes, an idle game which is incredibly addictive. All of these on Kongregate, eating up probably around an hour or two a day of my time.
Which ties back into my poor mental health. You'd be surprised how much of a mess I am.
However, I feel that I've gone on long enough. This blog's being posted days late because of school, mainly. I had an exam in my kickboxing class to study for, and I also had an assignment due for my Interpersonal Communications class, pushing this days backwards. I should also learn that my perfection is the enemy of being good, so I'm posting this now. What you have forward to look to: more about school, me talking about music, me talking about a different story, what I saw at square dancing and the story behind that, and quite a few of my thoughts on being trans, though not as much as I could. All of these I hope to make blogs about before the end of the week, but posting a blog at all has priority over getting those subjects. Quantity over quality, in this case, because that's the point of this blog.
Soyeah, this might be a bit of a deep start for a blog. It might be a bit disappointing. It could be typical, it could be a one-off thing. I really don't know. Just know that this blog is ending as being done on Thursday, which means I may have 2-5 entries before the end of the week. (See, the thing about blogs is that I don't have to make only one entry a day.) Hope you enjoy reading my walls of text!
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