::watching Pilot Candidate:: Man... Hiead (I THINK that's how you spell it... it's the red-eyed white-haired guy, the cold silent one of the show) is practically abusive to his partner. Grabbed her by the wrist, pushed her up against the wall.. o_O (and of course she's the meek, glasses-wearing type that's just gonna take it)

Alright, one more thing, then I'm getting back to finishing up the Clarity chapter. (or, um, replaying Breath of Fire 3. whichever)

NEW ZIM? NEW ZIM AND I MISSED IT?!! I wonder if there will be a new one next week too o_O

PERK TO BEING A JOBLESS LOSER: Don't have to do taxes. Bryan did. He owes The Man $18.

Today the anime club went down to FunQuest, marking the second time we all dressed up abnormally (otherwise known as cosplaying) and went out in a public place. The first time was at the mall; I was a reasonable facsimile of Belial/Mad Hatter from Angel Sanctuary. This time I was a reasonable facsimile of Ari. My costume was REALLY inaccurate except for the pants and shoes (both of which were nearly perfect), but it did look like a reasonable facsimile. Nothing I'd ever wear to a real con, you understand, but still.

Anyway, FunQuest, for those of you who don't know, is basically bowling, Laser Tag and a skating rink all crammed into one building. It's a very family-friendly kind of place, which meant there were a lot of young whippersnappers and their soccer moms about. It was not, in my opinion, a good choice for us to do this. I mean, yeah, we got some looks at the mall, but nobody gave us the kind of disgusted or frightened looks there that we got here. People were actually shielding their children's eyes. Granted this was probably mostly because one of our number was a boy in a skirt, but still. I mean, we were actually refused service at the bowling counter. Okay, not refused service, but the guy completely ignored Kyla. Totally uncalled for. The boy in the skirt (he was Lain, for those curious) drew the most attention--lots of little girls giggling and pointing and people unabashedly staring--but we all got looked at. It was weird. Another of our number was also a guy pretending to be a girl, complete with stuffed chest, but since he wore a -coat- over the stuffed chest most of the time and since his character (girl type Ranma) wore pants anyway, he didn't draw nearly as much attention as Lain.

Actually, since Ari dresses like a semi-normal person, I didn't look all that strange except for my sock-gloves and the fact that I was wearing a belt over a vest and a man's shirt, and even then it was more of a fashion reject sort of thing as opposed to complete freak.

Addendum: My mom also isn't here right now, so she couldn't go stomping righteously down to Rhodes to harrass them about it like I know she would have, had she been here. The lack of nagging is nice, but I do miss my mom.

I guess I had better explain now.

You see, we got a letter from Rhodes a few days ago, saying that instead of $5000 they were giving me only $1500. As you know, that is an enormous difference, especially since this is a money per year thing. Additionally I wasn't getting any real aid, just a loan, because my dad makes enough money to not -be- eligible for aid but not enough to afford to send two kids to college at the exact same time (being that I'm a twin and all, there's not even a year's or a few months time difference). So this was bad. This was Very, Very Bad. Combined with everything else--namely school, both my grades and just the general pain of being there and dealing with it, which has gotten progressively worse as for some reason this guy in my Physics class has started in on me. He actually said it's his one goal to beat me in that class. I'm sure as hell not going to tell him that he probably already has, as I've got a C right now (that, too, is another big stress factor -_- God damn that woman), but I'm still wondering where the hell this came from, as we've hardly said that much to each other all year. I think possibly it may be because a girl in that class is always complaining about my use of large words in my speech (she does this in total seriousness. I'm not making this up), so he must have developed this preconceived notion of my intelligence through that or something. Or maybe he's just an asshole. I don't know.

SO... everything combined was too much, just too much. I've just felt so alone, worthless lately, and something was wrong and it needed be to dealt with now and it needed to be dealt with alone. I'm sorry I worried you guys. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I appreciate everyone who showed some concern.

But, I think I've figured out the problem, or rather, the reason why I feel so awful about spending a lot of time where it's just me: I can't admit that I actually like myself. It's not that I really do hate myself. It's just that I tell myself that because I don't want to admit that, in reality, I'm pretty fond of me. If that's hard to understand, let me put it this way. I love comments on my work, right? But whenever I get a compliment, some automatic reflex in my brain dilutes it. Additionally, whenever I look back at what I've created I always insult it mentally, instead of looking at it with a purely critical eye (not that I don't criticize myself, but there's a lot of 'GOD THIS SUCKS and it always will' sort of thing happening) like I should. I put myself below people when I shouldn't. I put their skills above mine when they are NOT above mine. The problem really isn't that I don't like myself, it's that I can't admit that I do. I'm good at what I do. I'm not the best, not the worst, and everything I create has room for improvement (as with most people) but I am good at this. And I'm not a bad person. I don't smoke, drink, do drugs, I've never been in trouble with the law, I don't go out of my way to hurt people (most of the time I hurt people by just being stupid and oblivious, it seems, but I'm trying not to do that anymore either)--in fact I frequently help people even when they treat me REALLY poorly and ONLY talk to me when they need something from me--I'm polite (I don't have much in the way of table manners, but I say please and thank you and I hold doors open for people), I try to be concerned, I'm honest with people. I'm not a genius but I'm not stupid... even though even I have to admit that I tend to say the most moronic things sometimes. I don't say anything that merits the 'Oh my God you just killed my family' look I sometimes get from certain people though. :\

And this isn't to say that I'm faultless. But if I sat around listing what was wrong with me I'd be here until next week, and nobody has time for that, and it would just depress me again anyway. The point is that there's no reason why I shouldn't like myself. Why I shouldn't just admit to myself that I DO like myself and I AM proud of my work, because I am. I really, really am.

I just.. need to get myself to admit it.


Oh, and also Rhodes corrected the error. I do get $5000. That was pretty nice.

I'm all right.

You know what they say... it doesn't rain, it pours. It seems now like I might be going to Rhodes, but... I don't know... I just don't know, and I'm so tired... figuratively I've been tired, but I'm so physically tired right now, it's amazing... probably because I've stayed up so late for the past few nights, and for no reason at all. I'm going to bed early tonight... so tired of everything... -_-

On another note... I just started on a whim replaying Breath of Fire III. Surely you all remember this game.. I had a great save, but of course at some moment in the past I guess I deleted it as it was gone when I started in on it last night. Rei & Momo are two of my favorite video game characters ever... and I love all the Japanese voices. It's good to revisit old games from time to time.

"I've never killed another human being in my life... but you gotta start sometime!"

My mom's gone gallavanting in Europe for two and a half weeks, which is both good and bad. Bad, because it means there will be much more 'my brother and me' time, which is never a happy thing, and good because it means she won't be here to nag me about my hair, my clothes, my room, my face, my shoes, my way of walking... the list goes on. I expect I will begin to miss her sorely during the long weekend, when there will be a great deal of my brother and me time.

Going back through all of the crazy people that took the Claris selector (so many.. n_n I didn't realize it had propagated to the extent it did till I started studying kurai's referrals), one of them was actually in the process of reading the story when she took the test and she wrote a whole entry about it... Said good things and bad things (worst was that she disliked some of the characters, and I don't mean dislike as in 'god what a bastard', I mean dislike as in not good character, but judging from her 'minus' ing points for things relating to Alistair and Necavi and plus-ing points for everything/everyone else, I'm guessing she meant them.. which isn't too depressing, since they're mostly cariactures anyway), but also that it gave "the disticnt [sp] impression that it's written by an amarture [sp]." To this I can only say... well.. duh.. ^^; If I weren't an amateur, I'd be published already, wouldn't I? n_n (besides the fact that Claris's first chapter is several years old, and each chapter gets progressively 'younger' until one reaches the most current)

New Karma (two pages, yay). I am fairly proud of the Part 2 cover. n_n To remind you--a dharma-pala is a protector of Buddhism (Yamari, Kali, and Yama are all members of this group) and Mahakala is their leader.

And Yujoon, thanks for drawing the lovely Rock Sattva picture :D (and mentioning KS in your updates)

My foray into Cafepress. I drew the picture with the express thought of a T-shirt in mind. :3; Not that I think there's any kind of demand for Karma-related merchandise, but I might buy it for myself. Then I can become a walking advertisement for me. W00t. n_n (I left it at the base price

I don't know when I'm going to learn to stop expecting people to keep their promises. I start to have a little faith in people again, and now I'm back to square one.

I feel very sick.