Gotta Catch 'Em All

So here's my post about Pokemon, a franchise that took over a large portion of my childhood- more specific forth and fifth grade.  Back then I was only interested in the cards and the television show; I never had a game boy.  Bulbasaur was the first card I ever got.  To this day he is still one of my favorites.

When I was younger, I always wanted the cute Pokemon cards- Jigglypuff, Vulpix, or Togepi.  We never actually played the card game.  At least not by the rules anyway.  We'd compare HP, attacks, and rareity and decide who won from there.  We were more interested in trading the cards for the ones we thought were the best looking.

I think the television show is what sucked us into it.  At the time, I didn't have WB, the station that played Pokemon every day at three.  But I found ways around that.  I'd watch the videos or try to end up at my grandma's at three o'clock if we didn't have school that day.  We'd also play make believe.  I was always Misty, my favorite human character on the show... well maybe besides Sabrina.  We made a rule that if your character had a Pokemon, you had to have the card for it.  We'd pretend the cards were our Pokeballs.

Now, I'm still a little obsessed with Pokemon.  Since I got my 3DS, I've put more time into Pokemon Black than any other game.  Every once in a while a need to collect the cards come back to me too.  I have all the orginal 150 except for one card, which unfortunatly is Charizard.  I used to have that card, a holo too.  But I traded it like an idiot.  I patiently await the next game to come out, so I can finally play Pokemon in 3D, but untill then I'll try to catch 'em all in Pokemon black.

Drowning

I was originally going to write about Pokemon today, but I read a friend's blog earlier that made me change my mind.  This may be kind of a depressing post, and maybe it is best saved for a private journal or something.  But let's be honest here, I'm not going to be pulling out the journals any time soon.

Things seem like they're piling up, like I'm drowning in a list of to-dos.  And the truth is, I'm not really.  All I do is go to work and then come home and play video games... or worse yet just go to bed.  It seems like everybody's always busy, so I don't have much of a social life.  And I guess that's slowly changing.  Dalton and I have been hanging out more, and Sarah's on spring break.  I think that's this week at least.  But every day it's "I should clean my house" or "I really need to clean my car" or even "I should work on my story that should have been done months ago."

These things just keep building up and I just can't find the energy or motivation to do them.  My anxiety's been through the roof lately too.  Sometimes there are reasons for it, even if they're silly.  Every time I go to work I feel like I'm going to get fired, even though I show up on time and try my hardest at my job.  I'm paranoid about almost everything lately, most of them are too personal to share.  But sometimes I'm just nervous for absolutly no reason at all.  And maybe I'm nervous about things and just can't remember what was said to make me nervous.  I don't know.

So basically the question is, how do I get over this?  How can I make myself come to my senses?  Most of this is just in my head, right?  So why is it so hard to just suck it up and grab life by the horns?  Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone to hang out or even just do a load of laundry?

Back to School

So it's been a bit, but I'm back at Northland taking a couple of classes.  It's scary though, I havn't taken anything in over two years, and the last semester I took didn't go over well at all.  It's okay though.  I've already promised myself that I'm going to go to class every day that I am able, and I'm not going to drop any classes.  This is the semester I pass Intro to Public Speaking.  I can feel it.

I do feel a little out of place, I'll admit.  I think I just need some time to get back into the swing of everything.  Waking up early won't be a problem, but getting into the habit of doing homework might be.  Also, I forgot how hard it is to sit still for an hour.  Thankfully taking notes and doing a bit of doodling helps with that.

I'm also back in the marching band.  That's proving to be harder than I thought it would be.  It's been a while since I've marched and I'm having a hard time finding my sets, especially finding my place among all the people who know what they're doing.  I kind of feel like an idiot.  It's also been a while since I've played, and, to be completly blunt and honest, my range just plain sucks.

Something snapped within me a few months ago.  I need more in my life than just Jimmy John's.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job right now.  But I need more.  So between school, work, and marching band, I feel like my life actually has substance again.  I'm just worried my social life might suffer a bit.

John

"I've got some friends.  Some that I hardly know.  But we've had some times I wouldn't trade for the world."  ~Rise Against

I didn't know you that well.  You were a friend of a friend, and we only hung out a handful of times.  What I do know is that those few times were always a blast, even with all the high school drama that occasionally came along with them.

I remember watching Rent at Marinda's with you.  I remember enjoying secrets that your mother made.  And for those of you who aren't cool enough to realize what secrets are, they're brownies.  I remember us all sitting in your living room, while you played "Swing Life Away" and other songs on your guitar.  I'll always think of you when I hear that song.

And of course the first thing that comes to mind when I think of you is the way you kicked your feet in the air when you laughed.  We were all being goofy to began with, but for some reason I found that so funny.  Then of course you laughed at me for laughing about it, which in turned made your feet kick faster.  Then I'd laugh harder... it was an endless circle.  I don't even remember what we were laughing about in the first place.

This is one of my favorite pictures from high school.  There's a few different groups of friends in this picture, but they're all connected in some way or another.  Some of us were hanging out with you that day, and some were there visiting David.  It must have been Megan's goodbye party.  I still don't remember there being that many people being there, but I've been told there was even more that had left earlier.

It's not fair that diabetes should take a life, espeically from someone so young.  Rest in peace John; you will be missed by many.

Community

Last week I went to the midnight showing of The Avengers.  It was amazing!  Since all the set up for the movie was done in the previous five movies, they didn't have to start out the movie explaning everything.  So instead it was like one big, giant fight scene.  Most of my friends don't like 3D movies, but I'm in love with them.  Never in my life have I actually jumped from a 3D effect before like they do in the advertisments, except I totally did for the Avengers.  There's a scene where Hawkeye jumps off a building, turns, and fires an arrow towards the camera.  I swear that arrow was coming straight for my face.  The movie was also hilarious in the just the right parts.


But this blog wasn't going to be a movie review.  I wanted to talk about the geek/nerd community.  And don't be offended by the word geek.  I use it not to set us apart from the rest of the world, but as a way to decribe a group of people who are all the same.  People who can come together because of their love for comic books or video games, even math or chess.


I dressed up as Iron Man for the premeire, and I have to say I missed the community I haven't been a part of for so long.  I got to work on the fun task of getting my costume ready.  I talked with my friends about how they were putting together their costumes, and help them out with theirs.  And as I was walking around Walmart in my costume, I even ran into someone who was trying to quickly come up with something so he could dress up like Thor.


At the premeire, lots of people took pictures of Michael and I.  Sarah didn't want to be in any pictures, so sadly I don't even have one of her.  But she dressed up as Black Widow.  I took a picture with some guy in a Captain America suit that I didn't even know.  The whole thing was just so much fun.  It makes me think that one of these times I should just save up money and actually go to Comic Con.  It's kind of surprising really that I haven't done it already.

Slacker

A tree stood just outside my apartment.  It was pretty big considering the trees we get around here.  But it was beautiful.  The trees were green and the leaves were spaced apart just right... kind of reminded me of The Lion King I guess.  I wanted to draw it, and I kept telling myself that I was going to as soon as I had some extra time.  But even if I had extra time, I'd put if off.  I'd make excuses.  Such as the light's not right or I'm too tired or I want ice cream.  Grant it, some of the excuses were good like Penny hasn't been on a walk in a while or I should clean my apartment.  But I never got to draw the tree.  The people who own the property next to my apartment took it down.  And the tree was so pretty too!  I didn't even take a picture.

So I've decided to do a lot more for myself, especially since everyone's going back to school.  If I leave my life to work, sleep, and Star Trek I will go insane... or at lease burn out.  I mean there are so many creative endeavors I have planned- about six story ideas, a painting of Penny, and a chalk drawing of the lilies my landlady had planted earlier in the year.  And I should really get on those.  I don't want another thing like the tree to happen... Sadly, I'm really good at saying I'm going to do something and then never do it.  So we'll see what happens.

Papa's Chair

When I was little my grandfather was one of my biggest heros.  I wanted to be just like him.  I'd sit in the basket of the hot air balloon and pretend to be a pilot or sit on the floor of my grandpa's workshop and play with scraps of wood and spare nails just like papa.  Things that I only used at his house were assicioated with him.  For example, salami was called papa's meat.  I still call it that sometimes.  Or papa's juice, which was some kind of orange flavored drink that my grandparents got from who knows where.  But one of my favorite things I came to associate with my papa was his chair.

It was an old, ridiculously comfy recliner.  The springs were broken in just right so that I could snuggle in it comfortably whenever my grandpa wasn't in it.  I don't know if I can really describe the color... brown with just a hint of purple maybe, and it had little black dots forming some sort of pattern.  It wasn't in the best place if you wanted to watch television, but you could still see the screen alright I guess.  But it was still my favorite spot to sit.  By the time they decided it was time to get a new chair, the thing had a faint smell of a mixture of sweat and propane.  Not disgusting, but just enough to remind me that this was my papa's chair.

I just about cried when I found out they were getting rid of it.  And they were just going to throw it away too!  Grant it, it was probably time to get a new one, but they could have stored it in the basement or in my grandpa's den or something.  My mom wouldn't even let take it over to our house.  It was so devesting.  That chair represented to much.  Maybe it was the memories behind it; I don't know.  But they did manage to replace it with a nice leather recliner that is slowly getting more comfortable as time goes on.