Saturday Night
Okay, so I’m posting an unprecedented two days in a row. On one hand, I know I need to be more spontaneous with my posts, because that’s the only way I’ll ever post anything. On the other, spontaneity interferes with any kind of organization to the posts. I don’t really want this blog to be about me. I do want it to be about my thoughts and opinions. In any case, this current post is about me, regardless.
I would say that I’m a socially inept loser, but that would sound like every other blog on the net, so I’ll try to avoid whining ad nauseum about my a various problems and failings, both real and imagined. That said, I’m in the apartment alone again tonight, and once again I’m struggling to find anything on the tube (see my previous post). Tonight I was lucky enough to stumble across “A Time to Kill”, which I’ve never seen all of. It took about 5 minutes for me notice that this movie has an unbelievable number of well-known actors. Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Samuel L. Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Keifer Sutherland, Ashley Judd, and Chris Cooper (who played the father in “October Sky”, among other things). I’m also pretty sure I spotted the annoying police officer from “Flightplan” and the woman who tried to get off the bus and got herself blown-up in “Speed”. (Incidently, John Grisham is a large part of why I decided not to try to become a lawyer. The other factors were the massive surplus of lawyers in this country and the fact that all lawyers are scumbags. They may not mean to be, or even be conscious of it. It’s just something about the whole process of law school and the Bar exam and the rest of it that reduces them to worms. But I digress…) I haven’t read A Time to Kill but I know Hollywood has a nasty habit of twisting Grisham’s books – Runaway Jury for example – so I’ll take the movie with a grain of salt.
Here I am, stuck eating hot dogs without buns and ramen. This is kinda sad. I need to study for the Chinese and CS tests I have Monday, but I guess I should be thankful I don’t have a Chinese CS test.
I guess I’m gonna sign off now. Nothing great to say.
Oh, just noticed that major jerk who plays Eddie Murphy’s annoying medical colleague from “Doctor Dolittle”. And wow, just realized that Ashley Judd uses this awesome, cold monotone for almost everything she says. It may not be good for acting purposes, but it’s very distinctive.
So, yeah, about that…
I haven’t posted in over a month, and after I purposely said that I was going to try to post more. I meant too, but Tech’s essentially free high-speed internet is somewhat intoxicating. Not really, but it is distracting.
I’m back at Tech now, and I should probably be studying. I may try to get my CS major roommate to help me with some of the blog stuff here, since I’m sure he knows something about cascading spreadsheets. Even though I wanted to keep my blog secret from my friends and anonymous from my readers (all 2 of them) he knows about it, mainly cause I had to ask for his help when I set it up. I’m not very computer savvy.
It’s almost pointless to blog, since I’ve had a hundred hits over the course of like ten posts in 4 or 5 months, and one comment, which I appreciated, but did not respond to. (I felt that I had answered that person’s question in the post he was talking about, but oh well). I’m gonna try a few things to get more people reading. I entered kitsune23@wordpress.com in the Slivers section of “The Technique”, the GT newspaper. (For anyone who doesn’t know, the Sliver section is essentially a column where anyone can log on to the ‘Nique’s website and enter a line of text to appear in the paper. It’s extremely random.) I did notice a few hits on the blog after I posted that sliver. I’ll try that again pretty soon, but doing it every week would probably be counter-productive, especially if I’m not doing a good job of updating.
As far as my life goes, nothing too amazing is happening. I’m trying to take part in more activities this semester. What else? I did get into a Chinese class, even though they had been full. That didn’t last long though, once people got a feel for the class. Anyway, that means that I’m now taking Japanese and Chinese. I’m either stupid or crazy. Probably both.
Watched the Avatar: The Last Airbender season premiere on Friday, that was pretty cool. Nothing mind-blowing, but it was a good start, and greatness in A:tLA is never really found in one episode. It’s the scope of the series all together that makes it truly excellent. I intend to write more on that in a soon-to-come entry, but I won’t make promises I might not keep. Also saw the Heroes premiere tonight, but I was distracted (looking for food) and will have to watch it again online tomorrow to catch it clearly. Disappointed cause Ali Larter wasn’t in this episode. 
I should probably try to avoid using emoticons in my posts.
I was also reading Snafu Comics at http://www.snafu-comics.com/ Sorta funny, but the cussing was a damper on the humor. If I sound like a prude, $&#% you. And you can quote me on that. (In fact, I may Sliver that right now).
Muffin-tops
kitsune23
It’s been a long time since I posted anything here, but I hope for that to change very soon. I’ve been at home and all we have there is dial-up, so I usually don’t put for the effort to post. I’m about to return to Georgia Tech, however, where they tell us the connection speed rivals that of the CIA. In any case, I hope to be posting a lot very soon.
For now, I’ll leave you with one random question that I had the other day:
If gay siblings have sex, is it still considered incest?
Birthdays, Lemony Snicket, and the Ring of Power
I recently celebrated my 19th birthday, and as usual, it was somewhat depressing. If you think that’s weird, then I have to say I agree with you. No one my age has any right to be depressed about getting older. They have to wait until they turn 30 or so. (At least, that’s about how it sounds if you listen to people 30 and older).
Here’s a question for you: when you were a little kid, say, 4 to 9 years old, could you not wait to grow up, or were you happy with things staying as they were? Did time seem to pass quickly for you, or did weeks, weekends, summers, last forever?. (Yes, I know that’s two questions).
I’ll answer my own questions. Life has always seemed to go by fast to me, and I never really wanted to grow up. I get a little depressed on my birthdays because it feels like I just had one recently.
And I have a theory about why I feel this way.
I read. A lot. Both books and comic books. Many of the books are long, drawn out fantasy series. (Yes, I’m well aware that I am a total nerd). In many of these series, such as Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Inheritance Trilogy, and The Wheel of Time, consecutive books often come out years apart, and yet, for the characters, sometimes only a few weeks, days or minutes have passed. They’re exactly as I left them when I finished the last book. In one way this is very reassuring because it makes it feel to me as though no time has passed. After going through a year’s worth of stuff, I come back to the series and there’s Rand al’Thor or Arya Stark, or Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, right where I left them. (Incidentally, I’m currently awaiting The Elves of Cintra, the second book in Terry Brooks’ “Genesis of Shannara” trilogy, due out August 28, according to Wikipedia.) I had a similar experience with “The Lord of the Rings” films. I walk in to see “The Return of the King” and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are just now partying about winning the battle of Helms Deep, which I saw a year ago. And of course, with comics, the characters practically never age.
The point is that when I focus on the books or characters, time seems to move slowly, and that’s what I did for years. But on my birthday, I focus on me, and the feelings that no time has passed – which I believe are compounded by the books, movies, etc. – backfire on me. These feelings are made worse by the fact that, while the books may alter my perception of time, they also consume real time.
I love reading. It’s probably my favorite activity. But I also know that when I’m 50, I won’t look back on all my reading and think, “Gosh, those were the days. Good times.” Of course, the same applies to video games, television, commuting, jail, and drug-induced stupors. But you get the point. Although reading is enjoyable and self-improving, it is not fulfilling.
Which just makes it even more obvious how much I need a Time-Turner. Although I’m not sure that would solve the aging problem.
Introduction
Welcome to Icarus Falling: kitsune23’s blog. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m kitsune23.
For those who don’t know, “kitsune” is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are highly revered in Japan and often appear in folklore and mythology, where they are known for their wisdom and magical powers. Most of that info is courtesy of Wikipedia, so it may or may not be correct, but in any case, foxes are cool, so I chose this as my user-name. It’s in Japanese because I am studying Japanese and I think everyone will admit that Japanese stuff is just plain cool. (I’ll probably mention Japan or topics related to Japan pretty often in my blog, but I am not obsessed with anime the way some people are. I do watch some anime, such as Naruto and Miyasaki movies, but I’m more interested in the Land of the Rising Sun for its fascinating culture, as well as practical reasons. Japan has the second largest economy in the world, so learning Japanese and studying its country of origin will definitely have advantages.) However, I digress.
For the three readers (I know, I flatter myself) who held out this long, I’ll go ahead an explain the title. I’m aware that “Icarus Falling” is probably overly dramatic, somewhat depressing, and completely unrelated to the subject of the blog, which is nonexistent. It was chosen on the spur of the moment because I wasn’t really even aware that my blog would need a title and the only other thing I could come up with was “Principia Chaotica” which would have been even more obscure, sinister, bizarre, confusing, and pointless. “Icarus Falling” was appealing because it sounds cool and implies that I don’t have high expectations for this blog, which is certainly true. In addition, “Icarus Rising” would have been even more depressing, from my point of view, because everyone knows he’s going to fall as soon as he’s had his moment in the sun, as it were (I hope one of my roommates never reads this, because I criticize him for overusing the phrase “as it were” all the time and I’ll never hear the end of it if he reads this).
A few last notes for the intro. Despite the semi-depressing title and my roommates’ insistence on calling me “emo” I don’t intend to be depressing or overly emotional in my writing here. I don’t think of myself as a so-called emo, and I resent being referred to as such. (Is it just me, or does that sentence sound emo to you?) As for my bio, there’s really not much you need to know. I’m an undergrad at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I’m a guy, if you couldn’t tell, and like to read. A lot. My parents have also ordered me not to do any recreational reading, for the time being, which is doubtlessly one of the reasons I’m writing this at all. Any way, I hope someone sticks around to read my blog. Hopefully someone will find it interesting.
Oh, and I nearly forgot. Please be forgiving of my grammar. It’s good but not great, and I especially have problems with parenthesis.
