Birthday and a Pink Escalade... and Food.

Today is my mother's birthday, so here's a shout out to her. And as it IS my mother's birthday, I'm not really allowed to tell anyone how old she is. Let's just say she doesn't look a day over forty. But then again, a lot of people say that Asian women age beautifully... so beautifully that you can't even tell they're aging.

My first thought: "Like elves?"

But anyway, I digress.

For today, I was unceremoniously awoken at 9:30 this morning (yea, I know that's not early, but it still leaves me tired when I have cases of insomnia) and our family left for Oklahoma for dim sum at the Grand House restaurant. Only four of us went, because two of my brothers had to work today and so they get whatever leftovers we manage to bring home from Oklahoma.

Little did we know that dim sum is only served during the weekends at the Grand House and thus we had to settle for ordering regular Chinese-American food that you can get at any regular restaurant here at home. Nonetheless, food was good and we spent the next hour shopping for stuff you can't get back home so as to fill up our "in case of apocalypse" freezer storage.

Our findings were quite fruitful and I found out that Pocky can also come in giant form. I wish I had a picture of them. In fact, I wish I would have bought some because I've grown quite attached to Pocky... like chips but less greasy and better tasting.

The drive to Oklahoma was nearing two and half hours, maybe more. The drive back was no less time and I realized just how much discipline it takes to stay still in one spot for two and a half hours without blinking or moving. I was struggling to keep my eyes open by the time we hit the turnpike and I was relieved to see the nice big "Welcome to Wichita" sign.




Along the way, while everone was sleeping, I saw what looked like a pink SUV coming up behind us. "Pink SUV?" I thought, "couldn't be." And then it pulled passed our van and I realized that I wasn't seeing things. It was indeed very carnation pink.

"Who in the hell drives a pink--?" My answer came when I noticed the very small, very fancy label of Mary Kay on the bottom left of the trunk. Of course, Mary Kay. I was a little intrigued, because honestly, even if you are from Mary Kay, who in their right mind would drive a pink SUV?

Anything is possible, I guess.

On a side note, while pulled passed a weigh station I saw a huge truck sporting a giant brass buffalo statue. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it as well, but by the time I realized what was on that truck, I'd already driven right passed it. It was another of life's wonders I guess.

All-in-all, the day was interesting. I'm completely pooped and feel like I need to sleep, but really now, what does sleep accomplish anyway?

Calling all Simpletons

"Yea, that's what I said... now carry on."

Lately, this is somewhat how I'm feeling. I talk, and people just kind of look at me funny. And that's when I wonder, "Do I really sound like an idiot 99% of the time when I speak?" And if I do, then why insist that I talk at all?

People confuse me regularly. And I have my moments where I am very, very easily confused. I'm a very straight-laced person with a mind operating on the most simplistic level you could probably find in society today. Everything is either up or down -- things in between are debatable and may be subject to scrutiny

But now I'm starting to get off topic... not that there really was a topic in this post to begin with. And thus here I am confusing the heck out of myself. I'm great, aren't I?

For the past couple days, maybe weeks, I've been endlessly floating around without any desire or any motivation to come up with something to do with the rest of my life. I become excited when I pick up my paycheck, then I stop to realize I've been cheated of my hard work because I'm not being paid enough for what I do. I make absolutely not 100% effort to change things as I probably would have done about six years ago before I started higher education.

Life is full of stupid twists like that.

Where I had fully wanted to make sure my future was set, I ended up screwing myself over even more than I expect. Where I wanted to work hard to accomplish something very significant for my well-being, I end up accomplishing absolutely nothing of significance. And when I think about where I want to go with my Bachelor of Science degree in Forensic Science of which I had really learned absolutely nothing, I can only think of full-time, underpaid positions in retail or the commonly found bitchwork associations.

Why do I even have this degree? And then why do people insist that I only need a degree to get someplace and then immediately shun me when they find out I have no field-related experience? If you really wanted me to have experience to ride this ride, then why didn't you just say so in the first place and spare me some unneeded despair and time wasting?

And lastly, why do things have to be so hard when it comes to me wanting to do something that I want to do for myself?

And so whenever I open my mouth to speak, words come out, but maybe they just sound entirely alien.

So I've been thinking...

Hehe, that's an understatement... and at the same time quite some progress.

I check my email constantly, everyday and probably every hour for updates in everything I need to know. My career options, my friends' comments (like I really have any who'll write to me), and then some news updates from fansites... and then most importantly, the update of the next chapter for my current obsession of original writing, Through Me by Maeven.

The newest chapter has been updated finally and each time she updates, I leave her story feeling extremely content.

As a follow-up, after reading her update notes, I realize just how long of a road I have to go just to catch up to her. I like to write for myself, but not once have I been able to even establish the plot of my stories before I lost motivation or come to a stop where I'm unsure of where to continue on.

I have a very bad habit of following my train of thought and pounding out page after page of work until I come upon a part of my plot that just doesn't seem to fit. And so instead of working around what I've already written, I stubbornly go back and change something, which in turn somehow always changes everything. And so I have reread the whole ordeal to decide whether I really want to keep that change, find another place to change, or go with the new change and rewrite the whole fiasco.

I'm horrible.

I tried a new tactic to my writing a while back by outlining some important factors and going from there. But that hasn't seemed to work either as I realized that I've successfully confined myself to a set plot and when I don't have anything to write for a specific part of my outline, I'm stopped once again.

But what nonsense am I spouting right now?

I love to write, but when the idea comes around to writing and then sharing, I never think my material is good enough for others to see. So I purposefully go back and find flaws with my entire storyline and somehow convince myself that I need to rewrite the whole thing. It's a vicious cycle, because no matter what route I take, I end up going back and rewriting something. Or stopping completely.

I'm a little disappointed in myself. Somehow, I'd love to rewind back to my old fanfiction writing days where I seemed to be able to spit out chapter after chapter without regard to how people will really like it. But at least then, I was motivated to continue writing.

And now a stupid revelation: maybe I should just start posting the first few chapters I've managed to write of something. Because if I do that, I'll get some encouragement (or flames) from readers and decide from there if I want to continue the story at all. I did that when I wrote fanfiction, but my goal after I gave up on fanfiction was to at least write 50% of my story before even showing it to anyone. Because when 50% is written, I somehow believe I won't irrationally go back and change something on impulse that could change the whole story. The plot will be set in stone and I can't go back.
(Editing is option, of course.)

But anyway, now that my post has gone this far, I need to wonder what it is exactly that I'm trying to do. I feel like I just rambled a whole load of bull and that I need to step down for a while and recollect all of my thoughts.

A New Addition to the Abyss... Pt. 2

So it seems the idea of having my very own otaku-- I mean, an anime and manga fansite is slowly becoming closer to a reality.

The very first post to anicabyss details a few goals and describe just what exactly anicabyss is about. This can be found here. And just as I had mentioned in that post, there is a very likely chance that the very first feature of anicabyss will by launched/posted on August 1. This is my goal.

Until then, a lot of other features are slowly being written and edited, and re-edited once again. A lot of other features, such as a few First Impression posts, some Reviews, and a long detailed Thoughts post has been finished and are ready for go. Sadly, however, I wanted to start my anicabyss off with a bang and so I am currently giving myself a headache over what feature I'd like to launch anicabyss on.

Aside form that little dilemma, I'm starting to think that I want to merge Thoughts and Reviews into the same type of post as both detail my personal opinions on both specific anime and manga series. The only difference from one and the other is that Reviews are over series that I've finished viewing, and Thoughts are over those that I have yet to complete (due to various reasons). More than likely, I'll start the blog off on having them be separate features and then merge them as I continue to read and watch more manga and anime, respectively.

But anyway, enough of my rambling. As of August 1, all posts about anicabyss that are not related to Abstract Abyss will be posted on anicabyss. In this way, Abstract Abyss can and will remain a more personal and reality-based blog for myself. So this and the last post, including one more in the future on the day of anicabyss's official launch will be the only posts detailing anicabyss information.

Because of my own reasons, I prefer to separate reality from my otaku world. It's safer that way, cause otherwise, ani goes amuck and may harm innocent bystanders.

So, until August 1, look forward to the launch of a new world.

A New Addition to the Abyss... Pt. 1

Whenever I read though other people's blogs, I always have the strong urge to have my own. And so now I have one. I can randomly spew nonsense and not care about other people's criticism. After all, everything I write is a product of my own personal opinion, right?

On top of having a blog, I also enjoy talking about the things that I like. The books that I read, the movies that I watch, and the writings that I create are all things I'd love to discuss with other people. However, being an adult and a college graduate sometimes makes me feel like I should focus on other much more productive activities -- such as finding a job as of present. But I've presently found that I need a reason to be able to separate my real life with the life I like to immerse myself into regularly to forget about my real life.

After all, I've always loved to live in my own made up little world. My friends tell me that I live in my own little world. And they really just don't know how true that really is.

But to make a long story short, what this post is really about is my need to add a couple extensions to the Abyss. Pending a good name and title for these extensions, I will be creating separate pages for my newest obsessions and some of my older obsessions-- really they're just places where I can talk about things that I don't really get to talk about in real life with my friends since none of them seem to have these same interests as me. So things such as movies, books, and television reviews and discussions will be addressed in separate blog pages for the purpsoe of separating this real life, my Abstract Abyss, with my other world, possibly titled 'Another Abyss'... or whatever. And if courage serves, I may be able to post up original writings as well...

Oh yea, and I will faintly admit that I'm an a phase of otaku-ness as of current. So anime and manga will also be on the dinner menu. If you don't know what otaku is, you're probably better off not knowing.

Penguins in a Row

So this is kind of what happens when a bunch of penguins become overwhelmed with work.

And as you can guess, I am not exactly in this picture, but I was at the scene... after all, someone had to take the picture, right?

This photo was actually taken a long time ago, but it's fun to share things like this, no? hehe

My... Day

Cars are not my friend.

Technically, the rain today wasn't so nice either, but I like the rain and I like to think that the rain likes me too. So I hold nothing against the rain.

However, I've learned something very important (that I've probably already known but forgot). Basically, when you tell yourself aloud that it isn't going to rain, then it will most certainly rain. Of course, this could just be me since every force in this world is dead set on proving me wrong when I'm certain of things.

And so I got to work this morning and decided that it's a fairly good and sunny day. "It doesn't look like it'll rain," I say to myself. And I leave my front windows cracked enough to keep my car cool. All is fine and dandy as I head into work and start to prepare all the necessary items for my outside catering job today. I'm heading out to our company's catering van to load up and I notice that it's sprinkling. But would you guess that the first thought in my mind is not that my front windows are down, but that I would have to load and unload all my things while it's raining.

I think nothing of it. It's only lightly sprinkling anyway. I load up the van, climb into it and start the engine. When the van didn't start to move after I put it in reverse should have been the first clue that something was wrong. But I persist. The vehicle just needs a little pep, I think and so I hit the gas and back the van out of it's hidey-hole parking space and out into the drive. The van is veering left for some sort of unknown reason. It never crosses my sleep-deprived mind that something is really wrong with the van. And while I'm driving down the street, the van is jittering really hard and pulling left the whole way. And so partway to my destination -- which isn't far, mind you -- I pull the van to the side of the road and then get out.

I have a flat tire.

Imagine my unsurprise. I knew that something was wrong, but it never once did cross my mind that something was really terribly wrong. Worse yet, it's still raining and getting worse as I stand there on the side of the road trying to figure out what to do next.

Thank what may that cell phones exist and that I had at least enough sense to bring mine with me -- although the reason behind me having a cell phone with me had absolutely nothing to do with "in case of an emergency flat tire" circumstance. I merely needed to be able to tell the time because the place I've been catering at has no clock.

The rest is history. I call back to the hotel where I work and tell them that I'm stranded and would someone please come and pick up my dumb ass. Somehow I got a flat tire -- I'm too embarrassed to tell them that I think I may have had it before I even left the hotel's premises, because I really should have checked before getting in the van first, right? And then I finish up my catering with the help of the bellmen of the hotel with their nice little nicely driven vans.

And in the middle of the day while I am worrying more about the flat tire on the catering van and how I'm going to finish off this catering job without any flaws... I finally realize that my front windows are down and it is now pouring rain like some sort of waterfall.

Has anyone ever mistaken me for an idiot? I think now is the time to start.

Rebirth of the Abyss

While I normally don't shout out the knowledge that I have a web log to just anyone, I sometimes like to think that some people will stumble across it and enjoy what I have to write. For about two or three years I kept a blog at pitas.com just because of the fact that I felt pitas.com sounded kinda neat. It ended up becoming a personal web journal for me to spew all of my guts and brains whenever I was in a good mood, bad mood, etc...

For those who don't know which blog I'm talking about, it's probably a better decision not to look for it. I was in high school, I was a drama queen, and everything I blogged about was most certainly a monologue over "Woe is me, the world is crashing down and I'm all alone... blah, blah, blah..." I was some sad and loud emo kid.

And well, the times may not have changed much, to be honest. I can still dramatize if need be. But having known what kind of a person I was back in high school, I'm more aware of myself.

But I digress from the main topic of this first post.

Abstract Abyss is back for more fun. However, I personally wanted to start a new blog with a completely different name, feel and look. But black is my color (not because I'm that sad and loud emo kid from way back when, but because I just think black is a cool color and suits me professionally), and Abstract Abyss just happened to fit my state of mind perfectly.

And so a new blog is born. I can easily convey my daily life to the internet world and share my thoughts (which will not be deep and private thoughts, mind you; I do have a sense of dignity I still have to protect). And I leave it at that.

And so as to those outside of my Abyss who happen by, I'm still fairly new at the blogging scene.

"Please take care of me."