I've come to the conclusion that the holidays are some of the most depressing times in the entire year. Or I could just be a regularly boring and depressing person. It's hard to say what comes first: my own sense of melancholy or a lonely imitation of holiday highs. Either way, ever since a few years back, I've begun to associate the holidays (subconsciously) with a melancholic loneliness; maybe it was about two or three years ago that I began to acknowledge this fact. When did it actually start that I stopped caring about the holiday season?
Who knows?
Returning to some old journal entries and blog posts for Decembers in the past, I've come to find that my thoughts never stray too far from melodramatic woes. There are some specific common factors that even accompany these low moments, on repeat: 1) angry holiday shopping and shoving and cursing and more shoving; 2) unexplained bipolar tendencies wherein I go from excited about one moment only to follow through almost too quickly with a sudden low that makes my heart hurt; 3) the resentment I hold towards people around me (in general) and also towards my older brother (mainly) for the fact that I've made myself into an outcast; and finally, 4) a strange regret that I can't find any reason to be excited about the holiday seasons anymore, and because of that, I'm sad about it.
Life does amusing things to your head once you start thinking too hard. And then even happy thoughts can lead to hypothetical "What if I disappeared from this world tomorrow? Who would care?" questions. Where do I stand in this life time with all of my friends and all of my family? Where do I stand with myself? What do I want? What DO I want?
What do I want?
A little research into the past didn't quite clear up my curiosities. I wanted to see when it was that I actually stopped caring about the holidays. It turns out that nowhere do I make mention about anything to do with my melancholy during the holidays. I talk about a lot of other things I'm preoccupied with such as books (mainly Harry Potter, apparently), upcoming tests, upcoming holiday vacations and the like. And then there's a lull from 2005 until 2007 when either I just didn't feel motivated to write or I didn't have time. And then, in a private journal entry in 2007, I think I make the connection for the first time that Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas of my childhood anymore.
What happened in 2007? Where did that revelation come from? Did I already feel this way before then and just didn't realize it? Or was that feeling just never written down on paper because I never had the time for private journal mutterings?
I'm having snippet flash backs of a possible connection to Faith Hill's "Where Are You Christmas?" that might have catalyzed my "holiday emo" era. The song is quite depressing until you get the last verse where it finally picks back up when she "finds Christmas" again. But you're already put into a jaded mood from the beginning of the song. This would put my issues back into high school in the year 2000. So it's not right, because back then (as I am slightly today) I was a big drama queen and overdid EVERYTHING. Maybe there was carry-over and I just didn't realize it.
And then college came around the corner and I didn't have the time to think about Christmas losing its magic for me.
So apparently going back and looking at old histories of "The Life of Ani" doesn't really do squat to help pinpoint my frustrations. Of course, it's not like it would have helped my case anyway; it doesn't help bring back my cheer. Instead, I'm finding that it's just further escalating that sense of boredom accompanied by a very dormant yearning for the holidays to actually MAKE me excited again.
Really... I really DO want to feel happy about the holidays. I don't want to drive by lights and Christmas decorations or listen to holiday music or hear about seasonal celebrations only to come up with one single depressing thought:
"I really wish I could feel excited about life again."
Friday, December 16, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Good old Fairy Tales...
What else is there for a hermit to do other than sit around all day long and live in a fictional world? Reading, watching television, playing games... That's life (or lack thereof).
During my perusing of something new to do (after finishing another marathon of a Korean drama rom-com), I suddenly had the urge to check some other old television series classics (or at least the cult favorites). That eventually lead me to remembering a series that my friend had brought up a while back that I had intended to check out, but got side tracked with other things instead.
Once Upon A Time is currently airing on ABC and has a little modern-day slash fantastical Fairy Tale twist (Yes, Fairy Tale MUST be capitalized). For a summary on the series itself, feel free to Google it, but for a quick down low, basically, Emma Swan is brought to a place called Storybrooke when her long ago given up son comes tracking her down. He's got this wild imagination that all the people of Storybrooke are trapped in a curse and that Emma is the only person who can save them. Running parallel to the modern setting is said Fairy Tale wherein all the Storybrooke characters are introduced through various episodic story arcs as their Fairy Tale counterparts.
To be totally honest, for a better summary, you wouldn't be reading my version, because while I'm kind of enjoying this little adventure, I'm not quite certain I know what's really going on aside from the curse and Emma Swan's role in breaking it.
We are told that the entire Fairy Tale debacle is quite real through that parallel telling, slipping back into the Fairy Tale back story while moving right along with the modern day Storybrooke version. But as you flip back and forth, part of you can't quite keep from wondering whether or not this Fairy Tale and curse might not really be a figment of young Henry's overactive imagination -- maybe he IS compensating for his loneliness by creating a fantastic world simply because, as he says in Episode Five, "There's gotta be more to it." (Or something like that, because I'm terrible with quotes, so forgive me.)
I didn't start getting into the series until about Episode Three when we back-pedal into the brief "How Snow White met Prince Charming" love line. And to be totally honest, I'm kind of digging the Fairy Tale story line more than the Storybrooke telling -- I guess I'm just a sucker for Fairy Tales and some adventure. Without this parallel story telling, it would be quite hard to suspend that disbelief that everyone in Storybrooke could be Fairy Tale characters who just don't know it because of a curse that has kept them suspended in a prison of time standing still without their memories. It's a long shot, but I think with more development, the series will come together.
Ginnifer Goodwin does a rather good bumbling Mary Margaret Blanchard as the Storybrooke version of the character, but then she switches gears pretty quickly to become a rather kickass Snow White for the Fairy Tale version of herself. Good touch.
The only complaints I have are the CG and magic illustrations, which look pretty awkward and comedic (it's not a good kind of comedic). The Fairy Tale world is a bit of a "fusion" of American cultural tones (from speech to analogies) which gives it a pretty interesting spin.
My hope: That this series doesn't end up dragging itself out like the typical American television series does (for five seasons with extensions). After spending so much time with Asian series, there's much to be said about having a finite quality for many, many story lines, television series included. The one thing that American series suffer from is their lack of a defining ending that hadn't been brought about by dropped ratings or loss of new material to write about. For this reason, some series would probably do much better as a mini-series while sometimes there ARE series that have it in them to be ongoing for four or five years.
Once Upon a Time, unfortunately, can only be taken so far before the writers run out of ways to continue on without solving the main issue. So, like it or not, this is one of those series that would do well as one with a projected ending rather than a hoped for extended, ongoing series with multiple seasons.
But what do I know. I just watch for entertainment and the series will entertain me until... well, until it stops entertaining me. Then I move on to other things.
***
Still continuing on with reading Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston. It's getting exciting, but there are some complaints I have about it, which I don't quite know how to pinpoint yet. I've put A Great and Terrible Beauty on hold for the time being as it just wasn't drawing me in. But I need to finish reading it when I get the chance, if only because I want to tell all the people who recommended it to me as "an awesome book" that I just didn't enjoy it. Because, as I mentioned to a friend, so far, aside from the attention to detail in the author's writing style (some cute little analogies and the female lead's cynical sarcasm) I'm not quite sure I'm getting what's going on.
It wasn't like reading The Hunger Games where I suffered from a "Let's read one more chapter then go to sleep" dilemma, where about six hours later, I've done gone through ten more chapters and am already more than halfway through the book when I'd just started reading it.
Anyway, I guess that's life.
During my perusing of something new to do (after finishing another marathon of a Korean drama rom-com), I suddenly had the urge to check some other old television series classics (or at least the cult favorites). That eventually lead me to remembering a series that my friend had brought up a while back that I had intended to check out, but got side tracked with other things instead.
Once Upon A Time is currently airing on ABC and has a little modern-day slash fantastical Fairy Tale twist (Yes, Fairy Tale MUST be capitalized). For a summary on the series itself, feel free to Google it, but for a quick down low, basically, Emma Swan is brought to a place called Storybrooke when her long ago given up son comes tracking her down. He's got this wild imagination that all the people of Storybrooke are trapped in a curse and that Emma is the only person who can save them. Running parallel to the modern setting is said Fairy Tale wherein all the Storybrooke characters are introduced through various episodic story arcs as their Fairy Tale counterparts.
To be totally honest, for a better summary, you wouldn't be reading my version, because while I'm kind of enjoying this little adventure, I'm not quite certain I know what's really going on aside from the curse and Emma Swan's role in breaking it.
We are told that the entire Fairy Tale debacle is quite real through that parallel telling, slipping back into the Fairy Tale back story while moving right along with the modern day Storybrooke version. But as you flip back and forth, part of you can't quite keep from wondering whether or not this Fairy Tale and curse might not really be a figment of young Henry's overactive imagination -- maybe he IS compensating for his loneliness by creating a fantastic world simply because, as he says in Episode Five, "There's gotta be more to it." (Or something like that, because I'm terrible with quotes, so forgive me.)
I didn't start getting into the series until about Episode Three when we back-pedal into the brief "How Snow White met Prince Charming" love line. And to be totally honest, I'm kind of digging the Fairy Tale story line more than the Storybrooke telling -- I guess I'm just a sucker for Fairy Tales and some adventure. Without this parallel story telling, it would be quite hard to suspend that disbelief that everyone in Storybrooke could be Fairy Tale characters who just don't know it because of a curse that has kept them suspended in a prison of time standing still without their memories. It's a long shot, but I think with more development, the series will come together.
Ginnifer Goodwin does a rather good bumbling Mary Margaret Blanchard as the Storybrooke version of the character, but then she switches gears pretty quickly to become a rather kickass Snow White for the Fairy Tale version of herself. Good touch.
The only complaints I have are the CG and magic illustrations, which look pretty awkward and comedic (it's not a good kind of comedic). The Fairy Tale world is a bit of a "fusion" of American cultural tones (from speech to analogies) which gives it a pretty interesting spin.
My hope: That this series doesn't end up dragging itself out like the typical American television series does (for five seasons with extensions). After spending so much time with Asian series, there's much to be said about having a finite quality for many, many story lines, television series included. The one thing that American series suffer from is their lack of a defining ending that hadn't been brought about by dropped ratings or loss of new material to write about. For this reason, some series would probably do much better as a mini-series while sometimes there ARE series that have it in them to be ongoing for four or five years.
Once Upon a Time, unfortunately, can only be taken so far before the writers run out of ways to continue on without solving the main issue. So, like it or not, this is one of those series that would do well as one with a projected ending rather than a hoped for extended, ongoing series with multiple seasons.
But what do I know. I just watch for entertainment and the series will entertain me until... well, until it stops entertaining me. Then I move on to other things.
***
Still continuing on with reading Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston. It's getting exciting, but there are some complaints I have about it, which I don't quite know how to pinpoint yet. I've put A Great and Terrible Beauty on hold for the time being as it just wasn't drawing me in. But I need to finish reading it when I get the chance, if only because I want to tell all the people who recommended it to me as "an awesome book" that I just didn't enjoy it. Because, as I mentioned to a friend, so far, aside from the attention to detail in the author's writing style (some cute little analogies and the female lead's cynical sarcasm) I'm not quite sure I'm getting what's going on.
It wasn't like reading The Hunger Games where I suffered from a "Let's read one more chapter then go to sleep" dilemma, where about six hours later, I've done gone through ten more chapters and am already more than halfway through the book when I'd just started reading it.
Anyway, I guess that's life.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The little things in life
I realized just now that, while perusing my storage of pictures, I have never talked about my wonderful new E-reader. The Nook Simple Touch, which has been named simply, Nook has taken over as THE Nook... if that makes any sense. Another way of saying this is that now the original Nook that first came out has been cast aside as "1st Edition Nook" and whenever you say the word Nook, you are almost always supposed to be referring to the Nook Touch.
Yea, a lot of marketing mumbo jumbo, but I learned this a little after I went and bought one. When I told them I wanted "that new Nook" the question I got was, "Oh, the Nook or the 1st Edition?" Oh... So the other one has been grounded already, so much for loyalty. Not that I blame them, I wouldn't have bothered to get this E-reader had I not found out that it was much improved for the 1st Edition -- pearl e-ink with smoother page turns and easy to use navigation.
The only complaint I have about having a Nook (which I'm sure is probably the same with any other E-reader out there) is that it is extremely dangerously easy to buy a new book. I actually had to force myself to quit reading from the Nook for a while so that I wouldn't think about spending more money. I mean, with the touch of a button, you confirm a buy and then "ZIP!" the book is now part of your library.
Case in point, within the past two weeks, I ended up pre-ordering three books and buying three more. While you don't get charged for the pre-ordered book until it is actually available, you've still spent that money.
Otherwise, I love my Nook! No one seems to understand just how much of a bookworm I am and just HOW much I love that I have an entire library in one little package. Yes, I still have a bunch of paperback books to try reading, but I'm still in that "My Nook is so cool to make use of" phase that I don't care to pick up a real book and flip through real pages again... at least not for a while. I still have dreams of owning an entire library fit with rolling shelf ladders, a giant fire place and cushy seating and all... but that doesn't mean I have to read ALL of those books. Although it would be cool if I can claim to have read all the books I own.
Once again, the book worm nerd in me is all squee about stuff like that.
In other news, the holidays are approaching and one of my closest friends will be coming back for some relaxing and hanging out and fun.
Otherwise... well, not much else is going on. *sigh*
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