I almost didn’t write this, when Michelle » tagged me, because like Manda », I had a really hard time coming to my own conclusion of what my life will be like “in ten years”. It’s hard to say, and not for the reasons that are apparent; yes, I am young, but what I feared was not knowing where I’ll be in one year, much less ten! “Time will tell” kept going through my mind, and before I knew it, three weeks have already passed! I then decided that looking at this in a different way from everyone else might help me open up my shell a little bit, a way that wouldn’t scare me from writing it up. A ten year resolution, of where I need to be in ten years, for me; not where I want to be, but where I know I can and will be.

I also decided to actually use pictures(!) in this post. It’s not my style or preference – going through my own pictures has given me a new found respect (as if I needed more!) for Krissy », who always uses photos; how she does it on a regular basis is going over my head at the moment – but I felt that since it was my own photography, it would be a great addition (and kind of less boring for those not in any way interested in where I’ll be in ten years).

In 10 Years… I will be a photographer that travels, and works for National Geographic and Vogue Italia, because I can multi-photograph like this (and I just like taking pictures of animals and fashion… which, according to PETA, can’t possibly happen (I STILL LOVE MY PRINTS AND FAKE FURS)). I will have attended at least three Lady Gaga concerts, photographed her once, and made enough money to print up large posters of my favourite manga(/anime) characters, because it’s kind of less creepy than printing large posters of Ewan McGregor, Gaspard Ulliel and Gerard Butler – or worse, Lady Gaga herself.

I have also stated my love for Latino and Asian dudes many times, but if it’s not apparent – I want to be partners will a Asian or Latino man-dude in the future, and have great sex with said man-dude. It’s no rush, which is kind of why I left it out initially, but like most things, my posts cannot lack of perversion. Just to make you think, “wow, when I’m having a bad day, and Tess posts, I’m like, ‘well, at least I’m not her‘, and I suddenly feel better”.

…and the whole happy thing Manda » stated, because if I don’t have happiness with all of that, I won’t really be living any of it.

(I also tag Christina » (in her corresponding LiveJournal, of course), Dee » (which should be interesting, because she’s one of the few older (than me) bloggers out of school that I actually admire), Clem » (I’ve never spoken to her personally, but I know she’ll make a funny story out of it or draw dinosaur pictures, and I like both (especially together!)) and finally Georgina ».)

While » …and the Indians Mated With the White People – the infamous entry about my Dad’s explanation on my heritage – was a hit back in the “day” when I ran on WordPress and still had all my comments, I never planned on making a second edition, or expanding that story in any way, because go read it’s amazing by itself, but as per usual with my Dad, what he told me last week just needed to be blogged, and needed to happen.

For those who aren’t familiar, and/or don’t live in North America, the KKK » stands for “Ku Klux Klan”, and was a hate activist group that specialised in spreading the following message: white people rule, and if you are not white, you die. For many, this kind of outlook was especially a home run, and the entire “organisation” itself is often the butt of a lot of jokes seen in movies, skits and TV series’, as well as read in books and heard in music¹ – as seen today in this entry. The KKK is often associated with the Baptist religion² as the KKK really only exists in the southern part of North America, and Baptism runs deep in my Grandpa’s families’. My Grandpa Rodney and that side of the family doesn’t actually practise religion like my Papa and his family do, but our family roots apparently tie to the organisation. In » the aforementioned entry, the Dad mentions our heritage as:

Me: Dad? We’re Indian right? From Grandpa Rodney?
Dad: Yes, we are. About a couple of centuries back, we were pure Indian until we mated with the white people.

I had originally thought I was 50% English, but that isn’t true. Apparently, I’m:

Me: 50% English, right?
Dad: No. You’re 25% English, 25% Indian, 25% German and 25% Irish. Rodney is half-Indian, from his father, and half-English from his Mother… you know, I’m talking the K-K-K stuff!

And yeah, I’m totally excited that I’m more Indian than I thought I was, and I’m not as horribly Irish as my hair likes to insist I am – and yes, the K-K-K stuff had me cracking the fuck up, because only my family disregards important “monuments” as jokes, and only my family snubs their past religion(s) in a manner that would make my late Grandma go into a second heart-attack – but this is coming from the same man who thought it wasn’t hypocritical to, after quitting smoking, barge towards a innocent passerby, thump the cigarette out of their mouth and say “smoking kills“³.

1. « Not that I can blame the jokes; I just made a joke.
2. « It’s actually Catholicism – or the Catholic religion – that’s tied to the K-K-K, not Baptism; nonetheless, Baptism is also the butt of most jokes, so it’s an honest misconception.
3. « He didn’t actually do that, only said he’d do it, as he’d be “a horrible ex-smoker”. Still, I am fucking THERE with a video camera when he is one.

I felt like using that title because it’s actually a song by The Blood Brothers », and you know me¹, if there’s a reference to be made, it will be had.

But I’m not here to talk about The Blood Brothers, or how awesome they are, or how I cried at the news of their break-up, but in relation to this entry » by Rachel » about a doctor who played around with his bushy eyebrows, and repeated the process a million, billion times.

So, I didn’t feel sorry for her like the commenters clearly did, and I just LOL’d SO HARD I almost had a cramp in my side. Which, if I were the superstitious type, I’d think that today’s events were Karma LOL’ing at me and biting me in the ass, as the saying goes. So along with the Dad and the sister, I had an eye doctor’s appointment this morning, and I was the last to go. I go through the whole shebang with the Halle Berry-esque nurse, and the Doctor comes into my room first. From there, the nurse decided she would have this conversation rather loudly in the hallway outside my room:

Nurse: She’s just been dilated, you don’t need to see her first.
Doctor: Oh, she is? So, the other two are dilated.
Nurse: Yes, both of them are fully dilated, I just dilated her. You need to see them.
Doctor: OK, I’ll go see them since they’re both fully dilated.

So, after feeling like a fat pregnant lady — and feeling like the Dad and sister were pregnant as well, as they were talking about them — I was then told to wait “just a moment”, a moment that I am convinced turned into an hour. During that hour, I stared down a headpiece I swear came from The Silence of the Lambs², and chastised my nurse internally at leaving a unlocked computer in the hands of hacker in the guise of a developer — but that’s neither here nor there, and for a different entry entirely.

I eventually did see my eye Doctor, where I would have convinced myself he was gay by his elegant and wide hand gestures and the way he consistently crossed his legs — except, well, my late Uncle had ravishing hand motions while being utterly³ straight and he did happen to be wearing a wedding ring. Of course, this in no way means I think my Doctor can’t be gay because he wears a wedding ring, or that I wrongly accuse others of being gay to myself — I’m just suggesting, in the future, that perhaps doctors should think about using terms such as “dilated” and the situations that surround them, as the sister and Dad got a kick out of hearing that they were pregnant, too.

(For the less than sarcastic variety, yes, they heard it from their rooms, too – and yes, we did laugh hysterically in the car on the way back.)

1. « And if you don’t, you certainly should.
2. « A headpiece he actually ended up wearing! Cue in the frantic heartbeat of trying to stuff down my laughter.
3. « I use “utterly” because most of us still think he was in the closet.

I’m standing in front of my microwave whilst writing this entry. I thought I’d start this off with something monumental, and well, I never stand while writing an entry. Slumped across my bed, hunched over my laptop at my desk, or propped up on the (too) comfortable footrest in the living room, why yes, but standing in my kitchen like I forgot where I was?

It’s the new black, guys!

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I am, not for the first time, going to talk about myself. However, this is also monumental, because I don’t just talk about myself, not in the way I’m about to. I’m taking a leap, and explaining my thoughts on several (but only one) matters. Continue reading, please.

I thought I’d write that in an standard-incorrect header tag to get your attention. And if you’re still paying attention, I’ll explain my reasoning as to annoy you.

When one gets into a fight, whether it be face-to-face or online, a mammal’s (and I’m using animals and humans in this statement) natural reaction is to lash out because they’re a) angry or worse b) in pain. For a human, we usually use the other’s persons weaknesses (or even strong suits!) against the other person. Is it right? Absolutely not, and I’ve been guilty of doing so in the past.

However.

However, I’m socially inept. I won’t go into peculiars, but that about explains it all: I have panic attacks when I’m in a crowd (in my own home or on the street, it doesn’t matter) or I’m out in public. This causes me to hole up in my house to avoid said attacks and this is not normal. This is a weakness, and it’s been used against me more times than I can count. I’ve been called abnormal, psycho and plain ole stupid because of this, and in the worst ways. Which, of course, is why I look at things differently, especially when fighting. I don’t point out others’ flaws, and I don’t use anything against them. My first natural reaction is to diffuse the bomb; if that doesn’t work, I try talking it out, and if that doesn’t work, I ignore the situation entirely.

So, the above statement that’s underlined explains why I had to underline it in the first place: I don’t fight like a normal person¹, so whenever I have an argument online, or someone disagrees with me, what would be a normal response is never used by me. I’m not deliberately cruel, so what may be a snippy reply in your eyes, can well be a LOL-worthy response in mine.

Take this situation for example: a friend of the sister and I was doing some inordinate things at their age. I was uncomfortable with it, but the one thing that made it weird for me was the fact that I did not understand them, or their decisions. Their age was a bit awkward for me, and I couldn’t relate to them on any level, so I left it in my sister’s hands. Not saying we could control this person’s actions – we couldn’t, and we didn’t! – but I felt I should take a step back from the person, because the normal bond we had was severed by our age difference².

The person took it as me being angry with them – or hating them – and stopped talking to me. Which was, in a weird way, kind of what I wanted. Lots of angst ensued, and they said some things about my person to my sister. They don’t know I know, and every time I look at them now, all I can think is, “they think all those things about me, and they used who I was against me”. I’m not angry or mad, I’m just sad, because I know they didn’t truly mean those words, that they were saying them in a moment of anger and frustration. If I had simply told the person I didn’t understand them, the entire situation could have been avoided, and we’d be better friends now more than ever. We’re not, and that’s something I’m going to live with for a long, long time.

My point of this point was: think of what was a miscommunication between us can well be a miscommunication between a friend and you. Take my lesson in your hands and roll it around for inspection. Don’t attack someone, even if it’s warranted; look at the situation from their eyes first, and then see how you feel. You never know how many relationships you can keep from something as simple as communication, trust and understanding.

As per usual, I don’t expect comments on this, but it’s out in the open, and I can say I talked about this in a healthy manner. I could never say all this with speech, so even if nobody else cares, I care. It’s important to me, and maybe somewhere in the world, somebody else feels the way I do, too.

1. « But, hey, I’m abnormal anyway, so who cares!
2. « It also has a lot to do with my sister and the person being normal teenagers, and me not having been a normal teenager. That is so much more important than people think it is.

I’ve been encountering several opinionated-run blogs over the Internet, and it’s put a slightly off taste in my mouth. I’m an opinionated person, and sometimes I need to tell myself to shut up and get lost, but I’ve never overstepped my bounds, and I’ve learnt that, for me, opinions sound better with a couple of facts behind the main frame, if not to cover my ass, to at least make myself look better.

When you complain all the time about something you don’t like, but do nothing to change it, it just gets… old, and withered, and fragile (stopping now). So, in a bid to be a bit different, I decided to compile a list of what’s been going on with me as of late¹.

1. For the past two weeks, I’ve been working furiously on Listing Admin », so much so that I cleaned the entire house (and I have a nice sized house) all in under two hours when I got frantic, and I now have a dime-sized callous on my right wrist. I feel lost, now that the main update is over, so much so I find myself daydreaming about coding + web development twice as much as I did before…I even sent myself to sleep last night with all of my dribble!
2. In a bid to be more active in a community other than web development, I started teaching myself Piano, which is pissing me off, because I can’t control it with a mouse! Despite this, I’ve managed to learn all the keys (CDE, FGAB), learn half the notes (I only have one note down), one simple song and three Kate Nash songs. Yay?
3. Raine » (yes, you are featured twice in a blog post…amazing) posted a very spot-on post about weight loss » and how we actually don’t really do it properly, and I ran into that little issue here lately; I thought I was losing a bit of weight, despite me not exercising for quite some time. I take medication for a disorder, and it’s causing me to not hold any type of food down, which I found out was the cause of my weight loss. Of course, the thing to do would be to, oh, stop taking the medication, except I’m stubborn and a little bit of a cheap-o; I’m stubborn in the sense that I refuse to back down from the challenge and a cheap-o, because I hate switching medications, and despite me not being able to eat (most of the time, not all), the medication is working great for me. Doctor’s appointment in October will address this, I hope.
4. I’ve been enjoying the Fall TV line-up (…somewhat, but that’s another post down the road), and also Fall itself! We are in the middle of our first cold front, and it’s so nice not to have to run the air conditioner on high, and to walk outside feeling comfortable. Florida does not always equal the most fabulous of weather, and I’m truly hoping this’ll bring a good Winter.

There’s a few other bits and odds, but they’re a bit private, so I’ll leave it on that lovely note, yeah?

1. « I almost went with Raine’s idea (er, meme?) of listing bad habits, but I’m a bit robotic and unreal, and I just refuse to open myself up to the that.

For some random and obscure reason, Raine » inspired me to write a post on music. Yes, music; something I rarely (if ever) talk about.

I have to remedy this situation, now don’t I?

Music. Yes, something that can be both annoying and moving at the same time. It’s this way with anything else, really (art, movies/TV, sports), but what’s different, is we can be moved by the vocals of the singers (oh, am I resisting that fanlisting!), the lyrics of the song and yes, the instruments that make the symphony. What’s even more exciting is there are genres, such as Rock, Rap and Techno (…and classic, something I enjoy, believe it or not!).

The point of this post in general is how my music tastes differ from others. It’s not just one genre I’m partial to, it’s the exact opposite: what genre am I not partial to? My » Last.fm Top 8 Artists at my Last.fm » profile is so…random. Upon looking at the artists, you have (should) realize my artists are different. There are not two artists on the eight artist list that belongs in the same category (though Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin are probably the closest)!

What do I love about music? That’s the real question, really. What draws me to the various artists » I listen to? I’ve tried narrowing it down to vocals, instruments and lyrics; I’ve tried singling out artists by looks; I’ve even tried pretending which artists I could be (yes, men, too!).

Beat. Thinking. Flashing images of memories and future times. Perhaps that sounds like something Raine » would say, but it might just be true. If truth be told once again, I’m beginning to think I’m versatile in my loves for things, and in how much I can love in the category.