Skyward Sword Makes Me Cry

I'm talking about Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword of course... unless there's another Skyward Sword I'm presently unaware of.

I don't know what it is exactly about the Legend of Zelda series that immediately sucks me in to its universe, but I can attempt to put it into words. Maybe it's the characters, the magical elements, the idea of adventure and exploration, or maybe the fact that there's a story behind each game. Think about it, you're not the same Link, or whatever you choose to call him (I like Linkette and Luigi) neither is the same Princess Zelda in the game.

The whole franchise tells one story that makes up the whole Legend of Zelda (hence the name) that is a couple hundred or even thousand years apart. When playing, you can even compare, or attempt to compare, maps in each game, making up theories as to why a province is in a different place or what happened to the placement of Hyrule Castle in Twilight Princess from Ocarina of Time and the placement of the Temple of Time. I think they moved the castle further north and the Temple of Time sank a bit due to earthquakes, but that's just me. Who doesn't like listening to legends of how something came to fruition. If you ask me, that's more interesting than those stupid first person shooters out there.

I never liked the Legend of Zelda series before. I've always been a Mario kind of gal earlier on in life, playing Nintendo only on special occasions with friends or my cousins in New York. My dad never let us play console games because those were "mind-numbing" in his opinion, but computer adventure games like Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, and Sierra's King's Quest were just fine. We'd often play them late at night much to my mother's chagrin. Ah, those were the days.

However, when my cousins were playing Wind Waker, I had no choice but to watch. Out loud I would say how boring it looked, but inside I was like "Give me the damn controller, you suck at this game." I don't really remember why I started looking at the Legend of Zelda as a potentially new game franchise to add to my collection of Mario and Sonic games, maybe I was bored. But I do remember it had something to do with music.

To this day, I think Legend of Zelda has the best music out of all of Nintendo's franchises. A big part of my video game music collection (don't laugh at me) is Nintendo and I'd say 95% of that is Zelda. Not to mention it makes me feel like a bad ass when I'm cleaning or drawing... which is always great!

So, when I was twenty, I bought a wii (the gamecube we had sucked) and Twilight Princess along with Wind Waker. Haven't beaten either of them yet, pretty much because I don't have that much time now to play video games, but I will in the near future. And I know I had no business buying Skyward Sword before beating either, but I figured since it was supposed to be the first in the legend, that I should start with that.

Oh, I'm glad I did. I pretty much know how it will end since it's difficult to peruse the internet without stepping into spoiler territory, but that doesn't matter to me. The best part is the gaming experience anyway. Besides, I'm going to keep playing Zelda games even after I've beaten them.

While Skyward Sword isn't the best Zelda game in my opinion -- I put Fi, the sword spirit that helps Link through his adventure, at a distant second to Navi, the annoyingly chipper fairy that also helps Link on his adventure in Ocarina of Time -- I still enjoy what I have finished of the game (I'm almost done, but I'm dreading the last battle). Not only do we get a glimpse into how everything started, but the music is beautiful and fits well with either the happy-go-lucky forest province of Faron Woods, the hot, volcanic Eldin Province home to the aptly named Eldin Volcano, or the vast deserted wasteland that is the Lanayru Desert. The Lanayru Desert is my favorite. There are stones scattered about called Timeshift stones that, when hit, transform areas of the desert into what it once was in the past. A somewhat grassy plain and a race of ancient robots (are they even a race?) which in the past are rusted beyond repair, are mining for the same stones.

The tears started right there.

I liked those robots, and just the thought that for whatever reason, they "died" out in a thousand years was sad. The tears didn't stop there though. This game was more emotional than any other Zelda game I've played and his whole adventure is brought on because he wants to save Zelda from falling to the surface... they live in the sky.

So yeah, I cried during the game. So what. I'm sure a lot of people cry at movies.

Now, I'm just trying to play each game in the order they show up on this timeline, which claims to be the official Zelda timeline. Who knew The Minish Cap is supposed to be the second in the series. That's going on my list.

And Tingle and David Jr. creep me out. His brothers are OK since they're around 10, but a 35 year old and 17+ year old should not be wearing tights... unless they're a super hero.

Esteem Issues

I'm gonna go out and say it: "I have low self-esteem." There, I said it. I don't know how it developed, because I was an outgoing plucky little kid and then... BAM... self-deprecation and insecurity beat the shit out of me.

 According to my family, I shouldn't even be overly critical of myself and self-conscious. Hell, my aunt even said that if she knew how to speak and read Spanish fluently, played piano, could draw, and  was moderately good with computers, she would be arrogant as fuck. But there's just something in me that constantly says I don't deserve such a compliment or I'll become arrogant... and I hate arrogance.

It could have been that I was a loner through high school, however I was probably somewhat of a loner (with very few friends and acquaintances) because I was shy, so it had to happen before that.  Did I mention that my parents divorced after I graduated junior high school? Thought I should add that because that seems to be one of the underlying causes of low self esteem, insecurity, sociopathic and/or psychotic tendencies... pretty much anything... seriously.

That may not be the cause. Though, it certaintly didn't help. My dad would always want us to talk about our feelings... fuck that. In retrospect, I probably should have, then I wouldn't have been as messed up as I think I am and be the life of the party. Actually, I don't think I ever want to be the life of the party, being invisible is more my taste.

No, it had to happen much earlier than that. I mean, there were videos of myself as a little diva -- in the videos, I would sit at the piano with headphones pretending to play something really heart wrenching that would bring people to their knees (you could tell by the look on my face), when really I was playing a jumble of notes in arpeggio and dissonant chords. The headphones weren't plugged in... but I never said I was smart as a kid. There was also one instance when I threw a microphone on the floor because nobody was listening to me sing (badly) opting to pay attention to my little brother. Maybe it was his birth, I know I grew a lot more violent after he came along... hmmm.

 

 "Give me back my juice box, or I'ma have to cut a bitch"

Granted, I was a little kid, and they don't know any better. Still, I have no idea exactly when and why I thought it would be a good idea to try and guard my emotions to the point of becoming paranoid nearly fifteen years later. Was it because I was laughed at when I was younger for expressing myself? I wish I would have known to just go with the flow then. They're adults, that's what they do, laugh at little kids.

I wouldn't care normally,  but it was a few days ago at work where a particularly outgoing woman was talking to one of the new customer service managers about something or other and then she left -- after we exchanged pleasantries of course. Then, the CSM looked down at her papers and said something along the lines of "I love her," or something and then proceeded to say that she (the other cashier) and I were like night and day. Me being night I suppose because I'm so quiet. I'm sure the CSM didn't mean anything by it, just making an observation, which I is great. It's just that I've been called quiet, or anti-social most of my life and, frankly, I'm tired of it.

It makes me feel like a boring person, like I have to please everybody or they think that I believe I'm better than them. That paranoia isn't something good to be living with. So, as per the information in this article on eHow, I have decided to blog about my successes, lacks thereof, and try to uplift myself in my posts. It won't be very interesting, but hey, who cares? This is for the betterment of my mental health. So wow, I actually have a goal with this blogging thang rather than just blogging for the hell of it.

Living Life As A Robot

No, I have not yet achieved true robo-dom but would like to. And when I say robo-dom, I'm not talking about the metallic machines that walk around and are pretty much a glorified wrench. That would be impossible for me to become, unless something happens to me like Cyborg from Teen Titans and I HAVE to become a human-robot hybrid to survive... and maybe we lived in the Sci-fi universe. Though I don't think we're that far off nowadays.

I'm talking about the human-like robots -- androids if you'd like -- that hide their emotions either because they have yet to somehow develop them, or truly don't have any.

Robots have always appealed to me. I think my first favorite robot ever was J-5 from Blankman (terrible movie, but amusing nonetheless.) Among my other favorites are C-3P0, R2-D2, Data from Star Trek and others that I can't think of the name right now.

Why?

Because they could pretty much do anything or make me laugh because everything is so analytical to them. A robot is a machine designed to crunch numbers and look at things logically. There is no need for emotions.

That would help in situations that scare the shit out of me.

1. In situations where I have to interact with other people (i.e. work)

• This is probably two spaces under my fear of spiders in my moderately sized list of phobias. It's not that I can't function around people. I like to think I'm the nicest person when ringing up people and make small talk when I deem fit. However, on a one on one level, like speaking to a coworker, I get a headache and my eyes tend to dart everywhere. It's not because I think they're boring and/or obnoxious, but that I want to go back to my comfort zone. 
• Robots don't have these feelings. Instead of thinking about what to say, they just rattle out the first logical response. No headaches, or anxiety issues there. They don't care what the other person thinks either because they have no feelings to hurt. And well, if they do, then who the eff cares. They can fly, are extremely knowledgeable, fix impossible things, shoot lasers from their eyes and have super strength... what's that human got?

2.  In high school

• I had about fifty or more boyfriends during those dreadful four years... in my mind, and I admit that some of them were teachers. Go ahead, laugh at how pathetic I am. I don't care... much. My friends would attest to the number of guys I was "so in love with". It was like every week they would hear about the new guy who either was nice to me, mean to me, or was so awkwardly adorable that he couldn't even speak to me.
• Robots meet a new person and don't immediately fall in what they think is love. A new person is a new person to a robot and they're treated just like anybody else. Let's say you get one of those robots who can fall in love like XJ-9 from My Life as a Teenage Robot or even Bender from Futurama (he did fall in love once or twice), they can hide it well. Well, maybe XJ-9 couldn't.

3. When facing a spider or locking yourself in a dark room

• I don't really have to explain this one. Robot's are not scared. End of story.

What should you take away from the above?

 

Robot's don't  have emotions or feelings... well the classic robot doesn't at least.

Here is this one good reason to be stoic and robotic. However, you don't want to be too robot-y or adopt the negative characteristics.

1. Hiding emotions is okay in embarrassing settings, but you don't want to hide them when, say, you actually do fall in love or your kid is having his birthday party. You don't want to look like a bore.

2. Robot's have no sense of humor... except for Bender. Generally, they don't understand that a person is trying to be funny or ask a rhetorical question.

3. They come off as arrogant know-it-alls and remember, robots treat everyone the same. Because they have no feelings, or just don't care about feelings, they assume the breathing, thinking human doesn't either.

So, that's sort of a how-to on having the emotional state of a robot. Please, don't take this with a bajillion grains of salt... it would be pretty silly of you to do so.

And now, I am going to sleep. If you can't understand this then you know it's due to my thoughts going a mile a minute and my sleep-deprived mind.

Don't Be a Hofstadter

I like "Big Bang Theory", let me start with that. Maybe it's because I love comic books or I can relate to the social awkwardness of the guys. Whatever the reason, the show is on every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday on TBS without fail in our household.

For those of you that haven't seen the show (I'm not going to question your sanity, because not everybody likes the same thing) I'll give you the brief synopsis.

So basically, there's an apartment building in Pasadena, California. In that building is apartment 4A. In THAT apartment -- dubbed Nerdvana -- live roommates Experimental Physicist Leonard Hofstadter PhD and Theoretical Physicist Sheldon Lee Cooper B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. Their friends are one  Rajesh 'Raj' Koothrapali PhD an Astrophysicist and Aerospace Engineer Howard Wolowitz. All of them work at Caltech and all are nerds as per this definition:

Nerd – intelligent, industrious, understands things

And maybe you could say they are geeks:

Geek – Interested in things that others are not interested in, know a lot about their interests, but usually do not understand underlying principle

And all of them could be dorks to some extent:

Dork – Foolish, stupid, clumsy

Then came the aspiring actress Penny (last name currently unknown) from Omaha, Nebraska who moved into 4B across the hall. She's the beautiful, popular girl that has captured Leonard's eye. She's a borderline alcoholic, calls everybody sweetie, promiscuous (I think she's slept with 31 guys according to Sheldon) and is somewhat rude.

Sheldon is particular (living off a weekly schedule) and very smart with an IQ of 187. Because of this, he comes across as condescending. However, there's this innocence about him, like how he's obsessed with Spock, his fits when his routine is disturbed, or giving Penny money when she needed it. When he knocks, it's always three knocks followed by the name of the person, done thrice -- apparently that's a word. Thanks Rose Nylund!

Howard, or Wolowitz, is "creepy" as Penny would describe him. He can find a sexual meaning in anything. His clothes are extremely amusing though, it seems his favorites are primary colors, skinny jeans, canvas shoes and the ever present dickie -- not a turtleneck. I can't hate his character though because he just looks so odd with his clothing and bowl cut and he's funny.

I don't really know much about Raj Koothrapali but I like his character. He and Wolowitz are best friends and the show hints at his homosexual tendencies. One, he likes Sandra Bullock movies and refers to her as Sandra B, he watches Sex and the City, the Good Wife -- all stereotypical girl activities -- and not to mention the occasional Howard-Raj married joke. Two, he has selective mutism, often speaking into Howard's ear. In other words, he can't speak to women without alcohol. Though he does become a bit of an asshole when drunk. He always wears ugly vests too. Just thought I'd add that.

There are other characters, the most prevalent now in the fifth series are Amy Farrah Fowler, Sheldon's girlfriend who is shockingly similar, and Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard's fiancée -- I guess now wife. I haven't seen the fifth season yet. Both have PhDs. Bernadette's the blond.

Last, but not least -- or maybe least, according the title of this blog -- is Leonard Hofstadter. I don't hate his character, but I don't like his character either. I guess between him and Penny, I'd pick Penny over Leonard... by a very small margin.

First, Leonard comes across as needy and desperate -- maybe that's the fault of his cold Psychiatrist/Neuroscientist mother, Beverly. The first time he sees Penny, he's absolutely head over heels in love with her, commenting that their children will be smart and beautiful. Okay, so he was attracted to her, and looks have something to do with attraction, but was it love?

Second, He claims he loves her but jumps at any chance he could get to have sex, and it doesn't matter if it's with Penny. Even when they were dating, it seemed the only thing they had in common was sex. Sure they occasionally hung out together... but it looked like they were just friends with benefits with the label of 'boyfriend and girlfriend'. I hate that term 'Friends with Benefits'.

Even after they broke up, he jumps into bed with some physicist that stayed with them in 4A and fell in "love".

I'd say Penny is similar, except for the fact that she doesn't have a PhD, she isn't as needy, nor does she seem to fall in love as quickly as Leonard does.

There was supposed to be a moral here, but I kind of forgot after screaming like a banshee for nearly an hour (my brother was kind of missing in another state) so I forgot my train of thought. However, whenever I'm trying to look at myself and change what I deem annoying or hindering to my success, I think of Leonard.

I'm not saying he isn't successful, that part is probably a given since he has a PhD. But I don't want to be as self-conscious, or fickle as him.

Living in constant need of approval and attention would just make you paranoid.

If you want to be a nerd and read more about what makes a geek a geek  how it differs from a dork just for the sake of knowledge, click this wonderfully bold paragraph.

Okay, so it wasn't as brief as I had hoped... so sue me. Good luck bringing that up in court.

The Little Mermaid's Graduation

No, Ariel the Little Mermaid did not graduate on May 18 of this wonderful year, but a boy -- yes boy -- of the same name left the University of Washington in St. Louis Missouri for the cold, unforgiving, vampire that is the world. Just thought I'd use that metaphor from my Language Arts class at Northwest Jr. High. For seriously.

And my little brother graduated just in four years... little shit. Always has to do one better than me.

But seriously, I'm proud of him and wish him all the best in his endeavors. Hope he bypasses the dreaded Quarter-life Crisis.

When I graduated from the University of Iowa, the class was small we had plenty of time to walk across the stage and get our diplomas. It was a nice feeling being there and knowing that I was done with school, but I was also disappointed because I was expecting one of those outside ceremonies that you see in most high school and college graduations that appear in movies; they so totally could have done that at Pentacrest but I guess they didn't want people to freeze in early December. Never even got that for my high school graduation.

So I was sort of excited that my brother's graduation took place outside. However, it was sooooo hot out and I was boiling under my hair. (I've taken to wearing it naturally in a pseudo-afro because one: it looks cute-ish, and two: all I have to do is wash, moisturize and go.) -- Which made me rethink the whole outside graduation thing. Also, I was the one who had camera duty and it was so hard to see the stage from where we were seated let alone take a picture of Ariel or any other grads sitting to our right. I did take a picture of a random grad's hat though.

They didn't even hand out diplomas so the ceremony was really them sitting and listening to important University people speak. I guess they let him know three days prior to the ceremony that a students would be walking the day before the ceremony so he walked on Thursday at 9:00am and the real ceremony -- the one that was in all of our graduation information -- was at 8:30am on Friday. ON FRIDAY. Who fucking does that during the week?

It really was beautiful though. After ceremony, we walked around campus. Seemed like Ariel had so much to do. He had to pick up his diploma -- which he missed doing and now has to wait until July 4 to get it, have us meet his friends -- which I wasn't feeling at first, but then I'm like "what the hell, it's his day" -- and... just sit around?

Anyway, of course there was the family drama that would no doubt occur when your parents are divorced. Thankfully it was slight and hadn't really ruined my bro's day... though he did comment on it. I guess we're all just extremely passive aggressive. I was worried about my mother meeting my dad's wife, but she's so nice that it wasn't a problem... thank God. I hate taking sides and all that.

Ariel decided to stay in Missouri, which is okay; it's his life. I did want to tell him that now he had no excuse to drink as much as he did, but I'm sure he already knew that.

And as for this title, he's probably going to be pissed, but tough shit. He doesn't read this blog anyway.

And on another note, I'm addicted to beer bread. I know the alcohol evaporates, but it's like it gets me drunk.

I don't drink beer because I can't stand the taste, but oddly enough, I like the taste it gives the bread. The recipe is really easy so I think I'll continue to buy beer to make it. Not only will that make me look cool, but I'll make my own homemade bread and anything homemade has got to be healthier right?

My Views...

Hey all, I'm back after so long and I gotta say it feels better. I think blogging is a nice practice for building confidence. I already feel like I'm being lifted from this funk I've been in for the past year.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

As you may or may not know, Obama has announced that he supports same-sex marriage. Bravo!

Now anybody that has the had the pleasure, or displeasure, of making my acquaintance knows that I'm not into politics, I don't enjoy speaking about religion, nor do I like to debate on pretty much any heated topic known to man i.e. abortion, gay rights, Harry Potter vs. Twilight (my answer... neither. but I digress)

However, I think I have to speak up on my views on same-sex marriage. I know writing this may not sway anybody in favor of or against same-sex marriage. I don't even know who reads this blog daily, especially since I don't have a set updating schedule, but I'm writing this for me. It's a fact that if I have something in my head, it doesn't go away until I write it... so that's what I'm doing.

I don't follow politics at all, maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing. Maybe that just points out how ignorant I am. It just doesn't interest me. So, how I heard about this was during tonight's episode of 'Conan'. When it was announced, I mentally clapped in my head and said out loud, "That's good news." to which my mother, a 50 something Christian, looked at me with unamused eyes and a raised eyebrow that I had only seen in my younger days when I "accidentally" flipped her the bird for telling me to clean my room instead of playing video games all day.

She said to me, "No, it's not a good thing... it's wrong." I tried not to cringe at her patronizing voice but just retaliated with, "Everybody should have the right to get married."

Then she said, "No, it's wrong," and turned her head back to Conan, cutting off eye contact with me. "God didn't create Adán y Pedro" or Adam and Steve as our pastor once said -- which people think is so clever but it's not. I just scoff and say, "The Bible was translated, how do you know that it wasn't mistranslated. The only way for you to know what it really said was to be present back then." Which, in retrospect, probably wasn't a good idea since she just turned to me again and said, with her serious 'mom-mode' look, "Same-sex marriage and acts are wrong according to the Bible... and YOU know that, so don't say that."

Needless to say, I backed off at that point. I really hate debating, it gives me a headache because my brain goes a mile a minute with so many ideas passing through while I stumble on my words, saying things that often times don't make sense and those debating with me give me the dreaded, "What are you saying?" or "Are you serious?" look. Not pleasant.

I couldn't even enjoy the rest of the show because I kept thinking about Christianity and homosexuality. I love my mom, and we're a lot alike, but homosexuality is one of the many things we don't agree on. Another being the evolution and creationism (in which I believe both, where, surprise surprise, she's an adamant creationist.) For four years, I was a good Christian just like her, believing in heterosexuality as being right and homosexuality being frowned upon. However, recent events, and the revelation that many Christians at our church are judgmental hypocrites who think they're better than anyone because they preach or help out in the church the most, thus are closer to God, made me think differently.

If Christianity preached to always love your neighbor, that God held an unconditional love for everyone on Earth, AND that homosexuals would go to Hell -- maybe not in those words -- then I couldn't love my neighbor who just happened to be gay and instead should throw a Bible at him and tell him he'd burn in Hell?

I was conflicted and I started hating going to church. Not only was it the longest three hours of my life and seriously cutting into my video game day, but my head hurt with it's contrasting messages.

The next few incidents all played out like the previous, where my mother and I would watch TV, someone would mention something about homosexuality or two members of the same sex would kiss on TV and my mother would say some comment contra the homosexual act and I would try and defend it in my own way. This ended the same with me just rolling my eyes and burying myself in my laptop. We wouldn't speak the rest of the day, which luckily was two or three hours until she fell asleep.

I can't figuratively bash my mother though. There was a point where I was staunchly against homosexuality, but early on in life, I was turned away from that thinking. At this point, I didn't know what I believed in, but I knew that homosexuality was something I didn't want to think of.

The last incident, or second chronologically speaking, was when I witnessed a woman practically applauding her son on showing hostility toward openly gay men who hit on him. Granted, she also said they were obnoxious, but she used that particular story to point out that her son was a raging heterosexual and -- in her words -- had no patience for gays.

Um... maybe they were just obnoxious... I'd definitely lose my patience for annoying folk too and I get how he wouldn't appreciate the attention being a heterosexual. That got me thinking though, why should homosexuals be treated any different from heterosexuals?

I'm not homosexual, but I have had homosexual friends at different points in my life and many of my favorite actors and actresses are homosexual. Everybody has been speaking about this, so why not me?
The biggest thing I'm told whenever I try to say something pro same-sex marriage is simply that it's wrong according to the Bible. Okay... fine. But as I tried to tell my mother -- and what I garnered from a documentary about the Bible on the history channel -- is that the bible isn't the complete word of God. I know that's what it is technically, but the documentary showed that Jewish and Christian leaders at the time decided what books would make it into the Bible. Unless you dig deep into the history of the Bible, you wouldn't know about Lilith, Adam's first wife.

According to the documentary, there were different versions of the creationism story. Why? Because of the different leaders adding things or taking things out. Apparently Lilith was to strong of a woman, and some leader who feared a woman with a mind, decided to edit her out.
I thought it was fascinating. What I got from it was that the Bible isn't exactly a pure representation of God's word and Jesus' teachings. Mistranslations take place, books get lost either intentionally or rather shady-like, and humans who can't deal with something conveniently change the story, kind of like a comic book. (I'm not comparing the Bible to a comic book so people who would get offended easily, know this... I'm not trying to offend anybody. Just stating my own view, hence the title.)

As for the phrase "God didn't create Adam and Steve" well, if He wanted His new creation to be the father of a new civilization, then it was an easy choice to choose a woman to create next. You don't hear that he created artificial insemination and the like. Though, provided that the first man had the reproductive organs needed to have a child then he very well could have made Adam's mate Steve.

What's to say that Eve isn't just a mutated man with breasts, no penis, a smaller frame (maybe... we only have pictures drawn hundred years after the supposed event) and a uterus? Or that Adam was a mutated WOMAN with some thing between his legs... OK now I'm just being facetious. But no, we're told that God doesn't make mistakes.

The Bible says God created man in His image, what exactly do we know about God though. What did He or She look like? How did God know the difference between man and woman if the world was just a clean slate and there was no such thing? I think everything goes back to Him and Adam and Eve... and Lilith if you want to add her.

Next time, when saying that marriage is just between a man and a woman think about the above statement. Or, for something less ridiculous sounding, think of equality and the unconditional love of Jesus or whichever deity you pray to if applicable. Know that what one feels comfortable with, whether it's a man loving a man or a woman loving a man, or something in between -- sometimes one has no choice in their preferences or whom their heart chooses to love -- it doesn't matter what others say and think. All that matters is that you're happy. More people should be like that.

Or don't think that... who am I to tell you what to think, but I darn well will tell people my opinion from now on -- hopefully not as long as this. There's a sense of freedom and euphoria in doing so.

Phew... how's that for a comeback. I really do enjoy blogging about random things. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow.