I'm judging you.

I feel like ranting.

Okay, maybe not so much ranting as...I dunno, expressing my feelings here that may or may not offend some of you, or make you feel bad. No, I'm not talking to anyone specific, but a few things lately (in personal life mostly) have made me want to slap some sense into people. And if I can't do that physically, I'll do it verbally. Or, typilly. Or whatever. ( CUT. )

Ugh, dramaqueenspeople. How I hate them (except you, Tuti, feel free to babble about 'nearly being run over' as often as you like ♥).

Valentine's Day Isn't Cuddly for Everyone

I read articles like that and I just want to tell some of these people: GET A GRIP. Who the hell CARES it's Valentine's Day? YAY CANDY! <--that's my reaction. You're single. Oh woes. Here, let me play you a song on this world's tiniest violin.

I'm single and not looking. And much as I babble insanely about the hawt Japaneseish menfolks in my life I don't plan on getting in any kind of relationship for at least another good few years. I have an education to finish, places to go and not be tied down, a job to start. Why the heck would I want a man (or woman if I swung that way) to have to report to?

Maybe that's just me, though. I'm not interested in my own lovelife in the least. So why the hell should Valentine's Day bother me? Bah...

"It is a painful holiday," says Tuccillo, whose humorous 2004 best seller counseled women in dead-end relationships. "I'm looking up the phone number of a store, and I have to be reminded that I'm single!"

*headdesk*

Because nothing, nothing, is more important than GETTING YOU LAID.

"Basically, no matter who you are, Valentine's Day will give you something to be stressed about," says 25-year-old receptionist Bennett Madison. It's kind of like the stress at Christmas, he explains, but worse: "It's got that added layer of romance. Just one more thing to make you feel inadequate."

...Well, here's me. Not being stressed about V-day. Oh wait, I'm making this entry, so I guess that's stress...

Really, intarweb, get a grip. It's a capitalist holiday dreamed up to make you spend money on candy to get you fat thus further capitalizing on the type-2 diabetes you will later develop, lining the pockets of sleazy doctors all around this great nation.

Eat your damn chocolate and shut up ♥

All right people,

ANONYMOUS TeniMyu/BuriMyu/*pnish* love-hate post.

IP-logging turned off. Post an ANONYMOUS comment if it pleases you on any aspect of fandom. Who you love, who really ticks you off, where you stand on RPS, I really don't care. Tell me some secrets. I'm just wanting to see people really let it out, because I'm sadistic that way.

And for the love of all that's good and holy, PLEASE LOG OUT. I don't wanna see anyone's username, got it? ♥

ETA: Everyone feel better now? Good. The weekend's over (stfu, in another half hour it will be), this post isn't accepting anymore comments, and I hope you all have gotten all that out of your system.

This post didn't really have any purpose than beyone letting people say what they wanted without having their usernames automatically bias people against them. There were crack comments, there were wise comments, personally--I'm pleased with the post. This weekend's been hell for the TeniMyu fandom, and I hope with the closing of this post we can all move on. It's probably a tall order, since no one was really satisfied, but at least we know where most of us stand and can work from there.

Thank you and goodnight, here's hoping we can all be mature now. All of us.

So, I realized something earlier.

Prince of Tennis changed my life.

Have I reached some new level of patheticness, or what? Really, I'm curious. People who don't know me would certainly think I'm a little far gone at this point, but it hit me this morning as I put off more studying to watch one of the TeniMyu backstages JUST CAUSE I HAD THE URGE.

Prince of Tennis changed my life, and it's kind of scary o_O

I've completely changed my post-college plans, in large part because of Prince of Tennis. If I hadn't started watching the anime a year and a half ago, I wouldn't have gotten into it. I wouldn't have immersed myself in fandom. I wouldn't have been strangely intrigued by the musicals. I wouldn't have fallen absolutely in love with the Old Cast. I wouldn't now be making plans to go MEET these actors (or some of them, at least), to be divying up my time translating and photoshopping and fangirling over them.

If I'd never seen this show, or at least not been so captivated by it, there's a good chance I wouldn't have really seriously considered JET. Sure, it would've been fun, because I'd been honing my Japanese for a good while before any TeniPuri ever graced my desktop. But it would've been too much time taken away from school, time that could be spent getting me started on my graduate career, where I'd be making my money. There just wasn't TIME for JET.

If I'd never seen this show, I wouldn't have the awesome, giving friends I have right now. Ladies, you know who you are- -I'm so grateful to know each and every one of you, to be able to fangirl with you, cheer with you, weep with sorrow with you, all of the above. Talking with you in chat, in email, on livejournal, on the phone, in snailmail even--every day is a joy to be around you all, and I know that without this show, I would likely never have met you all, or at least would not come to know you in the capacity I do today.

If I'd never seen this show...I'd probably be doing better in school, to tell the truth. Not that I'm doing bad, but I'd be less stressed, enjoy my classes more (or be more resigned to them, as the case may be). I'd have more time to devote to work, to friends offline, to furthering my education. I'd be able to devote myself to other online activities like translating instead of being the slow whore I am today ♥

If I'd never heard of Echizen Ryoma, if I'd never seen Oishi or Eiji, if I'd never known the phrase, "Yudan sezu ni ikou," where would I be today? Not writing this entry, of course, but really--where? What would I be doing? What would my walls look like? What music would be burned on my CDs? What wallpaper would adorn my desktop? What manga would be shoved in my bookcase? It's only by writing this that I can truly appreciate the depth that Prince of Tennis has come to hold in my life, and it's a little scary and strange.

This is a television show. A comic book. A musical. It's all fiction, none of it matters, really, to anyone outside of Japan. And yet I almost broke down in tears this morning seeing the Golden Pair lose their match. Granted, I was really stressed for my Genetics test that was looming, but still. It's a fricking cartoon. And I was almost in tears for being so frustrated that these fictional characters lost a fictional tennis match where they played like characters from Dragonball Z anyways and WHY do I like this show so much?! WHY?! WHY is it such a big deal to me? They're not real! They're just...just...

*sigh*

Half of me--the logical, cynical half--says this is a phase. It's a long phase, but it's a phase. It will pass when the manga is through being serialized, when the musicals stop, when all the new material is exhausted and the fandom slows to a halt. I'll look back, know it had a good run and I enjoyed it, and I'll be on my way to some newer, better fandom.

Right? If I'm in Japan a year and a half from now, will I be thinking, "Wow, some stupid cartoon brought me this far..."? Will I still drop into a dead faint at the thought of heading to the GAIN store or Panic Studio or the Dai Hall? Will I even remember Tuti or Nagayan? Or will I have, by then, long lost contact with those I consider my closest friends today, long since moved on to bigger and better fandoms and be there thnking of them?

It's a fandom, it's kind of intimidating that this has become such a huge part of my life. I'm almost frightened to think of what state I'll be in in a couple of years. I can't imagine, now, going a day without doing/watching/listening to/translating/writing SOMETHING related to this series, and yet I know that day will come. Life will take over, I'll move on.

I don't want that to happen.

But it will, so I suppose all I can do is keep my friends close, and know that we're friends because we're FRIENDS, and yeah, our interests cross, and that's great, but we've got so much more to talk about besides gay tennis players or the downfall of the dinosaurs thanks to the Tezuka Zone or any of the rest of the awesome CRACK that this show brings us.

I know there'll come a time when I really don't care about this anymore, but that's not now. Right now, I'll watch these musicals and backstages over and over and over and STILL fangirl about how Kimeru and Abe are so dating and how the Ichinens are the best thing since sliced bread and yes, Tuti, you are the man.

I love this fandom, and I don't regret for a moment how far I've been sucked into it. I say let the inevitable come, I'll be ready and waiting.

Mada mada da ne, y'all.

HOKAY.

SO.

Here's the Earth, chil--oh, umm, sorry, got offtrack there...

Spring Break is over. Weep. Back to the old ball and chain til Thursday, when I'll go home AGAIN. Yay Easter! Yay Good Friday! Yay no class!

Now, for the REAL reason you're all reading: Yet more on the GM story. Found out Saturday morning why my mom REALLY wants me to get the job (yes, another 'real reason). I nearly hit the floor in shock: She wants my brother and I to work at jobs like GM and 'Wings & Things' (yes, a fast food restaurant) as incentive to DO BETTER IN SCHOOL.

...

...Umm, now, for those of you just joining my f-list who haven't known me for over a decade like some others have, I've never had grade problems. Far from it, I'm pulling a 3.6 GPR to keep my scholarships, have never made a C in a class my whole life, and don't really intend to start now. In short, I'd have to say I make EXCELLENT grades. I REALLY hope this is just her 'worst case scenario' schtick flaring up again, as it seems to make an appearance any time she asks me how O-chem's going and my immediate response isn't 'Oh just great mom!' *sigh* she did this last semester too... But I pull through eventually, and no harm, no foul.

They're my grades, let me worry about them--and she wonders why I put off calling home after a test. Cause I don't wanna listen to more, "So, how do you think you did? Have you gotten your grades yet? Are you studying with your friends this weekend?" *hair pull* I'VE GOT IT HANDLED! It'd make me SO happy if for once they wouldn't ask me about any of this unless I initiated the convo (which would mean I made a GOOD grade), and just wait til the grades are posted at the end of the semester. Who needs to know those little ones, eh?

And it really makes me uncomfortable on another level that she's using this as...how can I put this, a threat.

Let's look at this: I'm going to college, facing another 4 years of graduate school and debt after undergrad stuff, all the while working minimum wage jobs and giving myself a lot of grief.

She wants to 'threaten' me and 'scare me into doing better' by making me take a job where I'd be earning more than 3 times what I make now...with less effort?

...Does it take a genius to realize that's not an effective strategy to get your kids to do better in school?

"Look kids! You can study your butts off for 8 years after high school, or make the same amount of money at an automobile plant, right outta high-school!"

*sigh* Thank goodness I'm not in this for the money...

So yeah, that's what's going on in THAT area now: I need to make better grades, or I'll be stuck at $18 an hour. Oh noesss!!!111~~!!

In other news, anyone have any good ideas on how to make $160 in a couple of weeks? My Asuka subscription's almost out, and this is the WORST time for it to do so, as I need distraction more than ever now. I'd even settle at the moment for a 6-month'er @ $80.

I'd hinted at it around the parents for my bday (March 22, you fools!), but I think I got distracted by my purty new system ala my uncle (and that nice little flat-screen monitor too, thanks, everyone else :P). But I'm supposed to do some scanning for some groups soon, and that kind of neccessitates HAVING this subscription :S

And how were y'all's weeks? Yes, I AM southern, got a problem? :)