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Blogging for Me in 2018

So. I have a blog, huh? Let’s take a look at what blogging for me in 2018 looks like….because so far, it doesn’t really exist.

This (not including my last cryptic post, #sorryNotSorry) is 100% the longest that I’ve gone without posting on here in a while, only because I’d made it a priority to post at least once a month. But something so seemingly simple became such a bothersome chore. That monthly post meant that I was relying heavily on my monthly recaps, which, while I was consistent with those for all of 2017, I slowly came to dislike them. I’m not one of those people who is good at documenting their life like that. Sure, I use Instagram pretty liberally, and I do track my reading and film watching habits on specialty sites. You know what, typing/thinking out loud, maybe that’s why I’m pushing back at it so much. I already do document those things so why I am going to again? I get so, so caught up in the research trap/analysis paralysis as my co-worker called it once, that how is it helping me to awkwardly explain away things that I struggle with in such a check-list-y sort of way? If anything, those struggles deserve posts of their own rather than casual throw-aways. Those bigger trips need to be their own posts and not throw-away ‘look I did something!’ sentences.

I think what I am now trying to explain away boils down to, “I don’t enjoy it anymore so I am going to stop.” But even still I feel the need to justify it. I don’t want to generate posts for the sake of it. Maybe this year I’ll do something more geared towards quarters, especially since conveniently enough we are coming to the end of Q1 of 2018.

The other side of it is accepting that this site is more of a fun sandbox for me. I’m not trying to accomplish anything with this site and blog in the way that I am with Animation Complex…not yet at least.

That’s really been the challenge though: prioritizing things.

Posting for postings sake is a disservice to everyone’s time. I just want to write more article/think piece type stuff about my life. More like journal entries when I feel like I have something worth saying, or when there is a moment or event in my life that I want to leave a little digital footprint for.

I think that also stems into what I do envision for this site in the future..which is not as much a log of my personal activities as I want it to be more topic-based. Still personal, but more editorial as well.What I’m thinking may require a totally new theme/redesign. But I’m still trying to find a balance with the different parts of myself that I share on the Interwebs. Regardless, we shall see.

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December 2017

How is January already halfway over!? Unbelievable.

My December was lovely though. Partly due to the holidays, and partly due to work-related stuff.

The holidays for me were kickstarted in the town I now live in, Stamford, CT, with a zany invent where they have members of the town rescue squad dress up as holiday characters and repel down the side of one of the massive skyscrapers downtown. Followed by fireworks. It’s bizarre and I only happened to catch it because I’d been at the library and came outside to all the streets being closed and crowds and kids with light-up toys everywhere.

Another small surprise was an aunt and cousin came to visit at work! My cousin needed to interview someone who works in a management role. It was fun showing around people in my family and really getting to explain what we do, especially since I don’t really think most people get animation.

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Things I’m Excited for in December

Movies!

So many good movies coming out! I should be getting my MoviePass any day now and I’m so excited to be let lose at the movies. Star Wars of course is a big one. My company is having screenings of Three Billboards, The Shape of Water, The Post, and The Greatest Showman soon, knocking those off the list. I’m also excited to see Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird. Unfortunately, two theaters in my area are having special screenings on the same night, so I am passing up on Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life in favor of getting to see Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers on the big screen. I also recently passed my yearly goal of seeing 100 films. There were many duplicates (which is fine) but I still definitely saw many, many more in theaters thanks to half price nights, morning matinees, and my amazing library’s stellar collection. I also still need to see the new Hey, Arnold! movie that came out (on TV and online) in November. I’m also super bummed that I missed Wonderstruck while it was in theaters.

A movie I am also particularly excited for that comes out this month is one that I worked on, Ferdinand.

Games!

I was one of those people who had been tracking Cuphead for a few years now, bought Cuphead the day it came out….and still hasn’t played it. What the hell? That can be said for a few games I’ve got in my Steam library, but Cuphead is really the big one. That and replaying Kingdom Hearts to get to the new material added in the latest bundle release. Not in a rush to play that one as much, as KH3 still doesn’t have a set release date other than “2018.”

Books!

I am so, so close to finishing my GoodReads 20 book challenge this year, but I am not quite there yet. There are a few books/graphic novels that have been on my TBR list all year that I haven’t gotten to, and there are some that are just so dense that they take me ages to get through. One I definitely want to start and finish this year is the new graphic novel The Witch Boy, by Molly Ostertag.

Places!

Actually…there aren’t very many events I am interested in this month. In fact, I tend to lay low precisely because of all the craziness the holidays brings with it. One of my best friends will be home this month, so I am hoping to see her a bunch. And I will be taking some vacation days off in between Christmas and New Years–which I usually don’t do–in order to spend more time at home.

I’d really like to dig out some of my old Christmas VHS tapes, some Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Rankin-Bass. Good shit, man.

Writing and Creating!

And by extension, editing. Lots of new things on the horizon, if I can buckle down. Put up or shut up, basically.

Planning!

Always the planner, never the executioner. That sounds morbid, and sad, but that’s something I definitely have struggled with since the beginning of time, and why I excel at a job where I plan things and am an enabler for others to deliver. With the end of the year comes the slew of year-end prompts and reflections that we’re all suckers for. Top 10 lists, reviewing resolutions and goals made, planning for the future. I’ve been trying to find a new planner (I’m one of those) that I think will best assist me with the different things that I’m working on, and to try to make things as modular during my weekdays as possible. I know that sounds super lame, but not when you’re trying to build routines and work towards bigger goals, which is definitely where I’ve struggled this year.

So I need to just reflect on everything. This blog, my animation site, goals I have, other writing I want to do, videos I want to make, events and places, more dedicated times for things, whether it’s reading or even figuring out consistent gym times (which I think I finally am). I get really good with certain things, like meal planning, for a while at least, and then then simplest thing throws it out of whack and all of that supposed-discipline goes down the shitter. I’m too old for that.

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October 2017

October started off with a bang. That seems to happen to me quite often though…going for a long time with nothing going on only to have several big ticket items practically tripping over each other. In this case, it was some of NYC’s finest offerings (for me at least).

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August 2017

This month has been one of the worst for my mental health in a while. I haven’t felt this bad since my second year at SVA when I wanted to fling myself from our 10th floor window. Things eventually..not turned around so much as just straight up changed for me, so here’s hoping that’ll be the case here again. Or maybe turn around. I’m open to any and all suggestions.

Books Read: 1 The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up is a cute addendum to Marie Konmari (yes, of KonMari fame)’s other books (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy). Where Spark Joy plus’d Magic with new, specific info, techniques and illustrations, Manga throws you into a corny yet cute scenario via comic-book form. It too provided additional diagrams for clothing folding that I used with all of my graphic t-shirts. It’s a cute book to check from a library, and if you’ve read Magic but maybe need a little more push to actually properly use the KonMari method. I still haven’t done the full shebang that she advises, just little ones (which she specifically advises against but what can ya do). I’ve in the middle of a few books right now so hopefully I will actually finish at least one soon. : P

Blog Posts Written: 5, all on this website. To be fair, one of them was a quote I post every August 1st to celebrate Digimon’s anniversary, so that wasn’t much of a post. I have soooo many in my drafts though. I had one to post on eclipse day and totally botched it. I have far too many drafts that I think all slightly overlap each other in small ways so I’m worried I will accidentally post the same sentiments like 4 times in a row. But I already do that so why do I care?

Videos/Projects: Hahahahaha no

At the Movies: It’s been a pretty slow month for movies, actually. I can’t even remember if I did go to the theater at all. I missed out on a screening of Patty Cake$ at work which I am SO bummed about, so I may have to track that down. I still haven’t watched Okja, refuse to watch the US Death Note adaptation. I watched The Defenders despite not actually watching any of the previous shows (Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist) and I enjoyed it despite some glaring flaws and frustrations (read: Iron Fist is a FUCKING BRATTY CHILD). Oh, I watched The Incredible Jessica James starring Jessica Williams. It was a cute little film. I also finally saw Colossal. It was NOT what I expected, but I definitely enjoyed it.

Oh, Dunkirk. That’s like, the one film I saw in theaters recently. It was aight. Oh wait! Valerian too! It was not aight. It was anti-aight. It had soooo much potential but was soooo painful. If you’re interested in hearing my actual thoughts about these two films and a couple more, you can listen to this 26th episode of my friend’s podcast, Action Film Autopsy.

I also saw a 35mm print screening of Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, which is as big and beautiful a mess as I remember when I first watched a very terrible quality bootleg of it a few years back.

Lowlights: Work.

Highlights: The eclipse was a thing that happened I guess? My bf said something surprising to me the night before the eclipse. We were talking about how the next one that we’d be able to ‘easily’ see is in Montreal in 2024, and he was saying how he was looking forward to the one in 2024 more than the 2017 one. He said that the unknowns in between then and now exciting him, especially since right now neither of us are where we want to be. But that future one brings hope. Maybe, he said, we’ll be in two different places for work and we’d have to meet up in Montreal. Will we be married already? The eclipse itself was frankly interesting for about 2 minutes, and then everyone at the studio headed inside. It was a fun little break, and about what you’d expect if you weren’t in the path of totality.

This month there were a few fun fan-anniversaries to celebrate. As I mentioned, August 1st is Digimon’s big holiday, and this month also marked the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book being published. Yesterday, September 1st also marked the date in the final Harry Potter book where the epilogue takes place–19 years later!

In general though it was a quiet month. You can tell when the only Instagrams I posted were a Digimon quote and this one from the farmer’s market I finally visited! Cross that one off of my previous post of a list of things I still want to do this summer.

Next Month: This September already looks and feels like a fly-over month. The bf is gone for the first chunk of it, on a trip to visit family that I elected to stay behind on. So I guess it will be nice to have a bit of quiet time? But even typing that feels stupid as I can and do get quiet or alone time whenever I want when he’s around? Like. I’d be doing the exact same thing I’m doing right now if he was here. If anything, I’d have more time since he washes the dishes!!

The next month as well as October look like they’ll have a few days each where I go into NYC, which isn’t my favorite thing in the world. But cool stuff and people are there so I have to suck it up and be a human. Bummer. It’ll probably be good for me though. I hope September is good for me.