I Lied

I'm actually going to talk about something a little more serious. I like to try and be funny and make jokes, but sometimes there are things that need to be discussed with a little less humour. Not that I've been that funny so far anyway. I think maybe I'm just a bit strange and spit out something clever once in a blue moon (once I can get past lame cliches).

I suppose I should get to the point though. I really feel like there is no place for me on the internet. What is that place? The place of a 19-year-old girl attending university, with mediocre ideas, talents and perspectives. I'd like to think I could make a difference, or make someone laugh or feel better, but let's face it, only the truly great can actually get something out of the slum everyone calls the internet. Anything less than great gets ignored, ridiculed or demeaned. For example, my videos, my writing, hardly anyone gives a rat's ass about them. They are too under-advertised, not original enough (or not good enough in general) and a lot of the good ideas have already been taken. I have a couple of fans on YouTube, but I'm sure the moment they find out I'm not actually a man they'll either start hitting on me or stop watching my videos. In terms of the "hitting on", it has happened with all but a handful of "gentlemen" I meet online. In fact when one found out on a forum I used to visit, I couldn't have a conversation with him without him wanting to have "cyberdates". Oh and he talked leik dis an sed he was aktuly 19 but dat he was relly not dat brite. God that was annoying. In other words the moment I cease to be a man, my value, any respect anyone has of me disappears. I know this isn't always the case, but it sure as hell has happened to me a lot.

One of the reasons I play some of the more "hardcore" videogames is because guys are still oblivious of the fact that girls actually play them. It's getting worse, but most of the time women just settle for casual gaming like many of the games on the Wii. And I'm sorry ladies but Addictinggames.com doesn't count. I'm talking about Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Halo, Half Life etc etc etc. These games are mostly dominated by men, or thought to be dominated by men. I actually have respect for women who actually make a name for themselves in professional gaming. I look at myself, who plays a wide variety of games, but never really gets GOOD at them and I am actually jealous. When I say this is not the case with all men and women, I really mean it. There are some nice guys out there that don't give a damn about what gender you are, and there are many girls that play these video games, both for fun and competatively...it's just some of the jerks out there that make it rather intimidating. I've pretty much given up on multiplayer gaming and just play the single player campaigns for fun. I love it when friends can get together to play games and have a good time. When it gets to the point where people are playing just to be better than everyone else and show off, that's when people begin to run around wearing their dicks on their heads screaming about how awesome they are and that they are at the top of one list or another or how they reached level gazillion etc etc. And everyone KNOWS this makes you more of a man.

Oh that's a load off. Seriously, the moment that people stop acting like children online and start treating everyone properly is the day I crawl out of the shadows and start engaging fully with the interwebs. Looks like I need a new hobby, because these shadows are looking pretty comfortable right now.

Sitting in Poetry Class

Not listening and not doing the German project that was due yesterday. Only thing new about all this today is that my prof got a haircut. I'm not sure how finals are going to work out next week for this class. We're required to memorize poems to use as examples, define a bunch of literary terms we never actually learned about and talk about time periods and authors we sort of learned about. I believe the exam is three hours long...just long enough to prolong my agony and suffering that this class has inflicted on me all year long. The prof seems like a nice guy, but he is too monotone, and seriously, no matter how you look at it, a collection of random words with lines and circles all over the place do not qualify as lecture notes.

I wasn't looking forward to poetry in the first place. When I thought of poets I thought of moody teenagers and fluttery old men ranting about sappy love. After starting the class, I still thought that. Until I took learning into my own hands and started looking at poems that interested me, I didn't have any desire to read poetry. First poet that gave me some faith in the genre is Robert Browning. God he's hilarious, and very descriptive. Then there's James Wright , Gregory Corso and Wole Soyinka, all of whom I really enjoy reading. First poem I actually enjoyed was "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke.

Here's a list of the poems by these authors that improved my opinions of poetry:

"Marriage" - Gregory Corso - http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1570.html

"Telephone Conversation" - Wole Soyinka - http://www.k-state.edu/english/westmank/spring_00/SOYINKA.html

"Today I Was Happy, So I Made This Poem" - James Wright - http://notwhatyouthink.org/forum/index.php?action=printpage%3Btopic=168.0

"The Waking" - Theodore Roethke - http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/104.html

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" - Robert Browning - http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rbrowning/bl-rbrown-childe.htm

2:30am and Waiting...

For my videos to finish rendering. I realized today how much some dedicated viewers/readers/critics are to keeping my motivation high enough to continue creating. I went through some slow periods where I believed no one liked my work and that everything I made was a steaming pile of poop. This is the type of steaming poop that when others step in it they say "EW! Where on earth did this horrible thing come from! The person who left it here should be dragged out into the street and shot!" Not only that, the few people who hold my work in some sort of esteem in turn makes me confident in the things I do. In other words the things I think are terrible really aren't as bad as I thought. I just really really really really really reallyx10^really hope that this applies to my history paper...which I should be getting back within the next two weeks.

Since I mentioned my videos...I'm going to do a little bit of advertising here. My videos so far consist of some of the games I have been playing over the past six months. So far I have made videos of Dungeon Keeper 2, an older game that many people do not know of, and Half Life 2, which many people know about. Most of the Half Life 2 videos, however, will probably be disappearing...because they really are large piles of steamy feces. Really.

My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/OnyxArdesco

If you visit, I will give you an invisable cookie and....a goat. In reality you'll have my gratitude for at least looking. *insert a giant smiling face*

Look Mommy I'm a Porn Star!

Bet that got your attention. If not maybe this will: http://www.newsweek.com/id/191247?GT1=43002

I already knew society was falling into the cesspool of cocky humans who think if you cannot be beautiful then life is not worth living. Now over-pretentious parents are dressing up their children to look like porn stars and Barbie dolls to be paraded and dragged around like toys. Okay I'm being a little unfair here. Even porn stars and Barbie have some dignity. These parents are forcing everything they couldn't be onto their children. Not only that, they are teaching them that beauty is everything and that they cannot be anything else BUT beauty queens. I mean sure it's fun to be pretty and try out mommy's make up and such, but this is ridiculous. You can argue whatever point you want, but even if the child seems to love it...they don't know anything else. They are taught to be shallow and intolerant. When the ones you look to for support are telling you that you must be prettier and better than everyone else, that's all they are going to think in the future. Then people wonder why there is so much bullying and violence and discontent in schools and workplaces.

I think of my childhood and none of this was forced on me. Influences everywhere told me I had to have pretty hair, wear make up, have the right clothes etc. I experimented with make-up and such, but I chose to have an actual childhood rather than spend hundreds of dollars and hours on being something that I'm not. I think this is because my parents told me that beauty was nothing...false, a scam, something that people did indeed have, but were not required to have. This never meant I shouldn't care for myself and take care of my body. This did not mean that I should go to school or work with hair sticking up from odd places and whatnot (though I sometimes do...university does that to me sometimes...), it means that we shouldn't put so much importance on such a fake part of ourselves that we neglect to see what's really important here. I mean seriously...teens getting laser hair removal? Five-year-olds going to the spa? Elementary school children using lipstick and eyeliner? I'm sorry, but if this is what society has come to, we're in way over our heads in the bull shit heap.

I am 19 years old. I am technically still YOUNG. This is the generation following me. I feel like a crotchety old woman with nothing better to do than to complain about those darned teenagers and "kids these days". I haven't been popular. I haven't ever been the prettiest. One thing I do have is at least some threads of self-worth. I don't wear make-up as a rule, and when I do it's in moderation. I usually use some lip balm or some concealer (I get AMAZING dark circles under my eyes), and I try and take good care of my skin and hair. Naturally my hair and skin are prone to dryness, and I can't help it sometimes. I often leave the house with my hair half-dry after a shower, chewing on something like a bagel, trying not to drop half the things I'm carrying. I don't consider myself ugly, but I most certainly don't spend hours on my appearance (it's usually about 10-20 minutes in the morning at most). Does this make me a worse person than the people who spend "$300,000 on just her hair and face"? I have chosen to live my life truthfully, comfortably, not being worried about what people think of me 24/7. I'd rather spend my time reading books, making videos, playing games, having fun with friends etc. As for relationships? Well I think it's nice to have someone see me for me rather than a living, breathing, sex-toy. I'm glad I missed this whole trend by a few years (well stuff like this was around when I was little, but it never seemed nearly as bad).

That's all I really have to say for the time being. Not so funny, but I was angry enough to write about it. YAY I'M FALLING INTO THE BLOGGER NICHE! Or something...