Day 2: A Mysterious Blogger Appears!

Oh look, it’s technically Day 3 and I still haven’t completed Day 2 yet.

So, as I mentioned in the surprisingly well-received Day 1 of this 31 Days of October challenge, I’ve been pretty sick the past few days. It’s day five today, and I don’t feel too bad but I could be better.

I got home really late yesterday and after sitting in the car almost all day, going in and out of stores, and semi-fighting with the aggressive drivers who wanted to act like complete imbeciles out in the 90°F degree weather that later turned into violent rain storms…I was shot.

After coming back home around 7 pm I had yet another obstacle…of course…as usual…so I wouldn’t have access to my laptop until around 10 pm. Yes, if you’ve been following me on Twitter you will know that I purchased a cheap backup laptop on a back to school sale a few weeks ago after I spilled water on my main laptop and thought it was a wrap.

Luckily, it’s still been holding up. Even more luckily, the other safeguard laptop works fine. But of course, someone had to use mine, because the brand new one wasn’t working fast enough…which…I hate to say things like this because I do love this person but all I will say is that I started feeling sick waiting around and went to lay down in my bed for a bit.

I set an alarm. Around 10 pm they were finished, and I couldn’t move or sit up without a haze of dizziness and unfounded disorientation engulfing me and my beating eardrums. I don’t even know why my eardrums were beating, the TV wasn’t very loud in the background – was I thinking too loudly?

Anyway, I yelled down that I couldn’t get up and to just put it to sleep. I wrestled with myself until 11 pm before finally succumbing to the sickness and turning my phone off completely. I went to bed pissed off and frustrated, I woke up (energized), annoyed and frustrated.

So…that brings us to this lovely award! That when I was nominated, I had some sort of supersonic foresight to almost completely finish the post that very day – before the onslaught of mystery croissant illnesses and fate telling me to go shove my dreams in the gutter.

Going to bed completely unsatisfied with myself and my own work ethic…made last night one of my scariest nights yet.

The Mystery Blogger Award

What is the Mystery Blogger Award?

Created by Okoto Enigma, it is an award for “amazing bloggers with ingenious posts”.

For articles, content, and material that is original, inspirational, and motivates you to finish any lingering articles you may have in your draft folder. Your hard work has been recognized, and your passion has carried you through.

Rules:

1. Put the award logo/image on your blog
2. List the rules.
3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
4. Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well
5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself
6. You have to nominate 10 – 20 people
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog
8. Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify)
9. Share a link to your best post(s)

Thank you Chapel Orahamm for the nomination! You can find them on Twitter here, and Instagram here. They are an author and artist!

Three things about me:

1. I’m 27 years old. A few days ago my mom and I were watching something on TV (don’t remember what) and someone wasn’t taking care of their kids. My mom mentioned (not in a bad way) that she would take care of her grand kids if she had some, but that was it. I then realized that I guess I am getting older and I am at that age where my parents would start anticipating grandchildren. I even have friends in my age group who are married with kids.

It’s just trippy. I made a funfetti cake for breakfast this morning and washed it down with black coffee. I don’t see myself being anybody’s parent for a while…lol.

2. I would really like to start a garden. I have a dream of building a small raised bed out of plank wood and planting purple potatoes, purple carrots and grapes or berries. I often leave gardening videos playing while I sleep to try and soak up some knowledge so that when I wake up one day I magically might be an expert farmer.

Don’t know if it’ll work like that, but realistically next spring I’m growing some stuff and trial and error will get me through it ☺.

3. I want to build a PC one day for the experience. It would also be nice to be able to play Stardew Valley without my laptop trying to burn a hole through the table place mats after a particularly long gaming session.

Link to your best posts:

According to WordPress: Learning Japanese through Manga

According to my Mood (I’m doing a rewatch!): Introducing Honor Back to the Fandom

According to Me (my favorite): Misaeng: Incomplete Life

Five Questions from Kavordian Library:

1. What major event made you realize you wanted to share what you do on your blog?

So I touched on this a bit here and elaborated even more here.

Basically, I’ve had this lifelong love affair with Japanese culture and Japan. But the only thing – I live by absolutely nothing related to that. So, I just watched anime for years (back when Crunchyroll wasn’t legit yet and you had to go to Mysoju for kdrama. When fansubs ruled the low quality anime you watched from sites that would get taken down like a week later) and became part of fandoms on sites like Tumblr.

I started going to conventions in 2011 and slowly started getting out of my comfort zone and attending more Japanese and Asian-centric events in the city. It all culminated when I got my dream job working at a Japanese cultural center.

For the first time in years, I was so very happy every day. (For various reasons) I used to arrive earlier than scheduled and walk around town just looking at shops and exploring parts of Manhattan I hadn’t yet seen. It was truly like a dream to me. One that I never imagined could happen.

Sadly, it didn’t work out as I had planned and I had to quit – and I was left with a bunch of social knowledge and customs with no outlet to share them to. No community to talk to, or connect with concerning that experience. And thus – the birth of In Asian Spaces!

2. What is your top piece of advice for your 15 year old self and for yourself 25 years from today?

To my 15 year old self: Stop worrying about those people, they are nothing. A few years later when you’re in college they will be trying to talk to you and you will literally be dodging them for weeks until they get the message. Also don’t go out and get that plate of sushi next year – you’ll go into anaphylactic shock, have your organs shutting down as you lay in the ER on your 16^th birthday, develop asthma and a seafood allergy just because that place wasn’t right.

To my self in 25 years: ….well, I hope you finished those novels…Don’t be like George RR Martin…Also get a dog if you don’t already have one. One of the big ones you were never allowed to have. I’m sure it would be lovely

3. What is your YouTube guilty pleasure to watch?

COOKING CHANNELS! It’s so bad now haha. The Li Ziqi channel is my favorite! She is living the rural fantasy life and her videos are so high quality and informative.

I like 아내의식탁 Wife’s Cuisine’s channel a lot as well, even if I can’t eat most of the things she makes because of my allergy. Her/the channel owner’s spreads are also very elegant and I’m sure they are very classy ladies in real life.

4. What is the most pressing issue in our world today and what do you do daily to contribute to fixing it?

Echo chambers bother me a lot. As in: going online to check a forum and there is a majority of people (and paid bots) saying one thing, while the dissident is being down voted and harassed to all hell for a differing opinion. Or those who have been indoctrinated to think a certain way, and cannot fathom or essentially “compute” when others have answers and scenarios not in their programming.

Ex: Someone doesn’t want to go to college, and decides on a trade school instead. They tell a friend about it, who is thousands of dollars in debt from school and can’t find a job. The college educated friend might belittle the friend who wants to go to a trade school because the thought of another option has disrupted their life view. They reject it, the cognitive dissonance sinks in and they are convinced that they are right. Or rather, they have to be. If not…it was all for nothing.

Maybe it just comes down to censorship in general. Of thoughts, life choices, and other things on that subject matter; in the end it doesn’t matter if you have a degree or not if you can’t fathom enough critical thinking skills to see that we are all screwed either way and that your way is not the only ‘correct’ or ‘right’ way someone can live. Maybe I’m speaking on this too much…

I contribute to trying to fix the censorship and lack of critical thinking issue by (trying) to give alternate perspectives on subjects and topics that either haven’t been discussed, or have an annoying echo chamber with a thinly veiled icing of overt bias or racism.

5. Give me your favorite symbolism from a book or anime you’ve read/watched and why it has impacted you.

I actually talked about this in a Reddit thread recently on the ASOIAF sub. One of my favorite quotes from ACOK by GRRM:

Elmar gave her a scornful look. “No one cares about a serving girl’s brothers.”

It was hard not to hit him when he said that.

“I hope your princess dies,” she said, and ran off before he could grab her.

I like this line because while reading I realized Arya is talking about herself, Elmar is talking about Arya, and neither one of them know it. It was badass because it was so subtle and was up to the reader to put two and two together and decipher it themselves. Arya literally raised her own death flag and had no clue.

Blogs to nominate in no particular order (10):

Supaku Blog: Anime blogger extraordinaire.

A Rambling Reviewer: Does not actually ramble.

Shoot the Rookie: A gaming blogger!

Exploring the Epiphany: Poetry.

Tyler With An ‘O’: Some authentic creative writing. Also doing a 31 Days of October Horror Movie challenge!

Night Owl Poetry: Author and Poetess.

Jon Spencer Reviews: Anime, Board Games, and More!

Holly Armstrong’s Film Studies Blog: Lots of potential here! Reminds me of the WordPress I had to keep in college for a class. ☺

Brotha Wolf: Good takes and dissertations on tough subjects.

Howl’s Moving Library: Book blogger into a wide range of topics.

Five Questions to Nominees:

What made you start writing?

Do you have a favorite subject you wish to talk about more, but don’t for some reason?

Who or what are three of your inspirations?

Do you have any plants?

Which Pokémon (in your opinion) do you deem the most useless of any series or generation?

Congrats, Everyone! Thank you again to Chapel over at Kavordian Library!

☆ In Asian Spaces

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