Which script are we working on today?
9:46PM
Well it's been quite long enough since I've updated, and I don't really feel like doing homework right now.
To put it shortly: life.
To put it not shortly:
I got accepted to Cal-State Fullerton two weeks after applying. During the application time last month, everyone else was busy applying to prestigious and famous (okay, or at least UC) schools (writing essays, sending in giant envelopes, etc.), while I spent twenty minutes filling in my transcript online for Fullerton and Long Beach. I think it was like, $55 for each application and $9 for each SAT submission, totaling to a grand $128. I spent $128 late last month and I got accepted to the school I wanted to go to. I'm not trying to make enemies here, but I like seeing the good side of things when things are down. Yes, I'm going to Cal-State Fullerton. No, sorry, I'm not as smart as you. Yeah, I know, you're applying to Berkeley and Yale and Harvard and USC and UCLA and Brown and UC San Diego and Princeton and UC Santa Barbara and UC this and UC that. What are you going to major in? Wait, you don't know yet? How can you even be applying to schools if you don't know if it's the right one for your major? Are you just throwing darts? Are you just extremely rich? Are you going to let the university choose your major for you? Oh, I see, you'll figure something out hopefully by the end of sophomore year, huh? Yeah, I'm majoring in Japanese. Yeah, Fullerton has a Japanese program. Yeah I know, UC Davis has a cool program too, but I'm not going the center of the state. I don't have as much money as you. I'm not as cool as you. I'm not as indecisive as you. I pick where I want to go and go there. In fact, I hesitated on applying to Long Beach because I don't want to go there, but my mom refused to let me apply to one school. Well guess what. I got it. I've planned out a rough course of my life. I'm not going to waste the first two years of college taking random classes. I'm going to take as few classes unrelated to my major as possible. I'm going to graduate and take trips to Japan as a translator for a company or stay in the States and teach classes with summer trips to Japan. Yeah, really. What, do you find me interesting? Do you find me unusual? Do you find me unrealistic? mature? ambitious? lazy? a jerk? self-centered? self-conscious? (see hikikomori)
School is still school. Laugh when you're suppose to. Talk when you're not suppose to. Eat with your friends. Meet during 9 minute periods. Kiss in front of someone else's locker. Smoke outside of Vons. Text using your purse as a shield. Bullshit. Be excited. Be stupid. Be smart. Be unique. Be the same. Make the grade. Get the points. Keep serious. Keep a straight face. Wear sunglasses. Shave your head. Wear a tanktop. Wear a jacket. Wear a mini skirt. Pull up your bra. Push down your pants. Turn your hat. Slick your hair. Print up six copies. Print up no copies. Screw around. Laugh at everything. Talk about Biker Mouse from Mars. Talk about sex. Don't talk about sex. Don't talk at all.
I still work at the movie theaters. I'm getting more hours in the box office and cashier for concession than regular floor. I am becoming an expert at register, a desired skill for part-timers. Last year, I worked Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas day, New Year's eve, and New Year's Day at the movie theaters. This year I plan to do the same. Starting 2007, minimum wage increases to $7.50. It is currently $6.75. Throughout my year and a month's experience working there, I have managed to get raises to $7.50. Sad news folks, Neal Weiner (salary: $7.75/hr) says that those working under $7.50 in 2007 will get a raise to $7.50 and all other wages will remain the same. This is what we call bullshit. Please read the book entitled On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt, a philosophy professor at Princeton, for a clear definition of bullshit. In 2008, minimum wage will increase again, this time to $8.00. This has to do with inflation and growing economy I suspect, but I'm in government this semester I wouldn't know. What I do know is even though I don't pay for gas, pay for auto insurance, pay for cable, pay for DSL, pay for a house, pay for a car, pay for electricity, or pay for groceries, I do eat, so the economy would have little effect on me; but I'm taking government this semester, so I wouldn't know. [Am I being negative? (see hikikomori)]
I got hired at Barnes & Noble. My mom received her 5 years employee pin the other week. Today was my second day. I work at the registers with money, 4-9PM Mondays through Thursdays. Every week. Now begins downfall of my psyche (see reference to hikikomori in my essay: Cogito Ergo Hamlet). Barnes & Noble pays $7.50 starting wage. As this week progresses, I feel that I'll start to like B&N more and more and Century Theaters less and less (yes, 'and more' and 'and less' are necessary). Everyone is nice to me. Oh hey, you're new huh. Oh hey, you're Luanne's son huh. Welcome aboard. What's you're name again? We already have a Matt. Okay, you can be Luanne's son. Just kidding kid. Matt W. Do some store recovery over there during your downtime okay? Keep up the good work.
That's enough of life for now. I like writing my journal in monthly spurts instead of updating every day. What is Livejournal? It is a tool to share your journal with your friends. What's the point of writing something on Livejournal that you don't want people to read? Hell, I write everything, public or not, with the intent of it being read. Every one has attention whore moments. Am I beginning to write less often to become an attention whore all the time? What is a normal journal? Other people don't usually read normal journals. What's written will only be read by the writer, but it will be read period. Will you be the same person seven (nonrandom number) years later when you look back and read today's journal entry? Literally and figuratively? Let's not get into it and just say no, because I look at journal entries from four years ago and I am _not_ the same person as I was back then. Who did I like? What did I like? How did I view the world? How did I view my friends? What was important to me? What was unimportant to me? I think we have to consider these things when trying to construct a picture of the person who wrote the entry four years ago. To sum it up, back to the 'it will be read period' point, that's not only why I write Livejournal entries in monthly spurts, but also why I write everything with the intent of it being read.
The hikikomori is somewhat of a social problem arising in Japan. A hikikomori is one who suffers from social withdrawal and often seeks extreme degrees of isolation and confinement (for more than six months as per the official definition). This can be caused by psychological reasons such as overwhelming ideas of adulthood, society, and the big picture.
Welcome to the NHK!, or NHK ni youkoso! is an anime that follows a frame in Satou's life as a hikikomori. Satou never had more than one friend at a time in high school, and after he was expelled from a university, he spent the last four years shut inside his apartment, with zero communication with the outside world. His neighbor likes to blast a little girl anime theme song every morning, and the walls are so thin it's gotten to the point that Satou has memorized it. The drugs he prescribes to are beginning to have strange effects on his mind. His appliances often come to life and help him through nonexistent problems. He has come to the conclusion that he's caught up in that 1% chance of conspiracies that are true: the NHK (Japanese broadcasting system) has been mass producing otakus using little girl anime, becoming the Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai! One day Satou meets Misaki, a girl who chooses him for her project of curing hikikomori. Thus the stage is set for Satou to get his life back on track, go outside, meet people, and form relationships.
Satou-san venturing outside
One of Satou's first impressions of Misaki-chan
Meetings in the park
Satou-san and his neighbor Yamazaki try to think of a name for their company that will produce the greatest hentai game ever! Satou talks in English here. He is in charge of the script, as seen in the picture on the top of the entry.
I recently found this anime and it was really interesting watching it while trying to do my Hamlet depression essay, as lame as it turned out. In fact, the last episode of NHK ni youkoso! aired last Sunday at midnight in Japan. Overall it has developed into a great and worthwhile series, one that goes on my all time greatest favorites list.
I like slice of life stories. But that's me.
and that's it.
11:56PM