I like men, but in a gay way.

Hey-ho, blogsie! Oy, I fail as a blogger. Shame on me! I honestly think about updating often, but I somehow never get around to it. At least I update it every once in a while. The previous post seems so old; I actually just watched a recorded episode of Project Runway. It's on episode seven or eight or something, but enough about that. School has once again commenced, and so far it's going well. My classes are interesting and meaningful, which is a huge motivator to really apply myself. In addition, I'm so far sticking with my plan to live a more balanced life. Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself, especially after the bottomless homework monster of last year. Anyway, life currently keeps me rather busy but generally content.

Bloggish life-updates aside, allow me to tell you about one of my new favorite things: a webcomic called Khaos! For those of you who read my blog (heh, who am I kidding?) or who have fallen victim to my oral ranting, you may have heard of Boy Meets Boy, a webcomic near and dear to my heart. Pretty much, BMB = love. After I finished it, I never thought I'd find a webcomic I liked nearly as much. One serendipitous day, whilst roaming the interweb, I came across Khaos Komix. I devoured all of them in a twenty-four hour time span, which in retrospect was probably not the best choice (I ought to have paced myself), but it made for a webcomic session of epic proportions. What is this Khaos you speak of, you may ask, and why is it so awesome? Khaos is basically one grand plot divided into different stories that center around a character that tells things from zir point of view. While all of the stories inevitably intertwine, each story offers new insight into previously mentioned characters and situations. It may sound as if the same story is essentially being told over and over, but all of the stories have totally different beginnings and each advances the master story in some way.

It's time for a new paragraph. Nobody likes the never ending text block. Anyway, as I was saying: Khaos. The characters are excellent! Although Tom is my favorite, I get so into all of them and love them so much. They've all got their own backgrounds and quirks and families... so much love! By now you probably get the idea that I'm a huge fan of Khaos. I ought to mention Khaos is queer, exponentially so. In fact, it's almost as queer as an Anne Rice's vampires. If this somehow upsets you, buzz off; sucks to your ass-mar for being closed-minded. Moving on... Unlike BMB, Khaos is still being made! Tab Kimpton, the lovely creator, is a pretty talented person. In addition to writing and illustrating two webcomics, Tab is a skilled maker of cosplay costumes. Yay for Tab! Before I leave the link: although there's nothing really explicit (illustration-wise) in the main comics, a touch of reader discretion may be advised. Okay, let's do this thing! Here's the link!

Also, I feel after this exceptionally lengthy ode to Khaos, I feel that BMB needs some loving. I looked back on my post urging people to check out BMB, and it's pitifully weak, especially in light of this current post. Seriously, I do it no. justice. at. all. I have a feeling that everyone, including my cat, would glare at me if I launched into a BMB-themed rant. I have volumes to say about it, and I truly love it so very much. As awesome as Khaos is, Boy Meets Boy still holds a special place in my heart. Firsts always tend to do that, yeah? Well, BMB was the first webcomic I became an avid fan of. I'll refrain from going into detail, but honestly, do give it a read. I'll leave you another shibby link, this time without a nifty button because I was having html trouble and am too tired to fix it. It is a cute button either way.

Now, seeing as this post is already horrendously long, I thought it wouldn't hurt to tag on another little bit. Perhaps this is why no one reads my blog? Yeah....

For those still with me (if you've seriously read all of this, please comment so that I can find you and genuflect madly; you rock and deserve recognition), I found a few serendipitous connections between these two webcomics.

1) In BMB, Mik and Harley's landlady's name is Tabitha, although she's frequently referred to as Tab. Tab also happens to be the creator of Khaos.

2) Tabitha's beau refers to her as Moonbeam, which is the middle name of Charlie in Khaos.

3) My favorite characters in both comics-- Cyanide in BMB and Tom in Khaos-- both live in households that speak Spanish and English. It's fun to see if I can translate the Spanish bits.

Okay, I swear I'm finished! I need to learn how to limit my rather obnoxiously long blog ranting. Ah well. Until next time! Adieu!

Back to school

Hey, I haven't blogged in a while. I figure it's best to keep it fresh with small relatively insignificant updates as opposed to waiting eons between something actually blog-worthy. Maybe it's just me.

In two words, school started. I won't go into a detailed account. I will, however, blog about my AP English teacher. She is completely amazing and I love her class. Plus, she has a poster with Oscar Wilde on it and it inspires me greatly. AP classes are good because they tend to attract the more serious and dedicated members of the student body. All the same, AP homework (combined with regular homework) devours all my time like chips or grapes or popcorn. But enough about school and the like. Actually, I will mention Obama's address to students today. I saw it (not live) in English class this afternoon. I haven't fully formed my opinion on it yet, but I think its message of trying to get more kids to really try in school is very good. There's so much apathy in schools (or at least, my school) and this was a good nudge. I get to analyze it for homework, and that should be interesting. My mom really dug it. My teacher mentioned something about the free education in this country and it got me thinking. It really is amazing, especially compared to a lot of countries. I wish more people appreciated learning and being able to go to school. I know I'm guilty of moaning about homework, but I really am very lucky. Kids should think more.

Thus concludes my little update. The weather-makers are still deciding what to do, I think. I also found Joel Stein's Twitter today. I've been looking for it since I made an account and I was fairly excited. I'm looking forward to taking a nice shower and possibly finding time to read a little if I can finish all my homework at a reasonable hour. A big if, but I can always try.

Set your heart at rest

I had a fantastic weekend ^_^

On Saturday, I went to a lovely movie theater and saw Ponyo, Hayao Miyazaki's newest film. Ponyo is about a goldfish princess who longs to become human and befriends a human boy who lives on a cliff by the sea. Like all his films, it was beautiful, enchanting, pure, and imaginative. Hayao Miyazaki is definitely one of my biggest heroes in life. His films have always had and will always continue to have a profound effect on me.

On Sunday, I went for the first time to Shakespeare Santa Cruz. It was fantastic! I've always wanted to go, and this year I was familiar with one of the plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream). The stage was in a beautiful redwood grove. Although Puck was my favorite character (in the written play and at SSC) all the actors and actresses were phenomenal. It was a truly magical performance and I hope to attend SSC in future years.

To top it all off, there was delicious vegetarian food the whole weekend. Veggie pizza, veggie sandwich, sweet potato fries, veggie lasagna, salad, bread, carrot cake... of course, I didn't eat all that at once. I spaced it out over two days. In short: living in an area with an abundance of vegetarian restaurants fills my heart and stomach with love.

All that said, I had a beautiful weekend. I hope you did, too. Now, I have a lot of work to do in preparation for the coming school year and I am going to start that as soon as I post this and brush my teeth. Still, when daydreaming of faeries and underwater cities it surely can't be that bad...

Oxidation Numbers

It's been a while since I last blogged around on here. When I created this, I meant to post frequently, but that plan of action (more or less) deteriorated. Even so, fabulous as it may be, Natalie Portman and Elmo can't be the top post forever.

What to say... well, I've been thinking (or more so, forced to think) about what I want to do with my life. Tis the season for high school counselors to start getting on your case. I realize that I will be out of here much sooner than I think, and I admit I'm rather scared. Excited, of course, too. But also terrified. I have no solid career goals, really. There are some kids who visit an aquarium as a field trip one day and say, "I want to be a marine biologist." And they indeed do become a marine biologist. Others, like my dad, wanted to be a trucker and then an astronaut, first a farmer and then a doctor, a chemist, and somewhere along the line most likely a race car driver, before settling on the final choice of an electrical engineer. My mom says she didn't know what she wanted to do until she was a sophomore in college, but I think there's more pressure on students now that back in the day. I both enjoy and excel in the area of English, and I was thinking pursuing something in journalism. I'd love to be an author, but we'll see.

After that hefty paragraph, I'm very glad to be swimming again. Swim meet tomorrow; hope for the best!

Tonight I mixed some CDs for a couple friends. They're all ready to go, for the most part... but my computer burns CDs whose volume is lower than a regular CD, thus leading to generally bleh. I'll try to look into the iTunes preferences on that so I can burn CDs at actual decent volume. It may be attributed to this computer's funky disk drive. Sometimes you fee like a nut, sometimes you don't.

Seeing I have to get up nice and early in the cold, frosty dark tomorrow, I think I'd best be off to bed. Hopefully I'll be better about updating the ol' blog, even if my reader base is virtually nil.

Buenas Noches,
kAt