On Writer's Block, and Photography.

I know that you know that everyone knows exactly how this feels. Okay, I may have added that last "know" just for the heck of it, but I guess you know what I'm trying to get across.

You're up way later than you want to be because you've got a report due in a couple of hours, and you've got a lot of backlog to deal with. It doesn't really matter whether you're a student, an author, or a plain ol' white collar worker; A failed report pretty much spells out the end of days for you.

It's not that you've got no desire to write. It's just that your brain seems to have gone to sleep for a bit. This can be particularly annoying when it just seems to go on, and on, and on.


Right now, I'm in the middle of trying to revise this story I'm working on. It's not a rehash of that old scrap paper job I did a few years ago, though I suppose there are some similarities. Not that I think anyone gives a damn, apparently.

It's not the first time that I've gotten stuck on a story before I've even written it, and I'm sure that it's not going to be the last. To the day, it's been three years since I've written anything for the heck of it. How I managed to keep track? That's something I'd really rather not mention. If you're really that curious though, there's this item called "Properties" that appears whenever you right-click an icon. In the case of text documents and the like, there's even this nifty little line of text that reads: date modified.

Honestly, I used to love writing almost as much as I did reading. Apart from the quarter-dozen entries on this blog, apart from a couple standalone shorts and the occasional poem, my pen's been dedicated to nothing more exciting than filling up answer sheets and writing up essays. Sure, my essays are supposedly good, but I don't think they're anywhere near the quality of my previous... is there another word for "work"?

... See what I mean?

I've taken to photography as of late, and while a picture may be worth a thousand words, the sort of pictures I've been taking can only be likened to a treatise on the practical uses of various soils: bland. No offense intended to those who find that sort of topic interesting, by the way.

Lacking in inspiration, I am not. Though I'm not sure whether to be saddened or elated by recent events, my social life has been eventful. At the very least, it has been relatively so. Perhaps my transition from an exclusive for boys school to a co-ed one may have something to do with that? I may still be a bit girl-shy, and act the fool for no particular reason, but I don't think that justifies certain... happenings.

By my count, there were at least four (I may have missed a few) things in the last few paragraphs that I might have written something on that would have been of interest to other people.  I wonder why I haven't started anything, then?


P.S.
Since I've little else to share, here are a few of my favorite recent shots. Naturally, these being among the best of my pictures, you can conjecture just how little talent I have in photography. Ah, well. As they say, que sera sera.

In Hindsight, Perhaps Not Such A Great Idea

When I'd decided to start up a blog, I'd never intended for the first entry to be an anime review. I don't think it would have mattered much, except that in lieu of recent happenings, I honestly had much more interesting things to write about.

Nevertheless, I suppose it doesn't matter, as people have yet to access this blog. Live and learn?

Seriously, though, I wish people'd find better use for their time than deriding others. It's honestly bad enough that humankind as a whole has to deal with resource scarcity, natural calamities and the like, without dealing with undeserved angst.

I guess that's reason enough for people to not trust teenagers?

Okay, I'm pretty sure that ranting isn't much attractive. Guess that's something I need to work on?

My old blog was entitled "Wandering Thoughts". Anyone think that that's an appropriate enough name for this one? Sadly, I can't think of anything interesting to post. Writer's block bites.

Yumekui Merry (anime): Overall Impressions

You know, I believe the fact that the anime plot diverged from that of the source manga halfway through was what killed it.

I know that a lot of people have said so, but the mere fact that I feel the need to stress this serves to prove the fact. I'd read those self-same reactions while I was still in the first quarter of the anime, which in my opinion is by far the best part of the entire series. The midway point was somewhat passable, though I'd hoped that it was merely a lull in the story that would soon be remedied by a titanically climactic ending.

I was sadly, sadly disillusioned.

Without going into too much detail, on the off chance that you still decide to watch this dredge in spite of many caveats, the ending isn't bad; that would have been the easy way out for the animators. Instead, it was mediocre, and downright lukewarm.

It was depressing, to say the absolute least, to see what could have been a beautiful gem of an anime along the lines of Angel Beats, or even Last Exile, devolve into such drivel.

What's sad is that I'd really grown to love the characters. Yumeji's stereotypical shonen-demographic personality, while undeniably clichéd, was rather comfortable, for lack of a better word. And need I mention the unbelievably endearing Merry? She is quite probably one of the most unique female protagonists I've seen in recent months, though that quality admittedly extends only to shonen anime; As a general sort of rule, they've got less character development as opposed to josei and the like.

If you've had the misfortune of beginning this anime, what with how beautiful and enticing it appears at first, then you have my sincerest condolences. I'd tried to stop watching, promising myself to cut off before the mediocrity began. As you can surmise, I'd neglected to do so. Idle curiosity was to blame, I suppose.

Nevertheless, reading the manga counterpart took a lot of the sting off of the ending; the characters are fully fleshed, and the plot is actually quite good. Ironic, how the manga counterpart is every bit as superb as the anime version is sophomoric.

P.S.

On a lighter note, I suppose it is worth mentioning that the "beach episode" that seems to be almost mandatory in most modern-day shonen animes was fairly well made. For those of you who plan to have nothing to do with the rest of the series, the aforementioned episode is the 7th one in the series.

Cheer.s