Vlogloadin'

It may take till about 3:00 a.m. to upload onto YouTube... does that mean I didn't technically get in a vlog this month?

The '000

https://xkcd.com/1849/, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

So I've been thinking, and the year 2000 was just such a specific weird time for culture and everything that I think the whole year should just be classified as its own decade, as well.

A Couple of Bollywood Numbers

India doesn't really have a music industry in the same way we conceive of it in the west; all music is basically tied to their musicals, which goes very far to explain a lot about Bollywood. Here are a couple of numbers I just can't get out of my head.

Chhoo Le Nah from Roadside Romeo, which is a real, honest-to-Bob Disney movie (Disney does have something of a Bollywood branch, and their latest, Jagga Jasoos, came out a couple of weeks ago; not only does it look amazing and heartwarming, but is currently the #1 most-trending Hindi movie on IMDb.)

I was literally just reading the YouTube comments to "Let Me be Good to You" from The Great Mouse Detective, and they were saying how Disney hasn't the guts to attempt pulling off something like that again... hoo boy.



You'll never, ever, ever be able to get it out of your head now that this is a thing that exists. You're very very welcome.

Secondly, I've told you about Om Shanti Om before; this is probably my favorite song from it. It's called Dhoom Taana.

Cabin at the Lake

Okay, so last night we spent at a cabin up in California? Because we could. It's not very often we go holidaying because we can- picking up Andrew we visited some states swinging by on out-of-the-way routes there and back, just to say we visited there. And Mom said something in the car ride about visiting Arizona while she was pregnant with me. This trip was... well, the cabin had been rented for some other thing, which fell through, and while it was rented and nobody was going to take it we took up the, being there, part.

So it did serve some purpose. Insuring the rentance was not in vain.

Wrong Creative

Guess creativity is something I'm always thinking about, and I've concluded a few things. All value judgement of a creative work boils down to alien versus familiar (I must also concede construction/ craft plays an aspect of course). 

Creative work is also being judged within cultural context.

There's no such thing as being "wrong" creative, there's only more creative, which is something that anything can always be- no matter how creative [thing] is already, it always has the capacity for more creativity.

Spider-Man III (In a Sense)

Spider-Man for the third time reveals that Vulture had indeed been at his business for eight years. It's said that Iron Man, released in 2008, takes place 2010, just a few months before Iron Man II, but what if Iron Man II, rather, takes place a few months after Iron Man I instead? Avengers takes place 2010 now, and... meh, whatever.

2008 was when I was 16. Alex's age. Just... a thought.

Miss Atomic Bomb

I've told you how good this album is, right? It's as an album supposed to be pretty hit-or-miss, but, the Killers, man.



Three music videos for (probably?) the most underrated track from it (so you took your place, but the fall from grace was the hardest part...)!










It's been five years (!!!) but they're finally coming out with a new album, releasing later this year.

The Dark "Web"

Thinking about how the Spider-Man poster thing isn't actually delving into any dark underbelly. There's hosts and hosts of the truly b- and c- grade in this world, and criticizing on the surface, hovering at the mainstream, is dealing with strict missteps rather than anything hopelessly flawed, the product of lack of knowledge-of-what-you're-doing so vast it depresses our faith in the human spirit. We like to hover at this level (the mainstream I mean); it's really very comforting. But there is, like, this whole internet place, metaphorically, our engines don't even delve to...

A Couple Spider-Tidbits

There's a lot I don't want to say about Spider-Man: Homecoming yet because my brothers still haven't seen it. Tom Holland is the greatest. Everything about his Spider-Man is the greatest. Don't want to belittle the awesome efforts of Maguire or Garfield, but Holland, Halland is the President Workman.

Maybe the "8 years later" is actually a flash-forward to 4 years after the end of the movie, showing that Toomes is back to his operation and that "business is good." Because business didn't look good during the plot itself, what with them having to sell to Donald Glover to move merch.

The Blame for the Saccharides

I'm not sure but I don't think the family is doing the sugar challenge right now anymore and it's probably basically all my fault, or my sugaring during finals is/was contributory. Ryan still seems to be participating. But man is there really this much sugar in a normal person's everyday? It's a lot.

Anyway it kills me how Bagi survived her own death at the end, there's just no way, "monster of mighty nature" or no...

Short Sentences About School Stopping for Summer

Finished off the, everything, or if not everything something very close to it. Enough to be considered done with the semester. Even if there were a choice in the matter, which temporality does not present. So yeah that's done. Hope I did well.

Home for the first few weeks of the summer, now. Home.

There's Netflix. I've already completed the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Maybe I'll get time sometime for Stranger Things. Buddy Thunderstruck also looks PDG, if you've heard of that? There's a rabbit hole here obviously, but circling the drain is better than being flushed down it, and isn't as tough as it sounds.

I'm just now finishing up with school, and funny thing I've already been seeing Back to School advertisements in places, shopping-type venues. Maybe haha funny. Whichever.

What to do with the summer? Well, I'm here with my family, and that's enough for now. After that... we'll see. Hopefully some epic thing.

Reginaphobia?

Don't know what to talk about so I'll talk about this.

But it's actually good stuff I promise.

Figured out how to not freak out during finals, by sort of ignoring that there was a deadline but that I still had something that, hey, I should get on. So instead of going nuts on it and doing nothing but projects, I interspersed doing projects with watching internet videos and reading the latest Dan Wells novel (Ones and Zeros, it's called; the latest in his new YA series Mirador, which I absolutely LOVE.) 

And I didn't die. So there's something to be said for the strategy.

But the YouTube I watched was mostly songs from animated Disney films. And I guess, smoothest segue in the world (only the very smoothest even invoke the fact that you're making a segue), that WHAT THE HECK EVEN IS THE RENAISSANCE AGE OF ANIMATION. The first movie in the Disney Renaissance age is the Little Mermaid, of all things. What's up with that? Oliver and Company comes right before, and... and it's a much better movie, just judging off of my memory of it and the songs whose videos I can't even now stop watching. Little Mermaid is... meh. And that's how I feel about most of Disney's animated films from the Renaissance. 

Princesses, I guess. I'm analyzing how strongly I feel about each film of the Disney animated oeuvre of that era, and: the perceived quality of the film, though ostensibly having nothing to do with princess content, is inversely proportional to how much princess there is in any film. Movies starring princesses I dislike the most; movies featuring princesses but focusing on the male leads I find meh; movies that have non-princess female love interests I enjoy the most. I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence, though it'd be a pretty spooky one if it were. (Megara and Nala may be technical royalty but they're not within the Disney Princess canon; they rock, but do they do so coincidentally? I think so, but I'm not disinterested enough to say for sure my own motivations.)

Going backwards outside the 90s, as well, the pattern seems to hold up: can't remember Black Cauldron, whatever, but- Robin Hood, love that film natch, but Maid Marian also not within the Princess canon. 

From Tuesday to Wednesday

Why, WHY did I not accomplish a single thing yesterday? I mean, I think I remember I posted about, I did do some thing, that's right I remember it now, the one thing I did all day. That was productive instead of either neutral or active regression. Today was grueling, and it's still not over yet, though maybe it would be if I hadn't spent Tuesday doing SERIOUSLY I CAN'T REMEMBER.

Wait- yeah I can. The first halfish at least. There is much haze there, moreso of than answers.

Didn't get as much as I'd thought I would, done today- I thought that I'd be finished with everything by now, but nope guess not. Luckily this day after the end of the semester wasn't the actual final day where things are finally due; there's still till Friday at 11:59 pm when-- yes pm okay good- when the final PDF is due, all the process books of the semester combined into one massive file. I'd totally be good for that, if the productivity of tomorrow weren't in question. As it is, I am only probably good for that.

It's the Semi-Final Countdown

I'd been going to say something about being that day gnawed on by a dog and then watching the emergency service vehicles turn around the corner and stop and sit, watching the streetlight come on as the police peeled away leaving only the ambulance in limbo; maybe something about giving a talk in church Sunday making it up mostly on the fly, but with a little preparation, and being told by someone I'd make a good writer. Not sure which anymore; probably the latter, so that I could report on the later-occurring event later. I probably would have gone into some detail about either subject. I'm tired.

I think the semester's officially over, but that doesn't stop me from still having things due Wednesday... I hope. Today I generally spent generally "out of it;" tomorrow needs to be busy. I'm actually well into having the final project done (I mean it's not like I accomplished nothing today); I estimate maybe 5 or 6 more hours tops. It's the multitudinous other things that also need to be done tomorrow that mean that I need to work, perhaps not "hard" but "much." If we weren't leaving the day after, that wouldn't necessarily be the case, but before then I've got errands plentiful. 

You Can't Break Me Down?

Some of the time my posts are just short because there's too much to say so I have no choice but to retreat back to the basics (and especially when I've got too much to say, and I'm busy.) Other times genuinely nothing's happened that day, of course not the case lately.

Sometimes I mean to write much, but am prevented from doing so by the computer crashing on me the way it always does when I watch the music video for The Killers' The Man, for some reason...

Other Things for Other Blogs; You Know Who You Are

The semester technically ends Tuesday but stuff in Interaction Design is due Mondays and Wednesdays with this week being no exception... so I'm not sure if my stuff needs to be in by Monday at midnight or actually Wednesday at midnight.

Anyway THINGS:

• StoryForge is a non-game with Hero's Journey elements, like cards representing, among other things, actual specific Hero's Journey plot points. Found out about it here: torforgeblog.com/2017/07/10/5-gaming-tools-to-help-your-writing/ Of the 6 games mentioned, I've played or seen played all but that and 99 Chances, neither of which I'd heard of until that article. Not a game though, so!
• Half Alive are pretty darn good, but too 'millenial' for my taste (and no I can't define that either.)
• The primary scariness against Lion Kinging every day would be, it'd take so long, with 90% of that being who's going to edit that together? I don't mind watching movies every day, 'course, but if I were going to do (I'm thinking vlog format for it now) I'd have to like hire someone willing to edit together a video once a day for a year, 'cause, I ain't doing that.

Nostalgia for the Weirder Days

The internet speed right now is very good, not in that it's fast but in that it's so excruciatingly slow it's giving me fond memories of the 1990s.

That is all.

Two Finals(?) Down

All I've eaten all day is: like some scrapings of what was once a taco probably, several handfuls of Shredded Wheat: Wheat and Bran, and a doughnut. It continues to be nobody's burthday, but it also continues to be finals.

Spent all day more or less finishing up my "Mentalities" final project for Information Design. It's over. It's all over. (Though actually at press time I've yet to upload the final images after receiving feedback on them. They are in my process book though so the teacher does have them- just not organized in any coherent way is all, the individual graphics minus the copy. The copy I will also be uploading.)

https://pretzelizemecapn.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/mentalities/

Meanwhile I also had my final portfolio review for figure drawing. As an illustration major, my work would have been about a C; as a graphic design major, which I still am so he's going lenient on me, he gave me a B-. Or B+. Whichever. Can't recall. The advice given is more important than the grade itself.

He did tell me that I have promise. And that it's the best illustrators, the toppity notch ones, whose work is grounded by not just illustration skill but design skill. He could tell that I was searching for form and not just shape, like a lot of graphic designers do, focusing just on the 2D layout. I had the design pretty well, but what I lacked was application- personal application that is. He could tell that I never sat down with a, "okay, we're going to be really working on figuring out specifically how to do core shadow well." It's true, and it's typical of me. Application. Gotta learn to buckle down on, like, anything.

So yeah now all's left is the interaction design stuff. Nice. Due Monday midnight... but there's a lot to do.

Final(s) Hours Remaining

It's like a week ago, counting down the hours until Homecoming, only now I'm counting down the hours until my last finals are due.

Seven and a half hours until the final portfolio review for figure drawing. I've got which drawings I want in the portfolio figured out, but the lab computers refusing to load, the way they do, I couldn't print out any of the reference photos tonight. Which are optional to have, as part of the portfolio, but still important. Maybe I'll get that done in the morning.

23 hours until the Info Design final is due. I'm estimating 12 hours' worth of work there, to get everything finished and spitpolished: 3 hours to block out the basics, the rest to fill in the details. Might take less time; hope it doesn't take more.

After that it's just the interaction design stuff I'm catching up on and chipping away at. 71.5 hours to complete that, with an estimated completion time of three question marks.

LIME TIME (Look, I aM Extremely Tired, I Mean anyway that's the best post title I can come up with on such short noticE.)

I had four slices of lime meringue pie today, even though I already used my sugar day this week. It was art night, the final one of the semester. It was the only thing they had to eat there this time... It's finals? Which was my excuse last time, stress eating or whatever, but that time I was exonerated by the fact that it was also technically Ryan's birthday the whole time which we had forgotten about. Maybe this one was for Andrew's birthday??

I got a third Jean Grey (Phoenix) cover in MPQ today. The system wigged out when I tried to level her up using my well-saved ISO-8... froze up the first couple of times, when I tried to do it all at once, and then the third time trying to do it level by level, it ate the 2,000 ISO-8 but didn't level her up any. So I had to complete another level even though I'd totally been able to afford leveling the whole thing up.

But now she's level 300. It worked the, fifth time or whatever that was.

Meanwhile in homework stuff, I sent in my last assignment for New Testament class. Guess I'm... done? Man that was anticlimactic. Probably going to spend the hour tomorrow that isn't class, doing, important, other class, stuff. Yeah.

Finals Week Progress Woo

I found the thumbnails for the screens of the app project I'm working on in interaction design, and can proceed at last with this final project. Other classes, sure let's make a bullet list:

• New Testament: There's one last assignment, but no more classes. Assignments take about an hour, depending how invested I am in the readings.
• Information Design: Friday at 11:30 pm is when everything is due. There's class tomorrow I think, but it'd just be a workday. Great opportunity to keep chugging along on creating the final processbook and/or refining designs after receiving feedback from the R&CW Conference.
• Monotype/Monoprint: Final portfolios due Thursday. I've got fresh improved prints of most of the processes we're supposed to have. Maybe all of them. I'll have to double-check.
• Figure Drawing- there's a 15-minute long final portfolio review which I've got scheduled for Friday morning. There is class tomorrow, but just to keep working on things we've already started, from reference photographs. No live models tomorrow I shouldn't think.
• Interaction Design. Everything due Monday evening. I'm a couple of weeks behind on the current app project, and there's still one or two things I need to do in the previous website design assignment just to cinch that done.

I had some cookie dough yesterday afternoon, and apparently the sugar grace period is for 24 hours and not a calendar day and so I also had one doughnut in monotype/monoprint class. The cookie dough was okay I guess but the doughnut was delightful, plain glazed though it may have been. With these sweet consumptions I am prevented myself from wanting to go to the cinemas this week, which means that I can spend time doing finals stuff as would be best for me.

Anxiousness

Always trying to find some cause or blame for my growing anxiety, which itself is the cause/blame of my slipping grades. Grades going down leading to anxiety, sure I guess I can see that snowballing off of itself, and progress in school leading to more difficult coursework leading to higher stress, that might also account for some. But it never felt like that. It felt like a lifestyle thing, unrelated to school. Using a pressure valve allows/creates excuse for continued use of that valve, leading to greater and greater procrastination, perhaps? But the procrastination doesn't cause my anxiety.

Looking back in the revision history of a Google Doc of a stageplay I'm working on (Google Docs saves all changes you make, and allows you to look back through all revisions and even restore them) I can find mention of a character's "panic attacks" going back to first being written in on February 10th 2016, during my first semester here, quite a ways back. (The character is based on me, of course, or at least the version of me present in the original dream that inspired the premise of the play.) So they've been with me for at least that long, the anxiety attacks, but haven't/hadn't been that big a problem, judging by my 3.75ish GPA back then...

You still have the panic attacks? one character asks, and on a revision dated 3 March, I write in a reply, (which had been the intended one from the beginning if memory serves me correctly, but not put in until 22 days later for whatever reason): They come and go. And only when I'm paying attention. 

This response is nonfiction. That's how my anxiety attacks worked for me. If I paid attention, I'd be able to get anxious, and kick into fight-or-flight. If I zoned out, it couldn't/didn't happen. It was all fairly mild stuff, and it went away for a bit after that; I'm not sure when it came back. Or why. Or hadn't at least, but maybe that's still true...

I was reading an interview between Tony Attwood and Temple Grandin yesterday, and something that Temple says stops me cold:

Another really bad thing, especially in the high-functioning end of the spectrum, is that as the people get older, they get more and more anxious. Even if they take Prozac or something else, they're so anxious, they have a hard time functioning.

So maybe there isn't an environmental cause after all. Nothing Freudian, it's seriously just part of my brain chemistry for whatever reason. I'm not sure if there's any research out there on the cause of this increased anxiety, but I don't think it really matters either. The important thing is this: it's not in my mind, it's in my brain, and it wouldn't be inappropriate at all to seek medical attention for the issue.

Though of course if the anxiety really does get worse and worse and worse like Grandin's suggesting...

Audience Reaction Thing That I'd Meant to Have Earlier Somewhere

There was cheering in the theater, when the Marvel Studios logo began playing. Sony logos, Columbia, we're used to seeing that at the beginning of Spider-Man films, but after the opening scene of villain introduction... the familiar comic-book page flipping started, and people just lost it. 

And, instead of the normal epic fanfare theme, Michael Giacchino orchestrations, of the original 1960s Spider-Man theme...!

Contact with the Enemy

Even having a plan for what to do to get my schoolwork done, I was paralyzed for a bit there, so maybe it wasn't as simple as just having a checklist, like I suggested yesterday. Giving myself plenty of space to work, meaning cutting down exactly how many accomplishments I expected of myself, allowed me to work smoothly and panic-free. I'm done with I think half of the prints I need done for my final portfolio on Thursday.

Finals: Attack Pattern

Um so okay like there's one week left in the semester basically and so I don't know I guess I'm not going to panic because at least I have my work cut out for me, but, for sure I've got my work cut out for me. I should have spent today doing homework or something, but the opposite of homework, whatever that is, happened instead. And nothing but. I mean I did spend a little bit of time writing down most of the stuff that I need to have done so that's good, but even then I don't think I caught all of it. 

• I'm basically done in Information Design since the R&CW thing yesterday, though there is the final module to assemble however that's going to be; whatever, we can put that out of mind for now
• Interaction Design I'm a couple of modules behind in, though the professor is very understanding and the important thing is that I get those in at all- and the deadline for this is the furthest away, it being an online class and thus extending all the way until the technical end of the semester- so, keep that on the backburner, important to catch up but not as much a priority to complete as:
• Monotype/Monoprint, I have a list of all the different print techniques that are supposed to be exhibited in my portfolio, and tbh I can't even remember what some of them mean; I'd been putting getting any solid work done in that class off until after the R&CW stuff was finished, but now that's over, and oops I've only got till Thursday to do all of those.
• Figure Drawing there's a portfolio we're supposed to have there as well, which is just of work we've already completed over the semester at least, so technically all that work's already done... but I'm not sure what the portfolio's even supposed to be comprised of (I think I wrote it down somewhere...?)
• New Testament class, I've got no idea if there is a final or anything; I haven't attended that class all week, between INDEPENDENCE DAY and hammering out the last of the R&CW designs. Is there a paper or something we need to write? Some final project we should be doing? Looking through upcoming assignments due, it just looks like a participation self-assessment, so, no...?

See? Having everything down in a list automatically suggests the best plan of attack and everything; instead of getting ATTACKED BY ANTS (though like I said this to-do list is basically the only thing I got done today) I can get in there and get things done. There are workarounds, but medication can also work in conjunction with lifestyle, so maybe it's still an option... an option I haven't had time to explore yet; it's finals week and I didn't even realize it till just a few minutes ago when I started this post...

Maybe Soda and Popcorn Next Week?

Well I and everyone else in the audience loved it and thought it was hilarious- I mean, it's a way funny movie, which isn't really something you see that much of in the trailers now that I've seen them- but right now I'm at the kind of exact weird distance from it where the whole ordeal seems terribly trippy. Is it something about Marvel movies lately, that they're like that? Because Guardians vol 2 was wicked trippy. I'm not presently sure if Homecoming is like that, or if it's just my feelings about it right now. 

I'm also not sure when the next time is that I want to catch it- maybe if tickets were free and I weren't swamped with the homework I couldn't do due to other homework being more important, I'd catch it tomorrow. Maybe I would have caught it again this evening if it had turned out I'd actually packed any payment methods on me. I don't know.

Yeah so my payment not being on me, speaking of that, I mean I'd already purchased my ticket so that was fine, but I wasn't able to buy concessions like I'd planned on doing- and so my sugar day, although it was fine and there were a lot of sugars I could eat today like seriously there were doughnuts brought in to monotype/monoprint, and I had cookies left over from the awards ceremony's refreshments last night, and man there's just a lot going on lately that I haven't been able to tell you, due to the Spider-Man buildup.

Like how much homework I've been having, which I mentioned. The final for Information Design is basically to have this project in the R&CW Conference, research and creative works... which was from 4:30-6:30 today, ending just in time for me to clean up my presentation afterwards and rush to the cinema. That's over, obviously, and I had time afterwards to watch a movie obviously and not have to worry about impending deadlines or homework for a while, but see, there was this whole thing and I'm only now telling you about it.

I Spin My Wheels Wildly Speculating About Spider-Man, and Have a Blast Doing So

Deadpool's Daily keeps me coming back every morning to play Marvel Puzzle Quest. I completed the gauntlet this morning, but double-checking today it turns out there's an update available, the unskippable kind (sometimes it allows you to put off updating your MPQ version until your next login, but not this time.) Doubtless it's Spider-Man: Homecoming related, so I didn't tap the link to the app store- but come (26 hours as I write this, 19 hours from the time this post goes up) it won't matter anymore. I'll be able to get my Deadpool's Daily in tomorrow, just before going to sleep instead of after waking up.

By next post, I'll have seen Spider-Man! Exciting!

People have probably speculated on plot details and stuff, before the trailers and everything started coming out, but then the trailers came out and probably a lot of the questions went away. Me, I've never seen a trailer (for this movie,) so I've still got lots of questions. And a lot of speculation.

It's in New York. What else is in New York? Squirrel Girl. Iron Man's in this movie; Squirrel Girl was introduced in an Iron Man comic. Fighting Doctor Doom. Could Doom be the bad guy here? Or is Fox actually holding onto the possibility that they'll be able to do anything interesting with the FF and related properties? Why haven't any of them fought any Skrulls yet? IDK.

(The movie rights to Skrulls are owned by both Fox and Marvel Studios. In the MCU, Skrulls go by their Ultimates name, the Chitauri. In the Fantastic Four films... I don't know, there may have been a vague allusion to them at one point? Come on, guys, just go with that!)

Probably not, anyway.

What else else is in New York? The Defenders. The actors' contracts specify that they're required to appear in any films if called on. Expecting at least a cameo/allusion to them, if nothing else. It's high time that the TV shows get mentioned in the films more. At least a little bit. Please?

What else else else is in New York? Last time Hulk was in New York, he broke Harlem. We saw the Leader's origin as a potential sequel hook, but nothing came of it... so far. Spider-Man facing down a Hulk villain? Probably not, either.

I maintain how awesome it would be if it were Kraven.

Um what else what else what else.

There was a Spider-Man reference in Ant-Man. In Civil War, Spider-Man's origin was IIRC stated to be "a few months ago," whatever that means. When does Homecoming take place? During the school year, presumably, so it's not going to be a 1:1 "present day" scenario, it being a summer release. Maybe it takes place later on this year, but I think most likely it's going to begin sometime not long after Civil War. Guardians vol 2 takes place just a few months after the first film after all. (Although it would be cool to begin in medias res with Spider-Man and Iron Man as a team, and having been that way for a while.)

I said I think it's going to begin right after Civil War... not take place right after Civil War. Because how gnarly would it be for this movie to take place over the entire school year? Way gnarly.

Whatever, I'm fatigued. It's Christmas been coming for 13 months now, and I'm pooping out 19 hours before it finally arrives. Figures.

Obligatory, and Not Much Else

We've gotten to the point where I can count down the hours instead of days. And I am. Fewer than 48, now, at least. Originally I was going to do this post on something not-Spider-Man, but I've been doing this school project too much to write up something as big as what I had in mind. So...

(really the reason I want to do this post on Spider-Man is because I'm going back currently and crunching my hype buildup for this movie before it comes out versus the same for Zootopia, and I feel that Spider-Man could use another heavy hitter in the corner. but nothing comes to mind that's more appropriate here than it is for tomorrow's post, so I don't know I'm kind of at a loss.)

Homecoming: Tickets and Showtimes

Finally got my paws on a Spider-Man: Homecoming ticket! Usually Thursday previews there's only one showing, 7:30, but for this one I was offered three showtimes! Which means that there's a lot of interest in the film already; I'm glad I got my ticket ASAP, because even with the expanded view offerings the precious seat space is being gobbled up quick. Looking at the seat selection, the screen of seats that had been taken or were still available, so that I could select my own seat, like it was nuts it's just Monday and the tickets have only been available for a handful of hours but like a third to a full half of the seats were already reserved.

!, right?

I said there were three showtimes, and I of course went for the earliest possible one, but maybe the showtimes themselves are a spoiler, because they were 7:00, something like 8:30, and 9:00- two screens, at least, for sure; but if the third screen is indeed the same as the first screen, that means that the movie's 2 hours long or less. It doesn't tell you anything about the plot, of course, but it would give you an idea about how long would be left in the movie, at any given part...

It's so tempting to just give in right now and look stuff up, but I've made it this far...

Med???

People procrastinate all the time. Especially art students. But for me, I guess I've been feeling lately that it goes beyond that. Even when I want to start, and have no reason not to, with all my materials assembled and in a conductive environment with minimal distractions, I just can't. Because, thinking about the task ahead of me, I freeze up.

I get anxiety even thinking about projects, so I procrastinate (which makes it worse for me when it comes time to do them because the time's just that much further along and there's still the exact same amount of work left to do.) I say I "get anxiety," but let me try to make it clearer for you: even just thinking of what needs to be done, rather than figuring out a way to get on it in a conducive manner, my brain instead goes into fight/flight mode so hardcore that I can't function. Years of conditioning myself have made it so there's no exterior sign of my inward panic, but it's a cussin' party goin' on in there (though very seldom, a party of cussing.)

So I think I may need drugs. 

It was tough to admit that, which I did, to myself and others, last night in the computer lab trying to do homework but panicking instead; calmly explaining my issues out loud and hoping someone would be listening, which nobody did of course, because no one ever listens.

Only, there was someone listening this time after all. She, in response to my having no idea where to even begin in finding the proper medication or even the proper psychiatrist to find me the proper medication, directed me to the counseling center which this school apparently has, and yeah I knew that that exists I guess. But she said that the counseling center has a website that I can access?, and I can't find that from the university main page navigation.

I suppose I could just use the search bar...

Alright, found it. I really make things a lot harder for myself sometimes... more pride than laziness...

Our family doing the no-sugar challenge, with a grace period of 24 hours once a week, last week there was some frozen cookie dough in the freezer which I swept upon at the stroke of midnight Sunday. This week I'm having pop and popcorn with my Spider-Man on Thursday, and though the pop shall be diet I still consider it to be in the spirit of sweets; I refrain from eating sugar elsewhere in the week during weeks where I order popcorn and soda to go with my cinema ticket. 

It's the start of this new week, and boy were there a lot of temptations last week; like the BFA showcase had its open house and verily the only thing they were serving besides water was cookies... I was the only one who showed up to Art Night on Wednesday, and there were these wafery cookies there; I've still got them in the fridge because I had to take some, even if I can't eat any...

White Blazer Mystery

Shopping today, finally got those groceries. I managed to successfully avoid all Spider-Man: Homecoming tie-ins. The cereal aisle has some Despicable Me 3 cereal or whatever, and that's really the only tie-in stuff I can remember.

Marvel Puzzle Quest updated to a new version like a week ago, the way it does periodically. I made sure to run the app store by Ryan, who knows my plight, and he responded that it was the Guardians of the Galaxy on the app icon- so it was cool to update; there was no aesthetic switch from the previous theme (I mean, if there were that, and it were Spider-Man themed now, there might have been spoilers!, so I made sure to have Ryan be the one to look at the app store screen.) It doesn't look like they're switching to a Spider-Man theme just yet, which is good, but there is a new event coming up in 5 days- the event logo appears to be Homecoming themed, it's Spider-Man's eyes, a line drawing thereof in the style of the Spider-Signal in the Spider-Man: Homecoming logo, possibly taken from the logo itself. Reflected in the drawing's eyes are... figures; I didn't look closely because potential spoilers, so I don't know WHOSE figures.

It's July finally! Not long now, not long at all... especially now that I no longer have to go shopping and expose myself to any more Product, between now and Thursday evening.

I know what happened to my cell phone, which I had apparently misplaced again- but not like that, see I knew exactly where it was the whole time. It was in the pocket of my white blazer! And it was my blazer I'd misplaced. And, it's a funny thing, because, it never look misplaced? It'll make sense once I explain what happened:

With the cell phone in the blazer's pocket, I could easily look up the location, and find both the phone and the blazer, (including everything else in the blazer's pockets, like my keys and thumb drive and the piece of paper that has the info about the awards ceremony for the art competition I've entered into and everything.) Pinging the phone, I find it to be somewhere in the apartment. Ringing the phone... no sound. And it's not on silent, and it's still on, and it's got plenty of battery life.

There is a radius of error margin, on the approximate GPS location of the phone, so I check all three neighboring apartments just to be sure. It's not there. And pinging the phone again, there's a tight enough margin of error this time to be pretty sure, it's at the approximate location of, not just the apartment complex or the apartment, but specifically in my bedroom there. I check the closets and the pile of clean clothes and underneath the stack of printing papers. Nothing.

We live above the laundry room, which I've previously checked. Though it's hard to hear a ringing phone in there, when the machines are going at least, it's not impossible. Searching my room in vain, praying for guidance, it clicks.

Behind the laundry room is a storage room- a room directly underneath the bedroom. Ringing the phone, with the machines all paused and my ear pressed against the storage room door, I hear the ring. The door's locked, but I know where my stuff is, and I know what happened:

The lounge has tightened its rules on leaving things lying about, and now takes things away after they've been there a period of 24 hours. I'm the one probably most affected by this move; in fact I'm pretty sure it's aimed at me. I tend to leave my stuff in the lounge. I believe I've mentioned this before, but I'm looking back through everywhere I've mentioned using the lounge, and I don't explicitly state it from what I can see, but yes: I tend to leave my stuff in the lounge.

Coming home late Thursday night, after leaving late from the Spori basement after compiling the latest vlog, I went into the lounge to watch a Bollywood movie, checked out from the library, due that day (or the day before, of course, since it was past midnight by the time the film started.) I figured I could watch the whole thing and check it back into the library before it opened in the morning, and thus avoid late fees. It... it didn't work, of course. This particular film, Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (starring Aamir Khan, my absolute favorite!), is 3 hours 45 minutes, super long even for a Bollywood film. After nodding off for the third or fourth time, I just stopped the film and trod over to the library barefoot and jacketless, at 2:45ish in the morning. (I was offered a ride once, even, which I declined.) I turned in the DVD, and after that went to bed.

When I woke up, around 10:00 in the morning after the long night before, and looked around for my blazer, I couldn't find it. And it wasn't in either of the lounges, of our apartment or the neighboring one, which were the two locations I'd been in it the night before (which I'd checked at first to see if I could watch the DVD in their player, since the Indian DVD says PAL 1 which means all areas, but it doesn't seem to want to work in the Blu-Ray player our lounge has, and so I'd have to use an X Box which I didn't want to do, and it's all very technical but long story short I did wind up having to use the X Box because the neighbor's DVD player didn't have any cords for some reason.) I even checked the basement lab where I'd been, even though I very distinctly was wearing my blazer as I left there.

What must have happened is, they found the blazer in the morning, from where I'd left it in watching Lagaan; found it before I made it down to the lounge to check, and for some reason assumed it had been there 24 hours already since it was there in the morning just lying there, instead of having been there just a few hours like what actually happened?

And now my blazer, and my phone and all that, is behind a door in the laundry room. A locked door, in case you hadn't figured it out yourself.

So. It'd be best not to disturb the managers outside of office hours, and the office won't open again till Monday. At least I'd been planning on hitting them Monday anyway, with the contracts for the next two semesters' stay...