Pandemic depression

   I miss the days when all we had to worry about was whether or not our esteemed leader was taking money from Russia. It sucked, but it was a huge step up from watching him drive the country into a ditch.
    I've never liked President Trump, even when he was just a sleazy asshole who kept winning at life despite screwing everyone he met, literally and figuratively. Up until about a month ago (or maybe it was two weeks? Time's slowed down to a crawl) if you had asked me if I wish he hadn't been elected, I would have said, "Of course I do, and I wish someone would assassinate him now, but would it have been better if we'd elected someone else?"
   What I mean by that is, while Trump was a giant dick, I always viewed the republican legislature as the real problem. They wanted control of the country, no matter the cost, and democrats keep giving it to them, despite the fact that that in no way helped matters. Than Covid-19 hit, and Trump proved himself completely incapable of handling things, though honestly he managed it better than I suspected he would.
    Trump may not be destroying the country, but he's leaving it in a much worse state than it was when he came to office. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. He could have, and should have, done a lot more when it became clear this pandemic was serious. It's not just his fault, but he's the one who has the loudest voice and the one most people are going to hear.
   Honestly, what scares me the most is that when this pandemic is over, thing's won't just go back to normal. We'll try, maybe we'll manage to convince ourselves that it's back to how this were before Covid-19 came and caused the economy to collapse for the second time in my lifetime. But there are a lot of cracks showing now, cracks that won't stop growing after this pandemic slowed down. I worry for our next president, he's going to have to deal with a country in shambles wondering what's going to happen and a fresh reminder of just how fragile our current system is. If he's smart, he'll put the economy and foreign policy aside and focus on helping people get to a point where they feel safe and happy. The problem is that a large number of people believe that a graph showing increasing profits is the highest priority anyone,  no matter their job or rank, should have, and that it's everyone's responsibility to keep it that way. We've pushed for that for so long I'm not sure we can stop. And when things do start to fall apart again? They'll focus on the people who don't need saving, and ignore the people who are really responsible for keeping the country going in a time of crisis. They've had multiple chances to change their ways, but their behavior has shown that they never will unless we force them to.

On notebook writing and blogging

The two are very similar. The difference is that I'm not comfortable putting my stories up here yet.

So much for habits...

Luckily for me, I have no followers, so I can be as infrequent with postings as I want.

My bedroom is clean

Now I just need to write more blog posts.

Update

Well I haven't been writing much, but my bedroom is much cleaner now.

The purge

Of stuff in my room. What did you think I meant?

Why did I lose my notebook?

It just disappeared.

Almost the super bowl

Not that I care about the team, but the samples at costco are good.

Thoughts on cookie clicker

   Cookie Clicker isn't realistic. But when you think about it, it's a fairly accurate model for capitalism. You Start out with nothing, but you access to a lot of things that help you build a cookie business (cursors, grandmas, etc). As you grow your business, you use your products to make more and more cookies. Every time you increase your production, other people get hurt.
   But you never, ever, feel the effects. Without the news ticker, you wouldn't even know this was going on. No one stops you from continuing to do terrible things in the name of profit. When you do destroy the world, all you have to do is move on to another world.
   I should mention that Cookie clicker doesn't give you any "good" options. You can't choose to use safer mining practices, invest in safer portal transportation, or decide which model of rockets you use. The only "choice" you have is whether or not to start the apocalypse, and it's more or less expected that you will.
    I'm not bringing this up because I think the developer intended for people to think about what playing this game might say about them. But I think it offers a lot more insight into the human mind than a lot of other games do. For all it's crazy shenanigans, the core of the game is extremely real. To me, that's terrifying.

thoughts on shelter work.

For some reason, it makes me miss my cats more.

Updates

Well my Resume has been uploaded to Glassdoor. Time will tell if it helps me land a job.

New day

I'm posting early because I want to work on filling out my notebooks today. Not much going on today.

So much for new years resolutions

Procrastination's fun, until you decide not to post for three days. I really, really hate it when I decide to skip out on doing something just because I don't feel like doing it.
   I suppose it's a good thing I don't have any readers for this blog. Otherwise this unscheduled break would be a problem. I have to say, I'm enjoying blogging a lot more than I thought I would. I definitely need to up the quality of my posts, but for now it's nice to just write what I feel and not worry what my as of yet nonexistent fan base thinks.
   I keep thinking I should post about deeper things. I know that if I keep making my post, I'll find someone who likes them, but I think I can do better, and I want to challenge myself. I've written a lot about what I think, and I want to put that into words in a way that makes people feel a deeper connection to the world. Or makes them happy.
   Anyway, I'll make sure to post tomorrow. This won't become a habit if I give up after three weeks. Who knows, I might even make this work.

Short post today, I feel tired.

A blogger's life

   I'm glad that I don't use rely on my blog for money (not yet at least). I decided to google myself to see if my blog would turn up. It doesn't. I don't know if google thinks it's terrible, or if blogger just doesn't get enough traffic to push it up to the top spot, but if you google my name, or even "Kristen Eliker" + "Blog" you get nowhere.
    So in an effort to get more views, I've resurrected my twitter account, since it seems to be a lot easier to get traffic there. Can't say it's a guarantee that I can start making money, but I may finally get some views for once.
    This does mean that I need stuff to tweet about. Well, I sometimes photograph things for a hobby, and I am looking at buying a new camera, so that's not a bad option. In fact, I could post photo's every day, and then at the end of the week put them all together into a post on the blog. Which might make it so my blog actually appears when you search my name. Either way, it's a start.

Microsoft, are you stupid?

Seriously, why would you put ads in word pad for your office products? No one who's needs are satisfied by word pad would want to buy office, and if they need a better program, they have alternatives that are cheaper than your office products. Honestly, google drive is more optimal than office for most people than office, since it's free and has more features than free office does.

Minipost

Not much going on today. Just trying to keep posting so I don't get out of the habit. I'll post a longer post soon.

The edge of the world

    They say if you keep walking, no matter which way you go, you'll get to the same place. Clearly, They have never gotten lost before.
     I walk forever, in this never-ending darkness, looking for a place I've only heard about in my nightmares. They call it Reality, a place where nothing can be affected by people, and you have to accept what comes by you. Reality, they say, is where anyone can see who they were meant to be.
   Ever since I first woke up, I've been searching for Reality, so I can escape this never-ending nightmare. But no matter how far I go, I always wake up back in the same bed, in the same house, with mother demanding that I go to school.
   Every day. The same thing. Why do I hate it so much?
   All I remember is this world, this place, where the nightmares come to feed off the week minded, where the humans come to pray for my destruction. I thought it was a paradise, but the nightmares came. They weren't what destroyed me. My teacher- who was she?- kept saying that I was only imagining things, that I wasn't in any danger. But they kept coming, and no one protected me. Fear bloomed in my heart, until it was all I had left.
    So I ran as far as I could, and I kept running no matter how often they caught me. They were thorough, I can't remember where I went the night before, and I have no idea where to go next.
    So I go to the temple, where I keep the book of memories, to consult and plan.
     All five of the dreamland's have a temple, where peoples thoughts and fears gather, and from which new places and people are born. Such places are holy only to the race in question, if one from another races enters they will feel nothing, and will not be under it's protection. For some reason, only I have ever entered the temple in the human lands, where the lucidity star lives.
    As I enter the temple, I retrieve the lucidity star. I look through my book of memories, to look into the past so that I may make the future. First, I stay in the land of dreams or nightmares, as I call this infernal place. Then I lose the ability to make out humans from nightmares. Right after that, reality starts to fall apart. The teachers deny all of this of course. Finally, I can't take it anymore, and I decide to seek out reality, to find the truth they are determined to keep from me.
   Monsters, Fairies, Sorcerers. I've seen there lands. The only place I've yet to go to, is the Shadow lands. A place so horrifying that no human can go there willingly. I think for a while, then I decide I need to go there. Somewhere in the dream lands is the key to Reality, and I have to find it.
   
    In the temple, there are five doors, each leading to one of the five dream lands. On top of the shadow realms, there is only a single dot.
   I head in before my doubts get the better of me. Whats on the other side surprises me. The other temples are in the middle of nowhere, but this place is in the middle of a large city, and it's very lavishly decorated. Many people seem to be working, judging by the somewhat tattered clothes, I'd hazard a guess that they were temple slaves. Other than their clothes, they seem to be well cared for, at least in comparison to the other temples I've been to.
   "Hey! Get back to work."
    I barely avoid getting hit in the head with a stick. I look towards my attacker. He doesn't look all that menacing, but whether he's a human or a shadow, or one of the other races entirely, I have no way of knowing.
   "I'm sorry sir, I just haven't been told what I'm supposed to do yet." I reply hastily. This usually works to stop an angry overseer, but this one seems determined to hurt me. He raises his stick again, and I rush off before he can hit me.
   I decide that exploring this place is probably a bad Idea. Most nightmares won't hurt you, instead opting to poses you and have you experience whatever horror they've cooked up. Here that doesn't seem to be the case.
   I wonder for about an hour before finding myself back at the temple. It's then that I notice how truly massive it is. And ugly. It's one of those places built to make people feel small, and no one thought much beyond it. And it's all gray, too. Were it not for the large statues around the outside, It would look exactly like a prison. Looking at it, I begin to get a terrible sensation. I immediately go lucid, hoping desperately that I'm wrong.
   I'm not. I hear people inside, begging to be set free. I can't tell if it's from a nightmare or a curse. I want to cry, but I can't let anyone see me upset. If they see me upset, they'll wake me up again.
   I'm not going to let them keep these poor people trapped in whatever version of hell they've made inside this prison. Moving as quietly as I possibly can, I sneak back into the temple, going in the directions I think the voices are coming from. Before long I come to a hallway, on either side of which are cells filled to the brim with prisoners, who look exactly like the slaves I saw outside.
   Let it never be said I don't try and help humans when I can. Lucidity lets people change what the world around them looks like, so the nightmares do everything in their power to keep humans from using it. They couldn't stop me from learning how to use it though.
   "The doors are not locked. Open the doors and leave. Leave all at once. Be free"
    Someone swears. The door he was leaning against came open unexpectedly. Soon the rest of the prisoners try to open their doors. Not missing an opportunity, they all rush to freedom, moving around me as if I was a rock and they were a river. It isn't long before I hear them clashing with the guards outside.
    I walk down the hall to inspect the cells, and see if there's anything I can do to keep them from putting more prisoners in them. I can't help but feel how bare and empty the cells are without the prisoners. I think about all of the time I walked in total darkness to get outside to the human realm, and this seems so much worse. To spend all your day with nothing to do but sit with your thoughts and wonder how you could have avoided this mess. "Let the doors close, and never open again" I think.
   "What are you doing here?"
   I startle, then turn to see a man, not much older than sixteen, staring at me with an angry look in his eyes. "All the workers are having a riot, and your just here daydreaming." He grabs me by the shirt and yells, "Why didn't you do something?"
  I grab his hand. "Lay off you bone headed twerp. I don't know who you are, but you have absolutely no business keeping prisoners."
   He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small ball, which then starts glowing and floating above his shoulder. Well if that's how he wants to play, than I'll just have to beat him.
   I close my eyes and start to focus. Picturing the point where this stops being real and Reality takes over. Ignoring everything else, I focus on reaching out to where reality must be. Finally, I feel the  world start to slip and move around me. Reaching to my neck, I grab the lucidity star, it splits, and starts floating around me.
   I don't think, I just attack and dodge. Finally he collapses, and the orb falls to the floor. I grab it in my hands, and it starts to glow.
  Than I hear foot steps. It's a dead end. I panic as I realize I can't escape what's coming.
   And then I wake up. 

Life, short version

   I know I should talk about something more interesting than my life, which as lives go is very boring, but right now I just, want to talk. Not vent, there's just a lot going on in my head, and no one to talk about it to, so I may as well post about it, since no one's reading this.
    Blogging has made me question myself. I'm more upset than I thought I was going to be that I don't have any followers. I pride myself on not caring about what other people think of me, though I guess it's more that I pretend I don't so that it hurts less. I'm not sure if that's really what's bothering me though. I feel like I need to be doing more to increase viewership, but I can't find anything that I'm willing to try.
   I think the issue is that up until now, I've tried to avoid being a part of society. I thought I had a good grasp of what people wanted, but now I'm not so sure.
    What scares me the most is that I'm worried I'm only in this for myself, that I think I'm entitled to a large following just because I managed to get over my fears enough to post about myself publicly. When I was little, I watched a lot of TV, and one of the messages they really hammered home back then was not to ask for more than you deserve and to be happy with what you had. I don't hate anyone who has a larger following than I do, they worked hard to earn it.
   Writing was always my passion. I love what I write, and hold it to my heart closely. But I've always suspected that I'm actually a terrible writer. I don't always love good writing, I love writing that touches me on an emotional level, which can be intentional or not. I want to believe that this is my passion project, that I'm sharing this for the people who feel the way I do about the world, and that I just want to change the world in my own, very small way.
    I'm not sure if that's really the case anymore.

Minipost

Not really in the mood for a long post today. I know it takes time to build an audience, but I keep wondering if I'm doing enough for the blog. Mostly because I keep hoping to get more views, but also, I just don't know if I'm doing enough. What I hope is to reach the point where I feel comfortable talking about some of my, shall we say, crazy ideas, and where I have a large enough audience for it to matter. I don't really want to be famous, though the less rational part of me thinks it would be fun, I just wish I wasn't opening my stats page to only see zeroes.
   Maybe I've just played too many simulations. You don't have to wait for long periods, even if your supposed to wait you can just cheat your way around it. In real life, you have to wait if you want a reward for something. I've said before that I don't want to be at the top, I just wish I had a little more than I do now. I just want to feel like I what I think is important, that I matter in some way. The delusional part of me believes that I can give a service that no one else can provide. I know it isn't true, but I still believe it anyways.
   Still, it is kind of nice to not have anyone reading my blog, in a way. I don't have to try and cater to my audience, and I don't have to worry about any backlash, or how I might handle it. I've spent my entire life avoiding criticism, so the thought of what people might say if I do become famous scares me, not because of my reputation, I just don't know if I'll be able to handle it. I'm probably worried about nothing. I doubt that I'll ever become mainstream enough for that kind of comment to become common enough for me to be scared, even if it is, I could always turn off my comments if I need a break.
   And eventually I'll get an audience. They don't show up in your first two weeks of posting.

On job requirements

   Recently I've been on the hunt for a paying job, because even great thinkers have bills to pay. The biggest hurdle I've encountered is that each job, no matter how much it pays, requires at least two to three years experience. That's part of the reason why I'm working so hard on the blog, so that in a couple of years I'll have something to put on my resume.
    The second biggest hurdle is that many of these jobs require a bachelors degree. Mostly they're jobs paying in the sixty to one hundred thousand a year range, but I've seen a few that only pay about forty thousand. I get why they do this, a lot of people think they can write but actually can't, so they need some way of vetting the pool of applicants. I like to think I'm a good writer, but my skills mostly lie in the "give me an example and I can emulate it while giving it my own voice" category (seriously, I built a resume that way). I love to create stuff, but putting it into words that really say what I want to say is tricky.
   I do wish companies wouldn't just use college as a way of vetting applicants. I'm told that people who went to college are more driven than people who didn't go to college, but in practice I find that to be grossly untrue. Most of the people who go to college aren't going to improve themselves, they're going because society expects people to want to study past high school, and if you don't want to than you're punished for it. Conversely, if someone forgoes college, they generally have a plan for what they want to do instead, and the ambition to stick it out.
   There's also nothing stopping a determined person from looking at classes, finding the text books they use, and learning the material by themselves. These days there are tons of resources for every subject out their if your willing to look for it. It's more difficult, but you also learn more because you aren't just a passive student listening to a professor, but an active participant in whatever field you want to research.
   Society puts a lot of importance on education, but very little emphasis on learning. We don't encourage people to do anything that might allow them to figure out what they really want to do, we just push them down the road that will get them the most money, which is often the road that requires expensive education. But going thousands of dollars in debt won't help the vast majority of people on a college campus, because most of what they want to learn doesn't require a professor. They could learn it just as easily from the library, or from free online courses. College is supposed to be a gate, opening to lead you to great opportunities. Instead, it's become a wall, blocking the less fortunate from getting ahead in the world.
    I realize that college is a good way of vetting people applying for a high paying position, and I don't fault the companies who decide this is the best way to get qualified applicants. But there are many better ways of doing this. Maybe for a writing job, you could have them write from a prompt. Maybe a marketing job could have them do a sales presentation. There's not a whole lot you can do if the job is for a lab, I understand that, but I don't think a college degree is really worth it for me at this point.
    College does have it's benefits, but I don't think everyone, or even most people, should be required to go. There are a lot of jobs that won't repay back a student loan or need college level skills that still require a degree, but it doesn't have to be the case. Ultimately, I think we need to have a discussion of if college, community, private, or public, is worth it for all but the most intense of majors, and if it is, how do we make it as accessible to people as possible. We also have to talk about those who can't handle college, like I wasn't able to. Should they be allowed to suffer?

What I know

   I say that I feel things. Maybe more strongly than other's, but maybe much less. I don't know. People don't talk about feelings a lot. We prefer to focus on whats "real" and feelings, no matter what we think, are not "real".
   I think our "emotions" are the only reality we have. We can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the outside world, but unless someone else notices the same thing, we have no idea if it's real or not. The only thing that we know for sure is real is what goes on inside our own heads, a reality constructed by our brains in a feeble attempt to make sense of what's around us. In that sense, how can what we feel be unreal, fake, a sham?
  I can make myself feel what I believe other people to be feeling, which is an inaccurate science at best. I don't think, or feel, what other people think and feel when they see something. This is true for everyone else, but I'm reminded of it constantly. The reason is that most people, regardless of their other traits, love people.
  I don't.
  I've hated people for as long as I can remember. I hate people in the same way a social person hates math, that overwhelming, deep terror of some strange code you could never hope to decipher, for a language you have no hope of understanding. In spite of this I do, occasionally, enjoy being with people. Sometimes you're with someone and you feel happy, because you know your sharing some part of the other persons inner world. You know you like them and they like you, so for a while you can share emotions, even if you never talk about them. Other times, you find yourself alone in a room, people everywhere, but there's no one you can talk to. These are the times when you remember that no one likes you, because you push them away so you never have to talk to them. Regardless of who you are, or of whether or not you chose to do this, it still hurts.
   I spend as much time as possible in my bedroom. When I'm alone, I don't have to think about anyone else, about whoever I'm accidentally annoying with behaviors I can't seem to shake. I can read about other people, and pretend that they're my lifelong friends, even though we'll never meet in person. I can think what I want and say what I want, without any repercussions to our (nonexistent) relationship. If they do something that makes me angry, I can end the relationship easily.
   I'm well aware of the health consequences of choosing to live like this. I don't want sympathy, since I can't blame my not having any friends on anyone but myself. I choose to live like this because I hate anything that involves people, not because I have some horrible illness that keeps me housebound.
  Don't use me as an argument against welfare. I don't have a job, but my mother pays my living expenses. If I needed too, I could work. I haven't sought out government assistance, and I have no plans of doing so. People who apply for welfare need it, if they wanted to scam someone, they'd go to their employer or a grocery store. Or they would commit identity theft. To deny someone help that you can easily give is the scummiest thing you can do, and people are well within their rights to hate you for it.
   Well, today's post got a little heavy, Think of it as my making up for missing a post two days ago. 

   You know how people forget their new years resolutions in a few weeks? Let's call it the reason why I forgot yesterdays post.

On animation

   Tomorrow, I will have managed of week's worth of daily posts. I'd say it's been hard, but as I have no fame and in no danger of obtaining fame, the biggest challenge is just summoning the willpower to post something.
   I have something I want to get off my chest. Lily Orchard's most recent glass of water touched on how cartoons have become more angsty and dramatic in the 2010's, and she placed the blame for that on art school grad's being hired to run shows rather than people with writing credentials.
   I don't think that any of the people she's complaining about are good writers, but I don't think that the blame for their problematic writing is entirely due to the lack of language arts classes.
   Firstly, it's fair to assume that all of these show runners went to high school at some point, and all high schools require you to take at least a few language arts classes if you want to graduate. Just about every high school student has to write a book report analyzing a book their teacher has chosen for them. Most of these classes don't go in depth on plot, theme or characters, and most language arts teachers are no better at analyzing literature than their students. I don't know how much this changes in college, but I expect it depends on what the professor teaching you thinks about literature.
    Secondly, it's not necessary to take a language arts course of any sort to learn what makes a work good and what doesn't. Having someone to guide you through the process is helpful, but it can also make it more difficult to figure out what works if they don't know what their doing. A good example of this is Lily Orchard herself. Her fiction is, admittedly, a little hit and miss, but her glass of water videos, give or take a few inaccuracies, are well put together and show that she does know what she's talking about. She has also disclosed that she never went to college, so her knowledge of writing came from self study.
   What I think is more likely is that these writers learned good writing from the internet, which comes with a rather big problem. I'm not talking about rampant spelling or grammar errors, I'm talking about cliff notes. I admittedly love Cliff notes, it's good analysis and well written and thought out. The problem is that lot's of people who used cliff notes to get through their language arts classes saw the points the authors made about why the literature was so good and timeless, and began to try and apply it to other genre's and media. Honestly, am I the only one who's noticed that a lot of analytical tumblr posts seem like they were written by people emulating cliff notes? What they didn't understand was that the symbols and themes that cliff notes talks incessantly about are a nice bonus, but they aren't the core of a good story. That's the job of a plot and the characters.
   Lastly, I want to touch on a small issue I have with Lily Orchard. One thing she goes on about is that cartoons, and shows in general, should focus on being funny. I don't disagree with that opinion, but I would like to point out that if the writers can't manage to make a good dramatic story, comedy might not be a good idea either. Comedy is actually pretty hard to write, you have to know what the audience wants, and you have to be very careful. There's are reason why the writers of How Not to Write a Novel said it was an advanced technique. I don't think they should stick to drama either. There's a nice middle ground that most media falls into where it's not insanely dark but doesn't push into being funny, and I think that's where most authors should try and fall into, since the screw ups won't be as disruptive, and the stories are easier to write. I think that was what Lily meant, but it wasn't really all that clearly communicated.
   I just want to add that I don't think there's an easy fix for the current trends of animation. It's what the audience keeps saying they want and the show runner's clearly don't mind making it, so I don't see it going away. I think what'll happen is that someone will make a show that's more aimed at kid's, like Friendship is Magic was originally, and that'll become very popular, so the people running the network will demand that more shows like that be made, and the shows the current crop of fans say they want will migrate to smaller nighttime networks, where they'll enjoy a small but devoted following. In other words, it's just a trend, and trends have a way of changing as the world changes. 

Writers block

Frankly speaking, I'm not sure what I want to write about today. I realize that I don't post about anything usually, but most of the time I can think of something to write about. I saw an opera at the movie theater today, so that was fun.

  I'm planning on making a few big posts a week eventually. It's a little nebulous at the moment, but I've got the skeleton of one, and plans for two more. I can't guarantee it'll be regular though, at least not until I get used to publishing daily and have some idea as to how I handle criticism. And a few coping mechanisms for dealing with it when it happens. 

   I think that's all I want to write for today. My mother was nagging at me to vacuum the floors today. I might wait until tomorrow to do that, but I should probably mop the kitchen soon, and declutter my bedroom.

    Well, that's it for today. See you tomorrow. 

What happens when I get sick

 Currently the heavenly bodies that govern human health have smote me with a cold, which I wouldn't mind (as much) if I hadn't just gotten over one a few days ago. Ah well, at least it's not the flu, and at least I don't tend to get too horribly miserable if I get colds.
  That's actually a little bit of a problem, not for me but for the people around me who don't want to get sick. I'm not afraid of germs in the least, so I engage in a lot of habits that, quite frankly, should have resulted from an untimely death from meningitis/salmonella by now. In spite of that, the sickest I've been was the time I got the flu after our trip to Europe, and the worst thing that happened as a result of that was my mother being bedridden for three months with pneumonia. The thing is, I can fight off an illness quite easily (though I did get uvula infection when I was eleven from a root canal, anesthesia was still better than being awake for it) so I tend to forget that there are other people in the world for whom illness can actually be dangerous. See above for an example.
   I might be getting an opportunity to practice better hygiene soon. I applied to volunteer at the local humane society, and if all goes will I will be working with our local needy animal population. It's the kind of job where changing your gloves is important. I guess I could have gotten a job at the local McDonald's for a similar experience, but this way I avoid the deer in the headlights effect.

Life and choices

   Well yesterday's post was depressing. I didn't want to turn into the type of person who complains about their life to people who can't possibly fix it, but I did anyway. I could talk about why I did it, but I know from experience that it doesn't help the people who witnessed your horrible behavior.
  I guess it's a good thing no one reads any of my blog posts, though who knows when/if that will change.
  Today on "issues Kristen thinks are big but that actually aren't big" I discovered that if were to get a volunteer job, transit cost would be rather high. I don't know if it's worth it, but I also don't think that flossing or eating vegetables are worth it and people won't stop praising them.

Mental health mother and daughter

   Today I had a psychiatrist appointment, and tomorrow I have an appointment with a new therapist. I'm going to be honest, I hate going to any sort of appointments related to my mental health. I think that therapy is important, everyone should have access to it, and people who can't cope with life should be able to get whatever help they need. The reason I don't like it myself is just that I don't find that conventional medicine is all that effective at helping me deal with my issues.
    I've struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life. On a good day my mood is "meh" but on a bad day I feel like I should just kill myself and get it over with. I can't honestly remember a time when I was "happy",  I just sort of remember times when I wasn't quite as depressed as I am now.
   I remember it getting really bad when I was in about the forth or fifth grade. I specifically remember one day when my mother and I were moving stuff that wasn't going to fit in our new apartment into a storage unit. It was hot as hell, and I was feeling extremely cranky and complaining about how much I didn't want to be there. I'll be honest, I don't even remember what I said at this point, all I remember is that at some point my mother snapped and yelled at me, "Kristen, I'm working." before going back to moving heavy boxes into the storage unit.
  I don't remember people or places very well. What I do remember is emotions. I remember feeling scared, because mother had never yelled at me like that before, upset that I'd made her mad, and worried that she would hurt me if she got angrier at me.
   I wish I could say this was the only time she did something that made me feel that way, but there were several more instances after that where similar things happened. In all those instances, something happened that caused mother to fly off the handle, but I didn't know what happened and what I'd done wrong.
    Things went back to normal after about a year of this, but it was never the same. Before the storage incident, I loved my mother more than anything in the world, and was convinced she would be there to protect me no matter what. Afterwards, I still loved her, but I was always scared that I would do something that would make her mad.
   Something you don't know about mood issues unless you live with someone who has one, you can reach a point where you're so angry you don't care who you hurt or how badly you hurt them. If you're on the other end of that, you have two choices: make it so the can't hurt you or make it so they won't hurt you. I chose the latter. Over the years I fought back in whatever way I could. Knowing that she could get angry at any time, for any reason, it rather made it hard to have any motivation to do anything that would make her happy, when it was better to just save the energy for the next tantrum that would come my way.
  I should make this clear, I'm in no way blameless. If I wanted to, I could have kept our house clean, done my schoolwork without being asked, supported my mother during her down moments, tried to keep an open mind, remembered that even if she gets upset, she's just acting out how she was taught to behave by her parents growing up.
   That's what she expects of me. The reason I don't do it is that honestly, I don't want to. You know how in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Yoda says that fear leads to anger, hate and suffering? That's what's happened to me over time. I don't know if she loves me anymore, or if she even did. I don't know what her hopes were for me, or if I failed her. Quite frankly I don't care. Ever since that day in storage I've tried to ignore her behavior, or justify it, or just put my pain to one side so I can do what I need to do.
   That all stopped a week ago. I don't want to go into details, but mother told me what she was feeling that time, and rather than feeling sorry or upset, it just pissed me off. It was the kind of thing that you don't take out on your child who had nothing to do with it, you get therapy and work to fix it. But instead she made me her scapegoat.
   So I'm done playing the bad guy. As soon as I get a steady income and move out of the house, I'm cutting off all ties with her. Probably the rest of my family to. My cousin's still cool though.

Marketing Ideas

   I was tempted to not post today, since I did two posts yesterday, but I know that if I skip one day, It'll quickly turn into me not posting for months, if not years. I realize my writing leaves a lot to be desired, but at the moment my goal is to post every single day until it feels natural and I no longer stress about it, and to figure out how I'm going to market myself.
  My current approach is to market myself on LinkedIn. My thinking is that nobody is going to find me on blogger, since there's no way to just look at blog post on one page like you can on other platforms, so I have to make it easier for people to find me when searching. My thought was that the best way to do that was to make sure that people who are looking for new employees find me, see my blog, and decide to follow me. That way, they can tell other people in their social circle about me, show me to employees, and talk about me on their social media outlets. I expect these kinds of people will have more clout than someone on Facebook typically does, so I'll be throwing the net wider then if I just link my blog on another platform.
   I'm also looking at other blogging platforms. If the site goes big, that would be awesome, but judging from what I've seen of blogger, it's not the best platform if you want to track stats or grow your influence. I'm thinking that what I should do next is look for a platform where people can see my posts easily and an algorithm can do most of the work of marketing for me. I haven't decided which platform I want to try, but I'm thinking maybe medium's a good pick. The sites a little bland, but you can pick what you want from categories on the front page and there's a built in community, so I don't have to worry about optimizing myself, I just need to try and make the algorithm like me more.
   That's something for the future though, probably in about a year or two when I'm used to writing something every day and am comfortable with posting about myself in a public space. I figure that I can use blogger to work out how i want to brand myself, build up a community, and find a niche that I'm comfortable filling. Then I can move onto a platform where more people will see me and use what I've learned during that time to create a more successful blog.
    Or maybe someone who sees my blog on LinkedIn will be so impressed with what I'm posting that they decide to hire me. I can dream, right?

Super post 1

   While I was on Blogspot, I decided to test to see what counts as a view. From my own very unscientific

tests, it would appear that just looking at a post doesn’t count as a view, but clicking on it does. This isn’t

true on youtube, but blogspot doesn’t work like that apparently. In light of this, I’m seeing how long I need

to make a post before it triggers the “read more” feature of blogspot. I don’t think it will guarantee an

accurate view count, but at least I might see a number next to the little eye symbol when I look at my

blogspot page. 

   So today we’ll talk about notebooks. The kind with paper and a form of binding, not the electronics.

Frankly, depending on your level of wealth and access to electricity, it’s perfectly possible to go through

life without ever needing to write with pen and paper. We can talk about the benefits of teaching children

to write manually all we want, the truth is that only certain people will ever really need that skill. 

   That said, I love writing with a pen or a pencil on a sheet of paper. This didn’t use to be the case. When

I was younger I couldn’t write anything even slightly legible no matter how hard I tried. I have fine motor

control issues because of autism, and it took years of OT to help me learn how to write. 

   It wasn’t until I reached third grade that I learned how to write legibly. Maybe it was practice, but what I

think happened was that I learned cursive. I don’t think cursive should be a mandatory part of the

curriculum, but I do think that it helped me in a way print hadn’t up until then. For one thing, it looked so

pretty, for another the strokes involved in cursive are a lot easier than those involved in printing, though

printing is much easier to read. To be honest, I hope that future special ed teachers are taught cursive

and encouraged to teach it to students who have trouble writing like I did.

   I didn’t write much in class after middle school though. If I’m able to write slowly and take brakes, my

writings fairly good, but scribbling down notes is a terrible idea, since most of the time it’s an illegible

mess, and god help you if you have me try to write an essay for a test by hand. When I’m on my own, I

write a lot. Mostly to fill up the notebooks I accumulate without really thinking about it. Notebook and pen

collecting is my nerd hobby. I love finding different writing utensils and seeing how they write, and how I

can work to make what I write look better. My absolute favorite kind of pen is a fountain pen, they look so

cool and are a blast to write with. They do have one major downside though, the ink in them dries out

even if you aren’t using them. Ballpoints don’t have that problem, and you can get a good one for much

cheaper than a cheap fountain pen. I tend to stick to black pens or pens with a darker color because I

feel that it’s more professional, and it’s also a lot easier to see what you’ve written on white paper. 

   While I love notebooks, I tend to avoid planners. I don’t usually write down what I plan on doing, since

whether or not I write down goals I almost never complete them. Unfortunately, if you don’t use a planner,

you have to wait at least six years before you can use it next. The exception to this is techo planners,

since their mostly blank and you can use them as standard notebook paper instead of just planning the

goals you never complete. 

   I buy notebooks from all over the place, from the small notebooks from daiso, to the expensive leather

bound one my aunt got me as a birthday present. 

   A few words of advice to people looking to purchase notebooks. First off, don’t by moleskine, or

paperless, or any other big brand notebooks. You can find knockoffs for much cheaper at

half price books, or a similar store. I don’t know if this applies to all goodwill's, but my local goodwill has

had some good picks in the past, and It’s not a bad place to go for back to school supplies if you don’t

need a specific brand. The best places to look for notebooks are bookstores, just be warned that not

every book store carries notebooks. Another excellent place to look is at local crafts fairs, where

sometimes people will sell their own bound notebooks. If you want cheap, look for a daiso near you,

if not amazon isn’t a bad choice. 

    I mostly buy pens on amazon, since pen quality is mostly an engineering issue and isn’t affected by

craftsmanship in any meaningful way. My favorite pen brand is pilot, for both their fountain pens and

cheap office pen selections. I’m also quite fond of platinum fountain pens, if you want to get started

using fountain pens their the brand I recommend the most. Zebra makes an excellent selection of gel

pens and brush pens, but I also love tombow. I was averse to pentel, but last christmas my mom gave

me a brush pen from them that has bristles like a real paint brush, so I’m beginning to warm up to them. 

   What I love most about writing is the feeling that I’m creating something that’s just for me, that I can

enjoy. I love opening a notebook and seeing all of the empty pages waiting to be filled with my thoughts,

fears, and stories. I don’t stick to a topic for long though. My mind gets bored, and then I need to move

to something else. Most of what I write is about myself, what I think about what goes on in my life,

regardless of how small it really is. I don’t usually write to be artistic, I write to be precise, and to try and

show what’s going on inside of my head, and to make a record for whoever winds up reading about my

life when I die. I like to think of my writing as my legacy to the world, a la Emily Dickonson. Unlike Emily,

I hope to gain some notoriety while I’m still alive. 

   I’m a writer, and I hope that someday I can post more of what I’ve written in notebooks or put in

various word documents for the world, or whoever cares, online. I don’t know if anyone will be affected

by it, since I can’t read minds even though I pretend that I can. I do know that it affects me everyday,

and if someone else will feel better about their lives after reading this, that’s wonderful. If it doesn’t, than

so be it.

New year, new me (maybe)

   I don't post a lot because I worry about how I'll react if people criticize me. One of the things you hear a lot is people say is that hearing people criticize you is incredibly hard on your ego. I don't know if that holds true for me, since for one thing I avoid any situation in which I might face criticism, and for another I find that my harshest critic is usually myself. But I've been thinking lately that the thing I'd love more than anything in the world is to share, well, myself with the world. Things I don't tell anyone because I'm worried they'll think that I'm crazy, even if I talk to myself all the time without feeling any shame.
   My favorite thing to do in the world is to think. My "real" life is almost non-existent, but my "imaginary" life is grand and full of fun. I don't have a great imagination, but I love imagining things, and I truly don't understand why most people don't. Most of what people call "normal" life mystifies me, but the idea of not spending the majority of your time analyzing or questioning why things are the way they are, or just imagining that your in a fantasy world where all of your problems can be solved with magic, baffles me.
   When I think, I like to create a world where I can be someone important and special. I'd like to think that's what most people want. The world I've created for myself is a place whey I don't have to depend on anyone, and no one is depending on me. It's a world where I can just sit by myself and think about what the "real" world must by like for everyone who chooses to live in it.
    It may seem like a terrible thing, but I don't want to live in the "real" world. I don't blame anyone who wants to live in it, because it really is a beautiful and wonderful place, where even the people who are the most aware of how it works will never have full control. But I can't understand it and I've never felt comfortable when I'm there. One of the things I fully believe is that the world takes all kinds of people. Leaders, followers, people who know everything, people who will never know anything, people who ask all the questions and people who just follow orders. I don't believe in one way of living, or doing things, outside of a few general rules. I don't even like enforcing morals, since there's always a case where enforcing that moral is a terrible idea.
   But regardless of what kind of person you are, you still have to be a kind of person if you wish to exist in another person's world. People can't see another person for who they are, doing that would require they assume their thoughts instead of simply guessing what their general emotions are. For that reason, no matter where you live in, you will be shoved into a mold once you grow old enough to be accepted into general society.
   That's not what I want for myself. It's never what I wanted for myself. I don't want to just be "autistic" or "anxious" or a "nerd". I want to be someone who can be anything, depending on what the situation calls for. I want to be a voice for those who would otherwise not have them. I want to find the others like me that are out there, children raised by mothers who never had a relationship with another person, people from families where everyone has mental health issues, people whose last name may die when they do.
   If I could change the world that the human race has created to be one where anyone can be whoever they want to be, regardless of what they were born as, I would be blessed. In the absence of that, I aim to do more than merely survive. I want to live, and give my decedents enough so that their failures are brought about by their own choices and not the circumstances they were born into. I may not be special, but I at least want to be different.