Guess Who's Back

Wow, look at that. Only took 11 years for me to post again.

I suddenly recalled that I had this blog and I actually quite enjoyed posting in it. To be fair, looking back, my content was not exactly awe-inspiring (and in some cases, possibly problematic), but it's a nice creative outlet for someone who often feels like they're drowning in thoughts.

A lot has happened since I last updated here. I graduated high school, graduated college, had my first official relationship and first official break-up. I started a big girl job and moved to Wisconsin. My mom had cancer (twice) and passed away last year. I have a house, a cat, and a partner. I got diagnosed with autism. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I finally understand what a quarter life crisis truly is.

The world is a shitshow in many ways, and we're all just trying to get through it. There are bright spots amid the many, many dark spots, so maybe I can use this as a way to remember those moments as they happen.

-----

Today is a Monday which means I'm thinking about the fact that my moments of freedom are behind me. Fortunately, I got up on time today, despite the fact I way miscalculated what my bedtime should be (I shouldn't be trusted to do math in my head). I even got myself a coffee and a pastry to help push through it.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher. I always enjoyed explaining concepts and, most of all, seeing that moment when something just clicks. There's a magic look behind a person's eyes when that happens that is so wonderful and exciting, especially when they've been struggling for a while. Fortunately, in my job, I occasionally get to do some level of education and I don't actually have to deal with children since I've learned that may not be a good fit for me.

However, I don't know if I actually like my job. I'm trying to figure that out. For so long, I've prioritized money and using my abilities, regardless of whether or not I actually care about the thing I'm doing. I think most of all I've just cared about being liked and having people be proud of me. I'm starting not to care anymore though. Or at least, I'm trying not to care anymore.

Part of my journey this year was having a wee bit of a mental breakdown. I completely collapsed. Though, if I'm being honest, I'd been in the process of collapsing many years. It just finally got to the point that other people started noticing too. I was messing up a lot, I was struggling with my anxiety and depression, and I had a hard time taking care of myself. I realized that I need to start prioritizing my needs and what I want. However, that's much easier said than done, especially when I don't actually know what those needs or wants are a lot of the time.

One helpful bit is that I'm finally going to be able to return to community theater. I hadn't done it for about 10 years but I finally got into a show in 2023 and it's like a drug. It's so much fun to be able to perform and I've been able to make friends and see people outside of my work life. It's so refreshing to have enforced creative time and a reason to get out of the house.

I think my goal at this point in my life is to find what actually sparks joy (to use a Marie Kondo-ism) and to get rid of the things that don't. Within reason, of course. I'm hoping I'll be able to find work that I'm truly passionate about or at least truly enjoy. Maybe that is here, I think I just need to figure that out.

--B

Amateur Sleuth Blog Puzzle #228

If you don't already know, I am a huge fan of the Nancy Drew games series (and the book series). Well, HerInteractive, the company that makes said games, has a blog called the Amateur Sleuth blog which you can find here and every Friday a puzzle is posted for us to solve. I am planning on trying to solve these puzzles to the best of my abilities every Friday (or almost every Friday) and post my results here.

Let's get started!

So, this week's puzzle involves this image:

I realized that these were the symbols for the horoscope signs, so with some careful google research I was able to determine what those were. However, I also realized that there are some planetary symbols as well so I found the names for those too.

I ended up with the left column being Aries, Leo, Pisces, Virgo, Jupiter, Moon and the right column would be Taurus, Cancer, Venus, Earth, Capricorn and Mars. Now, I just had to figure out what the numbers meant. I decided to see if they were the numbers of the letter we were supposed to use (i.e., Aries 4 is E). With this strategy, I ended up with eleven sevens. But, then I was at a loss as to what this meant.

After some perusing of the HerInteractive message boards, I discovered that other people had gotten the same answer as me (Yay!). Also, they were guessing that it might mean eleven weeks. If this is the case, then perhaps this is a hint at the release date of The Shattered Medallion, the next game that is supposed to come out.

Anyway, do you guys have any theories as to what this means?

--B

Fun Facts with Bryce

I have a tendency to spew out useless facts to my friends and family in my daily life. So, I've decided that I would create a sort of series of these fun facts with Bryce segments on my blog.

Fact #1: When an acronym is not pronounceable (e.g., SMH, DFTBA, FBI), it is actually called an initialism.

Fact #2: 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Fact #3: There is a man from Portland who sells shares of himself and lets shareholders vote on major decisions in his life.

That's all I have to say for today, but I am planning to do some more of these. There's something to look forward to.

--B

Second is the First to Lose

If you are as big of a fan of Dance Moms as I am, then you probably recognized the title of this post as something that Abby Lee says to her dancers all the time. In a way, this is kind of true.

It should be that the closer you were to first place, the more praise you would receive. However, we view second place as something to look down upon. We view the second placers (is that a term?) as people who weren't good enough to be first. Even though this is technically true, the other places don't get as much flack for losing. Instead, we say that they tried their best and just couldn't cut it. Why is that?

A person who receives second place should be complimented because they were really close to winning. A nice pat on the back for them would be nice every once in a while. With the attitude that we have towards losers, it discourages people from even trying because they are so afraid of failing.

So, in conclusion, be nice to people who receive second place. They are often the middle child of the competitors, pushed to the side and forgotten.

You're probably asking why I all of a sudden decided to rant about second place. It's not like I play sports so what possible way could I benefit from this. Well, I could lie and say that it was entirely for the benefit of the people who are directly affected by this problem and I was influenced whilst watching the Olympics (which I haven't been doing). In actuality, I was one good roll away from winning Settlers of Catan and I am very upset that I lost.

So, this entire blog post was driven by the fact that I am a sore loser...

--B

P.S. If you don't like Dance Moms, you are wrong.

Cue the Angry Mob with Torches and Pitchforks

I know. I suck.

I haven't posted for months and months and months. I was just so busy sorting through all of my Valentines that I didn't have time to blog...

Okay...maybe that's not what happened. I actually have been drowning in schoolwork because I have four AP classes this year along with other classes and things that I'm doing outside of school because, contrary to popular belief, I really do have a life.

So, I don't really have anything to actually talk about today, but I thought I would type out a formal apology and let you know that I am not dead.

I will talk to you soon (hopefully).

--B

If We Were a Movie...

Life is really weird. This is where it's about to get deep and philosophical. Just excuse me for a moment as I form my analogy.

Every person's life is like a movie. While the coffee barista at Starbucks may be an insignificant character in your movie, she's the star in her own movie, which we will most likely never get to see. What's crazy to me is that we see all of these people every day and we have no idea who they are or what their story is. In fact, most of the time we're too caught up in our own lives to care about anybody else's. The people who we do have in our lives are special. When we talk with them about their lives it's like we're watching Netflix so we can get up to date on everything that's happened so far and then, we get involved with their story and the characters in it. We get emotionally attached.

I apologize if this post makes it seem like I was doing some sort of hallucinatory drug. It's just an observation I made.

I guess the point, or moral, of the story is that we should appreciate the people we have in our lives. Everyone has a unique point of view and an interesting story to tell. But will you take the time to see it unfold?

--B

Teenage Dream? It's more like a nightmare, Katy.

Since puberty seems to be occurring earlier and earlier, kids seem to get into relationships much sooner than they should. Luckily, this has given me plenty of time to form some opinions on teenage relationships, most of which are probably controversial. This is mainly because I look at things logically.

Anyway, teenagers are extremely hormonal and immature. This leads to a lot of problems.

One problem is the fact that no one seems to be able to make up their mind. I know one girl who likes three or four guys right now and each one thinks that he is the only one. All I want to do is say, "Pick one already!" Unfortunately, I'm too nice to do that. Instead, I will just complain about my problems on the internet.

Another problem is the fact that every person I know becomes a total douchebag when they get into a relationship. I get that you aren't going to be spending as much time with me, but do you have to be so flaky? Some people just blatantly ignore me when they're in a relationship, others cancel plans last minute because they decided they would do something with their significant (for a week) other instead. Personally, I prefer the former. At least I can make plans with other people then.

What bugs you about teen relationships?

--B

October Daze

It's finally October! (I know I probably should have made this post yesterday, but I'm not very good at thinking ahead.) While there are many things I hate about October, *ahem* Halloween *ahem*, there are also many things that I like. Autumn is a beautiful season and is one of my favorites.

What's so great about fall? Throwing on a cozy sweatshirt and taking a walk. Hearing the crunch of the leaves underneath my feet. Then, looking above to find a forest of red, yellow and orange. It's absolutely spectacular. Not to mention, the next season after fall is winter, which happens to be my favorite!

What do you like about fall?

:)

-- B

This is Halloween

It's official. I'm boycotting Halloween. Why, you ask? Because it's stupid!

The only good part about Halloween is the candy. Everything else sucks! You have to put on some costume that itches so bad that by the end of the night, you genuinely think your skin has fallen off. You walk around for hours in shoes that are super uncomfortable begging for people to give you candy. But this isn't even the worst part. Oh no, there is something much worse.

People are constantly scaring you! I don't know about you, but I am a total wimp when it comes to being scared. Then, people make fun of you when you won't go in the haunted house so you do go in the haunted house and you start shaking like a chihuahua and then you end up bawling in a corner.

Yep, last year sucked.

Another thing I don't understand, people paying money to be scared to death! Who wants to go on a hayride, or in a maze, or in a house, or in a graveyard to wet themselves?!?!

Basically, I hate Halloween. So, who wants to join me in the fight to vanquish this horrid holiday once and for all?!

-- B

#Overkill

First of all, I want to apologize for not posting lately. I got SUPER busy all of a sudden and couldn't keep up.

Everyone has that one friend that hashtags WAY too much. Like, seriously, you need to go to #rehab. There was one picture that my friend posted that I took a screencap of because I knew nobody would believe me when I told them. 30 FREAKING HASHTAGS! Who in the world uses 30 hashtags?!! Like, #overkill. #ForReals #people #annoying #KILLMENOW

If you haven't seen it already, go ahead and check the video below out. It gives an extremely accurate description of all of the annoying people on the internet. #ByTheWay, this is not meant to offend anyone. I'm definitely guilty of a few of these. *ahem* Grammar Nazi *ahem*

-- B

I'm Going Back to Cali

Well, it was time for me to fly back out to California. Even though I live in Tennessee, I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles. At first, I was dreading it, but it turns out my best friend had to come out too! I am super excited because we never get to see each other. He lives in a different part of TN and he sometimes lives in Florida, so we pretty much only see each other if we both happen to be in California.

Anyway, now it's time for my rant. I hate flying! It's not that I'm afraid of it or anything, it's just SO stressful. First of all, there's security. They always test my hands for bomb residue! I mean, I appreciate the fact that they think I'm smart enough to make a bomb, but I'm also very agitated because it takes extra time that I don't need to waste. Then when I finally got out of security, my guitar case fell on my hand and made me break a blood vessel.

All in all, it's been a pretty bad day. I hope when I see my friend, everything will get better. :)

-- B

Selfie Sunday?

Selfies, the bane of my existence... Why can't I take a good selfie?!

I suppose I haven't had much practice. I just got a phone with a front-facing camera about a month ago. Still, every time I try to take a selfie, it ends up looking REALLY bad. So, I decided to start studying my friend's selfies.

Everyone seems to have their signature pose and facial expression that they use for all of their selfies. I've tried using some of them, but it just ends up looking wrong! So, I decided to further analyze why I don't like my selfies. I'm doing everything exactly the way they're doing it so why don't mine look good?

Poof! I was struck with an epiphany! I don't like my selfies, because I don't like any selfies! The reason being that there are two types of selfies per gender.

• Guys
• The Douchebag - We've all seen this one before. These are the guys who are so completely and utterly taken with themselves that they don't realize how stupid they look. They usually wear a snapback, are shirtless and make a face that reminds me of a constipated donkey.
• The Comedian - These are the guys who make fun of the douchebags. They take the most douchey pictures possible to make a statement. These are tolerable, in my opinion.
• Girls
• The Slut - These are the kinds of pictures where girls make a "come hither" look and place the camera just right so their boobs look bigger than they actually are. If you are going to take a selfie, I recommend that you completely avoid this type of picture. It will give off the wrong impression!
• The "Call Me Pretty" Picture - These are the kinds of pictures where girls take a stunningly gorgeous picture that they know looks incredible (mainly because they put a filter on it) and then in the description put something along the lines of "Ugh, I look so ugly in this picture!" This makes all of her friends feel the need to call her pretty in the comments. Just a note, if she didn't think she looked good in the picture, she wouldn't have posted it.

Obviously, I don't want to take any of the above girl pictures as they would both make me look conceited which is not something I want to have happen. I'm thinking the closest thing to what I want is the comedian but somehow when girls do it, they just look stupid. Why is it that guys can get away with anything?

Well, back to the drawing board. Looks like I won't be taking any selfies any time soon. Maybe I should just stick to nature pics.

-- B

We are Family

Last night, I drove down with my family to Georgia to see the rest of my family for a family reunion. Wow, how many times can you say "family" in a sentence? Anyway, this time I am seeing my, um, what do you call them? It's my dad's half-sister's kids... For now, I'm going to call them my... half-cousins. That makes sense, right? Yeah.

Like I was saying, I am seeing my half-cousins and I realized just how weird it is to see family that you don't really know. It's possibly more awkward than meeting a complete stranger. At least with a complete stranger, you have a reason not to know them. With family, it's different. You feel like you should know them and you shouldn't be awkward around them but the fact that you're trying not to be awkward makes everything more awkward! Or even worse, when you run into like a great aunt or something and she talks about all this time you spent together when you were a baby but you don't remember them and then they get all offended and you're like, "Sorry, I don't remember the times I was in diapers!"

...........

Obviously this happens to me a lot. The thing is I live in Tennessee and none of my other family lives there so I never really get a chance to see my extended family. I see each set of grandparents and cousins once a year and that's it, so on the rare occasion that I see any other family members, chances are I don't remember them.

Perhaps, I'm being a little dramatic. I mean, it's family, they can't be but so bad... right?

-- B

How to Blog

Well, for some reason, I got the sudden urge to create my own blog. Okay, maybe it wasn't so sudden. I had been thinking about it for a while. I mean, who doesn't want a not-so-personal journal? There's only one problem... I don't know how to blog. I mean, what am I supposed to write about?!

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not exactly used to this... yet. However, I am always up for learning new things. I am a nerd after all. ;)

Time to do some research...

-- B