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Hello blog! Recently, me and a friend of mine decided to watch a bunch of movies together over the weekend; earlier that day I showed him the DVD section of the library since he had never been. So over the course of 3 days, we watched a total of 7 movies. (Impressive, but that wasn't even half the stack we checked out -- we got like 16 DVDs total LOL??)

I figured I might as well log them here. I was gonna put my review on letterboxd (link) anyways, so why not? (I make a shrugging gesture towards the computer.) This was last week so I'm gonna do my best to put them in chronological order okay... (NOTE: Some of these are not movies per se, but I will label them as such because ummm. I said so. Okay)

Movie #1: Cartoon Crazys: Banned and Censored (2001) (link)

1 star. Man what the hell. This isn't even a movie by the way. Literally just a collection of really problematic (most were just plain old racist) cartoons from the 30s and 40s. This is what I was expecting however; it seemed like a good find at the library so we watched it because why not. Good anthropology lesson, I guess. Too bad I'm not majoring in anthropology. Is that a thing? It sounds like something one would major in but now that I'm thinking about it I don't think it's a feasible career path. Anyways, yeah this sucked and I didn't intrinsically get joy from it. I did enjoy dogging on it with Jack though

Movie #2: Female Misbehavior (1992) (link)

3 stars :-) A collection of feminist short films + documentaries that me + Jack skimmed through. I actually was not really sure what I was expecting because I lowkey didn't read the back cover LOL, but overall it was quite pleasant. My favorite was one about a trans man's experience with figuring out his gender along with his sexuality, and about transitioning medically and stuff. I like queer history, and hearing about trans people's stories, especially during the 20th century. <3

Movie #3: Metropolis (2001) (link)

4 stars. Mannnn what a pretty movie. I really appreciate a good environment in a story, and DANG Metropolis has a really unique and atmospheric setting. I guess the best "aesthetics" to call it would be something akin to raypunk, or atompunk, or like a really colorful steampunk? The soundtrack is also very nice. I like the swingy analog trumpet sounds. I don't know what else to say, other than Rintaro is a really really really good director. I'm sure my friend mouseling dot net would really like this movie... Actually, I'll tell them about this blog once I've posted it...

big fucken stack... that we didn't even get halfway through LOL

Movie #4: Memories (1995) (link)

4 star-- Hey, this one's three movies in a trenchcoat! I suppose I will do a mini rating for each of the three mini movies then. Magnetic Rose: 4 stars. As you all may know, I'm a sucker for space stuff, and especially a sucker for space anime (also see: "Planetes" page (future aiden: make this page)), so I enjoyed the fact that the setting for this one was in deep space. Very Mysterious too because of the Eva character. Stink Bomb: 3.5 stars. This is one of pieces of fiction where there is Imminent and Inevitable Doom... I get a sort of sick enjoyment out of the situational irony (? not sure if that is the right term) that occurs and for this one especially I loved. Also the cause of the Imminent and Inevitable Doom is so funny. Imagine being so noxious that you straight up kill everyone by simply being in their proximity. Cannon Fodder: 4.5 stars. Okay THIS one was my favorite of the bunch. I loved the animation style for this one, and the composition and cinematography was great. There were no hard cut transitions at all, which I think helped the story move along very well. It's a very clever commentary on how wartime can and does affect everyone, especially so when war is going on for seemingly no reason at all. Ok rant over. yay

Movie #5: The Triplets of Belleville (link)

4 stars. And it's a movie I've watched before! Jack hadn't seen it yet, however, which is why I picked it out from the library. The first time I watched this movie was from when I was a kid, so thanks to my parents for putting me on some good shit. This is a really fun and sweet adventure of a movie, I love how little dialogue there is, and according to Jack the animation style is consistently high-quality. I also agree it is quite good, and expressive, if a little scary at times #gulp! But yeah, fun movie, if there's any movie I would recommend to watch from this list I would say this one. Go give it a watch :-)

Movie #6: Halloween (1978) (link)

3 stars. Er.... well compared to the rest of the movies we watched back-to-back, it was a little boring by comparison (will that get me killed... gulp...). Is that because my attention span is fried? Probably not, I hope. Maybe this one might have to be a rewatch because me and Jack kept getting distracted by talking during the movie. I was also in fact drawing during the movie so I may have been doubly distracted LOL

Movie #7: Her (2013) (link)

4.5 stars. DAMN. I'm leaving half a star out really only because this movie is absolutely a rewatch. First off, I really actually fucking love the colors in this movie. Such a phenomenal color palette and use of color symbolism <- that one guy who really likes the use of colors to convey messages in media. Secondly, the plot of this story is really rich and still holds so much relevance even 13 years later. It's probably even more relevant in this day and age because of the rise of LLMs and, yanno, all that. Also, the tech is really pretty in this movie. Why couldn't we get pretty and colorful technology and offices in this timeline </3

Was this a really fun way to dedicate like 18 hours of my life to over the course of 3 days? Yes...! Would I do it again? Maybe also yes...? I would need prep time however I think. But at least I can log 7 movies into my letterboxd now awesome. Ok bye blog mwah

Hello my dearest blog. As the weather has gotten colder I figured that I would share a recipe for one of my favorite foods of all time: tomato bisque :-) I used to make it all the time before college and lately I've been missing it quite a lot, lol. I figured that maybe I should use my blog for non-personal things anyways. I can do whatever I want forever.

Here is what you will need:

1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced onions
a few cloves of minced garlic
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup flour
1 cup broth (This can be any broth. I like to mix Better Than Bouillon with a proportionate amount of hot water.)
2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes (28 oz each)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper
1/3 cup heavy cream (optional)

Here is what you need to do:

1. Melt the butter in a large pot, and toss your chopped celery and onions and garlic in there and let simmer until it's cooked.

2. Add your flour in there and use a whisk to incorporate it with the other stuff. This is called a roux and it's gonna smell like bread. mix it well and let it brown until you get a color you like. The darker the color, the deeper the flavor will be. Personally, I do so for about 3-5 minutes.

3. Pour in your broth, the 2 cans of tomatoes (use water to get the remaining tomato sauce!), and add the seasoning. Mix until incorporated, and then forget about the soup for 15 minutes or so.

4. Use a soup blender (also called an emulsifier), or an actual blender if you're brave enough, to blend up all the tomatoes and other scrumptious vegetable chunks until smooth.

5. Strain your tomato soup into another pot. Ideally you should do this over your kitchen sink, and if you can, have someone help you with this. (You can use the stuff left over to spread on toast and stuff it's seriously so good)

6. Add in your heavy cream and mix it into the soup. This is optional, but I like to add heavy cream to mine to make it heartier.

And you're done :-) This recipe makes about 8-ish servings, and takes about an hour to complete. I like to have a slice of sourdough toast with my bisque or sprinkle in a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese. Fun fact: I made my college application essay about tomato bisque LOL

I hope you guys enjoyed my recipe... it would be cool if you let me know how it is once you make it. God I hope next year I have access to a kitchen I think I'm going insane

Hello blog. Man! It feels like a month since my last blog entry, but it's only been, what, 10 days? But, gosh... a lot has happened, that's for sure. I don't like to use the word "drama," but it has definitely felt like a lot of drama has been going on with... I guess my life in general? I'm not too exactly sure. There are some Things that have Happened and I am still trying to process them without feeling upset. Which I will talk about here. :-(

I think last week was already primed to be not exactly the best. I felt a little homesick, and the weather had just taken a sharp turn towards colder and colder temperatures. Is it too early to blame things on seasonal depression? LOL. Things are just so cold now. Especially since I have like, zero clothes for the winter... I didn't think it would come so quick... my friends are telling me I won't survive the winter. They're gonna bury me with the others </3

So, uh, regardless of the weather, there is one thing I would like to talk about here for sure. Some things happened between me and a guy I was talking to. I will be omitting a lot of information here because, firstly, this is a public blog, and secondly, I don't have anything against him, or anyone. I just feel like talking about it here will help me process my emotions. I will try to not get too into detail, of course. Just need to vent... big evil paragraph incoming.

We had been talking to for, like, a month-ish? I thought things were going good, we used to text each other a lot and he would come over to my dorm and we would hang out and stuff. He was the one that came to me in the first place, actually. But it was around a week and a half or two weeks ago where he started acting more distant (such as texting less, wanting to hang out less -- he always said he was busy, and I didn't press because I don't like being a bother), and at first I didn't think too much about it since I, too, was busy studying for midterms. Until around last week, one of our mutual friends texted me informing me that he (the guy I was talking to) wanted to swap hoodies. As in, we had swapped hoodies previously and now he wanted his back. Which yeah, I understand. However, I severely misunderstood why exactly he wanted to. I also thought it was strange that he didn't message me directly about it. I messaged him myself about when to coordinate the hoodie swap, and his responses were sort of absent minded, for lack of a better term, I guess. It wasn't even until like two days ago when he wanted to swap hoodies. Which, again. Strange... and keep in mind that I still had the impression that we were still talking, as in, the scary evil "talking stage."

ok really off topic but i have to share this... look at this fucking gromit mug my roommate got

So, er, imagine my surprise when I found out from a friend that he had a boyfriend. So like. OKAY. This was certainly news to me. Since when? I have no idea. My best guess is when he started being more distant, but I have no way whether to know for sure. I feel like this was one of those things I was supposed to figure out myself, but other than the being distant thing, he gave me like zero signals LMAO. So, that was a little bit of a shocker, to say the least.

I think the thing I'm most upset about is the fact that he never told me that he lost interest. Or the boyfriend thing, as an extension to that. If he had told me that earlier, or told me at all, I would have been way less upset, or probably not at all! Well, I'm not all that upset in the first place. Or, I'm trying not to be. Right now, I'm not, now that I already talked about this to my irl friends. I like to frame everything bad as a Thing That Has Happened And That's A Bummer But Still Okay. (If I say I'm okay enough times, it works eventually. :-))

I am definitely confused, however. Shortly before blocking me and a long while after I said it's okay that he didn't tell me until now and I still wanna be friends, he said that -- we had something and that I hurt him and he doesn't want to forgive me. -- I'm assuming it's once again my job to figure out what he means by that. (I literally asked him a few days before what's up?) My best guess is that I wanted to take things slow, he didn't. I mean, that's okay and a normal thing to want on both ends. I probably just communicated what I wanted incorrectly ... I'm really bad at conveying my thoughts yanno </3

Of course I am also a little saddened by the fact that he doesn't want me to contact him anymore. Like ouch, LOL? We knew each other for like, what, 3 weeks... from the way he worded things, I must have done something atrocious to this guy, I guess...! But, I will respect his boundaries. (I make a shrugging gesture towards my computer.) Whatever we are disagreeing on, I am glad we are doing it in a (relatively) civil manner. You see, I have no hate in my heart. One of my friends who thinks otherwise told me I should, quote, "slime him out because he's playing in [my] face." I will not slime him out. That's not nice. And I am pure of heart.

This is not the first Boy Situation (TM) that I have experienced since moving to college. There was another guy, during Orientation Week, who I had taken a liking to. He was the guy who gave me the CRT monitors, actually, so I will say he is still pretty cool for doing that without expecting anything in return. Well, I thought he was cute, and he liked the same things I did, and he was also really nice to me. And I'm pretty sure he liked me back? But, then again, I might have been way over my head. Well, I realized it was just me texting him if he ever wanted to hang out -- during the first week of classes, we didn't hang out at all once. So, I got the hint, and I dropped him </3.

I just hope my experiences with guys throughout the rest of the semester get better. Another one of my friends told me that I deserve better than someone who treats me like that (as in, someone who doesn't provide me closure and leads me to overthink), but now I'm wondering if there is anybody on campus that a) would like me back, lmao, b) be my type (I'm not that picky right?! LOL), c) be able to communicate with me during disagreements, ... Obviously the point of college is not to kiss guys. But it would be nice, damn it...

OK, I'm no longer sure where I'm going with this blogpost LOL. TLDR; some stuff that negatively affected my emotions happened, but I'm gonna roll with the punches. God that sounds so cringe. The thing is, I Will Be Okay. And You Will Too. I Love You. Also, I just got a care package from my parents in the mail. Yay :-)

Hello blog! This is my first blog entry on this website. Soon, I will possibly upload an archive of my old blogposts from my old website, but for now, this will be the first post on this site.

As of the time of writing this, it has been just a little over a month since I moved to campus. This is the longest that i have ever been away from my family; previously I had only been truly by myself for around a week at a time. It was only last summer when I took a flight by myself for the very first time. I am currently around 1,630 miles away from home, and it is a little scary because I now lack that safety net that I had gotten so used to. It's a new safety net now -- university services, friends I have made so far, etc.

But I'm also really excited. Super stoked, perhaps...! I've been trying out the clubs I'm interested in, and the other day I even joined the student radio! (I'm really happy about that because for that one, I had to pass a membership test and I studied the manual really hard and I got in on the first try, #booyah)... Overall, I've been trying to get super involved here during college, I don't want to just get my degree, I want to experience my college years to the fullest. :-) I do miss cooking a lot, though... gosh... for Labor Day Weekend, I tagged along with a friend to visit his parents, and I think I practically begged them to have me cook dinner for them, LMAO.

I think I fit in well enough here... this university specifically is known for its nerd culture, as far as I'm aware of (think Tumblr University? LOL), so I've been able to find a bunch of different people with similar interests as me :-) My roommate is really cool (hi Ash! o/), and I've already became good friends with other people here on campus. I haven't been to an actual "college party" yet, however... but then again, this university isn't exactly known for being a party school, haha. I'm glad that I don't feel isolated; I think that's the reason why I feel like I'm becoming well adjusted here so far :-) I mean, I do miss my family a lot, and miss the familiar comfort of home, but I'm so super glad that I finally have so much more freedom.

a double rainbow i saw on the first week :-)

However, I am feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome (I'm sure everyone does, to some extent) -- my major is Game Design and Development, and I do know a fair bit about programming, but I've never made a real game before -_-. Although I do really like my classes, and feel like I'm learning a lot already, I have this fear that it will be incredibly hard to land a career once I'm out of college. Hopefully stressing about it now motivates me to try super extra hard in my classes and my personal art projects... I just hope I don't burn out, you know? That would not be super awesome I think.

Continuing on the topic of putting myself out there, what I struggle with a lot is the mental block of learning a language. I know Spanish as a language quite well, but in conversation I totally blank because I feel so put on the spot when having to talk to someone. My university has a large deaf population, so I've been immersing myself in American Sign Language since I got here. I've learned quite a lot, but when it comes to actual conversation I blank like how I do with Spanish. In theory, I can say "Hello, how are you... my name is A-I-D-E-N... Nice to meet you...", etc, but I'm really slow at fingerspelling and I don't yet have my hand-eye coordination right yet. I mean, it's only been a month but I feel like I'm holding myself back...! I really want to learn ASL and sign relatively fluently because a lot of people that I've met here are deaf. I think, ultimately, I need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, just like how I've been in other aspects of my life in this month.

I've learned a lot in this first month of college, and despite how much I need to grow, I think I started off on the right foot. I'm glad that I've found a little circle of friends, and have tried new experiences, and have practiced my new freedoms, and have been stepping outside of my comfort zone. I think this is what I was looking for; in the months leading up to college it felt like I wasn't living my life to the fullest. I don't mean to sound unappreciative of my parents, of course, but I think it was ultimately the best decision for me to go to a university very far away from my home, to "spread my wings" or something like that, for lack of a less corny term... I don't know what else to write for this post so I think I'm going to end it here now. Thanks for reading! :-)