America has this weird obsession for modernizing Shakespeare.

What does it smell like?

I decided to do a nice thing for my older sister and clean the house today.
That included mopping:
Mostly water, and some "Fabuloso!" my mother always uses was called for.

As soon as I opened up that tiny bottle of cleaner, I was bombarded with the smell.

Amused with my initial response (I don't think it was a positive one), I imagined myself answering the question "What does it smell like?" to a first-time buyer (she was blonde in my mind, with an oompa loompa tan and overly big sunglasses, but a genuinely friendly smile. I was a worker).

My first though was "Cheap house": It smells like a place we're all programed to want to get out of: a city born 30 minutes on the wrong end of the fence.
Like humble families and lots of children.
It smells of ice cream, and children laughing. Of sun bathed afternoons and bare feet. Yellow shorts and spaghetti tops and bubbles.
It smells like potholes and poor neighborhoods.
It smells like mother's hard work, and like the cement floors she's make sparkle as a child.
It smells like father's work and tired naps after hours of labor.
It smells like washed out things.
It smelt of home, ironically. Despite the fact I'm somewhat detached from it--from all the poor things.
Yet I am still poor. I probably always will be--
No, I doubt it. But my house will always smell of poor things.
And that makes it all the richer.

Lifescout Badges

Taking a bit from one of my favorite people on the internet. . . . ever, Charlie McDonnell and Alex Day, I’ve decided to try and post up a group of little something called “Lifescout Badges”, an idea by Mr. Day, or Nerimon on YouTube, to make Boy or Girlscout badges for things most human beings are generally excited about as a means of motivation!

Here goes, and good luck not falling asleep *wink*:

Learning how to Archery
Most recently I took an Archery class with one of my best friends at our town’s Olympic Training Centers. It was the absolute bomb, and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. We kept making LOTR and Brave references and took extra delight in making the yellow Thandrul’s face.

Learning to ride a bike
I was about 13 I’ll say when I first learned how to ride a bike (yes, I was old). I took my neighbor’s old rusted bike, about two sizes too big for me, and tried to not crash into cars (a task more daunting than you can believe). I’ve had past horrible experiences with bikes, including ramming into a car right when a group of older boys were walking by. . . . that day was not a nice one. I’m proud I actually got back on the bike after that, though.

Learning to swim
Oh man that was fun! I almost drowned that day, but I managed to “swim” to the deep end of the pool and not die! I can’t remember how old I was, but it’s been a while: during a family vacation (and by this I mean my immediate family plus a boatload of extended family members) to a place called Muleje in Baja California, Mexico, I was the one kid in a group of at least six that could not swim. It was the first thing I sought to learn upon reaching the pool. Though I didn’t win any races that year, I did finally earn passage onto the deep end and that was good enough for me.

Un peu. Je ne parle pas bien le français
(I totally know wtf this means).

Learning a different language
English is not my first language! That’s not an uncommon thing here in the States, actually, especially considering that my hometown’s a massively diverse area. Yet I still hold some pride and resentment towards that five year old whom refused to speak Spanish in school for the entirety of kindergarten just to be able to speak in English with all the other kids in the neighborhood: I learned English via Pokémon and “chick flicks”, yet I wasn’t allowed to take my school’s bilingual classes, thus killing my ability to communicate in Spanish much farther than the average helper in a business setting (believe it or not, it’s not much. It makes me sad.) I’m currently taking French and took three years of Japanese (don’t ask me to speak or type in either please! I’m terrible!)

Look at it! OMG it's got little stubby legs! :D

Holding a snake
One of the first people I ever considered to be a friend was a proud owner of a small snake. She was an absolute beauty we’d take care of together. I really loved it as a kid, and remember it fondly now as a sort of adult.

Having a pet
We have owned a couple dogs at my house! Lots of dogs, actually. I want to try my hand a cat at some point in life, particularly a Munchkin cat named Napolecat (or Gatoleon in Spanish).

We're also called the Urban Knights!
That's a pretty damn awesome name!

Making it into collage
I made it into the Academy of Art University in San Francisco! Sure, that’s not a big deal considering their lack of criteria, but to me it’s an important first step! I wasn’t sure I even really wanted to go to College, despite my AP class credits (I took ‘em for funsies). Finding a passion in animation set things in motion for me, especially when I found out I sort of fit the bill really well for what an animator should be—artistic, creative, attention to detail, history nut, keen on diversity over routine, a bit of a tech nerd. I found something and that’s important to me, less I’d refused to evolve as a person at all.

As proof, here's a busy
Street in SF herself!

Going to San Francisco
I went to San Fran to visit the Collage I wanted to go to, actually, with my best friend (whom will be dorming with me and eventually renting an apartment with me). The city’s a gorgeous place, and definitely earns its’ reputation for being one of the healthiest cities in America—the hills are ridiculous! You cannot afford to eat junk food there, less you’re one of the elite few whom have the luxury of being able to afford the parking meters (and even they looked mad at the prices)! All in all, after you’ve found your way around, it’s a small place, and rather cozy, yet still so much more vast than my own humble hometown.

Moving out of Mom and Dad’s
This one’s a technicality, I think. . . .but I still think it’s an important first step in my life. When I went to San Francisco to visit my collage, I got sick on the last day and got scared. Because of this, I was silently crying on the way back home, and it didn’t help that I had dropped my phone in the car and thus lost communication to the rest of the world (and my parents, more specifically my mother). So, partly for scholarships and partly for my own sake, I moved into my older sister’s house. I set my own alarms, make my own breakfast and dinner, and spend most of my days alone since my sister’s a workaholic. Sure, my mother babysits my nephew and still takes me to school, but I’m removing myself some, which I feel is important for me at the moment.

Going to Disneyland
Who, by God, in all the world doesn’t love Disney, or at the very least didn’t love Disney at some point in their lives? I personally adore it! Every bit of i—well, almost every bit of it. Despite being a national treasure of sorts, I don’t think Disney’s too big to critique, but I digress.  Disneyland’s a wonderful, beautiful place, that in my mind never ceases to be amazing. As children, we’re all tricked to believe it’s this magical kingdom where all dreams come true and no bad things happen. As an older person, I’ve come to appreciate that trick. Bad things happen all the time, but escapism never ceases to refresh the optimistic (and I do this I’m pretty optimistic, for a pessimist).

Going to a party
I’m an antisocial schizoid, so parities are few and far between for me! I’m not proud of the actions displayed by peers whom attend these parties with me (I’m usually the killjoy in the corner, pretending not to know anybody), but in the end it’s sort of lovely to see my friends having fun, even if it’s not the type of fun I would normally have. In all their imperfections, my friends are perfect and I enjoy seeing them like that—natural. A person never looks more beautiful than they do while wearing their everyday expressions and walking in everyday life. I seriously need a stalker camera to catch them in the act of being beautiful.

Going to the Zoo
Zoos!! My hometown has a world-famous zoo, which I’ve visited over the years and still greatly enjoy going to! As of late, I’ve only gone because of my nephews and siblings, but I desperately want to go again to sketch out the animals some. I love sketching out animals, and sometimes googling an image isn’t enough of a challenge! XD

Made the playbill and
drew up costumes. ;)

Going to a school event
Again, I’m a bit of a schizoid so this is a rare activity for me: my best friend was in a play*, which I actually had contributed a lot of my time to, not to mention I knew a lot of people in the play and was close with the teacher, so I was obliged to go. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Seeing those jolly idiots spout Shakespere at each other might be the highlight of my senior year.

Going to Cancun
I got to go on my ninth birthday! My biggest memories were a) extending my birthday to an entire week so I could get cake and “las mananitas” sung to me at every restaurant, b) my cousin and uncle thoroughly annoying my older sister, c) pretending I was old enough to drink with unalchoholic pina coladas, d) meeting a little dude whom looked so much like my father we kept making “long-lost son” jokes, and e) getting a stern talking to by a French lady whom was also staying at our hotel, presumably over how “Madmuaselle” wouldn’t apply to a woman of her age, and how I shouldn’t have been uttering French if I couldn’t speak it!

Badges I still need to earn:

Visit New York
Visit Paris
Visit London
Successfully horseback ride
Hang-glide
Successfully blog
Successfully vlog, at least once in my life
Meet some of my “internet heroes”.
Collage
Finish at least SOME collage and get a job as an animator for a company somewhere in the world
wind up working for Disney or Pixar
Sketch our animals at the zoo
Sketch out people in a natural habitat

*Gotta love the complete contradiction and utter disregard to mental disorders: A schizoid is, in common terms, a loner: they don't have many friends, seemingly have a lack of emotions, and tend to prefer solitary activity. . . . the more ya know! ;)

With love,
Nikola Strange.

Reeducate the Cynical

I need to reeducate myself:

As of late, I’ve fallen into a dangerous and dastardly cynicism, and I’m not enjoying it. It’s coming at a high price—the ability to compromise, comprehend, and co-create (it took me a total of 30 seconds to come up with three C’s).

A number of factors have come up to suddenly bring this wave onto me:
My Government class comes to mind.

AP U.S. Government was a real eye-opener for me from the beginning. I won’t pretend I was a special breed, thus amplifying the above statement: I am your average nerd in an AP Gov’t class—interested in politics before joining, plans to be politically active, didn't really understand wtf the news was trying to say.

I’m proud to say I understood the President during his live Internet Chat on youtube (and greatly enjoyed his Roosevelt reference, even if I don’t hold too high of an opinion on FDR).

Normally, this would be viewed at as a brilliant thing! “Look, these children understand our politics!”

Education is the greatest equalizer of man, and that makes me lethal.

I want to say that one day and genuinely mean it.

We gotta start aimin' for THIS, dudes.

Yet the downside is, like reality, not simple: I grew a set of core beliefs. Most people wouldn’t see this as a bad thing, I don’t think, but I feel the need to elaborate. When we grow this core belief, we tend to reject anything and everything opposing those beliefs, even if they make sense or could benefit the whole of the nation/community. We see this all the time: our Congressional leaders pulling the breaks on the nation’s business, the far-out margins spouting their beliefs on their metaphorical soapboxes. You may see it as backwards, yet they (hopefully, depending on your viewpoint) see the rest of the world as wrong. And that isn’t healthy. For anyone. We need more pragmatists in the world, I think. People willing to look at the situation at hand and act for the good of the nation instead of those looking out the lends of their beliefs first and then applying themselves to the situation at hand—we need policy for ideals, and not ideals for policy (gotta love sound bites).

At the same time an admired man once said “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything!” So how much of this is actually harmful? How much is too much? Will we ever know? What struggles are worth fighting for?! When are we pushing it too far!? When do our leaders, and ourselves, overextend their cores or their beliefs (parties) and endanger the nation and the world?

If you find the answer to these questions easy to come by, I envy you. I wish I had that shiny box-world, where all the solutions were wrapped up with a nice bow. Simple patters, straight lines, and easy access to follow. Unfortunately, I live in an odd place.

Arhgfbkvbfsifskbfcshfbkjdsbcdshzj
confusion!!

Currently, I’d have to try and find the balance. . . .and that struggle will remain with me forever as a struggle to keep improving myself. Or keep myself at a functional level. Yeah, I think the latter’s the most accurate. My thoughts are in a constant state between too little and too much. Those moments I feel perfection is more just a chemical reaction existing in an isolated environment, which puts me on the same boat as just about everybody else on the planet.

Sure, some argue that a healthy dose of cynicism’s good for the soul, which may be true, but I don’t want to be too closed off from the rest of the options of the world as to live in a bias. I guess I want to forever live in the state of a tabula raza.

A young, impressionable, clean youth, pure and unspoiled by the biases of the world; is that a good thing to aspire to? I don’t know.

You cannot stay completely clear of opinion if you want to dive into a subject. It’s not possible. Even the most silenced of wallflowers has an opinion to express inside. Yet I don’t want to be clouded from acceptance of others! I don’t want to limit any progress that could be made through that limitation! I also don’t want to give up.

Stephen Colbert was once quoted as saying “Cynics always say no. But saying ‘yes’ begins things.”

We once spent an entire week in AP lang trying to decipher within ourselves (or debate) which was best.

“Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt or disappoint us.”

To change the validity of this statement, one would have to change the definition of cynicism, and maybe make a reference to an important figure to back it up. Einstein is good.

The financial state of the nation spiraling Collage students into debt and killing me kindly with the promise of a better future I’ll probably not get, because the nation’s in a state of disarray and I won’t be able to work at DreamWorks or Pixar or Disney and I’ll be stuck with a useless degree . . . . .

Oh look, problems!

“They only tell you want you want to hear” My Gov’t teacher says “You’re all wonderful and it’s never your fault. Those mean Republicans/Democrats don’t care about America or Grandma! We’ll take care of it!” While he mimes kicking the metaphor of an imaginary can. “By the way, we’re 16 trillion in the hole! On a rocket ship to 20!”

“You’re giving us nightmares, you know.” I had to blurt out like an idiot.

He looked shocked. “I never meant to. I simply wanted to expose you to realities of our system.”

And here I am yelling at newspaper article titles.

Stephen Colbert, Ironically enough one of the most influential figures in my life and a person responsible for my core belief . . . .for lack of a better word, problem, once had these words to say on cynicism: “Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics.”

I don’t want to not believe in anything! I want to be entranced by the beauty of the world. I want magic to occur! I want solutions. I want an ending to this chapter even if it has to be dragged out of the world while it kicks and screams because the grown ass people know when it’s time to stop being selfish! Yet something keeps me from shouting and leaves me largely empty and drowned, like the weight of this world I have in my head snuffs out the fires.

 “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it.”

Well it looks like I’m far from my goal.

 “Because cynics don’t learn anything.”

I’m trying. That’s the point of this blog. Dearest no one, I use you for therapy.

“Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'.”

“’yes’ is for young people.”

I want to stay young.

Forever young again.

But I’m only 17.

“So for as long as you have the strength to, say ‘yes’.”

Right now, I’m going through a weird mix between “Nothing’s that great” (quoted from Julia Nunes) to “I’m not a hero!!” (A little thing my friends do: ‘Dude, I’d totally ROCK as an Avenger!!’ ‘No wai, man!’. . . .), to “The name on everybody’s lips is gonna be (mine).” to me laughing at how silly I sound. And repeat.

Can’t I get over this and be some silly kid again all of the time?

yosshyoshyoshyoshyoshhhh

Adulthood’s five months away? I gotta get used to this shit? . . . . Okay (I guess. Military can consider you to be a dependent to 26. . . . . But I don’t want to be dependent and I hate not trying. Damnit).

Erphh. . . . How about I stop thinking so much and get back to something easy, like my book report or finding the cure for cancer?

The nation’s problems will come the day I am good and ready to enter into office, and that’s another 18 or so years from now!!

I'd get the last quoted sentence as a tattoo if it wouldn't sound terrible out of context.

With Love,
Nikola Strange.

(("WHY DON'T YOU PAY FOR THE STOCK PHOTOS?!"
I'm too broke to pay for free photos, okay!! DD:))

Pent up troubles

I've been unintentionally stressed as of late.

I didn't even realize why, until a friend of mine decided to sit me down and talk. Damn if I ever needed it.
My life has, according to my friend, revolved around fear: fear of not being accepted. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not deserving good things.

At first, I thought he was silly: why would I feel such things?

Sure, I have my secrets, but why would I fear being austracized?

I have my differences, but how would that make me feel inadiquate?

I didn't hate myself. I still don't. Why would I feel undeserving?

The last one hit home first: I do fear it--I fear love. It's a scary thing, knowing a living breathing person with their own wants and desires could take an interest to you. Or that you'd have to live up to their standards.

I am scared of that.

So I thought about the rest: yeah. I do fear not being accepted in my family, for reasons I can't get into here on this blog. Not yet.

And I do fear I've failed somehow, for reasons I can't get into here either. Not yet.

There's a file on my computer holding our entire conversation. Read at your own peril, would be my advice
.
I hope everything turns out okay in the end.

With Love,
Nikola Strange.


(Please pardon the typos. I want to publish this before I think too much--now you can see ny piss-poor spelling!! :DD