Confidence.

Confidence is something that I struggle with a lot sometimes, and a lot of people around me wouldn't know it. It has always been very important to me that I appear strong even when I am not feeling so strong, because in many ways I have an unhealthy pride about appearances, don't know where I got that from, which really gets me uptight sometimes. I write for the fun but I also have a comfort zone that I have trouble getting out of sometimes, and I did it last week. I write a Naruto fanfiction which a lot of people laugh at me for, and I used to struggle with that until I realized something: I had fun writing it, in many ways I am proud of what I had created, and other people really don't matter. No matter how great of a writer you are, a lot of people won't like your work, and as I've matured ever so slightly, I've accepted that. Back on point, I wrote this very long battle scene between two characters that lasted several pages and that is a kind of situation I don't often write about, and I was feeling oh so nervous about it. But so far, everyone who has read it says it is very enjoyable and it makes me think about how confidence is earned. I think nervousness is a state of mind where I thrive, I have a finer eye for the details and a refusal to accept failure from myself. It makes me think sometimes if I would be better off revealing more of myself, how vulnerable I feel, and if perhaps by doing so I'd thrive in situations outside of writing. Just a stray thought that passed my mind.

Discussion about writing w/ a poker update.

Spoilers, I lost a lot of the money that I had earned, mostly just down trending bad luck, I learned a lot though and set aside my original investment, so nothing much was lost, aside from pride and profit.

I was discussing with a friend today the importance of keeping yourself grounded as a writer and to realize the limitations of your ability, because only by understanding your shortcomings can you overcome that, a lesson I have had to learn often, even when it was a bitter pill to swallow. I bring this up because late at night I will often find myself unable to sleep, and this will lead me to try to read some fanfiction to make me fall asleep or simply to pass the time. I actually find some fanfiction enjoyable, I am a sucker for things that are easy to read and I have written one myself, although it is so far off from anything related to the source I tend not to be bothered by the usual readers of fanfiction. Back to my point: It has always bothered me when a writer will talk about the original author in a fanfic as if they made terrible mistakes and they could correct them. No disclaimer should ever have "I don't own harry potter, but boy if I did I'd make all these changes, like making sure everyone who died live!" and then go on to write a terribly written story. I admit, perhaps I am a bit crazy for expecting anything at all from fanfiction, but if your work is humble in its ability you yourself should be humble, I think.

Yeah, that's not exactly anything important, but it came to my mind and hey, I have a blog that absolutely no one reads, so I might as well just rant about it a little bit instead of mumbling to myself.

- Chris

Online Poker, and Gambling.

I gamble too much, something I don't think about too much when I have won 200 dollars in the past day. I think it is one of my greater flaws, I need the rush of gambling and I do it over very minor things. I don't think I am either the worst nor the most addicted, but I got a paycheck in yesterday and decided "Hey, forty bucks of this should go to gambling instead of other stuff that I might need" and this time it worked out, but often times my poker luck isn't nearly as good and it doesn't work out. Although, like anything else, I think it is about self-control more than anything else. After I won 165 last night I decided that I am going to better pace myself and try to keep building off of this, because frankly it'd be nice to be able to freeroll my habit for awhile from this money, and who knows, I might actually win a lot of money in a big tournament, but the thing I have to keep up is this self-sustaining bankroll. I win every now and then, I just have to make the losses matter less, and to do that I need to risk less money at one time.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Not so happy New Year.

Well, today sucks. We are renting this nice house and we have been here for a couple of months now, and everything was fine until the owner informs us that because a family member decided to move in to the "mother-in-law" suite next door, that she gets to charge them the same that the other people were paying (this makes sense) but we have to pay the whole electric bill while before when there were random people living there she cut us a check for 33% of the total bill because we weren't responsible for that part, but now she claims it is because "we are family", which makes no sense because if she noted we were family how about she just put it into contract, or rework it so that she is not obviously making more money just because we are family. So, long story short, we are moving. This makes me very, very angry, because I love this house to death. It is burnt orange, my favorite color, and I just really started to feel comfortable here recently. It just really sucks, because this is total bullshit, everyone knows it is total bullshit, and it isn't as if we can just put up with it, so it is very, very likely we are moving. I know we will find a nice place, maybe even a nicer place, I am just upset because god damnit, I really like this place. So today isn't exactly the start to the new year that I would have liked.

On a better front, my mom is doing much better and her leg is returning to normal, so I suppose I should put stuff like having to move again in perspective, it isn't the end of the world, but it does suck.

- Chris

Sunday, bloody sunday.

So today my family had a scare, as my mother had to go to the hospital because her foot/ankle swelled really badly. She is a diabetic, and any problems with the foot are magnified by it. I was gotten from work although she didn't want me at the hospital, turns out I probably wasn't needed as she got home a couple of hours after I was brought home, she was more or less OK. Although I was worried sick about her, this brought up another conversation that I was really uncomfortable with. My mother said that if she was to die what would happen with me. As I stated previously, I am 23, I work part time, and I am working on a college degree, it is a bit insulting to be treated like a helpless child, even though I know her heart is in the right place, she just worries about me as I am by far the youngest of her children. I don't know how I should react, but I have chosen to remember something: I need to get my life in more order before I can act as prideful as I might have felt there. I mean, I do some stuff that is cause for concern, and I should be doing more, so I should do the actions before I try to do the words.

In lighter news, as a sports fan, I was pleased by how Sunday went. I am a huge fan of the Bucs, and they clinched a winning season after going 3-13 last year, so that was something to be happy about.

Christmas Eve and Christmas.

I was very tired last night, I tried to make a post but I ended up almost falling asleep at my keyboard. I had a long day at work yesterday, not to be confused with a bad day. Although I had a woman who was clearly drunk as all hell go up and hug me, which was more than a little awkward. As I said in a previous post I really enjoy my job, and yesterday was no different. Helping last minute shoppers with their gifts is awesome, and people always seem to really appreciate it, always asking for my name. I also found out from my boss that the District Manager himself liked how I helped people, so that made me feel good, glad my positive attitude is noticed by both customers and bosses.

Speaking of not being able to help myself in terms of spending, I got my mom a set of five books from a series by Diana Gabaldon (I hope I got that right) called the Outlander series about a woman who travels back in time, and my mom loves time travel books so those were a big hit with her.

This was the first Christmas that I got to spend it with a big extended family. I moved into a new house a couple of months ago that is much bigger, so during the holidays everyone can come over and spend a lot of time with one another. We have two kids in our family, one is eight and the other is three, and their presents were piled a mountain high basically, which reminded me heavily of my own childhood. The family as a whole realy went all out to make Christmas amazing for them, and as an adult that is something I hadn't seen yet, so the big smiles on their faces as they opened up all of their assorted stuff was heartwarming. It took us a good three hours to get through everyone's presents as we took our sweet ass time. I got a lot of good stuff, mostly video games. I got Halo: Reach which I have been wanting to play a lot, Madden 11 which I need to be playing, and Gran Turismo 5 which is going to consume most of my video game time for the next year or so, as I love that game.

I hope anyone who reads this had a merry christmas, or if that's not applicable, a good holiday season.

- Chris

Holidays.

This is a stressful time of the year for me, but all the same I like it a lot. I work for Gamestop, a company I love to work for despite what a lot of people might think about it. The reason I love it there isn't some odd pride in the name itself or anything, but of my experiences there. I derive a very big joy from helping people give things to others. I think a lot of times it is easy. and right, to believe that humanity can be one big bad apple, but the holidays always renew my faith in people when I work retail. I don't live in a huge city, but it is fairly big and people come into the store all the time, and where I am at they are surprisingly polite. I get to joke around with them, retelling the horrors of how a soccer mom ripped off my right arm last holiday with a smile and they seem to appreciate the joke as long as I can help them find that one game no one else has, and I can indeed generally do that.

I have always loved helping customers, because it is a unique experience every time. Everyone wants something different, from the attractive twenty-something in the skin tight dress picking something up for her boyfriend, to the average joe wishing his favorite game didn't happen to come out this week, to the elderly couple eagerly spending a lot of money just to see the joy on their grand kid's face, it is a time of year that I feel like I can most make a difference. I have learned a lot from my job, about people, about myself, and about the virtues of patience. The thing I take away most from other people's retail holiday horror stories is this: If you don't smile, your customer probably won't either. People like to know that you are the same as them, stressed about the holidays and eager to to get it done fast and right. Simple, really.

On a less robust note, I just sneakily bought my sister, who is in fact the biggest michael jackson fan on the planet, a book about him that has a lot of these great page-long pictures of some of his best poses along with a history lesson about him, she is going to totally freak out because everyone in the house thought that my present for everyone was just going to be the Wii and the games I bought a few weeks before Christmas. Like I said, all sorts of people are looking for stuff this time of year, and I am the sucker who just keeps spending.

- Chris