I May Have Lost My Touch

I really want to write a post tonight... er, this morning. Whatever. I seem to have lost sight of what I wanted to do with my blog. I look back, and I see a ton of movie reviews, and not a whole lot else. And yeah, a lot of my summer has involved going to the movies. I think I've gone at least a dozen times. Spock and I just saw Iron Man 2 last weekend. It was the second time I'd seen it, since the whole family went on Independence Day. But anyway, I feel sort of bad about just writing about movies. And then there was that post that was just a rant about my ex, Nietzsche. It just hasn't been a note-worthy summer, for the most part. Possibly, I just don't have a note-worthy life. But, I keep on truckin', or I guess Trekkin', being an unholy nerd and all.
I used to truly fancy myself a writer. It was my dream to be published, but until that day came, I knew I would write and write, and write some more. Until something stuck, you know? Until I actually found something worth writing an entire novel, or short story, or even poem about. And now, well, I think my brain may be deteriorating. I can barely go a day without forgetting how to spell a word, or not being able to articulate what the word even means. This, from the girl who was dubbed all throughout school as 'The Human Dictionary'. Now, I sit around every day, wondering what to write about, and almost nothing comes anymore. It's extremely frustrating, and I think that it may be contributing to my current bout of depression. I had originally worked this blog out. I was going to write, and have lists, and people would be intrigued by what I had to say. Instead, I have seven followers on the actual blog, and twelve on Facebook. And I'm related to three of them. So much for intriguing the masses. And it's not like I don't try to put the word out; I back-link all over the place. Any comment section that asks for a website, there's a link here. Any status message on any gaming site I use links here. I feel really naive about the whole thing.
And don't think that I'm quitting. No, I'm not giving up. I'm just not going to care as much, I suppose. And certainly not set my standards so high.
~Sushi

Keine Worte

NOTE: I apologize in advance for injecting so much of my personal life into this entry. I've been mostly writing about movies and events, so of course it will seem a little odd when I just talk about myself. However, if I just keep all this weirdness inside, I may explode. The title of the post, by the way, means 'No Words' in German, a language that I sometimes revert to when English doesn't have pretty enough words to describe the way I feel.

I never saw this coming. I thought he was through with Spock, and I already knew he was through with me. His name, for our purposes, will be Nietzsche, for the famous "God is dead" philosopher who was his hero for so long. It has been almost year since we parted, on the most unpleasant of circumstances. As I have already written that story once, I'll direct you to it for reference: Click here.. The shorter version, for those of you who can't access the page [it may be blocked for those who aren't members of DeviantART], is that on Nietzsche's birthday, Spock and I went to his house to throw a small party. A lot of thought went into it, and when he appreciated absolutely none of it, I flipped my lid a little bit. I had already been taking medication for depression, and the dosage was high enough that it was actually doing more harm than good, and thoroughly destroyed my sense of self-preservation. After weeks of my phone calls and emails remaining unanswered, I did the worst thing possible--I tried to kill myself by overdosing on pills and cough syrup. I spent four days in the hospital; it would have been longer if insurance had allowed. While I was in the hospital, I left him a crazed voicemail, breaking up with him and calling him all sorts of names.
Months after I was released from the hospital, I attempted to apologize through email, but the only reply I received was "Please never message me again." So, I took to forgetting about him, and trying to be a better girlfriend to Spock, who was once Nietzsche's best friend. But now, a strange tide has turned. While checking his Facebook, Spock got a friend request from Nietzsche. He accepted it, mostly because I asked him to. Even after all the nastiness that came between Nietzsche and I in the end, I still wondered and worried about him. I am just the dumbest person I know. Why should I bother with a person that will never speak to me again, and who has probably blocked me from his memory at all costs? Because there was once a time that I loved him, and because that time existed, I will never forget him.
Oh, and his birthday is on July 9th if you want to drop him a line. I can't give you his email address, because I'm fairly sure he could sue me for that, but I'll make sure that your words are heard. If, you know, you have anything to say.
Happy Independence Day!
~Sushi

The Eyes Have It

Eye appointments aren't usually as disappointing as this one was. I didn't even realize how sad I was until I found myself stuck in bed this morning, too depressed to move. The appointment was going well, with the usual tests. I looked at pretty colored dots with numbers to see if I'm colorblind--I'm not. I got the puff of air in my eyes to find out if I have glaucoma--I don't. My eyesight has even improved the tiniest little inkling--the left eye is -8.50 instead of -8.75 [either way, it really sucks]. I still have an astigmatism, but apparently all that means is that my eyes aren't globular; instead, they're egg-shaped. All that does is make my glasses more expensive. I asked about legal blindness, because I was really that concerned about it--and I wanted to see if I qualified for more scholarships. I'm not and I don't, which is probably good.
But then, I asked about laser eye surgery, because, as smoldering as I look in these coke-bottle glasses, I don't want to wear them forever. So, the doctor explained. For one thing, I can't get the surgery until I'm twenty-one, which I already knew. It has something to do with how eyes develop. But then, she dropped a bomb on me. I have to have a stable prescription in order to get laser eye surgery. That might seem bad, and it didn't phase me at the time. But then I thought about it, and realized that my prescription changes every freaking year. What this means is that I'm doomed to glasses [because I refuse to get contacts; I can't stick my fingers in my eyes] FOR ALL TIME.
This has been my utterly ruined day. I'm going to see Billy Elliot up in Chicago, so that might improve things. Until then, you're invited to my pity party.
~Sushi

Self-Concept: Who Am I?

For as much as people don't care for him, I think that my psychology professor, who is filling in for our usual teacher, is awesome. Yes, he's an old-school university type who still wears tweed sports coats with leather elbow patches, and yes, he assigns far too much homework. But, it's better than having to listen to our teacher, who is out on an injury, whimper and complain about her aches and pains, and drop names of the people she supposedly knows in the psychology community. So, now that I'm done ranting, I'll talk about what we did today.
The prof gave us one of those giant notecards, and had us write fifteen "I am" statements; i.e. we wrote about what we are. I decided to share mine with you, and, just because I can, to have a little fun with it. So, along with my "I am" statements, I'll be posting a picture, following the rules of the Google images meme [the picture has to come from the first page of results].
Who am I?
I am a woman.

I am a Lutheran.

I am a sister.

I am a daughter.

I am bisexual.

I am short.

_{I also hate quite a lot.}
I am suicidal.

_{But I'll be okay.}
I am a blonde.

_{At least, I was born a blonde.}
I am a friend.

I am responsible.

I am intelligent.

I am dependable.

I am a psych major.

I am sleepy.

I am a Trekkie.


I like these sorts of things.
~Sushi

Various Quiz Results

I am very bored. To entertain myself, I am taking quizzes on OkCupid, a dating site that I signed up for when I was in high school, just so I could take the quizzes. They have really neat quizzes. So, here are the results. Sorry this isn't more interesting. Give me a break, though; it's the first day of the semester.

Dead At 75

From Cancer

View my profile: willygoat

Find out when and why you'll die, take The Death Test!

Your result for The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test...

Outcast Genius

74 % Nerd, 87% Geek, 61% Dork

For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius.
Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occasion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject).
Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius.
Congratulations!

Your result for The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test...

The Swine

Achtung! You are 31% brainwashworthy, 41% antitolerant, and 24% blindly patriotic

Sie sind ein Schwein! You would've lived a quiet and consenting civilian life in Germany, while the Nazis stomped all over people you didn't quite care about.
You would never have directly joined the Nazis, basically because (1) you're not so nationalistic, (2) you're not that susceptible to crazy propaganda, and (3) you probably don't have the bloodlust. But you would've appreciated the Party, because you liked how they cleaned out the [insert race you dislike here].
The fact is, you demonstrate too much attachment to and pride of your own kind, be they white & male & straight or whatever. You absolutely would not have stood up to the Germans.
Conclusion: born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would NOT have STOOD UP to the Nazis. Sorry

Take The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test at OkCupid

Your result for The Sexual HELL Test...

HELL LEVEL 3

Raw score: 86%

There's a special place in Hell for you: the basement penthouse. You scored the nastiest possible score on the Sexual Hell Test. You have no sexual restraint whatsoever. You'll take pleasure however you can get it, and my guess is you get it a lot. If for some reason you don't right now, you will soon, as people in your category only tend to spiral down ever deeper into the abyss of carnality and delicious sin. Congratulations.
I, personally, think that this category is the best. Paradoxically enough, sexual liberation and indulgence can only bring you closer to purity.
AVOID: all but level 3 hellions like yourself. You wouldn't want to ruin anyone, now would you?

Take The Sexual HELL Test at OkCupid

Your result for The Brutally Honest Personality Test...

Freak- INFJ

13% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 40% Thinking, 53% Judging

Well, well, well. How did someone like you end up with the least common personality type of them all? In a group of 100 Americans, only 0.5 others would be just like you. You really are one of a kind... In fact, I do believe that that's one of the definitions for the word "FREAK."
Freak's not such a bad word to describe you actually.
You are deep, complex, secretive and extremely difficult to understand. If that doesn't scream "Freak!" I don't know what does. No-one actually knows the REAL you, do they?
You probably have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development.
You've probably even been called a "psychic" before, because of your uncanny knack to understand and "read" people without quite knowing how you do it. Don't fret. You're not actually psychic. That would make you special and you'll never accomplish that.
You're also quite possible the most emotional of them all, so don't take this all too hard. Nevertheless you most definitely have the strangest personality type and that's not necessarily a good thing.
*****************

Take The Brutally Honest Personality Test at OkCupid

Your result for The Your Type of Girl Test...

The Suicide Girl

64% Sexy-Cute, 30% Dark-Light, 28% Artsy-Stylish

Cute, Dark, and Artsy, it's the Suicide Girl. A cousin of the Goth Girl, she's a little more on the cute side than the sexy side. Her interesting hair and impish smile make a certain kind of person wonder how her unique outfits would look lying crumpled beside the bed. By the way, if you don't get this category name, you don't know your Palahniuk... or your internet porn.

If you liked my test, Please rate it highly! Thanks!

Also, make sure to check out my Beautiful Faces Test if you haven't already.

Take the Your Type of Girl Test

Your result for The 3-Variable Purity Test...

PURITY: 43% sex, 85% substance, 50% moral [55% total]

Well done! The higher your scores, the more "pure" you are. The lower, the more you've experienced.
This test was about done deeds, so your numbers will never climb. [It's interesting to think they all started at 100%.] But will your purity continue to fall? Will you OUTGROW or will you OUTDO your past experiences? It's up to you.

Advisory:

• Don't date anyone if your moral purities differ by more than 30%.
  
• Don't run a business with anyone if your substance purities differ by more than 40%.
  
• Do be friends with someone who has less than 1/2 your sex purity. You'll enjoy their colorful company.
  

Note: as for the "TOTAL" purity value - that's a weighted combination of your scores, indicating what a typical purity test might say about you.

Take The 3-Variable Purity Test at OkCupid

2112

Today is the twenty-first day of December, thereby making it 21/12. This is a significant number to any Rush fan, as it is the fourth, and one of the most popular, of their albums.
I haven't been posting a lot lately, because I've been depressed for most of the week. I'm used to having Spock around, and used to taking him for granted, so for him not to be here, even for a week or so, is killer. So, this is going to be a short entry, despite the fact that I had started the blog to combat my depression. Normally, writing makes me feel better, but I've been so fatigued that it seems like a chore.
So, the bulk of this entry is going to be a list. The average of 21 and 12 is 16.5, and so that is the number of the day. As in...
Sixteen-Point-Five Pictorial Examples of the Number 2112
_{Let's see how I pull off the 0.5}
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. Yes, I can always find a Star Trek reference. This is NCC-2112, the U.S.S. Star Union

12.
13.
14.
15. Look closely... It's there.

16.
16-1/2. 2112: The Sing-Along
Too bad I didn't post this at 9:21PM, aka 2112 military time. Too bad...
~Sushi

Kafka's Literary Suicides

I'm not really up to writing too much; after all, I just got back from a three-day camping trip in the woods, in below-freezing weather. Spare me this one day, please.

I wrote this paper for my Intro to Humanities class over the summer:
With the conclusion of “The Judgment,” a short story by Franz Kafka, the main protagonist, Georg Bendemann, is sentenced to death by drowning. The giver of this sentence is his father, and after it is pronounced, Georg throws himself over a bridge into a river. This seemingly crucial part of the story is followed by an endless flow of traffic across that same bridge (Mairowitz 34-35).As in many of Kafka’s stories, death is made to be insignificant when compared to the continual flow of life surrounding it. The prevalence of deaths in Kafka’s writings allude to the fact that he would rather have been death than alive. However, as he was quite pessimistic, suicide didn’t seem to be an option for Kafka—“You, who aren’t capable of doing anything, you want to do this [suicide], of all things?!?” (36). Kafka’s personal writings are full of his imaginings of his own demise:

To be dragged in through the ground-floor window of a house by a rope tied around my neck and then to be yanked upwards, bloody and mutilated, as if by someone not paying attention, with no consideration, through all the ceilings, furniture, walls and attics, until the last torn-off bits of me drop from the empty noose as it crashes through the tiles and comes to rest on the roof (4).

Instead, Franz Kafka committed a different form of suicide, that which could be called literary suicide. Rather than committing the actual act of suicide, Kafka chose to create main characters eerily similar to himself, whether physically or mentally, and to kill them off by the end of each of his stories. This essay will detail three of the best known cases of these literary suicides.
Josef K. awoke one morning to find himself under arrest, for a crime that would not be relayed to him (88). Thus, “The Trial” begins. K., Kafka’s literary persona in this story, is never told of the crime he has committed, though he searches far and wide for the answer. When no answer could be found, Josef K. submits to his persecutors, and is led to a field where he is expected kill himself. Just as Kafka cannot commit suicide, neither can Josef K., who instead glances toward a nearby house (92-93). A “human silhouette” leaned out of a window, opening its arms toward K (94). Finally, as K. watches this mysterious figure, one of his two executioners proceeds to strangle him, while the other sticks him in the heart with a knife, “twist[ing] it twice” (95). Kafka appeared to find this immensely funny; it was said that he “laughed uncontrollably” while reading excerpts of the tale to his close friends (95). This, however, could have been Kafka hiding his true fear of the closeness of his own death.
In perhaps the most well-known of all his writings, Kafka relays to the reader what it would feel like to be treated as though one were dead before they have even descended into their grave. In “The Metamorphosis,” main character Gregor Samsa wakes to find himself “transformed in his bed into an enormous bug” (39). Samsa’s has completely shunned him long before he has died of neglect, but even before his transformation, they took his for granted completely. Samsa supported everyone in his household—his mother, father, and sister—for none of them seemed capable or willing to secure gainful employment. Even as a humungous bug, Samsa was willing to try going to work, but once his family caught sight of him, they were disgusted; Samsa then chose to confine himself to his room, eating the scraps that his sister, Grete, left for him (41-43). Despite his family’s ill treatment, Samsa felt far more shame than they did. In the end, Samsa hid himself away and entered a “state of peaceful meditation,” allowing himself to die in tranquility, knowing that he would burden his family no longer. Upon his discovery, the family began to spend more time together, and was quite happy (53,55). Kafka’s creation of this peaceful death may be wishful thinking on his part. His horribly low self-esteem made him feel as though he were an encumbrance to his own family. Kafka’s philosophy required him to “have at least one piece (of writing) directed against me” (159). “The Metamorphosis” could have been that day’s piece, as it declares that the family would be better off without him.
Satisfaction of life comes into question with Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist.” Said artist, who remains nameless, has become famous by starving himself for forty days at a time, though it was made certain by the end of the tale that he could have held out for much longer periods of time (145-146). After a time, though, spectators have lost interest in the hunger artist, as have the circus staff, who no longer change the sign indicating how long he has gone without food. After the hunger artist has gone without notice for quite a long period of time, the circus staff comes around to collect his seemingly empty cage. It is then that he enlightens the staff as to why he goes so long without eating. “…I could never find any food I liked… If I had found any …I’d have stuffed myself the same as you or anyone else!” (152) Upon saying this, the hunger artist dies, whereby he is buried and replaced with a panther. Crowds were fascinated by this foreign beast, which was brought all the food it desired, and was full of life, as opposed to its predecessor, who seemed the embodiment of Death itself (152-153). Kafka’s desire for more in life may be what led him to write this story. Just as the hunger artist can never find a food that he will enjoy, Kafka never found a companion that he felt worthy of, and of whom he had no fear.
Kafka finally did die of tuberculosis in 1924. By the time he died, the effects of his illness had destroyed his voice, forcing him to communicate with notes. It must also be noted that Kafka could barely eat; this was the time period in which he wrote “The Hunger Artist.” Through his literary deaths, Kafka may have gained some peace, but hardly enough to placate the demons within him. Instead, Kafka chose to kill himself time and again, reminding readers that death is beckoning them ever closer.

~Sushi

Biff! Zot! Ka-PUNCH!

Graphic novels are my drug-free stimulation of choice this year. I have utterly devoured dozens of books this month alone, and most have been of a more illustrated variety. As far as publishers go, I prefer Vertigo and Dark Horse, as well as numerous lesser-known labels and of course, manga titles. I recently finished the cine-manga for Miyazaki's Spirited Away, and I'm digging for more manga of the sort. The escape into a more interesting, and certainly more colorful world helps my depression, and it makes me feel better in general.
And, as a very fitting list, my Top 13 Favorite Comic Book Characters, somewhat in order:


1. Catwoman

2. Rorschach

3. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

4. Morpheus/Dream

5. The Crow

6. Huey

7. Chi

8. Alice

9. The Riddler

10. Spider Jerusalem

11. Manga Spock

12. Wolverine

13. Naru Narusegawa



Ka-END POST!
~Sushi
P.S. Bonus!
I found this whilst looking for a suitable Wolverine image! Yay Spock!