Title: 30
Music: "Riot" by Paris Carney (brief dialogue from The Office)
Fandom: Multi
Summary: "There's a riot going on in my head" A self-portrait about my experience turning 30 years old using important media sources from my life.
Content Notes: None.
Notes: Made for From There to Here at Vividcon 2018 as my last vid to show at the con. Thanks to lola for the beta and encouragement!
Download Link: 30 (79MB MP4)
AO3



I began working on this vid in the fall of 2016 when I was dealing with depression (I thought it was situational but it was deeper than that) and thought it would be interesting to see if I could find a way to vid what I was going through. I was turning 29 which made turning 30 real to me and I began to realize that I wasn't even close to achieving what I wanted to create: a happy life with a great career, romantic partner, best friends and satisfaction with who I am as a person. I've been an ambitious, idealistic person since I was a kid and not living up to my expectations for myself at an age where I thought I would have made some real progress with my life was terrible for me (ie wasted potential). I started with using some clips from my favorite vids (later I remastered them with actual show footage) and important shows to me that stood out to me with the lyrics and what I wanted to show and as time went on, I would return to the vid and keep adding clips to it. It helped me a lot to process my emotions (basically viddding as therapy) as I felt that least my bad feelings could create something beautiful.

I wanted to make a few comments on the clips and general arc of the vid since it's so personal that not everything might come through. First of all, Matilda was an important book/movie to me growing up as I was a big reader who felt alone (and later bullied) so it was important to me to start with that and the quote is from The Office from a child talking to Michael Scott and I always connected deeply to it in my life even ten years ago. I've spent a lot of nights curled up in a ball on my bed crying about my life so I strongly related to those clips in the vid and also love climbing up ledges like Brian and Root, not to jump (although safely that's fun) but to feel the adrenaline of being up high and trying to figure out what to do. When I showed Rebecca quitting her job and Buffy leaving town, I wanted to show how I tend to leave jobs and places in hopes I can find something that makes me happy even though it's usually an internal mental health issue (what I didn't realize before).

I wanted to use the clip of Fraser reaching out to the train because a vid meta post impacted me that talked about how that shot meant desperately wanting something and would mean that in any context so I wanted to use it to show me trying to find romance even when it always leads to rejection and heartbreak for me. I knew I had to include something about my mom dying and how terrible it was for me and how I still wish I had her in my life a lot so I put in clips that reminded me of that including the Buffy episode I watched the day I found out she died. I used effects on the Lex violently hitting something clip which was meant to replicate the effects in sisabet's Without You I'm Nothing vid, which I've always loved and related to and showed that frustration I felt at the unfairness of the world. I wanted to use effects in the vid (such as glows) to highlight the emotion/mood from the source and also as a way to show my vidding progress in being able to use effects since the vid was for the From There to Here vidshow (first vid shown at Vividcon and then the last one).

Finally at the end of the vid, I wanted to show how vidding is a form of creative outlet for processing my life and emotions and how it can turn grief into beauty especially the happiness I get from showing my vids at Vividcon. I wanted to use clips from one of my favorite parts of the vid, Out Here by heresluck (who also made my favorite vid, Superstar and clips from that are also featured throughout the vid) where Fraser steps toward the light to the decision to make something good happen and walk towards something unknown (how my vid will turn out/will others will like it) as it was always powerful imagery for me (and I relate a lot to Fraser). The last clip is based on a classic vid meta post, The Life Cycle of Vid and Vidder by luminosity in regards to #22, "God, I'm depressed. Post vid letdown. It's almost like giving birth." wherein by creating my vid, it's like creating a child (maybe a cat baby? ;)) symbolically to create something new from other components including my own life, clips from the media and songs.

I knew not everyone would get some or even most of the vid in the context of my life but I hoped people could empathize with certain parts and that I could show how my favorite media is intricately entwined with my life from my youth (The Lion King) to the current shows I watch. As I like to say, I was born a fangirl and I will die a fangirl, and I'm glad I'm able to create vids from that passion. Thankfully, I was able to find the right antidepressants after I turned 30 and it has made me so much happier including better self-esteem and self-confidence so that most of the vid no longer applies to my life even if I am still working towards creating the life I desire. But I'm glad I made it as a time capsule to issues I've struggled with and that still occasionally come up as well as a chance to be vulnerable and reveal more about myself directly in my art instead of using fictional characters to show it more indirectly (which is also wonderful!!).

Brief life update time: The depression has been on and off for the last two months but I'm feeling better currently although it was pretty bad a couple days ago. I'm doing some freelance work which has been going really well and helping with money. I'm still really lonely and wish I was in a romantic relationship.

( End of the Year Meme 2017 )

If you're looking for a movie to watch, I highly recommend Call Me By Your Name! It's so beautiful and emotional <3

Here's my Vividcon 2016 Con Report (Part 1) here.

I tried remembering everything as best I can but if I made any mistakes, feel free to correct me! This goes for anything as I'd always like to improve :)

( Vividcon Con Report 2016 (Part 2) )

Thank you again to all the amazing people that made my Vividcon so wonderful and amazing and for all the people who helped put the con together, worked on programming and submitted vids. It was funny that there was a panel at the con about letting go because it felt like a lot of the con was an exercise in letting go for me: letting go of my expectations, my nerves, FOMO, my hopes that everything would go perfectly and instead just savoring all the good moments, allowing myself to be vulnerable and making deeper connections from it, doing the best I could even when things were hard, loving the vids and community all around me. In the end, life is too fucking short to focus on the bad stuff so I tried my best to be happy at all the good things this con gave me this year and all the ways it has enhanced my life. I love Vividcon so much and I'm so glad I've gotten to enjoy it with so many different beautiful, amazing people and that is so incredibly meaningful.

So before I go into the end of the year meme, I want to talk a little about the RL stuff that happened this year that led to some of my answers in this meme.

( Year of 2015 general thoughts )

( End of the Year Meme )

Even though I'm not in school right now, the beginning of September always feels like a new beginning to me. It seems like a good time to share my plans for the rest of the year and the time to come as I finally have some ideas of what I want to do.

First a catchup of the last three months. In May, I went to a fun Ingrid Michaelson concert with beerbad and had a great time listening to some of my favorite songs. Mother's Day was pretty sad and I tried to avoid the media but eventually gave in and just scrolled through and watched some sad TV shows and cried some. One of the most fun things I did was go to Malibu State Park and go to this little pond (not sure what the right word is here) where they had cliff jumping rocks and I went to the highest one (about 30 feet) and jumped off of it. It was SO fun and I had been feeling kind of meh about the world and it gave me an adrenaline rush that made me feel happy and full of hope again. I just love feeling like I'm flying and being that high in the air, I really felt like I was in the air on the way down and it felt amazing. I also went to a fun Harry Potter roller skating event where there was a ton of people dressed up and they played Harry Potter songs and it was just really fun even though at the end the music was meh so I put on my headphones and listened to shippy songs for my favorite couples (mostly Kane/Toews). I went to a Memorial Day BBQ with other geeky/fannish type people and had fun playing Cards Against Humanity and talking various TV shows with people. I had a lot of fun going to see the Chicago Blackhawks play the Los Angeles Kings at the Staples Center in my first live hockey game and I was lucky enough to see it with celli and get to see Toews score a goal right in front of me. celli and I had a lot of fun talking hockey and various real life stuff after the game and it was fun getting a chance to get to know her better. I also went to see a screening of the Mindy Project season finale and got to see a cast Q&A and later got to meet Mindy Kaling for the fourth time - and she remembered who I was for the third time ever. It was pretty cool and she even took a selfie of her and me. I also went to my second cousin's bridal shower and got to catch up with that side of my family and got to see my grandma's sister as well which was nice and I'm looking forward to going to his wedding in November.

In June, I spent a lot of time finishing my Femslash Premiere and my Premieres vid for Vividcon which was a bit stressful but I was ultimately able to finish by the deadline. I was also following the NBA draft and super happy when my favorite player, Tyler Ennis was selected 18th in the draft and another Syracuse player, Jerami Grant went to the Philadelphia 76ers which has a Syracuse player, Michael Carter-Williams who just won Rookie of the Year and who I slash with his friend on the team, Nerlens Noel so I'm looking forward to OT3ing them together. I also started watching the World Cup, following it seriously for the first time ever and fell in love with the USA team, most of all the coach, Jurgen Klinsmann. Jurgen who was a big star in Europe who won the World Cup with Germany in 1990, coached the German team to a 3rd place finish in 2006 (in Germany) but who loves the USA and lives there with his family so he decided to coach the USA team in 2011 and is attempting to turn the team around so it can eventually win the World Cup with the men's team. I really love what he's trying to do and his personality and I have a lot of hope that he can help us win it all so I began to follow the US team and was in ecstasy after we beat Ghana and went to a USA bar for the Portugal game with cenedrawood and was SO HAPPY when USA came back from a 0-1 deficit to be winning 2-1...only to lose in the last thirty seconds in one of the most heartbreaking sports moments ever for me. Thankfully we still had another game against Germany where Jurgen was coaching against his friend, Joachim Löm (who was his assistant coach when he coached Germany) and since I ship them together (thanks to caesaria), it was an entertaining game for me if terrifying. We lost by one but were still able to make it out of the group stages where we played Belgium which I don't even want to talk about because I'm still super bitter and prefer to think about how Tim Howard made 15 saves and Julian Green scored a goal on his first touch even though he's only 19 years old and was another young player that people complained about being on the roster and yet was one of the many players to prove that Jurgen knew what he was doing cause he's an amazing coach <3 Anyways, I started out rooting for Brazil (because they were at home, it meant a lot to them and they spent so much money at least they could get SOMETHING out of it), Germany, England, Italy and I also added the Netherlands after I saw their first game against Spain and enjoyed watching Robben and van Persie play. Eventually Germany and Netherlands were my favorite teams as after watching a documentary about the 2006 German team and falling in love with Robben as a player I wish I could be like, I emotionally connected with them, plus it helped that both teams did super well.

In July, I was really into basketball as the NBA summer league started and all the new rookies, 2nd year players and undrafted players trying to get a spot on rosters were playing and I watched the 76ers team do well in Orlando with my guy, Jerami Grant. The major summer league was in Las Vegas though and I decided to go to Vegas, buy tickets for the games (they're cheap) and let out my basketball feelings while trying to meet some of my favorite Syracuse players since many of them were going to be there. I had an amazing time, getting autographs and talking to Tyler Ennis, Rakeem Christmas (current SU player), Jerami Grant, Michael Carter-Williams, Baye Moussa Keita and Brandon Triche (former SU players) as well as watching a ton of players play for their teams. Unfortunately my car had some issues so I stayed longer than I wanted to but I also had fun hanging out with n0apologies (twitter) who I had met at Wincon and we had a great time talking about our lives, Adam Lambert, Queer as Folk and other fannish topics. I was also there duing the World Cup final and went to a bar to watch Germany play Argentina where thankfully Germany won and I was SO HAPPY as Jogi Low and the team had come soooo close to winning in the last 8 years and always came up a little short so I was super happy for the team to finally win it all and I just had such a fun time celebrating, happy crying and joining in the celebrations at the German bar.

Finally I got back to LA and had fun going to elipie's karaoke birthday party and then going to a Lady GaGa concert with her where we won free seat upgrades and got to hang in the VIP lounge with free drinks and hang out with hot half-naked boys while we could easily see Lady GaGa especially when she came over to the platform right above us. It was super fun getting to hear her sing some of her classic songs and she's an amazing performer so we had a fun time singing her songs and enjoying the performance. At the end of July, I went back home to Syracuse where I spent some time with my dad, caught up with my best friend and hung out with my cats at home. I also drove down to Pennsylvania to visit my cousin's family and spend some time with my aunt. My cousin is starting her own business so I spent a little bit of time at her shop and we also went with her family and my aunt to one of my favorite amusement parks where we used to go almost every year as a kid so it was very nostalgic to be back there again. Speaking of nostalgia, I also went to visit my childhood elementary school and was bummed to see they tore down the playground I had loved although they are building a new one, it's not the same. After that, I went to Vividcon which I'll talk about in a different post but the Wednesday after that, I had an amazing time going to Six Flags Magic Mountain with elipie getting a chance to talk about Vividcon, new vidding ideas and other fannish stuff.

This summer I had planned on taking some courses related to college admission counseling but after a couple of days trying to take them, I realized my heart wasn't in them as I wasn't sure yet whether that's what I wanted to do as it might not be big enough for me career-wise. Thankfully I was able to get a full refund and another thing that affected my decision was a revelation I had thought of while reading books about colleges. I kept having regrets while reading on how I wish I had gotten a true college experience and had gone to a more intellectual school when I realized - I could still do that. There was a college I had first heard about in high school called St. John's College that covered in four years, many of the so called Great Books but without lectures, it's all discussion based or laboratory based as they cover science using classic experiments and original texts for everything. Two of the most interesting aspects is learning Ancient Greek and learning math from classic books like Euclid's Elements which I've always wanted to do to understand more of where the English language comes from and understand the basis of math which I've always though could be interesting in the right context. The college is pretty intense but that's exactly what I want, a place where people want to read and think about some of life's biggest questions by reading some of the most enduring books many of which I've always wanted to read and just needed some more structure and people to discuss them with. I feel like my intellectual development has been pretty stunted the last seven years and I know I need to take a big leap to become the person I've always wanted to be and this college is the perfect way to take my communication skills both written and oral to the next level. I am an ambitious person and I have big dreams of doing things to change the world but I need to build a strong foundation so that I can accomplish that so I think I need to take a risk to go to this college and become the person I want to be.

During the summer I started working on my application which consists of three essays talking about why I want to go to the college, a book that has influenced me and a significant experience that has left an impact on me and I'm working on finishing that up by the end of this month. The college has a January program that I'm looking to get accepted at where by going to school over the summer, I'll be all caught up with the freshman year program and will be a regular sophomore by the time next September comes around (but thankfully I will get a summer vacation right before the first potential Vividcon weekend). The college gives good financial aid so I'm not too worried about the money aspect, the bigger opportunity cost for me is the time but I think the education I'm getting will be worth it and I'll be doing part time jobs, volunteer work and internships during the school years and summer to help me figure out the best work for me to do after college and I always have a backup job as a programmer as well. One of the biggest negatives is the college is in Santa Fe and although the weather is not too much colder than LA (averaging 45-85 plus like 6 snow days blech), it'll still be a big adjustment leaving the city (and friends!) I love to be in a much smaller city with less things to do (although Albuquerque is only 45 minutes away and Denver/Phoenix are semi-close too). But I think it's worth it for this oppurtunity that I can't get anywhere else and I feel like I'll always regret it and wonder what if, if I decided not to do go. Plus I'll definitely be visiting LA during breaks, Escapade and during my free summers so I think I'll be able to survive. Another concern is the book list is not that diverse but I know there are book groups there that cover more classic books written by women, minorities and Eastern writers so I'll be sure to be reading them. Something I'm excited about is they have a lot of sports intramurals so I'll still be able to play soccer, tennis and there's lots of nature for hiking and even rock climbing. Most importantly, I'll finally get to have a true college experience and make lots of new friends as even though the college is small, people are very self-selected towards the kind of people I tend to get along with (minus your obligatory pretentious arrogant idiots) so I'm looking forward to that. It'll be a big life change for me but I think this is the best step I can make in working on becoming who I want to be and for my development to being able to help the world solve the major problems we're facing.

I originally was applying for this fall semester but I was having a hard time being ready for that so I decided to wait til January although I have a plan for what I will be doing in LA until then. A friend recommended to me a friend of hers who has a philosophy PHD and is willing to meet with me to go over classic texts that I want to start reading this fall so I can have some accountability and someone to discuss things with to prepare me for St. John's College. I'm planning on working on doing more reading (besides fanfic of course) this fall as I sample many books from nonfiction to fiction in many genres. I'm going to be focusing especially about reading books about California and LA as I want to work on solving problems in the state and want to become more knowledgeable about the issues surrounding the state. I also am going to be doing some volunteering with various organizations to learn more about LA and start figuring out what exactly I would enjoy doing for jobs. I also have a part time job I'll be working on to earn some extra money. Another big goal of mine for this fall is to start seriously trying to date while I still have time in LA which should hopefully give me more motivation to do it. I'm also continuing to work on improving my Spanish through Duolingo and translating Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from Spanish to English using my Kindle App Spanish to English dictionary. And I definitely want to spend more time with my friends in Los Angeles while I'm still here.

Another big focus for me this fall is heath and fitness as I'd like to lose about 15-20 pounds before the end of this year. I signed up for an accountability type service which has been good with keeping me on track with my eating and exercise goals. Something inspiring for me was watching Kacey Cantanzaro complete the city finals course for American Ninja Warrior, an obstacle course competition where participants can win 500k for winning the finals course in Las Vegas. That inspired me to look into parkour and rock climbing which are two training aspects that some of the best competitors do. I figured that even if I don't make it, it'd be a fun goal to try to train for the course as it looks really fun and it's something that anyone can accomplish even if they don't have a lot of training when they were younger (unlike most sports). Thankfully there is a parkour (more accurately, freerunning) gym in the LA area and I've already taken two beginner lessons there and had fun practicing in the opening gym sessions. So far it's pretty basic, working on vaulting over objects and precision jumping, jumping from one ledge to another but it's been really fun and a great workout and I look forward to being able to do the crazy workouts I see in the gym. I was super scared about doing a flip from the high ledge into the pit (filled with soft foam stuff) but finally managed to gather my courage and did as well as do some flips on the trampoline. I also attempted to run up the warped wall they have in the gym and tried to jump from one bar to another (not there yet). I've also been into soccer as I really enjoy team sports so I signed up for a three days a week soccer class at my local community college and although it's a bit intimidating as it's all guys except one other girl and many of them want to compete on the soccer team at the college, so far I've been having fun playing (minus getting blisters on my feet from my new cleats). I even scored a goal during a game! We've been mostly just playing games which was a bit disappointing as I hoped to practice some skills work as well but it's been fun and I've been learning a lot even if it's been pretty hot playing during the summer. I've also been keeping up with my strength training workouts since March and been continually adding more weight to my lifts. Food is always tough for me as I hate cooking and love delicious food but I've been making a lot of progress and have lost three pounds so far.

I can't wait for the new TV season! I've been watching some of the trailers for the new shows and have added a few shows that I'm going to check out this fall. While A to Z has a couple of annoying things about it, it also features the Mother from HIMYM and as soul destroying it is seeing her, the show looks really cute and right up my romantic loving alley with the whole matchmaking element. I'm also excited for How to Get Away With Murder as Viola Davis looks amazing in it, the premise sounds fun and deliciously messed up and I will always trust Shonda Rhimes to do crazy things. I'm also going to check out Utopia which fascinates me as I've always loved thinking about how to create the perfect society although the reality show format makes me keep my expectations down. I am also looking forward to checking out Survivor's Remorse which is about a BASKETBALL PLAYER (!!!) who becomes successful and must deal with everything that comes with it which sounds super fun for me to vicariously see that side of things and is produced by Lebron James (who I've come to not hate since he went back to Cleveland) so I'm very curious to check it out. I kind of wish I could watch The Flash because the lead actor is a guy I found SUPER hot on Glee (Sebastian!) but I've sworn off all superhero shows unless it features a female/PoC lead so I'll just be checking out Agent Carter. Mostly I'm going to be listening to friends and critics to see if there are any high quality shows I should check out. I'm really looking forward to The Mindy Project, Faking It and Scandal coming back especially the first two as they feature two of my favorite ships. I'm mostly planning on using the fall to continue to catch up with some well written shows I haven't watched yet including Deadwood which I MUST finish by the end of the year. On the movie side of things, this summer I LOVED Maleficent (Maleficent/Aurora all the way!), enjoyed X-Men: Days of Future Past and am looking forward to seeing The Hunger Games 3, The Hobbit 3 and Annie (love the trailer!). On the sports side of things, my new soccer team is Bayern Munich since they have my favorite player, Arjen Robben, lots of German players from the national team like Müller, Neuer and Götze and my fave USA guy, Julian Green (although he's on loan to Hamburg this year) so I already have an emotional investment in them and will be watching all their games. I'm casually following the English Premier League (mostly for my USA/Germany people) and some college football as well and will be checking out my usual NFL teams this fall (although I'm still super bitter there's no LA team) such as the Bills, 49ers, Giants, Chargers and Jets. We'll see timewise what happens as once NBA seasons starts in late October and Syracuse basketball in November, most of my attention will go to that because YAY BASKETBALL. Hockey will be back in October as well and I will check out some Chicago games sometimes.

Super excited for Festivids! I have about 6 possible nominations at the moment although I worry about qualification for a couple of them but I'm excited about them and the vid ideas I want to make already. Before I get my assignment though, I need to start working on my Escapade vid as that's going to require a time committment and I have another vid idea I want to make for next year that I need to get started on clipping right now to get it done in time for VVC. I have another vid that's almost done that I should hopefully post in the next week as well. I have a couple ideas that require me to stretch my skills that I'm really excited about even if it'll be a challenge, it should be fun to do. Other fun fandom-y things coming up is a bunch of NorCal (and elsewhere) fangirls are planning a Fandom Beach Vacation where we rent a beach house and just hang out all day and I'm so excited to hang out with my fandom friends in November :) I also need to plan out what to do for my birthday in October this year, I have an idea and need to check if it's realistic. I still can't believe I'm going to be 27...is that officially late 20s? Eek. But hopefully with all the plans I have in place, I'll be ready to enjoy this time in my life shortly!

So today is my 26th birthday! It is interesting doing it this year at Wincon surrounded by fangirls, so much fun to talk fandom with everyone. This morning we went down to the breakfast buffet which is amazing and had lots of delicious food and got to talk with our group of eight fangirls. I also got to get a big hug from cee_m who I haven't seen since a Vividcon awhile ago and it was great to see her again. I then went inside for the first panel but got distracted by getting stickers for my badge. I got a Harry sticker, a LIONESS sticker, a robot, a 1D group, some birthday stickers and a lion sticker so now my badge is a good representation of me :) I caught the end of the Fandom Grieving panel and then got to talk a bit to someone about The Walking Dead finale and how it got me to rage quit watching the show. I also got to meet with colls who I didn't know was coming and it was great to reconnect with her since she missed the last Vividcon. We both went to the Fairy Tales panel and got to talk a bit before the panel about OUAT and a few other shows. I was surprised the panel didn't bring up Swan Queen and I didn't put up my hand quick enough before we moved onto the next fandom.

Now I'm hanging out in my room with other fans and we had fun talking about tags in fandom and a few other things including the Benedict AMA. I'm looking forward to a bunch of panels today like the Kinks, Poly and Incest (I WILL be talking Jaime/Cersei and GoT, of course) panels. Then we have a vidshow with my premiering vid and then we're going to the Gordon Ramsey restaurant and I'm going to get some cake for my birthday. I'm super excited for Once More With Feeling and Rocky Horror Show tonight as I've never seen them with a group.

It's weird to be 26 and now closer to 30 than 25. It's been a weird year with high highs and low lows. I've learned and grown a lot and am so thankful to have such amazing family and friends. Thank you to everyone reading for being there for me and helping to support me. I'm looking forward to the ne t year of my life as I'm going to follow my dreams and try to do more of the things that make me happy. Here's to having an awesome year being 26!

So I'm heading off to Vegas for Wincon! I'm super excited, it's going to be so much fun. On the way, I'm going to stop in Primm to ride the Desperado which is this awesome roller coaster with a huge drop so I'm super excited about that. I also can't wait to ride some thrill rides in Vegas, should be fun!

Some big news before I go: I quit my job so I now finally have some free time to work on my own coding and vidding projects. Instead of a one week trip, I'm going to be going to Europe throughout November so if you're in the area, let me know if you want to hang out! Will probably just spend extra time in London and Paris but may add an extra city or two. I reeeeally can't wait! In December, I'm going back to my parent's house and I'm going to spend some time with my dad, aunt and cousin and her family. It'll be really great to have some more time with them and I also want to help out with going through my mom's stuff and organizing some of my own. Then in January I'll come back to LA and go back to college. I'm really excited to finally finish my degree, it's like my Mount Everest and I really need to finish climbing it for myself.

I can't believe I'm turning 26 in two days. It's been a weird year but hopefully should get better from here!

So my mom died.

Yeah, I don't even know how to process that. My brother called me this morning to tell me. Apparently she hadn't been feeling well the last couple weeks and then this morning she collapsed on the kitchen floor. My brother and dad helped her to bed and said she thought she knew what was wrong (she's a nurse) and she needed some fruit. My brother went to get some and when he got back she wasn't breathing. He called 911 but it was too late and she died. They're not sure what was wrong, we'll find out the autopsy results tomorrow.

I'm still kind of in shock. I always thought my mom would live til at least 80, maybe even 100. She's really healthy for the most part and hasn't had any serious medical conditions. My dad was always the one I was worried about as he's pretty old, used to smoke and doesn't eat very healthy so I figured if I lost a parent, it was him I was going to lose. But my mom? She's in her 50s and there was no warning at all that something like this would happen. She's like the rock of the family, she deals with all the paperwork and keeps in touch with everyone especially since my dad doesn't have any relatives (that he knows of). Now I'm really scared he's going to die soon and I won't have any parents left :(

So I don't even know what happens now. My brother is dealing with a lot of the stuff in person back in NY right now and I'm going to fly home Wednesday night. I thankfully have Thursday and Friday off for July 4th so at least I'm not losing any work off of it and will hopefully get to attend the funeral and see my family and everything. It'll be good to hug everyone and see my cats again. I found out this morning at 9 and I've been crying a lot and trying to deal with all my emotions with all of this. It's so freaking unfair, I can't even. I just want my mom back :( Even if we never were super close, I could always talk to her about things and she helped me so much over the years. I miss her already. I wish I could have seen her before she died, it sucks that I haven't gotten to see her in person since she dropped me off at the airport last Christmas and I got to hug her one last time. We had a really good talk two weeks ago where I told her about my plans for the future and she got to hear about my new job more (going really well!) and just talk to her about life and say I love you and all that. So at least there's that.

If there's anything I can take from this is that really, ANYONE can die at any time. Don't put things off, tell people you love them and spend quality time with people you care about. It's made me want to stop putting off the things I want in most in life and work hard to create a good legacy with my short time on this earth. So please, don't take life for granted. It's precious.

So I finally have time and the inclination to post here about some of the things I've been up to. The time thing is mostly because I'm not working at my job anymore. It wasn't working out on either end and I'm really looking forward to finding an in person, salaried job at a good company that can actually pay me decently. I was really overwhelmed at first in terms of looking for a job and sometimes still am but I'm feeling better about it now. It seems that the last year of networking I've been doing in the LA tech scene is starting to pay off as I now have a lot of people I can reach out for help and who have offered to help. There's a job I reeeeally want and I'm kind of terrified of being rejected from it but I'm getting better at feeling like if it doesn't happen, it'll all work out along a different great path. And happy coincidences like a job fair this weekend is extra awesome. I am ever so grateful to be in a field where there's high demand for my skills, it makes it a lot less stressful than it would for me.

Last weekend was a lot of fun! I went to Once Upon a Time Paley Fest with elipie and rhoboat and it turned my feelings of the show to mostly anger to full of FEELS! I still have major issues with what the show is doing (not enough gay, stupid blood > adoption family stuff, Regina's misery as a plot devise) but at a certain point I can let go of expectations and just enjoy the things I love mostly REGINA omg how does Lana Parilla exist? She's hot onscreen but in person she is an absolute goddess not to mention hilarious, adorable and kind. Of course we sat behind some of the most dedicated fans of Lana and Regina so it was good for me to have other people to cheer with and Lana kept LOOKING at us and giving smiles of encouragement and the Evil Regal sign and I seriously felt like I was going to melt with squee. At the end, I managed to crawl over the seats to get close enough to Lana to get her autograph and try to shout things up at her. I hope in the future to get another chance to actually talk to her. I got pretty close to JMo but she left so I talked with Jane Espenson and put in my plug for an actual gay fairytale couple on the show (and happiness for Regina). We'll see what happens...I also connected with one of the fans in front of me in the hope of finding in person Swan Queen fans and a couple of her friends were! So that's encouraging to not feel so alone in it.

Job hunting does make it hard to find time to vid so that's a problem as there's like 5 vids I'm trying to get done in the next two months. One of them is an epic Game of Thrones vid that's gotten me headfirst back into Game of Thrones love, just in time for S3 coming in 23 days eeee! I'm just worried about getting it finished along with two other vids before the April Vividcon deadline. I've also volunteered for Vividcon auction with an insane amount of fandoms so I'm looking forward to doing that for the first time. Reeeally can't wait to go to VVC! There's nothing like hanging out with vidfans. I did go to Escapade a couple weeks ago and that was wonderful! I met some awesome new people as well as got a chance to talk to friends from past years. The vidshow and vid panels and vid review were all wonderful as well and gave me a small taste of Vividcon.

On a dream come true note, I'm so happy about the news that Whose Line is coming back with the original cast! RYAN AND COLIN TOGETHER ON MY SCREEN AGAIN! This show seriously saved me from senioritis back in high school in 2006 and I've wanted a revival to happen for the last 7 years. It's my biggest RPF ship and getting new Ryan/Colin slash with the original games will be wonderful. I've also been loving Parks & Recreation which has been wonderful the last few episodes (except for the Ann plot ughh don't get me started). Unfortunately Glee has been frustrating me more and more with the bad song choices, plots I don't like and not getting me to a emotional place like it used to do. I knew my love for the show wouldn't last forever but it's still disappointing. At least it's no less gay and I'm still loooving Kurt/Blaine, Santana/Britney, Kurt/Adam and Santana/Quinn not to mention Unique <3 The Big Bang Theory has been funnier lately but it's been driving me CRAZY with the increased amounts of sexism. I'm so glad they added more female geek characters but it doesn't make up for that. On the new shows front, I have been convinced by beerbad to keep watching Bunheads which has gotten a lot better over the last few episodes and feels more like Gilmore Girls now along with Parenthood which I'm starting to like a lot more after the first few episodes.

Happy International Women's Day! I went to a Women in Engineering event last night and it was so much fun to be surrounded by women mostly involved in computer science all together. I had drinks with a group of women trying to help other women learn Ruby/Ruby on Rails and it was great to feel like part of a community that's trying to help solve a frustrating lack of diversity problem. It's a slow process but hopefully it can only get better from here. And I'm so thankful to be in fandom surrounded by so many amazing women (and awesome guys) all supporting each other and being creative. I am ever so thankful I found this wonderful place :)

So today I turned 25. It's weird to think I've lived a quarter of a century, hopefully a quarter of my life. As much as I make fun of myself saying "oh no, I'm going to have a quarterlife crisis", I'm really in a pretty good place right now and I don't feel that way for the most part. I thought my life would be different when I was younger by now but life never turns out how you expect and I'm grateful for what I have. While driving to Colorado yesterday, the song, "The Scientist" by Coldplay came on and it made me reflect on each year of my life and everything that happened that led me there. It was very interesting to think about. I was especially grateful for all the wonderful moments spent with friends who've I've learned to appreciate over the years in so many ways. Mostly I'm really excited because I think the next five years (and more!) will hopefully be some of the best of my life and I look forward to seeing what the future brings.

I got into Denver early today and picked up asuka14 from the airport. Unfortunately that turned into a bad experience (whoever designed the arrival layout is HORRIBLE) with some officer harrassing me but in the end it turned out alright and I was able to take a brief nap before we headed out to see Downtown Denver. I really loved the 16th Street Mall there, reminded me of San Francisco and DC with a unique Denver flavor to it. We had a delicious lunch and then walked around exploring things. Home (well at the hotel) now to watch some TV and eat cake and SLEEP FOREVER. Looking forward to seeing Boulder as well and doing some more exploring. It's just nice to get away and I had a lot of fun listening to music on the ride down and brainstorming Festivid ideas (I have one I'm sooo excited about).

Anyways I'm having a great time and looking forward to making the year I turn 25 the best yet!