I’m feeling a little…insane.

I’m not going to pretend this is a frequented blog, but I do intend to actually use it from now on. I always say that, but this time there’s an actual reason.

So my boyfriend decided we’re going to do the Insanity Workout together. Not as though I don’t want to do it, but the idea is a little…frightening I guess. Still, I need it. I quit volleyball last May, and I’ve done pretty much nothing since then. I’ve already noticed muscle atrophy and quite honestly, I’ve gotten fat. I’m 5’9 and 160 lbs. I wear size 11-13 pants and that, my friends, is outrageous and unacceptable. I’ve put on 20
pounds in four years with no actual growing! Suffice to say, I’m unhappy with myself and want to try this challenge.
I’m going to try and use the blog for updates on my thoughts about the program. We’re going to try starting in a week or so. After an hour surfing the web for pep talks and praise for the program (as well as someone else in my situation who was able to push through), I feel like this just might work. Right now, my only worry is that my boyfriend, who is leagues more fit than I, will breeze by me and I’ll be a chubby, embarrassing, sweating mess. Then again, he’s already seen fat me all naked and whatnot, so maybe it won’t be so bad?

Fingers crossed!

Procrastination Nation

I’ve got a serious issue when it comes to my insane need to procrastinate…all the time. Even now, I’ve had all of a three day weekend to work on my essay or even my speech, and yet I’ve not even glanced at either. As usual, I lack both focus and determination, and I already know that both of these will come back and bite me in the butt.

Of course, I could be working on either one of the two right now, but am I? No. I’m sitting here on my bed typing a blog entry for absolutely no reason.

Seriously, procrastination should be counted as a disease; it’s definitely infected me.

Math Woes, Frustration Shows

On most days, I don’t hate Pre-Calculus. However, today I must make an exception. Lately, I’ve been losing my grasp of understanding on the material we’re covering. The same is happening in Physics, and I can’t say I know exactly what’s going on here. I guess my only option is to study and work harder, but studying math is much harder than say, studying history.

I honestly had nothing to say today, but I felt like making a post here. I guess I’m just procrastinating. Eventually, I plan on finishing my work, but for now I guess I’ll just continue listening to the mix CD my friend made for me and half-paying attention to an old episode of Family Guy.

Hmm, on a strange side note, I’d like to catch up on all the manga series I was reading, but I simply don’t have the time. Very annoying, if I do say so myself.

 

That awkward moment when you abandon your blog

In honor of today’s UIL competition, I used a newspaper-friendly downstyle headline. Yay.
As I said, I spent a large chunk of my day at a UIL practice meet, competing in several journalism categories and placing 4th in one and 7th in another. While I am a little disappointed in myself – especially since a friend of mine placed in the top 3 in 3 categories – I’m still pretty happy with how the day turned out. I’d really like to do better at the next competition, but I highly doubt I will get the chance to go to state – especially with such good writers from my school competing.

At least I have a sort-of excuse. I haven’t written a single thing in any of the competition categories in over a year, and I haven’t written anything for the paper because I am a page editor and not a reporter. I also happen to love *nohomo* the reporter who happened to bring home all the trophies, since she’s one of my bros.

So, after spending all day nursing a slight writer’s cramp and trying to remember how to properly set up some stories, I felt like adding onto my long-since-abandoned blog and see if I can start back up on it. Oh, and that manga reader thing is pretty much out – I simply don’t have the time or the willpower to spend time caring about manga apps(:

Manga Readers

After a few hours scouring the internet for the best way to get my manga on a nook, which I currently want above all else, I lapsed into my usual searches. You know the ones I mean, where you’ve searched the same thing several times just to see if you can get a better or more recent answer? Unless I’m the only one that does this, which is entirely possible.

One of my favorite searches involves my two favorite things – my Android MyTouch 4g, and Manga. I prefer the area where the two overlap – the wonderful world of Android Manga readers. In the year since I’ve had my phone, I’ve tried several. Before, with my iPod Touch, I had relied on an app called MangaDL, which (thanks to jailbreaking) I was able to dig into and change the files to allow me to download mangas that the app had blocked, which was anything US licensed and therefore anything worth reading.

When I finally got my phone, it seemed like the world was at my fingertips, but with more options came more failures. Thus, I did what everyone in my generation does when they have a question. I googled it. The answers I got back were less than satisfactory. Though I ended up with some good suggestions, it seemed that most articles and reviews that offered a comparison were completely out-of-date. Some of the most relevant pages came up from months or even years ago. New apps were completely disregarded, and the old ones were usually reviews on older versions.

Still, I don’t like making my own opinions – I’m the kind of person who likes to have someone else do it for me when it comes to certain things. I wanted to hear why one app was better than the rest, but ended up with a slew off apps that tried to do the same job without a real decision as to which one was absolutely perfect for me.

So for all those who are like me, and want a review that isn’t outdated or irrelevant, I’ve decided to write my own reviews. I’ll try and get to every app on the market, and by then I assume I’ll have plenty to do with editing reviews, and writing reviews on new apps.

This will probably go on a new blog, to preserve sortofazombie as an outlet for my ideas. I just wanted to let anyone who might stumble across this learn of my plans(:

Essays.

I love writing. I really do.

But something about essays makes me want to curl up into a ball and die.

Rarely am I told to write about something I want to write about, but rather I’m given a limited spectrum of choice and have to write something that I don’t really feel passionate about.

I feel like I want to paint a portrait of a person, yet the assignment is to paint fruit, y’know?

As usual, I finished my rough draft at the last minute, finally settling on a topic that I could write a couple of pages on without constantly scrambling for more filler. I’m not particularly happy with my work, but rough drafts are made to be revised.

What I really want is a freewrite assignment. Ten pages on whatever you want to write about. A story, a memoir, a long poem, whatever it is that tickles ze fancy. I’d really like the inspiration that a deadline provides – so many of my writing has gone unfinished simply because I had no reason to finish it. Que tragedy, yes?

Though I doubt I will ever receive that assignment, one can only hope and dream. For now I’ll write the introduction to a thousand and one stories and hope I’ll somehow be able to see them through to the end. 😛

Volleyball <3

Ahhh, I love my team.

For the first time, I’m playing with girls who aren’t full of attitude, a coach who doesn’t just care about the win, and a club that isn’t just interested in making money.

This season, I’m on a team made up of girls selected because they’re good at the game and have good attitudes, which is unfortunately a hard to find combination.

We practice three days a week, two hours a session, and for the most part we’re playing in a gym until the weather gets better and we can practice on the court in Gabby’s backyard.

We have thirteen tournaments, mostly in Austin and Houston, and several here in San Antonio. The possibility of a qualifier in Baltimore is even being discussed. Needless to say, I’m excited!

So far, We’ve decided on uniforms, sweats, backpacks, decals, shoes, and kneepads. We’re still discussing socks (Knee, Crew, ankle? Color?) but I like what’s been chosen so far. Even if I hate crew socks, I’d rather wear crews with a team I like than wear knee’s with a team I hate.

Though I’ll be benching it for the first few tournaments until I feel comfortable jumping and hitting with my gimp leg (ACL Reconstruction in May, still recovering) I’m not too worried about that. There’s only 9 girls on the team, and three don’t plan on touching the front row. Out of the remaining 6, three to four prefer hitting outside (left front), and my preference is Middle or Right Front (no special names for this position :P)

The only thing I worry about is that I’m not going to be able to keep up with my superTeam, but the coach has already reassured me that once I get my game back, It’ll be all good in the hood.

To sum it up, I’m excited for this season! Now all I gotta do is work my schedule around practices and tournaments 😛

Press Week -__-“

If by any chance you happen to be part of a Newpaper or other printed publication, you probably understand this. Well, it’s probably limited to monthly and quarterlies, like my school paper, but still, it’s a known concept.

Essentially, during pressweek all the pages get done. Until that point, stories are still being written, photos taken, and ads sold. However, during the last week before the pages get sent to press (the printer) all the page editors are scrambling to put everything together in a cohesive and enticing design.

Press week for me, as the sports page editor of my school paper, means that I have to stay after school until around 9 o’clock p.m. every day that week, until my page goes through initial edits, secondary opinions, staff critiques, body-text editing, photo checks, infographic redesigns, and finally: Final Edits.

These steps are crucial for any page editor to go through, as any good editor knows that the first design is never good enough, and never stays the same. From the Friday before press week to the time the pages are exported as PDFs, they have undergone almost total overhaul.

It’s during these weeks that I always wish to go back to being a reporter, so I can spend the hectic days of press week as the majority of them do, chatting at the tables and doing relatively nothing. Instead, I’m painstakingly editing photos to press quality and arranging and rearranging stories so they fit on my page with all the other aspects I’m supposed to cover.

Thankfully, the week is over and I can get back to not pulling my hair out. Hallelujah.

Procrastination

Hmmm…I want to write this, but maybe I’ll just do it later…

See what I did there? That, mis amigos, is procrastination. It is one of my worst habits, and I know for a fact that its a disease that plagues many.

Currently, I’m procrastinating the completion of my US History Homework. You see, we had the entirety of Thanksgiving break to read three chapters and do a couple of assignments on them, due Tuesday and Wednesday.

I, however, decided not to think about any schoolwork until today. Luckily, there was no other assignments that I had to complete, but still. Thinking back, this really shouldn’t have been put off for so long. Instead of spending several hours reading Death Note and One Piece, I should have been reading An American Pageant, like I was assigned to.

Even now, as it nears midnight (my official bedtime on school nights), I’m having doubts about whether or not it’s actually worth it to start reading. I could probably wait another hour, knock out a chapter or two, and worry about the rest tomorrow. Really, if I chill for another hour, I’ll still have four to devote to my work.

Now that I think about it, I think that’s the best decision. I’d like to at least get to chapter 100 in One Piece. Maybe 110. Once I do that, I’ll start my work.

Or not.

Eh, it’ll get done I’m sure. No need to freak out….that’s best saved until the few minutes I have before class starts.

Ranting, Raving, Crazy Craving t(-_-“t)

Oh. My. GAWD.
A teenage girl is whining about something? Say it isn’t so! Is this real life?

Yep, I’m about to start complaining about the cruel injustices of my privileged American life. Buckle up. 😛

***

MANGA.

I read it constantly, as I’ve said before in multiple posts. Most of what I read is Shounen(Shonen), as in, made for boys around the age of 12.  They’re just more worthwhile in my opinion, as the girl counterpart, Shoujo(Shojo), is filled with too much gush and not enough kicking.

But what bugs me about Shounen is how the girls are portrayed. More often than not, the relationships in these particular mangas are not blatant. Let’s face it, little boys don’t really start wanted to read about romance. No biggie, my writermind will serve up some fanfiction that can most definitely fill the void.

But the girls in Shounen are especially…well… annoying. They whine and complain almost constantly, usually serving to make stupid comments and act as damsels in distress. Even when they are given the ability to defend themselves, they nearly always need to be rescued by a male heroine. In shounen, the girls always care too much about romance and too much about their appearance. Honestly, if you’re about to fight some guy, the way your hair is styled shouldn’t be your first concern.

To make things even more frustrating, they are drawn completely unrealistically. Most mangakas (manga artist) even include the measurements of the main female characters, penning them as 37-21-33″ (Nami – One Piece) 37-23-36″ (Lucy, Fairy Tale) 38E-24-34″ (Orihime, Bleach).

Honestly, I don’t even think it’s possible to have that small of a waist yet gigantic boobs. I don’t think the mangakas realize how painful that would be – seriously, plenty of my friends have C’s or D’s and complain about back pain and how it hurts to run.

S0, just to sum up this rant: Shonen manga makes most females moronic, helpless, tiny and huge-breasted. I assume that’s because that would be the “ideal” female.

Well guys, (you too mangaka’s) good luck finding someone that fits that profile without having implants, back problems, and waaay out of your league(: