The End of the Golden Witch

There are spoilers in here for Umineko episode 5, zomg.

I don’t have any real collected thoughts for this episode, because I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore, but whatever.  As a sort of running thought process, this is how the episode went for me.

It took about 20 minutes for me to fall in love with Natsuhi again.  She’s so noble, it’s wonderful.  But as Bern-chan says (Oh how Bern-chan is cruel), Natsuhi was the only one having tea at that table.  My theory was actually that Natsuhi was a drug addict, believe it or not.  Constant headache, headache medicine, lonely on the island, I thought she had some sort of a drug problem.  Oh well.  The island being used to deal drugs would have been an interesting way to explain some stuff, but as drugs were not mentioned when they went through her stuff, I doubt she has a drug addiction.  She’s just delusional.  Which is pretty much just as sad.  I still want it to be true that Kinzo let her wear the golden eagle on her heart, but Kinzo is dead…

Various shenanigans go on, and I knew the guy from 19 years ago would be used in the end.  I actually thought he WAS a unique person on the island due to the statement 34-tan made to assure you of the amount of people on the island: one more than before.  Was not useful, but it was curious.

Shannon is Kanon is 99% chance disproved btw, Shannon, Kanon, Erika, and Battler were all in the same room at once, with everybody else, which I feel should say something.

Stuff happened here and there until the Dlanor battle in the study.  Let me assure you, after that battle, this episode secured its place as my favorite Umineko episode.  I’m not kidding either.  I fell in love instantly.  As I said when I finished that, I had never read any piece of fiction which was more entertaining to me.  Dlanor is my favorite new character since episode 4, since Virgilia is my favorite character.  After her little tea party with Battler, Beato, and Virgilia, she made sure that she was my favorite there.  Die The Death!  Sentence to death!  Great equalizer is The Death!

Speaking of Virgilia, I think I have decided what trollface was:  34-tan or Bern-chan (probably 34-tan) controlled her piece at that point.  That simply isn’t something Virgilia would do, I am sure of that by now.  Back then, the entire “magic should be used for good” was reasonable to be thought of as a farce, but I cannot believe that after this episode. Virgilia truly believes magic should be used for good.

I have no real theories as to what happened this episode.  Battler being the murdered child could be interesting.  As Edible posted on the forums, Rosa killed Beatrice 19 or so years ago, and Natsuhi’s incident was 19 years ago…  Curious.  I tried to fit that together myself but I didn’t realize the Rosa incident was 19 years ago, so it didn’t make sense, but Edible corrected the years for me, which is nice.

In the end, I am still saddened by the fact Natsuhi isn’t able to have her happiness with Kinzo and Beatrice, no matter how much I wanted her to.  They are delusions after all…

The trial was dragging, but I think it had enough interesting things to keep it going for the amount of time it did.  Still too long though, but I don’t know what could have been cut out while still recreating the same beautiful web of red, along with establishing how terrifying of a character Erika is.

Battler failing in his second fight against Dlanor came as no surprise to me.  Ryukishi is developing Battler’s understanding of this puzzle quite interestingly, keeping it hidden from our view, how curious.  Battler’s “don’t stop thinking” is very nice to follow.  When he comes back, and Promise started playing, I almost started crying, it was unbearable how sad that scene was.  The gold text was interesting.  Somebody told me it’s something like “the author has said this to be true, so you must take it to be true, regardless of anything.”  Curious.  I loved this episode.  Comment if there’s anything you’re curious about still from me.  In the end, this episode with the scene with Promise and the like established how sad the end of the Epitaph is.

The witch will praise the wise, and should bestow four treasures.
One shall be, all the gold from the Golden Land.
One shall be, the resurrection of the souls of all the dead.
One shall be, even the resurrection of the lost love.
One shall be, to put the witch to sleep for all time.

Sleep peacefully, my most beloved witch, Beatrice.

Winter

Have you noticed I’ve been in a good mood recently?  It’s Winter \o/

I am a little kid when it comes to winter.  There is snow on the ground and in the air, and it makes me so happy.  Something about winter makes me really nostalgic, and I love feeling nostalgic.  Like, last night I was walking under a street light while it snowed, and it was lightly snowing with very little wind.  The way you can see every single flake of snow in the light as it falls is spectacular.  Be it not for the fact I would look like a retard, I would have probably just stood there staring for five minutes.  Anyways, the next best part about Winter is the cold.  Now, this sounds weird, but let me justify.  When it’s cold outside, suddenly going inside to a warm room, or better yet, a fireplace, is heavenly.  This is a feeling you simply cannot experience during Summer.  This is why cold is good, seriously guys!  Also it’s not cold until it’s below zero, shut up.

I’m enjoying listening to my music more than ever, too.  Sky Dream is still basically the greatest staff roll in the history of ever, and so on.  I am in such a wonderful mood that it’s hard to find something I won’t enjoy right now, and i love it ❤
I love Winter ❤

A little confused

I got a call from my oldest sister today.  Was totally unexpected, so I take it, and well, she didn’t sound good, so I ask what’s up, and it sounds like my neighbor’s dad died of the flu.  I’m a little confused right now.  I don’t really know how to feel.  I’m 400 miles away, but to think of his two daughters without a father is really sad, but at the same time, it’s not my family, so I’m not overly affected.  I’m still sad though.  It really does depress me to think they’re living without a father now.  Sad.

I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, I just don’t want to clog irc with random depressive chat, and need to take this out somewhere as usual.  I just want to figure out how I should be feeling right now.

Weird dream

So I took a nap today and I had an absolutely bizzare dream during it.  Sorry, this is a dream entry D:

So it starts out with me watching something on youtube.  It turns out it’s a surreal piece in two parts.  The first part is as this (In the dream, it was like I was experiencing this)

I am standing outside of some fast food place, looking off into the distance, where there is a car, some trees, and some people, I’m using binoculars or something.  Suddenly they start shooting at the car, which is in the same direction as me, so I start running off to the right and suddenly there is a crowd of people walking towards me, all guys in black suits with hats, looking down, completely ignoring the gunshots and the fact I’m there.  This is totally bizzare.

In the second part, I am at my house, and something knocks on the door, and I open it, and it’s some creature sort of like a human sized version of the Hulk, which leads to an odd chase around the house.  At some point I somehow end up on the roof without anyway down.  At this point I’m just sitting there wondering what to do, and the movie ends there.

Short little segments, but man, it was weird.

Later in the dream, I’m going to one of my dance club meetings, except it’s at something resembling my high school.  I climb the hill to get into the parking lot of my high school, with my older sister and some of her friends.  At one end of the parking lot, which we need to go through to get to the school, there’s a large hill, which normally isn’t there.  So I am walking up it with her friends when suddenly my sister comes by in like a one person taxi thing, totally making us all go “where did that come from.”  So when we get to the building, we have to go through like some track and field gym where there is a lot of stuff from pole vaults set up.  I touch the pole and somebody yells at me, so I move on.  When I get to the dance room… it’s like, a bedroom or something.  There’s a pretty big (carpeted) floor section, and then a loft bed, but we were all on the loft bed just chilling, not dancing.  Eventually we leave and somebody hits me with their shoe and grabs my shoes and refuses to give them back.  I think I might’ve hit him at some point for ??? reason.  That hurt D:

That’s all I remember.  Ridiculously surreal.

Why do I love music so much?

This has quite been on my mind recently, so I’m happy to be able to finally put some of this down into words.

Tonight I realized I love reading short stories because of the images they produce.  Kelvin once produced a wonderful image for me through a short story he wrote, and though he says the piece wasn’t good, I say it was great, because in my eyes, I read it to get that sort of an image, and that was the result.

This got me thinking about music, because recently I’ve been getting particuarily… lost in music.  You know, when hours just suddenly pass by because you had a single song on loop.  I’m starting to understand that feeling of being lost.  It’s quite a parallel to the getting lost in a story.  Though it may not be a direct image that the music gives me, in many cases it isn’t, what I get is a wonderful bliss.  A total loss of any sort of a worry or care.  I can be in this state for hours, and it’s wonderful.  Nothing but music filling my head.

I don’t think I realized it at first, but that is what I love most.  That is almost definitely why I love music.  The ability to be so completely surrounded by sound and have it fill me completely.  I’m reminded of this time I was at a dance during waltz lessons.  Everybody else was partnered up, so I sat out, and listened to the music, as I love waltzes.  The Waltz of Flowers started to play.  I might as well have been unconscious, because unless you had punched me, I don’t think I would have noticed you talking to me.  I had my head waving back and forth, my left index finger was conducting, and I was in bliss.  I want to reproduce that, but unfortunately, my compter speakers cannot reproduce that feeling of being surrounded by music I felt there.

So why can music do this?  It’s quite a question.  Why do some pieces totally swallow me while others can’t?  Well, I’m working on this.  I think there’s a few reasons though.  First off, sound is alwys around you.  Whether you notice or not, there are all sorts of sounds around at all times, possibly even music.  Somehow, when I go out of my way to listen, it’s very easy to get sucked in.  I have this thing for “appreciating things you normally ignore,” it’s sort of an odd pleasure of mine.  I think this is part of it.  Sure, you could hear some music in a car that drives by, or you could sit down and just put some Tchaikovsky playing.  Which one is going to swallow me, I wonder.  This is probably the first reason I love music.  It’s just something that… when you notice it, it’s really there.

#2 is subjective, unfortunately, and it’s also one word: Beauty.  I once was listening to Chopin’s Fantasie Impomptu and was asked “Why do you like this piece, all I hear is fast piano.”  Now, I couldn’t give a good response then, because I was freaking speechless.  Because that piece leaves me speechless.  Well, now I’ll simply say “because it’s beautiful.”  And damnit, I’ll even try to explain what makes it beautiful.  It’s almost like trying to climb a slope and constantly sliding down.  The way the piano runs in the main phrase of the piece work remind me of that.  Somebody trying so desperately and failing every single time.  It’s almost pitable, but that’s not the emotion this piece is trying to provoke.  Instead, I’m more left in awe in their sheer desire after so many failures to still get up.  In the middle, there is a slower portion that is nothing but tranquility.  Take this as an insight as to the reason this person is trying so hard.  I don’t know what it is, but his motivation is so solid it can be something this tranquil.  In the final phrase of the piece, it’s quite tragic, I think it represents a total failure, but in the end, there is a glimmer of hope, I think this is sort of a “lesson learned” from the experience or something.  It’s still not a good image to hold onto to justify the beauty of this piece, but I think it begins to get it.

But through the way I can get lost in music and how beautiful music can be, I think I have found why music costs me an hour of sleep regularily.  It’s so much fun ❤

Halloween

Forgive me, I’ve rambled about this a lot, but I had a lot of fun, so I shall blog my night so I will never forget <3.

Started out at around 3, where my roommate had bugged a girl about curling my hair, and she came to curl it.  Took about 40 minutes, worked out decently well.  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/Benny1/halloween/100_0106.jpg is the picture.  Ate dinner, then got dressed up.  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/Benny1/halloween/100_0110.jpg says it all.

Ran down to get a ride around 6:20, got there and just chatted with the people already there.  Spun some, gave some people little dance routines, and practiced moonwalking.  Eventually it was time for tango lessons, that went really well actually.  I figured out a lot about why the frame is important and though I had trouble with a move I didn’t get quite right, eventually i got that and I was doing pretty well.  Yay.

After that was dinner.  Was mad awesome, some chicken + like peanut sauce pasta or something, it was so good.  Head upstairs, and the band starts playing, and lo and behold, the first song was a great song for some lindy hop, so I got to lindy hop a song ❤

Pretty much spent the rest of the night dancing, helped with dishes a little at some point, and the night passed pretty quick, until the costume contest.  I had been practicing moonwalking the entire night, and I had sort of gotten it, but when I “strut my stuff,” as they said, I walk up, build up courage for a second (I had some shame at that point), start singing the chorus from Thriller, spin, and do a crotch grab.  After walking back, some people complain that I didn’t moonwalk, and they had seen me practicing, so I go out again and try to moonwalk.  Everybody was pretty happy with it, so it must’ve looked decent.  After all that was done (I lost to Michael Phelps and that main character from Avatar), I was on door watching duty, the guy who was doing dance lessons was leaving and said it was a nice moonwalk, so man, I don’t care, I got complimented by a dance instructor on my moonwalk.  This has been an awesome night, but I have no shame anymore.  Oh well.

I’m just reallllly happy :3

Being boring.

I think I’m onto something.  Have you ever noticed I really dislike people online calling themselves boring?  It’s odd, but I think I’ve discovered one of my biggest fears: being boring.

Now this is weird, because honestly I don’t give the slightest bit of a care if random people think I’m interesting or not, but for some reason the thought of being a boring person (note how I don’t use the word ordinary or average, they are very different things) scares me.  I wonder why.

I’ve noticed that when I’m out with friends doing mini golf or something, I climb on stuff, I run around the place, skip stairs, and all sorts of stuff.  It’s a little odd, I don’t normally do that.  I think part of the reason I liveblog online so much (I apologize for this, if I get on your nerves, PLEASE tell me to stop, and I will) because it’s like a shotgun approach: I’m basically spamming stuff until somebody finds something interesting (plus dancing is a lot of fun).

Odd, a little quirk of mine.  I don’t mind being ordinary, I try not to be ordinary in many ways, but I know I’m going to be ordinary in many ways, there’s very little you can do about that as a person.  But being boring scares me, and I don’t think any of you are boring and I would hope you don’t call yourself boring.  Sana, you are hardly a boring person.  Not even sure if I can say the word average, but you are by no means boring, and I don’t think you truly want to be boring, just so you know~

But this is interesting, I do think this is why it bother me when people say they think they are boring and worry about it.  You aren’t.

Good day!

Whee, I had an awesome day today.

Gave a presentation on an essay in my English class today, that went well.  When the class was asked to give advice on my presentation, they sat for a bit… and then somebody gave me thumbs up and another told me it was good, but apparently I talk a bit fast.  Yay.

Anyways, during chem, I actually slept through an iClicker question.  I woke up to a girl from social dance club going “Ben, Ben, you need to stay awake!”  I couldn’t stop laughing.  Stayed awake then, though, haha.  It was so funny though.

At the start of math/physics, the professor was late as always, and some of us were joking about every day she’s late, we get to skip a quiz.  I said something about adding them up for the exam, since I don’t really need to skip quizzes, and somebody not in the conversation randomly was like “You know, you should think about the freshman part of your nickname more.”  Later he stopped me after class and said some stuff about “teaching yourself math and physics being rare” and something about everybody else thinking I probably don’t need to work as hard as they do.  He ended with saying “you are a freshman, and I need to keep you from getting beat up” so apparently what I had said was a bit over the top.  I don’t fully know if I was lectured or complimented, but I’m happy that at least somebody acknowledged the fact it was work in order to get here.

Good day, tomorrow promises to be good, save for the fact I’m getting sick or something.

Stressing out, or something

Huh, I’m kind of confused.  I’m stressing out randomly and it’s really bugging me.  I have homework up the wazoo, and no motivation to work on it anymore.  I spent all day in class or doing homework today, didn’t get any chance to do viola which I wanted to do, should have done laundry but lol I didn’t have time for that either, what on Earth am I supposed to do?  I don’t know why I’m freaking out, it’s not like I haven’t had to deal with this much work, I only have some good 10 hours of homework due on Friday, and a good 5-6 more due on Saturday, I just need to sit around and work myself to death.  I’ve done it before, I don’t know why it’s bugging me so much today.  Argh.

I’m not getting enough sleep, either, because this is bringing back my insomnia, I sit awake all night trying to figure out what I’m going to to take care of the next day, which really sucks, so I’m getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, generally having nightmares, and keep in mind a nightmare for me tends to be “paralyzed in bed while you’re being attacked by something you can’t see.”  That’s a whole hell of a lot of fun.  Ever have a nightmare where you’re stuck on your futon which you can see the front door from and somebody is banging on the door and you can’t move and it gets louder and louder and you can’t see anything out of the norm so you have no idea what’s going on?  I have!  It scared the living shit out of me and I didn’t sleep that night after that.  I’m getting crap like that again, and it’s pissing me off.

But yeah, if you can’t tell, I suck at dealing with stress.  At least my mood is okay, I’ve been in way worse moods that this.

Also, I’m still confused by college.  Everybody talks about “the college experience” and “this feeling of freedom” and all of that stuff.  I haven’t felt any more free that I did in high school, and as for the college experience, I’m certainly having a good time, but this isn’t really significant enough to be called “the college experience” I feel.  Maybe it is, I haven’t a clue anymore.  I went to a party, had a blast, didn’t really get bugged about not drinking, but I mean, is this really the college experience?  Did I need to get wasted out of my mind, puke my guts out, and not remember a thing the next day to have it?  Am I doing something wrong?  I don’t even know.  I dove headfirst into this dancing and I”m loving it, but how is THAT the college experience, society of physics students, math club… none of that seems that different or exciting.  It’s just nothing new enough to be called “the college experience.”

What am I doing wrong?  I’m curious.  In honestly, I seriously think I am doing nothing wrong, so I’m just curious.  Do any of you think I’m doing something wrong?  Because I was told “just wait and see when you get to college” whenever I talked about it, and come on, it’s not that different.  I’m not homesick, even though I love my house.  I’m not screwing somebody new every night, even though I hear “everybody who is a virgin loses it fast” at college (bear in mind this doesn’t bother me).  I still don’t get drunk every weekend.  Oh, come to think of it, tomorrow some girl I heard in the dining hall isn’t just getting smashed, she’s getting busmashed.  What does that even mean.

Argh.  I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, I’m happy with it, I just don’t see how this is in any way “the college experience.”  At least this weekend I have something to look forwards to, sounds like I”ll be playing some violin viola duets with my English professor actually, she learned I played viola and was rather interested in this, so I’m excited for that.  Hopefully I can take care of my stress by then and it’ll work out nice.  I hope.

Why do I play music? (and some other stuff)

Had you asked me this a year ago, the answer would have been so bloody simple: “So I can make music for myself to listen to.”

Something changed.  I don’t know what, where, why, or anything.  But I will work through a few ideas and explain them.

First off, I am obligated to.  I have a viola, I use my sister’s violin, and my family is a musical family.  There’s almost an obligation that I would play music.  In fact, in my house, only one person doesn’t.  This is only a little though.

It is still for myself, partially.  I want to make music for myself to listen to, I want to train my ears so they can hear music better, and that sort of thing.  It makes me happy to play music, I can throw my emotions into my bow arm and listen to how they sound.   …Wow, that’s a particuarily beautiful analogy.  I need to remember that.  “By putting my emotions into my bow arm, I give them musical form.”  That’s beautiful.  It is a way for me to vent harmlessly, and make wonderful sounds in the process.  Oh, how I love making music.

But this is where things change:  I am now doing it for other people too.  Sometimes, when I listen to music, I am blown away.  Like, I am totally floored.  I want to do this to somebody.  I want somebody to listen to me play, and when I finish the piece, they sit there with their mouth open for a bit before realizing the piece is over, and they need to clap.  This sheer sense of awe that some piece is so beautiful it leaves you speechless.  I want to make somebody feel this.

Almost on the same topic… I think I want to produce music so beautiful somebody cries.  I’m not fully sure on this one though.  Recently I was on IRC talking to sz, and in a bit of bragging about the people he lived with, he mentioned he lived with somebody so good at piano it has moved him to tears.  I was jealous, but later, I sat down, and I figured out why.  It wasn’t because I wasn’t the one crying, it was because I wasn’t the one making him cry.  Not even him in particular, but just anybody.  I want to make a sound that beautiful that somebody truly wants to listen to it.  Somebody will cry when they hear me play.  It’s so beautiful.  This is a vague goal that I haven’t truly quantified yet.  I’m not sure.

But really, I just love music too much to not want to make it myself.  It is a need, not a want.  I need to make music to make myself feel satisfied with myself, and it is such a fun process.  I have some vague plans to put on a recital for the Honors Institute, actually.  I hope this follows through.

—-
Okay, that’s not as good as I was expecting, let me try to add something else.

What is different about me than other students?  Let me explain what I mean.

Recently I went to the Physics Lab to chill between classes, and well, I got into a discussion with some of the people in my junior physics course about my homework and the like, and I mentioned it was pretty simple, and I got a “for you, maybe.”  I didn’t expect this, actually.  I know I’m good at this, I really am.  I didn’t expect two things, actually.

A.  I genuinely thought the topics we were on were easy.  I really did.  I know harder topics, and I figured other people were the same, but I guess I’m not right.  So I get “well, you’re smart freshman, so of course it’s easy”  Of course, there’s also this:

B.  Why me?  Do you know why it is easier for me?  Do you know, do you want to know?  Because I didn’t wake up one day and know how to do LaGrange Multipliers, and I didn’t wake up and know how to integrate one day, or do linear algebra with complex numbers.  I worked for it.  I really, really worked for it, and it frustrated me that this is passed off as being “it’s easy for you, really.”  No, it isn’t.  I worked very hard in the past so that when I covered these topics they wouldn’t be overly challenging.  There are still things that are very challenging for me, but serously, this is not it.  This is not hard work we are covering.  You know, so many other people could be where I am if they had tried to.  I’m serious, put some effort into it people.

The physics majors really do love physics, but something is different about it.  Most of them don’t seem to actually enjoy doing it.  It’s really work for them, and they hate doing their lab reports, and hate doing their homework, and put everything off until the last possible moment in order to get it done.  Why can’t they take the same pleasure out of this that I do?  A few of them do, at least, but not all of them.  What’s different about me and them.  Why are they able to force themselves to do all of this work.  I couldn’t, I just do it because I enjoy it.  What they think of as “work” (and what I called “working for it” above) is also fun.  It’s so much fun to learn.

It’s frustrating, I was hoping I could meet some awesome fellow physicists who truly loved what they did, but it’s not working how I wanted it to.  People disappoint me in the end, I guess.  It’s still fun though, I really do enjoy these people, but I guess it’s not what I was hoping for.