The week-long camp is over, and right now I’m feeling both the afterglow and the aftergloom of the said experience.

It was great, a clear sign that I am officially back on track with my life, back from being a lost little backslider sheep. During that short span of time I got close to a number of people, and felt my whole world expand in the process. Meeting people from all over the country who shares your belief was a joy; meeting people who are also friends and acquaintances of my baka aniki#2 made it even more rewarding, as it bridged the gap between us siblings (and no it’s not simply because he shouldered my camp fee). Not completely just yet, but getting there. Not to mention my brother was like my cheat sheet into getting acquainted with some of the delegates since I could be so conveniently introduced as “baka aniki #2’s sister” (since my brother is quite active in this nationwide event, being one of the coordinators for the past years or so), and they would go “Oh! you’re [baka aniki#2]’s sister!” yep, that’s me! *flash smile* But I digress.

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At the time of this writing, it’s September 9, 2009 (since I know for sure I won’t be able to finish this in time, with my flu and all), the day of my flight back home after my 5-month business trip in Cebu, and coincidentally, the last two anime episodes I watched is that of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 9 and Hatsukoi Limited 9, both of which are pretty relevant to my situation at the moment too.

That said, please don’t ever make the mistake of reading this post until you’ve seen Tokyo Magnitude episode 9, because the episode might lose its impact if you already knew what’s going to happen. Click here to skip to my ‘unfinished business’ rambling (past the Tokyo Magnitude spoiler) or here to skip to the Hatsukoi Limited 9 rambling.

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‘How does one deal with death [of a loved one]?’ is all I could think of after watching Tokyo Magnitude episode 9. Rest assured, I’m not going to spoil anything. You won’t hear a word about which predictions turned out true or not or whatsoever. There might be a little spoiler for another series at the end of the post however, so do beware. Let’s just, well, talk about ‘dealing with death’ or ‘death’ in general, plain as daylight.

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For someone named “Mirai”, she sure doesn’t have much hope in the “future”, or more like, she doesn’t even know what that future is supposed to be. She’s discontented with her life at present, but she doesn’t really know what she wants. Confusing huh?

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I wish I could say “I’m confident I’m gonna pass JLPT1!!!11!!!”, but I’m afraid I can’t. I wish I could say “I did my best, but I guess my best wasn’t good enough~”, get over the exam and just try my luck next year, but I can’t either. Because if there’s something I realized as I was taking the exam, it’s that I can pass, right this year!!!! Then what the hell’s the problem, you ask?

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I can no longer recall what made me stop following the Skip Beat manga yearssss ago. Oh right, I don�t think I even immersed myself into it before, which is most likely why I can�t remember the slightest of details with regards to the acting feats Kyoko undertook, or her antics with Ren. I can actually recall some bits and pieces, but not so vividly as a true fan would. But now, after yearsss I finally got back to the Skip Beat bandwagon, dragging my brother with me to the heights of Skip Beat nirvana, ohohoho (I checked and I had the raws of volumes 1-11 way back 2005, never been touched. imagine that T__T) Just for the record, my brother is not like Impz who can tolerate and stomach quite a lot of shoujo works. He hates Marmalade Boy to the core, same with ItaKiss which he deems to lack development. Then we also ended up having an argument about Saiunkoku where I had to defend Shuurei with all my might but failed to convince him nonetheless. So yeah, I think you can see a bit of his standards of a good manga / anime.

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I figured I owe Hinano an apology for not playing the Renai Blogger game and saying my thoughts about it up until now, after all the work she’s put into making this, as I happen to be one of the characters in the game too. From the impression I get from the reviews, I have this impression that Hinano made me more sweet and cute and less flawed than I really am in real life, and I think of that as a compliment Then again, who am I to say this when I haven’t played the game myself?!

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I was still on the verge of deciding whether follow this series, and episode 3 officially seals the deal for me. The more I watch this anime, the more I see myself in the closet otaku Haruka. She constantly reminds me of my past, present, and probably my would-be future otaku self. Her bitter experience of being shunned for her otaku hobby might have been portrayed to be a little extreme, but it really happens. I�d say it actually happened to me, in a less dramatic the entire school shuns me for being an otaku way, and more of the subtle �shunning� treatment stereotyping ways.

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Foreword: This is what I get for attempting to “micro-blog” in more than one place at a time.

Remember the ‘Asides’ help we asked you guys before? Well, that sort-of worked for and against us (or rather me, the source of all randomness around this blog). It was a delight knowing that you guys are interested in our boring lives and other commentaries we might have. But then because of the jack-of-all-trades ambition of our �Asides�, I also managed to confuse the heck out of myself with the schemes I�ve been devising to make this section more effective and efficient. I brought my MAL and twitter into the blog, which I decided to use for blurbing on animes and RL or otaku stuff, respectively, by aggregating their feeds with the Asides category.

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Most of my life I’ve been struggling with a superiority-inferiority complex, and despite how many times I convince myself that I should be proud of myself, take pride in my abilities and what God has endowed me, I was never fully at peace, and that inferior angsty attention-seeker persona of mine would always creep in no matter what.

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