I'm an artist, kind of.

Art in any form has always been a hobby of mine. In elementary school I learned how to knit and crochet. In middle school I began to draw and scrapbook. In high school I focused mainly on drawing and writing. Now in college I've begun to learn digital painting. And throughout my entire life I've always been a very musical person. I can play three instruments (Piano, which I am very good at, violin, which I am terrible at, and guitar, which I am currently learning), and I love to sing. Art has always been a part of my life, and often I am creating it. And yet, I have always hesitated to label myself an artist.

I'm not sure why. After all, the definition of "artist" is "a person who practices any of various creative arts", and I certainly fit the bill. But maybe the problem isn't me, but what I create. I think I just don't have a high enough opinion of my work to call it "art", and therefore by extension, I am a not an artist.

I'm not sure why I think this way either. It's not like I don't have pride in my work, because I definitely do. I know I'm better at drawing than the average Joe. I believe that I have creative and unique ideas. But a lot of the time, when people ask to see my drawings, I hesitate. Half of me wants to show them, to be able to brag, but the other half doesn't want me to show them, because I don't think they're good enough.

Maybe this mentality comes about from spending too much time on DeviantART. The problem with art community websites like DeviantART is that they can be real confidence crushers. Too often I'll draw something I think is really great, post it on DeviantART, then see somebody else's work, look at mine, and think, "Oh. My drawing isn't that great after all."

Of course, most of my friends or people who ask about my art don't spend time on DeviantART, and if I show them my drawings they'll automatically give praise because to them it is good. But to me, I know I'm just mediocre, and I don't want to show people my stuff if I don't don't 110% believe that it is amazing.

Another source of my frustration with art is the disparity between vision and skill. As aforementioned, I believe that I have good ideas, creative ideas that would be beautiful. But I don't have the skills to execute my ideas exactly the way I want. This is one of my hardest struggles with learning digital painting. I consider myself pretty accomplished at drawing with pencil and paper, so I can draw linearts exactly how I want. But once I start coloring in photoshop, my picture looks like it was colored by a fifth grader because I'm still learning, and part of learning is sucking in the beginning. I understand that, but I hate it too.

That's why I can't call myself an artist. Insecurity and an inferiority complex. I wrote this post because I wanted to start posting some of my "art" on this blog, so you could view this post as a sort of disclaimer...at times, I honestly think my drawings aren't that great, for the reasons above. But I still have some pride in my work. I'll put a few of my most recent drawings below. What do you think?

The Blessing and Curse of Short Term Attachment

100% of my working life has been in jobs that deal with children. I've been a summer camp assistant, a private tutor, and a children's ski instructor. I spend entire days with children, teaching them, helping them, and getting to know them. And as a result, I always get attached.

It's so hard not to. I always get hit the most when I'm working in summer camps. In a camp of about 20 kids, there's always two or three who become my favorites after the first two days. They say the funniest things, come up with the craziest ideas, and just generally make my heart melt. It gives you all the warm fuzzy feelings when these kids run up to you to tell you a secret, or keep an inside joke with you. Knowing that they see you as a friend, or even look up to you and admire you...it's one of the most heartwarming things I've ever felt. But all too soon it's Friday and they leave. And I never see them again.

Of course it has to be this way, but every time, I can't help but wonder about these kids who I've become so fond of in such a short period of time; I wish I could know how you are going to grow up. Most of the kids I meet are ten or younger, and so much can change so quickly when you're young. Every time I say goodbye I think, "I wish I could meet you again, just to see what kind of person you became."

I think the saddest part is that most likely, the child won't remember you at all. I certainly don't remember any specific camp counselors from the myriad of camps I went to when I was ten. The adults from my childhood who have really stuck with me are people who were in my life long term, like teachers, or my first babysitter. The fact of the matter is that these kids, who I grow to love, just won't remember me after a few months.

I remember them, though. I remember all my favorites, those kids who really made an impression on me. There's William, who once asked me if the counselors have secret parties in the Pacific Science Center at night. The twins Caleb and Cameron, who I was always able to tell apart despite their tricks. Krystal, who gave me a picture she drew on the last day, since she knew I liked drawing. James and Alessio, the brightest and most creative kids I had come through my Lego camps last summer, and Dylan and Jonah, Jonah who ran back in one day after camp had ended to give me a quick hug. And then my favorite of favorites, Noah, who was just the sweetest and funniest ten year old boy I'd ever met. It's been three years since I had to say goodbye to him, but I've remembered him ever since.

It probably seems silly, that I can get so attached to these kids in the space of a week. It's a little crazy to me as well. Before I started working with kids I didn't think I'd like it at all, but now I love it. And thinking of all the kids I've had to say goodbye to always makes me a little sad. I wish so, so much that I could see them again and just know that everything is going well for them. I wish I could ask them, "Do you remember me?" And wouldn't that be something, if they said, "Yes."

Why I'm Glad I Revisited Quizilla

Are you having flashbacks yet?

Hello, it's May 27, and today I'm going to talk about a very important period of my life: middle school.

Ah, middle school. Those years when you begin to break out of infancy, throw all things childish away, and become an adult, at least to yourself. No, not an adult. Adults are stupid. You become a teenager. Which is arguably even worse.

I always considered myself unique when I was young in the sense that I was never a kid who wanted to grow up too quickly. When I was a kid I was acutely aware of the fact that being a kid was way more fun than being an adult, and I wanted to stay "a kid" for the rest of my life. So strong was this desire that I even cried on my tenth birthday because my age was now in the two digit numbers, and I could never go back to single digits. But of course there are benefits to growing up, and one of them was: increased computer privileges.

I was introduced to the internet through my elementary school after-school care. If you wanted to, you could go to the computer labs and just sit there and play on the internet for an hour or so. We were only allowed to go to five websites: cartoonnetwork.com, barbie.com, clubpenguin.com, nickelodeon.com, and neopets.com. It didn't matter that we were restricted from everything else; those sites were plenty for a fourth grader just wanting to play games. In middle school though, things stepped up a notch. And so my addiction began, the summer before seventh grade. How well I remember it.

I was attending a summer camp at my middle school. It was basically glorified day care for middle school aged kids, but I didn't mind because I had a friend there so it was like having a playdate every single day of the week. Again, we were allowed to go to the computer labs and use the internet, but now we were allowed to go to other sites. The two that I frequented most? Youtube and Quizilla.

Sasori, aka the love of my Naruto obsessed life. Strangely,
I never wrote a fanfic about him. I still may or may
not have an anime crush on him.

I was a massive otaku in middle school. I adored all things Japanese, whether it was manga, anime, the Japanese language, or Japanese cuisine. I loved it all. Mostly though, I was a huge manga/anime fan. And that summer, the summer it started, my major addiction was Naruto (I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the manga in my heart). I was head over heels for that show. I got my friend into the show as well and that was it. My entire summer was Naruto obsessed. I spent so much time watching Naruto AMVs, flash animations, drawing Naruto OCs, reading fanfiction, and writing fanfiction. I did all this on Youtube and Quizilla. My fixation died off several months later, and I moved onto newer sites like fanfiction.net for my fangirling needs. I began to fangirl over other series and make OCs for other stories. In short, I left my middle school otaku life behind me and became, you know, a regular human being. Relatively speaking.

So why did I tell you all this? Just today, I heard a little fairy whispering in my ear, "You should see if your old Quizilla account is still there." I don't know where it came from, but I'm the queen of nostalgia, so I thought I'd do it, just for fun. I found my old username from an email and logged in, and hey, there it was. All my stories that I'd written in 2007, still on the site.

Don't forget the generic anime girls that everybody used as faceclaims.
 I distinctly remember this one. I think I even used it once.

Not without trepidation, I began reading. And horror, disgust, disbelief, and hilarity flashed through my brain in .0001 seconds. It was terrible. It was so awful I couldn't believe that I had written it. Surely even thirteen year old me was a better writer than this. But nope. It was me. Once the horror passed, I found myself reading with a smile on my face. Yeah, my stories were complete garbage, but reading them put a smile on my face, and I reread all my old stories eagerly.

Now we finally get to the title of this post. Why am I glad I revisited Quizilla and subjected myself to reading my past literary indescretions? Because reading them was fun and it reminded me of how much fun I had writing them when I was thirteen, as silly as they were. One of the biggest problems I have today with writing stories is worrying how they're going to turn out and trying to get everything right the first time. Thirteen year old me didn't worry about any of that at all. She just had fun putting together a story she wanted to tell. In a way, I was more free as a writer at thirteen than I am now at nineteen, and re-reading my old stories reminded me of the sheer happiness that churning out a new fanfiction chapter gave me. The summer of my Naruto obsession was also the summer I began to really practice drawing, so I can credit Naruto with both my love of drawing and writing. Reading my fanfiction brought back all those good memories of being a complete and utter fangirl with my friend about a show that we loved. And while most people would probably cringe at those memories, let me repeat that I am the queen of nostalgia, and it just puts a silly smile on my face to remember those times. So that's why I'm glad I revisited Quizilla.

Really though, my stories were awful. Like, vomit-worthy levels of terrible writing. And this was before I started learning to speak Japanese properly, so there's too many instances of horribly misused Japanese words. But again, everybody has to start learning to write somewhere, and I'm glad that the worst examples of my writing are buried deep in the darkest recesses of the internet where nobody will ever find them. Hopefully.

Review: A Link Between Worlds

Hey everybody, I'm back and I just finished playing A Link Between Worlds! And when I say "just finished", I really do mean just finished. I closed my DS five minutes ago and I wanted to write this immediately while it was still fresh in my brain.

I'm going to go over a few categories: gameplay, the look of the game, and the story. Let's start with gameplay. (I'll go over the story last and avoid spoilers up until then. But once I start, there will be spoilers everywhere, so keep away if you don't want to see them.) Also, this review only covers the main storyline, since I haven't finished any sidequests.



If you read my first impression post on this game, you'll know I wasn't impressed. I consider myself to be a pretty good gamer, but when I first started this game I was getting swatted down left and right, and the lack of hearts wasn't helping. However, this game does get easier as it goes on. After beating the first two or three dungeons you've accumulated enough heart containers to be able to withstand attacks. You also get new tunics that reduce enemy damage, which is nice.

I think one of the reasons I had such a hard time in the beginning was the controls. This game uses the circle pad and buttons, whereas past DS Zelda games have used the stylus. Personally, I prefer the stylus. The circle pad can sometimes make it hard to face exactly the direction you want which is important when fighting, and using buttons only allows for one basic slash. In Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, different stylus touches translated to different sword moves, which was helpful. The stylus also allowed for more precise controls of some tools. I think the stylus would have been extremely helpful in this game for tools such as the ice rod and fire rod, the two I had the most trouble with. As for the circle pad, generally it was fine, but as aforementioned, sometimes it was hard to face exactly where I wanted to face, and in boss battles, it was sometimes difficult to maneuver just because my hands sweat when I'm in intense situations in games, so the circle pad became harder to use. However, I managed to work around most of my problems with the controls and they weren't terrible to the point that I couldn't play.

There were also several puzzles that were not very intuitive. I had to use a guide for this game more times than any other Zelda game I've played, mainly because several mechanics were new and I just didn't instinctively think to use them. I often forgot about the painting gimmick in the early parts of the game, and later on I got stuck on parts of dungeons where you had to drop from one floor to another, especially in the Ice Ruins.

The non-linear layout of this game is supposed to contribute to more exploration and freedom, but I didn't really feel that, maybe just because it's a 3DS game, which naturally feels confined. Also, running from one end of the map to the other didn't take very long, when compared to the length of sailing/train rides in Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. I think decision to make the game non-linear is the reason the story was so underdeveloped, but I'll talk about that more when I discuss the plot and characters.

Bosses were surprisingly easy in this game, although it seemed like they took longer to kill. They also didn't have any names/titles like they usually do, not sure why. Even the final boss, the Yuga/Ganon/Hilda hybrid pig, was pretty easy, just basic dodging attacks, the Zelda classic of Dead Man's Volley, and slashing. I will say I loved the final stage of the battle, where you shoot light arrows at painting!Yuga while Link is also a painting, it looked really cool.

That staff/paintbrush looks a lot like Bowser Jr.'s. Did Yuga get it from Professor E. Gadd?

Let's talk about the overall feel of the game. I liked it. Being a 3DS game, there was definitely a step up in graphics from the last portable Zelda, Spirit Tracks. Everything looked very crisp and stylized and colorful, and it was a nice game to look at. Again, though, I'm no graphics snob, so even if the graphics had been a little lower quality I might not have minded. The soundtrack was also very good at setting the mood of the game, especially the parts in Lorule. I'll admit that walking around Lorule for the first time spooked me a bit, just because of the music. However, there weren't many iconic tunes besides the classic Zelda overworld theme; nothing really unique to this particular game. Except one. Ravio's theme is a great song and it fits his character perfectly. But beyond that, I can't recall a single other song.

And now, my favorite part: the story. In my first impressions post, I wrote that the story was really the only thing keeping me invested in the game. And I hold to that. Unfortunately, this game is rather short, and there are not that many cutscenes that drive the story. Basically you get the set up, a chunk of gameplay, a bit more set up, then the main chunk of gameplay, then the final boss, and the wrap-up cutscenes. This is probably due to the fact that this game is meant to have an open world with non-linear exploration of the dungeons, but the consequence of that is there is no structured plot, with one event leading to another. Story is inserted in chunks, not spread out over the course of the game, and I'm not sure I liked it. There were no scenes to show character development, backstory, etc. Ultimately it seems to me like this game sacrificed story for and open world format, and if it was my choice, I would have done it the other way around.

But let's forget about all that and just focus purely on the plotline itself. I loved it. Unfortunately I was spoiled ahead of time regarding Ravio's identity, but I never suspected Hilda's true intentions. It was a great twist, and I loved how they made her a sympathetic villain. But speaking of villains, here's where I was disappointed. After you defeat the Yuga/Ganon beast, he just vanishes. He doesn't even get a cutscene detailing his defeat. Yuga was the villain who had hooked my interest in the beginning, and he didn't even get a proper final scene. I was left wanting to know more about him. Where did he get his powers from? Why was he obsessed with perfection? Why exactly did he betray Hilda? There was so much more potential in Yuga's character and he was left disappointingly flat. Not to mention Ganon, who it appears is simply a vessel for Yuga in this game. No backstory, motivation, not even any speech. The story could have given those two much more depth, which ultimately would have served the story better.

Everybody could have used a lot more backstory. So say I, Hilda of Lorule...

Ravio was easily my favorite character. His sleazy salesman persona lent humor to the game, and there was something strangely endearing about his cowardice and general smarminess. But again, why couldn't we have learned more? What is his history with Sheerow? Where did he get the magic bracelet? Did he steal it from Hilda? What exactly was his relation to Hilda? (When he shows up at the end to talk Hilda out of destroying Hyrule I saw so much romance between them, but maybe I was wearing shipping goggles.) Apparently in Hero Mode you can read Ravio's journal in the Vacant House, which gives a tiny bit more backstory to Ravio, but why couldn't that be in the main game? There's so much more about Ravio I want to know but unless he shows up in a future game, I won't get it.

A warm welcome to you, Mr. Hero! I'm sure you want to know more about me, but how about you forget that and rent something?

That's really my main complaint with the story. I wanted more. I didn't really get excited about the story until the final boss, and by that's rather late in the game. I wish there had been more cutscenes sprinkled through out the game that could have given more insight, more detail. We could have learned more about Ravio, more about Hilda, more about everything, really. I suppose the reason we don't is that the two main twists: Ravio's identity and Hilda's betrayal would be more shocking if there was no foreshadowing, but this leaves the game as nothing more than dungeon hopping with no story to keep the player interested.

My final verdict: A Link Between Worlds is a pretty good game. I speak only for the main storyline, as I haven't completed any of the sidequests. It's a little slow in the beginning and middle, but story at the end really makes up for a lot of that. The characters and overall plot are wonderful, but could have used a lot more fleshing out. Gameplay utilizes fresh mechanics that are interesting, and the overall difficulty is beginner-intermediate. For me, story is always the selling point of games. I play for the plot, and even though A Link Between Worlds was disappointing in the beginning and could have had more than was given, it delivered well enough at the end. I am glad I played this through, and as always, am looking forward to my next visit to Hyrule.