15th of Iyar

This is the date on the Jewish calendar. It's also the year 5777. The 15th starts tonight, since it's based on a lunar calendar. I mentioned last time that I was going to switch some of the future titles to Jewish calendar dates, and still do holidays when they pop up. For new months on that calendar, or on Rosh Chodesh for each one, I might give more info about that month. We'll see.

Started watching Barakamon on Monday. Handa-kun was basically a prequel to this. Yet, at least, the anime version of it came out after this one. Handa is now in his early 20s, and is a master at calligraphy. An elderly curator at an exhibition criticized his calligraphy. Saying it was too unoriginal or like you'd find in a textbook. Handa gets angry, and punches him in the face. His father tells him to go to Gotou island to cool his head. The title means 'easy-going person' in the local dialect. He's anything but at the beginning. Through interacting with the villagers and being in a different environment, he starts to find his own style. The kid in the pic is Naru. She's 6 at the beginning, and likes Handa. She ends up visiting him every day to play. I think she's what really changes him. Although, he gets annoyed with her often. People were commenting that he has a totally different personality in this. To be honest, I don't think that's really the case. He's matured, he knew about how his 'friend' manipulated him at the end of Handa-kun, and realized people actually cared about him. So, it makes sense that he's not as stand-offish, trying to isolate himself, scared if he'll say the wrong thing, etc. I think I like it so far. The villagers seem really curious about him. 

Re:Creators has been interesting. There's a lot of talking and preparing at the moment. Not much in the way of action. The military has realized that characters from anime, games, etc. are appearing in our world. They plan to gather all the characters and their creators. They think that they can find out why characters are appearing in our world this way. The more that appear and stay, the more our world becomes unstable. Eventually, it could destroy our world, and therefore others along with it. So, with gathering them, they figure they'll find some way to stop it, and stop the character dressed in a military uniform. Although, it's difficult since some characters' creators have passed away. Like, with Meteora. She really wanted to meet him and thank him for creating her and her world, but he's dead. It was supposedly an accident. At the end, the main character (of this story, he's really like a creator) was thinking about why the girl in the uniform recognized him, and she looked familiar to him. I really thought he created her. They showed flashbacks of a girl with glasses that had jumped in front of a train during the first episode. A girl he apparently knew. Don't know if she survived that. But, he remembered glimpses of the uniform girl, I think, being created by her. He might have had a hand in the project. Still don't know where this is really going, but it's got my attention for the time being.

Tried an episode of Yu Yu Hakusho or Poltergeist Report. I know it was shown at our college anime club, but I think it was during one of their marathons. I only went to those a few times. It was like the first Saturday of every month or something. The entire day devoted to anime. If I did go, I couldn't stand more than 3 hours of it. Anyways, this anime started in 1992, which is only 3 years after Ranma 1/2 started. I think Ranma's one of the oldest ones I've watched. Might go back to that one. I just couldn't get into Yu Yu Hakusho. I know it was only the first episode, but the style isn't that great to me. If I can't get used to how the characters look and the overall animation, I shouldn't just slog through it. It's another long anime. (Just over 100 episodes.) It's supposed to be a classic, though...Oh well.

I'm really liking One Piece now. Skipped quite a lot of 'filler' episodes recently. I'm glad I can do that, considering I'm not up to date on it. I'm still pretty far behind. I like that they have an archaeologist on the crew now. Especially, since I was majoring in anthropology, and archaeology is a branch of it. I was going to focus on cultural and possibly linguistics, though. We did have to take an archaeology 101 class for it. She's pretty cool. She's also one of the most powerful of the crew members. In the most recent episode I watched, she and Luffy almost froze to death. They were frozen by one of the 3 admirals of the Marines. Chopper slowly warmed them up, and saved them. They make him seem so child-like, yet he's an excellent doctor. Usually pretty intelligent when he's put in life threatening situations, too. He's always looking for medicinal herbs and when they're not exploring islands, he's studying medicine. 

For the past few days, I've noticed a huge lump forming behind my left ear. It seems to only be getting bigger. I thought one of my earrings had infected it or something. It wouldn't be this big, and would start further up in my earlobe. Instead, it's only on part of my earlobe, but more so behind it and down the outer edge of my jaw. It feels like there might be liquid in there. I don't really know. I like to sleep on my right side. When I do that, it feels like a weighted balloon filled with stuff is pushing down on my inner ear. The fluid feels like it can move around, but only in that area. It never feels like it actually drains. If I sleep on my back, the pressure on it is still pulled back, too. Sleeping on the other side, it hurts even more. So, yay! Another thing affecting my sleep. I'm also scared about it. I'll bring it up during the phone appointment with my primary. (Still haven't scheduled that...)

I managed to write more of Alliance 2. Might have finished the first chapter, although I'm unsure about that. On Monday, I managed to play my clarinet. Haven't done it in a while. I don't think my mouth was used to it anymore. The left side of my lips, at some point, started to not be as tight and a lot of air kept coming out. It was like the muscles on that side of my lips were suddenly too tired to 'seal' that area. I wanted to practice for 50 minutes, but almost didn't make it because of this. Maybe I should practice for a less amount of time, until my mouth gets used to it again. Have to exercise those muscles more. Got back to learning kanji on Monday. Haven't done it this way in close to a year. So, it was nice to do. This time it was on a really common one, so there were quite a lot of compound words. 

I have an urge to make a youtube vid about being aro ace. It'll be about what it means, my experiences, and coming out. I guess, I could say it's my coming out on there. Although, I don't really have friends on there, and I've come out to pretty much everyone I know in various other ways. It doesn't feel like there are that many vids about being ace, or even just about coming out as one. Let alone being aro, as well. That's another layer to it. 

I'm also thinking of talking about IBD in another one in the future. Just watched some vids on it, and I could really relate to them. Some were showing them getting remicade for the first time, and that's one of my most likely options for looking at other meds. I have a lot of scarring in my colon, and it can help heal that scarring faster. So, even if you're in remission, it can still have benefits besides keeping the disease in check. That's pretty cool. Remicade is done by infusion. Depending on how well people can tolerate it, it seems to take 2 to close to 4 hours. You apparently take some extra strength tylenol and maybe a steroid through the IV beforehand. It looks like if I have it done, I'll have to go to a local hospital for it. Not really sure, but it's most likely. I'm not too fond of that hospital at the moment. People can have allergic reactions to the med up to a week afterwards. That scares me. The other med that's a high possibility is humeira. That's done through shots. A nurse has to do it for you at the beginning for a few months. Then, you do it on your own. I highly doubt I'll be able to do it on my own. Needles really disturb me. I've passed out during a blood draw before, and it was mainly because of the needle. With either one, I'd still have to have other people do it for me at the beginning and wait a while. Again, at the beginning, with humeira, even though it's a shot, you have to wait a little while afterwards so they can treat you if you have an allergic reaction. Both are heavy meds, and I'm scared of either one. Remicade would probably be easier for me, and it even says it can help with the scarring. I don't think humeira does. Good to see some of those vids. Just to see people going through similar things is good. I didn't watch them before, because I was too scared to know more about it. I'm trying to get over that. I still have this weird feeling that it's happening to someone else. I'm just an observer to watch for side effects or something. For a while, I wasn't paying attention to side effects, so that's a big change in itself. It's a weird feeling, like your body's not really yours. The more I take part in discussions in the closed fb IBD group and watch these vids, I think that will change.