The Domain of Steven

My life has been marked by lack of ambition. There is simply nothing I want thoroughly and continuously enough to diligently work for it day after week after month after year. I want things that make me happy, but that isn’t the same as needing them.

The distinction between want and need was one instilled in me by my parents early on, when I would rarely get things that my whims decided they wanted. I learned that really, I don’t need much at all. Most things are wants, and I can do without them. I’ll live without them. Don’t fret if you don’t get it.

What if I have applied this rule too liberally to my life? What if, in my (successful) attempt to insulate me from the pain of dejected desires I caused myself to never really deeply desire anything?

I know that is a false statement, though. There have been things I have wanted and believed in with all my heart, but as scars are wont to do, the failures are the ones that make themselves constantly evident to me. I believed in them, devoted myself to them, was willing to do anything for them. I turned myself into things uncharacteristic and unimaginable for them. And yet those causes were wrong. Totally, utterly wrong.

When I now look at them, I recoil. They make me unsure of whether I can ever again really trust my judgment. I recall the certainty with which I elevated my position, and the ruinous falls that would follow. How could I ever be sure of anything again? How could I ever pledge myself to something again?

It’s not that I don’t, but I feel like it has become too easy for me to abandon them if I need to. That when they’re declared void, I simply don’t care. It doesn’t affect me.

I don’t know why I’m fine. In a way, the fact that I am fine makes me think I am otherwise. The absence of feeling loss is what troubles me. All I feel is that, well, you didn’t really need them. You may have wanted them, but the fact is that you already have all you need. You had no idea of knowing whether they would have been any good for you in the first place, and there’s no use pining for losing what was ultimately a gamble. You ought to just keep on rolling the dice.

Do I not invest myself in people and causes anymore? Have I reduced them to dice, ready to be followed or forsaken according to whatever result happens to show up? Because I think it should hurt more than this.

Only jetlag and final papers can cause me to be conscious for a sunrise, and final papers don’t allow me the liberty to walk over to the BU bridge, hop the construction fence and take pictures of the beauty.

Sure, I let the end of my junior year go by without a single word to reminisce. And my summer web development job. And my trip back to NYC.

But all of that was the prelude to the main event, my trip to Japan. I leave tomorrow (today, Friday, really) and will be gone for a week with my brother, mom and aunt. Thanks to the time difference, my 14 hour nonstop flight to Tokyo will effectively take a day to get there and mere minutes to return. I will be taking meticulous notes linking my pictures to their descriptions based on time and date taken, because it’s unlikely that after the week-long trip I’ll remember in what context I took that picture of Hello Kitty or what caption I thought up for that strange mechanical contraption that looks vaguely like a sex toy.

Things I definitely want to cover:

• Pachinko. I don’t like gambling…but this is less gambling and more Peggle/Plinko + cute prizes!
• Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This sounds incredibly dull but AHHH MODERN ARCHITECTURE! Should be right near our hotel.
• DrumMania. Fuck yea, drums. There is no way I am going to pass up the chance to try out the precursor to Rock Band. My brother may link up with GuitarFreaks, but I don’t think either of us will try out KeyboardMania…BeatMania was bad enough.
• VENDING MACHINES
• Maid cafe? None of us speak fluent Japanese so this may be more awkward than it’s worth. And we can’t take pictures inside them anyway.

And as for you, viewers, just pray that my shutter finger is itchy and I don’t collapse from the extreme humidity over there this time of year.

This year was the first time I really got my full share of Anime Boston. The past two years I went to the convention, I simply milled about the dealer’s room and Artist’s Alley, perusing the wares with the presence of mind to only pick out a few select gifts for friends. The convention was just such a big event, my natural instinct was to take it slow and enjoy the scenery.

However I had had enough of just getting my feet wet, and so this year I went to the early badge pickup in preparation for making sure I would be able to see everything I wanted to. Did it work out that way? No, because I’m a lazy bum who hates waking up at a reasonable hour. But I did mark out everything I wanted to see, and then followed that whenever I did get out of bed. (Since Anime Boston is held just a few T stops away, it didn’t feel like I was wasting massive travel + hotel expenses on sleeping in.)

As with any good con, there was a variety of cosplaying, from the intricate to the overdone to the creepy to the hilarious.

The last is my requisite picture with something cute yet slightly creepy, as I had done the year prior. Apparently the Hello Kitty dude is from an anime called Hetalia: Axis Powers, but I didn’t know that at the time. I had simply seen this random guy in a big Hello Kitty helmet all over the place, and finally decided that I should take a picture with him. Yes, anime conventions are the one place you can walk around in a school uniform with a giant Hello Kitty helmet and be considered awesome even if no one recognizes who you’re supposed to be.

Interestingly enough, my favorite parts of the event were not anime at all. Two charismatic personalities ran an alternative roleplaying system panel (titled Beyond D&D), which was entertaining in itself but also gave my friend Elliot a few new ideas and sparks of inspiration for future campaigns.

On the second day made it a point to see the Death Note live action movie, which I approached very tentatively at first, since I’m usually not a fan of the typical over-the-top acting in Asian live action media. I was pleased to find that it was over-the-top in all the right ways, and followed the plot of the anime/manga quite faithfully even when changing elements to better suit the medium. There was plenty of enthusiasm from the crowd that watched it, which can be both a blessing or a curse, depending on whether you can actually discern the movie’s dialogue over fangirl squealing.

Interestingly enough, Anime Boston also had a formal ball, dubbed the Black Orchid Ball. The dress code consisted of suits, ties and dresses, but also encompassed formal cosplay. This meant military uniforms, kimonos, princess gowns (not Sailor outfits though). What did this mean? It meant that everyone in the room would look absolutely delicious.

The other big draw of the ball was that the dancing was also formal. As in, ballroom. A part of me was like, “What, those ballroom classes finally have some application in the real world? Score!” This part of me was quite ecstatic, and as soon as I learned about the ball it became the one event I made a point to attend.

The actual ball itself was a bit of a letdown, not because there weren’t enough people but because there were people. They fit within the maximum occupancy limit but it was quite overbooked considering that people were not going to be standing around the room, but instead moving around in the dance floor. Our classes at BU have 25-45 people on a basketball court and people still bump into one another; this dance floor was half the size and tried to cram in a lot more. I’m usually good with floorcraft, but I was irritatingly unable to maneuver without looking like a football player rather than a dancer.

I still enjoyed the dances I did steal, got a refresher on the dances that I already knew, and finally learned how to waltz! (It really does feel like gliding.)