Recently, all I can say for this week is stress. Although I got into the college I want, there is still a lot of stuff bothers me. In this case, I started to ghosting my friends and just wanted to be alone. Every day, I can hear people laughing and smiling. I started to wonder, are they faking it? or are they really happy? I began to hate a feelings of me staying in my room getting sad, at the same time, I hear people outside screaming and busy having fun.
I’ve been alone for a while, staying away from my friends. I have found my favorite time of each day is when I go to the gym. Of course, I felt more lonely at first, then I began to get used to it. Gym is the only place I feel like home right now. It’s the only place I’m really by myself, be myself, and just put all of my stress on the weights. When I’m in my dorms, my roomate always being loud and his friends come to our room all the time. When I’m at the gym, there is only me, and I can put on my airpods listen to music , and really focus on myself. At the same time, the break time between every set, gives me more thoughts of things that bothers me; which I started to feel a lot better beacuse I can deep into those problems. I don’t know why, but there is some magic in those dumbells.
In the past couple of years, everyone and their brother, mother, and sister have made some outrageous statements about how Web 3, Crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse are going to be the future of everything. At first glance, it seems very true, NFTs can help artists’ rights, Web 3 and Metaverse will decentralize the internet, and Crypto will decentralize currency, it’ll all be great!
Or so everyone thought. I find it pretty astounding the number of people that were really convinced that it was all gonna work out swimmingly. Sure, I’m happy to admit that at one point I saw more of the advantages in this whole scene than disadvantages, some really cool things have come out of this whole boom. The DAO that tried to buy the constitution(which was completely undermined by the ETH fees), and NFTs that allow access to a restaurant or a real club were all really interesting innovations in the Crypto World. However, in the past couple of years, it has all become an absolutely insufferable party topic for Tesla and Silicon Valley bros alike. Everyone who heard about it on their favorite podcast just had to take it to themselves to mansplain it to every other person they see. The culture around this whole thing just completely devolved into DogeCoin bros and making their ugly bored ape their profile picture. It definitely has cool art but a floor price of 100 ETH is genuinely criminal.
Photo Credit: Yahoo Finance
Not only that, but everyone and their mother who had the money to do it completely took advantage of the lack of laws surrounding this whole scene and absolutely screwed, scammed, and crushed everyone involved. Yes, I am talking about Elon Musk and DogeCoin. If you still believe he actually believed in Doge and wasn’t just doing it to pump it and dump it, you are gullible. Pump and dump schemes were coming out the wazoo, to the point that they gained enough traction to involve influencers such as members of the FaZe Clan. Similarly, popular influencers alike such as Logan Paul were making lazy NFTs and charging thousands of dollars in ETH for an unoriginal picture of a Pokemon with absolutely no exterior purpose or club. And Logan Paul isn’t even close to the only person that has done this.
Similarly, everyone has all these high hopes for the Metaverse, but 12 different companies are trying to make their own Metaverse and have made no significant progress. I mean have you seen the Facebook/Meta trailers of their Metaverse it looks so bad. It literally looks like an animated children’s video it is so ugly. Not only that, but Mark made the whole experience seem so underwhelming. Similarly, the Metaverse is realistically going to look and feel nothing like what these corporations are making it out to be. There’s going to be dossing out the wazoo, server issues to rival most Ubisoft games, and more microtransactions than the entire battlefront series I mean imagine what TenCent and EA Metaverse games are gonna be like. Not only that, but Mark’s version of the Metaverse displayed a very calm and normal conversation which I can assure you there will be none of in the Metaverse, it’s going to be a glorified VR Chat Lobby.
Photo Credit: cnet.com
Overall, although the Metaverse, Web 3, and all of its capabilities seemed exciting at first, the lack of legislation and the fact that only big corporations are trying to take over the space completely murders the hype of all of it. The goal of Web 3 has completely disappeared and has just devolved into a disappointing mountain of pump and dump schemes and faulty technology.
Other than rewatching and still going through Hunter x Hunter and One Piece, I have been pretty invigorated in anime. Although the subculture has not been filled with the best new anime this year, I am finding shows that I am loving. Some of these shows might not be for everybody but they are all unique and great in their own way.
Ranking of Kings
This anime from 2021 is special. It follows a decently simple design with its fable format. This anime is made to resonate with real-world emotions and difficulties that many may face such as depression and hopelessness. It opens up the world to disabilities and the difficulties of trying to work around them. The protagonist in this story Bojji is both deaf and mute, as well as is especially weak in a world sanctioned by power. Despite his setbacks in life he decides to work to become the best version of himself. This feel-good story is accompanied by a unique animation style that is enticing to the highest degree. The show has not ended yet but I am highly anticipating the finale.
9.1/10
Hajime No Ippo
This anime is a story of a rising superstar. A hard-hitting boxing talent is known as Ippo Makuonochi, and his journey to the Flyweight Title of Japan. This show is made for fans of boxing, bringing in-depth details of fighting, training, and experience in the fighting world. It’s a feel-good anime with an almost dangerously optimistic outlook on brain damage in the sport (until it’s explored at the end of the second season). I personally enjoyed this anime because of the evolutions the characters go through. The anime and the sport are both about harnessing talent and power to become something unintelligible. I would definitely recommend this anime to anybody that is a fan of boxing.
9.1/10
Space Dandy
Space Dandy, although not being a show that I’ve recently seen, it is something that I feel I must recommend. This show follows a classic blueprint similar to that of Cowboy Bebop, where a group of three eccentric characters travels through space collecting aliens from around the galaxy. This layout can feel overdone or boring to some, however, I don’t believe this to be an anime based on its plot, but rather on its animation. Every episode is created with a different director, writer, animation director, and storyboard director. This show about “A dandy guy in space” became grounds for many animators to build careers for themselves in the anime/manga world. This mysterious show about mysterious characters makes you ask questions with seemingly no answer other than weird space jibber-jabber, but every episode still finds its way to leave a viewer incredibly satisfied with the 20 minutes they spent watching an episode. The show is fantastic and I recommend it to anybody and everybody (I also recommend not skip the intro song as it is fire.
I got a cold. It came on last week Thursday, with a dry throat. I suffered through two days of school, then went home, where it got much worse. I tried to hang out with a friend on Saturday and just felt horrible and fell asleep. I was in bed from then until Friday morning.
Being in bed all week actually gave me some much-needed rest and relaxation, but the looming stress of schoolwork hung over me, making it less enjoyable. I managed to get my work done, but I couldn’t turn a corner on my cold. I was, and still am stuffed up, even though I feel better now (Sunday).
I pushed myself to drive to school on Friday, an hour and forty-five-minute drive both ways which in retrospect I should not have attempted. I was still sick, so I woke up late, got to school late, went to two classes, and halfway through the third, decided to go home. I did take my important stats test and finalized a journalism story, but it wasn’t great.
photo credit: today
In addition to my fatigue, I got denied from my top school, which sucked. I spent the weekend resting, which was great, and I hope to catch up on my work this week, slowly climbing up a mountain of papers, tests, and materials. 9 more weeks soldiers.
I feel guilty for the grades I get in art class. I feel the pieces I do shouldn’t be called art, they are just drawings, sketches, and paintings. In other words, they are not artistic.
But what is considered artistic? Is there a standard to measure how artistic art is?
If we evaluate art on its aesthetics, many pieces will be disqualified. Because for pieces like Duchamp’s toilet and Maurizio Cattelan’s banana duct-taped to a wall, you can’t really tell if it’s atheistic. Especially in modern art, a lot of artworks don’t even have a concrete representation. With these cases, the value of art can’t be determined by if it looks pretty. Many artists also purposefully create art that is “disturbing” or “unpleasant” to the public, which is not “pretty” in the eyes of most viewers. But they are considered art.
OVS Journalism Blog 