So much happens in such a short space of time that I’m seriously starting to get whiplash. Does anyone else ever get like that? This big giant resounding 0 for ages, and then the world takes a giant crap all over your life, and you’re left cleaning it up for months to come? I don’t mind problems being sent my way. I see it like a test from the world; “how well do you cope under pressure, Mr Aell?¹” That’s not the problem. But it’d be nice if you could spread it out a bit, please. There’s only so much weight a branch can hold before it snaps off.

I think maybe if I start blogging more, I might be able to rearrange my thoughts easier. I don’t know why I’m even blogging now. I had this sudden urge to put down what I was feeling into words, which hasn’t happened in a very long time. Unfortunately there’s so much going on that I’m not entirely sure how to put it into words.

No, that’s not right. Most of the stuff I’m not allowed to put into words. Most of the time when people come to me with their secrets and problems, I’m happy to help. Infact, I’ll always be willing to help someone. I tend to drop everything I’m doing if one of my friends has a problem. But sometimes, by listening to someone’s problem, you’re also taking it on yourself. At least, that’s how it is for me. I emotionally attach myself to people’s problems so it helps me to understand them better.

The only problem with being so empathetic is that it can sometimes get too much. Especially if you yourself can’t talk to someone else about that problem. I’m probably going about it the wrong way. It’s not going to help anyone if I take on their problems too. I probably sound really selfish right now. “Hey, someone’s coming to you with their problems, and you’re the on bitchin’?” I guess it is selfish. Luckily I have this to vent my frustrations sometimes.

- Aell

p.s. I’m thinking of changing the domain name once this expires. I don’t really go by the name Aell anymore. One day I’ll eventually be happy with people calling me my real name.

^{1. Coincidently, this isn’t the first time I’ve been called this}

I’m posting this really early in the morning, so I’ll probably look back at this and none of it will make sense. I realise I haven’t posted anything in a while, but as odd as this may sound, my head has been completely free of any form of note-worthy thoughts for a long while. The reason I’m writing this here, in public, and not in my diary¹ is because I’m actually looking for people’s opinions. I’ll be severely disappointed if I don’t get at least one reply to this. I know this website isn’t as popular as it probably could be had I kept it regularly updated but I imagine it’ll get around.

I’m curious, what do people believe makes a good friendship? I’ve always assumed it comes down to trust. In the end, no matter what happens, as long as the trust is there, the friendship will remain strong. And that’s because trust relates back to everything. You want a friend that makes you feel comfortable? Well, would you feel comfortable around someone you can’t trust? You want a friend to always be there for you? If you can’t trust them, how do you know they’ll be there for you when you most need it? You can apply this to any “necessary” quality that is required to make a friendship.

I’m sort of talking nonsense here but I think I’m on to something. Another point is, how much trust is enough? Do you need full, 100%, blind devotion trust? Or just basic, minimal, don’t-stab-me-in-the-back trust? And does the trust need to be reciprocated? All of these are important factors. I know a friend isn’t like a business transaction where you weigh up the pros and cons, but if a friend that you trust completely tells you they don’t trust you back, what are you supposed to do with that? How do you deal with it? Perhaps a pros and cons list would be the best idea.

Hmmm, I think that’s enough for tonight. Or, this morning. I can barely keep my eyes open whilst writing this nonsense.

Oh, a last thing. I love Lady Gaga. So much. All her music. She herself. Everything about Lady Gaga I love. If someone knows about meeting her… I’d be interested.

^{1. Not that I have a diary…}

I know I’m probably going to get third degree burns from the flames I’ll get about this, but it’s really something that I feel needs to be said. In my opinion, this whole Michael Jackson thing is being blown so out of proportion by the people of our generation. I can understand being sad about someone who has had such an influence on the music industry passing away but this is just getting ridiculous now. I’ve seen so many Facebook/Twitter statuses saying “MJ WAS THE KING I AM CRYING SO MUCH MY LIFE IS SO SAD RIGHT NOW DUE TO HIM DYING” and it just makes me wonder how much of an influence he could have had over the people of our generation.

As most people who read this know, I’m seventeen. Michael Jackson’s last real album was HIStory in 1991 (yes, I know Invincible came out in 2001 but it had no real noteworthy songs on it). That was the year I was born. I grew up with his songs present in my life but they didn’t really have an influence on it. Any changes Michael Jackson had made to the music industry were all ready well included by the time I was old enough to appreciate his music. I imagine the generation before me respect him on a different level because he was the king of pop during their era – they probably had posters of him during his prime on their walls and the like. But my generation only got the end of his life, really.

What I’m trying to say is, whilst he was (and always will be) a large presence in my generation’s lives, I don’t think it was large enough for his death to warrant the amount of grief that some people my age are giving it. It just screams bandwagon to me, because this are all the same people who were making pedophile jokes not two years ago. It sickens me, almost, to see how involved some people are getting when they really have no claim. Like I said, I can understand to a point my parent’s generation getting upset (like Mariah Carrey at the memorial, from what I heard) but I find it insulting to his memory when people my age try and stake a claim to his grief so much.

As far as the memorial goes… I didn’t watch it. I find grieving for someone to be a very private thing. I’m sure it was a very moving ceremony, and the people included were probably glad to have a way to show their respect for their loss, but I personally couldn’t be as intrusive as that. He wasn’t a major part of my life and watching his memorial/funeral and grieving for him wouldn’t have felt right. I respected him as a musician and enjoyed his music, but that’s it.

My new shoes

I realised I hadn’t written anything in quite a while and I think it’s probably because I don’t have anything to write about. The summer’s here and I’ve not been out much since I’ve finished college, so I haven’t had much… “interaction”, as it were, with things that might give me a stimulus to write about. Well, actually, I did go out, but it was only to go shopping. And even then I literally just ran into Primark, bought what I needed (yay new shoes) and then left. My God was it hot, though. If the weather is nice tomorrow then I’m spending all of it sunbathing.

I feel really bad for not having anything to talk about, especially when you compare it with my huge rant about people being ignorant concerning the transgendered community. This post seems to fail in comparison. Oh, wait. Just thought of something. It’ll be small though (that’s what she said); not because I can’t be bothered but because I don’t really have much to say about it. When I was walking through town, heading to the shop, I noticed a homeless person sitting on the side asking for money. I had my headphones in, so I couldn’t hear him, but I knew for a fact he asked me for spare change all the same. But instead of saying “no, sorry” or even acknowledging him in some way, I just stared straight ahead and pretended like he didn’t exist. Why do we do this? I immediately noticed this was something wrong, yet I still did it. I notice it every time I do it, in fact, and yet I still don’t try and change it.

Why don’t we acknowledge the invisible people? Why don’t we give them spare change? I honestly don’t know. I feel embarrassed admitting it, yet I know tomorrow if I see a homeless person, I’ll still ignore them. Hopefully I’ll be able to change one day, but I guess before that I’ve got to realise why I do it. Help?

Follow me @Aell_

Now I don’t claim to be the biggest activist in the LGBT community but I’m really considering it, if only to show the ignorant people that they’re ignorant. The other day in one my lessons, a guy was talking about transvestites and transexuals (and no, he didn’t know the difference between the two), and he was saying that he thinks that people who transition from one gender to another are, in his words, “just doing it for attention”. I was actually astounded by how narrow minded one person can be. I don’t expect everyone to understand everything. People are entitled to their own opinions. But when I tried to explain to him that sometimes people feel like they’re born in the wrong bodies, he just dismissed it, saying they were doing it for the attention again. This kind of narrow minded attitude is what stops the “minorities” of this generation breaking through. I don’t claim to know everything about transgender people – I may not understand the HOWS and the WHYS. But I do know that I know (or know of) many amazing transgender people who are so much more than some of those ignorant fools.

People are just so wrapped up in themselves and in their beliefs that they aren’t willing to step outside of them and experience/understand things from another point of view. I’m not racist or prejudice against anyone. I believe that each person should be treated and respected individually (that isn’t to say I think all people are the same. That’s a different point entirely. No person is the same as another) and I find it so hard to understand when some people don’t treat others this way. Yes, you may not understand why a person has chose to transition from one gender to another, and you may not understand how they feel, or how it’s possible to feel that way, but you don’t need to understand those things to just accept it. When I come across something I don’t understand, I research it. I look it up. I meet people who have experienced that and try to understand. My mother used to work in a transvestite bar somewhere in London and I didn’t understand why people wanted to dress up as one gender but live their life as another. So I looked up stuff about transgendered people and transvestite people, saw they were different things, require a different mentality, and came to understand.

It just makes me… sad, in a sense, to think that we live in an age with so many advances, both technically and culturally, yet we still have some people who are living their lives like they’re from the stone age.

This is a quote I found from a New York Times article by David France about Calpernia Addams‘ life. Calpernia is… a beautiful woman who is active in the Trans community, and I’d suggest her website – http://www.calpernia.com for anyone interested in her or the trans-community. She’s opened my eyes to so much.

“For me I choose to cling to the thought that I am a woman… That’s what I want to be. And that’s my goal. I know I wasn’t born that way, but I think I have to have some kind of guiding light to move toward. If I personally were to embrace a theory that gender were meaningless or fluid, then I would just be lost at sea.”

I’d like to say that this woman is amazing. She’s been through so much, and she offers even more to the world. Love her, respect her, admire her.

Apparently there have been over 100 deaths attributed to the H1N1 virus in the Americas but out of the 1000+ people who have it in the UK only one has died, and that was today. Yes, it was worrying reading the story. Knowing that any sort of virus is working it’s way through your country can never be comforting, but it has made me realise how badly the people in this country are hypochondriacs. Every sniffle, every sneeze I’ve heard, has been somehow linked back to Swine Flu. People keep talking about how they’re going to stay away from any Mexican people they meet. Seriously. If the first death has only been today then you people were seriously getting worked up all those months back over nothing.

The death today, a woman in Scotland, was probably not solely because of the H1N1 virus either. I mean, it can’t help, but the article says she had “underlying health problems”. That’s… vague, to say the least. The woman could have had cancer, for crying out loud! The media does anything they can to try and create a scare in this country. It’s because our news is so fucking boring. Our news is either about boring shit like house prices rising, or about other countries’ news. So instead they try and fear-monger with stuff like Swine Flu.

I’ve made a few changes to my website, some you’ll notice and some you won’t. I moved the host. This one is… more reliable, I think. The other one was getting on my nerves. I’ll try this one out for a bit and hope it works. If not, I’ll move again. I know the best hosting will be paid hosting, but I can’t afford it, and it wouldn’t be worth it. Also, I changed some of the looks, and got rid of the main website. Just the blog will be fine for now.

G.

I know I’m posting this just a short while after posting my last one, but I wanted to talk about something now I’m calmer and don’t want to put a hole in me wall¹. I post to this blog because I like the thought of a part of me being out there. Maybe not making a difference but that someone is reading it and it is influencing their life. Maybe not in a major way, but you’ll read it and learn something new (either about me or just in general) and that’s an influence on you. I like that my existence has the ability to directly influence someone else’s. And I like that other people’s can influence mine, which is why I have things like Twitter and Facebook; I like recognising someone’s existence for the amazing thing that it is.

Anything I post on here will be something that means something to me. It all comes directly from the heart (or in the case of impromptu rants from my wooden head), which means I have emotions tied into it. If I had a camcorder to record all this you’d probably be able to see all the conflicting emotions that I go through when even putting up something as simple as my library rant. Why, then, do people think it’s fine to try and use that in an attempt to hurt me or belittle me? I just had someone turn around and use the story I told in “Perception is Key” against me by referring to me as “Lou” as opposed to “Aell” or “Grant”. It wasn’t done accidentally. It was done purposely, spitefully and maliciously. Do I care? Of course I care. It’s a part of me. By treating something like this as joke you are in itself treating me, the person behind the words, as a joke. Am I going to sit here and cry about it for days on end? No. Because I’m strong enough to not let it affect me that much. When I posted that post I came to terms with it and accepted it as a part of me, as a part of who I am, and whilst it’s embarrassing… it’s made me who I am today and I’m proud of that person.

In my anger streak that just passed I was really considering leaving Discworld. Overdramatic, you might say, but it’s founded on good reasons. In real life, if someone is annoying you, you can either walk away, hit them, or overpower them with an argument. If someone is annoying you on Discworld, you can put them on ignore, but that doesn’t stop them killing you and dragging your corpse away, and thus inconveniencing you. Why does it effect me so? I don’t play the game for me anymore.I have achieved what I have wanted to achieve. I’m a player who is recognised by people. What more could I want? Now, I play so that I can help others. I’m a newbiehelper, a playtester, a member of guild admin, a typesetter for one newspaper and a reporter for the other, an owner of a shop and generally just a nice person². To have people personally attack me (verbally, not physically) is disappointing to say the least. What can I do about it? I can’t argue with them. Emotions vital to an argument can barely be displayed through text in an effective way. I can’t kill them. So I just let them ruin my game? No. If it continues I’ll consider leaving some more. I don’t want to be in a community where people don’t respect you, or you have no way of properly defending yourself when they do.

Someone said to me, and this is a word for word quote, “Well if you will put something on the internet it does mean ANYONE can read it, then you cant complain if someone uses it to make bitchy comments” Why not? Yes, I’m putting the information up, and I am leaving myself open to attacks, but I don’t gotta like it.

G.

<sup>1. Yes, I have anger problems. Tell me something I don’t know.
2. No, I’m not trying to blow my own horn here. I do think I’m nice.</sup>

NOTE: If you are a real life friend, go here instead. I know CNS will probably click this, but understand: YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND.

I had to eat my last post because it fucked up on this side (the code side, not the interface side), but basically the main points were:

• If you aren’t a Discworld friend then go away. This won’t make sense to you.
• I’m being harassed by some crazy net stalker whose mission is to sort of spread rumours about me, talk about me constantly and be obsessed over me to the point of trawling my website and Facebook and commenting obsessively on my pictures (I have logs).
• People (person) seem to think it’s okay for her to do this, but wrong of me to complain here or even mention the situation (when she has a web-log of our conversation that she has been handing out to everyone she meets. I didn’t post the log because I felt it had nothing to do with anyone else, but if she wants to play her silly little games, then I can. I can guarantee my log has a more extensive rang of her craziness), when really I could go to liaisons and get her in quite a lot of trouble. I haven’t done this because I don’t like ruining people’s gaming experiences.
• I’m finding it sad that I can’t actually post my personal information on the web without people trying to use it against me or trawling it to fuel their petty vendettas against me. For what reason they do have a vendetta against me is unknown to me.
• I’m going to go to liaisons now and if CNS (Crazy Net Stalker) wants to blame someone then it can be her friend who wants to be the great defender¹.
• I’m not gonna stop blogging here because some idiot thinks it’s inappropriate. I think it’s inappropriate I have a stalker but it’s still happening. I have things in my real life that basically require me to vent somewhere. I didn’t want to do it in a Discworld setting because I don’t think it’s their business, I didn’t mention any names as far as I can tell, and you’ve just taken it too far. It’s a shame. The only people that actually know who I am talking about are the CS Admin that I reported it to, CNS herself, and CNS’s great defender, yet you’ve felt the need to drag it out into the open. How pathetic.

It’s a shame I had to write this twice. I think I got my point across better in the first one (albeit with a lot more swearing).

<sup>1. Coincidently, my name means “Great Defender” when translated. Thought I’d share that fun fact with you2.
2. Who wants to bet crazy net stalker just rushed back to my home page to find my name and compare and make sure and then create some rumour about me concerning this?</sup>

I apparently have a stalker. Yes, me. Some little girl I had an argument with herself yesterday has taken it upon herself to trawl my blog, website and Facebook for some unknown reason, and then talk about me to everyone she comes into contact with. I should be flattered but instead am grossed out. If it wasn’t for the fact that I feel sorry for her I’d probably be reporting her to liaisons or calling the police¹.

Anyway, time for the mandatory rant. This isn’t so much a rant as a discussion. With myself. My friends know me as someone who is generally quite intelligent and often ask me for advice when it comes to computers (no, I’m not saying I’m a computer genius, but I know Stuff about them). I also participate in some online games and chat places, etc. so it’s no surprise that I meet² a lot of different people. I’m generally honest (now) about who I am (”Hi, I’m Grant, and I’m an alcoholic”), but I meet a lot of people who aren’t. They’re either roleplaying or just pretending to be something different from what they are. Whether it’s that they’re a secret agent, or that they’re just another gender, or anything, I’ve been lied to by, and have lied to, the best. But why do we feel the need to come online and mask who we really are?

On the game I play, Discworld MUD, I don’t play as Grant Ward. I’m Aell von Glitz. I don’t play to echo my real life. If I wanted to play a game that simulated real life, I’d play the Sims. Better yet, I’d just live my life (probably would be the best idea anyway). But I want to play a game that’s different. One that doesn’t represent me as a person, but lets me represent myself as whatever I want to be. It’s sort of a toned down version of LARPing, I guess.

But can you take it too far? If you make friends on these games, do you then have to let them know who you really are? Can you really be friends with people if you’re not being yourself? Or is that what’s so good about the internet? It’s a tricky conundrum. Personally I think there are some aspects about your being that aren’t essential to a friendship. Gender, for example. Hair colour, eye colour. You can even go so far as to say nationality. Why should these things make whether someone is your friend or not?

I’m quite ashamed to say this but when I first started using the internet as intensely as I do now, playing Habbo Hotel (What? I was 14! Gimme a break!), I lied to people I met about who I was. I was unhappy with my real life; people in real life didn’t like the real me, so why should the people on the internet? So I pretended I was a young teen (about 17) called Louisiana. Why? I wanted everything to be different. I wanted to be older. I wanted to know what it’s like to be a different gender. Do people respect you more? Does it make more “sense” now to talk about how cute guys are? And yes, it worked. I made friends. Some really close friends. Some of whom I still talk to today (as Grant, but boy was that hard to explain), some that I don’t. I made really close friends as Louisiana that don’t even talk to me anymore because I lied to them. Do I blame them? No. But I had to tell them the truth.

I’m digressing with my life story here. Basically, the main point was. Yes, some things you can lie about, but you probably shouldn’t. Sometimes it is nice to get away from being regular Joe Bloggs for a bit, but that’s all it is. “For a bit”. You still have to return to being Joe Bloggs afterwards, so surely it would be best to work on improving being that person instead of making more? Just be yourself, and if people can’t learn to accept you for that, then you don’t want them as your friends.

For those interested, I stopped being Louisiana online about a year or two ago. I didn’t need to continue after about the age of 15 and a half, but I had become really, REALLY close friends with some people, and I wanted them to know and accept the real me. They didn’t all accept me. Some still hate me even now. Some of the ones that do still talk to me aren’t as close with me anymore. But there are a few that still like me as much. And yes, I’m sad I’ve lost some friends, but it’s what I deserve for lying, and I’ll remember not to make that mistake again. If you’re lying about who you are, whether it’s something major like your gender or just something trivial like a job, come clean. You’ll feel better about it, and you’ll be able to have normal friendships.

Sorry for the long post, guys, but it’s something pretty close and important to me. Expect better blogs like these in the future!

<sup>1. Yes, this is the same girl I mentioned in my previous entry. I’d like to make it clear that I wasn’t threatening to beat her up. I wasn’t very clear on that point. I was saying that I’d give a better argument in real life because on the internet I’m generally pretty calm and collected.
2. I just had to think whether it was spelled3 meet or meat. Sob.
3. Spelled? Spelt? Argh!</sup>

Okay, I’m quite tired, very annoyed and have a lot of ground to cover (I think I’ll skip the rant and just devote a whole post to it another time).

I’m tired because it’s 6am and I’m still awake. I’m really contemplating just not sleeping now, having a shower to keep me up and then going to bed later. I doubt I’ll do it, but I’ll definitely set my alarm to like 10am regardless. Sleeping in till 2pm is ridiculous.

There are a few reasons I’m annoyed. Twitter is down for maintenance so I’m bored, I’ve been denied access to my blog all day because I fucked up when making a CNAME earlier (don’t ask – I don’t understand it enough myself, to be perfectly honest – hence the fuck-up), some girl on the MUD was arguing with me, saying I was targeting her and personally insulting her, or some shit like that… stupid bitch. I kept my cool (mostly), even though she insulted me publicly, calling me a dick, a git, a neek and making references to me in real life. How dare she? I sometimes wish I could find all these people in real life and show them it’s not worth their trouble arguing with me.

Anyway – on to Britney Spears! Yes. I went to see her Thursday night. It was a surprise to me. I went out shopping Wednesday and when I got back my mother had bought three tickets to see her… for £5! My theory is they like to have a full house, they hadn’t sold out and it was the night before, and they just wanted to get rid of everything. I thought we’d be sitting in the worst seats but we literally couldn’t have got better seats. We were at the back of our row, so there was no one behind us; we were less than 90 metres away from the stage, so we could see everything perfectly; we were at (what I like to think was) the front of the stage (even though the O2 is in the round. It’d make sense if you saw it.). Ciara was the supporting act, which was really unexpected, and I found a new found respect for her! If you’d like to (and Ciara was appealing at the concert) then add her on Twitter: PrincessSuperC. I think the name comes from her own middle name, which is Princess. That’s unique (for a middle name, anyway).

There were so many people there, the atmosphere was great, and the whole show was visually pleasing. No, she didn’t sing live, and yes, she could have put a bit more energy into her dance moves, but so what? Why does it matter if she mimed? She originally sung the songs, didn’t she? You try dancing for 2 or more hours whilst singing and see if you can manage it. She’s a pop singer, so the dance routines are what holds it together, and she’s an entertainer. She’s there to entertain you, not wow you with her live performance abilities.

On the subject of the aesthetics… wow. It was even better than Panic at the Disco, who pride themselves in visually pleasing shows. She had a circus troupe with her, backup dancers, light sequences, video montages, cages, mirror frames and an assortment of other props. Just seeing the setup was worth the £5 we paid My legs are killing me and I had a seat; feel bad for the people on the floor.

Well, that’s me for the night. I think I will head to bed, even though I’ll only get like 3/4 hours sleep and it’ll make me grouchy. It’s probably better for me than nothing. Sorry for the lengthy post. I guess I prattle on when I’m exhausted.

p.s. Comment question: Should I do coursework tomorrow or go shopping? Vote!