I am Victorious!!!

NOTE: Play this before, after, or while you're reading this! Any time really! ;-)

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Woooooot!!!!!

"Tonight we are VICTORIOUS!"

Tonight I am VICTORIOUS!!

You may or might not have known this, but I have been going through a couple life-changing and eye-opening experiences this past year.

Among the most challenging was taking my biochemistry course.

It wasn't required for my major or anything, but I just wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to see if I could handle the rigor of the courses that will shape my future. Every single time I take a course that I think will be challenging, even though sometimes I feel like I won't escape a pit fall that I have made, I persevere and I make it through with the motivation of friends and my likewise motivation of them.

This time was not going to be any different, I told myself.

But. It. Was.

Never at any time in my life did I feel like I was swallowed up in a black hole that was not empty, but filled with despair, self-pity, loathing, irritation at my incompetence, questioning my life choices, and the like.

Except while taking this course.

I held everything inside, thinking that if I showed my feelings to no one then my life will continue and I will be able to pep myself for the next hurdle. Instead, keeping my feelings locked up spent up a lot of my energy and I ended up hurting myself even more. I kept succumbing to the pressure of my future. The weight of it all pushed me down so much that by the time I reached the next hurdle I didn't feel like putting forth any effort to jump over.

I was stuck. And I blamed myself. And I continued to blame myself.

Until, one day I was out at a restaurant with some friends and they suddenly started talking about the course. I was taken aback. Here was a chance to get away from my stresses and enjoy the company of friends, but at that moment I felt that it was all over, here was that course coming back to haunt me.

I broke down. I saw my vision fade before my eyes. Then I saw black.

Then there was warmth. The warmth of a caring professor and friends who reminded me that it was not my fault. My efforts were not in vain. It was not the end of my world. It was not the end of the world as we knew it.

They reminded me to tell myself that I was not being swallowed up, it only felt like it. I am intelligent, I have a vision, I am a trooper, Science is what made me who I am today.

Why am I letting only one class tell me otherwise?

So, I picked myself up; and immediately, since I realized that my friends, family, and God were always there supporting me, the burden I had carried alone for an entire semester lightened considerably. With my newfound energy, I put the pedal to the metal and turned the already overworked gears in my head in order to turn the mess that I partially made for myself around.

And I did.

So for that reason, I am victorious.

And anyone else who suffered either temporarily like I did, or even if you still are suffering, know that one day you will be victorious.

Tonight we are VICTORIOUS.

What's a Pediatrician?

Obviously, one day I would like to have a significant other so that we could do... whatever people do with their significant others. Of course, that is easier said than done. Firstly, because I have never gone about naturally knowing (or caring, really) how to get a boyfriend. When I do happen to ask my friends, they ALL respond: "Well, it just happens."

Unless you happen to be stuck with this totally legit scenario (haha a role model to all OAG's)

(Source: Laina | image)

I mean that was the entire point of my question, so I know what happens, but alas thanks to my background in biology, I fear that I have become too scientific and analytical, but that's beside the point.

When I also ask my friends about what about me would make good "girlfriend material," more often than not, the response is: "Well, Debs ... you see, you're not necessarily girlfriend material, but you are definitely wifey material."

(Source)

I have absolutely no comment to the amount of times that I have heard that exact same response from at least 5 of my friends, on 5 different days. How in the world does that even make sense? What the heck do you have to be in order to be a wife? Do you not have to be a girlfriend for a given amount of time before becoming someone's fiancé and then wife?

Or am I just that good?

Let me reiterate. 

For example, do I look like the type of person who has my ducks in a row and I know how to get things done? Do I look like I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not just to get someone to like me? Do I seem like I’m not as scatterbrained as I thought? Do I look like a person who is reliable and not afraid of commitment?

If so, then thank you friends for giving me such a wonderful complement. I guess I do look like wifey material.

Unless you’re saying I dress like a mom, then why are we still friends?

Regardless, that was not the main point of this story.

This story begins one day while walking to an English class. I was wearing my favorite pokéball hat and I happened upon this guy who (was super cute and) was also walking my way.

Let’s call him Gary.

Gary: (walks up next to me, unnoticed until) “Wow, that’s a real nice hat. You like Pokémon?”

Me: (startled, reflecting on my preparedness for class, turns around, well hello there good looking!) “Oh. Hi….” (Touching my head, like a total smart person) “Yeah, this is my favorite hat.”

Gary (getting closer to me): “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I just noticed the hat and wanted to see who was wearing it. I’m Gary, by the way.

(Flashing the brightest pearly whites I’ve ever seen, it was probably enough to make sunlight break through the overcast skies)

Me (Thinking, was that a pickup line? Probably best to ignore): “I’m Deborah. Thanks for noticing.”

Gary: “Where you heading? I’m heading into this building.”

Me: “Me too.”

Gary: “Great, I get to spend at least a couple more minutes talking to you, what class are you taking?”

Me: “Literature in the Diverse World.”

Gary: “Yeesh, sounds complicated, not a big fan of papers myself. Is that for your major?”

Me: “No. It’s for my minor. I’m a biology major.”

Gary: “Really? That’s amazing, what do you want to do with that?”

(I probably should’ve realized that there was a point this seemingly pointless interrogation session…)

Me (eyes twinkling): “I want to become a pediatrician.”

Gary (brief pause, thinking, no change of facial expression): “A pediatrician, huh? I’m not sure what that is…"

(There were possibly other red flags that I missed, but I was widely alert at this point)

Gary: “I do know what a podiatrist is though, is it close to that?”

(Source)

Me: “Uh… No. Listen. A pediatrician is a doctor that treats children, you must have gone to one at least once or a couple times in your life. A podiatrist on the other hand, is a foot doctor. It was nice meeting you, goodbye.”

Well that just happened.

Needless to say, I never saw Gary again.

Maybe I don’t need a boyfriend after all?

Thanks mom.

(Source)

Okay, so how do blogs work again?

Hey guys! Wassup? It certainly has been a while hasn't it?

Yeah so, the reason for my very prominent absence from the internets has to do with a lot of things:

• Laziness
• Forgetfulness
• Science overload
• Writing overload
• The fear of my hands falling off because of all this overload
• Short-term memory
• Having terrible "Random Access Memory" (a.k.a: having a great idea for a blog post and either proceeding to write that idea down somewhere and forgetting what you saved the idea as on your computer, or failing to write down the idea in the first place because you happen to think of the idea in the worst place imaginable--e.g. while taking a shower, taking an exam, while pulling all-nighters)
• Not wanting to clog the internet with my amazingness
• Doing super-duper important research at Johns Hopkins *wink wink* (I guess I'll have to explain how that happened at some point in time...)

 But mostly it has to do with the question that I posed at the beginning here.

So how do blogs work?

I don't think anyone really has a clear idea of how, because when I first started out researching what to do to start a blog I got a whole mess of stuff talking about how "if you want to be successful you gotta pay for stuff."

And I'm not about that life...

Except when it's free

When I started my blog I wanted it to be for the sake of writing whatever the heck I wanted whenever I wanted, but then as I did more research on blogging I saw that bloggers usually fell into some sort of "niche."

Having a semi-background in Biology surely didn't help here because this type of niche referred to a topic in which I had knowledge in... which technically are a lot of things... but at the same time they were all things that I didn't really want to blog about (not all the time at least...)?

Should I blog about Science? English? Both? French? I don't know if I can think of ideas to write about either of those things.... My classes already fry my brain enough

My mother was the driving force behind me starting a blog all those years ago, back in 2014. She gave me plenty of ideas of what to do for my blog, but otherwise once again I was back at the starting block since I thought that none of the ideas really defined what niche I wanted to go into.

Did I even really want to go into a niche? Not really... Besides the point that I didn't really even understand what focusing a niche really meant. Wouldn't you get tired talking about the same thing over and over again? But I guess if you really loved the topic I guess you wouldn't.

What do I blog about?

Ugh predicaments...

Couldn't I just write just to write?

Then my mother, along with a couple of my friends gave me a couple of new ideas to throw around.

Write stories. Talk about things that are dear to your heart. Write about things that you know will benefit others.

I didn't know what to do with those thoughts at the time, until I saw a blog that really inspired me.

Then I (kinda) knew what I had to do next. Do what I wanted to all this time: Write for the sake of writing. Write to help others and for the benefit of others. Which is totally what I try to do (except when I'm writing about fridges lol).

I have no problems with writing (unless I'm facing that accursed writer's block)... But of course as I'm writing random thoughts pop into my head such as:

• Does what I'm writing make sense?
• Am I writing too much?
• Does it matter if I post at 12 AM or 12 PM?
• Will people hate me if I started posting "food selfies"?
• Does it matter that barely anyone reads my posts?
• How many times a day/a week/a month/a year am I supposed to post a blog post?
• Does it really matter to know the difference between HTML and CSS?
• Do I really have to finish [insert assignment name here] by tomorrow?
• Did my brothers leave the toilet seat up again?
• What anime/k-drama haven't I watched yet?

But as I finish my post those thoughts leave my mind, I read over my post and I think to myself: "Wow. This is my work. Looks like complete crap, but hey I'll post it anyway, someone's bound to like it!"

Totally kidding! :P

Everything I write is a total masterpiece! (You can ask, like, all my professors and my friends and my parents to back me up on that one hehe)

But seriously, how do blogs work again?

I just thought she'd be appropriate to place here for some reason...

Some Extra Stuff (that makes me awesome):

Music that I'm into right now: Black☆Star Theme - Never Lose Myself

Being who I am, I'll never lose sight of where I want to go and who I want to be

And that's how Debbie's imagination slowly started to merge with reality....

So the other day when I said that I was looking up pictures of fridges, I also happened to be looking up pictures of people opening pickle jars.

I guess I was somehow going to liken the difficulty of opening my new fridge to the struggle of opening a jar of pickles?
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time anyway...

But anyway, while I was looking for pictures of people struggling with opening pickle jars, I instead found these images under this peculiar title:

Beware the Pickle

I thought that this was strange because not only were there NO pickles in sight, but this person looked to obviously be a girl, and a very pretty one at that. 

Of course that was until I saw the bottom of the post which said:

This basically showcases my reaction when I read this:

"What?"

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?"

"Maybe if I keep poking the computer screen, it'll make my brain less confused..."

"Wait a second... this might not even be true, can't possibly believe everything on the internets..."

I'm joking of course, it isn't all that uncommon that guys could pass off looking like girls, look at these pictures of Heechul from Super Junior cosplaying as Elsa from Frozen for example:

(Source)

(Source)

I've even thrown in a picture of Leeteuk to prove my point even further

How do they look so good?

(Source and credit to those named on the above pictures)

Of course a quick Google search (or not so quick because I somehow came around to finding this somewhat related article...) would prove that the identity of this androgynous teen (who probably by now is 19 or 20 years old....hey! Around my age!) is Yiming Zhao and he really is a guy in China who works as a female model!

Here are some pictures of how he looks like, when he's not working as a model:

(Source for all pictures of Zhao Yiming)

Looking at these two pictures side-by-side, could you possibly say that these two people are indeed the same person??

Either way, whether he looks like a guy or a girl, it definitely goes without saying that he has really good genes. ;)

Then while looking at these pictures, I had a mini-epiphany!

This exact situation reminded me of one of my favorite manga (which I believe should've been made into an anime ) Charming Junkie!

Could you guess which is NOT the girl in this picture? :P

(Source)

(Source)

(Source)

Because one of the main characters, Umi Kajiwara, is a 14-year-old Japanese male who works in secret as a popular female model.

(Source: 1 | 2)

Doesn't Umi look cute either way?

Zhao's photos also reminded me of Izumi from Love Stage!!, when Izumi was forced to reprise the role of girl in a commercial for the 10th year anniversary of a wedding company.

Izumi then...

(Source)

Ahhhhh.... Kawaiiiiii~ 

Izumi "Now"

(Source)

Even more Kawaii~

Even Rei agrees that Izumi couldn't possibly get even cuter than this!!

(Source 1 | 2)

See!! It's basically the same thing! I love how my mind works! heh heh  

Seeing Izumi look soooo cute dressed like a girl also feeds my imagination of how I would like my brothers to one day cosplay in lolitas because they'd obviously look super cute in them and then I'd make them call me Onee-chan and then my day will be made!

Yep! I could totally see my brothers wearing this! XD

(Source)

Then they'd look sooo cute calling me onee-chan *squee* 

(Edited photo: Original Source) 

Awww...

Ahh well, they can't all make their most favorite sister happy... *sigh*

Well at least one of them looks good in loli...

(This is the lolita that I attempted to draw on my brother btw)

Then while I was getting over the connections that I was making in my head with these guys and their awesome genes, I also happened to see this article about a girl who works as a male model!! (Her name is Yachen Xing)

Yeah....keep trying to convince yourself that this isn't a girl :P

Maybe now perhaps?

Awesome right? At least Zhao and Yachen are using their looks and hopefully making a few bucks on the side. Good for them. At least they can pull off being either a girl or guy whenever they want to.

That reminds me of the time when a girl straight out asked me whether or not I was a boy because of my baggy clothing and my cornrows, while on a roller coaster at an indoor amusement park.

(Edited Photo: Source)

Or the time when I had to dress up like Chris Rock in elementary school for a Black History Month presentation (Do you know how hard it is to act like Chris Rock without saying the N-word?) I came to school dressed up in one of my daddy’s suits and everything. Better than my first choice, I guess…I was originally going to dress up like Michael Jackson, but at the time my school banned everyone from choosing Michael Jackson for the project…. Y’know cuz 2004?

(Original picture by me, except for True Story Meme)

People said that I looked just like Chris Rock (sure I did...), but nobody laughed at my jokes… I guess I didn't have enough N-word?

(Edited Photos - Sources- left to right-: 1 | 2 | 3)

Hey, I guess I look convincing enough to pass off looking like a guy? That's good to know right?

Here are a few more links that I found interesting about androgynous models:

Have you ever heard of Stanyslas Fedyanin or Andrej Pejic? 

Oh! And here's this video that I discovered of Yohio: a  male Swedish singer who knows how to speak Japanese fluently, and he looks pretty darn cute dressed in a lolita! 

Sorry I can't put the video on here, but here are some photos of him:

When I first showed my female friends Yohio, some of them said that he looked even more feminine that they did.

(Source)

(Source)

Also check out his most recent album! Together We Stand Alone! It's an awesome album and even for people who dislike rock music (like I do lol) I bet you'll love the sounds of this album as much as I do!

He was also until recently part of a visual kei band called Seremedy (which unfortunately disbanded in 2013, but you can check out their most recent album Welcome to our Madness)

ALSO!

Did you know?

(Source)

Yohio has his own Vocaloid called YOHIOloid! (You obviously know how much I love vocaloids of course)

So check out these songs as well:

• NeapolitaN
• Tsukema Tsukeru
• Without Wings (duet with Yohio)
• Echo
• Hello How Are You

When I was looking up information on Yohio, I discovered we're the same age! Yay!  But unfortunately I also discovered that he is two months younger than I am....

Wonderful... Now I run the risk of looking like a cougar...