Epic fail

For the second time this week, I managed to end up in a ditch. This time, it was made even worse with a police officer giving me a $200 ticket because I couldn't control my vehicle. This, of course, brings my debt up to roughly $5000.

I really now wish that I would just disappear from this world, preferably for good; that's the only way that this is going to stop happening, and really, I contribute nothing of value to this world anyway -- just a bunch of below-average voice acting that maybe 2 or 3 people actually like. You'd all be better off if I were to just disappear. Not like there's any other release from the ever-increasing mound of troubles. In fact, things would be better if I was never born, and I do seriously wish that I hadn't been born.

In before: It's A Wonderful Life. Not even a guardian angel would be able to find a damn thing.
In before: Don't kill yourself! I'm not THAT desperate to disappear that I'd purposely kill myself.

This experiment I call living is a tremendous failure.

Lesson learned

I have not been able to get myself out of this deep feeling of sadness and hopelessness ever since I found out that, just like what happened in 2007 with being able to stay in Japan long-term, right when I had professional voice acting RIGHT IN MY HANDS, a third party managed to screw it up, and I once again ended up with nothing but disappointment. This always happens: whenever I get close to achieving my dreams, I have to watch them collapse right in front of my face. I have come to the conclusion that I am going to be an office stiff the entire rest of my life, and if that's the case, I hope the entire rest of my life is damn short; I don't want to deal with 50 more years of failing to achieve my goals because of other people's screw-ups, and I don't want to retire 50 years from now only to look back and see all the good stuff was before my 24th birthday. I'd rather die young than live the rest of my life that way. What I got was not even close to worth the effort, and every day that goes by it seems more and more like there's just no reason for me to bother even pursuing anything. I am not going to find happiness in life, because whenever I think I have it, it's taken away from me at the last second. Everything I want to do with my life will forever remain just a hobby, and my dreams will never come true. They were not meant for me. Failure was meant for me.

Everyone else had damn well better succeed in life, because I am going to be living out my failed dreams through you -- yes, you, the one reading this right now. It's the best I'm ever going to do.

I have learned my lesson. I was not meant to succeed. I was meant to try hard only to fail.

I forgot to mention ...

I managed to become a voice actor ^_^ Even though I didn't win the contest at Anime Expo, I still managed to win a contest where the prize is basically, along with a $50 gift card, I get to do the voice work for the company's promos and phones and stuff. The recording's finished for now; they've just gotta iron out the bugs, and my voice will be heard internationally! Stay tuned for more details.

Not worth the effort

I know I haven't updated this in a long time, but there's a good reason.

Life has been more or less dull, and there's been pretty much nothing worth writing about, so it's been pointless.

I have a desk job now (office work isn't a career type that I'd want to do for the rest of my life, but it pays the bills for now), but it seems like after all the hard work, abuse and struggling I had to put up with, clerical/office work is the best I'm ever going to do. (Don't get me wrong -- I am grateful that I at least have a job; it's just that the line of work -- office work/business -- is not something that would satisfy me as a career.) Thanks to NOVA English Schools (I hope the masterminds behind their abysmal business practices die in a brutal, horrible manner. There are no words to describe how much I wish a inhumanly painful and bloody death on them.), my Japan dream is over. There are no jobs left that don't require fluency or an EXISTING work visa, so Japan is just a memory for me. Between that and the fact that voice acting is a damn near impossible industry to get into, and even if it wasn't, I live in a part of the country where there's no opportunities to be found, and by the time I have saved up the money to move the anime companies will probably have switched to sub-only and won't be looking for more VA's, it looks like I'd better get used to a boring, lifeless and unfulfilling rest of my life.

To top it all off, my search for a conversation partner for Japanese could not possibly be going worse. Every single person who I have asked has either
1. turned me down
2. disappeared the day after
3. became unavailable the day after, or
4. has decided to completely ignore me (though he might not have been gotten my e-mails, but he seems to be ignoring my co-worker who's trying to ask him to help me as well)
In the past nine months, I have had a grand total of THREE conversations in Japanese. As a result, my Japanese speaking ability has taken a humongous nose dive. Nine months ago, I could hold a 90-minute conversation in Japanese easily. Now, I can't even string together a sentence that makes even one bit of sense to a Japanese speaker. It's not gonna get any better all by myself. People keep suggesting the same things: listening to tapes, watching anime in Japanese, etc., but the trouble is that those things hone a completely different skill -- listening and speaking are two completely different skills, and both are essential to becoming fluent, which I will need to be if I ever want any hope of going back to Japan. Without both, as well as writing and reading, I cannot be considered fluent in or even good at or even competent in Japanese. However, with no conversation partner, all I have is myself, and I can neither carry on a conversation with myself nor check my usage or grammar. If things don't change pretty damn soon, I am going to be monolingual by January of next year, and once I become monolingual, I am completely worthless, as I have nothing to contribute to this world.

I am planning on going to Anime Expo. That's my last hurrah for anything exciting in my life unless I win the competition. If I don't win, there's nothing left that's even worth experiencing, nothing left that's worth fighting for, nothing to look forward to in the future and no reason for me to even exist anymore.

As of July 9th of this year, there will be nothing ahead; just a bunch of fond memories. With the only things that could bring me to a future I like that I don't completely suck at being voice acting and a steadily deteriorating knowledge of Japanese (and no one to help me who's ever actually there and doesn't constantly blow me off, meaning there's no reversing that), and voice acting being damn near impossible to break into and Japan having no jobs left that don't require fluent Japanese (teaching is out of the picture now for those with no pre-existing work visa, which requires a job already in progress to have), there's nothing left for me to pursue other then a miserable life that's, quite frankly, just not worth it. My dreams are all dead. There's no point in me even bothering putting forth any effort with this tilting-at-windmills existence anymore. As always, I'm not gonna kill myself, and I don't want anyone else to, but there's no point in putting forth any more effort. A boring, tedious life is not worth the effort that I have put forth, and it's not worth putting forth any effort to attain. Besides, if I'm no longer good at Japanese, I am completely useless, and there is no need for me. I have outlasted every last bit of usefulness I had, and I have become completely unnecessary everywhere I go.

I'm ready to just give up. The future that's ahead of me is just not worth the effort.

Why have confidence in myself when I can be realistic and honest with myself?

Why is it that in everything I do that I ever have any sort of confidence in (which recently -- like in the past 2 years -- has amounted to a grand total of two things), whenever I get even the slightest amount of confidence, I realise something that, upon realising it, brings my confidence back down to zero where it belongs? I want to have confidence that I'm actually good for something and that I actually am NOT below average at literally everything I ever set out to do, but until I can actually prove that I'm good for something and that I'm not below average at literally everything by actually being good at something, I find it hard to believe that I am good for/at anything.

Besides, the idea of me returning to Japan for long enough to become fluent in Japanese is a joke because there are no jobs left there, and there won't be unless it becomes unpopular because even if there is another school that becomes that wide-scale, people who are better than me will get the jobs instead, just as they had before the NOVA disaster. (All the other jobs that don't require being at the right place at the right time -- in other words, luck, which I clearly do not have -- require me to be fluent in Japanese, and given that the only resource I have as far as conversation goes is me, that's not gonna happen.) Seriously, the entire reason I bothered with Korea is gone, so I basically wasted 5 months being picked on in Korea for nothing, a fact that makes me incredibly angry; I don't know who to be angry at other than the people of Korea who did that to me, but I am angry that all that struggle was just a humongous waste because not only did what I was hoping to get out of it slip out of my reach for good but NOTHING good came out of it at all! The ONLY thing I gained from that entire experience is the undeniable FACT that I am horribly fat and ugly, and that's it. (Being ugly is ANOTHER strike against me, because if you're good-looking, at least you can compensate for a lack of being good at/for anything else, something that someone who's ugly such as myself if pretty much every single person I met in Korea isn't wrong, unfortunately, can't do, not in this society.) Voice acting I'm also about to say is impossible; I'm not going to officially declare that dead until AFTER I crash and burn at Anime Expo (and that WILL happen, considering my lousy skill level, unless some sort of sort of humongous miracle or something ends up happening), but the fact is, with how far I've slipped when it comes to talent these past few months, I don't stand a chance considering, why would someone hire me for a voice acting role when they could have just gotten someone who's actually, you know, good, something that over these past few months I have really started slipping below? After all, in what way can I even consider myself good at something if everyone else is so much better than me at it, meaning I'm among the worst? It all depends on how things go there, because if it turns out I still suck then and crash and burn at that point, then both of my dreams are gone, leaving just "getting some job I don't like just to get some money to make ends meet" until I retire, leaving no reason for me to even bother trying in life, because there's nothing for me to aim for or look forward to if that's the best I can do. I wish I could do SOMETHING well enough that I have reason to believe there is a future for me.

You who's reading this, be happy, because you are my better.

2007: A Year Truly Worth Forgetting

What can I say about 2007, other than it was a year like no other ... I'll ever experience in my entire life, I hope? I wish I was able to participate in the traditional Japanese "forget-the-year" festivities, but it looks like I'm gonna have to remember and live with what had happened this year indefinitely.

First of all, what the hell did I go through what I went through in Korea for? Why did I have to endure so much flat-out abuse, torment and absolute hatred that I spent most of my days there literally wishing I was dead? I had THOUGHT that it was to get experience so that I could go teach in Japan. Did that happen? No! NOVA just HAD to collapse, and I just HAD to be screwed out of a job at the same time. Good-bye, Japan, forever (other than maybe a vacation), because there's no other way in for a long period of time unless you're fluent in Japanese. That's not gonna happen here. What that means is that I went through all that for nothing. I suffered so much, but no good came out of it at all. What an incredible waste. It wasn't worth the effort and the abuse.

Then, the thing that happened in Japan itself. I came SO CLOSE to finally managing to find a future I could be happy with, and then it just HAD to be yanked away from me, leaving me without a future. (Before anyone suggests I apply for JET, AEON, GEOS or any of those other school chains, I have tried each and every one, and not only did I fail interviews with them, but also there are no more full-time teaching positions remaining in Japan for someone who does not already have a valid work visa, and given I'm unemployed and in America, it's pretty obvious that I do not have one.) People have been suggesting that I try voice acting. I'd love to do that. I'd pursue it like there was no tomorrow if it was possible. But, there's just one HUGE problem that absolutely kills that. Nevermind that I have no connections. I could be close personal friends with every single voice actor and every single person in the industry on the face of the Earth, and it'd still be an unattainable goal, considering I live in the middle of Wisconsin, over 800 miles from the nearest voice acting job market, and chances are my voice will have matured to the point that it is unusable in voice acting by the time I am in any position to move. So much for that. As for plan C, I ask, what plan C? Remaining a part-time job hopper? Being unemployed? Spending every day until I retire knowing that the best is behind and ending up with some crappy, thankless job that I hate doing and then coming home to the same old boring rut? Because unless things seriously fall into place soon, that's what my future holds. Unless there's something even better, than I'm probably never going to be truly happy again if I have to settle for such a fate as plan C.

There are only 17 hours left for 2007 to redeem itself. I doubt it's gonna happen, given all the catching up it has to do. It would take a miracle to salvage this year. When it all comes down to it, if I were to give this year a grade, the best it would get is a D-, but it would more than likely get an F. Any year in which I have to watch as my dreams crumble right before my eyes, leaving me no good options that could lead me to a bright future, the bright future I had worked so hard to try to achieve but is now completely unattainable, doesn't deserve a passing grade in my book.

I can't wait for the new year so that I can put this awful year behind me and hope that in 2008, SOMETHING comes along so that I have something to aim for in life.

A lack of hidden fees isn't enough to make it joyous

Chrismahanukwanzakah is tomorrow, and I just can't seem to get myself out of this sadness ... I'm just heading absolutely nowhere in life. I don't have the talent in any aspect to do anything well enough to gain a decent future, and 2007 has been by far the single worst year of my entire life. Any year that involves me having to take constant abuse for 5 whole months straight and then getting SO CLOSE to finally achieving my dreams only to have had them crushed right before my eyes and then topping it all off with being fired from a CASHIER'S position after only THREE WEEKS can only be classified as a disaster and a total loss, and I've given up on any hope that it's going to end on a positive note, since nothing can turn around this absolutely horrible year other than a miracle, and with just half a month left, I'm not holding my breath. The only good thing that happened in 2007 really was that I got to go to Japan for the last time in my entire life, and all I have to show for my struggle is $1700 worth of debt that I have no way to pay off and a wish that I had never even been put on this Earth. That and a complete lack of any path that I can possibly take now that I'll never become fluent in Japanese (it's not gonna happen in America, and to be in Japan long enough to become fluent, I've gotta get a job there first, which now is impossible without fluency in Japanese) and I live somewhere where the only other thing I don't suck at (voice acting) has no market available, leaving me with literally no options as far as me going anywhere in life. I know I have said this before, but I am positive that the best is behind. There are very few ways that 2008 can be worse than 2007, but I'm not holding my breath for it or any other year in the future to provide something even better than what's already in the past. I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life not satisfied, having come so close to fulfilling my dreams only to have them suddenly become impossible, and never finding anything better or as good, knowing that my peak is in the past already at the tender age of 23. The best is already over; what's left to aim for? What's left to motivate me? What can I even work towards now? I don't have anything to even go towards, no path for me. There is literally nowhere I belong in this world and nothing I belong doing. There is no place for me in the world.

Santa, I know that you're just a trademark of the Coca-Cola Company, but do you think that you could maybe lay a decent future for me under the tree, or at the very least the means to get one and some actual evidence that I actually DO have something that's as good as or better than what's in my past ahead of me?