Status Update

Hi there, Internet.

It's been awhile.

What happened? It's been almost three months exactly since the last time I put anything here. I despise making posts like these, but I feel obligated to let you know what's going on, where things are going, and what's happened.

The short answer is: Shit happened. The long answer is longer.

So, a few months back, we learned my future step-mother was diagnosed with Leukemia. It sucks, but don't feel too bad - she's doing much, much better these days, and looks to make a full recovery. Turns out it wasn't nearly as bad as the doctors initially thought, and she is nearly finished with all of her treatments.

Unfortunately, the time I would usually dedicate to writing the blog - usually immediately after getting home from work, or immediately before I would generally pass out - was no longer available, as now I had other responsibilities vying for my time, to help pick up on some of the slack around the house.

This was compounded by the fact that my work schedule was beginning to exact a toll on me. I was getting far more exhausted, far more often, and this was causing a lot of problems for me. Don't worry, I have seen a doctor about it, and it seems a large part of this has to do with the fact that I rarely get to see the sun for more than about five minutes a day. I've been working on that.

Also, admittedly, MGSV. The first month wasn't bad. But afterwards, something changed, and I found myself suddenly losing hours out of my day - hours I honestly should have been sleeping. This is now improving as well, as I've started coming to terms with what the game is.

But I think the biggest change, and perhaps the most important, was that I found myself just not watching anime anymore. It wasn't that I'd lost faith in it, I just... couldn't stand to watch it anymore. I'd grown sick of something I loved so very dearly. To put it simply, I was burned out on anime.

I needed a long vacation from it. Not even in my spare time was I watching it. I wanted to - lord knows there's plenty of shows I want to watch, but for the life of me, I couldn't bring myself to.

Given everything else going on in life at the time, I chose to neglect the blog. I started trying other things. Streaming games. Messing around with game design. Trying to write things that weren't angry anime rants. It's been an awkward time for me, but looking back I realize the whole of it is that I was just tired, and with things being so stressful in my personal life, I couldn't bear to put myself through even more.

So where does this leave me, and this blog?

Well, I started this thing with the sole intention of sitting through all of Sailor Moon. All of it. This has not changed. I've often thought about what I'll do when I finally reach that milestone. I've tackled so many other bad shows around here, but you know what I haven't done very much of? Covered shows that I love to death. Talked about shows that have changed me in some way, or were instrumental in helping to make me the person that I am. I haven't talked about the reason why I still watch anime even after all these years.

And you know, I have a lot of 'em. I think that, at least for a little while, to get myself back into the swing of things, I'm going to start a new segment in these parts talking about shows I love. It's something a little different, and while it won't be the visceral dressing-down piece-by-piece that I've started becoming famous for, it will provide a bit of insight into why I care so deeply about this medium, and maybe introduce others to shows they might otherwise have passed on.

I don't know when I'll start this segment, mind you. I know better than to try and set dates for these things, because I have a terrible track record with that lately. But hey, it's almost the end of the year, right?

So, I dunno. Let's say, check back in a week, and see if things have changed? And if not maybe give it another week. That sounds fair to me.

I don't know when Moonlight Punishment will resume for real. I'd love to just leap right back into it. I have two other shows I have to finish. Much as I hate to have to put up with them. But I started this thing, and by god, I intend to finish what I started.

But maybe I should let the rest of the terrible holiday season finish passing first. Because it's been a pretty bad one this year - worse than usual. But the year is almost over. And once it is, we'll be in 2016. A new year where we can leave all of the emotional roller-coaster's worth of baggage behind.

I'll see you all in 2016, and when I do, I think I'm going to talk about a show that introduced me to a genre I thought I'd despise: The romance genre.

Yeah, I'm gonna be talking about Suzuka.

Look forward to it.