School and Happiness

Seems like I won't be able to shake off being miserable until school is over. Then there's the transition of graduation and moving on to something else. It's a tough time.

I've, fortunately enough, had things to occupy me and mitigate that miserableness. There's only a month less of school remaining, about five weeks left. It's crazy.

I just needed to get that off my chest. I'm happy to move on to something else soon.

An Interesting Day: Chasing Dreams, Missed Dreams, Catching Dreams

Today's an interesting day, only because I am awake earlier than usual. I fell asleep late, around 2:00 a.m., and awoke sometime after 8:00 a.m. For not getting that many hours of sleep, I feel awake. Again, unusual for me.

I feel eager to get my day started, to get things done. Last night, I was following tutorials on getting my website--kevinscrimauniverse.com--started. It's very basic and generic at the moment, but it's there. I have YouTube videos that need edited it and uploaded. Stories I can write. A bunch of stuff I can do. And that's good I'm eager today, because I have class and work later, so there isn't that much time left in the day.

I'm going to be relentless at my dreams and achieving my desires. That's how I feel today. It feels great. Fun Fact: Did you know that if you go to relentless.com, it takes you to Amazon.com? Go ahead, try it if you don't believe me. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, was relentless at making his dream fulfilled.

I am a workaholic, when I'm passionate about what I'm doing, which I'm glad to have that work ethic as a piece of mind. Work smarter; not harder. And maybe, work passionately, not smarter? or: Work passionately and smarter; not harder. I feel like there's a clever Scrima Quote somewhere there.

Earlier I had seen an article titled "Top Dream Colleges in 2015." I guess I really never had a "dream college." I never really looked. I was ignorant, and finances were a problem. Looking back, at the time, I didn't want to reside on or near campus. Now, I do and feel like I should have. It's a sad afterthought of what COULD have been. The many different could-have-beens.

But that just makes me want to work harder at my dreams, at becoming successful. Today, a lot of things do, with my past floating behind me (Antagonism is one of my fuels--Past, give me more!), and my having mostly overcome it.

Today is also an interesting day in that I am writing a blog post spontaneously. I can't remember the last time I wrote spontaneously. It's nice to get it all done.

Well... off to work on my dreams. I will knock down all my obstacles--and eliminate all needless distractions--if I have to with the final breath in my body to achieve success.

Response Paper on National Geographic Article, "Far From Home."

Response Paper on National Geographic Article, “Far From Home”

   Foreigners—those who are uneducated, poor, and needy for money—are often cheap laborers for business owners. The city of Dubai, and other many great cities, were made by foreign workers.

   In a National Geographic article titled “Far From Home” by Cynthia Gorney, it tells of the following choices that foreigners have. If families chose to stay instead of going overseas to earn higher wages, they would at least have a stable family; however, they would remain poor. But if they chose a job elsewhere, they could earn more money to live a higher standard of living and buy nice things (like jewelry) every now and then, for both them and their family that they left behind; however, they would probably find another significant other to fill their emotional hole and create an unstable family.

   One thing they could do to stay as a family is move overseas together, like try to move to America. That way, they could all earn more money and live a higher standard of living while being together. This seems like the best option, instead of leaving others behind to live a lesser life. And they could even educate themselves through the internet or college. Then their future children also can have a better life. Choosing to move together is also the least amount of work; they can broaden their horizons and see a new side of life together. However, just because they are together, does not mean they may experience a divorce; because of the rapid change they will experience as individuals, especially if they are educating themselves, they may turn into different people and meet a diverse set of peoples who can further change who they are. But in the end, they will still have a better life than they would have if they chose to separate while one side of the family must constantly rely on the other.

   It’s never good to be fully or mostly dependent. The best thing humans can do is make themselves independent as possible. What if the United States had to depend on other countries for all its workers, military, food, etc? Then it wouldn’t be the United States or the leading superpower. It’s a superpower because it’s independent as it can be. So the family members, too, should be educated to be independent instead of depend on a family member for the majority of their income. Another example would be my being independent in relation to college: If I relied exclusively on college for learning, opportunities, and excelling, then I would not be the person I am today and would not know as much as I know now. Thanks to audiobooks and the internet—articles, videos, tutorials—I’ve learned so much more that either the college doesn’t teach or would require me to take more classes and majors (which would cost thousands of dollars, compared to the internet which is cheap).

   We should never let our circumstances define us. That’s why the families are trying to do something about it. However, if they used the internet for educational purposes (one of the mother’s in the article was on Facebook and Skype!) they too could learn and even maybe make money online! This could be an even better option if they have no wish to move.

   These poor people are unfortunately just tools for the rich, altering their behavior with money incentives. While the rich live a life of luxury, the poor people have to work and work and work in order just to make a small sum of money; and there is nothing to say the hourly wage they make is right, either. Because in the end, that’s what they are: cheap labor. For example: “He worked construction, making four dollars a day. It was enough to survive.” If he lived in America, at least he’d make minimum wage, or $7.25 an hour.

   Many Americans complain of the low wages they make, even fast food workers demanding they make $10-$15 an hour. These workers need to rise up above their circumstances and educates themselves so they can make more and have a better life. Although they may have it rough as well, it’s definitely not as rough as these foreigners have it. It goes to show to not take what we have for granted. It could be better and it could be worse, but at least it’s not worse. There are no rules to life, only the ones that humans impose, and throughout history, those rules, beliefs, values, and attitudes all change, and old rules are no longer deemed right and are instead declared as wrong. Even today, different countries have different rules, beliefs, values, attitudes, and standards, so being in a different country would mean following a slightly different set of rules. So who can say the rich exploiting the poor is right, and that the hourly wages they designate are fair? No one can. They may even be able to give some bullshit reasoning, citing some economics, as to why the hourly wage is the number it is.

   And look at that: I scanned the Facebook news feed, and there was an ad targeted at me; apparently, Walmart is raising its minimum hourly wage to $10, while its competitor hasn’t yet. It goes to show that the hourly wage is a game of power and politics, not fairness or rightness. I even remember a Ted Talk, where a member of the 1% named Nick Hanauer argued his reasoning for a higher minimum wage; he suggested that the rich (who hoard their money instead of spend it) have gotten increasingly richer, so why are the poor (who have to spend their money and barely have any leftover) not allowed to get richer too? In the description of the Ted Talk video is, “Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France.”

   So the article, “Far From Home,” by Cynthia Gorney, directly relates to life in the United States, and specifically, my life too.

   Now, the family the foreigners in the article leave behind, changes while they are gone, too. Perhaps they start doing drugs, or the wife has yet another baby (why does a family need so many of those anyway?). Since they change for the worse by separating themselves across different geographic regions or instead choose staying in the same poor spot at their own country, they could at least change for the better if they moved to one place together, like Europe or The United States. So even if the family does separate there, at least they have a better chance at a better life.

  

   

Response Paper on "Interpreter of Maladies."

Kevin M. Scrima

Ethnic Fiction—Professor Murabito

3/12/15

Journal Entry: Interpreter of Maladies

   In “Interpreter of Maladies,” by Jhumpa Lahiri, one of the themes that ties the story together is family, connectedness, and truth.

   Mrs. Das, at the very start of the story, bickers with her husband about who should take Tina to the toilet, but only when “Mr. Das pointed out that he had given the girl her bath the night before,” (43) does she relent. Instead of being a mother, she is trying to get out of her mother duties. She is so disconnected from who she is, her family, and her own maternal nature that she does “not hold the little girl’s hand as they walked to the rest room” (43). This sentence is at the end of the first paragraph, almost as an obvious aside, lingering, to point out that they should be holding hands, but the lack of contact shows that they are emotionally far away and disconnected. Even Mr. Das seems more concerned with his children than Mrs. Das does when he says, “Bobby, make sure that your brother doesn’t do anything stupid” (44). However, Mr. Das “appeared to have no intention of intervening” (44). Perhaps Mr. Das feels disconnected from the family too, or something tells him that Bobby isn’t his child, unconsciously, and so he isn’t affectionate toward him.

   Even Mr. Das and Mrs. Das are disconnected as father and mother. Mr. Kapasi observes that the two seem odd. For instance, “Mr. Kapasi found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his wife by her first name when speaking to the little girl” (45). A normal father would usually say “mom” or “mommy” when speaking with his children, not call her by her first name. And it seems that Mrs. Das doesn’t care that she and her family seem apart; perhaps that’s how far she has distanced herself from her maternal instincts. An example is when Mr. Kapasi observes her walking back to the car: “Mr. Kapasi heard one of the shirtless men sing a phrase from a popular Hindi love song as Mrs. Das walked back to the car, but she did not appear to understand the words of the song, for she did not express irritation, or embarrassment, or react in any other way to the man’s declarations” (46). It can be assumed since they visit their parents who live in India every couple years, that they must know a basic understanding of the language, or at least the intonations. One doesn’t need to know the language to understand the tone of voice; she most likely was able to discern that his song was affectionate and lovey-dovey, but felt neutral to his proclamations, being not overtly happy about it but not irritated either. Maybe by the fact that she doesn’t understand the words of the song, she doesn’t understand love at all. And throughout the story, excepting the end when she redeems herself as a mother, in a way, by saving Bobby, she doesn’t know what love is.

   After Mrs. Das asks, “How long’s the trip,” she sighs at the reply, of which Mr. Kapasi observes that “Mrs. Das gave an impatient sigh, as if she had been traveling her whole life without pause” (47). In fact, this probably is true, because Mrs. Das would have at least paused to reflect on where her life is going: She had a bastard child (Bobby) and has hidden this secret throughout her whole marriage. Mrs. Das is living a lie. She has no concern for herself or her family, not even in the safety of her child: “[T]he little girl began to play with the lock on her side, clicking it with some effort forward and backward, but Mrs. Das said nothing to stop her. She sat a bit slouched at one end of the back seat, not offering her puffed rice to anyone” (47). Mrs. Das wouldn’t seem to car if the unlocked door opened and her daughter fell out of the car. She’s lackadaisical, passive, and very self-centered, stuck in her own world. She doesn’t bother to share her food and happiness with her family. She doesn’t even partake in mother-daughter bonding: “Mrs. Das reached into her straw bag and pulled out a bottle of colorless nail polish… ‘Mine too. Mommy, do mine too.’ ‘Leave me alone,’ Mrs. Das said, blowing on her nail turning her body slightly. ‘You’re making me mess up.’” The little girl occupied herself by buttoning and unbuttoning a pinafore on the doll’s plastic body” (48). Mrs. Das is so focused on petty shit that doesn’t matter, like painting a nail, she’s ignoring things that actually matter, a human being, and her own daughter at that. She wants nothing to do with her daughter by saying, “Leave me alone,” which is sad to hear a mother say to her daughter. Consequently, the little girl had to play alone by herself, occupying herself with a doll, something fake (an imitation of a human being) instead of a real human being. The only reason the little girl is able to play with the doll is because it’s inactive and soft, easily bending to her will. Her mother is too aggressive and even hostile, a hard parent that won’t bend to her daughter’s wishes.

   All in all, Mrs. Das is a crappy mother and wife, and overall, a bad human being in general. However, she does redeem herself and shows hope when she saves Bobby’s life and takes a moment to care about him. 

How I Sometimes Feel When Writing Essays... Dem Feels

Here is how I sometimes feel when it comes to essays...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t876kPY3SOY

YouTubing Real Life

Kevin M. Scrima

Ethnic Fiction—Professor Murabito

3/1/15

YouTubing Real Life

   Max went to his work studio—his room—just a half-hour before midnight to prepare to make another video. An expensive, $500 Sony camera is set up about ten feet away from a green screen against a wall. Fluorescent lights were set up near the camera for lighting purposes. In a corner was a mahogany desk with a $1,200 Lenovo laptop on top of it.

   Public Speaking is everyone’s number one fear—people would rather go through many hells than speak in public--but Max had learned to get over that with repetition. He needed his own private space, and for his family to not be home so he can be fully energetic, otherwise they’d hear him, and he doesn’t want to be heard, or he’ll feel stifled. It’s not like standing in front of a group of people in the room: It’s talking to a camera, an inanimate object, as weird as it can be, it doesn’t seem weird to him at all, so that reduces the fear down. Also, he doesn’t need to plan a script, and he can mess up as many times as he wants thanks to editing programs, and then he can put those funny mess ups at the end as bloopers.

   Against another wall is a fifty inch flat screen TV., and thankfully, he didn’t have to buy that, his mom did one day for Christmas. Under it is an Xbox One, connected to an Elgato HD 60, a game capture card that allows him to record gameplay. A Blue Spark microphone sits on a white desk next to Turtle Beach headphones. This was his “Let’s Play” setup, where he entertains others while playing video games.

   Max couldn’t believe how expensive this hobby was. At least the expense part was pretty much over with. He’s been watching a shitload of YouTube videos, learning from the greats, learning from other people’s styles. And he couldn’t believe that schools didn’t have a class on YouTube. Not only would it be a fun class, but it would actually be relevant to one of his interests. Schools need to catch up with the times, he thought.

   Max did all of this pretty much on his own—the script, recording, editing, publishing—it was a lot of work at times. Sometimes he collaborated with his Italian friend Jeremy, and that was a lot of fun. Because they shared a channel, subscribers and viewers from their channel came to that channel, pretty much doubling their numbers.

   Max recently gained over a thousand subscribers on his two channels. He was pretty happy with himself. But many were from sites like Subexcess, where everyone would click on another YouTuber for points, then other YouTubers would click on them for points, so everyone gained subscribers, even though he realized that some of them start to unsubscribe after they get their subscribers.

   Everyone wants to be heard and watched. He’s just one of millions who are trying to gain a following, and hopefully make some money, just by making YouTube videos. What he learned, is that subscribers do not necessarily correlate with views. He knew he had to find his niche and the certain kinds of videos his audience would demand for. The ones that received the most views were videos that gave his audience the most value, or were immediately relevant, or they were the ones when he entertained his audience the most and made them laugh, like when he played the most popular video games.

   He had found a bunch of businesses that teach others to freelance and make money online, and was able to bring in a steady stream of income. He couldn’t believe it, but he found a way to make money by making websites—do some freelancing—and make his own where he would combine the top three searched terms on a subject, use Google AdSense and Amazon Associates, and use keywords to drive traffic to his site. He mainly wrote reviews of products or compared them. To his surprise, yes, people click on these ads, and he gets paid for them. Suck on that college and work, he thought.

   And when he made enough money each month through his online income, he could quit work, exit the bullshit system society forces him into, making him work a crappy job for cash. He had plenty of skills that he could use at a less crappier job. But no, society makes him wait until he has a college degree before he can make any advances on a decent job. Fuck the system, he thought. And that’s what this video thing was, so he could make money doing something he loved. Heck, if people would watch channels about people talking about petty shit or summarizing their day, like this couple did, surely people would watch his channels.

   Only if he was a sexy girl and could do cam shows, he thought, or be with one and do cam shows. He had a friend back in Europe who was a cam girl, and couldn’t believe how much she made. What a nice rack could do for a woman, he thought. And she had over a hundred thousand followers on her site. Over a hundred thousand people who just want to watch her be sexy on camera. He just had 1/100 of that, 99,000 less, and at that thought, jealousy invaded his chest, as if it was going to war.

   He once saw a YouTube video titled “Twitch Bitches,” and these girls were attractive, had no idea how to play a video game, and showed as much as their breasts visibly as legally possible while playing, and from that, they received thousands of views and followers. Now, that made him mad.

   But Max thought using his brains was better and more honorable. Through Bluehost, he had been able to host as many sites as he wanted with Wordpress. So he made a site, Max-imumGamer.com, learning how to brand himself and take a more professional route to advertising himself and his videos.

   Now, his value was comprised of numbers. Number of views. Number of subscribers. Number of likes. Number of positive comments. Number of followers and posts on all of his social media. The number in his bank account. Numbers, numbers, numbers. He tried not to think about the numbers—he did everything to have fun—but the numbers would always come back. A bunch of data he had to somehow make sense of and wasn’t allowed to ignore, because if he did, then he’d be going nowhere. He always had to strive for higher numbers. The numbers had to grow. If they didn’t, then he wasn’t growing. And no matter how high the numbers got—maybe excepting the million mark, hopefully—he would never be satisfied, because they determined his worth.

   Making videos was by no means easy, as the obsession over the numbers goes to show. The YouTube commenters could be some of the toughest, non-empathetic, and meanest people on the internet, or perhaps in the world. Fortunately, he drew a vast majority of good or decent commenters, and only had a few bad ones so far. Even seeing thumbsdowns on a few of his videos were tough—were they jealous, just in a bad mood, or was that thumbsdown legitimate? He wondered what life would be like if everything had a subscriber button and a like and dislike button and a comment section. Life would be a harsh world, even more so than it can be.

   Tonight at midnight was the release of a new DLC, downloadable content, for a popular video game, which meant he needed to be on that shit like Donkey Kong, because it meant more subscribers, and more views. It was a game he liked, anyways, and he was a night owl, anyway, but he would have to pull an all-nighter, play from midnight until the morning, and be one of the first to stream and upload all of the game’s new content and features. Then, he would sleep like a rock. Or maybe he should make a review of the new content too before he sleeps, or should he make one after he sleeps like a rock? Hell, conflicting decisions.

   The videos where he brought all his energy too were the best, and being tired or exhausted when he went to make them were not an option. That would make for crappy videos. But his family would be sleeping, and he wouldn’t be able to bring his full-on energy without waking her up. That’s why he can’t wait until he can be independent and have his own place.

   And there’s the work aspect of making the videos, too. Being first is one of the most important things when it comes to making YouTube videos, especially gaming videos, at least, for the underdogs, who are already trying to gain an audience when thousands of popular subscribers already have a good portion of that audience.

   One of the cool things about making YouTube videos, Max thought, was being in control of the content, able to make anything he liked, and pretty much without any restrictions. But that meant he needed a lot of discipline. Sometimes, he spent more time playing video games than making videos, and that wasn’t good. Being a YouTuber meant making videos.

   His YouTube career is a distal goal, where he’d reap the fruit only years from now, hoping with all hope that he founded the great video series, or that he got good enough, or that his brand was developed enough, or that he just happened to get enough subscribers somehow. He knew about self-limiting beliefs, where the person believed he couldn’t grow anymore, and thus, would quit or give up. He would keep going, no matter how hard he had to try. 

    But all in all, being recorded was when and where he could be himself. Well, his video personality was different than his real world personality. He felt like a different person behind the camera. He was more smiley, too. He could sometimes be himself in the real world, but felt most comfortable while making a video. He thought it was weird.

   After moving to America from Europe, it’s been his only connection to a normal routine. It was the only place where he had friends or people to socialize with. He had no luck making any friends in his area, or at his work, or at his college. He spoke to a few online, some of them his old friends from home or ones he meant through his videos or gaming session, but not much face-to-face interaction. He rarely had a chance to see Jeremy. There was a girl he hung out with at and after work, but in terms of having many friends, he didn’t have any. Based on all the videos he made, he was his own friend, forming a special relationship with himself through these videos, editing them and making them.

   Max set up the laptop and microphone at his desk, grabbed the Xbox One controller, and pressed the guide button to turn the console on. He flipped the laptop lid up where the XSplit window was on screen, recording his face in a corner and now also showing the screen of the game on his t.v. He signed onto Twitch and placed his Android phone next to his laptop where he could chat with his streamers live.

   Well, here we go, Max thought, and then he entered a different world. 

If you want a real YouTube channel, check me out on Scrima Games: http://www.youtube.com/user/KevinScrimaGamez?sub_confirmation=1 or Scrima Talks: http://www.youtube.com/user/KevinScrimaTalks?sub_confirmation=1

Writing What You Dont Want To Write

So in one of my classes, I need to write an ethnic fiction story. And even though I found a fun story to write  before(it's a few posts down, the one about the Vision Quest), I no longer can now. It's not what my brain wants to write. Because it has to be ethnic fiction, it's imposing limits on my ideas and forcibly transforming the story. That's no fun, and that's no way to write good writing.

So, even though writer's block doesn't exist, I am stuck. Guess I better just start writing and see what happens.