Neon Genesis Evangelion

 Today I finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion. At first I watched it because I was bored and just wanted to watch something interesting and hopefully be inspired by it some way or another. So I chose Evangelion because it’s very popular and seemed cool. I thought it was gonna be a typical mecha anime (you know, big robots fighting each other) with some drama around it, but oh boy was I wrong. I was very wrong.

At the beginning, it does seem like a typical mecha anime. The protagonist Shinji is told to pilot the Evangelion Unit 01 (which is one of the massive biomechanical creatures) to fight the Angels, massive enemies of varying appearance and power. At first he doesn’t want to, but does so anyway. Then he fails in battle, but the Evangelion (or shortened to Eva) awakens and does the job by itself. So far pretty normal for a plot.

Also the plot is super complex so I’m not gonna write all of it (even though the plot is crucial to the story). I’ll tell the basic plot though. So billions of years ago there was an ancient race that wanted to spread life to other planets, so they sent Seeds of Lifes to planets in the Solar System. There are two types of Seeds, one with a Fruit of Life and one with a Fruit of Knowledge. Only one Seed of Life is supposed to go on one planet, but Earth got two. Two different types. The Fruit of Life, Adam, makes Angels which are creatures with unlimited power but not much consciousness. The Fruit of Knowledge, Lilith, makes humans, which have a lot of knowledge but aren’t as strong as Angels. The reason no planet can have two Seeds are because if an entity gets both Fruits, they essentially become a god. Lilith crashing on Earth is known as the First Impact.

In the year 2000, an expedition team decided to find Adam in Antarctica and reawaken him using human DNA (remember, humans are a child of Lilith and it would be dangerous for a child of Lilith to collide with Adam and vice versa). This resulted in the Second Impact, a massive explosion which wiped out half of humanity.

In the year 2015, Angels started attacking humans, they were children of Adam trying to cause the Third Impact, that would eradicate humanity. So Nerv (an organization whose goal is to stop the Angels) sent out the Evas, which are equal in power to Angels, to destroy the Angels. The first half of the series focuses on killing Angels, almost a new one each episode.

By the second half of the series however, it gets deep. Why do you live? Why do you do the thing you do? What do you desire from doing so? Why are you even doing so? There are so many moments where I just went, “WHAT” loudly. So many confusing moments, all of them so deep in meaning and symbolism.

(this next part will make more sense if you’ve watched Evangelion but I’m gonna write about it anyway) The characters in this anime have incredible depth. Each of them has suffered before, and are trying to cover it up by doing various things. The protagonist Shinji for example, lost his mother at a young age which made his father desert him, leaving Shinji to live with his teacher. The other main character, Rei, who is actually not really human but is also sorta human (idk anymore lol), struggles to socialize with other people and acts like a doll, a puppet to Commander Ikari (who is Shinji’s father btw). She has questioned her own identity several times in the series too, and doesn’t have a lot of dialogue. The other other main character Asuka, had her mother driven insane by work, making her forget her own daughter and later killing herself after finding out she was being cheated on. So Asuka does anything to gain attention of others, to prove that she exists, similar to Shinji who does things for the approval of others.

In short, I really love Neon Genesis Evangelion. I spent hours today finishing it (along with 2 movies that are important to understanding it) along with reading the Wiki and watching videos explaining it. It’s so rich in lore and at the same time, emotionally speaks to you. It doesn’t have the happiest ending, but I’m pretty satisfied with it. All the characters have really good arcs and have grown a lot throughout the series. To sum it up, Evangelion is a kinda depressing anime about what it means to be human disguised as a mecha anime.

I can also say that it is not for kids despite ‘haha cool big robot’

Totto Chan Review

 Ok so I read Totto-chan thinking it was an eye-opening, spiritual awakening, educational fiction book or something. Then I found out the events of the book actually happened in real life and that it was an autobiography. So it’s an eye-opening, spiritual awakening, educational non-fiction book. Which is very cool.

Anyway, what do I think of it? First I wanna say the English version is very good and not awkward to read at all, considering the original is in Japanese. Even with some confusing dialogue that would be difficult to translate (I could tell it would), it wasn’t weird or bad. So it’s a good translation.

Now on to what I think of it. I am very surprised that a school like Tomoe Gakuen existed, and existed in the same era as World War II. To think that such an open minded school was there at that time is amazing. I really think that Tomoe’s methods of teaching should be implemented into schools nowadays (maybe not all methods but most of them). The teaching methods that Tomoe used made the school not boring, made the students not want to go home after school, as opposed to your typical school where students rejoiced when it was time to go home. If the students aren’t bored, that would also make less “doing stuff because I have to” and more “doing stuff because I like it”. It’s like, for example, students cheating in an exam. They cheat because they only want to finish the exam and don’t care how, as long as they can finish it. But if they want to finish the exam for the sake of learning and getting better at subjects, it becomes a different experience. Same thing as doing a job because you want the money, and doing a job because you enjoy it.

I also like that the students at Tomoe all really genuinely enjoy going to school. No one would rather stay at home or go do something else. They all like school. But that’s not the case with typical schools nowadays. I think a big part in why that happens is how conventional and outdated the current education system is. I don’t need to say anything, you know how bad the education system is, and so do the people at school. I think teachers and staff at school (not all of them obviously) realize that the education system kinda sucks, and as a result get lazier at their job. Which makes the students even lazier.

Kind of like how I said that when parents are grumpy/in a bad mood, the children get affected too. If you’re feeling gloomy mentally, you also might feel gloomy physically. Stuff is connected. So the solution to that is, don’t be a bad influence, right? Yes, I think so too. Or, the simple answer is that, at least.

Remaking an entire education system would be a lot of work. It would take years to perfect a new education system. Heck, maybe one education system won’t be enough considering how different and special each child is.

Aaaand that’s the problem I guess. Every student at school is expected to do well in all subjects (and not all subjects are important in life). There’s also the stereotype where if you were an excellent student, you become a successful adult. And if you suck at math, you’re dumb, but if you suck at music, that’s probably not your thing.

Well I’m glad I am now homeschooled lol

also I didn’t talk about the things Totto-chan did because writing about that would take way more effort and time that I feel like, if I did write about it, I wouldn’t have appreciated it enough in writing than I do in my mind because I really liked reading those stories. They were very nice and heartwarming, and in the war era as well jeez wow

memory

 I say “we need to have fun before we die” a lot, because, well, we will die. But I’ve been feeling kind of, scared now. Scared of growing up and getting old.

There’s this album called “Everywhere at the End of Time” and it’s 6 hours long. It’s an artistic approach to Dementia, which is known to cause memory loss and confusion in the brain. I used to think of dementia as like, oh it’s just another tragic disease. But seeing what it can do is terrifying. To think that your mind could die before your body does. When you can’t remember anything, and forget forgetting. It’s terrifying. If someone I knew slowly began to lose their memory, I’d be very sad and even sadder because I can’t do anything to help it. If I started to lose my memory, at first I’d be very stressed and confused. But when it does come, I won’t know what happened because I won’t remember anything. That… is the scary part. Having lived your life to its full extent, doing so many things, experiencing so many stories, and just forgetting it. And what makes it sad is that this can happen while you’re alive. While you have a body. So you could still walk around and breathe, but your mind could be lost. Death is different, because (in my opinion) you’d be at peace after dying. Well I can’t say for sure because no one exactly knows what death is like.

I’m also scared of the fact that EVERYTHING will be forgotten one day. My favorite things like Minecraft will be forgotten eventually. And that’s not a nice fact… Minecraft has been getting updates consistently for years, and to think that it will have one last update, one final update. Well, this is speaking from my perspective because I love Minecraft. But apply this to literally anything. For example, I don’t remember my great-grandparents much. I don’t even remember their faces. I could look at a photo of them and be like, “oh that’s my great-grandpa” but I’d have no emotional connection to the photo.

That’s another reason why we’re so attached to things we knew in our life, for example, our relatives, a favorite actor, a favorite singer, etc. Things that we didn’t know in our life however, let’s say for me, World Wars for example. People older than me might have a connection to those times because they experienced it/their parents experienced it. There’s also things that have ended before we even were born, but we have a connection to them. I was a big Michael Jackson fan as a kid (and still am, haha) yet he died a day before I turned 3, and I didn’t even know who he was at that time.

That brings me to another point, which is we should be grateful for all the technology that can surpass human memory in terms of keeping records. Videos, photos, audio recordings. All of that is easily accessible today. I used to hate photos when I was younger, but as I grew up I understood why some people love taking photos. To keep memories that we might forget.

If I’m already old and hardly remember anything and you told me to look at old family photos, I might not know anything about them at all. Or even feel emotion. Those old photos would simply serve as a documentation for future generations. Humans do like documenting stuff, huh?

Basically the whole point of writing this was the first sentence of the first paragraph. Idk anymore

youtube

 As of writing this, it is almost 2021 and probably already is by the time I’ve finished writing this. Right now I feel kind of lost, mostly with my YouTube channel. I don’t know who I am and what I should be. Well, I do, socially. But this is more to the internet. Like, I don’t know who I really am online.

So, with my YouTube channel. I have switched what content I make a lot of times, and have had countless dilemmas. What content should I make? What style should I take on? I have thought about that a lot. But just recently I’ve been sometimes thinking of “committing redo” as I call it. It’s kinda like when you’re making something and it doesn’t work as it should, so instead of trying to fix it you just break it and make it from the start again.

But of course, I would rather not start over on YouTube. I’ve accumulated 1.27K subscribers, and a big chunk of that is from making Roblox videos (those videos are now privated since I do not want that to be my “brand”). I do notice that ever since I stopped making Roblox videos, my subs have been dropping a bit, and my growth is slowing down by more than 90%. That sort of kills my motivation as well.

I think big YouTubers keep doing what they do because they have a reward from doing it. Not saying that the reward is the main goal, but it’s a good thing. When they upload a video/do a livestream, they have people watching and interacting, which motivates them to make more content. For my channel, I’m getting very little of that now. That’s also a big part of the reason I’m confused with what content to make. Like, I didn’t like the Roblox videos (I liked making them, but no longer want them public, you know what I mean). I enjoyed them while they were there, but don’t wish to keep making them since I myself wouldn’t like it. I did get engagement from it, but I felt like it wasn’t the right thing for me. A good thing, but not the fitting one.

Over the past few months, Minecraft has been blowing up again, and I like Minecraft. So why not make Minecraft content? I did. However I’ve begun to get less motivated and get less ideas due to the small engagement I get. I see other people literally just taking clips from bigger YouTubers’ streams/videos and they get thousands, if not millions of views. Some of those channels (stream compilation channels, as I call them) are even monetized. And THEY get the revenue for just taking clips of other people’s stuff. This makes me feel unlucky too. Luck is a big part in this YouTube thing. If your video gets picked up by the algorithm, boom, there it goes, success. If it doesn’t, well that sucks, obviously.

Anyway, this whole thing has left me just trying to make whatever random content I can, it even feels inconsistent sometimes. My recent videos are now around a minute long, and then you scroll down and get a 34 minute one. Inconsistent. They also look sad, with the huge subscriber count compared to the low, not even hundreds of views. If I don’t upload a video in a few days, I feel like I’ve missed out on a possible chance to become viral or just get more views.

My channel just looks like a jumble of random mess to me. Some videos are memes, some are ones with my voice, some are super random. I’m just honestly confused on what to do now. I see big YouTubers making like, hundreds of the same kind of content and they get a humongous amount of engagement. Some of that content I even find boring.

Another thing I want to cover is consistency. Personally, I have struggles with being consistent. But with YouTube, if I want to, I can be consistent. It’s just that if I do, let’s say from a real example I did, Minecraft Survival Let’s Play, yeah I can do that (I played on a server with some friends). I did actually do that. On the bad computer even. I was consistent for 8 episodes and a few short videos. However in the end I felt that the excitement was only within me. I stopped the YouTube series and continued playing on the server casually, for fun.

If, hypothetically, I got over a million views on every video, I would keep doing that for weeks, months even. I would even stop going to the toilet for the sake of recording a video. I would even still do it if I didn’t have the new computer. But the truth is, I didn’t get over a million views on every video. None of them even hit 100. There was very little engagement, very little comments. Most of the comments were ‘Lol’ and other short words. I hate those kind of comments.

Man I have been writing a lot ya nih. Haiyah excuse this badly structured text or whatever you wanna call it. My point is, I guess I needed to get this out of my head. That’s it. Thanks for reading

Also happy new year :D

Merakit PC

 ok jadi keluarga kita ada komputer tapi agak… lambat… Jadi perlu komputer baru. Pilihan nya beli lagi atau bisa buat sendiri (rakit). Dua-dua nya ada plus dan minus, kalau beli sudah jadi kita gak perlu set up apa-apa tapi kita juga gak tau 100% isi komputer nya, kalau rakit kita bisa pilih komponen-komponen spesifik, tapi ya harus rakit, haha.

Maret-Juni kemarin aku belajar-belajar tentang rakit PC dari internet (sekalian belajar tentang PC juga, bukan hanya gimana rakitnya) dan aku bisa belajar lumayan banyak. Walaupun aku gak 100% mengerti tentang komputer dan elektronik, udah ok lah. Itupun gak bayar kelas apa-apa, hanya dari browsing internet, nonton YouTube, baca-baca artikel, dll. Aku jadi mengerti komponen-komponen PC dan apa fungsi mereka.

Tetapi ini bukan sesuatu yang bisa dilakukan tanpa uang, bukan seperti menggambar (menggambar tidak perlu bahan mahal banget, kertas dan pensil sudah cukup) tetapi lebih seperti melukis (perlu membeli cat, kuas-kuas, kanvas). Aku masih umur 13-14 dan belum kerja jadi gak ada income. Jadi kalau perlu uang harus minta dari orangtua (dan aku biasanya diminta membersihkan rumah sebagai gantian, haha). Tapi tiba-tiba Akung aku (papa nya mama) bilang dia mau membayar biaya rakit PC ini. Ini plus buat kita semua, aku grateful banget sama Akung.

Akung aku kasih budget untuk membeli komponen-komponen, bisa dibilang banyak juga untuk rakit PC. Papa ku dan aku yang pilih-pilih komponen (dan ini prosesnya agak lama, karena papa ku gak pernah rakit PC sendiri). Kita pakai website yang bisa membantu cek kompabilitas komponen ini dengan komponen itu. Walaupun tidak 100% akurat, sudah membantu banget. Setelah sudah tahu komponen apa yang diinginkan, waktunya belanja. Tapi yang pasti kalau belanja online, item yang dicari belum tentu dijual. Jadi ada beberapa barang yang berbeda dengan yang awalnya kita mau, tetapi masih bisa berfungsi jadi no harm done. Bagian belanja kebanyakan dilakukan oleh papa ku karena dia sudah biasa dalam hal begini (aku masih anak kecil juga, hehe).

Saat bahan sudah datang semua, aku mulai rakit. Mayoritas nya aku yang mengerjakan, adikku yang pertama dan kedua membantu juga. Papa membantu kalau ada sesuatu yang susah dan perlu kerja fisik extra. Kita selesai rakit sekitar tengah malam pada tanggal 25 Juni, dan belum tidur saat sudah tanggal 26 (kebetulan itu hari ulang tahun aku, jadi PC ini bisa dibilang hadiah ulang tahun aku, haha). Tetapi ya, karena ini first time, ada sedikit error. Tidak ada masalah fatal kok, semuanya aman. :D

Hingga sekarang aku menulis ini (15-12-20), PC nya berfungsi dengan baik. Ini pun aku lagi menulis pakai PC nya. Kalau dalam beberapa tahun aku harus upgrade/mengganti PC ini, aku bilang aku lebih bisa dan lebih siap dari waktu pertama kali rakit PC. Karena untuk belajar, teori tidak cukup, harus ada praktek. Itu dibuktikan saat pertama kali coba menyalakan PC, layar nya tidak mau tersambung. Ternyata VGA card kurang masuk di motherboard. Perlu praktek agar kita benar-benar mengerti.

Foto saat CPU nya terpasang

Foto saat sudah selesai 👍🏻

fiverr

 Pada September kemarin, aku ikut kelas finance lewat Google Meet, dan tante nya memberi sebuah challenge pada akhir kelas, yaitu mendapat Rp.50.000,00 dalam seminggu. Tapi tidak boleh melakukan hal seperti cuci piring, jemur baju, dll karena itu biasanya orangtua yang memberi uang. Intinya kita harus kerja untuk dapat lima puluh ribu rupiah tersebut.

Jujur, aku gak dapet Rp50.000,00 dalam satu minggu tersebut. Aku gak kepikiran cara untuk menghasilkan uang. Kalau hal-hal seperti mencuci mobil tetangga atau membawa jalan anjing tetangga, aku gak mau melakukan karena aku malu dan menurutku bakal awkward juga, hehe. Tapi setelah seminggu itu aku masih mencoba menghasilkan uang.

Sekarang aku lagi suka membuat kreasi yang lebih ke digital daripada fisik, dan lagi paling suka membuat video. Maka aku mencoba ikutan Fiverr (website freelance, bisa jual beli jasa seperti voice acting, video editing, dll). Di situ ada orang yang melakukan hal paling gampang dan dibayar, lho. Jadi ya, why not right? Dan ini aku tidak serius banget ikutan, aku ikutan lebih sebagai hobby yang bisa dijadikan uang.

Aku membuat gig untuk edit video orang, lebih spesifik video gaming. Ya kalau tidak ada yang beli gak apa-apa lah, aku pikir, kan hanya mencoba.

Pada 13 Oktober ada orang yang message aku, dan dia agak aneh… Dia mau memberi uang dalam jumlah besar tetapi dia gak gitu jelas mau apa. Dan akhirnya menghilang tanpa membeli apa-apa. Gak apa-apa lah, wajar ketemu orang seperti ini.

Pada 3 November ada yang beli, aku terkejut ada yang beneran beli. Orang nya juga video editor dan dia mau aku edit video nya lagi agar lebih bagus 😅. Yaudah lakukan lah. Walaupun dia memintanya agak gak jelas dan merepotkan, aku kerjakan aja. Lalu saat selesai dapat $4, sedikit lebih dari challenge mendapatkan Rp50.000,00. Aku tidak bisa mendapatkan Rp50.000,00 dalam satu minggu kemarin, tetapi menurutku itu gak apa-apa, things take time.

Pada 6 Desember kemarin (ini ceritanya baru, hari ini 15-12-20) ada 2 orang membeli dari aku dalam hari yang sama. Aku senang dapat 2 orang dalam 1 hari, jadi aku kerjakan selama beberapa hari. Aku menyelesaikan video orang pertama pada 10 Desember, dan orang kedua pada 12 Desember. Orang pertama sampai memberi tip, dan orang kedua membayar lebih karena ia ada video clip yang panjang-panjang. Aku senang banget.

So far, aku ada 3 review 5 star dan sekitar Rp500.000,00. Jika aku gak suka edit video, kayaknya aku gak bakal mendapatkan ini. Dan jika aku dipaksa edit video, aku bakal merasa senang bukan karena aku bisa edit video orang-orang ini, tetapi karena sudah selesai. Maksudku adalah jika kita ada sesuatu yang kita suka melakukan, kita merasa senang dan tidak tertekan untuk melakukannya. Pada order pertama aku pun tidak merasa begitu tertekan walaupun orangnya meminta banyak. Papa ku bilang, jika hal yang kita suka bisa dijadikan uang, itu sudah bagus banget. Jadi ya, aku senang bisa melakukan ini :D

Miniature room and terrain

Lately Jove is into making these things.

First he made this room.

Then another miniature room.

After that, about last week, he had some sort of idea to make a miniature rapids (like the one we went through at the end of August. He couldn't wait for me to buy him white glue, so he just made the terrain using papier mache made from flour, water, and shreded newspaper. The next day, unpleasant smell came from the stuff, even after we dried it under the sun for hours.

So he scraped that up and made a new one using white PVA glue and shredded newspaper. When the terrain was dry, he painted it using acrylic paint. Added some coffee grounds. Then he experimented making the water using epoxy glue + white glue + glue gun glue (?). He asked for a cup of sand from a neighbor who was renovating. Asking for a sieve to sift the sand and mix them with green acrylic paint for the trees and shrubberies and grass. It has been about a week and he's still working on this.