#27 - Oldest Child Problems

I haven't posted in about 2 months, and it's 12:30 on a school night, so let's get this over with.

This is basically a rant about why I think being the oldest sibling is hard.

1. You're the "experimental child" - Your parents use you to figure out how to parent. Sometimes they don't even learn from it and you end up facing the consequences:
2. You might end up being a surrogate parent to younger siblings - My parents did a lot of "bookish parenting" with me, making me fiercely independent by age 3 (I refused to sleep in their bed by then). Since I was so independent (and not "child-like"), they decided to shower my brother with tons of affection to let him "be a child." Yeah, guess who had to make him start dressing himself at age 10 (mom did it for him up till then!) Also, I had no friends because taking care of him took too much time.
3. If your siblings outgrow you (in height), you might get their hand-me-downs despite being older - I used to get my brother's hand-me-down pants until a year or two ago. Then he got too big and even his outgrown clothes wouldn't fit me anymore. I haven't grown for 4 years, so I would never "grow into them." Good thing, too. I never liked those pants.
4. You get blamed for everything - My mom accidentally slapped me in the eyeball once when my brother was wrong in a factual argument and I was trying to get him to understand why he was wrong. Also, every time I disagree with something he does, mom tells him, "He's crazy. Stay away from him." Also, um, I'm still not the one responsible for those bad grades on his report card in elementary school. Shocking, right?
5. If your sibling is having a tough time, your parents might forget you exist, because "you're old enough to handle yourself" - I was eight. Eight. Was being the oldest child supposed to negate that fact? Maybe that's why I'm short. No one was there to make sure I ate my veggies. Or any food for that matter.
6. They get privileges earlier than you did, and they don't even have to work for it - I had to patiently wait for my 12th birthday to get the crappiest phone ever (smartphones were still pretty new and, even then, they were the kind that still had slide-out keyboards). My brother basically whined, "He has one! Why can't I have one? I WANT ONE NOW!" And one he got...He was 10, and his phone was better than mine. What happened to that "we'll give it to you when you prove you're mature enough" crap? (PS: He lost that phone a few days later and the adults had to track it down. HA!)
7. You wonder how you'll sustain yourself and your siblings if your parents die - You're next in line to be the breadwinner.
8. Your parents expect more of you than them - You get a B+ and it's the end of the world. They get a C- and they get a reward for their "good grade." It's hard not to feel like there's some favoritism going on.
9. Because you have to take care of them, they outshine you socially - Remember that part where I said I didn't have any friends because taking care of my brother took too much time? He still had a quite active social life at school, and was quite popular. Not to brag, but I was one of the best athletes in my grade, and I was by far the most knowledgeable on computers, which was a class we had to take. No one cared though, because my brother was more popular and I didn't matter as much as him.
10. You have to be careful of everything you do, because otherwise your parents will be on your back about being a "bad influence" - I'm 16. I've been an older brother since I was 2, and I've had this "don't be a bad influence to the little one" stuff pushed on me since then. Seriously, when do I get to be a kid and make mistakes? You know, like a normal kid?
11. Their teachers don't consider you a separate entity from them - Once upon a time, I was in 7th grade. I was sitting in science class, learning, when a student from 5th grade came and told me the aerobics teacher wanted to see me. I went and it turned out she wanted me to teach my brother how to tie his shoes. Sure, I'll do that! It's not like it would've taken you less time to teach him yourself than to call me and have me teach him, and I definitely wasn't just sitting in class having my own academic life.

This child -"I have decided to regress to a baby to be like the youngest child, thereby getting more attention and empathy. Is it working yet?"

Songs on my mind:

 (Pandora is a wonderful thing, isn't it?)

#26 - Summer vacation

I have been a very competitive student for as long as I can remember. I tend to turn in my homework on time, even if I have to stay up all night and even then finish during lunch. I am also disappointed in myself whenever I get a grade lower than an A.

A few days ago, summer vacation started and I have no idea what to do with my life because there is no more school for 2.5 months (which is a bit too long if you ask me). So guess what? I decided to do an online course instead - Economics with Financial Literacy Honors. I started it on Thursday, the last day of school, because I literally could not stand not having anything school-related to do.

I have even prepared my binders for next year. I have them labeled, with all the required binder tabs also labeled. I still have to go to the bookstore/library to get my summer reading books for English and physics, and I hope reading those will fill my time as there is really no assignment to go along with them except "take notes".

I don't know what to do with my life without school. Maybe I should get a job?

~Later in the day~

I just got a new video camera! I think I will start making youtube videos now. Maybe my first topic should be about the summer.

#25 - Coin Collecting

My grandma used to collect coins when she was alive. Unfortunately, she died of cancer back in 1995, back before my parents had even met.

Earlier this year, my grandpa died too, so we went to his house for his funeral. We ended up finding one of my grandma's coin collections and we brought it back.

When we got back home, the coins were given to me, along with coins my parents had saved from when my dad went overseas for his business trips and when we went abroad on vacation (not often). My love for coin collecting was reawakened from when I was a child.

When I was little, I would "collect" coins, and subsequently spend them. I was a stupid kid.

When I grew up a little, I started liking the coins my dad brought back from overseas. I would also give my parents coins that I thought had value for collecting, and they would keep them in the lockable closet.

I still like overseas coins.

My grandma had a coin from 1877, and even she wasn't born back then (my grandpa was born in 1945, and she was younger). Since people were having kids so young then, it might even be from her great grandparents. This coin is at least 7 generations old!


According to this website, the coin is worth either $20 or $60.

After I got all those coins, I started collecting my own coins again - just those in circulation here in the US though. I have so far collected 43/56 statehood/US territories quarters, 9 presidential dollars, 9/56 national park quarters (still being issued), and a few miscellaneous nickels, dimes, and pennies. I even have a half dollar coin.

I hope I actually continue into and beyond 2021, when the last national park quarters are issued. Also I hope that my dad goes back to my grandparents' general area soon and brings back my grandma's other collection, which was full of coins with holes in the middle.

#24 - Mandate-imposed US drinking age - Unconstitutional?

As you might know, all US states have a minimum drinking age of 21 because the federal government threatened to cut highway funding by 10% for any state that didn't raise it from whatever it was to 21.

The thing is: Is it even constitutional?

You see, 18-year-olds are allowed to:

1. Serve in the military
2. Get married
3. Leave home without being considered a runaway
4. Buy/rent a house
5. Buy/rent a car
6. Sue or be sued
7. Be sentenced to death
8. Vote
9. Adopt a child
10. Get an abortion
11. Consent to sexual activity with other adults (and even buy and star in pornography)
12. And do other adult things (because they are adults)

So then why can't they drink? They have a say in who gets to run their damn country but they don't have a say in what they do to their own damn body?

They are adults by law, aren't they? Isn't this age discrimination?

Didn't we learn anything from the Prohibition?


Remember Korematsu v. US, in which a Japanese-American man dared to ask what trial he had, by what jury, and how he was convicted of being sent to an internment camp? The answer? "It's for everyone's safety." His crime? Being Japanese-American.


For those using the argument about safety:

Do you really think the raising of the age limit is the only factor that contributed to the steady decline in drunk driving accidents in this age group since the mandate was passed? Of course not. There are also other factors such as improvement in awareness and education of drunk driving and its consequences.

What makes it alright to give 18-20-year-olds less rights than 21-year-olds? They are legal adults in every other sense, we think they should know what to do with their body if they might know they want to sacrifice it fighting for their country.

...Said a legal adult to another legal adult

Also, they can make their voice heard about who they want to be the leader of their country. The leader of their entire nation, which has over 300 million people (yes, one vote can make or break the election). Yet they are not considered mature enough to decide what to do with their own bodies?

You know, in my residential state of Florida, we can get a hunting license without parental consent at the age of 16. They can kill animals on their own, without supervision, but they can't drink. They can be responsible for other beings' bodies, but not their own...Makes no sense to me.

Last but not least, like all humans, they learn from experience. People don't just wake up on their 21st birthday and have an epiphany about responsible drinking.

Basically, 18-20-year-olds are adults. A-D-U-L-T-S. They should have the same rights as other adults. They are not children, as they have reached the age of consent.


Whether or not you think it is alright should not be up for debate. Who are you to deny another group their freedom?

Also, just so you know, all those "studies" about alcohol affecting brain growth are also known to use extremely high amounts of alcohol which would cause brain damage to any human 21-and-older just as much as any human 18-20. Also I am not in the age group of 18-20. I do not advocate binge drinking or minors drinking, but I believe that people who are adults by law should be covered by its full extent.

Remember when 18-20-year-olds got the right to vote because of the draft?

The legal age is 18. Let's keep it that way.

#23 - Coming out to friends (and a teacher - indirectly)

My parents still don't know I'm an FTM. They still view me as a girl in a tomboy phase. I have known I was FTM since I first learned what transgender meant when I was 9 years old. It doesn't have to show in early childhood to be real - heck, I didn't even know I had a choice when I was a kid. The words that cycled around in my head every time I wanted to tell an adult something were, "Nobody believes me."

Adults are usually so condescending

A while ago, I came out to my lunch buddies. I literally said, "I want to be a man when I grow up." Surprisingly, they were cool with it. One of them was a hardcore conservative republican. She was OK with it too.

(Not bashing republicans or anything. I hope you understand what I mean by hardcore.)

We were also doing "conditional" sentences in French and we were given imaginary scenarios to write conditionals for. They were:
What would you do if...
...you could be any avatar (aka anything)?
...you found a prince, a sheep, and a rose on an uninhabited planet?
...someone gave you 1 million dollars?

Of course one of my answers was, "I would take the million dollars, become a prince and live with the other prince on the uninhabited planet."

The other was, "I would use the rose to propose to the prince and have the sheep as my bridesmaid."

So not only did I come out as transgender (I even use a male name in that class, though I am still referred to as "mademoiselle" and "elle"), I came out as a gay transman.

May the god I don't believe in help me if she is LGBT-phobic.

Those assignments haven't been graded yet since they were turned in right before our three-day weekend for Easter. People here celebrate Easter, so there is usually some delay in grading around this time.

I would like to see my teacher's reaction. Hopefully it's not that bad.

UPDATE ON FRENCH TEACHER

So my French teacher decided to was ok to "correct" my sentence from "I would...become a prince" to "I would...become a princess."

Screw you, French teacher. Screw you.

#22 - Words hurt, especially from your mom

Here are a few things my mother has said to me in the past few days:

"You're sick!" (As in mentally. All I did was cut my hair. Really.)
"I'd rather die than have a child like you!" (I stayed up past bed time. In my room. Listening to music. Quietly. With my headphones.)
"You're just waiting for me to die, aren't you?" (Said immediately after the previous one)

My mom keeps insisting that I am mentally ill and I need to be taken to some kind of psychiatrist. I do not want to go to a psychiatrist because I do not believe anything is wrong with me. If there is something, it isn't severe enough to interfere with my daily life.

It's not the first time she's said things like these. I can remember words like that from as far back as when I was 8 years old.

She even thinks I'm anorexic and checks that I've actually eaten my food after every meal.

I am not nor have I ever been anorexic. Or bulimic.

The morning after she told me she'd rather die than have me, she kept trying to get me to keep my door open, thinking that I would probably kill myself if she let me close it.

I have never attempted suicide nor do I ever plan to. I prefer to keep my door closed because I don't like the way she acts and so I want to limit interaction with her as much as possible.

She checks every package of stuff I buy from the internet.

I have never bought anything bad online, just band merch and CDs.

Also, usually every time I try to educate my 13-year-old brother on something he believes that is true but I know to be untrue and he resists and I insist on educating him (not like things about opinions but facts, for example, the fact that a girl does not pee out of her butthole. He is 13. He should know that.) - "Stay away from her! She's crazy!"

She's even hypocritical sometimes. She tells me my "darkness" scares her. All I do is wear black clothes and have naturally black hair. The clothes are mostly because my dad said a few times that since I'm "the pale one" in my family, black actually looks good on me. My mom's the one who sits there watching crime shows and shows about the end of the world all day. Now tell me who's "dark"!

To my mom-

I'M SORRY FOR BEING BORN, THOUGH TECHNICALLY THAT ISN'T MY FAULT BECAUSE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO HAD SEX WITH MY DAD AND DIDN'T GET AN ABORTION OR HAVE ME ADOPTED. SO IT'S YOUR FAULT. THIS BIG FUCK-UP IN YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT, GODDAMMIT!

#21 - Video about fireworks

Back in August of last year, I made an "Employee of the Month" thing from an already existing Youtube video of fireworks.

The weird thing is that my video somehow has more views than the original.

Mine:

Original:

Follow the video to Youtube. It's in the description and I can't seem to link it here.

After many, many times of watching it, my edit doesn't seem as mind-blowing as it did when I first made it :(

#20 - "And I feel like the summer is leaving again"

It's only March, and I'm only in 10th grade, but I've got a lot left to do before school ends in early June, such as taking 2 AP exams, an MOS test, my (remaining) 3rd quarter + final exams, doing community service, finding a place to employ me, and finishing an online class outside of school. Not to mention all these contests there are for scholarships and summer internships!

I have lots of it.

Summer is the time for fun, when you can basically just forget about schoolwork (until the last week, when you remember you had summer homework) and stress, isn't it?

Except that I don't know what I'll be doing for my two-and-a-half-months of summer vacation (it's LONG here in the USA!) I don't have many friends, and the most I have lined up right now is two programs I could possibly do that last for 5 weeks combined and are both on opposite sides of the country from me and each other (one's up north and one's out west).

5 weeks may seem like a lot, but that's 5 out of about 10, so I have a lot of free days...

If I can't come up with 10000 art or other projects, this will be me all summer.

Also, I doubt that I will get all As on my 3rd quarter exams (some subjects are hard! Especially in IB!) as required by my dad as a condition of getting to choose my own summer programs. We made a contract saying that if I didn't, he got to choose the programs, or worse, he could choose not to send me anywhere at all.

That's unfair because he let my brother go all the way to Washington DC with his class for a week, and he's 2 years younger than me. He can't not let me go anywhere!

The problem here is that my 13-year-old brother has been halfway across the country without his parents, and I've never even been out of state without them.

Song the title is from:

#19 - Atheists "want to be god"?

There are some people out there who believe that atheists "want to be god". Being an atheist myself, this tends to annoy me.

I've seen people on the internet saying this:

A = "I"
Theist = "God"
Therefore "atheist" = "belief that oneself is god"

No.

No.

Just no.

I wonder if these people ever tried to analyze the words of the English language. For example, prefixes.

The actual meaning is:

A = "Without"
Theist = "Belief in God"
Therefore "atheist" = "without belief in god"

In case you are not convinced, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.^[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.^[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.^[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,^[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.^[9][10]

Or in case Wikipedia doesn't do it for you, let's take a look at the print dictionary, Webster's Dictionary, 1981 edition:

Atheism, n. disbelief in the existence of God

 Atheist, n. one who disbelieves or denies the existence of God

There you have it. "Atheism" is not a synonym for "narcissism".

Narcissism according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Narcissistic personality disorder, (noun) a personality disorder characterized especially by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, persistent need for admiration, lack of empathy for others, excessive pride in achievements, and snobbish, disdainful, or patronizing attitude.

So basically thinking that one is the center of the universe and/or god himself.

If you're still not convinced, maybe this will blow your mind.

You think atheists believe themselves to be something they do not believe in.

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

~~~



Please note that I am not using this song to symbolize the entire USA. I am simply using it to refer to "Jesusland".

#18 - "You should try parkour!"

Lately I have been feeling happier than ever, except that one of my neighbors moved away without telling me while I was away at a funeral. He still rides my bus though, but gets off at the stop before mine, so he's not far away.

We never talked, except when he told me there was a car behind me because I like to walk in the middle of my road (ONLY my road, as barely any cars go there). But now I'll have to walk home all alone. And possibly get run over.

Goodbye, life.

I also thought that my lunch buddies had ditched me after not showing up for a week, but then one of them found me and told me they had just changed location (we have no classes together). We sit outside now, by the art room, and I like it better than our table at the cafeteria.

I've been so happy out there that I haven't been able to sit still. I've just been climbing on everything. Also eating berries off a tree that I was warned were potentially poisonous. No side effects yet! Yay!

There's a tree full of these at school.

Due to my climbing on everything (I happen to do rock climbing as a hobby), one of my friends, Parker, suggested that I try parkour. Another contribution to that may be that I tried to grab the cover thing with horizontal bars to maybe swing on it or climb on top of it. I don't even know. It's probably for putting a plastic sheet on top of it in case of rain.

I didn't succeed despite being maybe 12 feet off the ground. That thing's probably 20 feet, and I'm only 5.

All the girls at my old school were f*cking huge, making me have height issues for the rest of my life.

Really, Parker did say so though. She said it would be cool if I could learn flips and stuff too. I'm not entirely sure if she was talking about parkour or freerunning though.

One thing about parkour is that I tried it in the summer for a few days. It was fun. But it just so happens that my crush also does parkour. That's the main reason I tried it in the summer, to see just how good it was and why he liked it.

This used to be me. I still like him, I just don't show it that way because he has a girlfriend already.

I might take Parker up on that suggestion. I might eventually be able to climb those horizontal bars.

She attached a condition though. Our exact conversation was:

Parker: "You should do parkour!"
Me: "I should?"
Parker: "Yeah! Can you do flips and stuff?"
Me: "No."
Parker: "If you could learn that, it would be pretty cool."
Me: *happy smile as I imagine myself doing this stuff*
Parker: "Just don't break any bones though!"

Fair enough. I've never broken one before anyway.

And I love Anti-Flag.

#17 - Teeth

Sorry I didn't upload a video. My camera's batteries are being really annoying right now! I tried and got 2 minutes of a (to-be) time-lapse art project in before it turned off and I continued on, not even noticing.

Sometimes I feel the urge to do this, even though it's not the camera's fault.

Anyways, I also just read an article about a 4 year old who needed many teeth removed and the rest covered in caps. I don't even know if the story was real, but there was a lot of outrage in the comments. Apparently the fact that her mother was not in the room with her during the procedure and "allowed her teeth to get that bad in the first place" sparked this outrage.

There was actually a person in the comments who believed the caps were made with "mercury-laced silver"...some people probably don't know what stainless steel is.

I also have a bad history with teeth, though not as bad as that girl, whether or not the story was fictional. When I was just 3 years old, I had to go to the dentist to get 7 teeth pulled and 4 covered with caps. Apparently I didn't cry or scream, but just stared blankly at my parents for the whole procedure. And yes, it got done in a day.

I mentioned the apparent non-painfulness because some people were saying that a 4 year old would not be able to stand the "painful" procedure. Also that it couldn't be done in a day.

Most people don't expect a child to have this expression during what is pretty much a mouth surgery.

All the capped teeth fell out when I was 12, and what I saw when I looked at the actual teeth that had been covered for all those years was disgusting: colored silver on the outside, with red, blue and yellow all on the inside. The red wasn't blood. It was a stain from what might've been blood when I first got the cap.

So appreciate your teeth. Even though I went through so much with mine, I still appreciate them, because I recently learned of the trouble of braces. I heard that when you have braces, you can't have certain types of food or open your mouth really wide to take a big bite, and things get stuck in them (maybe even your lip). At least caps don't prohibit you from doing anything. They just sit on top of your teeth and then you treat your teeth like any normal, non-braces wearing person would.

No thank you!

Another point of this post was to say that even though I appreciate my teeth. sometimes I have irresistible urges to pull them out. One in particular, though it doesn't matter which one I want to pull out because because of my bad tooth history, all my teeth now are adult teeth, and adult teeth don't grow back. Once I pulled a non-loose tooth in 4th grade, but that was a baby tooth. I had a similar urge that one time, but never again until recently.

#16 - First Youtube video

Today I plan to film and post my first Youtube video (not much editing will be done, because I don't have any skills not included in WMM :P). Please check it out. It should be out in 4 hours at the most.

Here is my channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/chibikona100

I already have some videos, but now I am going to start vlogging. All my previous videos are of me playing short (and easy) songs on the guitar and keyboard, and occasionally something else.

By something else, I mean something like this:

So please check out my vlog when I upload it. It will be a big help :)

Some songs to listen to while you wait-

#15 - Calluses

Why don't people like calluses? It has never made any sense to me why anyone would want soft, easily cut/bruised skin on their fingertips or feet.

I had calluses on my fingertips before I even started playing guitar. I don't know how anyone lives without those. How do you even prevent them?

I've seen beginners on guitar forums asking if there was an alternative to calluses.

There is no way out of calluses if you want to play guitar.

GET. OVER. IT.

If this is too much for you, consider another instrument. Preferably not string.

As for calluses on feet, well...you actually have to walk on hard surfaces barefoot for that.

I get stares when I do that, as if it's completely unnatural. And I live in a semi-rural area. It's not even that I do it in "public", I just do it occasionally at school (it rains so much here and I wear Converse, so wet cloth shoes can be my excuse for not wearing them) and within a half-mile radius from my house.

It really hurt when i tried to run on this American school track barefoot though. I was used to running barefoot, but it's like this track is a freakin' road. Made of tiny sharp stones. Or needles.

And that's why I didn't re-join the track team when I moved here. I'd been doing it since upper elementary school, but I can't run on this track!

Ever tried to run on these? No? Don't.

I actually wish my foot calluses were stronger. I'm pretty proud of my fingertip calluses though.

#14 - Everyone dies

RIP granpa

My granpa died last Monday. I was sleeping on my day off and my mom came in and woke me up, saying that dad had something to tell me. It was 7:00. That's when I found out.

Just the day before, my dad had been filling out my granpa's Visa papers to let him come to America and live with us.

But that's not what made me sad. You know what actually made me sad?

That I couldn't feel sad.

Well, at least sadness occurred

This was my expression throughout the breaking of the news.

.

#13 - Vlogging?

I want to vlog. And I want it badly. But there's one problem.

I'm transgender.

I've wanted to vlog for a while, but I really don't want to go on camera while having fucking F-cup breasts.

My mom found out about my chest binding back in July and confiscated both my binder and my age bandages. I've waited for her to kind of forget about it before I ordered a new one just a few days ago. This one looks like a bra so she won't get too suspicious...hopefully. I also don't know how well it will bind, for that matter... However it is, it should at least be better than the sports bras.

It doesn't get here till mid-February and I've been wearing layered sports bras for 6 months now and they barely work. I have seriously contemplated just cutting my breasts off, and I've even tried, but unfortunately, ordinary kitchen knives are not meant for cutting off body parts.

I can't wait for the day my new bra-binder gets here. Until then, all I can do is hope that my mom doesn't start checking my packages again.

Also, what do you suggest would be a good channel name? My internet name is Damien.

#12 - Art

I have gotten into one of those "artsy" moods that I have for a few months every year or so. So I decided to go buy a big tri-fold display board even though I have no idea what to do with it.

What do you mean it's only used for presentations‽

In case you didn't know, "‽" is an "interrobang", or a combination of a question mark ("interrogative point") and an exclamation mark ("bang"). If you want more information, you can read about it on Wikipedia.

I also bought a 64 pack of crayons to make a project like this...

...before I realized I didn't have a canvas or super/hot glue.

I might be able to find a "mini" canvas but I doubt I'll have superglue just lying around. And I definitely don't have hot glue.

I also decided that I wanted to finish my "laptop folder" that I "started" back in November, so I went and got paint but the black paint just looks grey and it basically ruined the whole thing before I even got started.

That's my own, by the way.

Basically, even when I'm in an artsy mood, I do everything wrong. Laugh at me, because I know I am.

Songs on my mind

#11 - Caffeinated Gum

I went to a roadtrip to Chicago and while I was in Indiana, I found this in a gas station:

I decided that I should try it because I, being a teenager and all, love caffeine. So I bought it and kept it till I got home...

It tastes horrible. I'm chewing the first one right now and it is probably the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth. That includes when I was 3 and curiously licked some poop.

I searched for other reviews online and everyone's saying it tastes bitter. It doesn't exactly taste bitter to me, it just tastes bad.

I'm ignoring the taste for the time being to see if it really has as much caffeine as 1/2 a cup of coffee. Not that regular coffee really affects me anymore though...

Actually, after a while, it's not that bad. It actually tastes like mint now!

Too bad they don't sell them in Florida.

I've had these songs on repeat for almost 2 weeks now-