escribo. amo. vivo.

limited as my knowledge on anime may be, i don't believe that there is any other series which could equal the sheer magnificence of watsuki nobuhiro's rurouni kenshin.

after reading questor's review of the revenge arc with the glaring words SPOILER ALERT in its heading, i very much looked forward to watching the ova because i wanted to see kenshin and kaoru's son kenji who looked absolutely adorable. i believed that finally, the ova would satisfy each and every female viewer's dreams: seeing kenshin and kaoru admit their feelings to each other and maybe (finally again) acting like a couple.

in that score, i was right. but in such a sadly beautiful way that i couldn't help crying the whole time i was watching the last few minutes of the movie.

i used to wonder why the TV series didn't include the revenge arc. now i know why. anime is supposed to be all fun and happy. in spite of how it tries its best to portray reality, it is, in the end, still something that should be viewable for children.

and i don't think rurouni kenshin's oav meets that requirement. it's funny.. how silly we are sometimes...missing a character when it's not even real. oh well...i'd like to think that fictional characters simply exist in another but equally real dimension..and maybe there, kenshin and kaoru are living happily.  

 

easier said than done, i know, but it's true.

if you're living a hand-to-mouth existence then of course, you can't afford to think that way. but once you've gained a modicum of financial stability in your life and you are no longer required to work backbreaking hours just to make ends meet, you'll realize that all along, what you took as genuine enjoyment for your job was in fact simply your determination to survive against the odds.

your determination to survive serves as all the inspiration and motivation you need to excel in your work. without it, the protective cover falls off and you see your work as what it truly is: a source of income, nothing more, nothing less.

but that's the worst way to view a job.

a job must always be something that you truly enjoy doing. when you were struggling financially, you could AFFORD to take pride and joy from the work you've produced even if it's demeaning and does not in any way help you to realize your full potential. you could afford to do that because it was the only way you could keep on working.

once you've reached stability in your life, however, the truth is revealed and it's always undeniable. you know now that you can never stay in a job that you're not happy doing but a job that doesn't allow you to grow as well. yes, the money is tempting but it is still not the answer.

the pain of giving up a job, for a time, could hinder you from leaving but soon, you'd understand that leaving is inevitable. i could have prevented this from happening to myself if i had listened to my inner thoughts but i didn't. don't make the same mistake.

choose a job that fulfills you financially and personally.

choose a job that you can accomplish even with your eyes closed not because it's strictly easy but because the joy you derive from attempting to accomplish the task is really what makes it doable.

choose a job that you'll be proud of.

choose a job that you can grow old with.

and lastly, choose a job the same way you'd choose your partner in life. with the utmost care and with the ever-present feeling of hope.

 

a project that i had recently completed opened my eyes to the harsh reality of what's happening in the video gaming industry today.

the statistics seem great on paper.

from 2003's $5.8B sales, 2004 sees it go further up with $6.3B

but dig deeper and you'll learn that a huge majority of these sales come from male centric games developed primarily for male gamers. what gives?

surveys show that approximately 43% of the video gaming industry's consumers are FEMALE. in Japan, add about twenty percent more to that statistic. but take a cursory look at the video games out in the market today and what do you get?

EVERYTHING that shouts female-gamers-not-allowed.

lara croft is great. she kicks ass really. but would male gamers still love her if she shows less skin? and take, for instance, what she has observed in two particular games. i wholeheartedly agree with what she's saying. it could've been tolerable if there had been grim tempters and incubus pets that we could pinch and ask "who's your mommy now?" BUT there are none.

i am not, as a rule, a full-time-gamer. but i do love playing counterstrike and i have had my share of experiencing sexist remarks. thankfully, they weren't totally offensive - but i was lucky. some weren't and they had to battle against players who referred to them as pc feminazis and no doubt, other not-so-polite-names.

why is the video gaming industry ignoring the wants and needs of female gamers? people can never be too rich or too thin, right? so why turn your back on what seems to have a strong potential to become a cash cow in the near future?

surely they're not scared to attempt creating a game that possessed the necessary characteristics of a good game (which basically means it doesn't resemble the present games at all) - good action, male and female characters that are created with equal strengths and weaknesses and a sensible story plot.

if a reader dares point out that there are companies that do produce games today intended specifically for girl gamers, thanks but no thanks. playing interactive barbie is cute and fun but it's like a man playing 3 months' worth of wwe. there's such a thing as having too much testosterone and a guy's gotta take a breather and play something more sensible, y'know?

it's the same for us. we can't exist on a strict diet of dance revolution and power puff girls. we have minds, too. and we like using them the same way guys do.

of course, these games that i'm promoting would be better if they had a romantic angle - or even a semblance of it - to make it, shall we say, more interesting. we're not asking game developers to make the whole thing an obstacle course to falling in love but just to add some story details that would at the very least imply a blossoming relationship between two characters. in this case, i guess, male developers had it right: we women still can't exist without love. but surely that's not enough to make us seem less worthy!

being interested in love doesn't lessen the ability of a female gamer to whoop ass, kill off bosses and capture treasures as easily as any male gamer can. never.