a post in which I only say positive things about myself...?

Ahh... before when I was having a self-worth depression phase again (i.e. just a day or time when I suddenly feel like I'm nothing special & that I am alone and should just give up, happens few times every month orz) I told my sister I would make a list of things I like about myself and things I'm good at, but never got around to that...

So here I am. :B
I should have done this months ago but ehh...
Also, I always feel like I should explain myself to not sound so.. conceited?
I'm not, I really am not. I don't think highly of myself. I think quite lowly of myself. （´・ω・｀）So the following list is a sort of really embarrassing to write out... -sigh-

I dunno, to me, all my skills in various things are just average. They're just me-level. They are a level which I am not satisfied with. But I have others saying "you're good at x stop doubting yourself!!"

Uh, here I go then.
Warning: There are things here some probably won't understand as they are internet-y and geeky. I'm sorry.
Under a cut because it's wordy and long because. But there are pictures? XD

1. I make fairly good grades. `u`; I strive to do my best. I wanna be the very best, that no one ever waaaaas~ 8D I mean I did well on the SAT and PSAT according to my family & friends, but not up to my standards.


2. Apparently I can draw nice. I don't do anything other than anime & cutesy things, though:

(all of this I drew digitally with a tablet, btw. traditionally like with pencil or pen, I'm not good orz. also: all of these are doodles, I can do so much better buuut I don't have any recent non-doodles...!)
I can draw well enough to where people pay me to draw things for them, lol. ;w;

3. I write fairly well? ;w; I've gotten comments on here about my writing (thank you, all of you~ ♥), and additionally I've been told I roleplay pretty well so my writing can't be that horrid... plus my old fanfic has nice reviews I guess. ;u;

4. Um.... I know how to HTML/CSS. (If you don't know what HTML/CSS is, it's basically how a webpage is made. Right click and hit "View Source", and that's it. Yeah, I understand that. XD) I could write a simple webpage off the top of my head right now but I don't want to. :D I have designed many websites before but nowadays I am mostly lazy and find simplicity better. (One, it loads faster and two, too many graphics kill the eyes. I didn't realize that when I was 14.)

5. I can play the piano fairly decently... ? I mean, I don't take lessons anymore, because I don't really have anything left to learn. You can put most any piece in front of me and I can play it without having to ask "what is this symbol" or whatnot. Errr I have a sample of me playing somewhere...

Ah, here it is.



Wow, this is from a year ago. It's so bad LOL. Excuse the sound & piano quality, it was a really old piano... you can hear me hitting the pedal, ew. It ends really abruptly because I hadn't learned the whole song at that point. If you can recognize the movie that song is from ahhhh let me bake you some cookies.

6. I know how to manipulate Photoshop pretty well. I think. I mean, I know how to do picture editing decently and how to use the filters and adjustment layers and whatnot. I know how to make graphics like icons and banners. Like I took this image and made my own background with it. :D

7. I know how to animate. Lol. Not great like Disney or Pixar great, but I know how to use the basics of Adobe Flash (an animation program) and do simple frame-by-frame animation in Photoshop.

( something simple I did in flash like a year ago... )

It's a lot like flipnote on the DSi. XD

I also know how to make .gifs from video files. (If you tumblr, you know what I'm talking about~)

8. I have voice acted before. Not for anything official, just for little projects that usually didn't get finished so still not a lot. But tbh I practice by myself sometimes, so. :'D I'm not one of those voice actors that can have 458315 different voices though orz. Just my normal voice even though I have attempted moe voice and won an audition with it LOL.

9. Umm I'm technology savvy I guess. It's always me people are coming to when they need help with something. Installing, uninstalling, torrenting, converting, troubleshooting... I'm also usually the one to find links to download programs and stuff. I have a friend who has called me "the master of knowing how to navigate Japanese & Chinese websites" ahahhaha.

10. Ah, I know how to edit audio too. Change pitch/tempo, clear noise, align with other audio, add an echo or other effects. In short, my screen looks like this sometimes:

11. .... I sing well apparently. No, you're not getting a sample of that. D: But yeah. I can sing in English & Japanese alright, badly at Korean & Chinese. Actually 90% of the time I sing in Japanese lol. I've gotten to the point where if the romaji (i.e. marukaite chikyuu instead of まるかいてちきゅう) is in front of me and I've heard the song a couple times, I can sing along without much difficulty. owo I can sing fast songs too. Those are the most fun. I sang my first Japanese song when I was 13, and am almost 18 now, so I have had quite a bit of practice ahaha. I don't sing to perform, though. Only casually or I record on my computer to put it on Youtube (that's why I know how to edit video/audio) or when I am forced on Skype. =w=

12. I also know how to do video editing! I have Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 and know how to edit output file and project dimensions and effects and transitions and all that. I just don't do it often because it's super tedious.

13. I know how to scanlate, aw yes. Scanlating is pretty much just taking a Japanese manga page and editing it in Photoshop to English. 

So this:

becomes this:

( Mrs. Musick, don't kill me if the translation is wrong this is old and was very rushed. |D)

Also normally, you don't colour manga in when you scanlate it but that's just something I wanted to practice. (So yes, I know how to colour manga pages too.)

14. I'm a good listener? ouo I listen to a lot of other people when they're having problems or feeling down, and mostly they thank me and tell me I've been helpful, so I hope I'm a good listener orz.

15. Ngl I'm pretty good at video games. I have 100+ hours logged on my Radiata Stories game. I finished it fast but I replayed it so many times alrkgjaegrwr. Also I can sufficiently play Dance Dance Revolution on Intermediate mode. Actually I can play DDR pretty.... weirdly. I've learned to play a song or two with my eyes closed (memorized the steps/timing!), and know how to do some songs playing the dance pad and controller at the same time. (It's pretty fun and is good hand-eye coordination practice :D) My cousins and sister usually come to me when they can't beat a level in a certain game. Also for some reason I'm the calmest when it comes to hunting games...? Like in Cabela's Safari my sister & cousin always freak out when you hafta shoot the Rhino so I have to do it. Not zombie games, though. The zombie mode in Black Ops forever scares and thrills me ahaha I scream so much but the zombies are fun to kill.

16. I am learning Mandarin Chinese & Japanese. *3* While most people learn French and Spanish. European languages don't interest me. D: I want to learn Korean & Cantonese too. I think it's sort of weird (in the good way) that Roman languages don't interest me. Give me complicated characters and sentence structures! Also I think most people don't attempt self-teaching Asian languages but HERE I AM.

17. Um... Yuka told me last night I have a nice Asian face for for Ulzzang. LOL I haven't actually tried the look but it made me feel nice about myself. ouo I do like that I look Chinese or Japanese derp. (Ulzzang is apparently the Korean word for perfect face or something-- being, big dolly Asian eyes, fair/clear skin, etc.) I don't have any of those at the moment though hahaa...

18. I have long haaaair people tell me it's nice but I think it's just a mess most of the time. It's pretty when it's curled but hi I'm lazy. Also I'm good at looking like a dead person that's always fun. =w= Look.

( grungy effect achieved with help of photoshop. )

19. I am a nice person. orz It's so hard for me to believe this sometimes but but people tell me so. I guess. I do favors whenever people ask me to, remind myself often to be patient and etc, go out of my way to help people out. (I.e. when someone asks me how to do x, I go all out and give them a full blown tutorial complete with pictures...)

20. For some reason I am good at remembering directions. Mostly because I stare out the car window when we drive and watch the things passing by. When we first moved to Missouri my mom got us lost on the way back from the supermarket and I told her how to go home again just because I remembered thinking about this enormous tree that we passed.

21. I'm an organization freak when it comes to things I'm passionate about. Manga shelf, organized:

( this is an old picture though, I have more now LOL )

Certain tumblrs, organized and tagged efficiently (maybe overtagged). Doujinshi, in alphabetical & genre order. Bulletin board with all my anime/manga knicknacks on it, arranged & displayed nicely.

Rest of room, however: a tornado.

22. My typing & reading speeds/skills are great. I can do 68 words per minute. The average person's typing speed is 36 words per minute. Yay. As for reading, uh, well, as an example, I finished Breaking Dawn (yes, from the Twilight series) within 3 or 4 hours in one sitting. (Never again. Never. I killed my eyes and read it online.) Also I read the 4th Harry Potter book in the 2nd grade and scored a 90 when tested on it. Then in the 4th grade when I was tested, my average reading grade level was 11.9. So my reading level then was about that of a high school senior's. Now I'm wondering what the hell happened LOL.

23. To be honest I'm glad I'm worried about gaining weight instead of losing it. Dieting and depriving yourself of foods/certain foods sounds awful. I am glad I can a king-sized candy bar in one sitting and not care. I am glad I can go to the doctor's for a check up and they recommend I need to eat more cookies. Yeah.

24. I think I give pretty good advice. ;~; Like emotionally. When people don't know what to do...

25. I am just a very keep-to-myself old fashioned sort of person? I am not that loud. I like quiet places. I like quiet things. I believe in dating as the next step to marriage, not as something casual or fun or something just to pass time or to get to know someone better (hello, it's called friendship). I don't like wearing clothes that show too much skin. I don't want to draw attention to myself really. I guess though when you cosplay that's going to happen anyways, but mainly I just like the feel of dressing up in something I don't usually wear. But yeah. I'm okay with being an awkward turtle. I'm okay with being old-fashioned, even if that means my standards won't be met with right away. But that's just me. I don't dislike or look down upon other people who think differently than I do. If it's what makes them happy, then that's their thing and I try to be happy for them.

I can't think of any more. ;w;
Also I'm starving and I need lunch! /flies away~

P.S. I swear if you read all of that, tell me, let me go bake you some cookies.