Fan-imation: Avatar

Image courtesy of Nickelodeon. This past weekend, a long-awaited animated series premiered on Nickelodeon, The Legend of Korra. The sequel to what was arguably the best children’s animated drama of the new millennium, 2005’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, the new series builds on the East and South Asian philosophies set out by the original, still flush with the principles of balance and elemental nature. What attracted me to the original remained, namely the way all those different pieces fit together in a convincing, exciting and above all, respectful way. It gives me hope for the rest of the season.

Korra cannot be reviewed, for it’s still in its infancy. All I’ll say is that the dazzling visual sequences and premise lay the groundwork for a fantastic series. This isn’t a product of a company that wants more money of a beloved series like Avatar. Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko return to deliver their vision of this world where the elements are controlled and shifted (an ability called bending) in a world in turmoil crying out for a hero. In this case, a heroine. Thrust into a world where politics and dissension slowly chip away at the peace.

Strife and heroism are the mainstay of a children’s drama series. What easier way to create tension than to have a world that’s at war with itself, and a group of plucky idealists to save the day? The only thing that changes when we grow up is that the lines and characters are blurred. The trouble with writing about animated dramas aimed at children is that there’s always a shield of “Well, it’s for children.” As I’ve said before, I think great children’s shows lay down these shields when they aim to teach meaningful lessons about reality. In Korra, I can see that political angle being opened up further, trying to teach kids, as Avatar did before it, that worlds cannot be changed through strength of magic and defeating a singular evil.

Again, Korra is a review for another day. Avatar, however, is one of the greatest series I have ever watched in my life from start to finish. Each season is told in a “book.” The three books were Water, Earth and Fire, respectively. The subtitle for the show, The Last Airbender, refers to the protagonist Aang. He belongs to a tribe of people called the Air Nomads, and from a very young age, is known to be the Avatar—a powerful being who is master of all four elements (Earth, Fire, Wind and Water) and can bend them to his will. The Avatar’s role is to restore balance to the world when the force of evil rises too greatly.
Image courtesy of Nickelodeon.

That’s where this series first caught my attention. It was in the respect it gave to what can be termed “Eastern” concepts. See, an avatar is a term originating in Hinduism that refers to a form of a God that is precipitated by the disorder and imbalance of the world. As a child, this was taught to me on a simplistic level through the stories of Vishnu, who has had 9 avatars on this world, according to mythology. The most famous one to the world, I would imagine, is Krishna, the blue cowherd who defeated many evils, and led a righteous band of brothers to victory over their cousins in a great war. Talk about stories for another day...

The point is, the show’s version of an avatar was probably the most appropriate use of that word I had seen. Back in 2005, an avatar was a profile picture you changed on Myspace. Today, it’s a billion dollar movie where a dude hops into the body of a large blue alien. Comparisons to Krishna’s blue skin aside, the closest these two examples come to being accurate is that they think of it as a representation of just another being. Avatar, and I mean the children’s series—though its name was a source of contention between M. Night Shyamalan’s failed live-action adaptation and James Cameron’s science-fiction eco-drama; a battle won by the latter forcing the title to be simply The Last Airbender—treated the idea more accurately. There can be only one, and that one is Aang.

But Aang is just a bald, twelve year old boy with arrows painted on his body. And unlike religion, that forces physical manifestations of God to be perfect from the get-go, Aang needs help to become who he needs to be. After running away from home, he becomes trapped and encased in ice. 100 years pass. The world changes, the balance shifts. Aang, trained in airbending from a young age, becomes the last surviving Air Nomad. He’s eventually found by two teenagers from the Southern Water Tribe. Katara, a waterbender, becomes a compassionate companion and love interest for Aang. Her brother Sokka, in addition to providing much of the witty comic relief on the show, represents the more human side to this fantastic adventure, having no bending ability whatsoever. Another hallmark of a good children’s show is not only a balanced cast, but one with balanced potential that doesn’t rely too heavily on tropes.

The team’s goal is to get Aang to learn all aspects of bending so that he can save the world from the Fire Lord Ozai, a man bent on destruction of all kingdoms but his own, the Fire Nation. He plans on using the power of a comet, which will enhance all firebending abilities for a short time, to seize control of the other kingdoms. But the Fire Lord isn’t the interesting part of the “bad guys.” Alongside the story of Aang is the equally compelling tale of Zuko, exiled son of Ozai. He seeks to regain his honour, an idea beyond the reach of some children’s minds, but expertly approached. Zuko’s mentor, Uncle Iroh, also exemplified these ideas of regret and status, but from a much more positive standpoint. It was a contrast that helped endear what could have easily been a splinter “bad guy” part of the story. All told, the adventure spans three seasons, as the characters grow their abilities and learn the hard lessons of a world that sometimes refuses to help itself.

Aang and the Gang (Katara, Sokka, the lemur-like thing is Momo and the huge Sky Bison in the back is Appa. Image courtesy of Nickelodeon.The plot went beyond the idea of the group reaching a location, fighting a bad guy in said location and then moving on. Each area was important to the emotional growth of all characters, sometimes even bringing back featured guest appearances for later cameos. The world breathed, and didn’t feel like a one-time occurrence. You never knew when a character would make an appearance again or stick around for an extended run. Their motivations weren’t cut and dry, and even what seemed like a linear progression (Aang’s mastery of each element) had its hits and misses.

One of my favourite moments in the entire series, which sums up the care, detail and emotional education the creators put into this show, comes from the episode “Tales of Ba Sing Se” in the second season. As the show progresses, all characters make their way to the immense and walled city of Ba Sing Se—a place so mysterious, beautiful and populated, that an entire season could take place within its walls. The main adventure in the city involved a political upheaval with the city’s secret police, further proof that the show aimed to introduce plots and concepts to young viewers that they may not have understood the gravity of. I digress.

Tales of Ba Sing Se was one of the series’ occasional stand-alone episodes. Still tied into the main plot, it served to take a step back and let the characters grow within the space they reached, instead of pushing them along. It also allowed for the show to take creative and experimental avenues of thought. This particular episode featured vignettes of each character as they explored the vast Earth Kingdom capital.

The vignette that still brings tears to my eyes is Uncle Iroh’s. In it, he helps villagers with various problems—telling children to own up to their mistake of kicking a ball through a window, helping a mugger turn his life around. At the end of the day, he settles near a tree on a hill. There, as he sings, we learn that it’s the birthday of his dead son, a boy he lost when the Fire Nation tried to take Ba Sing Se years ago. As he mourns, the shot changes to Iroh from afar, as the sun sets. Text appears next to the tree that says “In honor of Mako.”

From Iroh's vignette in the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se." Image courtesy of Nickelodeon.

When I found out why such a sad scene was included in the story, and what that text meant, it broke my heart. Honestly, my eyes are welling as I write this paragraph and the one before it—and I’m stopping every few seconds to fight tears back. That’s the kind of hold this scene had on me. In the vignette, the actor who played Iroh was different than the voice up until that point. That’s because Mako Iwamatsu, the voice actor with the distinctive rasp found in countless characters across his career, had died from esophageal cancer. So beautifully was that scene written, to represent the passing of a dedicated person, and the idea that through death, new purpose can be instilled in the people left behind.

The plots had that beauty, but so did the look. Aesthetically, the design choices that Avatar made were unlike any other show. It distinctly felt like an American anime. The exoticism factor is definitely there, but many of the concepts and names borrowed from Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures tended to stay in the realm of functional, rather than for show. I’m sure there are entire lines of study on how the series represented aspects of Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism, but I won’t delve too deeply. Never once did the show feel like it was offending these cultures, instead enhancing the characters and settings by embracing them into their art style.

That style was visible in the series most iconic feature: The bending. To put it simply, the concept was about moving an element to your will. Each was distinct, a martial art in its own right—and martial arts is akin to dancing. Most fights within the show were like watching dance. With waterbending, the style of movement was so fluid. With airbending, adapting and flowing with the breeze was what fostered control. Firebending came from the core, while earthbending...oh, earthbending. Let me explain through another one of my favourite episodes, “The Blind Bandit.”

In it, Aang and the gang come to an Earth Kingdom town and see an earthbending tournament. The fight features a contestant that mops the floor with her enemies by the name of the Blind Bandit. They come to find out she’s a daughter of a wealthy family that doesn’t know she competes. Because she’s blind, she feels the ground beneath her, listening for vibrations. That closeness, that intimacy with the soil, makes her quite adept at earthbending. The typical moveset for one of these fighters is to strike the ground, sending a boulder flying up out of it. Then with another strike, they launch that boulder towards their opponent. This seismic style lent itself to some incredible fight sequences, as the characters slide and shift with the moving ground. It really is incredible.

The fighting, unlike some other anime series, is deeply rooted in actual martial art styles. You can tell by the way some characters move. Characters don’t magically move from one area to another, they travel when they fight, giving a fight what most cartoons leave out: continuity. It’s very easy to have a character launch a fireball over and over, but Avatar made sure the audience know what kind of energy was spent in using that power. In fact, the plot of the entire series revolved around that. If firebenders were endless flamethrowers, why would they need the comet’s power? There is a grounded nature to the fighting in Avatar, and that further helps the idea of educating the young audience of this show about limitations.

That limitation would be taught in another way. Avatar didn’t have a long run, with only 61 episodes in total. The reason I appreciated this series so much was because there was precious little to savour and most episodes didn’t waste their opportunities. I remember tuning in to YTV (the Canadian channel that carried it), hoping against hope that new episodes would be on. That’s a feeling that must be dying with the increasing on-demand availability.

Avatar was one of those rare gems that comes along and leaves a distinct shine in the hearts and minds of the young and old alike. With The Legend of Korra set further in the future, with much more mature characters, I can only hope the experience will be as strong as the one its predecessor gave.

Social Photography Writing

I've written about social photography apps in the last two weeks, and I thought you might want to check it out. Both are for Canada.com's technology section. 

Last week, I wrote up a beginner's guide to Instagram, where I give the popular photo-filtration/sharing app a spin on Android to see what the big deal was. 

This week, the news came out that Instagram was going to be bought by Facebook for a billion dollars. Based on that, I was led to another cool app called Flixel. Had a chat with the co-founder and wrote an article about it. 

Tech writing is fun. 

Wrote Two Pieces

Friday comes along and two of my pieces are up in two places at the same time. Kind of makes me feel prolific. 

On Canada.com's Technology section, I wrote a blog post on Google's Chrome browser winning over Internet Explorer: 

"This week, the web analytics service StatCounter released some numbers that suggest Google’s Chrome browser overtook Internet Explorer last weekend."

Continue reading "Working for the Weekend: Chrome beats IE" on Canada.com's Technology section. 

On Financial Post's Gaming section, I wrote a review of Silent Hill: Downpour: 

"I’ll be honest. I’m a big coward when it comes to the horror genre. There are some who enjoy it. It titillates them to not know what’s going to jump out from the shadow as they willingly head towards it. I’m a fan of powerful, working lights." 

Continue reading "A horror scaredy-cat reviews Silent Hill: Downpour" on Financial Post's Gaming section. (The title was chosen by my editor and I love it.)  

A Year in News

One year ago today, I showed up in the newsroom. On my first day of work, I had no idea what crazy things were happening in the world because the only terror and danger that was of any concern to me...was answering the phones properly.

I had no idea that three Syrian demonstrators died that day, arguably the first of many violent acts by a government that, at this day and date, has not stopped a massacre of its people. A year ago, I would not have made such a statement. I was scared back then. Scared that I would never earn the right to speak on matters such as this.

I am the young journalist, one year old in television news. A year in the grind, in the newsroom, among trusted names and the unspoken heroes who make them so. A year spent arm-in-arm with the nobodies, in the occasional shadow of the somebodies and the pleasantly maddening company of news itself--the one friend I didn’t think I’d make.

In a year of news, I have changed albeit slowly.

Those first days were truly terrifying. In that broadcast newsroom, I was the lowest on the chain. An Editorial Assistant (EA), as it has been dressed. I couldn’t have imagined a position lower than that, if not a for a woman who told me last week that she started at an even lower spot. She told me that in the old days, a copy clerk was the bottom. At least you could tell that job involved some paper shuffling.

As an EA, you photocopy scripts, answer the phones and you roll the teleprompter for the anchor. It’s one of those jobs that feels completely unnecessary at times, yet would be stretching more important roles completely thin if it wasn’t there.

When I had to train someone else to do this job, it surprised me how much the role does--despite it being such low level stuff. You had to know how to input things into the lineup (the rundown of stories and elements within the show that night), you had to know people’s names, how to work those infernal photocopiers, how to roll the teleprompter properly so you don’t screw up on live television. You had to know how people were connected to each other, and be able to pass along information. And, as I had the most trouble with, you had to know how to handle the damn phones.

I was happy that my newsroom isn’t a place where they take the phone-wrangling role of the EA super seriously. Everyone picks up the phone, because more often than not, they’re expecting the call. It’s a positive, bustling environment. As one writer put it, “Don’t be afraid to shout. It’s a newsroom.” In retrospect, I don’t know why it seemed so hard. Accurately conveying information across a space of a few metres seemed to defeat me. I was getting names wrong, on either end of the phone. I was leaving people on hold that would hang up--simple things that people would think any idiot could do. This wasn’t just for the first few weeks. 2 months into being an EA, I was still having trouble with the phones.

It wasn’t some silly fear at the time. It was real as any other problem, especially to the young journalist. Those days, I would actually take that problem home with me. On some nights, after working a 3 pm to 11 pm shift, even if the show went off without a hitch (and you’ll see there are many hitches to be had by this beast), I would think about that one phone call I screwed up. Then I would spiral down. “If I screwed up a simple phone call, maybe I don’t belong in a newsroom.”

Again, it took a positive environment to lose such self-deprecating behaviour. “Relax, it happens to all of us.” “Don’t worry, they’ll call back, thanks.” “Call for me? Thanks!” These sentences were the simple validation that someone so fresh into the news environment needed. It made me feel like I was part of the team and doing something, even at a low level. It also helped that I didn’t act like such work was beneath me.

The news kept moving. When I started, it had been a week since Japan had been hit with a tsunami. Many countries, including Canada, had entered the Libyan conflict. This country was headed for a federal election. But as the weeks went on, a natural disaster turned into a nuclear meltdown. A stubborn dictator was now on the run. And the night before that election, a long-sought terrorist was killed. All in a few months.

But even though the news went on, I was still in the same place. Every day was filled with some of the same thoughts that young people in journalism feel. The questions of self-worth and future within this line of work. It stopped being about dumb phone calls, and started being about lack of upward mobility. A hungry kid in journalism can be a dangerous thing, including to themselves. I was polite and eager, but inside I was burning with boredom and frustration. I tried to get work beyond the responsibilities of an EA, but I found out the place had the right amount of people to get the job done on weekdays. Weekends were different. Along with days that major news broke late, weekends were the only brief respites of hope because there was always a little more work to do.

And those brief moments helped me the most.

On days where the news was heavy, I learned a hell of a lot just by keeping my eyes and ears open. Discussions of how to treat news fairly and accurately, while keeping the audience interested. Just by looking at the direction of my producers was proof that my journalism degree had real-world application and importance. It’s the kind of philosophy that can’t get discussed by every newsroom in the country on a busy day, but here...it was standard operating procedure. All I had to do was listen.

You might not consider it fortunate to work on a weekend, but to a program that’s 7 days a week, there’s no real day off. But really, most organizations are shortstaffed on the weekends. So I got to do more creative tasks, like finding video footage or researching. Occasionally, I would even get to take their writing and that footage and cut it together with an editor. It was thrilling when I got those opportunities because I didn’t just learn new skills, I was breaking the monotony. I was leaving what I can only describe as stagnating thoughts of stagnation behind. That may not seem important, but when you feel like more than an EA, and someone sees you being more than an EA, they trust you with more. You start trusting yourself with more.

The hammer of reality is money. If a company doesn’t have the money to promote you, they’re not going to. The way it feels, an EA might as well stand for Expendable Asset. Or Easily Acquired. Meaning Easily Abandoned. So mid-May came around, I was back in a slump. Work was slowing down for the summer and I was booked for fewer shifts. Some were weekends, but it didn’t help that I was decreasing face-to-face time with the people around.

I decided to go on a trip to Florida to visit my sister in a few weeks because I had been warned that work might be sparse. They hired me as an EA because someone was quitting to do something better at another company. There was also a lot of work stemming from the upcoming election. With that over, people who had been temporarily promoted were moved back and there was a lull.

Then my executive producer called me into his office.

Meetings like that, firstly, don’t happen according to some plan for a young journalist. Pure availability and luck got me this job, and the same kind of providence was headed my way. Secondly, meetings like this scare the crap out of a young journalist. They don’t sit well. You go through every scenario possible from being fired to being reprimanded for something you said on Twitter. Well, only the young journalist in the last few years would care about that. This site was well underway, and I had written things like that Breaking News post I linked above. Among my thoughts was that my executive producer had read what I had written and was going to tell me that I can’t do things like that so long as I worked here. Well, I wasn’t wrong about one thing. He had read it.

He called me in and explained to me that they liked me and they liked what I was doing for them. He talked to people and they seemed to say nice things about me. I, meanwhile, was sweating. I was hearing the good news, but my pores wanted to celebrate in the only way they knew how. To this day, when I sit in his office, I start sweating for absolutely no reason. He’s the calmest man I know who I’ve never heard raise his voice above a joke. He told me that they could apply for some funding to get me a six-month associate producer (AP) gig for the program.

He also said that he’d like to get me doing some writing, because on the day he wanted to apply for that funding for me, I wasn’t in the office. So he Googled me and found my work. I immediately started making excuses for the post I had written about work, saying that I hoped I hadn’t offended anyone or represented anything wrong. He reassured me that it was fine and that he thought it actually portrayed the newsroom in a positive way--even though I hadn’t used a single name. I left that meeting as if the hugest weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

If you want to take away something from this exchange, it could be that good people stand by other good people. It could be that everything you write online could have a deep consequence in some way.

A side bar, if you’ll grant it to me. I want to stress that in the initial months of this website, I just wrote for the love of writing. I wanted to get better at communicating. Years ago, when I started a satirical news site (poking fun at any story that sparked my interest), I knew nothing would come of it at the time. I wasn’t going to be discovered and be made the next Jon Stewart. That site, however, turned into a video blog, then into a show with actual cameras and equipment. All of it was still amateur, but the skills I learned in that job translated directly (through knowledge and contacts) to my next one. In that next job, I impressed someone enough to get the job in the newsroom. It was a much lower skill set required, but it was a bigger door to get my foot into. So if you’re doing something online that you want to turn into a job--treat it like a job. Be diligent and stand by your work.

For all my optimism, I know that the young journalist often burdens themselves, even in the face of good news.

The months that followed that meeting were a delightful blur. I was trained to be an associate producer, a job I currently hold. I was also trained to write and produce an online variation of our program, a job I filled in for much during that summer, and occasionally these days. This is the kind of work I thought young journalists should do. Things that tested one’s journalistic merit, and not their speed at grabbing a telephone handset.

Over the next few months, the stories that would pass by would take on much more importance. It wasn’t far away Libya or Egypt, it was the day’s assemble. An assemble, by the way, is a part of being an AP where you wrangle footage, take what the reporter has written and then sit with an editor and put together the final piece. Sound familiar? Yeah, you build those skills in pieces as an EA.

This was also the time that Syria started growing in prominence. I would see the violence daily, uploaded to social media websites. It was unverifiable footage, uploaded to social media websites by protestors with camera phones. But when you see bodies in the streets, tanks taking out chunks of neighbourhoods and people crying the name of God out of fear--not solidarity--then you start realizing that you’re seeing a truth that should be described as is. And often, my writing would go there. No politics, just writing to the pictures I had. Pretty soon, a strange feeling came over me. In a small way, I felt I was representing a people’s plight, and showing a government’s ruthlessness. Every day I chose to write about Syria was one more day I was informing people of the violence that continues there.

Days weren’t always this heroic or honourable. When writing, some days would be fighting as hard as I could not to shoehorn the same definition of an ongoing crisis somewhere in the world. There were days where I thought I was brilliant in the way I worded something, and only the kindness of someone else’s eyes--the senior writer who edits my script--would reveal where some gaping holes would be. Other days, I would strip my writing of all creativity and found it worked, even if a little plain. That’s the news, I thought. Ugly, unpredictable beast.

As an AP, I also had to assemble less than noble pieces. There were also days when the story I would help out with was fascinating, but I was doing grunt work for it. I didn’t mind those, because the subject matter would generally be interesting. Some people have a problem with transcribing interviews, but when you have to go through several different tapes on a really interesting story--you learn about it in a way you would never understand just by watching the finished product. I would go out on shoots to talk to people that reporters couldn’t reach at the time, compile footage from across the country, arrange resources for guests and on the odd occasion, even chase them. Admittedly, I feel my weakest ability lies in chasing, but when it’s down to the wire, I can pull off something.

As the months went on, there were slow nights of waiting for something to happen and days where you couldn’t tell what time it was because there was no time to check. Nights where I hadn’t eaten and days where I had time to go downstairs for several coffees. Such is the life of an associate producer, I was told. The point is, you’re there when you’re needed. During these slower moments, I was allowed back inside my head (that burden I was talking about earlier). The place where I would dwell on what my future was and where I saw myself. The place that, for all intents and purposes, I should have learned not to go to.

Tell me, though, who could stop the young journalist’s mind from wandering? The fears came back, though not as strong, about what would happen if this good thing wouldn’t last. After all, my executive producer said six months. By December’s end, I could have been fired--though more than half the team at work said for me to relax because they weren’t going to let me go. Still, more unpredictable things have happened in the news business. What really hurts is that these moments of weakness are where you really sell yourself short.

“Can’t anyone do what I do? I don’t have skill sets for five different jobs here, I just have a body in a chair and a head that can listen. I didn’t get this job by any skill, it was luck. If anything, all I know is how to keep a job while I have it--but that still doesn’t protect me from being downsized or let go. Why does everyone keep saying I’m in the big leagues when there are days I feel I do nothing at all? There are smarter people out there without jobs in journalism, they deserve a shot more than I do.”

After a while, even I started hearing how pathetic all of that sounds. But I assure you, it did take a while. A year of daily news changed me slowly to believe in my abilities and my instincts. A year ago, I couldn’t imagine being able to put together several different pieces without asking a single word of instruction from my superiors. Now, I sometimes know what they need before they need it and I get it to them. Being an AP, at times, is like being a soldier. You’re deployed at a target and you have to achieve that objective, accountable to your generals. In this case, my producers. Which is why I still listen to my orders very clearly and ask as many questions as I need to. Even in those diligent situations, however, there are times where you’ll never please them or yourself.

I once had to put together a package that would set up a roundtable discussion that our anchor would be having. I was told that was the only thing I had to do that day. I thought, how hard could a minute and a half be to cut together? I already had the voice track and some of the pictures. I just had to find the rest and sit down with my editor and put it together. It took 7 hours, all told. 7 hours. And this was well into my year, so there were no excuses of not knowing what to do. On top of that, I had to go get the guests and make sure they were comfortable and ready. Finally, when a producer came in to look at the set-up package, they decided it wasn’t what they wanted. So we had to overhaul it with very little time to go. I got a response no one likes hearing: “Sorry, I thought it obvious, I shouldn’t have just left it with you.”

Soldiers don’t decide when the job is done. You hide the fact that you’re gritting your teeth. You hold your peace--you can’t lash out. Stricter orders would have gotten the job done easier, but I can’t take that out on my superior. Sure, there’s a certain creative liberty at every level of this job, but some people’s creative vision outweigh your own. The voice of the show is not yours, it’s up to the people in charge.

That was a stressful day throughout, but some days don’t feel stressful until the last second. Once, I was told I had to get a couple of personalities to talk about a subject that they both were already well-versed in. All I had to do was set up the resources and make sure that Person A went to Location A and Person B was in Location B. The rest would be taken care of between them and the anchor. After that exchange was complete, I came back to my producers and they said they didn’t really like it. They wouldn’t change it, but they really didn’t like how it went or what the guests said. As one person put it to me, “You did the best you could considering what we told you to do.” The anchor later apologized to me (in my opinion, unnecessarily) because they felt that they should have given me more direction.

A day like that wasn’t stressful, but ended up being worse: It was completely disappointing. It feels weak to say I could have worked harder on it had I been given more instruction because every job requires you to realize when you should go above and beyond your duty. I keep coming back to this analogy, but no soldier wants their general to take the heat for them--despite it being the responsibility of a boss. I didn’t want to let down my producers, but they knew it was a situation that they should have controlled a bit further.

Simply put, the ugly part of this beast is “not quite good enough.” You can feel good about something and someone else won’t. Everyone can feel great about something, the audience may not react. Hard lessons that don’t get sold in a low stakes environment. In fact, look no further than this writing (if you’ve come this far down). Let me be blunt, this website is a place for me to write freely because no one, pardon my language, gives a shit. Yet I toil on, a candle in a maelstrom, hoping to guide ships to safe harbour. I won’t stop writing, I won’t stop working at my smartest to get my work done.

The problem with being so young in a place I want to stay in (and I hesitate calling it a game, because one of my first journalistic influences told me a story about when she realized it wasn’t a game we were playing; a story for another day), is that I can’t follow one set of rules and be good at what I do. Though I look for answers in the failures and successes I achieve--there’s nothing that will prevent a crappy set-up package or poor guest selection in the future. Or a bad day of writing. It’s taken me a while to learn that. To walk away from these setbacks. I must admit, it has also taken a team of wonderful people (fellow associate producers, mostly) to tell me that I need to calm the hell down and not worry so much. They’ve all been there, and they will be there again. Soldiers, all. Even though they love and care for me far more than I deserve.

A small part of me also never forgets the fear of not being able to do something. That fear is now overridden by immense focus and a slight hunger to prove myself, often turning a day that started out empty-handed into a night of plenty. News, over the course of this year, hasn’t killed the cowardice in me--it’s just allowed me to push it down with greater force at a faster rate. In the first few months, the requests I got were answered meekly. Now, I just say “yeah, I can do that.” Then I figure out how to do it.  

What I’m still learning, and what may be more attributed to the nature of news itself, is the feeling of resetting. Come as an empty shell, leave full, but drain yourself because tomorrow, or the week after, you’ll need the space. I see it in the people I work with, day and night after week and month. It’s good that I have constant role models. They show me that even if you have the answers, you’re still learning. I am still learning.

They also show me the way to keep going. I won’t be the same when or if another year in news passes. I may not be able to define a moment like Japan or Libya. But you can be damn sure that I’ll keep telling their stories. And it might seem selfish, but I want to write on the day that dictators fall. I want to produce on the day the people cheer for their freedom. I don’t want another year to pass and still have to write about the same bloodshed.

But I will, because that’s news. I’ll soldier on.

A Year of anandram.com!

Last March 13, I started a website after much deliberating and delaying. It was just a place for me to write back then, and I'm happy when I say that it's still a place for me to write. I haven't given up on it, it still holds a very important place in my week-to-week life. Even though some weeks have been filled and others quite lacking, this site and its parts have become a wonderful way for me express the thoughts I have on a regular basis. 

So happy 1st birthday to anandram.com! As I've said before, it will keep going until there is no longer a purpose to having it here. And right now? I still love video games. I still love writing about writing. I still have features that I want to explore (including one coming this Sunday!). At the very least, I want this to be a place to prove that writing doesn't have to be something you're paid for or ordered to do. Comes from the heart and head and hands. You need all three for a good post, and at least your hands for a lazy one! 

But from the bottom of my heart, off the top of my head and with my hands folded, I thank you for your continued patronage. 

I did a little stat counting during the new year, but let's update those. 

Not including this post, I have had...

84 posts in Thinks. That includes 13 posts Writing about Writing, 10 in Special Topics, 4 in Fan-imation and 4 random (and quite lengthy) Musings. 

53 posts in Playtime's Over. That includes 30 console/PC reviews, 17 iOS games and 11 posts On Gaming. (Some of these share categories)

14 Conversations: Podcasts and 5 A Week's Worth Podcasts. That's 15 hours and 38 minutes of my voice, and thankfully some others. 

8 posts in Track Listing.

In total, I've written 117, 458 words on anandram.com.