If you've been on Sakimi at all this past week, you would've known that I've been grappling with two essays that were supposed to be simple. In fact, you're probably sick of hearing me whine about them. Another thing you're all probably sick of is hearing me talk about Fullmetal Alchemist. Well, this particular entry involves both of these things-- just your luck.
I picked the perfect time to get into an anime, didn't I? Right when school swings into full session. And I had been tasked with completing two essays by Wednesday-- one for English, and one for history. The first was about Kino's character development in The Pearl, and the second was about what advantages the Fertile Crescent had over other regions of the world when it came to farming. They weren't supposed to be super long; the teachers expected a maximum of two pages. No sweat, right? Wrong. Even though I said I would, I still haven't gotten out of my habit of procrastinating. We were given like a week to write them, and I could've had both of them done the first day if I wanted to. But noooo... I decided to spend any free time I had watching FMA. Even if I wasn't in the middle of watching it, I probably still would've found something to distract me from the essays... it doesn't matter, I would've held them off no matter what. But that's not the point. In no time, the deadline was right around the corner. And what did I have done? The introduction for one of the essays, and nothing else. Okay, here's the plan. When I get home, I'll fly through as many Fullmetal Alchemist episodes as I can before Jo gets home. Then, once she walks through the door, I'll get to work, no questions asked. That was my plan that I kept reinforcing in my mind earlier that Tuesday. It might have worked, had I actually followed through with it... When I got home, I did speed through several episodes, and when Jo got home, I did close down Netflix and open up my essay. I did type up some of the The Pearl essay; two body paragraphs. I only needed one more body paragraph, and then the conclusion. But then I made a stupid decision and took a break. I sat back and listened to some music while browsing the forums and chatting on Sakimi. I don't know how long that lasted... probably up till when my mom got home. She asked me if I had gotten anything done on my essays, and I reported my progress in the The Pearl essay. I said I'd resume working after dinner, and I flopped down in the recliner and turned on Netflix. I watched more FMA until dinner was made and I had finished eating, and then I retreated back to my lair. I don't know what time it was at that point, but my confidence hadn't completely faded away yet. I figured that if I worked efficiently, I'd manage to have both essays finished, and I might even have time to watch an episode. Except... when I pulled open my essay, I had no idea what to write. That's when I began to break down under the pressure... there was no way I was going to finish them. My mom ended up getting me extensions on both of them, and I vowed to finish them by Friday. I'd get them out of my way as soon as possible, and then I'd finally be free from this awful stress! So what do you think I did that Wednesday? ... I spent the entire day watching Fullmetal Alchemist and goofing off. Way to go, Kim. I told myself that I could finish the essays Thursday; I already had a big chunk of the first one done, and the second one was much easier than the first. Clearly, I had not learned my lesson. But somehow, it worked out in the end. I managed to complete both essays before 11:00 that Thursday night. And how good it felt to be finished at last! Now, at long last, I could sit down and watch some good ol' FMA without stress buzzing in the back of my head. To celebrate my victory, I watched an episode before I went to bed.
The next day was terrible. It was a C day, so I had all my least favorite classes. Gym, algebra, history, English... rollerskating exhausted me, and I had to struggle to stay awake through the three following classes which also happen to be the most boring three classes to have ever existed. But I kept reminding myself that once I got through the school day, I could come home and sit down in front of the computer with a grape soda and watch some stress-free FMA on Youtube. When that long day was finally over and I got home, I flung my loaded bookbag onto the chair and strolled into the kitchen. I grabbed a can of soda and broke off a piece of a chocolate bar, and then made my way to my room. I booted up my computer and settled into my chair. After using the Lab Ray on Neopets and checking Bulbapedia and Jellyneo and the likes for news, I opened up Youtube and found the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood page. I noticed that the list of episodes seemed oddly shorter, but it didn't really concern me at that point. I scrolled down to look for the dubbed version of episode 45... but to my horror, it wasn't there! None of the dubbed episodes were there, except for everything before episode 27, and 30 for some random reason. "Whaaaaat?" I cried in disbelief. This couldn't be happening! Why would FUNimation do such a thing? Just yesterday I had been watching through the dubbed episodes, and today they were gone! Why did it have to happen NOW? I was finally free to do whatever without being stressed... perhaps if this had happened when I was still working on my essays, I wouldn't have gotten into that much of a tight spot. I refused to watch the subbed version... I've grown attached to the English voices, and it will sound awkward to hear them in Japanese all of the sudden. Plus, subtitles are distracting, and going by what the subbed version of Soul Eater was like, it probably wasn't translated perfectly.
I wasn't giving up, though. I headed over to Google and tried to find somewhere that was streaming the dubbed episodes... and I found one! Except... it was super laggy. It buffered every five seconds, no joke. Besides, I'm very much against illegal streaming and piracy, so it felt wrong trying to watch these episodes elsewhere. Feeling crushed, I gave up. Perhaps they had FMA DVDs at the library? But I doubted my mom would want to take me to the library when she got home from work... and I was exactly right. Great, now how was I going to spend my Friday night? I tried watching the original FMA, which still had all its dubbed episodes up on Youtube. I got through two episodes, and then I decided to stop... I don't know, it just seemed strange to see these characters I knew in a different type of show. I intended to finish Brotherhood before starting that one, anyway. Otherwise, I'll get them mixed up and things might get confusing... so yeah, now I'm spending my Friday night whining in this blog entry. Hopefully I'll be able to go to the library tomorrow and see if they have any FMA DVDs there...

Oooh, almost forgot. It's time for the quote of the day.

"If an Irish couple adopts a Chinese baby, it's not going to grow up addicted to rice. The first thing it picks up isn't going to be a pair of chopsticks." ~Mr. A, my history teacher; part of his explanation about the difference between race and ethnicity