Engagement Story

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Yesterday I announced that M and I got engaged. My phone exploded (battery died) from all of the well wishes and congratulations (and thank you again so much by the way). So I thought I would give the background to those who are curious.

When Martin and I first started dating, one of the first games that we started to play together was Borderlands. We went full completionist on it. Then last year, the second one came out and we have played through that like a KAJILLION (~5) times.

Last month during one of our Sunday games, I asked our friend Catsy to make a chest that looks like one of them (above) from Borderlands. He does amazing things with Lego pieces, so when he said yes I got super excited and tried (suceeded!) to keep it from him. Fast forward to last week.

I got a Facebook message on Wednesday saying that the box was ready and got some pictures of it. Luckily, M wasn’t around when I opened them up because I started squeeing and tearing up. I then got a call asking if I could go to California on Thursday and Friday. I agreed, even though I was originally going to propose on Thursday. But it worked out because I wasn’t able to pick up the box until Saturday.

So crazy stuff happened with flights, I got home at 8:30AM on Saturday instead of around midnight.  Got home, had breakfast and then excused myself to go pick up his present (Side note: I’ve felt like throwing up the entire day because I had no idea how it would go). I met up with Catsy, put the rings in the chest, squeed again, put the chest in my purse, and then got cupcakes from a place we went to when we first started dating.

The chest (closed)

Chest (open with the rings in it)

When I got home, I showed him the cupcakes and asked if he wanted to have them now or wait until after dinner. Since we are adults, we decided to eat them then because omnomnom cupcakes. We were then thinking about going to see Iron Man 3 and since I didn’t think I could handle sitting through the movie knowing that this is happening and having the “oh shit oh shit oh shit, I’m going to throw up oh shit” feeling, I pulled out the chest. He was super surprised and then I told him there was something in it for him. He opened up the box and I said something (I honestly don’t remember what I said now) that ended with “will you marry me?”. He said something back (again, I don’t remember) and I asked him “so….is that a yes?” he laughed and said yes.

The ring (it looks like a flower, but it’s kind of hard to tell)

So now we’re engaged!

Lofty goal 2013!

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I have confidence issues. I know it’s a shock to hear this (I’m being facetious so shush), but I have been thinking on it more this week after my first two weeks on the new job as well as after spending time with friends at shmoo.

I realized that I was able to fix a lot of my anxiety issues without really focusing on it (it’s nice to not need a 10 minute pep-talk before going to the con floor), but I am no where near as confident in myself or what I know as I should or would like to be. I put on a show of looking like I know what the hell that I am doing and that it is the right thing for me to do, but the truth is that it’s just that: a show. Sometimes, not even a good one. Someone who I don’t even talk to that regularly has got me pinned down and I didn’t realize what the heck he was talking about until a few days ago at ShmooCon (myrcurial said I was similar to Newt from Aliens, hence the picture below with my face on Newt and Jackie’s face on Ripley).

Anyways, a few who are close to me have had to deal with what I put myself through when I take on a new project or assignment (personal or professional). I usually have all but convinced myself that I can’t do it, that I have no idea what in the heck I’m doing, and that I’m going to irreparably muck things up and something absolutely awful is going to happen as a result of that. Then they either pat me on my head, say “there, there Tottie” and send me back to work or (more often nowadays) smile bemusedly, tell me to get over it and send me back to work on it. Then I do the work and am more or less satisfied with it, submit it and then stress over it until I get a response from the requester who is usually very happy (or at least, satisfied) with the work that was done. And then I’m given a new task I have no idea what to do with and the process repeats.

I’m sick of it. It’s a broken process and is getting in the way of me leveling up (don’t ask, there will be a post on that later probably).

So I’m going to change it this year. To those close friends that I usually come up and panic at: don’t coddle me. Tell me to stop it and get back to work. I’ll be grumbly about it for a little while, but it really will be for the best. Other people: if you see me saying anything self-deprecating, call me out on it, even if I try to spin it as a joke. Most times, I don’t even realize when I’m doing it and the more it is brought to my attention, the better I can get about fixing it. I also ask that you don’t do anything that reinforces that behavior (laugh, the bemused smile, etc.). I know that I’m smart, have a high capacity for learning and have a lot of good stuff going on for me. But reminding me of this every time I get in a rut or in one of those panic cycles is only going to have me return for that same reinforcement and will wear on you over time. Neither of us wants or needs that and I need to build this confidence in myself mostly by myself in order to grow and reach the next professional and personal goals I want to set. I appreciate all of y’alls patience with me as I go through this, but I think it can be done.

Come on, I met my year-end weight and “be happy” goals of last year. Surely this can be done as well.

Updates and shmoo

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After avoiding the blog for a while (a mixture of “I really don’t want to deal with going through all of the pending spam comments” and “I’m too busy being anxious about getting/starting new job”), I’m back! I started a new job as a consultant and am really excited to be doing some security and compliance stuff. I have received the warmest welcome ever since starting here and have already hit the ground running.

On a goal front, I have been doing pretty well sticking with the initial ones. We are currently buying better quality meats, trying new recipes and using environment-friendly (and eventually transitioning to home-made) household cleaners. The redecoration is also picking up (we have stuff on the walls!) and will probably continue to evolve since we have recently renewed our lease for another year. Most of January’s birthday presents and cards were handmade this year, although I didn’t have the time needed to do gifts for everyone I wanted to, and the recipients seem pretty happy with them. And finally, all of the organization-type stuff is getting taken care of.

Now on to the (more) fun stuff: Shmoocon is this week! This year will be my first Shmoocon and I am totally stoked. I get into DCA around 4 and then will probably hang around until 6 for our second-ever Hacker Family Dinner. I have also (finally) gone through the schedule for the con and firetalks. There are quite a few that I’m interested and will more likely than not try to see, namely:

Bringing the Sexy Back To…Defense in Depth (Martin Fisher)
When Did the Smartphone Pentest Framework Get Awesome? (Firetalk; Georgia Weidman)
If You Can Open the Terminal, You Can Capture the Flag: CTF for Everyone (Firetalk; Nicolle “rogueclown” Neulist)
Swinging Security Style: An Immodest Proposal (Firetalk; Wendy Nather)
Malware Analysis: Collaboration, Automation and Training (Richard Harman)
A fight between Protecting Sensitive Information on iOS Devices (David Schuetz) and Beyond Nymwars: An Analysis of the Online Identity Battleground (Aestetix)
No Tools? No Problem! Building a PowerShell Botnet (Firetalk; Christopher Campbell)
Extending the 20 Critical Security Controls to Gap Assessments and Security Maturity Modelling (Firetalk; John Willis)
HIPAA/HITECH How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Firetalk alternative; Sarah Clarke and David Zendzian)
There are others that I would like to see and will probably hop into depending on time and headspace, but the above are ones that I really don’t want to miss. I will also probably post a post-shmoo wrap up with links to pictures (if I take any and remember to post them) on here after I get back from shmoo.

New Year, New Goals

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I really liked having a month last year to “test drive” some new goals before I tried to start them for realsies this year. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that opportunity afforded to me this year because December was insane. For example, I had spent the last month trying to be indirect and play dumb about any plans my dad had for my mom’s milestone birthday (I’ll make a separate post for that later along with some pictures) and the rest of the month has been consumed with SIT testing.

I’ll keep the format that has been working for me for the past couple of years. Basically, there is an overall category and then 5 specific goals I want to achieve under each. Although it isn’t as nice as having a month, I am going to start on these goals so that it doesn’t come as a total shock or fall flat soon after January 1st.

Health

  • Train for and complete a 5k by the end of the year. Sounds like a pretty easy goal to accomplish, but it still seems like a huge thing to accomplish for me.
  • Limit myself to no more than 2 cups of coffee a day. This is just for the first two months. The eventual goal is to give up coffee altogether by the end of the year.
  • Make a workout schedule that doesn’t revolve around a gym. Since I plan on changing jobs soon, I need to find a workout routine that works for me and doesn’t have any dependencies on the office gym. My apartment complex has a “work out area”, so I need to make a call to see what hours it is available to residents and then build a routine around that.
  • Buy better quality meats regularly. I’m totally guilty of only buying the grass-fed/free range/whatever meats when they are on sale, even though I can taste the difference.

“Right Brain” stuff

  • Make gifts/cards this year.I made a few presents this year, but I am going to make a real effort to do it for friends and family’s birthdays. I will also get better about doing cards (please ignore the pile of un-mailed Christmas cards that I have made…Ugh).
  • Decorate the apartment to properly reflect us. The walls and space of the apartment have been blank since we moved in here back in May. Since we have already decided to renew our lease (because moving sucks), I have already started planning on how to decorate the apartment to showcase our interests without looking ridiculous. We have already decided on a “geeks grown up” feel and I will be taking pictures and posting about the process.
  • Write regularly. This mostly means blogging on here. I was doing very well with it at the beginning of the year, but then let it fall off. I have learned through this that I do better with writing when I have a general idea about what I want to do a post on. If I try to do it all “spur of the moment” style, I’ll usually just not do it.
  • Take more pictures. I may try a “picture of the day” thing, but am not 100% sold on it. I will give it a try starting today and if I fail at doing it through the 1st of January, I may just switch to “take x number of pictures a month” or something similar.
  • Finish all of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” novels. It’s about the only fiction-related reading I did this year and I really want to finish them all up. We will ignore the fact that I only have all of The Watch and the Industrial Revolution stuff to read…

Organization

  • Go through clothes quarterly. Since losing weight, I have a lot of clothes in my closet that I can’t wear anymore. This requires buying new clothes and trying to figure out what I like to wear instead of what will fit. At the start of every season, I want to go through my closet and donate stuff that is either too big or that I have only worn a few number of times/not at all.
  • Filing system. Mostly for the mail and bills, but I also need to be better about coupons as well. Too many have sit in my purse (or on the counter/fridge) and expired.
  • Get rid of junk. We seem to have collected a fair amount of “stuff” that is currently hiding in our closet and it is starting to feel like it’s a bit too much for me. So I want to go through the closets at the beginning of the year and donate stuff that we don’t use/need. I also am going to try to keep myself from buying things that I don’t really need and will just take up space (*cough*purses*cough*).
  • Set up calendar reminders for certain tasks and act on them. This is mostly for small housecleaning stuff like car maintenance, hair appointments, etc. I’m kind of bad about letting things get to the point where I forget about them until something needs to happen immediately to fix the issue.

That is all that really comes to mind right now and I probably will not add more “official” goals for 2013. I figured out after this year, that making a huge laundry list of goals for the next year is about as fruitless as making lofty resolutions with no specific goals in mind. So I hope that it works out while I give them a whirl this week and wish all of you the best of luck with any goals you make for yourself.

O Christmas Tree

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A couple of weeks ago, someone posted an older XKCD comic about someone who put up a Christmas tree and a heap of presents. I showed it to M and said that I wanted to do it this year and he agreed. We had talked about wanting to do a Christmas tree this year, but the apartment we are in is too small for us to get a decently sized one in (nevermind the fact that I have never had a real Christmas tree and wouldn’t have the first idea of how to keep the bugger alive). This Christmas “tree”, however, was really easy to set up and doesn’t take up any space. It also fits in to the theme that we are starting to incorporate into our apartment (more about that later once we make some actual progress with it).

We actually finished setting it up a few days ago, but I just wanted to share a picture of it:

Life is pretty damn good

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Moving up to Seattle has been particularly hard on me duirng the winter. The cold is something that I have gotten used to without much problem (although I did complain about it quite a bit), but the constant gray was a problem for me. My first winter up here, I had to pull over onto the side of the road more than a few times in order to calm down and talk myself down from wanting to drive off the bridge. 2010 wasn’t as bad, but I still had to talk myself up a lot in order to want to get out of bed in the morning. Then around this time last year, I made a concious decision that I want to do whatever it takes to not only get through winter without feeling a ton of dread and apprehension, but to do things that make me generally happier year round.

I still have my down moments, but they aren’t anywhere near as bad as they have been. I think a lot of it has to do with going on a walk and/or jog daily as well as improving my eating habits. I started the year doing an average of 2500 steps a day (if that) and weighed about 275-280 pounds while sitting at a size 24-26 pants and XL-XXL shirt. Now, I average at least 10,000 steps a day (FitBit friends won’t believe me since I’m still waiting for my replacement), started some light weight training, shaved 3 minutes off of my mile today, and am about 80% paleo. Oh, and now am in the 210-215 (range because of muscle gain) and a size 14 pants and L shirt.

I’ve been debating a lot on whether I wanted to post those sizes/numbers. It seems unusual (unattractive?) for women to share their measurements, but I’ve seen a lot of my male friends do so. It’s been exciting to see their progress as well as a huge source of motivation to see the results of their hard work. Why are we afraid to share our progress, ladies? If you’ve worked your ass off (get it?–HAH!), then you deserve the right to brag about it and have others cheer you on just as much as any guy does. Fuck the haters and get over your body image issues. 

Anyways, family stuff is going pretty well. It’s still freaking awesome living down the street from Kita, Neil and the babby. My little sister is in college now while working her way through and I’m very proud of her going back while she is still young and using it as a way to get to her dream job. We have also spoken a lot more recently and are slowly getting over our poor communication skills, misunderstandings and preconceptions of one another in order to try and get closer. Which makes me (and probably my parents) very happy. Speaking of which, my parents are also both doing well, they’ve been touring random national parks on their scooters and posting pictures over at their site.

And as a final update, NaNoWriMo efforts are still going strong. I fell a little behind over the weekend since I couldn’t write on Sunday. Game is currently going on and that is higher on my list of things I want to do. But I’m still going with it and am kind of nerped out at the thought I will be at 10k words by the end of the week. If you’re also participating, please feel free to add me; my user name is “tottenkoph”.

NaNoWriMo and stuff

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I really have dropped the ball when it came to updating here regularly in the last half of the year, but I am hoping that I can pick it back up as I get into the habit of writing every day. This year, I have decided to join a few of my friends and family members in participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is my first time attempting to write something longer than a flash fiction piece. I’m a little apprehensive since I came up with the idea yesterday morning (the first day of the event) and discarded the one that I’ve been toying around with for the last month. I may pick the other one up at a later date (maybe even next NaNoWriMo), but it just didn’t seem to be ready enough to make me want to see it through. I also haven’t written any fiction pieces in almost 10 years, when I stopped going to the writer’s group I went to when I still lived in Florida.

Every Saturday morning, a group of about 30 or so people would get together and sign up to read their pieces. Each person had 10 (maybe 15?) minutes to read their pieces and then the other members would give them constructive criticisms on how they can make their stuff better. It was awesome and helped me get better at catching inconsistencies as well as get comfortable speaking in front of people. I forget now why I stopped writing, but I’m hoping that by doing NaNoWriMo every day this month it will reawake my need to write. So far, I’ve done about 1100 words (500 short of what I should have done yesterday) and plan on getting to 3300 by the end of the day.

I’m working on a story set in St. Petersburg, FL about 75 years after two waves of nuclear bombs hit the US. The story is basically about a female scavenger who goes out to find a place with a consistent source of fresh water so that the other folks she congregates with can relocate there and won’t be dependent on others for water. It’s kind of a sketchy description, but I’ve never been good with synopses (synopseses? synopsi?) so I’m sorry about that.

Besides that, nothing much has been happening. Work has finally settled down for the last bit of the cycle so I’m taking the time to catch up on documentation and learning some stuff. I also started on the big pile o’ books that has been building up on my nightstand for the last few months. I am almost done with the first section of “The Tangled Web” by Michael Zalewski. There is a lot of good information in it both for beginners who don’t know the basics and for people who could use the reminder because they were half-listening to their professors and half-playing Doom….

Vendors and HIPAA compliance

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One of the questions that I got during my stable talk at DerbyCon was something along the lines of are (software/security) vendors liable under HIPAA if a covered entity is found not to be compliant? Also, if there were any cases of a vendor being fined for non-compliancy. I responded with a “no”, but didn’t have enough information at the time to back up why I said so.

For a little bit of background for those who weren’t there, last year about 11% of data breaches reported in a study were due to electronic information not being secure. This could either be from information not being encrypted or from proper security precautions being implemented. 18% of breaches that occurred in the medical field last year were associated with a third-party associated with the covered entity.

The short answer for those who are curious, but not enough to read an entire blog post about it: the answer is no. According to the DHHS, so long as a vendor does not does not have access to protected health information, they are not considered a business associate and do not have to enter into a business associate contract where they agree to a number of things, including to follow HIPAA mandates regarding the storage and use of personal health information.

The long answer involves what is considered a business associate, why aren’t vendors considered one, and what happens when a business is considered a business associate. First of all, a business associate has been defined by the DHHS as:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this definition, business associate means, with respect to a covered entity, a person who:(i) On behalf of such covered entity or of an organized health care arrangement (as defined in § 164.501 of this subchapter) in which the covered entity participates, but other than in the capacity of a member of the workforce of such covered entity or arrangement, performs, or assists in the performance of:(A) A function or activity involving the use or disclosure of individually identifiable health information, including claims processing or administration, data analysis, processing or administration, utilization review, quality assurance, billing, benefit management, practice management, and repricing; or(B) Any other function or activity regulated by this subchapter; or(ii) Provides, other than in the capacity of a member of the workforce of such covered entity, legal, actuarial, accounting, consulting, data aggregation (as defined in § 164.501 of this subchapter), management, administrative, accreditation, or financial services to or for such covered entity, or to or for an organized health care arrangement in which the covered entity participates, where the provision of the service involves the disclosure of individually identifiable health information from such covered entity or arrangement, or from another business associate of such covered entity or arrangement, to the person.

Code of Federal Regulations / Title 45 – Public Welfare / Vol. 1 / 2002-10-01668

(2) A covered entity participating in an organized health care arrangement that performs a function or activity as described by paragraph (1)(i) of this definition for or on behalf of such organized health care arrangement, or that provides a service as described in paragraph (1)(ii) of this definition to or for such organized health care arrangement, does not, simply through the performance of such function or activity or the provision of such service, become a business associate of other covered entities participating in such organized health care arrangement.(3) A covered entity may be a business associate of another covered entity.

 So an example of a situation where a software vendor would become a business associate is if they were developing software for a covered entity and used live data during the development of the software. In a lot of cases, this isn’t done and a company mocks up its own “dummy” data in order to test the system. By doing this, they aren’t considered a business associate for a covered entity and can avoid having to bother with the mess that is associated with it.

When a third party or contractor is considered to be a business associate, one of the first things that they have to do is sign a business associate contract. This is drafted by the covered entity and is a document that describes a business associate’s obligations, how they can or cannot use PHI, how they can disclose it, grounds for termination of the agreement, and what happens when the agreement is terminated. Along with the contract, a business associate has to be compliant with some of the regulations that are covered by the Privacy Rule, be fully compliant with the rules and regulations that are outlined by the Security Rule, and provide notification following a breach of unsecured PHI (Protected Health Information) like a covered entity would have to.

Sources and further reading:

Example of Business Associate Contract: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/coveredentities/contractprov.html#1

Breach Notification Rule: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/breachnotificationrule/index.html

HITECH Act: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/coveredentities/hitechact.pdf

Disclaimer: I am not a vendor or a HIPAA compliancy expert (I am however, an expert on cupcakes and will accept complaints or compliments in the form of them). I have read a $#!7 ton about HIPAA and wanted to provide an explaination to an (admittedly short and insufficient) answer I gave at DerbyCon.

DerbyCon 2.0: The [Family] Reunion

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I always come back from a con jazzed up and ready to deal with whatever work has to throw at me. I always end up meeting a ton of nice people and learn a bajillion things. This year at DerbyCon was no different. Some of you may have overheard me mention it before online or at the con, but I was feeling snippy and burned out since I had been working every day from Labor Day until the day before I left for DerbyCon. So seeing everyone and having all of these conversations was really great for me. I’m feeling re-energized and excited to apply some of the stuff that I learned about as well as more focused on what I want to do.

Also as usual, I didn’t get to attend most of the talks that I wanted to see. But it was more than worth it since I was able to spend more time meeting new people, seeing Twitter friends in person for the first time, and getting to spend time with people that I only get to see a few times a year. The hacker/infosec community is one of the greatest and I am always humbled at how nice and personable you all are, even if we get on each other’s nerves from time to time.

Thursday

M and I got into Louisville around 3:30 and abducted a guy who was heading from the airport to the con hotel (not a random person, they were wearing a SANS shirt and we confirmed he was going to the con before offering to share the cab). After spending some time psyching ourselves up for socializing (we had been up since 2AM to catch the shuttle van to SEA for our flight), we headed to the con hotel to meet up with folks who were going to join us for dinner. The original plan for the family dinner was to have whoever responded on twitter (26 people) join us for pizza and drinks over at Bearno’s by the Bridge. What happened was we amassed somewhere between 35-40 people and scared the poor folks there. They were super acommodating and gave us the entire basement, where we hung out and yelled over one another. The wait staff were all very nice and pretty fast with the food considering the number of folks who were there. I highly recommend eating there next year.

I will most definitely be making the Hacker Family Dinner a normal part of every hacker con I attend (and will try to find a surrogate organize for those that I cannot). It was so much fun getting to sit with a whole bunch of you and talking before the con started.

After dinner, we headed back to the con hotel and @integgroll, @rogueclown, @niteshad, M and I all hung out and played Munchkin for 3-4 hours. This was just one game, but along the way people kept showing up to hang out and drink with us, which was really freaking cool. Around midnight/one, M and I decided to PTFO.

Friday

Somehow I woke up at 7:30/8 and got to have breakfast with a few folks who were also magically awake (especially @ben0xa, who joined us after his morning run). Afterward, I puttered around and did LobbyCon until opening ceremonies at 1. After opening ceremonies, I hit up almost every vendor (the only exception being No Starch, but only because I still have two books I got from DEF CON that I haven’t read) and then went to learn how to pick locks. I just want to take a minute to thank @ben0xa, @b10w, @securitymoey, and @integgroll for showing M and I the basics. It was so much fun. As soon as I successfully raked open my first masterlock, I was hooked and spent a lot of time over there. M is hooked now as well.

During my time in the Lockpick Village, I met four women (two of which I think were high schoolers) who came to the con with family and had just learned how to lockpick as well. There were also other guys at the table (along with theh Level1 folks) who were very nice and helpful when it came to explaining the locks and the picks. It was a great experience.

The only talk I hit up that day was @jaysonstreet ‘s. He had a great overall message about what we need to do and need to stop as a community and industry. Specifically, how we need to get rid of the sheriff complex and how to talk to business people (managers/users/etc.). I always enjoy listening to Jayson talk and will post the link either here or on Twitter as soon as it is online.

A little bit after Jayson’s talk was the first ”Are You Smarter Than a CISSP?”. @integgroll and I had worked on the idea a little bit about a month before the con. The turn out was a lot better than we expected (the room was full) and we had 3 contestants. Next year, we will use the full two hours given to us (we thought there was only an hour) and make it bigger and better! We have a few ideas kicking around to make it more fun and will be working on them over the year. So we hope that folks will join us next year.

Saturday

Did breakfast again with a few people and embarrassed myself meeting @carlos_perez (side note: he is one of the nicest, most unassuming people I have ever met. Even if he teases us with the delicious food he makes). I was able to catch half an hour of @ben0xa ‘s first talk (it was also his Twitter/community birthday. Yay!) and then had to leave in order to go do mine. He did an awesome job and the message of you need to incentivize adherence to security policies and not talk to users like their idiots. It was a great message and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of his talk once it is online.

After my talk, we grabbed a few folks and went down to the Blind Pig and had delicious food and drinks. Then spent the rest of the night playing Cards Against Humanity and hanging around the bar with a few Chicago people (another side note: @elizmartin is so sweet and has convinced me to come to Chicago to visit for BSides Chicago and Thotcon. Also, it will be my first trip to Chicago, so yay!).

Sunday

We had to leave around 11:30 on Sunday morning, but I got to have one last breakfast with a few folks as well as catch @integgroll ‘s talk (he’s funny/interesting even at 9AM). I was able to check out about half of the closing ceremony from Midway airport thanks to the Hackers For Charity guys showing it on UStream. On a related note, I squeed/teared up in the middle of the airport when I heard that 1500-1700 people raised $30,001 for HFC. It was an amazing thing to hear and I also want to mention that they set up a Volunteer Network.

Also, here is a quick shout-out to another write-up ben0xa.com .

Li’l Bird

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There’s a story that is referred to constantly in Black Rock Shooter (my favorite anime to date) called “Li’l Bird, Li’l Bird Colorful Colors”. The anime and the story speak eactly to how I’ve been feeling and going through up to the point when I declared that I wanted to be happy again and would try to persue it. For the sake of this post (and those who want to see the anime at some point), I’m not going to go into the extremely confusing plot of B*RS but will explain “Li’l Bird…”.

The quickest/easiest way to give a synopsis of this story is that it’s about a little white bird who travels through many different worlds and absorbs the color into its wings (“the blue of tears”, “the pink of sneezes”, and the “orange of smiles”, are some of the colors). By the end of the story, the little bird absorbs so many colors that it becomes dull and black. And then it dies. I know what you’re thinking. “What the fuck do you mean ‘And then it dies’?!” But it’s important that the bird dies. The little white bird went out and experienced all of these colors in different worlds, but along the way it allowed those experiences to taint it and weigh it down. Then, weighed down by all of these experiences it couldn’t go on any longer.

I cannot fully or properly express how much this resonates with how I was feeling even as late as last November. My heart was so heavy with everything that was going on around then (granted, nowhere near as bad as I was the previous year, but it was still pretty damn bad). I made the promise to myself to try and do whatever it takes to be happy (I mostly linked it to my weight, but was wrong in thinking that was the bulk of it). I barely did anything except work, workout and hide away in my apartment around that time. I started to backtrack a little bit with the progress I was making in January and then in mid-February B*RS started. As the story progressed the girl’s other selves fought in order to protect their “real-world” selves and the story of the Li’l Bird was told. Then the Li’l Bird died. And I bawled. (Feel sorry for M here because he was confused as hell as to why I was crying over the death of something that wasn’t even technically a character in the show.)

I didn’t want to be like the Li’l Bird (experience everything, but get weighed down by everything), but I didn’t want to keep myself caged up and stop myself from going out and experiencing things or opening up to people because of fear that it will change me for the worse. I want to go out there and experience everything that there is and feel things without being crippled by the fear that someone might use those feelings or my trust against me. I’m ready to finally believe in myself enough to go out and kick some ass.


                                   “Li’l Bird, Li’l Bird Colorful Colours”