I'm more energetic today, so I'll go over my third day at Antheria, as well as the con as a whole.

I cannot remember the last time I had so much fun in a day, particularly Sunday, but also Saturday and Friday as well. Volunteering was I think the best thing I could have done to enjoy the con, and worth every moment of my time.

Sunday starts off with me waking up at 9:30 sharp. I showered and then hit the road to visit the fabled Furry City of Antheria. Light traffic made the trip easy down to Redondo beach where I stopped to get some corndog rolls as a quick bite. I was looking forward to hanging out with the other main volunteers:  realityblows,  pyscho-cat-boy,  TehWolfgang, and Rhey, and found two of the four rather quickly. After hunting down Niles to get my assignment, I did some door duty briefly.

I stopped in to check on  zhivagod to see the commission she was working on and I <3'd it. Can't wait until its posted so I can show it off to people! Volleyball <3 Then I went to Con Ops to visit  beccabunny where I also received a back rub. My shoulders were aching for reasons unknown and she worked out really tight knots in each of my shoulders. Thanks!

After that, there was an impromptu furry walk down the pier/boardwalk, where  pyscho-cat-boy and I, along with some other spotters and Niles and Uncle Kage escorted the suiters down the boardwalk where much shenanigans was held, and children laughed (and a couple cried in sheer terror). I was the 'straw guy' and carried some water and straws for the suiters, while the other volunteers all carried water and cameras and other stuff.

I found it extremely amusing that the suit that caused the most tears was a bunny rabbit of all things (poor  atomisk). I also learned firsthand how ridiculously energetic some suiters can be (I was tired just WATCHING  question-mark). The best quote on the first leg of the trip was definately from an old guy who must have been born in 1909. He walks up to the purple moose suiter and says "I did a lot of drugs in 1969. I think I met your father."

On the return leg of the trip, we break to hand out water and take more photos, and then take a pit stop at the local arcade. Suiters and volunteers were given tickets and quarters and chocolate bars (courtesy of Niles) to play some midway games, ride the tilt-a-whirl, and have fun. Much merriment was had, and then we made our way back to the hotel.

After handing out more water to the undressing suiters, I went back to door duty while the other volunteers were briefed on our future duties with regards to the upcoming lagoon event. Then we broke for lunch. Niles, Pyscho-cat-boy, Realityblows, Rhey, and I went to Subway (eat fresh!). And then we came back. And then we hung out in front of the hotel for a while after briefly scoping out the lagoon.

The brief fursuit parade to the lagoon was fun, but mostly uneventful. No roadkill was created, which is always a good sign. And then we broke out into chilling, doing silly things, foam sword fights, dancing, and relaxing. There was a 10 foot inflatable dragon which was the center of many photos, as well as  question-mark going into the lagoon in full suit. And then the area smelled faintly of wet hyena.

I said my goodbyes and left at around 9:30 due to fatigue, exhaustion, and fatigue.

Now for my bit about the entire con as a whole. Antheria was not a perfect con. Everyone will agree there. But given the amount of misfortune thrown the con's way, it pulled off something amazing. With barely two weeks notice, they lost the original hotel. The new hotel had a second event planned on Saturday which we had to share floorspace with. Hot weather killed some of Saturday. Despite all of this, the con persevered. It found its niche, and it was still an amazing amount of fun for those who knew how to seek it. A con is not just its events. It's the people who work towards making it what it is.

I wouldn't trade my experience at Antheria for anything. I made a lot of friends, I put a lot of effort into helping as much as I could, and I got a lot of laughs out of it all. (Like Niles tripping and falling nearly six feet forward at the start of closing ceremonies). For me, Antheria highlighted why I am furry and why I want to continue to be furry. We are a community. We come from all ages, all spectrums of life. And we're united by our love of anthropomorphic characters. We are who we make ourselves out to be, and we can do almost anything when we put our best paw forward.

In a related note, I want a fursuit now.

*collapses* I am far too tired to think. Day 3 was AMAZING. My god, I can't remember the last time I had this much fun.

I will admit that while Day 2 was far from perfect, I still had an amazing time. I am glad I volunteered. It keeps me busy, I meet awesome people, and I get pats on the head from 2 and hugs from Toast.

Today was a blur, so I'll go over the highlights.

First thing when I get there, I get my Tardo badge (all volunteers with enough minimum hours got them for freeeee). I am in love with the adorableness that is my Tardo Badge.

Second, I'm put on door duty for all of like 10 minutes before I'm sent with Question Mark and some of the other volunteers to help set up for the Beach Party. Sadly, when we got there, we all determined that while non-suiters would be fine, the site was 10 minutes from the hotel, setting up a headless lounge would be nigh-impossible, and a hazard if someone fell to heatstroke. The fursuit games and stuff that were planned for the beach will be moved to the Lagoon tomorrow, which is catty-corner from the hotel, instead of a 10 minute walk.

We get back, and lounge around in the staff room for a while, listening to the con staff discuss plans and alternatives. I take a brief trip to Con Ops to say hello, before returning in time to be recruited to help in a search for Warp Hammer. Not sure if we ever found him. Then we take more breaks, alternate at door duty for a while, and just hang out and relax. We briefly help carry in waters, which we passed out for free to attendees, especially suiters if we saw them.

The ballroom we had last night was rented out to another event until 7 PM tonight. This event was, of all things, a bridal shower. Many of us feared we would somehow ruin their event, but to the contrary, at one point some of the women leap out into the hallway, cartoon-style, LATCH themselves onto three suiters, and DRAG them into the shower. Our security was a mixture of fear and laughter, and we let it go. Before I forget, I'd also like to thank Question Mark for making my door duty less boring, and answering all my questions I had about fur suits.

After the bridal shower ended, we helped set up the ballroom. We did it almost literally faster than 2 could turn around to explain how he wanted the front of the room set up. It was THAT fast. We were awesome. I enjoyed Uncle Kage's show and 2's show. I had never seen Uncle Kage's show before, and I was amused. And while 2 reused a couple jokes I had heard at the Comedy Story two weeks ago, I still found them amusing. Its all in the delivery, I supposed. Or they're really damn good jokes. Or both.

After, instead of going to the dance, a bunch of us went to Room 223 for drinks and pizza. We had some laughs, and I heard amusing stories. And now I have a headache, and need sleep. No, I didn't drink alcohol. I don't drink and drive. I had soda.

Today was an experience. I had a lot of fun.

To be fair, there was some problems with registration that, once everything got ironed out, allowed things to proceed smoothly and hardly set the con back from its schedule.

I went and got lunch with some furs, and one was in suit which made for some entertaining pictures and glances. They were  Atomisk,  jasentamiia, and  angelgothfox (in suit). If I messed that up, let me know. Later, we were joined by someone who's name I can't remember. Sorry D=

Later in the day, I volunteered for a while, which resulted in me guarding the door. Pretty easy. It also led to some hilarious conversations. I took some notes down to remember the better ones, which I will now post without context!

"There's an elevator, you know."

"Even if you pulp and and dry out Rush Limbaugh, he'd still take up an entire hotel room." "But that's what the new George Foreman Mangrill is for. It drains out all the fat." "Perfect for Grilling A-Holes." "What?!"

"This is madness!" "No! This is Antheria!"

"Vampires suck, figuratively and literally." "At least in the 1940's they didn't sparkle in the sunlight." "I remember when I used to sparkle in the sunlight."

"Welcome to Hallcon 2010!" "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges."

"It was so squishy I could put it in my mouth."

"I know what it is, but the headless lounge always sounds painful." "You know, I gave head all the time."

"I'm gonna buy it and suck it off." (This one was 2, The Ranting Gryphon)

In other news, I hung out with  baddwill during Hallcon. He's pretty damn cool.

Excitement: Antheria is tomorrow. Got a lot of work done for my classes to make up for the lack of work I'll be getting done this weekend. Good job, me! No writing got done, because of that.

Disappointment: Got my first driving ticket because I was very smart and was caught texting while driving, along with 5 other drivers at the same intersection in a 10 minute period. Failpine.

Once again, late. Not much to talk about today. Got about 1200 words done, but not entirely satisfied with it. I'll rework it later, since its close to what I want and won't massively impact anything I write after it.

Antheria on Friday! Woo!

Sorry this was so late. Boring day, had a midterm. Did some Bar Trivia.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to Antheria! Because its 18 miles away. So of course I'll go. I might miss Saturday though, but that;s cool.

I'll be writing more tomorrow. I know what I'm going to write about.

Today was an uninteresting day overall, so I decided to spice it up with some background on me. But first, my day in a nutshell.

I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:00 AM for no reason I can fathom. My alarm wasn't set for another hour and a half, and class didn't start until 10 AM. I rolled over and tried to sleep unsuccessfully. I check my e-mail, see my group can't meet for Operating Systems until Wednesday, reply, and try to sleep again. I fail.

10 AM rolls around and I find myself in class. Midterms aren't graded yet, lecture was long, and I was tired. Class ends, and I step into a literaly frying pan. The weather today was FUCKING HOT on the "How warm is it-o-meter" at a whopping 113 degrees. Record breaker indeed.

I spend the rest of the day in my room, wondering why my AC isn't working. It made me very sad. I spent hours looking for a screwdriver so I could remove the filter and clean it, which helped slightly, but it barely made a dent in the heat. I go to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream, which was not as satisfying as I would have liked. I went through 6 bottles of water today trying to beat the heat unsuccessfully.

5 PM comes and goes, I have dinner, which was ravioli, garlic bread, and some sort of meat which passed for cheap steak. Drank some delicious limeade which really helped. 6 PM, we have our weekly Chapter. It went by amazingly fast, even with the LEC (Leadership and Education Consultant) who is visiting giving a speech on recruitment.

After, I played a bit of DotA now that the heat is dying down and I can relax, and then started studying for a midterm I have tomorrow. Went to get some late night Subway, and noticed its still like 80 degrees out, at 11:30 PM. What. The. Fuck.

And now I find myself here, doing my daily journal.

So how did I become a furry? I can actually remember quite a bit about how this came about. When I was young, like ... 5th grade or 6th grade, I would go to bed when I was told like a good little boy. But I was never tired, so I'd lay awake at night imagining I was on an adventure. This would last until I fell asleep, or reached a good place to 'pause' for the night.

What were these adventures?
They started out simple enough. I was a 7 foot tall anthro wolf (didn't know the term anthropomorphic at that age, but whatever) named Xtreme (I was young, leave me alone >.<). I wore armor very reminiscent of Reploids from the Mega Man X series. I used claws and a gun, some sort of handgun, for weapons. I'd travel between dimensions, doing heroic things, which as it turned out meant traveling to video game universes of whatever video games I was enjoying at the time. N64 was glorious for this, because "Nintendo Loves Furries" and we all know it. As it turned out, the worlds I spent the most time in were furry bait.

Anyway, moving on. I don't remember specifics of most stories, but there was a recurring villain, a raptor named Tech, who had a drill for a tail, and was from whatever world I (Xtreme) was from. Eventually, perhaps because my own imagination couldn't kill off what was effectively my 'evil' side, Tech became good, or at least a rival-like character instead of a villain, and I somehow ended up settling down in the Diddy Kong Racing world, participating in races and living happily ever after.

Except not, because that would be boring. My little imagination decided to do a time skip of about 12 to 14 years. Xtreme was a lot older and had a wife, a slightly shorter, female wolf whose name I cannot remember for the life of me. And they had a son. Oddly enough, my viewpoint was also no longer through Xtreme, but this wolf son, Anex. Xtreme became, effectively, an NPC and a father-figure to me in my own little world. I suspect this was because the older, heroic wolf had outlived his usefulness as a struggling hero, and I needed someone closer in age to identify with.

In either case, Tech had become brainwashed by some villain I don't honestly remember, and became the recurring mini-boss of sorts. The big bad ... I honestly don't remember ... Was going through all the freed worlds Xtreme had saved and enslaving the inhabitants. I, now as Anex, had to save the day. Some notable differences that I can recall are that Anex didn't use anything but his claws, and his armor was if anything less splendid than his father's. I don't even think he/I had metal armor until late into these mind games. I think it was leather or something similar.

I honestly don't know when or why I stopped playing these imaginative games. I think it was about two years after it started, when I discovered masturbation and furry porn. That would have been the summer before eighth grade. I think the loss of innocence may have prevented me from identifying with Anex any more, or perhaps I was too busy fantasizing about other things. I'll probably never know what happened.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. That's kind of how I started out as a furry. I realize it doesn't fill in the gap fully, but it was pretty much this: "Huh, I'm a wolf when I play these games. And I like *insert characters here* I wonder if there's porn of them doing it with a wolf!" And so there was. And so it came to pass, I was a full-fledged furry.

Anyway,

Today was an exceptionally lazy day. I barely got 20 words to a page, one whole sentence.

I had no homework. I did some house cleaning at the frat because we have an LEC visiting through Tuesday. Otherwise, pretty quiet. Played some games, watched Youtube videos, watched 2 Sense 2.2.

I'll try to be a bit more productive tomorrow.

Drank way too much last night at our bumpin' frat party. Woke up on the bathroom floor with a blanket thrown over me. I don't remember how I got there. I had to have people explain to me how it happened.

Amazingly, I had no hangover. What.

I spent the day with my family, and doing laundry since the dryer at my frat house is broken and the cover I had needed a cleaning, badly.

Didn't get any writing done today, but I did come up with some ideas for how I want the story to progress so I'll be working on that tomorrow.

Overall, a rather uneventful day.

Spent most of the morning listening to FBA Post Up Podcast (first time listening to it, and loving it. And I hate basketball XD).

And then I ate at Denny's. And I ate way, way too much. Blech.

Sat down to resume writing, and cranked out something much better than I had yesterday. It was alot easier to write, words came more quickly, and more natural. I'm satisfied with it, for now. I posted yesterday's draft in scraps, and today's draft in Submissions. I'll move it to scraps in the future.

Check them both out if you dare, and help a 'pine out with criticism, etc.

Crummy version (scraps): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4528274/
Better version: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4528295

Be advised, some strong language is present. Feedback is appreciated! I'm a tough porcupine, I can take it.

Thursday, I don't have class. With no pressing projects due, I'm taking a day off to finally sit down and write.

Anyone who reads this, do you happen to know anyone who'd be willing to do critiques and help? I've started and the first scenes always feel very forced, and rather dull. To me, it feels like I'm RPing with myself, but nothing really interesting is happening. Maybe I'm overly critical of myself, but help would be appreciated. I've got about 400 words and am just staring at them and hating them.

Not much happening today otherwise. Went to McDonalds for the first time in like 2 years and had McNuggets. They were average for McDs food.

The former, was frankly unsatisfying. Waking up at 6 AM to cram in some last-minute studying before the OS exam at 10 AM. Sat between two people who desperately needed to learn how to use soap (damn programmers). Exam was okay, probably pulled a B.

The latter, though, was greatly satisfying. 4 frat brothers and myself went to another chapter at our crosstown rivals. They're Rush is starting up, so we lent them a helping hand. And got free food out for our efforts. And also did some gladiator-type stuff in a bounce house. Which was frikken' sweet. Met a lot of cool alumni and frat brothers. Had a blast. And now I'm here.

Writing Progress:
I've decided that, since I have outlines, I won't limit myself to one story. Though my bigger project will definitely be my original piece, the other one I will be doing is the Pokemon story. This is so that I can always flip between the other when I need a break, and also so I can get a feel for writing two entirely different stories, and play around. If I settle on only doing one, I'll be better off for having attempted the other.

Unrelated:
My school's download and upload speeds are 24.31 mbps and 19.41 mbps, respectively.

So I'm going to start up a new habit, for no discernible reason.

I'll be trying to do a journal per day. Most of it will be random stuff about my daily life, while others might be questions posed at those watching me, or memes stolen from other furs. Remember, these are mostly for me, as a way to catalog my day, so if they bore you, skip them!

Today was a pretty low-key day. Finished reading Waterways, and loved every moment of it. Then I slept until the afternoon.

Played a few games of Defense of the Ancients (and totally stomping face as Tauren Chieftain) before settling in to do some studying.

I've got a midterm early on Wednesday (Operating Systems x.x), which I'm not looking forward to. Because of the exam, I had to miss out on Bar Trivia tonight with my fraternity, so I am t3h sadz.

One of the pictures in my texbook makes no sense. Its discussing how users of an OS might view their system. Students might see it as an interface to the web, programmers as a collection of tools for creating software, a businessman as a means to use their company software, and non-specific technicians ... see it as a crocodile eating a city. Don't ask me, that's what the book uses for a picture.

In other news, I'm super-excited. This previous Friday, I got my first car and its super shiny and awesome <3 I love the color, the interior, everything. My parents are paying the monthlies while I finish up school and for a while after that, and when the lump sum payment comes in 5 years, that'll be my responsibility, and the car will be mine.

FOR THE WATCHERS:
I am tinkering around with three stories. I am at an impasse because I don't know what I'd rather work on. I'm mostly just outlining things now, so nothing's quite in prose form yet.
Idea 1: A darkly themed Pokemon fan fiction following the exploits of a human scientist caught up in a sinister series of experiments, before he becomes one himself. Non-sexual.
Idea 2: A Megaman X fan fiction set in a slightly alternate universe, during the events of Megaman X5. This would be heavily based on my IRC RPG I run (speaking of which, if you're interested in joining, ask). May contain some sex.
Idea 3: A completely original story set in a yet-unnamed world filled with anthropomorphic characters. It will center around a young adult porcupine who is tasked with replacing his father as village chieftain, and a bloody war that sweeps the world and drives friends and nations apart. Sexual things of a sexual nature 99.7% guaranteed.

This is mostly for those who watched me (as a thanks for watching them, I would assume, since I don't do anything else, yet XD) and anyone who comes across my page by chance.

Should I try my hand at writing? Seems like something I could do in my spare time, which I find I have more of as I get later into my years at college.

If I did, should it be clean or something dirty? Something short or something long and in-depth? Fetish-based or just a good story?

Merf, after reading this over, it seems like a silly idea to be asking, since that means I'm not inspired enough to do it myself... *rubs his head*

Never done a journal before, here or anywhere else. For anything. But enough about that.

I guess I feel a little lost, and in a way that feels very foreign to me. I have a social life I'm happy with, am working on a degree I'm enjoying, and know I'll have a steady job once I graduate. So why am I lost? I feel like I'm ignoring an important part of who I am.

I'm uninvolved anywhere in the furry community. I'm a watcher with nothing to offer back. I don't go to Cons (although I'd like to some day), I don't know any Furs local to me (but I know they must exist somewhere), and I can't/don't do art or music... So where do I start? That's why I feel lost. I'm ignoring this great piece of myself, because I don't know what to do with it.

And this last part might be because I'm shy, but I can never bring myself to leave comments, either when I +fav something or add someone to my Watch list. Thinking about it, it is kind of silly, but that's also because I don't know what to say. I guess I could start by saying "Hi" I guess, but that feels corny.