Wow. You know all those times when you start something new (a story, a hobby, a blog, or something similar) in the summer, and it seems like the best idea ever, and then as soon as the year starts you forget all about it?

Story of my life. I can't keep up journals, and I write so slowly any progress I make can be dismissed easily. That being said, periods of inactivity are generally a good sign for me, because it means I'm having a good time in real life.

Is the internet a place to go in between good times? A rest stop where you recover between destinations? It seems as if a lot of people have the same problem I do. You're bored, or going through a rough spot, and the internet is your best friend. You start having a good time in real life - boyfriend, exciting new school, active social life - and suddenly the only pieces of the internet you really see anymore are facebook and e-mail, because that's where you can organize your events. Places you used to spend hours on end, like fictionpress, livejournal, fanfiction.net and deviantART, suddenly fall off the radar. I'm sure there's been research on this, and I'd like to find it. What's your experience? (This is to anyone who reads this. I know. I find it creepy when people breach the wall and say "you" in a blog post, too.)

The past few months have been amazing, more so than I ever expected. I used to feel a kind of despair that childhood (the best time of anyone's life, as far as I knew) was over, but recently I've been feeling as if being an adult isn't going to be so bad, after all. I started college at Oregon State University last September, and I love it. My major is microbiology (with an automatic minor in chemistry) and I was lucky enough to get into the honors college, so I get a lot of the perks of going to a private university while going to a public one with in-state tuition.

I'm boring myself. The long and short of it is, I found someone special - a real Oregonian who wears shorts and T-shirts all year long, but I love him nonetheless. No, having a new boyfriend isn't the only reason for my happiness, but it's definitely a contributing factor. I'd forgotten how nice it was to have a relationship, and to an extent, I think I never knew. (My first and only previous "serious" relationship was kind of dysfunctional.) I feel pretty optimistic, and not just for myself. If I can find someone that suits me this well, I feel like everyone can - if they want to. Maybe not within a certain time frame, but it should be possible.

This entire blogpost might just be the jetlag talking. I'm in Scotland for Christmas, spending time with family, and today's the first time I've made it past nine without falling over dead. Anyway, drop me a comment and tell me what you've been up to. And whether the internet is an in-between place for you, too.

(On a side note, livejournal's spellcheck does not recognize the word "blog". Fail!)

There's a little "Booktique Bookstore" here in LO where old library books end up, priced so low that they're virtually free. When I went there one or two months ago, knowing not to look for any specific novels, I decided to indulge myself and see if they had anything on life in the desert or Greek mythology, two interests that have gone largely undiscovered so far. I was unable to find anything useful on the former, but there was plenty on the latter. Eventually I chose Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" after reading a few pages and enjoying the style. It cost me 50 cents - a true investment, I know.

I've been taking my sweet time to read said book, but I do enjoy it every now and then. Yesterday evening I came across a passage that really got to me, about "The Two Great Gods of Earth", Demeter and Dionysus. I quote:

"But he was not always a joy-god, nor was Demeter always the happy goddess of the summertime. Each knew pain as well as joy. In that way, too, they were closely linked together; they were both suffering gods. The other immortals were untouched by lasting grief. "Dwelling in Olympus where the wind never blows and no rain falls ever nor the least white star of snow, they are happy all their days, feasting upon nectar and ambrosia, rejoicing in all-glorious Apollo as he strikes his silver lyre, and the sweet voices of the Muses answer him, while the Graces dance with Hebe and with Aphrodite, and a radiance shines round them all." But the two divinities of Earth knew heart-rending grief. (49)"

Wow. If it weren't for the fact that the ancient Greeks thought it folly to feel true affection for women, and that hygiene was probably pretty poor in those days, this passage would make me want to backtrack and live in the place and time that conceived these ideas. I was stunned by the beauty of the contrast Hamilton describes. The Olympians lived in a place quite devoid of things that symbolize unhappiness or strife, and the Earth gods lived in the midst of horrid wind and weather. Still, I wonder. Would it be all that great to live up on Olympus, where all is fine and dandy? The gods there may not know great grief, but I doubt they know great joy, either. I'm not sure I could live like that - as my friend Chaney once said: "Life is stark. It's beautiful. But I'm not sure it's happy." Light and shadow come together, and that's what creates beauty both in life and in art. Allow me to be a complete dork and quote Kingdom Hearts: "The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes." Now, in Kingdom Hearts this mostly seemed to be an excuse to throw in some dark enemies, but it can be a meaningful thought, too. The more joy you have, the more you have to lose. At least, that's the way I see it.

Continuing with the Olympus idea, I've always wondered what utopia would look like, and how it could even exist. In my mind a utopian society would have little to strive for, and I can't help but feel that the overarching feeling in such a place would be boredom, not happiness. This was one of the many problems I had when I tried to visualize heaven as a child. People talked about this place that was perfect, but all I could imagine was a blue-white area in the clouds with millions of people stuck in some kind of static existence with no excitement whatsoever. It wasn't somewhere I particularly wanted to go. (Maybe that's why I slipped off the altar and into agnosticism - the only belief I can wholeheartedly agree with.) Either way, I can totally imagine how the Greeks must have felt much more kinship to the gods who knew loss and pain like they did: Demeter, who lost her daughter every fall, and Dionysus, who was ripped to shreds each year when the grapes were harvested.

I love Greek mythology. It's great food for thought - and I'm still hoping to come across some epic novelization of Persephone's fall into the underworld. (Please let me know if it's out there.) Now if only Zeus would stop cultivating children in random parts of his body, I could totally eat these myths up... oh well, nothing's perfect. Thankfully.

Hello. You've stumbled upon my (new!) journal. This may have happened several ways, but suffice to say that if you leave a comment to say who you are/how you know me before sending me a friend request I will be delighted to accept.

I started this blog because I didn't like my old one, couldn't be bothered changing all old entries to "friends only" and fictionpress wouldn't let me remove a homepage without adding a new one - pah! I don't like people reading silly old stuff that doesn't apply anymore. That said, I have an obsession with anonymity. Hence the title.

Every time I sign up on a new site, I find a new username that can't be drawn back to me. It started when I was... 13? 14? and started a fictionpress account under the name "Valoria Gilden". I was terrified of friends finding my stories, so it made sense not to use my real name. (This was before I realized that most people on the internet don't use their real names. Difficult as it is to imagine now, that time did exist for me.) Other sites followed. My e-mail addresses were always anonymous: wee.bob and rubbertusks are the most recent. Both usernames can in no way give away who I am. When I started writing a high school romance, I was embarrassed to sully (haha!) my first fictionpress account and so I started a whole new fictionpress account for it: Chokinghazard. Let me tell you, never in my life has my nickname been "chokinghazard". Fanfiction.net was the origin of the name I'm using for this blog: Randomboulder. (I had to think of a username, and when I thought of Star Ocean 3 and what objects within it were innocuous enough, I envisioned the boulders that sometimes roll across the screen during battles.) On youtube "fatalpancake" suited me.

A few years later and what do I have? A bunch of different profile pages that don't really acknowledge each other or go well together. I'm still embarrassed about things. When I read old stories or chapters I see so many flaws it kills me to keep the material online. The poetry is worse. I can't even bear to look at the titles of my old, old poems. Still, I don't want to remove them from existence because they mark a time in my life that I don't want to forget. (Namely, when I discovered fictionpress, and writing.)

Let this first blogpost be a milestone. I've finally admitted to having all these accounts. Now for getting my fantasy stories published, finding out some crazy scientific phenomenon and saving the world in general... I've got a long way to go. Drop a line!