My days are a bit jumbled up but I think that’s ok with Reverb. What I like about reverb is that there are guidelines but you can bend them. That helps. Too strict and it turns into a death march , too loose and you don’t continue. Or that is my experience. I’m behind but not gone. May get caught up or just skip to the day we’ll see what happens.
Now we need to address Alchemy and Favorite things.
And once again they work together. This year I volunteered to help with a local Anime convention. We’ve been circling this group for awhile now. Emily got us involved since she found anime by asking what those ‘interesting cartoons’ were on netflix. J and I explained them and she started watching Princess Tutu. That lead to afternoon spent marathoning (most of ) Black Butler and Ouron Host Club, Fruits Basket and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. And more.
And we’d met some nice folks by chance when we first moved here who owned the local anime shop. And we’d hung out a bit so we started asking questions. And they run some super neat conventions here. And so we went. And we were hooked.
Em got up and sang and got such kindness and support from all the kids that we were hooked
Start at 26:59 seconds, her part ends at 32:10. Yep that’s me several hair colors ago in front filming. This isn’t my video, sadly that was eaten by a hard drive that was in process of being backed up when it died a horrible death.
It’s about 5 min long and this was almost two years ago… Not bad for 9! Actually pretty amazing. And in Latin.
So after that we started volunteering a bit. We did a panel called Positively Geeky about supporting your kids. And then I started  revamping their webs and social media presence—This group puts on 3-5 cons a year in various places in Arkansas and Missouri.  They spend the rest of the year traveling around the country to fund these labors of love.
This last convention, not only did I do the website for it, but James did a collection of Sci Fi movie excerpts for a riffing performance , we helped with the tech and I was the MC for Otaku Idol—the thing that drew us in in the first place. And I got the chance to support other kids the way mine was supported. And when she needed it most. This was about the time some mean hearted girls started telling her she was ugly and weird.  We talked about it just now as I was watching this and she told me how great it was to meet friends everyday  when she goes to the cons.
And all that volunteering on their websites? Taught me a huge amount more on wordpress and helped me get out of the old icky place and into my new job. How’s that for alchemy. So I got working on websites, anime cons, a happy child, good friends, my old friend public speaking (which I love and did for many years competitively) and finally helping a great subculture of kids.  Those are some of my favorite things this year.
