Super Villainy 101

My name is BigPharma, and I’m a super villain. Now I know all you folks out there have heroes, people you look up to, people who embody the change they want to see in the world. The difference between what you call a hero, and what I am, is semantic. In an upside-down world, I might in fact, be the hero. Unfortunately, in this world, my kind is the type to be called manipulative and opportunistic. In another context, the traits you normally find abhorrent may in fact be worthy of hero-worship.

How To Be A Samurai

"To be, or not to be a samurai!” That is the question that my brother heard me utter one day when he came into my room and found me hacking away at my pillow with a short wooden pole. No no…my actions weren’t those of an angry, angsty girl. Instead, they were the actions of a future samurai in training. I explained to him, with probably more drama than was necessary, that I wanted to be just like the samurai Okita Soujiro of Shinsengumi fame and he just stared, and then laughed. He laughed because he could never picture little ol’ me fighting Japanese assassins in the 1900s like Okita Soujiro did. After his chuckles subsided (and after I hit him on the head with my wooden pole in anger), he said, “Alright, I suppose we’ll have to do something about this current obsession of yours.” And thus did our journey to become samurai begin.

Itchy Feet

Two months ago, I did the redux version of my Toastmasters Icebreaker speech. Why did I redo the speech? Well, let's just say that the first one was delivered in typical moi fashion: improv with spluttering, nearly incomprehensible dramatic flair @~@ Suffice it to say, it was a disaster, so I picked a different topic and penned the following:

Do you have itchy feet? And by itchy feet, I am referring to the intense desire to travel, to be elsewhere. Last week, Ioan asked us all what we really really want. I answered that adventure is what I want most at this time. It’s always exciting to leaf through books, preparing for the next encounter with a new culture and people. But sometimes, the excitement can build up into