Update: New Project – Wise Not Withered

Thanks to everyone who has been following my website since I first started it back three years ago in March of 2016! I have not been as active on here recently, and that’s because I am focusing my efforts on a different endeavor right now.

My current project is called Wise Not Withered, and its primary goal is to expand representation of middle-aged and elderly women in media. It started out as an initially angry effort to get more representation of older women in video games, but we’ve expanded that to include other types of creative media as well.

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No, it is Not the Final Fantasy Prelude

Okay, no one asked for this: here’s another angry/funny article. Haven’t done one of these in a while—in fact, the only other angry/funny article I wrote before this one was about Arianna Grande in Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius. And I already see a pattern!!? I apparently have lots of pretend/real grievances against Square Enix… Though this one is aimed more toward zealous fans.

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Why am I mad at Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius?

This article is admittedly a little late. I should have written it when the collaboration first came out earlier this month. Today I’m going to talk about FFBE’s event with the one and only Ariana Grande.

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I’m Back! ^_^ + Important Announcement

Games beaten during hiatus – Pokémon Black (again)

Games started during hiatus – Chrono Trigger

Games started and beaten during hiatus – Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Undertale (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Hello! Long time, no… Post. For me. But for you, read. Uh…

Hello! Long time, no interact…! (Is that any better!?) Whimsically Theoretical has been on hiatus for the past few months, but I am planning to end that hiatus, hence this post!

There are some ~significant changes~ coming to Whimsically Theoretical! As some of you may know, I am a music teacher and composer, in addition to being a video game music enthusiast. I teach almost 30 classes a week (Kindergarten – 4th grade + After School Music Theory), interacting with roughly 600 children, which means I have TONS of entertaining stories to share on a weekly basis. Those of you that also work with small children know that kids tend to say the most spontaneously hilarious things. I have decided to start incorporating little anecdotes from my music classes into my website!

Here’s a photo of me singing “Koriko!” with my giant group concert with TK (Transitional Kindergarten) and Kindergarten, from last year ^_^ With 6 classes all at once, it ended up being about 150 children in one performance. It worked out a lot better than you might imagine!!

I also mentioned being a composer! As some of you also may know, I earned my B.A. in Music Composition from the College of Creative Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara about two and a half years ago. I haven’t written much music since then (the program was pretty intense and I had quite a burn-out), but I have slowly been getting back into it, key word being SLOWLY. In addition to teaching anecdotes, I may also be posting some new music that I will be writing! 🙂 But these posts won’t be nearly as frequent. Don’t wanna force the creativity, you know? 😉

The exact format and schedule for these new posts has yet to be determined, but some possibilities are biweekly vlogs (I may just film myself rambling about my teaching day as I drive home from work XD), videos once I get home, articles with various images, videos about new music I’m writing with some thought processes and back stories, both videos and articles… Again, it has yet to be determined, and may just turn out to be whatever I feel like doing that day! ;P

Whichever format I choose to do, the plan is to put out something—maybe two things—every week. Probably in the middle of the week. Like Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Like today. We’ll see.

With all these changes taking place, here are some things that will NOT be changing:

general abundance of enthusiasm
sense of humor
an overarching and overwhelming love for music and video games

I will continue doing interviews with up-and-coming composers as well as musicians I find who are doing awesome things with video game music! I plan to continue my “Across the Generations” series, and I may also start a new series, if I feel so inclined. There will also be more reviews and in-depth analyses, so be sure to look out for those as well!

I have not said this yet, so I will say it now: THANK YOU!! to everyone who has been a part of this website, either by actually being IN it (I am so so SO thankful to have made a few really great friends with some of the composers I’ve talked to!! ^_^), or simply by reading my articles, and sharing them with your friends and family! I hope you have all enjoyed the content that has been up so far, and I sincerely hope you will enjoy the content that has yet to come!

A few side notes:

I like to interview up-and-coming composers whom I discover myself and take interest in, so I will not be taking any requests for interviews
I love to geek out about video games, so please feel free to send me any messages about your favorite video games and we can geek out together
I just beat Undertale, so if you’d like to geek about that game in particular, please feel free to message me about it (it was seriously such an astonishingly life-changing game, so please, talk to me about it!!)
If you’re also a teacher of any sort, feel free to message me about your experiences, or even better, post your experiences in the comments of future articles where I tell my teaching stories!
Comments are always welcome and very much appreciated! Please comment on any and all of my articles ^____^

* ~ Stay tuned for more interviews and fun articles on Whimsically Theoretical! ^______^ ~ *

Sadness and Music

Games currently playing: Brave Frontier, KH: Unchained, Seven Knights, KH: 358/2 Days

For those of you that have been following my website, or have read one, some, or all of my articles, you may have gathered—subconsciously or not—that I am a very happy and generally positive, excitable person. And this is definitely true in many, genuine ways. But I, like most people, have my down days too. I grew up, also probably like a lot of other people, generally encouraged to suppress any negative emotions, but I have learned over the years that that is not such a great lifestyle. I 100% believe, now, in feeling every emotion that comes along, happy or sad, “positive” or “negative” (though emotions just ARE; they shouldn’t be labeled as good or bad), but in the right context of course. Say you feel a sad spell coming on in the middle of your work day: I would wait until you get home (or at least until a lunch break) to really let it all out. Otherwise, I think it is so important that we let ourselves feel our emotions, particularly “negative” ones, since those are undoubtedly the most uncomfortable to accept. But they also give us the most well-rounded and whole human experience, because we cannot truly experience happiness and triumph without feeling rejection, disappointment, and grief.

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