DAY TEN: PUT YOUR PLAYER ON SHUFFLE AND WRITE THE FIRST TEN SONGS THAT PLAY

Oh geez this is probably gonna be super embarrassing. I did technically cheat a little bit! I'm one of those people who ends up accidentally hoarding when it comes to everything, so I have a lot of songs that I literally never listen to. Probably sampled it once, thought it sounded okay, got it, and then never listened to it again. That kind of thing. So I skipped those songs to find ones that I actually listen to at least sometimes.

1. Melt by Ryo/Supercell feat. Hatsune Miku [live in Indonesia]
(I WAS RIGHT THIS IS SO EMBARASSING LMAO) This song is so fuckin happy. It's one of my go-tos for when I need a pick-me-up. And I like having the live version because the whole audience sings along to the opening la-la-las, and it's really cute. I have like a hundred vocaloid songs I'm so sorry

2. Paradise (What About Us?) by Within Temptation feat. Tarja
Within Temptation's lead singer has the voice of an angel, I swear. Tarja's (she used to be the lead singer of Nightwish) honestly kind of overrated? People in the comment sections of symphonic metal videos act like she's flawless, when honestly, the Within Temptation girl has a MUCH prettier voice. As much as I love several Nightwish songs.

3. Bad by Michael Jackson
L O N G L I V E T H E K I N G

4. If I Had You by Adam Lambert
This is a gay anthem, one of the songs of my people, and I will apologize to no one for it

5. Souvenir by Korn
ARE YOU GETTING AN IDEA OF HOW RANDOM MY TASTE IN MUSIC IS YET
When I was like 10-13, I spent most of my time outside of school hanging out with the boy who lived in the house next door, and he was super into Korn. That's how I know the songs of theirs that I love. (Also the Gorillaz, though I really only know and love Feel Good Inc.)

6. Break by Three Days Grace
In terms of the sheer number of their songs that I have, Three Days Grace is... probably one of my favorite bands? I've loved their stuff since I was an edgy 13-year-old. The original singer left, though, and then the sound drastically changed, so I'm not a fan of their last couple of albums.

7. Let it Out by Miho Fukuhara
I'm ALL ABOUT THOSE ANIME THEME SONGS SON
This one in particular is an ending theme from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, also known as possibly the greatest anime/manga of all time and my first mega-fave.

8. One Jump Ahead (Soundtrack Version) by Brad Kane
From the fuckin Aladdin soundtrack lmao. I have lots of songs from Disney movies and some other animated films. My current favorites are probably Hellfire (or God Help the Outcasts) from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I Won't Say I'm in Love from Hercules, He Mele no Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, and The Plagues from Prince of Egypt.

9. Dance, Dance by Fall Out Boy
I totally love Fall Out Boy songs, even if it's one of those bands that people make fun of all the time. Their songs are usually super dramatic and catchy. They're GREAT for making mental AMVs with, is what I'm saying.

10. Cold as Ice by Foreigner
Foreigner is one my favorite classic rock bands (classic rock is what I was RAISED ON, my dad was the lead singer of a cover band that rehearsed in our basement and everything. my favorite song when I was like six was Billy Joel's You May Be Right) and was actually my first real concert ever back in, I think, 2014? And this song was the coolest one to see live, because the lead singer managed to get the whole audience to act as a chorus at one point to do the backing vocals. It was really awesome and made for a great first concert.

DAY ELEVEN: YOUR FAMILY

It's, uh, kind of a mess? It's also very small. This whole thing is pretty sad.

I live with my mother, my younger brother, my younger sister, and two little dogs. My father doesn't live with us and hasn't since I was eleven or twelve (longer than that, technically, but that's a long story). He lives with his father (my grandpa) and his two younger brothers (my uncles). I'm not particularly close with any of them. I have one cousin on that side of the family, and we're Facebook friends, but we haven't been close since I was a kid.

I have two aunts, an uncle, and several cousins on my mother's side of the family, but we haven't spoken to them at all in years. We have no contact at all with my mother's parents. I've only met my maternal grandmother once, when she stayed with us for a short while, and then I never saw her again. My mother has been disowned by her parents, so we're legally no longer related.

Basically, my family is technically a normal size, but I hardly ever communicate with any of them. I literally couldn't put together ten people to fill up my reserved row when I graduated high school, and I gave away my extra chairs to all of my classmates, who couldn't seem to narrow their lists of forty people down.

Even my immediate family is troubled.

My mother is disabled and can't work, and she had a very rough childhood. She suffers from TBI (traumatic brain injury), arthritis, and a host of other things. She's been on her own since she was seventeen and immigrated here from Ecuador when she was ten. We're pretty similar in a lot of ways and get along, since we're more like friends and allies than mother and daughter at this point in our lives.

My sister is nineteen, the youngest, and... honestly kind of evil?? When she's being normal, I like her a lot (she IS my little sister). But she's a narcissist, a thief, and extremely manipulative. She regularly steals from me and says some really horrible things when she's mad that she can't always get what she wants (things like "you can't lose weight because God is punishing you for being such a horrible person"). When she's in a good mood, though, she's funny and ferocious and really strong-willed. She's starting to make money off of Instagram modeling because she got all of the pretty genes and is hoping to one day be a professional singer or actress.

My brother is twenty-one and generally doesn't cause me a lot of trouble, but he's unemployed and has gotten into some legal trouble that we're still dealing with (nothing serious, but still). He was recently diagnosed with autism, which explains a lot about how hard I had to work to take care of him and teach him to read and socialize when he was little. He's really nerdy, pretty effeminate (he generally doesn't trust men), and introverted, and he's obsessed with all things 80s. Because we're similar in our levels of obsession, he'll let me ramble about anime and games as long as he can ramble about Star Wars or GI Joe or Ninja Turtles in return. He's recently been swinging politically and socially right-wing and likes to play "devil's advocate" and go "well I personally think that both sides..." and it really pisses me off sometimes (DO NOT argue to me that businesses should be allowed to refuse service to gay people), though.

My pups are perfect, of course. Biscuit is three and she's rambunctious and needy. Gigi is around eight or nine and is a fat little cuddlebug. They're both very affectionate, spoiled, and lazy.

Though I have a lot of quarrels and issues with my family, I put them before everything else. There was a period of time when I was around twelve or thirteen when my mom was so depressed that she could barely function, and so in that time, I more or less raised my siblings on my own. After that, I had to help my mom recover and get through the divorce. I've always had a lot of emotional responsibility in my family. It's often felt like it was us versus the rest of the world, so even if we do fight a lot and they cause me a lot of stress, I'm fiercely protective of them.

To summarize, my family is my number one priority. Also, have you ever seen Lilo and Stitch? That movie is really special to me and I often cry when I watch it, mostly because I'm literally Nani. And Lilo is very similar to my little sister at that age. I feel like that sums it up pretty well.