Insights Into Teens: Episode 190 "Catching Up"

Speaker 1: 0:03

Insightful Podcasts by Informative Hosts. Insights into Things a podcast network Podcast Network. Welcome to. Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today's youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Welcome to Insights into Teens. This is episode 190, catching Up. I'm your host, joseph Whalen, and my caught up but little behind co-host Madison Whalen.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Hi everyone, Hi Nice adjectives there, Clearly you didn't write those in.

Speaker 2: 1:14

I had confident and aware, but it didn't really fit the theme today.

Speaker 3: 1:19

Fair enough.

Speaker 2: 1:21

So how are you doing today, Maddie?

Speaker 3: 1:23

I'm all right.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Okay, so we've been off the air for quite some time now. We've been out of the studio for an extended period of time. We are looking to get back into things, hopefully get back into a regular schedule of things, but our intention is to change things up a little bit. But our intention is to change things up a little bit. So, instead of doing a more script-driven approach to the podcast, where we read and comment and stuff, we're going to try a more conversational approach. The topics that we've got coming up are ones that you actually had come up with. So what are some of the ones that we've got coming up?

Speaker 3: 2:12

Well, some of the ones, all of them, kind of relate to the idea of growing up, because I'm kind of in that stage right now. So, figure, it was a good place to go at that point and technically, you know, I'm around the age of being as well. I am technically a senior now in high school, even though I'm not currently in high school, right, but you know, got the senior portrait for it.

Speaker 2: 2:32

So so it's official, you've taken a picture, you're a senior I mean, I guess I don't know.

Speaker 3: 2:36

I really don't know how this works. I always just thought that once you actually got to school you moved up to your class, but mommy always said that like no, after you graduated you're technically promoted at the end of your last class. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:51

End of your last semester. I guess I suppose so, or you're not. I mean, not everybody is.

Speaker 3: 2:57

Yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 2: 2:59

So a lot of the, a lot of the um, I don't know what are the concerns, the anxiety drivers, the pressures of growing up?

Speaker 3: 3:09

All accurate statements.

Speaker 2: 3:11

That's a lot of the stuff we're going to be talking about in the next 10 episodes, but I figured it would probably be good for us to sort of sit down and catch up on some of the things that have been going on since we've been off the air, some of the interesting things that are coming up and some of the fun things that we've done. So that's what today's episode is going to be, and then our next episode we'll get into the anxiety ridden aspects of growing up too fast well, hopefully we start off at least a little bit like gentle.

Speaker 3: 3:47

I don't want to get into the hard hitters like immediately.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Yeah, we'll try and stay away from the hard hitters as much as possible, or at least make them easier. The idea behind these podcast episodes is not to induce anxiety, which is something that we have to kind of get away from, yep anxiety, which is something that we have to kind of get away from Yep. Before we do that, though, I do want to take a moment to invite all of our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't already do so. If you don't do so, what are you doing? Come on, subscribe already, will you? You can reach us at, or you can find us, rather on, apple Podcasts, spotify, google Stitcher not Stitcher, I'm going to take it off the script Rip Stitcher, iheartradio and TuneIn. You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as Insights into Teens, or you can find audio and video versions of all the networks podcasts listed as insights into things. We would also invite you to write in. I am looking to get a call-in line that we can use. Uh, might not be able to do it live, uh, during the recording, because we don't always record on a steady schedule, but what we can do do is make a number available and let folks leave voicemails for us so we can feature the voicemails on the show and answer questions and so forth. But for right now you can email us at comments. At insightsintothingscom. You can find us on X. I won't refer to it as Twitter from this point forward, it is X, which I don't even really use all that much anymore, to be honest with you, but we're on there at insights underscore things. You can find high res videos on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash insights in the things. And we still do stream five days a week on Twitch at Twitch dot TV slash insights in the things.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Shall we get into it? Sure, here we go. So I wanted to start off talking about some school related stuff. School year's out now we had some interesting events come up, so the first one is the prom. So you went to, you had a junior senior prom at your school, is that correct?

Speaker 3: 6:10

Yes, I did, and I went as a junior.

Speaker 2: 6:12

So how did that work out for you? What were your thoughts? What was your experience? Did you enjoy it? Will you be going to your senior prom?

Speaker 3: 6:21

Okay, so I don't know if I've made it clear on the podcast before, but I think I've become much more of an introvert I think, as of late I was gonna say history, the podcast pretty sure I've made it clear.

Speaker 3: 6:36

Uh, and to those unaware, which I'd assume most aren't but you know, the junior senior prom is like the big school dance and so forth where, like you're not at your school, you go to. Like the one place we went to was like very nice. It had like this one outdoor area I don't remember exactly what it was called, but it was like it had like a really nice garden, there was a bridge, there was like a really cool dome outside, so it had like a beautiful outdoor area and the indoor area was nice as well. So you know, it's like a big school dance. Now, I'm not one to go to dances. The only ever dance I went to at school was during sixth grade and that's when we all were in the very small cafeteria gym area and there wasn't a bunch of us because there were like four sixth grade classes, so really there weren't a bunch of people and like I enjoyed my time there, but obviously that was only for sixth grade.

Speaker 3: 7:37

This one is for both juniors and seniors in high school and it's also supposed to be, you know, bigger, fancier and so forth and like our school does you know homecoming dances and so forth. But I never went to those, mainly my first two years because of band and then later on just because I don't like socializing. So it really did not make too much sense for me to go to my senior prom. But my one friend who was a senior wanted me to go so that you know I could still like spend some time with her in her last year of high school, which makes sense okay I also had other friends going, so it would have worked out.

Speaker 3: 8:15

Uh, so I got dressed up, nice, I had a nice blazer black pants and a nice rainbow sequins shirt, which it was nice outfit, and I got my hair done and it looked very nice.

Speaker 2: 8:29

I mean, unfortunately I didn't think to grab a picture that we could do here. But we have prompt pictures. We just haven't posted anything up online yet.

Speaker 3: 8:40

Yeah, and probably not as much as you had hoped, or at least mommy had hoped for me to get, because one of her things is that I need to start taking pictures more.

Speaker 2: 8:52

Right.

Speaker 3: 8:53

And it was kind of hard to do because prom was very overwhelming for me because like there were two main areas One area where, like the dance floor and all the music was, as well as like the chairs where you eat, and then another where, like all the food would come in and everyone first, like, came in and they were like a different couple of different like picture stations and so forth.

Speaker 3: 9:14

I got overwhelmed in both rooms, the one larger room, because I just felt like there were just so many people around.

Speaker 3: 9:21

Because the thing is, I get claustrophobic when there's people around but not when I'm by myself, like I can sit in a closet and be totally fine even if I'm crammed. But if I'm in a larger space with multiple people I all of a sudden feel claustrophobic. And then when I went to the other room, they were blasting the music and like you had to scream for anyone to hear anything and like my other sense was kind of an overdrive and I had to kind of switch between the rooms because it just was not comfortable. And at one point in the room with the music the light started to change. So my sight was also, you know, getting overstimulated, and thankfully, the one friend, who is the senior that wanted me to go, saw how I was acting and ended up asking, like one of the teachers, like hey, is there like a safe room where, like me, her and it was one of her other friends where we can all go, because I didn't want to be alone, but I also didn't want to be in a giant room full of people.

Speaker 2: 10:18

So it's probably worth noting briefly that you're what's referred to as a highly sensitive person. Likely that's what we suspect, and there's a lot of people out there people your age and in all age ranges that are highly sensitive, and even to a certain extent, I am too like in large congregations or in loud areas it makes me feel uncomfortable, I have a difficult time hearing things and so forth and a lot of public venues now, in fact, a couple of conventions that we've gone to have. What are they? Not sensory deprivation, but like quiet rooms.

Speaker 3: 11:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:01

And the quiet rooms are really basically someplace that someone who's overwhelmed by what's going on can kind of go in there. It's not noisy, you don't have flashing lights, you don't have people bothering you. It gives you a chance to decompress and chill out before you go back in digest things again.

Speaker 3: 11:21

So they had, or they came up with something like this yeah, at the prom yeah, basically we were sent out into the one outdoor area because when the dance technically started, like they ended up blocking the area off. But the one teacher like said that there was either that or like there was an indoor room and like our me and my other friends were like, yeah, can we like go out? And they allowed us out and we were allowed to go and like get food and so forth. So we pretty much spent the entire time out there and then eventually two other people who were kind of overstimulated by everything also ended up coming out and I was able to bond with all of them because, like, I'm fine with smaller groups of people, but in larger groups I can't.

Speaker 3: 12:05

And it was also really nice outside. It wasn't too warm, wasn't too cold, so everyone was able to kind of just like chill out basically, and it was much less anxiety inducing. But the only thing that happened and we stayed out there for pretty much the entire prom outside of like going inside for dessert around the time that it was ending, and that's kind of when the anxiety ramped up again, also when I pretended to actually be a part of the prom and try and take pictures because, like I went into the room at one point but the music was so loud and the lights were flashing I'm like nope, nope, nope.

Speaker 3: 12:40

And then I just stood partly outside the doors, zoomed in my camera and pretended to take pictures like I was inside.

Speaker 2: 12:47

So, bottom line, was it a good experience? Are you glad you did it or no?

Speaker 3: 13:47

I'm glad they had something else out there so that I could. You know, I was like the time I spent with my one friend and the other kids was definitely like the highlight of it, because it was, you know, the most calming part of it and I felt fine with it. The food was pretty good, though I don't actually think I'm going to be doing my senior prom because you know that was going to be my next question.

Speaker 3: 14:10

Because the whole point is kind of to be inside and doing the dancing and it's like, Like I don't know if if it's going to the same venue next year and I don't know if there's going to be another place like it, they would be. But you don't really go there to not socialize and so forth. So I didn't really get.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Well, it's just not your jam, and there's nothing wrong with it. I never went to either junior or senior prom.

Speaker 3: 14:38

At least I can say I have the on my belt for it.

Speaker 2: 14:40

So there you go, that's something right. Yep, so school's out. Uh, how did you wind up for the end of the year?

Speaker 3: 14:48

uh, class-wise, uh, grade-wise um, I got all a's pretty much that's a shocker there, because you never get. A's. I know, I know Big shock.

Speaker 2: 15:00

It's amazing, I know. So where did you? Where was your ranking?

Speaker 3: 15:05

I was third in my class out of like 200 something kids.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Okay, maybe 300. That's pretty impressive.

Speaker 2: 15:13

So you're done right. So you're done for this year. Yep, you're still in the, the Engineering Academy going into your senior year. What, what classes are you going into now? Are there any classes that you're looking forward to? I know you're looking forward to not being in a history class.

Speaker 3: 15:31

Yeah that that is true. I am thankful I'm no longer in history. I'll admit that that was probably one of the worst classes I had last year, mixed with the other engineering class. I had the period before that, so but they were terrible for different reasons.

Speaker 2: 15:47

So what are you looking forward to next year?

Speaker 3: 15:52

Well, I'm looking forward to having to not having like a constant array of certain classes Like, thankfully I don't have any more history. I unfortunately still have to take a science because, you know, my schedule got screwed up my sophomore year. But granted, knowing what kind of chemistry class I could have had that year, I'm kind of grateful I had it my junior year. So I'm kind of grateful I have biology now, so at least I won't be stuck with the kids I was stuck with, you know, freshman year and so forth, because I'm likely already going to have to be stuck with them in my other engineering class and having two class periods with them without the one friend I had in my first few years I'd be much. I don't know if I could really stay sane after that. I know I have to take calculus, advanced calculus. Technically I don't really know what to think about it. Pre-calc was all right, the teacher was nice, but it was definitely a different type of math, but I was still able to do fine in it All right?

Speaker 2: 16:56

Well, it sounds like it's kind of a wait-and-see type attitude.

Speaker 3: 17:05

I am kind of looking forward to the not technically academic classes I'm taking, like cooking and so forth, because at least those will. I'm not going to be cruising my final year, obviously, but it'll be cruising, considering how many other advanced classes I had last year, cruising considering how many other advanced classes I had last year and, honestly, after junior year I'm kind of just looking for any type of break at this point.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Right, okay, that makes sense. You also took your SATs, so now you know it's probably worth mentioning that our approach to your SATs this time around was you were testing the waters. You weren't going out of your way to take pre-tests. You weren't going out of your way to study. It was literally show up, do the test and see where you stand and see what you have to focus on, to study on. So in doing that, before we talk about what you scored on the test, how did you find the test? How did you find the process? Was it complicated? Was it overwhelming? Is there advice that you could give to other students who might not have taken the test yet? What are your overall thoughts on?

Speaker 3: 18:11

it, at least to get there and so forth, was honestly pretty simple. Everyone was honestly really nice and like. It wasn't at least for me it wasn't a stressful environment. I didn't entirely like the idea of taking the SAT, but like every and I don't know how like stressful it was for other kids who were taking it more seriously not that I wasn't taking it seriously, it was just I wasn't riding on it as much as a lot of other kids were, or at least you know, having had studied and you know hoping to get a good grade on it and so forth and overall our approach to it was you're going to take these, you're going to see where you're at and then next year you'll really take them and that'll be the ones that we use for college for you.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Yeah, so there wasn't a lot of pressure on you going in. It was literally just show up, check the boxes and see where you wind up with your knowledge yeah where'd you wind up?

Speaker 3: 19:07

uh, 1270, I think, was it 1270 it was 12, something 12 70 or 12, 50, I don't quite remember out of how much I think like 1600 right, something like that.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Yeah, so so are you happy with what you got?

Speaker 3: 19:31

I mean, I guess, considering you know, I had like no preparation for it.

Speaker 2: 19:39

And I think that's really the context in which we have to look at it. You literally went in there blind, took the test and really came out with a score that a lot of kids would envy, who, you know, busted their butts to try to study for. But we're going to take them again next year. We're going to look at the areas that need improvement. We're going to study on those and improve those and see where we wind up, and whichever test is highest, we'll take that and if this ends up being the highest, I I mean, I still think it'd be a good, you know and I.

Speaker 2: 20:17

What you score was was nothing to be ashamed of, that's for sure, and I think mommy and I were thoroughly impressed with where you wound up. So I think we're happy with your SAT so far. And the last thing I did want to talk about with school is you guys are planning your senior trip for next year. So where are you going? Are you excited? Are you interested? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 20:44

Okay, so I think so for our senior trip for our school. We, our school, always does a couple of days at universal and Disneyland, disney world, florida Although I can probably just say Disney world, cause I don't know if anyone any place else calls it Disney World, there's no other world, um, and I am kind of excited Not entirely for the Disney stuff, because I've been more times than years I've been alive, so We'll make sure we edit that part out so Mommy doesn't hear that.

Speaker 3: 21:15

I mean like it's not that I'm not excited, it's just I've been there so many times I mean I'll, I'll definitely help out anyone that doesn't know the ropes yeah, you're gonna be like a professional tour guide. You've been there so often but I've never been to universal and I am kind of excited, mostly because I hear there's a spongebob store.

Speaker 3: 21:32

So I heard that yeah so, um, I'm kind of looking forward to that. I'll obviously also check out the rides outside of the one Harry Potter one, because I hear there's the giant spider in it, so I'd rather not.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Well, and that's the thing. It's a shame that you're not a Harry Potter fan, because it's a huge Harry Potter attraction too. Yeah, so, all in all, you think you had a good school year. Yeah, straight A's excellent, scoring your SATs, you experienced the. You survived the prom.

Speaker 3: 22:06

I'll give you that I mean that's all I can really say I survived. That's all that's all outside of, like the grades and so forth. Like, if we take all that out and I just talk about my experience with it, I'm just gonna say I survived 11th grade, okay did.

Speaker 1: 22:19

I Did.

Speaker 3: 22:20

I enjoy it, not really. It was a very stressful year, I'll just say that much. It was probably the worst year in high school I've ever had.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Well, hopefully next year won't be nearly as bad.

Speaker 3: 22:34

And hopefully this year stays the worst year in high school I've had.

Speaker 2: 22:37

Let's hope we're going to take a quick break right now and then we're going to come back and recap some recent events that we thought were interesting.

Speaker 4: 22:46

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Speaker 2: 23:35

Let's dive into the gaming world together where finishing games is optional but the fun is guaranteed. Welcome back to Insights into Teens. This is episode 190, catching Up. So we did have some interesting recent events go on, one of which happened to be some highlighting of your artwork. So let me just set this one up.

Speaker 2: 24:11

You have a very unique art style that you tend to turn towards a lot of pop culture type stuff. You've made a lot of pictures, custom artwork for birthdays and anniversaries and stuff like that, and you made one for Mommy for Mother's Day. Was it Mother's Day, are you sure? Okay, so it was for her birthday. Yeah, because it was posted back in February. And Mommy is a big fan of Svengoolie, which we get we get here locally on btv, and svengoolie is kind of like a campy variety horror type show that you know they show old movies and they do funny skits with it and stuff like that. But one of the things they do is they invite you to provide your own artwork or pictures and they'll post it up on their website and on the show. And you had done one for mommy that was themed to Svengool. Why don't you introduce the actual artwork for us, what you did, what was involved?

Speaker 3: 25:20

Okay. So I wanted to obviously draw something for my mom's birthday and, uh, one of the ideas was well, you suggested the idea of drawings something based on svengoolie, because they were starting to like show artwork. Uh, that was submitted to them and you figured that when I finished it, I could also submit it there as well. So, basically, what I ended up doing was I wanted to add while I don't always watch the show, I have enough knowledge about it, so I wanted to add a couple of little nods to it.

Speaker 3: 25:55

So, obviously, there's Sven in his regular outfit, there's also the one chicken puppet he has, and I don't know if the one floating green skull guy is still there, but he's there as well. He also he's holding his one shield that blocks the rubber chickens. He's also sitting in his coffin and he also has a spear. It's supposed to be a stake and it's technique and on it it actually says like for dracula, but it's pinning like a dead chicken head on it. And then behind him there's like various iconic, like older horror movie characters like dracula, frankenstein and frankenstein's bride, uh, the Invisible man, as well as the sea monster.

Speaker 2: 26:44

So for our viewing audience watching the video, we have a shot of it here. It's the actual matter. It's Madison holding the actual artwork and in the background is the episode from June 15th of Svengoolie in which they highlighted it. They did a big intro and got our name mentioned and what was really funny about it was mommy has a number of friends who watch Svengoolie, some of whom she didn't know watched Svengoolie and when they heard that it was our town with your name, all of a sudden her feed starts erupting, with everyone wondering if it was really you, was it your artwork, congratulations, stuff like that. So there were a lot of accolades that came your way from the actual event itself.

Speaker 3: 27:37

And, of course, I heard mommy screaming when it ended up coming on and telling me and you to both come and see. So we ended up watching the whole exchange as well. So how does that?

Speaker 2: 27:48

make you feel to actually have your artwork featured on a show like that and getting some attention.

Speaker 3: 27:56

It feels good, I guess, because, like, I'm not super public with my art. Good, I guess because, like I'm not super public with my art, I do eventually want to see if I can be a little more public with my art, but I'm still kind of working that out. But, you know, having it actually like pop up on like television and like be acknowledged by a show, it's definitely like it felt good.

Speaker 2: 28:18

Yeah, that's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. So one of the other things from our holidays, usually the Mother's Day, you know it was a tradition that I had started, literally before you were born, making Mother's Day movies so we could kind of capture all the images from the year at least a lot of images from the year and show you growing up through the year. So for quite some time I made these videos and relatively recently, in the last couple of years, you started making them in my stead so that you could put your own spin, your own artistic touch to it. So this year you did two. You did one for mommy for mother's day, and you also well, technically, you did two for that because you did the highlight reel as well.

Speaker 3: 29:09

Well, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Which was hilarious, and then you did one for me as well. So this new genre of video editing that you're getting into, talk about that a little bit and what appeals to you and what's involved with it.

Speaker 3: 29:27

Okay, so obviously I've gotten into video editing a bit more and like I feel it feels like it's an interesting hobby for me.

Speaker 3: 29:39

I think like I like the idea of taking an audio and then various images and then putting the images together to match with the audio.

Speaker 3: 29:48

I feel it is almost kind of like the musician in me who likes visuals when it comes to certain music beats, and I feel like there's an element of that in it, because a lot of the videos I've made have had some sort of song with them. And I feel like there's an element of that in it, cause, like a lot of the videos I've made have had some sort of song with them. So I always like, when there's various pictures, I always cut it to like a certain beat, or I have, like the image or video relating to like something that's being sung or something that like you hear, and so forth, and like I really like that. I feel like it is a very creative medium because, like you're making an entire video and then, like you can look back and like watch it and see it all together. Pretty much I'm able to like tune them all to the beats. I can like zoom in, zoom out, move the images along, to make the video look more like a video and not just like static images and so forth yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 30:48

It's interesting because nowadays the technology exists to make video editing for the knob is very easy, even on like if you you dig yours on mac. Most of the video editing I do, I do in Adobe Pro for the podcast on a PC but, like, imovie on the Mac or Final Cut Pro on the Mac, has an automatic effect called the Ken Burns effect that allows you to take a static picture, add a little bit of motion you know, some cropping, some cutting, some, uh, some movement to it and it gives it more of a lifelike feel to it. But that's really only part of what it takes to make these videos. One of the things that you point out is timing the videos. So you've got a soundtrack to the video and in order for the video itself to work, your transitions has to be timed. And while you can apply a Ken Burns effect to all the clips that you have in there, it'll do all the moves and transitions and all that it doesn't do it to the timing of the beat and all that it doesn't do it to the timing of the beat.

Speaker 2: 32:07

And knowing that and knowing how you want to cut this up and how you want to arrange this is one of the things that really is an art form and it's something that takes time and it takes a certain eye and a certain ear for and I'd play them for the audience, unfortunately, but we'd get a takedown notice because we don't have the rights to the actual music that you have on there, so we can't really get the effect that we're looking for. But it's worth knowing that. It's not just about putting a bunch of clips together and throwing a Ken Burns effect on it. It's about taking the time, arranging the clips and timing the clips and the transitions to the musical beat itself is what the art form is. Plus, you go through and you review oh, I don't know hundreds of pictures from the whole year and pick the pictures that are best going to tell the story that you want to tell.

Speaker 3: 33:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:04

So it's another really good way for you to express yourself artistically and you're very good at it, thank you. So the next thing that we had was actually last weekend, was it? Yeah, last weekend we had kind of a health scare, was it? Yeah, last weekend we had kind of a health scare. So I got out of the shower on a Saturday morning and I found you writhing in pain on the hallway floor with abdominal, severe abdominal pain. Take it from there and tell us the story.

Speaker 3: 33:38

Okay. So you found me there on the floor and so I ended up waking up that morning and for some reason the right side, the my lower right side, on my stomach, was like I felt pain there and it didn't feel like any cramps. I would have expected like any cramps. I would have expected like normally as a woman, obviously and it ended up like getting worse over time. I tried like getting up to see if I could like what was going on. I it was kind of a way to orient myself and to see if I just like slept on it wrong or you know, if I needed to like do something. And then at one point I kind of tried to just go back upstairs and I ended up kind of just falling to the ground at the top of the stairs, writhing in pain where you found me, and you ended up getting me to my room and I kind of told you how I was feeling. Because if, like, putting pressure on it in certain instances would stop the pain, but then it would immediately shoot up in other areas.

Speaker 3: 34:50

And like we had a couple of different theories. We initially thought it was menstrual cramps, which I took medicine for. That wasn't helping, wasn't helping. We then thought it was a gas bubble because, you know, putting pressure on it it would move and so forth. So we figured I had to, you know, get some, get, get it out. Pretty much, but pretty much. Trying to do anything with that wasn't helping and I ended up shifting between the bedroom and the bathroom trying to find a way to get comfortable, and I just wasn't able to. Mommy had gone out at this point to get gas X, so that you know, hopefully that would help. I tried it once and puked it all up. We tried late. It was a couple hours later. My mom had given me some orange juice with what was the thing that was put in there?

Speaker 2: 35:51

It was a laxative that was put in. Yeah, and I was in case it was in case it was a constipation situation.

Speaker 3: 35:57

Yeah, which we also thought that was possibly that. So she gave that. I was keeping that down, fine. So then she said, uh, and since it still wasn't getting any better, she told me okay, why don't you take another one of those? I tried eating it slowly because they were chewable. Stuff still came out, and the wrong way. Well, yeah, the wrong way. And after that we kind of just determined that, yeah, no, you're still in pain, nothing's helping. We're taking you to urgent care.

Speaker 2: 36:26

So we take you to urgent care and you go back there, you're in pain. They take your vitals and do this. They check your temperature and all this stuff and their response basically was you might have appendicitis. We can't help you with that, you have to go to the hospital, which I have to tell you. The experiences that I've had with urgent care make me wonder why they exist.

Speaker 3: 36:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:50

If you don't have a cold, then they can't do anything for you.

Speaker 3: 36:54

I mean, yeah, and I still remember when I ended up busting my knees during marching marching band and, like we weren't sure if I'd broken them or not because I was limping, they said, OK, well, we have to send you to another urgent care because they have an X-ray or something. And it's like it was like a traveling back and forth and it's like why don't all of you have this? This is urgent care, Like what?

Speaker 2: 37:18

So we wind up at the hospital. So we wind up at the hospital. You wind up getting an ultrasound, an MRI and various other vital tests and stuff that they do, and what did they come back with?

Speaker 3: 37:33

The good news was that it wasn't appendicitis and the bad news, which, technically relating to the possibility of appendicitis, wasn't bad news I had a tiny kidney stone.

Speaker 2: 37:47

So you had kidney stones, which I had years ago. I had two occasions where I had them and I can attest to the fact you feel like you're dying. The pain is so big, you feel like something ruptured inside of you. So they gave you fluids, they gave you some medicine for anti-nausea and basically sent you home with a strainer and said here, pee through this until you capture it yeah which really is the only thing they can do.

Speaker 2: 38:17

They did give you pain medicine at the hospital. They gave you, uh, initially morphine, and they gave you something less than that, uh, afterwards. Uh, how do you feel now? How do you? How are you doing now?

Speaker 3: 38:31

well, I had started taking pain medicine when we got back, but you know, over the counter stuff, um, I've been doing fine. Honestly, I haven't felt the pain since. So thankfully, after that scare, I think I've been doing fine.

Speaker 2: 38:48

That's good, that's good. So the next big thing that we got coming up here is Wednesday of next week.

Speaker 3: 38:58

Yep.

Speaker 2: 39:04

You get to get up at like 2 o'clock in the morning or something to go to the airport you're flying out. Where's your connecting flight, san francisco? San francisco and I so you're flying from philly to san francisco and then from san francisco to kyoto osaka, osaka so you're heading to j? Tell us what's going to happen in Japan. What kind of fun are you going to have?

Speaker 3: 39:25

Okay, so there's a couple of different things planned. I don't remember the entire schedule. I probably should, because you know it's less than a week away but basically we have a bunch of different stuff. We're going to start off in Osaka. We're going to head to a couple of different areas as well. I think Kyoto and Tokyo are the next big areas. We're going to be able to take the bullet train, which I am so jealous about.

Speaker 3: 39:50

Yeah, we're also going to go to Mount Fuji and experience some of that. I think they mentioned that there might be an amusement park. We might do An amusement park?

Speaker 2: 40:02

Really Just some random one.

Speaker 3: 40:03

Well, there was. Well, it's not the one that you're thinking of right now. And then they recently put out and there's also going to be like downtime where we can get our own foods. There's also like scheduled foods where we're all going to be eating together. We have a bunch of different hotels we're going to be staying at. And then another thing that they had like just recently put out was that, uh, uh, the main teacher behind it and like the tour guides are trying to find, uh, we're making like excursion time where there was potential to go to tokyo disneyland which was like yes, please twice yeah so mommy was very upset that she wasn't a chaperone on this, but she was very excited that she has someone going to tokyo disney to buy her a bunch of stuff so so are you excited?

Speaker 3: 40:54

yeah, in multiple ways, I guess terrified terrified, mostly this is.

Speaker 2: 41:01

This is kind of like the prom. It's kind of outside your comfort zone quite a bit here.

Speaker 3: 41:05

Yeah, it's like I've traveled before, but never out of the country and never to Japan.

Speaker 2: 41:11

So yeah, this should be fun. I think you're going to have a good time. I think you're going to really enjoy it. I don't know how much you're going to learn, but have fun, that's the important thing.

Speaker 3: 41:22

Yep.

Speaker 2: 41:24

We. I don't know how much you're going to learn, but have fun. That's the important thing. Yep, we're going to take our second break and when we come back we're going to talk about a very special event that we attended this weekend. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1: 41:48

Insights into Entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things, from music and movies to television and fandom. We'll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We'll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We'll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions. We'll give you a deep dive into Disney, star Wars and much more and much more. Check out our video episodes at youtubecom backslash insights into things, our audio episodes at podcastinsightsintoentertainmentcom, or check us out on the web at insightsintothingscom.

Speaker 2: 42:47

Welcome to Insights into Teens. We are catching up on this episode 190 before we get into the more terrifying aspects of growing up too fast. So this weekend we went to a pop culture convention, which isn't unusual for us. We go to quite a few of them. This one was a gaming centric one, and the main reason or the main impetus for us going to this one was because they had a series of voice actors there from a game that you and I and Sam and some of my friends not so much mommy, but some of your friends played passionately.

Speaker 3: 43:28

And you have how many hours into the game right now on steam well on my computer, but that doesn't at all account for playstation because we have multiple 468 hours. Probably got more because I put more hours in since I checked last. And I think I had 767 or something like that, something like that.

Speaker 2: 43:53

So, and again, that's just through Steam, that's not through the PlayStation, because we've, as a household, have purchased this game four separate times now, and that game which, if you listen to any podcast that Sam does, or Sam and I do you would know already is Boulders Gate 3, which is by far the best game ever made in history as far as we're concerned.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Yeah it did win the bestest game of the year, but we went to see some of the some of the stars of the show who are the game, I should say not the show not really a show not really a show, um, but we went to see.

Speaker 2: 44:37

the convention was too many games, I think, with a number of guests that a lot of people probably would recognize some of the names, steve Bloom being one of them, probably one of the most famous voice actors out there. But we went to see Neil Newbon, who plays A star in.

Speaker 2: 45:01

And who won Best Actor Award at Video Game Awards. We went to see Samantha Bayard, who plays our favorite character in the game, who is Karlak Karlak, and we went to see someone who I did not see any kind of resemblance to her character when we met her Maggie Robertson, who plays Oren Right, met her, uh, maggie robertson, who plays oran right. Um, so we've never and and I have to kind of preface this, we've never gone to any of these conventions to pay for signatures. It's just I don't do hero worship, I don't do celebrity worship type stuff, so I've always had a hard time paying people to sign a piece of paper or a photo or whatever. This wasn't that hard for me. It was difficult justifying the first one, but the experience more than paid for it. So the first one, and we didn't even do anything to the show really at all.

Speaker 3: 46:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:09

We spent about four hours there just trying to get the signatures, and the first one we got was Maggie Robertson's. Tell us about that. How was that for you? How was that? Was the whole experience.

Speaker 3: 46:22

Well, I had an initial timidness I'm not going to lie, because it's not even the fact that they're, you know, the voice actors of my favorite game ever but it was mainly just the fact of being an introvert expecting to meet people like I can meet someone normally and be totally fine, and like it didn't even matter, like who they were being expected to meet and introduce myself to someone else. It's like anxiety kind of was at this point. So she was obviously the first one we ended up seeing and you actually like talk to someone else initially, to like get the payments through.

Speaker 2: 47:04

They all have handlers, so you pay through them. And they kind of set the this scenario up for the payments through yeah, they all have handlers, so you pay through them. And they kind of set this scenario up for the celebrity there.

Speaker 3: 47:12

And the one Maggie had was honestly very nice and helped. Daisy Daisy was awesome. Yeah, she helped to like loose, she almost helped to loosen me up to like prepare to speak with Maggie and so forth. And Maggie herself was very kind and also very funny. She was actually one of the. She was the only voice actor that actually like came with her own art because, like, she ended up drawing two pieces of art One was like a vampire heart and the other was Gerald the butler, the ghost butler was daryl the butler the ghost butler so it's also worth noting that one of the things that you did for the show was related to the artwork that we talked about earlier.

Speaker 2: 47:56

You have made several pieces of custom boulders, gate three art uh, for different occasions five at this point and we took those with us to get signed. But you also took an extra copy to give to each of the voice actors. How did maggie react when you gave, when you told her you're giving her a copy?

Speaker 3: 48:17

uh, when I told her I was giving her a copy, she actually asked me to sign it yeah um. So, basically, when she was signing uh, hers for my, for me, I was signing, I was signing hers for me, I was signing mine for her.

Speaker 2: 48:31

Did you charge her 60 bucks for it? No, so you should have.

Speaker 3: 48:35

I don't think I'm popular enough to do that. I'm good, I'm fine, I don't need to charge for that.

Speaker 2: 48:40

But she was awesome. She was so warm and so welcoming and funny and charismatic. She did her custom artwork for you. She even did a custom artwork on a sticky note for you. That was Gerald, it was just. It was such a heartwarming experience to see Like she saw how nervous you were and she went out of her way to try to make it comfortable and enjoyable for you. What was your overall impression of Maggie?

Speaker 3: 49:16

Very nice. I liked her Definitely, like, not like she actually plays more like evil characters outside of Orin. Orin is supposed to be like one of the most evil characters in the game, but she was, like, probably the most cheerful and, and what was funny was she never slipped in the character.

Speaker 2: 49:38

So you never got to see how she played the character, which probably is a good thing, because the karen orrin character Orrin is kind of a psychopathic killer in the game. So you didn't want to slip into that character. But, like mommy started playing the game but never got up to the point to seeing that character. So she didn't recognize the voice, didn't recognize the character. So after we got Maggie's signature, we went to get in line for Samantha Bayard, who was who we were originally there for because she's our favorite character. Had some timing issues with that, so we jumped in line for for Neil's and we're in line for a little bit there and he went for a food break. So we got a number to come back and we got in right away after that. What was your experience with with neo, with a starion?

Speaker 3: 50:33

okay. So while a starion isn't like my favorite character in the game, I feel like meeting neo was like my favorite interaction because like and like I've seen like he does his own, like his own YouTube channel and like he has his own playthrough of Baldur's Gate, so I kind of knew how he was like with the fans and so forth, and his interaction was probably my favorite because like he like it was very clear, like he could tell I was an incredibly anxious individual and like he like noticed and like made sure I was comfortable and also like even gave me some life advice as well, which was nice, and he also like constantly slipped in and out of character, which was interesting. So he was definitely like my favorite voice actor to meet yeah, I think.

Speaker 2: 51:25

as far as I'm concerned, I think Neil was probably the best experience, and that's not to take anything away from anybody else.

Speaker 3: 51:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:35

But he was personable on a level that I didn't think anybody would be under those circumstances. You had talked about being nervous, going you, you know, going into your senior year, and he kind of conveyed some of his experiences and one of the things he said was travel, travel whenever you get a chance traveling. You said, well, I happen to be going to japan. And he conveyed stories about japan and what it's like over there and what the people were. So it was like it wasn't just a factory of signing you know signatures here. It was literally a personal experience that he constructed on the fly right there and the fact that he kept slipping in and out of character like was just, and he was doing it with all of us. It wasn wasn't just you. I thought that was so cool and he just, he did it so smoothly.

Speaker 2: 52:33

I often wonder how much of an actor goes into the characters that they play and I look at our experience with Maggie and I realize that was just a character with Maggie and I realized that was just a character. She clearly is not anything about that like that character because of the nature of the character. I think that's different with Neil. I think a little bit of Neil goes into each of his characters to make them a little bit more genuine, and it sort of came out which you know makes sense as to why he got so many awards for being one of the best act, the best actor in the game.

Speaker 2: 53:10

Absolutely. And then, finally, we got to see Samantha. What was, what was the experience with Samantha?

Speaker 3: 53:20

So she was also very nice as well. All of them were really nice and she had an interesting way of going about like quotes and so forth, because with some of them you were allowed to have quotes and others kind of just, you know, put the signatures and so forth. And she actually had this interesting system where you would roll a D20 and like it would be one of like the famous quotes from Carlyle, because she has some of the most quotable lines.

Speaker 2: 53:46

Yeah, she does.

Speaker 3: 53:48

I thought it was funny that one of the lines I ended up seeing on it was oh, was that Gail's granddad?

Speaker 4: 53:55

And I thought that was kind of adorable.

Speaker 3: 53:58

I ended up rolling a 13 on it and it was hey, good looking, which I thought was a pretty good quote. So she added it, and then we also obviously got a picture with her. So she was very nice. All of them obviously were, so we got a bunch of pictures with all of them.

Speaker 2: 54:12

Yeah, it was kind of unfortunate because by the time we got to Samantha it was about an hour before the end of the show. We were exhausted. Clearly she was exhausted. She had been there for a three-day show, yeah, so the fatigue was sort of setting in. So it wasn't as energetic an experience as we got with Neil, but we got Neil right after he had lunch too.

Speaker 3: 54:37

I mean yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:39

It was all about timing there, but I'm glad we did it. I think it's an experience that will live with you for the rest of your life. I think it's an experience that will live with you for the rest of your life. It gives me a whole new appreciation for voice actors and how difficult the work is and how versatile they are, and I really, I really enjoyed it. What are your?

Speaker 3: 55:07

final thoughts on the Too Many Games convention. Well, it's probably a convention you have to go to for multiple days because it is so gigantic, and if you just go in there for signatures, you're going to be there all day. Yeah, and we only got to see one of the showrooms. They had so many other showrooms I probably wouldn't. I probably have to take more breaks, though, because outside of being in the signature area the main like area, with, like, all the booths and so forth, I immediately got overwhelmed because there were just so many people there yeah, it was packed so it was an interesting convention, but definitely one I think I'll remember yeah, I think it was awesome.

Speaker 2: 55:47

I'm glad we did it. It was expensive, especially when I don't walk away with any you know, star wars collectibles putting out that kind of money but it was definitely worth it. So I think that's all we had today. Um, this is kind of how the north new format's going to go for now. We're going to see how well it works. It's going to be more of a conversation. I think this worked out well Less pressure, more fun.

Speaker 3: 56:15

Yay.

Speaker 2: 56:15

We'll do that. Moving forward, before we do go, I want to once again invite everyone out there to subscribe to the podcast, if you don't do so already. You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights into teens. You can find audio and video versions of all the network's podcasts listed as insights into things. You can find us on apple podcasts, spotify, google, iheart radio. Tune in. Please email us your comments, your suggestions, your thoughts to comments at insightsintothingscom.

Speaker 2: 56:55

Look for us on X at insights underscore things. Check us out on Twitch five days a week. If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you do get a free Twitch monthly subscription. We would appreciate it if you throw that our way. That helps us keep the lights on here. You can find us on Facebook as well, at facebookcom slash insights into things podcast, where you can find links to that and more on our official website at insights into thingscom and you and don't forget to check out our other two podcasts insights into entertainment, usually hosted by you and mommy, and insights into tomorrow, usually hosted by you and my brother Sam.

Speaker 2: 57:40

That's it, another one of the books. Bye everyone, bye one bye, bye.