Mellow Mondays, Episode 1: October 5, 2015

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the first episode of a new blog series, Mellow Mondays! This is basically my way of trying to connect personally with you guys, I’ll be talking a lot about real life stuff, and things such as Q&As will also be posted within this blog series. For this first episode, I’m not gonna say much, just a little bit of information about myself, and how I became a brony and fimfiction writer. Without any further delay, let’s get started with this week’s Mellow Monday.

So, to start things off, a little bit about me: My real name is Maxwell Rodney Johnson Diaz-Coker Jr., but I go by Max. I’m 18, and a freshman at Diablo Valley College, which is a popular community college in California’s Bay Area. I like to think of myself as a pretty big guy; I’m only an inch shy of being six and a half feet tall, and I tip the scales at a little bit upwards of 250 pounds, which, given my mexican heritage, is quite a surprise. The rest of my family, save for my twin brother, is pretty small compared to me. I’m pretty much a giant teddy bear, though. I’m a nice guy, and I’d never hurt anybody intentionally, unless I or my loved ones were in danger. I do practice Songahm Taekwondo, but I wouldn’t ever use the skills I’ve learned unless I had to, I do it more as a recreational pastime than for learning how to fight or defend myself. That’s not to say I don’t take it seriously, though; I’m only about a year away from earning my first degree black belt, and I’ve also been practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for about three years.

I have a strong passion for three-dimensional computer animation, and I’ve already racked up an impressive resume in the field for my age. I placed first in the 3D Visualization and Animation competition at SkillsUSA Regional Championships, and I placed third Statewide. On top of that, I was selected as an intern for PIXAR animation studios not too long ago. Unfortunately, they ultimately decided that they wanted their interns to be a bit older, and so they started only taking in those whom they invited who were over 23 years old. Though that opportunity ended up falling through for me, I still feel honored to have been hand selected by such a prestigious and famous name in animated film today. I have a dream of utilizing my animation skills to help make a game one day as well, me and a few close friends are slowly making progress on an alpha build for a game, so that goal is still a work in progress.

I also love anime and all things otaku. I try to keep up to date on the latest weeaboo stuff, but I’ve been slogged with school and writing too much recently to make any ground on that. My favorite anime is definitely Sword Art Online, mostly because the idea behind it is very possible and VR will probably reach that stage of technology in my lifetime, if not shortly after it. I dream to one day see full-dive technology become a reality… lol, I’m such a nerd.

How I became a brony: My twin brother has been a brony much longer than I have; he was a fan ever since season 1 of Friendship Is Magic debuted, whereas I’ve only known about it for a little over a year, and I only started watching the show about nine months ago. I pretty much did a marathon as soon as I started watching it, getting instantly hooked on the series as soon as my twin brother forced me to watch episode one of the first season. I stayed up the whole night catching up to the end of season 4, and I’m diligently watching each episode of season five as soon as it comes out. I became a fimfiction writer shortly after getting into the fandom. My twin wanted to start writing, but he didn’t want to do it alone, and so I made an account on this website. Fast-forward a few months, and here I am.

So, that’s pretty much it for this first installment of Mellow Mondays. I hope you all enjoyed. I know this first episode was short, but don't worry, not all Mellow Mondays will be like this, it's only short this week because I've been swamped with work and school. Also, I will be answering questions each week in this series whenever I get them, so if you have a question, be sure to ask it in the comments section below, and I’ll answer it next week.

Deuces, guys!