with the semester winding down, i'm under a good chunk of strain. i only have one homework assignment that i haven't fully completed, and after that i'll be able to 100% focus on my group project. but until the 10th rolls around and i can get through finals, i'll be a little out of it.
i find myself posting here less and less :/
i've been scouring my image collection for almost an hour, trying to find a birthday or cake picture i could upload here for the occassion. i have a picture of Len with cake, but that doesn't convey "birthday." i have a picture of sacchin with a cake wishing herself happy birthday, but that's a little depressing. most of my other cake pics are of the IT IS DELICIOUS CAKE variety. i was kind of hoping i'd have something a little less cliche to post, but i guess i'll have to go with portal.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
but since i'm posting portal...
there i managed to put touhou in here anyway
so i'm playing through Ever17.
i would have played it sooner, but with the sudden influx of Type-Moon translations i had my plate full. after Tsukihime was released, i played it for 4-8 hours a day for two weeks. i did the same with Fate and Kagetsu Tohya. so i needed a visual novel break. now, with the relative lull until Unlimited Blade Works is released, i figured i'd give it a try.
last night i ended up on the Tsugumi-Sora Bad End. thanks to the fact that Ever17 skips even in the background, i managed to get on Tsugumi's good end in short order last night. but still. ever17 is a game that seriously makes you go "what the fuck." nasu is an excellent writer, h-scenes notwithstanding, and most of his works form a complex, multi-layered, intertwining universe. Tsukihime and Fate are games with an extraordinary amount of depth and complexity to them. ever17, from what i can gleam from the one route i have been focusing on, is more or less the opposite. depending on which girl you focus on, a different facet of identity and existence is explored as deep as you can go. so rather than forming a huge interconnected universe, it seems like a series of trails which split up and meet at the end. although, because the game focuses on human developement and existentialism rather than magic and sorcery, many of the revelations are powerful. tsukihime hit you hard with plot twists and unexpected character developments. ever17 makes you question what it is exactly that you're doing here, whether there's even any point in doing, and if you even truly exist as who you say you are.
i may be a type-moon fanboy, but i prefer nasu's approach to scenarios. the ever17 scenario is excellent, but i'm so used to having everything related to everything else that it just feels repetitive for one character to continue to drone on about identity and what it means to "live." maybe i'm just spoiled by Fate. i don't know.
i don't dislike ever17, i'll continue to play it. i have been promised the shitting of bricks, so i'd like to experience it first-hand.
the artwork in the game is fairly good. i like the character designs and settings very much. music as well is good. the english translation is a little spotty, but i can forgive that.
my only real complaint has to do with bad ends. this is more of a gripe than a true complaint. i really don't like having bad ends happen at the actual end of a scenario, with no way to resolve them except by starting over. i was fairly disappointed that i spent all that time reading and working my way through the game only to have tsugumi kill herself and everyone else die from Tief Blau. in any case, i'll just have to be more careful with my choices for the next four routes. although from what i understand once you're set on the final path there's no way out.
though part of me would rather drop it. a lot of what Tsugumi was talking about was hitting a little too close to home for my tastes. her condition probably isn't the same as everyone else, but there's no way to know what Yu or Sora or Coco will talk about. i'll keep going for now.
so i completely overestimated the amount of work i had.
i worked diligently on my first assignment during my lunch breaks all week. and even though i had to partially rewrite a data structure, i got it finished up friday night. saturday i debugged and wrote my report, and today i turned it in.
assignment number two i wailed on all day. i got the core functionality written today. all i need to do is squash a rather nasty bug from the previous version and implement another extra credit feature and i'm done. and with two days left, it's in the bag.
so now i am burning some DVDs and relaxing.
and by the way, i-am-boss.org is my webspace. it is somewhat minami-ke centric, because minami-ke is awesome. i even wrote custom errordoc pages for 400, 403, 404, and 500. you can see them at errordocs/xxx.html where xxx is the error code. in time i will probably use it for something more than storing random crap.
this morning, i woke up. i was pretty groggy. i couldn't see the time on my ceiling very well, so i rolled over and grabbed my alarm clock. after a bit, my eyes focused as well as they could. the time was pretty clear:
7:31
an hour too early. so i roll over and plunge back into unconsciousness.
my alarm jostles me awake precisely 29 minutes later. i snooze four times, just like always. i get up, turn on the TV, and do what i always do: internet.
i've had something of an internet job for the past year or so. i can't really go into specifics. but it's been on my mind for some time. for the first few months, i greatly enjoyed doing it. then i got complacent, and it was just something i did every day. and just like the days that came before it, i did what i always did today.
i was pretty lazy today. i skipped class and hung out. i did have to go to borders, though. i bought Aqua yesterday and when i went to read it last night i noticed a page was all torn up. so i exchanged it and, on a whim, bought GitS SAC volume 2. i came home, watched GitS, and got back on the internet.
i personally don't mind how much time i spend on the internet, i'm a college student and a computer nut. what was worrying me was what i was doing on the internet. this internet job i had was rather draining. i was planning my life around it to a certain extent. i would warp my plans to accomidate making my internet job easier. i was allowing myself to get too entangled in this silly job. and i had no idea how entangled i allowed myself to get.
so i quit.
i got a bit of a shocked reaction from one of my co-workers, and i imagine i will get more once word gets around, but my mind is made up. i am sure i was good at what i did, but allowing myself to get so entangled in volunteer work that i shuffle my vacation plans is not a good thing at all.
this has been coming for about a week or so, but what really pushed me forward was Aqua. the more i read, the more relaxed i got. the more my head cleared. once i was about halfway through, i made my decision. after a bit of chatter with my aunt, i affirmed it. i'm sure in the days to come i will regret my decision, but in time that will pass. part of it is thinking about how i am going to pass the days. i was so entangled in that job i would spend hours in here working. on nothing at all. just waiting for something to do. i'm suddenly realizing how much free time i have now. that has to be the best part of this whole thing.
i am suddenly gifted with free time. i won't be spending every spare minute of the day waiting for something to happen and worrying about whether something is happening that i can't fix.
and it's one less distraction. sometimes something would come up that would require my attention and i would be divirted from my work for hours.
it was a fun year, i had laughs and frustrations and good times and bad times. there is a part of me that wants to go back and say "lol just kidding" but that would be foolish. i have made my decision, i will stick to it.
I have no regrets, I have chosen the right path.
in time, these feelings will pass. and i will be who i was again. before this whole thing started.
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