Why my bard is Agi-build

People always ask me why I never get vit, and instead die quicker than a fly running into one of those electric frying machines. I think I'll list down a few reasons I'm never getting any Vit for my bard. Even if I turn minstrel...

1. Vit bards are incredibly hard to level, and I don't have the time to level them. It's already been over a year and my bard is still in the 80s. That's quite pathetic, considering some people can get to 99 in weeks. If I went Vit, I'd never level and RO would get boring, and I would probably quit.
2. This doesn't mean I can't get a little vit. But still, I won't go for vit. I like a more "all or none" type stat, where if I get some of something, I'll go all out. So if I wanted to get vit, I would have instead gone all the way to 80 or something, as is my agi. Similarly, I believe having low agi sucks more than having no agi.
3. My character was not meant for PvP / WoE. I don't like killing people. I hate it even more when people kill me. Hatred and spite are evil, we must try avoiding them as much as possible. Same with drama. RO is a game! We should all have fun~~
4. Speaking of fun, I want to have best of both worlds- Soloing on own and partying/supporting other people. By having Agi, I'm able to level and kill decently (against monsters), while at the same time still able to play music for others and help others level (or level with them by supporting). If I went all Vit, I would not have the solo/ fast killing capability I have right now, which would make my character, again, very boring.
5. I also like Agi more than vit because I find it hilarious when people use attacks that miss on me. :p That doesn't happen often though...
6. Vit you get hurt, you recoil. Agi you miss, and walk away.
7. Dying is quite fun!!
8. Pretending you're super buff by taking lots of damage is not as cool as dodging. D:


On the side note, I do think my skills could use a little change. While level 10 Perfect Tablature is pretty fun, giving up to 25 more flee, I really think I should have got level 5 melody strike because then I could REALLY do some damage. Also, Magic strings because apparently wizards would level more with you if you had better magic strings. :(

Finally.... Final grades for Finals

...though finals are over, storms are just beginning...
Can't help but notice how my final marks are. Barely above average, most likely going to drop me down to an overall B+ grade in Molecular Biology (and possibly Calculus) instead of the A- I was hinging on. What's quite depressing is how I actually make an effort to do well in Molecular Biology and fail to do so, while in other classes where I slack off as much as possible (BME 101 and comp sci 101), I seem unable to fail even on the final. A mere 30 minutes give me a better final grade in BME than it does compared to a couple days worth of studying Molecular Biology.

It's grades like these that make me feel stupid and useless. XP

Uh... WTF(reak)?

Today, while checking facebook, I recieved this message:

"hi eric. this is brooke from writ140 last year . anna and i say hello and we just were discussing how cool your cricket ringtone was that one time it went off in class. that's all. hope finals go well."

...

Randomness is people you don't know or remember sending you messages saying your cell phone, which sounds like a cricket, is cool.

Finals Finals!! FUN FUN!!!! YAYAYA!!!!

So, I should be studying, but I decided to take an inappropriate break to post in my blog, surf the internet, and basically waste the rest of my grade which is goign to result in wasting my chance to get an A in Molecular Biology. I also come to the conclusion that studying can cause insanity. So, by not studying I'm saving some of my sanity? /hmm I should get back to studying!!!!

But before that let's have a little unrelated talk about competition and different schools and such. I've been meaning ot talk about this for a while. One day in my lab, my collegues (are the lab-mates, like classmates or something like that?) were talking about how other colleges run labs and graduate programs, and apparently "big" places like Harvard have extremely depressing graduate programs. These are programs where people are all out to kill each other, doing anything (not just studying) to get the best grades (though I have yet to hear of anyone killing a fellow student for the sake of getting top grades). This was particularly curious to me. While I know that it's definately an environment I can not survive in, I also sort of feel that I could relate to something like this. Not intellectually, for I believe that my intelligence is not enough for any of these schools to do even basically well; but I kind of understand the competitiveness, even for a rather "lenient" school like this. It is probablyb ecause of my lack of intelligence that I feel this way. Anyway, while most of my labmates are pretty horrified about how these "advanced" school does things, I just sat there and wondered.
...
I can't for graduate life!!! :p *is so dead, taking BME and Bio major XP*

Hrm...

My class schedule for next semester sucks. :(

50 Q/A for EFZ

1. What's your Name(User Name/Handle/Nickname etc)?
themysteriousbox, Thomas T. Reusbucks, Enigmatic Cube, EngiMatikul, or anything else cube-related and can somehow be turned into a reasonable name

2. Who do you use as a Main or a Sub?
Main: Misuzu
Sub: Mizuka, Minagi

3. Why you use that character?
I started EFZ right after I finished watching Air. I wanted to try out Misuzu because I could NOT imagine her fighting in any way... I just stuck with her after that :p

4. How did you found out about EFZ?
USC Anime Club, while copying over some anime they had it on the CD. Ironically, I never really watched any of the anime on that CD...

5. Which version of EFZ you started at?
v3.10

6. What do you like about EFZ?
Specifically, I was amused with the irony of the situation, having supposedly completely innocent girls develop strange and original powers based on what there character is like. This is particularly why I like Misuzu a lot: her moves are very random, from having a stuffed animal blow fire to splashing juice to summoning Yukito to kick a dog... as of right now I STILL have no idea how Misuzu's juice actually hurts opponents, but I'm trying to find some logic in it...

7. How many people around play EFZ?
3 in Anime Club, one other person that I got hooked outside of Anime Club.
There are now around 5-6 in anime club.

8. Who you would treat as a Rival?
I suck too greatly to have a rival. And still do.

9. What initial you use to call EternalFighterZERO?
EFZ

10. Controls?(pad, keyboard, etc)
Keyboard. Laptop keyboard, specifically. I have USB keyboard now! Like a laptop keyboard...

11. Config Setting? (Damage, Diffculty)
Default Dmg, Very Hard. This does not mean I can beat them.

12. What is your Main Character's record?
Don't keep track.

13. Did you make any orginial color?
Yes

14. If you did make one, what kind of concept you use to make it?
Probably base it of of some color of some character that I made in a story I invented that would never be written out or published.
I based it off of my own playing around, seeing which design suited my tastes, and found that a color scheme similar to how a french-maid outfit would look seems cool. I even have a dove instead of a crow!

15. Your friend that doesn't know about EFZ comes. That guy don't know anything about Fighting Game and the orginial game. He just going to try for the heck of it, which character would use introduce him?
Depends on whether he watched Air, Kanon, both, or none. Probably Misuzu if he watched Air.
IF THEY PLAY RAGNAROK TOO I SUGGEST KANO

16. From 15, Why?
POTATO....KICK!!!!!
For Kano, all her Wizard based moves

17. Which loading picture you like the most?
Any that have nearly CG quality artwork.

18. Which version you like the most for Title Screen/Character Selection etc's background.
v4.01

19. Have you play the orginal game? (Kanon, Air, One, Moon)
No ;_;

20. Which stage you like?
Makoto's Stage, Akiko's Stage

21. Which Character's post is the most Moe when they get burned?
Kanna

22. Which Character's post is most Moe when they get hit by thunder?
Mishio

23. Which post(the post during IC etc) in the game you like the most?
Both of Tohno Minagi's IC poses

24. Which winning quote you like the most?
Misuzu, to Mai: It's Ok, because, in the end, you are not alone... Nihaha...

25. Who would you like to see getting add the most?
Kotori from Da Capo

26. Is there any moves you want to add to that character?
Hmm... I actually never thought of a moveset for her... probably something with psychic powers OR SINGING

27. Have you ever thought of using Kanna?
Not really. Her moves are too strong and not that funny, either D:

28. If there is a new version, which game would you like to be add in?
DA CAPO

29. What would you like to be add if you are able to change the system?
Something that can distinguish between Magic and Tech, then create moves that have respective effects on both.

30. Which character you have hard time playing against?
Anyone that knows how to use their character. :p

31. If you could, please tell us about one of the most common combo you use.
A, B, *whiff*

32. Is there any EFZ related homepage you visit alot?
World of Eternity

33. How many Off gathering and Tournument you joined?
Gathering every thursday at USC Anime Club. Went to AX tournament, did not join for incredibly obvious reasons. I joined AX 2006 tourny, with not so great results

34. How many replays you have now?
0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EDIT: I lied, I have 9 replays right now for 4.01, none of which are mine.
Now I have several pages of replays which I don't really watch, only like 2 are with Misuzu (that's not my Misuzu)

35. How many % of all character's movelist you remember?
Probably around 50%

36. Then how many % of all character move's correct name you remember?
Dude, it took me long enough remembering each of the character's own names...

37. Also, How many % of all the character's move's priority/frame data?
LOL, I just watch replays and copy their timing :p I think I remember like, 10% of move priority...

38. SURPRISE PATCH KITA„ª„ª„ª„ª(?Íß)„ª„ª„ª„ª!!
Can I download? D:

39. Are you good at RG?
No, I suck. I suck at everything.
Ok, so now I can kind of recoil guard... you know, recoil guard repeatedly through Shiori's ice scarf attack thingy 15 times before getting hit and frozen... yes, I know, I still suck... >.>

40. Do you always pay attention to your gague? (Life, super, RC bar)
Too often. D:

41. How about the oppoent's bar?
I should STOP doing that...

42. Would you switch/modify your combo while doing it, considering the stun time and life of oppoent?
I need to learn how to do that, I can't even recognize when they're stunned... however, I can switch from midscreen to corner combos now

43. What do you think is the key of winning? Skill? Luck? The love to your character? or..?
Probably practice. And obsession. I don't have enough of either.

44. When you lose, do you seek revenage? or rest a little?
Nonononono, the question is "what do you do when you win?"

45. Did you found all the hidden Lv3 super by yourself? or some one taught you?
I didn't even know there were hidden level3 supers :p

46. What word would you describe your play style?
n00b

47. Is there anything interesting releated to EFZ?
Mishio uses a Spatula.

48. How many point you would give EFZ?
eer, I never played any other fighting games other than EFZ....
Now I play Melty Blood. I suck at that too.

49. Do a self Q&A please.
Q. Why am I posting here instead of the WoE board that it came from?
A. Because I can be satisfied that no one who actually reads my blog will actually know what I'm talking about.

50. Thank you, please leave a comment.
I never played any other fighting game in my life, except Smash Bros, which doesn't really count anyway.
Desu!

Black Cat- Character of Eve

First off, let me say this has got to be the best concept of a character ever. Bio-weapon (basically, something like a biological robot) with the capability to transform and get wings like an angel... OMG O.O kirei....

Ok, but the purpose of this blog is not to make me sound like a moron way too obsessed over this little character. It's supposed to make me sound like someone who has way too much time analyzing and therefore is obsessing over this little character.

Now, first and foremost I'd like to say that the concept of bioweaponry as a little girl is the best concept of a robotish girl I've seen in anime so far, but still not quite logical. Considering that they wish to alter DNA at the molecular level, they would need to adjust each individual cell on the entire area in order for the biomechanism to work. And the character Eve supposedly has her whole body with this nanotechnology. Do you ahve any idea how much tiny machines they need to change the DNA??? No one vial can do that. Nor last that long. In fact, you might as well have the girl constantly wired up into a machine but of course that would be impractical as a weapon so it would basically be a waste of time and money. However, the thought is very intriguing.

There IS one possibility of making mini DNA changers so that every cell would have it, and that would be this: at conception, or shortly after, perhaps genetically encode for a protein that would have properties that could, say, adjust the DNA and possibly allow for control in mutations. This, however, is an incredibly ludicrous task, but at least it does seem plausible; make a gene that produces a protein that can respond to signals from an outside source (maybe some sort of wavelength) and have it change specific genes depending on what the user asks for. However, chances are the change will be incredibly slow and Eve would not sprout out wings at the spur of the moment. Additionally, a minor mutation in this gene can be quite problematic; while ideally the gene can be cloned from the cells at conception to the final product (human child?), a genetic mutation in at least one cell is likely to happen, and who knows what kind of protein this may result in.

In this sense, I still think my Ruby idea is a lot more plausible, but this theory shows that maybe something like nanotechnology and control of genomic expression can, by chance, be an idea in the far, far future? It's certainly more like a major upgrade of Ruby rather than another version of a robot, because you would still need the mindset mechanism to keep everything else in the body under control. (You know how scary it would be without one? Just think of it: "You're mean! I hate you! WAAAAAHHHHHH" *HUGE EXPLOSION* NOT pretty... ) Something like it would not probably sprout wings, and even if it does, it would be less likely that it would be suddenly capable of flying. Well, scratch that last comment, if the weapon had a program like Ruby's which can figure out the physics to flying and adjust the wings so, it may be possible; but it probably wouldn't look as angelic or pretty as it does in the show, or anywhere else. :p Still, the concept of the angel-robot-girl is so awesome-ness...

Ok, other issues. Plotwise, I actually am finding this very similar to the plot I would have developed for Ruby. Except that Thomas is not an evil businessman trying to monopolize the military, and Eve has less brain implants that would prevent her from doing whatever she wants. But the whole "let's free the damn robot" issue is there, plain and clear. And Eve is decently cute enough to pull this off, though her eyes probably are a bit problematic, imo. Just my pickiness. I would definately like to see how this will go along.

NEED MORE WINGED FEMALE CYBORGS PLZ. XP

(oh crap this is stupifying me down...must...stop...now...)

Honey and Clover

First off, I wanna say that solar did a really cool last-two-minutes-of-the-episode thingy. Wow! That's neat-o! But anyway, to the main anime stuff.

I think what's most intriguing was Honey and Clover's "light angst" sort of scenario. I think it's not traditional from the typical comedy-to-angst story, where the angst level changes in the anime; rather, I think the angst level changes very little from the first episode to the last. This is probably due to the fact that they would insert a random comedic and facial expression moment despite the angsty setting growing around the characters. In a way, this angst is very very dangerous; no longer does the viewer say "oh, here comes the angst *rolls eyes* this is stupid", but the angst actually comes up unexpectedly and goes away just as suddenly, and you never realized that you were pitying the characters until afterwards. Slick they are, slick indeed.
I'm still not an absolute fan of their drawings, but it was dealable. I like how the characters were arranged in Honey and Clover, though. They started out with only a few chars, then added more on over time. The characters that were added on were never truly major or became one of the "group", but they still played a very influential part throughout the story and each had their own depth. The main characters also had their own meanings. While in the first couple of episodes we are given the "surface" views of them, the characters become more and more pronounced as episodes go on. Music... there were some good, some not so interesting. Additionally, its not like "intro was good, ED was bad, OST was good/bad" but rather, some of the insert songs/OP/ED were ok, and some of the OST was ok. Eeh, that just probably confused more people. whaaaaaatever.

Dogs are so whacked up in Honey and Clover... >.> they always have that "I'm so cutely stupid please kill me" look...

My sister is more reliable than anyone else.

Well, my family is more reliable than anyone else. I've learned that throughout life's lessons that You can NEVER rely on other people. Except for my family. Whenever I asked my family for a favor, they would go through with it. Rarely does anyone else go through with as much devotion or thoroughness than what my family does. Consequently, I have been attempting to not rely on anyone else with the exception of my family, but of course even with my family I'm not asking much already since I feel indebted to their generosity and therefore wish to trouble them as little as possible.

This is just a short rant until my sister comes online. I called her a short while ago because I idiotically forgot some important documents at my parent's home in Covina. (Sometimes I think my family is more reliable than I am myself...) So my sister picks up and she immediately agrees to do so. Though I waited only a few minutes, she calls back later telling me that it might take a while because the internet is down.

That's what I like about her. She calls back and tells me something that I would have considered a trifle waiting and regards it as something important.

This is important. You know why? Because I know people who I would ask if they would do something, and they said they would, but they never do it. But that's not what usually pisses me off. It's the fact that I have to wait a while, and then call THEM, and THEN they make up some excuse sayign something came up so they couldn't do it. I HAD TO CALL THEM. And if that wasn't the case, then more or less it's being called up a second or two before, say, going out (assuming we would be going out to get ice cream or do community service or whatever) and then saying that something last minute came up. I don't know. I just learned to hate inreliability.

Lesson for the day: Don't rely on others for anything. Except if you have a family like me, then you can sort of rely on your family. :p

Relying on yourself would be helpful, btw, but if you have problems like me where you can't even rely on yourself to do things, man, you're screwed. Wait, that means I'm screwed. crap.

Tsukoyomi Moon Phase

Hmm... I'm not entirely on "full BS" mode right now, so I'll probably not bs as much on this anime as I should. It's actually a really good anime in all aspects, EXCEPT music. THAT INTRO SONG SUCKS. PERIOD.

But anyway.

Characterwise, the development is pretty nifty and noticable. Of the main characters, anyway. Hazuki's brattiness starts to wane as the show goes on, which is kind of disappointing, but also understandable. Her personality was still pretty charming, Hazuki isn't a bad character. I find Art more amusing though... but she was only introduced like, in the last couple of episodes, kind of disappointing. Interestingly enough, the show seems to be able to go on in future seasons, so maybe there will be more appearances of Art in the future... Turning to the guy characters, we can clearly establish that all male vampires in this show are evil. Except for one, which reminds me of PJBW's characters, but since he was mainly an enemy until he died, we really can't consider him too much. :p Onto the good guys! Seiji is pretty nifty, he reminds me of my Guai character in looks and powers, but more with Thomas's personality, though not quite. The old men were pretty cool. I mean, they could fight right? And as long as they can fight, most people would be happy, right?
In any case, I wasn't lying about the fight scenes. Those were actually pretty nifty. And not only the fighting, but the artwork in general was nice and "smooth". There WERE actually times where Hazuki's pose was very cute. Still, in general, the best of the art design likes mostly in two areas: setting, which was very very dramatic (you can really tell the mood of the episode depending on its background) and the fight scenes. Yes, they were action packed. Whoopee. *rolls eyes* The powers were pretty nice, although eventually all the bad guys had the power of summoning plant vines to attack the bad guys. Then again, most of the good guys just threw around paper ofudas and did fancy magic with that. Oh well, hope they can come up with more original moves next time, assuming there is a next time.
Speaking of theme, it's pretty interesting how they spread out the comedy and angst in the anime. It's like typical anime where it's "happy happy happy ANGST ANGST ANGST and maybe one more happy". This one goes "happy ANGST happy ANGST... etc." And it's not always just because there are multiple bad guys, so there's happy, then there's a bad guy and there's angst, and then there's happy again. No, even when there's no bad guys, there can occasionally be the "thinking back ANGST", and sometimes even when the bad guy is in his deep thought "I'm going to conduct my evil plan" mode, a random plate sometimes just falls onto him, for cheap if not excessively absurd and unnecessary humor relief.

Speaking of those random plates, I hear it has to do with a japanese reference, I think it has to do something with a japanese show. But I don't want to look into it. :p

Hmm... what else... plot. Yea, usually I don't look into plot that much, but I actually think this one is worth noting. Probably because it's not linear, and not "direct" is maybe the word? The enemy appearance is unique. It's not the power rangers setup where there's a new enemy in each episode. But it's also not one major enemy for the whole series either. NOR is it the typical half season enemy taht gets defeated, then another half season enemy arrives to get defeated when the season finally ends. Although I had thought that when the first half the season was over, because one "main" enemy got destroyed. So I thought the next bad guy coming along must be the next main enemy. But no, he got killed off in like 3 episodes. What the heck? :P And also, the ending to this series (maybe only to first season?) is rather ambiguous. Perhaps there will be more episodes? Who is this master guy anyway? Seems like it has good potential to be built on, but also good chance of being screwed up.

Uh... about the music comment. In reality, it wasn't that bad, just the intro... >.< Right, the intro I can definately do without. Some of the insert songs I really want to download and get, but I"m not sure how to get them... maybe I"ll try looking for OSTs or image files and they might have some cool songs on them. :p

AAAAaaaand the nekomimi ears. Yea, I can tell that's supposed to be a theme in the whole story, but gosh darnit, if everything was as blatantly obvious as those nekomimi ears in every damn episode, symbolism in English would be an incredibly easy task. Although that's not to say what the damn nekomimi ears MEANs. Hmm. Actually, that's not a bad thing to ponder about. What is the TRUE meaning of the nekomimi ears? Is it really just a fetish thing, or maybe there's a symbolic meaning to the ears... Perhaps I will post again to think about it.

...

A theme of acceptance, that was definately in the entire series. Cats are also usually solitary, but can show affection towards humans. Theme of "taming" the wild cat into a domestic one? While I would ask "why ears", I think the answer would be it was the most obvious symbolic way of representing a girl as a cat. Or vice versa. yea, that might be it. I'll write more on it after I thought about it more. Right now, I want to play RO Block hitter game thingy. :3

Addendum/Epilogue/Followup/Whatever

And then in the afternoon, I saw the distribution of grades and realized that anything about a 77 was considered an A. O.O Well, my only comment is that our school really must want to look good, giving out so much As and Bs, or just want to cover up that we're all as stupid as hell. :p But truthfully and honestly, I'm very relieved with this distribution. Granted, this is no excuse and I should be getting a higher grade than what I got on the test so I have to study harder, but hey the weight of depression has been lifted temporarily and I can goto Anime Club in peace. :p

Not another test rant!

Man, I feel so beat down after midterm season 1 of USC... very disappointed in my own performance. Some of it is "ok, I realize it was my fault and now I'll act a little more responsible", others it seems like "Damn, maybe I just suck".

In terms of the "it's my fault", this would attribute to my rather low grade on the test in Calculus and my presumed failure in the computer science midterm. By saying low grade on the calculus I mean that I recieved a B; before anyone damn tells me "it's good, that's fine" I have to say that no, it's not good because I'm trying to stay on a program that will allow me to graduate in Biology with honors. In actuality, I could probably care less about the honors part; it's the opportunity to work in a lab that I'm after. But that's something else. Regardless, it's true that recieving a B isn't bad at all, but recieving an A is always much better, especially when your school expects you to keep a freakin 3.5 GPA in math and sciences just so I can stay in research labs.
In any case, calc and csci was my fault. I thought arrogantly that I didn't need to study for the tests since everything we covered so far seemed simple, but obviously there had to be some things on the test which I was slightly unclear with. And calculus has steep point drops. Miss one constant and everything else is right? 7 points off. Well, obviously that constant must then be important, but nevertheless, it teaches me that I should go over things I'm a bit unclear on next time, so I can get a better grade in calculus than I did this test. So, for calculus and for computer science, yes I did bad first midterm, but hey I learned my lesson, I'll study for these tests and go over things I'm not clear on, and hopefully I can still pick up an A in the classes. I hope.
Then comes the Molecular Biology test. Unlike Math or compter science, I studied for this one. I studied ever since I began the class, memorizing base pairs 1 week into the season, so obviously I had that down. But in the end, I was still slammed down hard, which is why I come to the conclusion of "maybe I just suck". Looking over the test, I see a lot of it is "need more explanation" (which I was advocated not to do, because apparently the TAs were looking for specific wordings or stuff? So either I didn't get the word right or I should have BSed more). One question involved scientist names, which I thought the teacher said we didn't have to memorize and completely screwed me over. Lost a good 7 points or so from random error and overlooking. When it comes down to it, I would probably have been satisfied with my results if the random error was eliminated.
I am probably the only person in the world that would cry over what would be considered a "decent" test grade. Perhaps again if the stress of "I need to get As or I won't get to work in a lab" gets to me too much. Or, it could be a hidden, malicious desire to try to prove to everyone that I'm better than them, only to fail horribly and recognize my humility with repentence. Of course, this could have been a result of the fact that everyone is graded on a curve, so the worse the rest of the class does, the better I do. Consequently, I always hope that everyone fails the test, or at least gets lower scores than I do so I would be able to retain a grade. This is confirmed as true as in one of my chemistry tests last semester, I had recieved a 70 or something but still retained an "A" according to the curve, and I was satisfied. On the contrary, the semester before in chemistry I recieved a good 91 out of 100 on a test, but I recieved a B because everyone did really well on the test, and I was devastated. Which tells you that curves can suck sometimes, but most of the time they're in your favor. But realizing that I am not better than everyone else and there's a good chunk of people that will always be better than me is obviously smart to recognize, abeit painful.
There is no A for effort in college. Except in humanities courses, maybe, but that's not the point. The point is that it is very possible for a person to get an A in a course just because he's smart, but impossible for a person to get an A in a course if he doesn't have a nick for it, no matter how much he studies or whatnot. Granted, an accomplished person who studies will technically be the ones that will always get the high scores, but there's always a couple who can get away without doing anything and get perfect scores. Never the other way around. If the person devotes his entire life to studying a subject but still doesn't have a nick for it, he won't get a good grade. With that in mind, studying still helps and I'm still going to try and get that A. I failed to get an A in physics, which is bad. I don't want the same to happen with all my courses. Even in BME, I will study for the damn midterm because I want to stay in the high end, to be able to participate in things like research and upper division classes. The classes I'm taking this year are awesome. I love learning the material, though trying to memorize it can be tedious. I really don't want grades to ruin my semester, or the rest of my days at USC.
/ag!! If only the damn limit for honors was 3.0 instead of 3.5... /pif

Oh No!!! *gasp*

More shocking than 9/11!!! More catastrophic than Katrina!!! It was... it was... the blackout in LA!!!!

...ok not really, slight exaggeration. :p But it was a pretty big blackout nonetheless, quite impressive. Although honestly I didn't think of it as being that serious until 15 minutes after the blackout had happened; the lights had gone out where I was, but I was on my laptop and the wireless was still working perfectly (I thought that was kind of funny) so I didn't really find it a bother other than the fact that I couldn't see the pork in my rice bowl...
But actually the blackout hit pretty hard, and I saw that when I was going back to my apartment, which is pretty far from my school... by the time I left (around 4:30), most of the traffic lights were fixed, but not all; and this ONE TRAFFIC LIGHT that was broken clogged the street back up like 5 freakin traffic lights behind it; I can only imagine how torturous it would have been if all 5 of those traffic lights were broken as well...
Luckily enough, I had my ipod and KOTOKO music to last me through the traffic... yea, KOTOKO... um... I swear, one day I'll be in the middle of a science conference describing the structure some newly discovered biological enzyme and... "So, in the DNA structure the nucleotides are usually linked to each other from the 5' to 3' end through phosphodiester bonds; the bases themselves are attached on the 2' end via aOH MY GODDESS KOTOKO!!!! *drool...*" (Well, that last part could also be "Oh my god it's KOTOKO", but considering I'm not religious except in worshipping her music it would probably more or less be the former) I really need to deal with that problem appropriately. >.>
Oh, and I watched another episode of FMP. That blue haired girl's character is so "fake" imo, I don't like her very much, her attitude changes way too suddenly. However, the "cool version of PMA" character is pretty awesome :D good for laughs, good for laughs!! They introduced that white haired military girl, who not only had a good voice (I should check the seiyuu >.>) but looks like a pretty deep and interesting character. Speaking of deep, I'm pretty confident at this point that this will be more or less a Thomasish type anime in the future, and not a bit Engiish except for possible cheesey angsty moments, which I don't even classify as Engi-type. Cheesey angst = bad, angst about love = worse, cheesey angst about love = worst.

Full Metal Panic- first impressions (OMGWTFMP?!?!?!!!1111one)

Yes, someone gave me a CD with the entire first season of FMP, so I'm checking it out. By first impression, I mean I only so far watched the first episode, so this really IS a first impression. Overall, I'm sure many of you will be happy to hear that I am quite "satisfied" with it, meaning I'll probably watch it till the end and it's not because I'm a sarcastic evil man who enjoys making fun of series like this... well... ok... maybe I am, and maybe I will make fun of this series, but the series so far isn't bad IMO!!! (I only watched one episode though :p)

As if it isn't obvious enough, FMP is a "PMA" anime. "PMA" anime obviously classifies into the giant mech-type anime such as the infamous Gundam wing series, and FMP,without a doubt, is fully PMAish, with a bit of high school action and fanservice thrown in. Because I realize that many people have not heard these genres I made up for anime, I will elaborate on a few of them right now. "PJBW" anime is similar to PMA anime, but not quite. First off, it doesn't necessarily involve mechs; in fact, probably most PJBW anime only involves fighting, and not giant robots fighting, but nonmechanical, fully biologically alive and mostly humanoid style fighting. Weapons can be used in the fighting style, but a really really PJBWish anime has lots of fisting-fighting action and majorly buff people. Well, as long as it has a decent amount of fighting, it works as a PJBW anime. :p Thomas anime involves most sci-fi anime that does not involve giant mech bots; these are usually more philosophical, can have some dealing with humanity, or is a miracle of science alltogether that isn't absurdly impossible, but rather inspires the thought: "Maybe that CAN happen..."; in other words, Thomas anime is very deep. Engi anime has to deal with more emotional feelings than anything else. It is usually the complete opposite of Thomas's anime but still has a "feel good" attitude about it; as in, scientifically, the concept is absurd, but the emotional effect of the anime is still deep and affecting. Engi anime can also be classified as any anime that just has exceptional music; if the anime itself sucks but the music is miraculously good, then it's also an Engi anime. XD And Guai anime involves any pointless comedy that just makes people laugh. And laugh really hard, at that. :p So good jokes only! not lame ones please. :p Obviously, my preference is Thomas, Engi, and Guai anime for reasons unexplained to some, only too obvious to others.
ANYWAY!! FMP seems fully PMAish, with a touch of Guai... it might get either Thomasy or Engi-ish in the future, but that's for me to find out, NOT FOR ANY OF YOU GUYS TO TELL ME!!!! (Pet peeve: spoilers) In any case, I have to admit that artwork design and characters are not very strong points in this show, but as the saying goes, "it could be worse". Some of the characters seem rather fake in FMP, but others are okay and quite entertaining. We have of course, the main character, who classifies as "the character PMA would be if he was cooler and not as arrogant", and I am looking foward to that mech otaku that was sitting in class, who classifies as "Probably the closest character to represent PMA irl"... The blond mech guy is funny, I look foward to his antics... the girl associated with them is a bit more "fake" or cliche, don't like her character too much... the blue haired girl is the naru clone... and we must always love pink haired finger munching girls!!! :o not really, but I thought that was kinda interesting :p
Artwork, from first glance, looks bad. I don't like anime where the mouth of the character is large, so that has an immediate negative effect on the artwork on me. However, like Honey and Clover, it turns out it's not as bad as I had thought it out to be... artwork probably ranks around the same range as Honey and Clover.
Music, I hvaen't heard much, but sounds good. Look foward to unintentionally singing it in my head in the future.

Angelic Layer!!!

So, I finished this Clamp anime, and I have come to the conclusion that the anime is pretty neat, indeed. Probably not the greatest or one of my favorites, but definately something worth watching IMO. Actually, when I first started off with this anime, I was a bit disappointed, but that was because I was trying to look at it from (probably) a sci-fi viewpoint, you know, dealing with philosophical issues about humanity and etc... actually the show is a lot more like Air and that genre, with the main theme being relationships and touching the audience, which is good, but of course different from what I had been expecting it to be.

But then again, this is supposed to target a younger audience, so it was probably my mistake in the first part to expect a really deep philosophical, scientific, and humanitarian point of view. It's still nevertheless great for a kid's show, as was Cardcaptor Sakura. Probably appeals to both boys and girls, girls for the general girlishness atmosphere of the whole anime, boys with the action and fighting... ( you really wonder how they can interpret fighting into a girl's anime, hmmm... o_O)

Anyway, what's also interesting is one event in particular that seems to be sticking out in my head right now, it's nothing that great, but I thought it was pretty interesting. In this one scene where they were playing with japanese fireworks, one of the characters (Icchan!) says that whoever's firework lasts the longest gets their wish come true. Well, Icchan's firework lasted the longest and beat another girl's firework, and the girl started crying, probably expecting that her wish won't come true. Ironically enough, her wish did come true for the most part (in the epilogue) while Icchan's wish was not exactly fulfilled, though there are implications that it MIGHT come true as time comes by (of course we don't get to see, the epilogue is so short :( ). I just thought this "false foreshadowing" was a bit different from what other shows would do, in that they would have probably followed the strict "this was foreshadowing that so it must happen" issue.

Oh, two cutest characters in Angelic Layer are Hatoko, the mature kindergardener (sp?), and Shuko, Misaki's (main character) mother. Yes, ironically, they are the youngest and oldest characters in the show, respectively. Even more ironic because I don't usually find older women "cute" (especially 30 year old moms o_O)... but her character design was very nice IMO, I guess it was similar to Mirielle in Noir; I actually liked Mirielle, the older assassin, than... the young 14 year old one that I even forgot her name. :p Kizuka? or something? Whatever!! XD But another thing is that Hatoko seems to act more mature than Misaki's mom, which is also kind of ironic and funny.

Oh, and Hatoko kisses Misaki. No hidden themes there, nope, not at all. Not symbolic of anything. Absolutely not, just another insigificant event within the whole series itself. Yup, nothing to talk about here.

A Goal!! Well, not really.

So today at lunchtime I was all overexcited and enthusiastic about me having a pathway I want to follow down, and I wanted to write it all down at lunchtime to show my excitement!!!!

Well. It kind of... died down now, and... no, I'm not too excited anymore. :p but hey! I'll write whatever I think up anyway!

Ok, so I'm pursuing a Biology Major and a BME (Biomedical Engineering) major, and I have finally decided that these are the two majors that I, indeed, want to have. Both reasons are purely this: I want to take some interesting classes. For Biology, by following (mostly) what's on the course, I will be able to take very interesting upper division courses like Cell Biology, Microbiology, and various other biologically related topics. Saying I'm going for BME allows me complete access to the engineering school, giving me access to engineering classes such as robotics, signal processing, computer science... topics that might be interesting for combining with biological topics like neurobiology. Indeed, I also heard that the neurology major isn't hard and has the fewest amount of classes to pass, so if that's the case it might be possible to get a neurology major and have 3 majors!! if not, then at least 2 majors and a minor ^-^. But for now, and pretty much for the first time since I decided to take BME along with Bio, I feel pretty confident about that decision and will stick with it until something bad happens, like I flunk out of school or something. :p

Stupid Damn Crow

Sora Dash + Instant Cancel = @#$#@$#$%#%$@#!!!!!!in hard...

Hmm.... (2, because Hmm 1 involves something different)

You know, I waste huge amounts of time just thinking "I'm bored". Its not because I have nothing to do, in fact, I can think of many things I can do, its just for whatever reason I will just think "I'm bored" for the longest time and do nearly nothing.

Well, Maybe I don't do nothing, I certainly think when I'm during those periods. But most of what I think about turns out to be inproductive and not that useful anyway.

Well, a short while ago that ended, and now I'm in my "let's do something I wanted to do for 10 minutes before my ADHD kicks in and forces me to do something else" period. A couple minutes ago I was playing the piano. And now I'm typing random blog entries. And after this I will play... wait, no, my phone rang, its dinnertime. >.>

You know what else I did during my bored time? I educated myself on dating sims at megatokyo! Wait, damn, that just shows how much of a loser I am... XD

Bwahaha I have a super power

src="http://live.quizilla.com/user_images/P/PainfulBliss/1117239037_Power_Clairvoyance.JPG">
Your power is: Clairvoyance

Explanation: Your power is that you can
look into the future and see what is coming.
How far and long you can look is all depending
on your skill level. This can, as all powers,
be used in both evil and good. Even if it may
seem like a boring ability it is a huge
responsibility for the carrier, becase they are
constantly tempted with doing the wrongs deeds
(e.g. cheat on a test). It takes high morals to
not be brought down with it.

Therefor you fit with this power quite well.
You take responsibility and do what is the
right thing to do. This does not make you a
saint, since you're only human after all. But
it makes a trustworthy person and you are loyal
to camrades and/or team mates. In school you
were probably a good student. If you were
social varies from person to person, but most
clairvoyant people tend to prefer their own
company or that of close friends and family.
That is because you are wise and knows how to
treasure the reliable in your life, since you
know popularity can be a false element. You are
also not that big on taking risks and prefer
what is already explored. That is because you
don't like suprises, they can turn out bad and
then you won't be in control.
Negative aspects: Since you're always
doing the right thing and being trustworthy all
the time you can become frustrated. Also, all
that you carry on your shoulders may stress you
out. You need to relax to be in good mental
shape.

What Power is Compatible With You? [beautiful anime pictures + 12 detailed results]
brought to you by Quizilla

Eternal Fighter Zero

OMG!! I was hit with Kanna's 6k damage attack!!! 6 K!!!! >.<

For whatever reason, I am unable to view my own blog on this computer, while I am at china. o_O

regarding the question taht was asked in my profile. stupid 150 word limit.

it would be hard for a fork to evolve from a spoon. IN fact, more likely it is vice versa, for a spoon, if it attempts a stabbing motion, will never become the 4 points of a fork; at best, it might become a blunt knife if both opposing sides become continually scraped and worn down... however, for a spoon to evolve into a fork, it would have to come in contact with something like another fork to drive into the metal and create those wedges, then continuously scrape those sides to evolve it into a sharp pointy fork... a fork into a spoon, on the other hand, is also difficult but seemingly more possible. remove the points and dullen the edges by repeated hitting onto a large industructable object, and you will be left with (granted, a very small) spoon. Well, maybe not. Ok, so a spoon can't evolve into a fork, nor can a fork evolve into a spoon.

Altruism

Sooooooo... My RO account is now officially dead until winter break comes along, and I am here in China with almost nothing to do. (Admittedly, the internet was so laggy that it was highly frustrating to level, but I am still disappointed because I had been looking foward to accomplishing much more since I believed my account shouldn't have ended until this friday...) I have been given the following options: Play Eternal Fighter Zero, write a whole lot of BS in my blog, or read Harry Potter. The last choice has just been crossed out as now I have finished the book, and indeed I must admit thoroughly that Harry Potter has the intriguing ability to make the ending outcome... well, not as much of a surprise as "ha your theories were wrong" type of thing... Indeed, there were some theories I was going on that I completely believed would be revealed at the end, when in reality were contrary to my predictions. Nothing was completely surprising, however, it was still like "Damn I can't figure out what this author is thinking", so, props to Rowland (I'm pretty sure that's not her name XD) for making me a fool once more in what I thought would be a predictable outcome.
Now, there is an interesting aspect to this novel which has come to my attention, and because I plainly have almost nothing else to do at this point, I shall talk about it. Oh umm... it is a spoiler, so if you really hate spoilers like I do and don't want to be spoiled, don't read past this sentence. */short useless insignificant spoiler caution* This is the whole "love is most powerful magic" theme in the book... admittedly better than then the 5th book of "Harry Potter and his Tantrum", now it's more like "Harry Potter and Everyone Falling in Love with Each Other". One thing I always thought was amusing in the story was that Harry falled for Ginny, because in my mind Ginny is always that small girl from the 2nd book and anyone Harry's age falling for her reminds me something of a pedophile... XD ok maybe that wasn't quite right... :p anyway, Ginny still sucks for going out with anyone she can find, but I always thought she was an interesting character. Hmm.
ANYWAY!! So now we come to this whole old pathetic issue of Love and Hate. As a devoted opponent of both these concepts in many views, I must make the acknowledgement that (while being human, anyway) there is necessity in these two words for a human to not only exist, but also be highly successful and functional. This is indeed because they are the source of "ambition" or, in a term that I particularly am not fond of, "passion". It is sort of like the command given in a computer for the computer to do something. The computer, while remaining completely still and nonfunctioning, has all the reasonable, logical traits that I in particular admire and wish humans to be. However, they are nonfunctional until a command is given. I believe humans work in a similar way. Love and Hate is the command line given in everyone's minds, the direction that allows people to function the way they do, or the ambition for someone to do something. Without it, the human would be a mere vegatable, not able to perform anything no matter how intelligent and knowledgable the person may be, because he has no ambition, will, or whatnot to do anything.
However, obviously, excess love and hate is not a good thing. Indeed, I believe that the less to love or hate in the world, the better, though you need SOMETHING to function properly. If people take too much into consideration, which more often they do, things become complicated. For example, if someone cared about homeless people and how poor they are and that they should be given money, and equally cared about the concept of getting what you earned, there will be particular conflict on what to do when the issue comes up of whether someone should give the money they earned to charity or keep it because they earned it. Anyone who would care about everything in the world would not live. So of course, it is important to love and/or hate, but do so especially sparingly. (preferably love, hate tends to cause more problems in a person after the outcome than before, not quite preferable if you ask me...)
There are, of course, flaws to this theory, as I believe there are to every theory I made. One of which is the obsession over one particular object, and caring nothing else. Like, perhaps, rescuing a person, ignoring the laws of science or whatnot and the factor that the rescuer may get killed. Well, it's good to know he cares about the person and doesn't care about anyone else, including his own body. It would be a very strong and impressive ambition, one I cannot deny. But obviouisly this appears in society's view as being foolish (though some may take it as courage). I shall stop at this note in my flaw, as it is up to the person reading to determine whether there is a flaw in this rescuer or not; I am not society, I will not make these judgements; I do not love or hate society, nor anyone else's opinion on the matter, I have more important things to devote my ambitions to. Another flaw (maybe it's not a flaw, but its worth mentioning in case again the reader finds it as a flaw) is the obsession over petty objects. Like, my own ambition for Anime, strangely being intrigued by grotesque drawings of deformed humans with large heads and eyes that take up half the space of the huge face... and yet, for some unfortunate reason, I am attracted to these sort of things. Petty, in society's view, but I have posted something earlier talking about how everything in the world is petty, so, up to the reader to determine whether this is a flaw or not.
One's views on Love and Hate may be different than mine; I have used these words without giving a definition and therefore one may be a bit annoyed at how they were used in this article. Because I in particular do not prefer these two terms, I would rather call Love "altruism" because it sounds more sciency. As for hatred, it doesn't get its own cool sciencey word. Too bad for it.
Moral? Love (or hate) something in this world! But preferably, only that something, not something else... or if there is something else, then only those two somethings, not another something else... or if there is something else, then only those three somethings... ok, by now you either got my point or are thoroughly confused, so either way, I will stop.
As I stated, I am going to be thoroughly bored these next couple of days now that my RO account died, so expect more updates on the magnificant stories-that-will-never-be-written-because-of-my-laziness-but-instead-will-give-a-cool-enough-synopsis-on-them!

Story Synopsis associated with Guai and the Guardian Elements

This is more of a adventure/fantasy type of story, a lot more lighthearted than Thomas's story. Lots of comedy moments, action moments, not too entirely deep, but not shallow either. I believe the plot and the concept itself is fairly original, and it may more or less be a spoof of other fantasy and adventures, sort of like how CCS was considered a spoof of typical girl transformation shows.

Introduction.
There are many who believe in gods, a religion, or some omniscient being that protects the planet from chaos and destruction, to prevent the world from falling out of its delicate, harmonic balance. These people believe that their god or gods have complete power over all the governs their world, and use these powers almost always for good and the protection of the world. They also believe these beings are above anything that humans can ever be, all knowing, all respected, and never failing.
This view is... slightly inaccurate.
In reality, gods are really quite unproductive and have no motive to keep any planet thriving unless they get something out of it. So, therefore, the gods above the gods made keeping task of Earth a rather interesting and entertaining game. As usual, there are elements assigned to the gods, and each "god" can use these elements as their main source of power, thus being, in more appropriate terms, Guardian Elements. In an all out tournament to determine which Guardian Elementa is dominant over all others, each elementalor will, at a specific time when the planet needs it the most, go out and defend the world! How do they do this?
Well, there are small disasters that go around the world all the time known as Catastrophes. These catastrophes will build up in strength over time goes by if uncontrolled, sort of like weeds in a garden. Hence, the Guardian Element's tournament begins specifically when these catastrophes are almost at the brink of causing chaos in the world, but not quite there yet. There, in secret, the elementalors work their power, defeating the materialized form of a catastrophe and absorbing it to make their own powers stronger... and this continues until all the catastrophes have been quarantined, in which after then, in a private environment, the Elementalors go all out against each other, using the powers they have absorbed while battling catastrophes and attempt to win the tournament!!
So what exactly do they win, and how often do these "godly" elementalors appear?
Well, remember the whole concept of the omniscient and respected god being rather inaccurate? These gods aren't exactly omniscient themselves. Other than the fact that they know they're in some tournament and that they need to defeat catastrophes and absorb their power before other elementalors acquire it, they can recollect little memory of their previous lives and lifestyles before each tournament, being that they sleep pretty much the entire time in between tournaments. So how exactly do these Guardian Elements go about doing their business, then? What powers do they possess; are they purely elemental, or do they have other traights, aspects, and oddities to them? Well... how about we take a look for ourselves by observing a uninteresting and dull college student visiting the bamboo forest in the depths of China for his biological study expedition.

Background Detail.
Guardian Elements view Earth and its inhabitants similar to how a person in real life would view an MMORPG. They believe it is all some sort of game, but, alas, similar to people who become immersed in MMORPGs, drama can happen, especially when your MMORPG has a mind (or rather, minds) of its own. On the other side of the coin, each "host" of the Guardian Elements can see their Elements in spirit form. Nobody else can see the guardians except for hosts and Sub-Elements, which will be explained later. They also have the option to talk through the weapons which they enchant.
Now, about hosts and weapons. The Guardian Elements do not inhabit the host, but in fact a "weapon" which was immediately acquired upon confrontation with their new host. They do use the host's body, however, to materialize their spirit form into reality, where upon doing so the host is transformed into spirit form. For the Host, only his/her Guardian Element can see him/her in spirit form. The "weapon" which is acquired is usually nothing more than what the host had on hand before he/she was accepted. And since Catastrophes happen without warning, some of the weapons seem rather unconventional...
The world setting is similar to that of the real world, and for the sake of simplicity, the world and its locations will the same as the real world.
Characters:
Guardian Elements and their Hosts- The Elemental Guardians have a mind of their own; though they are essentially elements, they can think, talk, and react similar to how humans do. They will not take an unwilling host--therefore they must do something to satisfy the host's wishes, for an unwilling host will hinder them from achieving their goals.
Guardian Element: Earth
Given Name: Guai He Zi
Appearance: Long purple hair, has traditional style chinese robe (white). Age appearance around 21.
Details: Guai He Zi is an agility type character, one not usually associated with the element of Earth. The theory is that Earth or the terrain can change at any given moment, much like the sudden attack of an earthquake or a volcano. Hence, Guai's style is that suddenness; without warning he can appear and disappear using ninja-style skills. His elemental attacks usually come out of nowhere as well, usually needing little time to charge unless he wishes to unleash a more powerful attack. Personality-wise, he is rather sharp tongued and often makes harsh jokes. He has an understanding for the workings of the world, however, including human habits such as emotion and love. He therefore respects his host and his wishes, as well as his fellow Elements though he will still crack jokes at them and, when the time comes, show no mercy when attempting to win the tournament.
Host:Thomas T. Reusbucks (pending name)
Appearance: Like Dr. Reusbucks in the previous story, except maybe without glasses. Age appearance around 20.
Details: A college student studying Entomology (study of insects). He's not exactly sure he wants to become involved in this game of the Elements, but since the Catastrophe was threatening his sister, he felt he really had no choice. While he doesn't quite like the fact that he suddenly must "save the world" per se, he will accept his Element as long as it promises the safety of his sister.
Weapon: Chopsticks. Lets just say, it was the only thing Thomas had on hand when he encountered Guai...

Guardian Element: Water
Given Name: (Pending)
Appearance: Rather Elegant, similar to how young catholic nuns appear. Age appearance around 25.
Details: She acts much like the motherly and caring type of person, but it would be wrong to underestimate her abilities. Her appearance is rather attractive to most people, and even when attacking she's very elegant in that each attack seems beautiful to the eye. She perhaps understands the most about emotion and feeling to others in the world, and also has a variety of knowledge. When she's not on the battleground, she'll be very cooperative and discuss issues of any sort, ranging from the "game" they must play to personal details for the humans inhabiting the world. She has a very comforting personality that even the other Elements admire.
Host: Pending Name
Appearance: the Loli of the show (Age around 9 or 10), properly partnered with the motherly type. She'll probably be designed much like a rich daughter girl from Europe, with yellow locks of hair and a taste for fashion.
Details: The host is a young girl who seems to enjoy travelling the world with her Element. Her background story is probably that a Catastrophe had struck her home, possibly destroying most things including her parents and leaving her orphaned. The Element may have comforted her, which is the reason why she accepts her. She is a very upbeat and somewhat naive type of girl; she is quite trusting of most people and similarly, thinks of the the tournament as a sort of game to save the world. Because of this, she doesn't exactly "hate" it when accidents happen (ie deaths), but she highly disapproves if her Element does so. She's a rich orphan so she can travel anywhere. Her only request as a host is for her Element to "play" with her, ie keeping her away from loneliness. In turn, her Element develops a maternal and caring nature towards her.
Weapon: Harp. Both the Host and the Element know how to play the harp.

Guardian Element: Fire
Given Name: N/A
Appearance: A dog boy, similar to Inuyasha or the dog boy from Negima, hence a rather "aggressive" type face with (appropriately enough) dog ears. Has long white hair (about shoulder length) that's quite messy, but he seems to try and keep it somewhat together with a ponytail... probably has casual "American cool guy" clothes (black jacket, chain necklace, etc.)
Details: From his mere appearance one can tell he's the type that enjoys a good fight. He's loud, straightfoward, a bit short tempered, and not willing to step down for anyone-- except if people are endangered. His host's request is that he protect any surrounding humans who are unknowningly in danger; though the task seems somewhat hard in large numbers, the Element is quite capable at keeping his promise. In this sense, he's quite noble despite his seemingly aggressive nature. His relation with other Elements are less forgiving; seeing them as equals to himself, he considers them in no danger to go full out upon, and would even be willing to challenge them if no Catastrophe was present. His eagerness for a good fight, however, puts him at more a disadvantage when competing for a Catastrophe than his nobility to save all humans around him; very often, Elements (specifically Earth and Water) will use a "challenge" to stealthily take away a Catastrophe from him, playing him for a fool.
Host: General Jon B. Wolf (Pending Name)
Appearance: A rather strong looking man, darker skinned, short yellowish spiked hair, strong yet caring. Probably able to defeat the other Element hosts if they did not have their Elements, but his kind nature would forbid him to do that.
Details: Though he's been through the military, he's very understanding about others... he seems to have no family relations but looks to protect other families of any sort of harm. Seeing the Elements as a good opportunity to "clean the world", he'll accept his Element's tasks as long as the lives of others are not disturbed. He does not mind his Element's aggressive and "wanting to win" nature at all, and is able to become great friends with his Element.
Weapon: Umbrella. It was probably raining when they met.

AX! UPDATE: Edited!

Heya! I'm back from AX and I must admit I had a helluva good time. Had its ups and downs, could be better, but it also certainly could be worse. Best of all, I saw KOTOKO!!! Ok, more details on that later, first, some basic info material, then a bit of a description on each day of my AX weekend. I may add more to the details when I remember something I forgot to put in. :p
Basic info!
Stuff that got licensed- Anime
Mai Hime, by Bandai(:o)
Kannazuki no Miko. by Geneon (O.O Wow! This was a big surprise, but it would explain why Geneon hired Kotoko to sing for this year's AX, considering no one knows Kotoko other than from the Bandai license Onegai Teacher)
Stuff that got licensed- Manga
Rozen Maiden, by Tokyopop (OMG *gawk*)
Full Moon Wo Sagashite, by Viz (WTFrea @.@ *insert crazy astonished here*)

Another note to this is that I heard, but not from AX (my friend told me) that Shinobuden 2x2 is also licensed. o_O Wow so much obscure anime I thought no one would like getting licensed...

Stuff I got :P
Ragnarok Battle Offline OST (yay!)
Ragnarok Online Fan Artbook (YAY!)
Megumi Artbook on Various Anime
Kokoro winter concert avi file (Yes, I got this one for free from my friends :p)
Various mp3 rips of albums from Kotoko, Lia, and Eufonius (also for free :p)

Notice how I didn't buy any manga or anime. Since I was working at Orbit, and since they were busy pretty much the entire day, I decided to wait and they told me to come back to an Orbit store to get discounts there. So, I'm going tomorrow to get more anime and manga... So my Anime adventure isn't over yet... XD

ANIME EXPO DAILY EXPLANATORY DETAILS!!! (or, informally, "My AX diary")
Friday:
On Friday, I woke up at an annoyingly early 6:30 in the morning so a friend of a friend of mine can pick me up. His name is Alex. He's like a nurse and likes biology, so that's kind of cool. Yea, that's what we talked about on the trip there. :p So anyway we got there and grouped together with the other USC people at the hotels we were to stay in. Well, we couldn't get our keys yet, I think, and so I left them to go talk to the people working at the Orbit booth, since I'm volunteering.
I'll tell you this much right now: I'm never volunteering at AX again, because that was such a hassle. It's probably fine as long as I had stuff to do, but there were times where everyone else looked so busy and I was standing there waiting for something to do, but no one ever told me to do anything. That annoyed me >.<. But actually, friday, it was pretty busy in itself. Although the day didn't seem quite exciting, while browsing around I found the Ragnarok Battle Offline OST, which really got me excited, except I don't know how to bargain, and that quickly turned my excitement into embarassment. :P Still, I got it for 18 dollars (originally 20), and the fact that I'm happy and listening to it right now is nice. :P By closing time, I wanted to get out of the booths asap because I was in there for so long, and so I got really irritated when I supposedly had to wait around for someone to give me something to do, and in the end I wasted like 10 minutes because no one ever told me to do anything, so I asked to leave and they let me leave. >.<>.<>.> Well, this was the day of the Kotoko concert, but the morning REALLY REALLY SUCKED and it was THIS morning why I decide I'm never going to try volunteering again. You see, the orbit people, though they provided free access to the dealers room, free hotel rooms, and free food, didn't have badges for everyone. It seems to be some AX rule. In any case, I needed a badge, or (what I thought) a ticket to get into the Kotoko concert, but IT TOOK SO FREAKIN LONG TO GET ONE!!! I ended up working some of a shift WHICH I WASN'T TO WORK IN (I only really wanted to just get the damn badge and leave). Eventually it turned REALLY chaotic when someone told me (misleadingly) that you needed tickets to get into the Kotoko concert and they said there were only 2 tickets per company. Meaning orbit only had 2 tickets. And they made it sound like you NEEDED the tickets, so I was frantic and worried as hell that I'm going to miss the Kotoko concert, but then I called up my USC friend, and he told me the ticket stuff was BS and I could get in as long as I had a badge. Probably without one too, but didn't wanna miss seating and chance of missing part of the concert just because I didn't have a badge -_-;; So I waited, again, like a freakin insane amount of time before they FINALLY gave in and let me borrow a badge (FYI, the badge ratio was like 12 badges for 50 people) and got in.
THE KOTOKO CONCERT WAS AWESOME!!! Not only was it the first Kotoko concert I been to, it was the first Kotoko concert in America, which made me seem even more special X3. I could have died right after the Kotoko concert and not have cared. Ok that was an exaggeration, but it was one of the best concerts I've been to ever!! I was sitting at the ~~4th, 5th row from the front, so I was pretty close to her. Of course, that meant huge blasting speakers that deafened me for the rest of AX, but the music, being Kotoko, was still good. THE AUDIECE WAS CRAZY, THOUGH. Seriously, because I thought that not many people know kotoko, that the audience wouldn't be too into it, but... O.O It got pretty crazy. First, people started standing up, which was kind of weird, imo, to me, being that I don't goto concerts that often. And then... everyone... started... well...
Ok, one of the comments that my friend (Robert) made was this: "There are two things different about this concert and the concerts in japan: 1. There are no glowsticks, and 2. There are females present." Well, he was pretty right about the second one, there were girls and if you watch the Kotoko concert, you don't see any girls at the concert o_O. But the glowstick incident was IMPRESSIVELY made up when people started waving to the music, with... whatever they had. Cell Phones, PDAs, Game Boy Advances, even lighters... it was all there. You looked back and you could see a sea of technological devices, and you wonder... "All this for Kotoko concert?" Truly... "touching" but I feel this is the wrong word.
Ok, now a little criticism to my rave on the Kotoko concert. While I'm sure most of the concert's antics were due to some crazy japanese otaku fanboys of Kotoko and stupid americans who like to follow what everyone else does, I'm worried about how "cool" I think her music is... I was wondering over the concert period, because it seems that music has perhaps a little of a hypnotic effect on me. >.> you know, like Sirens in Greek mythology... while I maintained composure throughout most of the concert (I didn't go all out crazy... I didn't even wave my cell phone around) I was truly into her music and I'm starting to worry about that... Maybe Kotoko is an evil music alien that will try to hypnotize the world... Naaa, if that were true, everyone would be into Kotoko by now. Yet, she's still obscure. So oh well.
The last thing I want to say about Kotoko is I missed her panel... I didn't get to see people ask questions to her or ask questions myself... nor get her autograph because of it >..<>.<... Well, now I know, in addition to not volunteering at Marketing Booths, to not goto masquarade either. Well, not alone with no one to talk to or be bored with. /pif
Monday
What did I do today? Well, I pretty much went straight to the dealer's room and worked most of the time. I went also to look for that megumi artbook because I checked it out earlier... it had a lot of Air pictures, so that's why I wanted to get it. Well, while looking for that book in one of the shops, I found a hardcover RO fan artbook O.O... so I bought it. :p Other than that, worked till 3 at the orbit booth at the exhibition hall, then met two other friends who were taking me home (Their names were Eddie and Steve). They wanted to goto Outback and eat dinner first; I didn't eat with them since I was eating dinner at home. Then I come home, play some RO, eat dinner, and type up this long post. :p

I'll update the previous story when I'm feeling less tired... I woke up like 8 in the morning every day and slept past midnight... but keep on looking at the Thomas story, still working on it!

On Tuesday!
I bought so much more discounted stuff!!! This almost makes the volunteer torture worth the effort!! Manga for 5.50 (originally 10 dollars, mind you), Anime for 17-18 dollars... Ok so you guys don't care, and I'm sure you guys dont' care what I bought but I'm gonna tell you anyway!!
Fruits Basket Manga 1-3 (for sister)
Read or Die OVA (For a friend)
Abenonashi Magical Shopping Arcade #3 (another friend)
Elfen Lied 1 and 2 (for myself :P)

UPDATE AGAIN: Due to unidentified technical errors, about half of my AX trip was deleted. Because This was about, well, half of my AX trip, I'm not going to type this all up again and express it to you. Sorry. :p

Hmmm....

Well, I'm still not going to be writing any stories for a long while, but I think I should try somewhat getting these random plotlines for my character out of my head and onto some paper (well, screen, I suppose). I think I'll doing some plot synopsis, intros to stories, and character profiles on this blog for a few stories that I have. Of course, I won't put them ALL down at once; I have a variety of ideas in my head, and chances are even past posts like this one will be edited quite frequently, so check them out. I'll probably indicate if I updated something in a past thread.

Oh, and these as of now don't have titles. Titles and names are possibly one of the major reasons why I'll never write a story outright. No, not really, but titles suck. :P

Thomas's story.

Introduction:

"As we approach the 26th century, it is helpful to reflect upon us the immense developments of technology in our world. Most notably, as everyone has obviously seen, is the integration of the internet into everyone's lives; integrated so much that it has become not just a reality, but a completely alternate reality to us. With the ability to artificially hear, feel, taste, sense, and see a fabrication of data, people have created a world with their most desired dreams, sometimes at the cost of the dwindling interest in reality itself. But that has been the truth up to now: reality still exists, we must apply a device in order to log into the internet, and we must still eat and sleep to maintain our lives.
However, the bridge between reality and internet may finally be completed with the arrival of our newest project, RU-BY, Robotic Unit- Binary Youth (Pending name, RUBY will be kept, its meaning will probably change when I expand my vocabulary :P) . Wolf Industries (also pending name) has generously demonstrated over the last couple of decades its technological capacity on combining electrical impulses in the human nervous system with computational data; though the human system is complex and humans have yet to determine the full mechanisms of the human brain, Wolf Industries has illuminated the world by bringing sensual experiences of the newfound world we know of as the internet. Therefore, the coming of the first biological computer, Ruby, should be expected from the potential of such a innovative and ambitious corporation. The project was conducted using the DNA of a human specimen, altered through genetic manipulation, then was duplicated and placed into many different human oocytes. The project obviously was not an immediate success; despite the major advances in human biotechnology, there were countless failures before the success of the first RUBY. Kept in an isolated, oxygenated chamber, and using delicate mechanical devices, the team managed to implement a variety of microchips for operation on the specimen's brain; this will be explained more in detail later the report.
RUBY is finally in operation and is now in her beta testing period, conducted by the project team leader. As of yet, the project is a huge success; being able to directly connect to the internet with no external devices, to essentially learn, instantly, any procedures assigned to her by downloading templates (this has included, but is not limited to, cooking, cleaning, delivering and picking up packages, athletics, and martial arts) . However, though RUBY is currently a huge success, many obstacles lie ahead, and not merely experimental error; overzealous human rights activists, competitive corporations, and government disapproval may all present a particularly difficult dilemma. Furthermore, as humans themselves still have no true understanding of their own kind, there is an unknown danger that originates from Ruby herself... many precautions have been taken so far, but there is no way to know for sure. Still, this should not discourage us from proceeding with a spectacular project, one that not only presents to the company a new marketing model, but the possible understanding of life, rebirth, and humanity itself."
-Thomas T. Reusbucks, Abstract in a report sent to the head company discussing their project Ruby.

(DAMN that was a long intro! >.<) Synopsis: Thomas wasn't far off when he talked about all the problems he predicts he'll encounter while "testing" Ruby. His generally peaceful lifestyle with Ruby being somewhat of a servant-type character by his side is rudely thrown into chaos when a particularly malicious virus that interferes with her memory storage. Soon, everyone becomes involved, willingly or unwillingly, in the conflict that arises between Ruby and Thomas, as rights activist hackers, greedy corporate owners, government officials, and Thomas's associates all plunge into a chaotic mystery that no one knows the answer to... except for Dr. Reusbucks.

Characters: (Ironic how I don't do Thomas first :p)

Ruby
Age of Appearance: 16 (However, her height is only about 1 foot)
General Description: Long Red Hair, Black Blouse, Purple Skirt, Stocking and Shoes
Ruby is probably one of the most complex characters ever made, considering everything that she must go through. Though initially programmed not to show any human emotion at all, this obviously becomes a failure when mysterious "files" pop up following the elimination of a recent virus that cause Ruby to have "feelings". Eventually, the feelings cause Ruby to disobey Dr. Reusbucks and cause her to inquire as to who is she in reality. Ironically, those exact same feelings prevent her from harming Dr. Reusbucks outright, as if the bond that she had developed with Dr. Reusbucks was mutual... nevertheless, she runs away, and causes a enormous mess with not just Dr. Reusbucks and his associates, but to the entire city. With such an advanced human, no one had the capability to stop her (though obviously there are attempts to do so), except for one man. No one in the same respect had the complete answer to her question, except for one individual. Do I really have to tell you who that person is? :p
"Who am I?"

Jon Wolfe (Pending name)
Age: 24ish
General Description: Rough "Indiana Jones" kinda guy in a lab coat
Mechanical engineering expert, and close friend of Thomas. Well, as close as you can possibly get. In addition to designing computer hardware, he also works on other machinary, including tools and weapons. He has a hobby of designing and constructing weaponry, though he does most of his inventions in secret to prevent government suspicion, though some of his weapons and most of his tools do become marked by Wolf Industries. Jon Wolfe knows more about Thomas than possibly any other person in the city that is alive, well, and talking; he is a highly reliable character, able to take secrets and not stirred by threats in any way. He designs Thomas's weaponry when Thomas needs it for his own protection.
"Both of them... they're more human than you think."

Ken Wolfe (Pending name)
Age: 18ish
General Description: Rebellious guy with spikey hair
Ken has a bit more of a twist with his character. He is, on the surface, the computer engineering expert of the group; he does most of the programming and knows an immense amount of programming languages. However, he also a member of the human rights activists group, and in a way is responsible for some of the viruses that are caused around the net. He is specifically angered at the RUBY project and actually does not have a particular liking to Ruby. His main goals in the story seem to revolve around eliminating Ruby and capturing Thomas (he doesn't want to do anything further because of his brother). This is very likely due to another influencing character of this group, though she does not appear in the plotline a lot except in flashbacks and memories...
"Is life a toy?!?"

Crystal Reusbucks
Age: 16
General Appearance: Light Green Hair like Thomas, kinda wavy... otherwise usually seen sick in bed at hospital
Crystal's condition is that she is hospitalized in bed without consciousness. She is Thomas's sister, and is said to be the key link in Ruby's identity. Much of what is known of her is in the past: she has a relationship with Ken, which is thus attributed to Ken's attitude; she had a very energetic and playful personality, much in contrast to her brother; both brother and sister seemed to have a very good relationship with each other, though the sister seemed to display her affection more obviously than the brother; she was eventually involved in an accident and was placed on life support, unconscious. It was said that no one knew where Thomas went during that time, But Thomas did take trips to the hospital to see her once in a while. Crystal IS still alive; she is in the hospital.
"Don't lose..."

President Janus Roberts (Pending name)
Age: 40ish
General Description: Typical Plump Businessman
Cheif Executive Officer of Wolf Industries. He has a rather prideful personality, confident of himself and his company; nevertheless, he is a fairly amiable person. He has always kept his faith in himself and the company he worked hard to build up, despite failures that have come his way, and in that sense he is strong. This could be seen in the vast technological advances that Wolf Industries has made thanks to Janus's funding and support. Still, he seems rather ambitious about building up his dream, a dream that would reconstruct the past he lost... As seen by his vast wealth, he is most knowledgable about playing the marketing and business game, careful with stocks and sales to continue building up his wealth and funding his company for more research.
"The human mindset is to never accept what is, but to continue living for what will be."

Helice and Plata
Age of Appearance: 21(Helice) and 14(Plata)
General Description: Helice has curly hair split into two parts, and her outfit is similar to that of Sion from Melty Blood except that it is green and her skirt is not frilled and more tight, like a female military officer; Plata has hair similar to Akane from Mai Hime/Mai Otome or that one girl from Shakugan no Shana (forgot her name :p) and is probably in a one-piece dress though I have not figured it out yet :p
Two later models constructed after Ruby, and hence have similar functions. They both operate under Janus, Helix serving as the head security guard for the company, Plata taking the role of the head secretary. Helice and Plata, unlike Ruby, "seem" to have emotional responses, though someone like Thomas may merely indicate that it is in the programming; their emotions correspond to their job position. Helice is aggressive, commanding, and serious, a very leader-type character; Plata is more quiet, shy, and attentive, conducting any task quickly, carefully, and without question. These two characters are actually ressurected forms of Janus's previous family, a daughter and a wife that he had lost in an accident. It's said that Janus's own selfishness was partially the reason for their accident, and ever since Janus has become ever more ambitious, but more supportive and generous to others.
Ruby- "Do you even realize what you are??? Why you were brought into the world???"
Plata- "We know what... or who... we are. And whether we operate as computer or human, we accept our position with full faith."
Helice- "More importantly, have you determined your purpose of existance?"

Director Sylvan (pending name)
Age: 60ish
General Description: Takes the appearance of an old but very knowledgable kind of guy
Chief militant officer of the city, his own occupation is at stake as many have adapted to a life of virtual existance, with very little crime to control except for the ever growing hacking-prevention agency. Nevertheless, Sylvan is fairly appreciative of the seeming tranquility of the city with the growing internet lifestyle... This all changes rapidly when Ruby causes chaos in both the virtual world and reality; the government, now seeing the new models as a threat to society, forbids further construction into the models and orders the elimination of all existing models. Sylvan, understanding the situation, complies without hesitation, but with a inquiring thought lingering in his mind, as to what these new models really are...
"There is no one dream that can realize everyone else's desires. In order to satisfy a majority of the people's wishes, some others' fantasies must be shattered."

Doll Shopkeeper (No name yet)
Age: 22ish
Appearance: Has brown hair with a band to keep it all together... not quite a ponytail, but hopefully someone gets what I mean. >.> Wears Apron, takes the appearance of a motherlike character
This woman is the shopkeeper of a hobbies store that makes doll clothes, and she happens to find Ruby unconscious (perhaps from a previous battle or out of exhaustion). She takes Ruby in and takes care of her, treating her as if she were her child. Ruby, after she comes to her senses, reluctantly accepts her hospitality in exchange for... some particular modelling jobs the shopkeeper asks her to do. The shopkeeper is a rather lively and energetic girl, fairly cordial and often explodes with bursts of "OMG CUTE"ness, especially towards Ruby. She is, however, a very knowledgable character and seems to have some relation with Thomas. She knows what Ruby is and in a way Thomas entrusted Ruby to take care of her, at least for a while.
[i]Dolls, unlike machines, are not tools, but objects of admiration. I think it works the same way in humans. Humans want... not to be used... but to be admired...[/i]

Thomas Reusbucks
Age: 24ish
Appearance: Green (Slightly messy) Hair, Small trapazoidlike glasses, thin body frame build in a semi-formal shirt with slacks and a lab coat.
Well, Most of anyone who knows how I play Thomas Reusbucks will already know how he acts. Stoic, not very expressive, very factual, neither generous nor selfish, he usually just acts what just comes by. He obviously has something deep within him that keeps him motivated to live on and do what he does, though no one really knows exactly what it is. He does, however, throughout the story, appear whenever Ruby seems to be in a jam and help her escape, to the dismay of practically every other person in the city they live in. :p Other than that, he manages to hide away from everyone with the help of his friend Jon, with the occasional character stumbling upon him; when that happens, either a few words are exchanged, or they get into a little spar, which always seems to end up in Thomas running away, whether he was winning or losing. :p

Environment
The City: The city reminds me a lot LA: Gray and smoggy, pretty congested, except that since cars can fly (original concept isn't it :p) the congestion is more in the air around large skyscrapers. Most of the people live and work in these skyscrapers, usually having one room for both their job and home at the same time. Machines in particular dominate the production industry, being responsible for everything the labor union currently covers, such as regulating traffic, cashier, production, enforcement, and even responsible for their own repair and construction. Because robots have become such a dominant workforce in this city, maintaining them has become essential, and hence the major job industry for humans is programming to keep these machines in check. These people take care of viruses, help keep the machines going, and develop new programs for the same machine to make them work more efficiently. There are other jobs, of course (as indicated, head corporate owners, directors of government positions, and scientists), but the majority of the human population are now programmers. Though the world is more efficient in terms of pollution, the atmosphere still seems unhealthy and nonappealing, and most people merely stay in their rooms, never to leave; they let the robots do anything that require outside contact. Note: Jon Wolfe, Sylvan, and Helice have more expertise in this area, meaning that they can navigate, fight, and is just plain more comfortable in the real world city than they are, in contrast to the internet which will be discussed below.

The Internet: The internet is an astonishing place, more impressive than the technology of the current real world (though, without a doubt, the technological advances in the real world are also very impressive). Basically, anyone can "construct" a web page (which is now situated like a house) and build it to their own liking, presuming that they know how to program and create a web page (usually, since most everyone is a programmer now, everyone knows how to do this pretty easily). The internet can appeal to all the senses as it is a virtual device that is inputted through nerve endings, and creates a virtual world from there. The user's appearance is exactly how the user looks like in reality, though they can modify their own appearance with the appropriate programming. Clothes are an additional programming process. However, though the Internet seems like Utopia, there are still troubles, most notably the viruses. People still wish to harm others (this is human nature) and so viruses, something in the shape of a real T9 type virus that infects bacteria (they look like polyhedrons with legs) can "infect" a person... if this happens, serious mental injuries can result, and the person responsible for the virus may be charged with very strict and very severe penalties. Ken Wolfe and Plata are much more keen and comfortable in this Internet world for navigation and battle than the other characters.
umm... more will come later :p

It's been proven!

Cute Anime girls lower my IQ by a helluva lot.

UPDATE: Apparently, my blog looks really funny now since I made a rather short post. I messed around with the template for a while today and still couldn't figure out how to fix it, but I did redesign my blog a bit, mainly by making the font look smaller and replacing a few links and info. Unfortunately, the huge gap still looks dumb. So, from this I can either:

A. Make my post REALLY long, verticalwise, or
B. Waste time by looking up more information on CSS style sheets over the internet or in one of the HTML books I have at home.
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I think I'll stick with choice A since it seems to be the easier of the two right now :p.

Test

This will be a random entry about a test I had today. It may somehow go into philosophy of life and happiness, so you have been warned. The details of the test are that I did quite horribly, and as you may expect, I am not enthusiastic about my performance. Seeing how I have not finished two of the five problems on the exam, as well as being confident that I have misinterpreted two of the other problems in the exam, I estimate that I may get less than half correct on the exam. Obviously this brings up an onset of emotional despair, but, I decided that today I will analyze my own stress over the test, the actual importance of the test to me, and many other things that if I want to I'll just BS right now.
You know, tests, along with school itself, isn't more important in the overall picture to life than even something like anime. This is true with money, clothes, social status, anything humans ever value or treasure... it's not that damn important. In fact, when looking at it from a logical perspective, there's no real "purpose" to life; that is, not that I'm going on a depression streak, but life merely just spontaneously appeared on a rock in the middle of nowhere (literally), and it will just as likely spontaneously disappear one day. So in reality, even if things aren't important, it's not going to hurt in worrying about these things. Just, in terms of ranking, nothing is TRULY more important than the other. However, for most people, myself included, there are some things that hold value to them more than other thingss. This is perfectly fine; this is how we pretty much find motivation to live.
So some people like money, some people like clothes, some people like power (political, military, whatever), and some people like anime. While I sometimes may criticize some of these people for caring about such "unimportant" things, I myself wonder about my own attentiveness to school and grades. Why is it that I have become like the person I am, someone who feels such despair when doing bad on a test, that it was similar to, say, a couple breaking up? Perhaps? It might not be a bad analogy, but it gets the idea across, especially for people who regard relationships as something important.
Well, I thought about it a little more, and I realize that in actuality, I don't get disappointed about the grade of the test itself. I have had tests that I have bombed, and I felt... well, not satisfied, but more or less "ok, I got that grade" sort of attitude. Maybe apathetic, but that seems misleading. However, this time when I finished the test, that I knew I was going to bomb, I felt horrible. This is because I knew that the grade I will recieve cannot represent what I think I am and what I "deserve" on the test. Deserve is a sketchy word, since it implies that someone did something wrong, and it is not my fault. No, it was still my result, but it is the result of something not from my knowledge of the subject, but my lack of composure and attentiveness. Perhaps this is what truly upsets me: that I get graded not because of what I know on the subject, but because I ran out of time on a problem that I could have definately without a doubt solved, and that I am mislead in a problem because of my poor reading skills.
Grades are not what make me "happy". When people compliment me on my grades, saying "what a good student you are", I shrug, and I don't really care. Why is that? Well, maybe its because grades I feel aren't something that truly can represent me. Too much of a percentage of my grades are not representative of what I know, but rather of what I did because it was assigned, along with some non-knowledge related mistakes I made as I had indicated earlier. What really makes me feel satisfied and "happy", more so than any game that I could play or any anime that I would watch, is when I help other people, or similarly when I am working on a rather difficult problem that I know I can solve. In both of these situations, I feel that it's not the end result that I'm looking for, but rather that I am using my intelligence, should that be the word. In the first case, I feel immensely satisfied when someone looks at me as smart not because of my grades, but because they watch the process I explain to them in which to solve a particular problem; I am not perfect, and I had many occasions where people correct me in minor details or even give me a different way to think, but the impact that I had on them, that I showed them I could solve a problem or explain this situation to them, gives me a feeling of happiness that matches almost no other. In the other case, the basic thrill of solving a problem is something like exercising the brain; now, before I do the problem, I may groan why I have to solve the problem because of homework, and after the problem, I may forget about it completely and just move on to the next one or whatever I do next. But while doing a problem, and knowing what to do, it's exciting. Only in one case is it not exciting but immensely stressful is if there is a time limit, as there is on a test, and this time limit is almost approaching its end. At this point, its no longer knowledge but more stress, and because of this many times a problem that would not have been difficult to solve (and even enjoyable) would give me a hard time because of the time limit. This is why sometimes I will become frustrated over one test that I bomb, then say "Meh, you idiot, try harder next time" on another.
Well I guess if I'm living in this world I do have to look to the menial work and be more attentive to the time and mistakes that I make; in chemistry, for example, I have significantly reduced the amount of error that I make in my tests and have scored, in the last semester, many grades in the 90s. I don't know, but I guess since this test is done and over with, it doesn't help to mourn over my nervous breakdown during the past problem of this test, along with all the other mistakes I thought up AFTER I turned in the test, but to go on, start on thermodynamics, and when the final comes next week, work quicker, double check the work, and whatever grade I get, will be the one I felt I deserve, whether it be good or bad.