Greetings, Mortals

Ohohoho.... I am writing this on my brand new Compaq Presario - my big Christmas present for this year. This baby is one sweet little piece of machinery... Although calling it small is something of a lie. It's a laptop, but it's got a really wide screen - perfectly set up for watching DVDs. So yes! I finally have a DVD-rom drive, and it works beautifully. The screen's gorgeous - nice and bright. It's built for low power consumption, so the battery's supposed to last for a really long time - about three and a half hours if my battery timer isn't lying. I have a 40 gigabyte hard drive, which is twice as good as my old laptop (and that was with the extra hard drive too, haha) and I'm slowly transferring all my anime onto here. Speaking of which, anime plays great once more - no more stupid mpeg conversions! My mp3s were the first thing to make it onto this machine - they sound gorgeous playing through the speakers. I can't get over how great these speakers sound. A great improvement over my Thinkpad's speakers, which were stuck underneath my hands when I was typing (stupid design). No more Dot, sadly, but I have a touchpad now. I wonder how it will affect my drawing capabilities. Hm, haven't tried that yet. Oh, the coolest extra feature has to be the ATI Radeon 9200 - one helluva graphics card. I can run Alissa's Enter the Matrix game on here perfectly - the home computer can't even do that! And I finally got the Nintendo 64 emulator to work (w00t!!) so we spent the morning duking it out with Super Smash Brothers. I love that game... ^^; Heh, goodbye SNES emulator. We shared some good times, but now I can finally play Ocarina of Time, which I've been longing to for more than a year. Heh, I'm so bad. Waaai!! Did I tell you how much I love these speakers?!

Mya, so I did get some other cool things - I have a nice big Japanese-English dictionary. I'm still mad that Di Gi Charat's stuck at MIT. Well, guess I'll be back soon enough. Meep! But first, there's Florida. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon. I think we're coming back on New Year's Day. Gotta be back at MIT by Sunday, so I'm going to be back there before I know it. Heh, Alissa got me a matching toe-sock and glove thingy - very cute! And Kelsey got me a new watch, which is exactly what I was needing. Hooray for sisters. ^_^ I got Kelsey these awesome fuzzy toe-socks (popular, ain't they?) which she's wearing today, and I got Alissa a Hoobastank CD. More loud music. *rolls her eyes* At least I won't have to hang around here and listen to it for much longer. :P And now that I'm playing Stabbing Westward and she's in here listening to it, she's gotten all interested. Hahaha, look out Mom...

So Christmas was pretty quiet all in all... Mom's still in California - she'll be back on Monday, after we're already in Florida. Too bad. Hope she had a good Christmas without us. In the evening, I played Yahoo! Graffiti with my MIT friends. It was a lot of fun - I was impressed by everyone's guessing abilities. I won the first game, mostly because Kelsey was watching and kept coming up with really good guesses. Yay sisters again. ^_~ Hmm... Being so happy at home makes me think about all the other people out there who aren't as fortunate as us - I feel a bit guilty about getting such an awesome laptop - I definitely didn't need anything this nice. I hope all the soldiers who couldn't come home for Christmas are staying safe. May they all return soon. -_- *gets depressed and signs off*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Stabbing Westward - You Complete Me
Current mood: Couldn't be happier

Home Sweet Home

Aaah... It is so good to be home. There's so much variety in the food available... And there's a DVD player... And the Christmas tree... And my sisters! Yeah, being home makes me happy. ^_^ I've spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how JBuilder works. I figured it was time to re-teach myself Java since my software engineering lab next semester is taught in Java and they don't really teach you Java - they expect you to already know it, which is kind of evil. <_< Heh, so my sister gave me a problem from her programming class and it was nasty and tricky (and also really really short). It made me pretty sad. It's like when I see her artwork - I feel like I'm falling behind. She's moving forward so fast and I'm stuck at a standstill. I totally blame MIT. Darned school sucking up all my free time and not letting me do what I want. Oh yeah, I've got a couple of my final grades in. I passed 6.002! My grade is low and it's doing murder to my GPA, but at least I passed! I was terrified that I would have to retake the class, which would be the worst thing ever. I'm worried about 6.042 as well... I hope I did okay, and that my final grade isn't going to trash my GPA beyond all recognition. I got an A in Japanese, but I was expecting no less. That was a cool class... I have to remind myself to study up on Japanese over vacation and IAP so I'm not all rusty in the spring.

I decided that I need to learn to read Japanese faster, and I'm mad that I left my Japanese Di Gi Charat manga at school. There's nothing at home that I can easily read - there's too much kanji. So my mom suggested that I hop online and check out Kinokuniya's online bookstore, since they have a ton of Japanese books (manga included!). She'd been wanting to look up some Japanese books there too, but she needed to wait 'til I came home to use my laptop (since it's got Japanese support). I tried it out, but I can't use the search engine since it requires you to type in actual Japanese characters. I was able to look up Chrno Crusade only my surfing over to the Japanese site and copying the title from that page and pasting into the search engine. I was dismayed by how expensive the Chrno Crusade books are - $13 each! That's a lot.... >_< I consider English manga expensive, and it tends to run around $10 a book. Japanese stuff tends to be around $7. I've seen some for as low as $5, and they do go up to about $10.... But $13?! That's as much as those overpriced Di Gi Charat English mangas that I buy (I returned the fourth one yesterday - I was really disappointed by it). Didn't really see anything I wanted at Borders yesterday either... Though the second book of Kenshin is out already. I know if I start buying into that series though, it'll be bad, since it's what, about thirty volumes long? *shudders* Pita Ten doesn't come out until January and Galaxy Angel's release date is in April so I'm going to have to wait for those shoujo series that I'm interested in. And I keep saying that I don't like shoujo. Such a lie, seeing that half my collection is Di Gi Charat. ^^; Well well, I just found out that Bleach has been licensed, so that's kind of cool. Don't think I'd really buy it though. Hikaru no Go is set to come out soon too, which is way cool, though that's another horribly long series (not as long as Kenshin though - only about twenty volumes :P). But what I really want is some good Chrno Crusade manga. Chrno is the best! Eheh. So is Fullmetal Alchemist, for that matter. But neither of those two titles have been licensed. Hm, not sure what else I'd be interested in...

Anyway, I have a plan for getting my hands on some good Japanese manga. Sarah and Vikki and I are planning to take a trip to New York City during our three-day weekend in January, just for kicks. Sarah wants to go skating in Central Park, and I want to go see some museums and it would just be a really fun thing to do. Aaanyway.... Since we're going to be there, I can probably get over to Kinokuniya for a bit! So exciting - we went there last summer. It's an awesome place, and they have a ton of manga in both English and Japanese! So yeah, Chrno, wait for me! Though that still won't solve the price issue... At least I won't have to worry about shipping. Ahahaha..... I am so excited. Sarah's going to kill me. ^_^;

Myah, well, I just started writing since I didn't have a good idea of what to work on in Java. Still don't. But I guess I ought to try to think of something. If I don't write before then... Have a very merry Christmas, everyone! Or whatever other holidays you do or don't celebrate.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Stabbing Westward - Save Yourself
Current mood: Blaaah....

Lord of the Movies

Okay, so I really should be working on that biology practice final, but I just got back from seeing Return of the King, and I have to write about it before I forget to and never say anything. Eheh.

Wow. We had quite the adventure tonight. Sarah and Vikki and I got free tickets to see Return of the King tonight, courtesy of Course VI (my major - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). Well, actually, I didn't get a ticket, but Jim, who is waaay cool, gave me his since he was going with Random Hall. The show was at 7, but we met around 4 since we wanted to get good seats. We got to the theater around 5 and wandered around a bit before we got in line, since I'd never been to the Loews at Boston Common. Classy place. Anyway, we got in line and it was cool - there weren't more than twenty people ahead of us. But then things started going downhill. First, every time we sat down, this annoying usher guy would come over and yell at us to stand up and pack closer together. So we'd stand up. And no one would move. And then we'd sit back down again. And then the guy would come back and yell at us some more. It was all very annoying, especially since the people in front of us weren't sitting, but had sprawled all their McDonald's food all over the place. And then the usher guy threatened to kick us out. Mm-yeah. Nice guy. Of course, after Vikki and Sarah decided to yell at him, he disappeared, so they couldn't. :P

So after standing/sitting for about an hour, the show before us let out. And people said that it was awesome and we were getting all excited... And then the fire alarm went off. And we got yelled at to leave the theater. What the hell?! So we got herded out of the theater and the people kept telling us to cross the street and get away from the building. Now, that would have been fine if there were a serious problem, but no fire trucks ever came. It was stupid. After about 15 minutes of being screamed at, we crossed the street. And stood in the rain. And then all these people started flooding back in, and we got swept along. Frightening - total mob mentality thing going on there. Could've been dangerous. Anyway, Sarah led the way and cut a ton of people by weaving through the crowd - we eventually reclaimed our original spots in line. We got these emergency re-admit tickets... Hm, reminds me that I've still got that in my pocket... *pulls it out and sets it aside* Man, of course, this thing means that I have to go back there again and watch something. I'd rather have gotten a cash refund. For my free ticket. ^_~

Alas, when we entered the theater, somehow, everyone in the world had gotten in there before us, and all the good seats were taken. And we had been waiting in line for two hours! WTF. What more can I say? We got stuck way off on the left side, but at least we were pretty high up. In the end, the seats weren't that bad, but I feel totally cheated. Sarah and Vikki left to go and rant at that usher guy, since they were full of righteous anger. It's not like there was anything he could do though. *shrugs* I stayed and guarded the seats - I'm not really into yelling at other people anyway. I was pretty mad, but I also kind of mentally sat back just to see what else they were going to throw at us. I don't know - I've been feeling kind of distant lately. I drew though. I have more pretty Thraxxin pictures... I just wish I'd drawn them on white paper instead of on lined paper. My initially happy Thraxxin became an angry Thraxxin with his gun out. It looked better than what I'd started with anyway. He doesn't do happy all that well. Is drawing the only way that I express myself? Is that why I've been drawing so many upset/depressed guys this semester?

Aaanyway... We saw the movie! OHHHHH MY GOODNESS. THE BEST THING EVER. I remember being in awe of The Fellowship of the Ring. Then I saw The Two Towers and wasn't nearly as satisfied. Maybe because I'd been so impressed by the first movie. Though when I saw the extended edition of The Two Towers, I liked it a whole lot more. Y'know what? It's probably because they changed a lot in the movie from the second book in ways that I considered 'unforgiveable' than they had for the first one. But for Return of the King... I loved every single minute of it. Aaaah! It's truly epic. And the audience was great. There was a lot of applause at all the right places. It was a ton of fun. And Legolas! Ah! Total eye candy. There's nothing like blond hair and pointy ears... ^____^ There's this one horrible line that he said that was totally stupid. Guess he's not got much of a brain under that perfect hair of his. But he's got another moment of glory in this film (longer than that sweet jump onto the horse in The Two Towers, mwah) and it's just great. And Aragorn is amazing too. He's such an inspiring figure. But I really really loved Sam. He's really the true hero, I think. Oh my goodness, listen to me go on like a crazed fangirl. Heh, I remember after seeing the second movie, I was all, "Blah. Lord of the Rings. I'll let the other girls scream over it and go back to my anime bishounen." And then I saw this, and I love it all over again. I so can't wait for the extended edition to come out - I'll bet it'll be great. Too bad it's going to take about a year... Aaah... And I really would like the soundtrack to this movie. I wasn't really interested in the sountrack for the second movie because it was similar to the first, except for that overplayed Rohan theme. But this movie had a lot of new stuff, and it was really good. Especially that bit with the Irish whistle. It was really pretty.

Whew. Okay, I'm done. o_o; Hm. Why are you reading this? You should go out and see the movie!! :D And I should go and study! Hahaha..... Okay, I'll force myself. 9am finals are evil beyond belief, but not getting enough sleep beforehand is even worse. G'night!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Stabbing Westward - So Far Away
Current mood: Finals? What finals? LOTR rules! Yaaaaay!!! *hyper hyper*

And Now For Your Daily Dose of Depression

Ohhhh.... I am bored. So I will write in here before midnight for once! Fancy that. Today was my 6.002 final (that's Circuits and Electronics for you non-numerical types). I was really nervous about it (rather more like 'scared silly'), but it wasn't as horrible as I was afraid it would be. It was tough, but not impossible. I hope I did all right... I'll find out in a week! Wow, I studied for that test as I have never studied before. I spent a lot of time preparing and felt like it didn't help... Hm. Now I still have to study for biology and math, but those aren't until Thursday and Friday. Doesn't mean I should slack off though - 6.042 isn't going to be easy either. Discrete Mathematics, ugh.

So I've been listening to the same CD over and over for the past few days. I've heard it about 7 times. I just played it a while earlier and kept thinking that I'd already heard the current song that was playing... But that was because I'd already played it two or three times earlier today. x_x Oh well, the music from Last Exile is good to work to - all strings and orchestral inspiration. Yay.

Final crunch-time makes me sad. Christmas is only a bit more than a week away, and I can't feel that at all. I can't look at anything beyond my upcoming tests. It really annoys me. Blaaah.... Christmas. It's a love-hate time of the year. I love Christmas because I get to go home and be with my family (and you should be able to tell by now that my family's pretty important to me). And I don't have to think about classes or school since the semester will be finished. And there's a tree. And usually snow. Lots of snow this year. Hm. But Christmas-time means Christmas shopping. Which I hate doing. The only good kind of shopping is grocery shopping but I can't very well give my sisters a loaf of bread or something. Arrgh... My mom's not going to be here for Christmas this year. She's going to California to help her parents move into their new apartment. They were originally going to go to China but it didn't work out, which is really too bad. Still, my grandmother just got out of the hospital so it's best that she doesn't go gallivanting off to the other side of the earth. I worry. I worry too much. But if I don't, then I only think of myself and that feels horrible and selfish. I've looked back over the past semester and wonder where the time went. Did I make myself useful for anyone? In the grand scheme of things, do I matter at all? I feel very isolated. I feel very alone. My friends are in my kitchen studying for economics and here I am punting biology and getting all depressed again. Geez, must be a real drag for you to be reading this, hm? My apologies.

Things to be happy about:
- My cell phone died but then it revived. Guess the battery was dead, and the charge light wasn't working. But it charged back up so I don't have to be so panicked about that.
- Going to see The Return of the King on Wednesday night. Even though the biology final's on Thursday morning. But it's Aragorn! And Legolas! And hobbitses!
- 6.002 is OVER! Hopefully I will have passed the course and not have to take it again because that would suck beyond belief.
- The Galaxy Angel manga is coming out in March. And there's more Di Gi Charat manga to be bought.
- I borrowed DVDs from the anime club to take home and watch. Lost Universe - I've been wanting to watch it for quite a while. Actually, if we had Slayers TRY, I'd finish that up, but we only have it on VHS, not DVD. *sniff*
- Maybe I'll see friends when I go home. And even if I don't, we're going to Florida. Where it's warm.
- I can draw.
- I can draw Jesper.
- Okay, I can go into the kitchen and hang out with the others and draw Jesper.

I shouldn't be depressed. There's so much for me to be grateful for. Buck up - just one more week and then my first semester as a cynical sophomore will be over.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Scatter-brained

Anime... Because I Never Talk About It!

Fyuuh... Tonight was the club's pre-finals madness showing. It was pretty... special. If you really want to see something that'll make your head spin, watch Noiseman Sound Insect. The freakiest 15 minutes of my life ever. It makes no sense! Actually, I want to watch it again to see if I can understand it the second time around. Should I be scared? <_<; On a happier note, I started watching Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! a few days back, and I love it to death. It's so funny, and so cute! And the music is totally addicting. I was really looking forward to seeing the anime version of Chrno Crusade, but I've been rather disappointed so far. Maybe because Chrno hasn't transformed into his adult self yet, which will happen next episode (So exciting! *drool drool*). Ehem. Yeah. I don't really like the series so far... The enemies are cheesy, and I kind of don't like how Chrno sounds, and how Joshua showed up so early, and... Aargh, there's all these little things. The manga is so much better. Same goes for D.N.Angel. What can I say? It's generally true that the book is better than the movie... Same goes for anime and manga, I guess. Though the Fullmetal Alchemist anime gets two thumbs up from me so far... I really like it. The action's great, and the questions are deep. It's pretty episodic, but it's totally enjoyable. The best thing is how they play up on Edward's touchiness about his height (he overreacts whenever someone calls him short... it's great ^^). It's in the manga, and the anime producers seemed to overlook that detail for a while, but they certainly have been playing up on it quite a bit in the more recent episodes. The action's really well-done too. Very fluid and interesting. Alchemy's never been so much fun. ^_~

Yeah, so I'm supposed to be studying for finals. Only it's sooooo hard to get motivated. I hate 6.002. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I need to pass this class. I don't want to take it over again. Plus, that'd kill my hopes for M-enging too. -___- Aargh. MIT sucks. All you people out there, don't come here. There is much to hate. Oh yeah, speaking of hate... Liang (anime club treasurer) finally made the new club ID cards. He was supposed to do this within the first few weeks of the semester for all the new members. Well, I didn't realize this, but I also got a new card - a permanent membership card for holding the role of librarian. He never told me, and so I never knew to submit a picture for the ID. So I got this surprise new card that I'm going to have for the rest of my life... and instead of the picture of Lindy-goth that's on my normal ID, it was a picture of Tim the Beaver! Aaaahhhhh! That made me really really mad. Who wants to have a permanent ID with the school mascot on it?!?!? I guess that's what you get if you don't submit a picture. Ali-chan said she'd dig out the old picture I sent her last year when I joined the club (she was treasurer then) and get me a new card, which is great. BUT, Liang, major lack of communication, ne?! What the hell were you thinking?! I'm still all annoyed, thinkig about it. Puts me in a fine mood for finals. x_x; There's probably more importat things that I should mention than these petty complaints, but I'm too annoyed to write them down right now. I'm going to bed. *stalks off*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Shimokawa Mikuni - Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! OP - Sore Ga, Ai Deshou *heart heart*
Current mood: In pain... Ouch... My head...

I am Sam. Sam I am.

*forces herself to sit down and write* Yeah, yeah, I keep meaning to write, but I'm never in the right mood for it. Thanksgiving was lovely - can't wait to go home again. Saw Millennium Actress - greatest movie ever! It's so well put together... I highly recommend it.

Heh, this week has been pretty low-key. Nothing's due, it's the last week of classes and finals don't start 'til next week. So tonight we started watching the extended edition of The Two Towers. Kind of hard with all these talkative people, but it works. We tried to start around 10, but didn't really start until 11:30. Some people have no concept of time at all! Aargh! So yeah, we only got through the first disc, and all of the action's on the second one. *sigh* The extended edition is ten times better than the original version though - they set things up so much better... We had a discussion though. There's this part where Sam tells Gollum that if he's starving, then he should go ahead and starve and die, and I was all, "Oh, I'd so say something like that!" And Sarah replied, "Yeah, you're Sam. Without the optimism." So that led to a discussion of "What Lord of the Rings character are you?" We decided that Vikki is Frodo, since she's the only person who would give Gollum another chance. Sarah decided that she's not Lord of the Rings material. But then she said she'd be Smeagol, since Frodo and Smeagol are pretty much the same person. Hmm.... Though it seems that lately Vikki has been wanting to declare autonomy from our one-ness. So sad. ;~; Anyway, I'd rather be the Nazgul king because the Nazgul rule. I'd just have to remember to stay away from all the women. I want a cool cape and massive armor and an evil flying black thingy... Eheh heh heh...

Oh yeah, and Prof. Weinberg is Grima Wormtongue. Weinberg is one of my biology professors and he's so boring and horrible. And whenever he asks the class a question, he answers himself with, "I'm glad I just asked that," and keeps on going. And then Wormtongue said something to the same effect and the comparison was hideous. Sarah and I were shrieking, "That's what Weinberg would say if he were in Middle Earth!" Myah.

Jim said he'd give me his free ticket to the Return of the King next Wednesday (they were provided by Course VI... I didn't get there in time to get one -_-) since he's going with Random Hall. So that's really really cool. I owe him something nice. ^_^ Not one of those creepy Gollum figurines that they sell with the Two Towers DVD. Haha, those are the scariest things ever. I don't know why anyone would want one.

My goodness. I spent all of Monday afternoon at work thinking up a back-story for Thraxxin. It was very sad, and there's lots of holes all over the place. Typical me - I have no planning skills. Keeps me entertained though. Makes me want to draw more grumpy Thraxxin pictures though; they are so much fun! Aah! What is wrong with me?! I haven't drawn a girl in months. Hmmm.... Oh well. Thraxxin and Jesper and Link are all so very yay, and if that's kept my spirits up all this semester then why should I stop? ^^; Umm.... Yeah. Anyway, I should get some sleep so that I don't sleep through all my classes tomorrow. Tomorrow's the last day of class! And we're going to watch the more interesting half of the Two Towers! And Sarah's floor has a study break! Sounds like a good day ahead of me. :D

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Yay!

The Best Day Ever

Today was exciting - we had an Excursion. It was Max's birthday and since he'd never had Dim Sum before, we decided to take him to Chinatown today. So we took the T there and got to China Pearl 9 all right (that's the place to go if you want good Dim Sum :D). It was around 11:30, but it wasn't really crowded - we didn't even have to wait in line. It was a lot of fun - I've never been to Chinatown with anyone other than my family. It was pretty cool to go with a bunch of friends. The meal was excellent, even though we probably ordered too much stuff. Heh. ^^; After that, we went to the Ho Yuen Bakery (good place!) to get egg custards. Poor Max... I don't think he ate too much at the restaurant... He seemed really wary of all the food, especially after we told him to stop asking what was in all the dishes because he was better off not knowing. :P Fortunately, he liked the egg custard, so that's good. After, we were going to take the T back to MIT, but I thought that it was such a nice day out that we should just walk back. We were way too late for UCF (computer refurbishing) anyway, so I figured we were in no real rush. Vikki had to get back a bit earlier because she had stuff to do, but she refused to take the T back without us. *sigh* Oh well, it was a gorgeous day for a walk. We went down and wandered along the Esplanade and it was so beautiful... Definitely one of the best days I've had this semester. I wish this nice weather would last!

Office hours for anime club weren't too bad today either - there was no new material to check in, so I spent most of the time rearranging the library so that all the videotapes would actually fit on the shelves that we have. Fortunately, we're getting new shelves soon, so then we'll have so much storage space that we won't know what to do with it. Wait, that's a lie. We'll just buy even more anime, which is all good, except that I'd have to check it all into the library. x_x; Myah, I even had time to watch an episode of Orphen. It wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be, plus the TV in the club office is horrible and makes evil buzzing sounds whenever there are people talking, so you can't really hear anything. Hmph. Anyway, I mostly wrote this because I wanted to write a blurb about this morning, not this afternoon. :P Oh yeah, went to the Chorallaries concert tonight (a capella). They were good as usual and it was great to hear all their new songs.

Oh yes, sad news of the day, as I sit here, angrily beating my laptop to death... The Dot on my laptop died! That's my laptop's excuse for a mouse - this little track-point sort of thing. It gave up on my yesterday, so I'm essentially without a mouse, which sucks big-time. Very fortunately, my sister gave me her old mouse before I came to school this semester, so I had something else to use. It's flaky at best though, and keeps dying on me, and then I can't use anything and it's horrible. I can't deal with this for much longer - good thing I'm going home in a few days - I hope there's something we can do to fix it. Aargh! When I accidentally poke the Dot, then the mouse goes out of control, and I can't make it work again 'til I reboot the computer. So I have to figure out how to post this thing without using a mouse. So annoying!

Um, yeah, I got a new cell phone, which is terribly exciting. I love it - it's so small and cute and pretty! And it's actually got better reception than my old one, which is a pleasant surprise (Ha! Take that, AT&T!). I was going to go to sleep early... Ha! I worked on my 6.042 p-set until around 11, and then I started drawing... And now, it's late as usual, but at least I have a pretty picture to show for it. It needs to be scanned! Many things need to be scanned! I keep mentioning this, and nothing happens, but that is because I haven't been home in months. But it's almost Thanksgiving, and I get to go home Wednesday. So yay! All right, I'll shut up now. There's no reason for me to be up this late anyway.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Phantasy Star Online Episode III - Tower of Caelum
Current mood: Sleepy

Blah Blah Blah...

Figured I ought to write something quick before going to sleep, since I've been dutifully avoiding not only this blog, but my poor old website as well. And since I don't feel like touching my website right now.... *shrugs* So, yeah, school is school. I'm coming to realize that I prefer the classes that aren't required for my major sooooo much more than the ones that are required. <_<; Time for the semester to be over! Thanksgiving's coming up really soon, which is great. I'm ready for another break, even though I just went to Cape Cod over the Veteran's Day weekend. (It was really fun, even though it was terribly cold and windy). I got a paper lantern for my room (copying Amy there...) and it's great. It makes my room so much brighter!

Today was exciting - we finished the 6.042 p-set before 3... pm! It took less than 5 hours, which is simply amazing. Even though we couldn't express a sum for the final problem, but whatever... I still need to do my 6.002 lab, which is not so good. I made myself go over to Amy's room to work on the prelab. Every time I sat down to do it myself, I would just get all depressed and not be able to do it and it was very sad. I feel bad for disturbing Amy, but she was really really helpful, and I'm very grateful for her being willing to help me out. ^_^ I also started studying for 7.012 (not the night before... amazing!) and I realized that I need to relearn a whole lot of stuff. I have such a superficial knowledge of everything, but I don't really know the details. Hm. I felt bad because I was working on the practice test and the p-set with Brett and he was asking me all these questions that I didn't know the answers to and I felt very stupid.

Well, tomorrow's going to be a busy day. I've got classes, and then work 'til 5. And then I have to do my lab... The lab is going to be so crowded because everyone's going to be working on it... We were actually supposed to do it last week, but it got a bit postponed because everyone had lots of tests last week. So I have to do it this week instead, and turn it all in on Friday, even! And there's only hired help until 8, so that's kind of annoying. I was hoping that it wouldn't take too long, but Amy says she's spent quite a bit of time on it already, and she isn't done yet. So I'm a little worried. Still, there's nothing too big going on this week... Besides the 7.012 test. And the usual 6.002 p-set. Still, the lab and post-lab is going to take a while, so that's annoying.

Oh well, that was pretty uninteresting, wasn't it? My mind is kind of dull and blank right now - my apologies. ._.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Azumanga Daioh ED - Raspberry Heaven
Current mood: Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy!

Flykyr is a Cheapskate

OHOHOHO.... I have random stories for you today. This past weekend I decided that I'd be like all those cool people who go 'into the city' on Saturday nights. So I walked across the bridge into Boston and went to the Prudential Center's Barnes and Noble for a few quiet hours of reading. Which was all very well and all, but I guess you can't really call it a night on the town. Since the Cheesecake Factory was right next door to the bookstore, I thought I might treat myself to something nice for once. The cheesecakes looked amazing, but then I saw that it was an average of $6 for one slice, which is more than I pay for a normal meal at MIT. So I walked out emptyhanded and decided to pick up a container of ice cream or something from the campus convenience store. But when I got there, I saw that it was also $6 for a container of ice cream. And you can get them at Star for about $4.50! So I bought an apple. It was good, but somehow not quite as satisfying.

Today was voting day for the city of Cambridge. I decided that I should perform my civic duty and so I read up on all the candidates that were running for City Council. There was this website that collected responses from most of the candidates - they had to write down what they planned to do in several areas, such as the Environment, Cambridge Public Schools, Housing, etc. Well, one of the categories was "Quality of Life." Under this, one of the candidates wrote "Very busy right now." He didn't get my vote. o_o

Speaking of which, one of my math professors has determined that, based on our math class, 26.9% of MIT students are smart alecks.

Other things of note, though not nearly as entertaining... My work on the MIT seal parody continues, after a month of ignoring it altogether. Now I hear that I've got competition, so I better finish up quickly. I need to stop downloading video game music. It's easy to get ahold of, but it starts to get irritating after a while. I need to find stuff with people actually singing in it. The weekend before last, I went on a dorm leadership retreat. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was gorgeous. The perfect time for a getaway. ^_^ Hm, Thanksgiving's already coming up. Yay, I can go home then! My hair really needs cutting - I got so annoyed at my long bangs today, that I tried trimming them after I took a shower. It's a lot harder than it looks! So I guess I'm going to look kind of scraggly for a couple of weeks. o_o; Oh well. I didn't come here to be a hairdresser. This weekend is cool - it's four days long! But then I have two tests next week, so that's really awful. 6.002 too. Argh. I better not fail again. Darnit. I want ice cream. *sits and pouts*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Tenpei Sato - Makai Senki Disgaea Arrange Soundtrack - War Comrade
Current mood: Blargh

Nerd Pride!

This was just too funny to pass up - I was just scanning a bunch of books on genetics, and one of them had this dedication: "Dedicated to the F1 generation." *laughs* Okay, if I think this is really amusing, should I be worried? <_<;

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Eiffel 65 - Move Your Body
Current mood: Kinda all zoned out from lack of sleep

And Now for a Real Update on my Life

So I'm going to be getting a new cell phone, different number and everything since we decided that I don't use mine nearly enough to justify paying what we are right now. So I'm switching over to Virgin Mobile - my Dad says the new phone will be very tiny, which is kind of amusing since the one I have right now is fairly small already. I hope the coverage is better than what I've got now - AT&T is terrible. I only get one (maybe two on a good day) bars on my phone when I'm in my room, so it makes calling people a real pain. Well, we'll see... Actually, yesterday while on the way to take a shower, I dropped my watch on the ground and it fractured part of the glass. It makes me very very sad... Actually, I think I'd rather have a new watch than a new phone. *sighs* At least it still works all right.

Winter is definitely on its way... It's been soooo cold lately - I am already wearing my winter jacket and everything. And on my way to class this morning, it started snowing halfway across Killian Court. Aaah! It's only October! What's going on here?! It needs to get nice before the weekend because I'm going on my dorm's first-ever House Government Retreat. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun, even though I'm just a random webmaster who has barely touched the webpage this fall... ^^;; But yeah, we're going to some place out in Western Massachusetts and going to leadership sessions and also just hanging out and having a good time. I'm looking forward to it - it'll be great to get off campus for once. And the best part is that we get back Saturday night so there's still all of Sunday for me to do my 6.042 p-set! Yay! Doesn't that just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside? No? Okay, well it doesn't for me either. x~x

But on a happier note, I finished my 6.002 lab last night, which was quite good! I had many issues with faulty equipment - Course VI ought to go refurbish that poor lab. Oscilloscopes are kind of fun... As long as they work! I rather like them. The lab we did was all about amplifying MOSFETs, and again, like the last one, it was much more fun in retrospect than while actually doing the lab. These things would go so much better if you didn't have to run into so many technical difficulties. At least the last two exercises were really easy because the third one took me forever... Plus I had to run through three oscilloscopes before I could find one that worked. Of course, now while trying to do the Post-Lab problems, I realize that I am calculating three completely different gains and they should all be the same so that is beyond disturbing. o~o; Oh well. It's not due 'til next Friday so I guess I've got a while to try to figure out just what I'm doing wrong.

Right now in Japanese, I have a 92.8% overall. Not too bad, though I wish it were a little higher. I had my interview test on Tuesday and it was the scariest thing ever. I came out of that on an adrenaline high and couldn't stop shaking. :P I thought I did really bad because I messed up quite a bit (I am so bad at conjugating verbs correctly!) but I got a 9 out of 10 so that's all right. Yokatta desu nee!

Oh yeah, the other famous author that I couldn't remember the other day was Erwin Schrodinger - that guy with the dead cat in the box. How could I have ever forgotten! :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Dead tired

"Take Your Readers to Work" Day

I haven't written in ten forevers because each time I sit down to write, I try to think of something to say that doesn't sound all self-centered and dumb, and nothing comes to mind. But I was inspired today by work, so now you can read about what I do on random afternoons instead of going and doing my 6.002 labs.

I work in the RSC - that's the Retrospective Collection, and we pretty much handle all the old books that none of the other libraries want to deal with. So I spend some time checking books back in and reshelving, but that's all overshadowed by the DDC Recon Project. The RSC has thousands of old books that need to be brought up-to-date by having them barcoded and catalogued so they can be checked out by barcode instead of by hand. I think this project's been going on for more than five years now, and there's still plenty of books to go through. The RSC is working with some sort of cataloguing company - the deal is that the RSC needs to barcode and scan in 250 books every week and the company takes those and documents them all and checks for duplicates and such. Then when the whole process is complete, the books get sent off to Harvard Depository, where everyone can conveniently forget about them until someone actually wants to check one out. :D

So I spend every Wednesday barcoding one batch of books. We work in sets of about 125 - so we go through two sets in a week. Barcoding is quite easy - you just have to look up the number of pages in the book, write it down, and attach three barcodes in different places (two go on the book, the third on the form that you write the page numbers down on). And that's about it. Easy-peasy - I usually study Japanese while I'm doing this since barcoding is pretty mindless. Actually, it's been kind of useful recently since we're learning numbers in Japanese - I've been trying to remember the numbers in Japanese instead of English. It's really hard to go straight to Japanese without thinking about them in English though!

The other major part of the DDC Recon Project is the scanning of the books. Today, I did some more scanning since one of the other student assistants quit or something, and now I have to do the work that she isn't doing any more. <_<; Oh well. If I get to sit around and listen to music and get paid for it, I can't be too unhappy, right? Of course, it would be even better if I could draw at the same time, but I'm afraid that's completely out of the question. Scanning is very time-consuming and annoying because you sit around for a long time but you can't actually do anything while you're sitting around because there's only about fifteen seconds of downtime between each scan. And it adds up to a lot of time when you're through since you have to make three scans for each book. But you can't do anything in there because you have to keep waiting to flip pages and hit the scan button! I guess I'm much faster than my supervisor or pretty much anyone else - everyone's always surprised at how quickly I go through a set of books. I think it's because if you set me down with some headphones and a CD or three, I can keep myself happy for hours. It's easy to focus if I'm listening to something that I really like. I'm afraid that if this goes on for much longer though, I'm going to run out of CDs to listen to that I'm not totally sick of. That could be very bad because without anything to listen to, I'd go nuts. Oh well. So I'm stuck with the job that nobody else wants. But it's not too bad. And I get paid. Heh, I should get a raise. ^^;

Besides the barcoding and scanning, there's also a bit of database work to do, but that's stupid and easy. You just read stuff in by barcode and write down their Dewey Decimal number and fun stuff like that. And I sort out mail and stuff. But... that's about it! Now, wasn't that exciting? Actually, working at the RSC is pretty darn cool. I mean, how many other people regularly come into contact with books that are more than a century old? I've glanced through a few old science books (eh, well, they're pretty much all about science - this is MIT after all) and they are pretty hilarious. One talked about the formation of the moon: The Earth was spinning around and it formed a pear shape. The spinning put so much stress on the Earth that the top part of the 'pear' broke off and that became the moon. Uh-huh... Dream on folks... It was kind of cool though - today I scanned books by Percival Lowell (the guy who discovered, or at least looked really hard for, the planet(?) Pluto), Svante Arrhenius (that guy who came up with the idea of electrolytic dissociation - acids and bases), and Newton (the Principia of course, though it's a reprint from some time in the 1870's... certainly not the original! :P). And I'm pretty sure I saw one more book by some famous dead guy, but the name eludes me at the moment so I'll let it pass. Still, isn't that great? Handling all these old books written by famous men before they were even famous. They have all those old fuzzy pictures of Saturn and stuff that looks so quaint and silly (we're going through all the astronomy books right now...) and books discussing whether those dark marks on Mars are vegetation or not, or how exciting it would be to travel into space. Even though all the dust and grime makes my hands filthy after every workday, I'm still excited to see what I'll be handling next. It makes me wish I had time to sit down and actually read some of the books passing through my hands. But alas, there is always more work to be done, and those sad dusty tomes that haven't been checked out in the last half-century or more must remain unread. Such is the life of an overworked librarian and an underused library.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Lost Child OST - Black End (The best song ever! ^_^)
Current mood: Content

I'll Make This Quick...

Ahah, I fixed up the stupid counter on this page that keeps breaking, and I republished and got all my old archives back! I'm so excited - I thought they were gone forever when I switched from weekly to montly archives. But I can access them once more so that is happy. ^_^

The anime club is trying to come up with a new t-shirt design. Different people have been asked to come up with a design and stuff. Maybe we should have a contest. Actually, one of the members suggested drawing a parody of the MIT seal. And I was sitting here and was bored, so I actually started doing that. I turned the guy on the left (with the hammer) into Himura Kenshin about to pull out his sword. The lamp on top of the books is now Mokona. And the sign that says "Science and Art" has been changed to "Science and Anime." I'm trying to figure out who the second person person should be - I need someone 'intellectual' to fill in the Mind part of "Mens et Manus" (mind and hand). I want to change that motto to something else... Like "Sittus et Watchus." I don't know. I'll probably never finish anyway and if I do, it will look stupid. Ah well, if I never tell the club about it, they won't be sad when I fail. :P Plus, I'm sure there's waaay better artists out there with more original ideas anyway. -_-;

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Nobuo Uematsu - Gun Hazard OST - UNEASY
Current mood: More or less happy

Oh, the Pain...

Sarah and I have recently figured out that she, Vikki and I are essentially one person stuck in three bodies. This is a very disturbing revelation, but one that seems to be very true. Last night at the 6.001 lab, we were working with Brett on 6.042 (evil math!) via Zephyr (Athena's version of instant messaging), and one of us would ask him a question, and he'd answer someone else. So then another one of us would respond to that. So we're interchangeable. Whoa, look, we're an equivalence relation. To proove this, we need to show three things: Ever element is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. Now, we are all reflexive, since I am myself, and Sarah is Sarah, and Vikki is Vikki. But we're also symmetric because talking to Sarah is just like talking to Vikki (or even me), at least with Brett, over Zephyr. And we're also transitive because if Sarah sends a message, and then Vikki sends a followup to the reply, and then I send something further questioning or clarifying afterward, it's quite the same as one person doing all the talking (okay, maybe that one's a bit of a stretch there). But anyway! We are an equivalence relation! (Heh, 6.042 is really getting to me...) We are really one person stuck in three bodies! I am very disturbed - especially since this means that because we're so dependent on each other, when we take our 6.042 test next week, each of us is only going to get a 33%. :P Ah, I lead such a sad existence.

Anyway, enough for the deep thoughts. I'm tired and there's no reason for me to stay up even later, writing silly pseudo-6.042 proofs. Yeah, I have no free time in my life, unless it cuts into my sleeping time. I'm amazed at how busy I am this year - I'm almost never in my room. I guess that's good since I can't study well in my room anyway. Better for me to be hanging out downstairs with my friends I guess. More productive, plus there's people to check answers with. ^_^ Blah, I haven't updated my website in forever and I feel really bad about it. I'm such a slacker.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Motoi Sakuraba - Star Ocean the Second Story Arrange Album - Lavender
Current mood: Pseudo-intellectual

Arrgh...

Ugh, right now I am so depressed. The day started off fine - I survived Japanese, snoozed through the 6.002 lecture... Same old, same old. I even finished off my 6.002 lab, which made me very very happy, and 6.042 went pretty well because we had the good lecturer today. But then, after that class, my friends decided that they wanted to go to the Career Fair today. So I went too. And now I'm really really sad. Yes, the career fair was very depressing. I feel quite worthless now, and I was going to rant on about it for a while, but I really don't know what to say. So. Hm. I need food. And I need to finish off my 6.002 p-set (and probably start the 6.042 p-set *shudder*)... I've got karate tonight (karate gym class = yay). Ach, I guess what I want to do much is turn up my Lost Child OST really really loud (I need angry music and that is as good as it gets, heh) and draw. I really want to draw. I've been itching to sit down and draw something nice for several days now. Unfulfilled as usual. Argh, and the music that I'm listening to right now really sucks. It sounds all midi-ish and FF7-like. It insults my ears. I think I'll just delete it all. -_- *ramble ramble* Okay, that was all very random and stupid. If you actually went and read this, I apologize. I think I'll just shut up right now and crawl off into a corner to die.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Bahamut Lagoon OST - Ballroom Dance (I suggest you don't listen to this stuff - it's not really that good at all)
Current mood: Very unhappy

All in a Day's Work

So far, life is going pretty good. It's pretty hectic but it's not uncontrollable. Not yet.

Ha, I am taking this karate gym class, and while it's a good deal of fun, it's also painful. My legs hurt so much... Because it's two hours long, we have a lot of time to stretch out and our sensei makes the most of it. I'm just hoping that I heal up before the next class! The sensei is the most gung-ho sensei that I've ever seen. He gets all excited about everything and no one can understand him because his accent's so thick. I like it though - better than aikido because in that class, we never got verbal instructions - we had to copy the instructor's movements which was insanely difficult. Oh well, this is karate - it's what I've been doing for years and years so I'm naturally much more comfortable with it. But now I have to remember to chamber low for my punches - I got corrected a few times last night. Hanshi would be so sad that I am now struggling to chamber badly. It's hard to do though, so I must have been well taught!

Anime club is just crazy. I am amazed at how many new materials make it in every week. I spent most of Saturday finishing up checkouts and adding new items to the library - it took hours and I didn't even catalogue everything! But it looks like we practically doubled the size of the audio library which is kind of interesting. It's so sad that I haven't checked anything out of the library yet... There's so much stuff that I want to watch, but I have no time for it! I still have a ton of my stuff on my laptop that I need to watch too, so that's kind of in my way too. At least I'm forced to go to the weekly showings so I get to watch some stuff (but not the first feature, which makes me sad). I'm glad that I get to see the semester series though because they look good - we're showing One Piece (shounen comedy about pirates) and Last Exile (war and airplanes - very serious, very pretty) and I like them both, so that's great.

So, you might be wondering why I have no time to watch anime this year, when I watched so much this year? Well, now I have to do all my homework at night because during the day, not only do I have classes, but I also have a job! It's at the RetroSpective Collection - one of MIT's many libraries, and I start there tomorrow so that's kind of exciting. I'll be reshelving and cataloguing all the unmarked items. Looks like I'll be pretty busy with that, but at least I'll be earning money for it. ^_^ This is my first real job (sad, ne?) so I'm rather excited. Well, that's going to take up all day, so night is for homework. Friday is anime club, so that's all taken up there. Saturday is anime-club-library-upkeep-day and Sunday is 6.042 day (evil evil math). Oh, and I volunteered to help refurbish computers to provide to needy people in an attempt to bridge the Digital Divide. So community service too, yay! Uhm, yeah, so now I get to have no life whatsoever and I'm really really sad that I can't do a UROP because that's something that I should be doing... I need to see if bioinformatics is really the field of study that I want to involve myself in. But if I don't UROP in something in that area, how am I going to find out before it's too late?! Aargh... Well, there's always IAP. And next semester... *crosses her fingers*

Well, well, I must go to bed now. I have Japanese at 9 in the morning (eek!) so no more of this staying up until 2am thing for me. @_@ I am a changed person. At least until the work really starts piling on. So for now, I'll take sleep when I can get it. Also, something that I've learned over the course of a year at MIT - you're never going to get enough sleep so don't underestimate the power of the nap. ^_^ Ja ne.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Balligomingo - Marooned
Current mood: Sleepy

Back to the Daily Grind

Urrgh, I've been meaning to write for the past week, but I've been too busy doing other stuff... o_o; So yeah, I'm back at MIT again. *sigh* I've already got p-sets to work on (the 6.002 one looks really scary) and lots and lots of stuff to read. Japanese is pretty cool although the class is too big. I'd kind of like to switch to the 9:00am class because it's guaranteed to be a whole lot smaller, but I'm wondering whether I'd be able to wake up on time to actually go to it. I've been trying to get to sleep earlier this year - so far I've been doing pretty good at turning off the laptop around midnight, though last night was an exception. Ashdown (grad dorm next door) was having this terrible, loud party that went on until about 2 in the morning, and I couldn't even think about going to sleep with noise like that. So I slept late today, and it made me sad. I don't want to get back into that old routine! If I can get to sleep by midnight and wake up by 8, I'd be doing great. Of course, you know how late-night p-setting goes... *aarghs*

Besides all that, vacation in California was great. It wasn't very hot because I guess the heat wave had just broken or something. LA was smoggy as ever, but I got to see my grandparents again, eat great Chinese food, and see their new apartment (looks like it'll be nice). After LA, we drove to San Diego. It's a two hour drive normally, unless it's Saturday and you're trying to get to San Diego. Which is exactly what we were doing. It took us four hours instead! Oh, that was no fun. Neither was the two hour wait for the rental car. All the waiting was a pain. You can't get anywhere fast in southern California. -_- Anyway, we finally made it to San Diego, had a party with some relatives at the condo place where we were staying (that was fun, except for when everyone started pulling out the guitars and singing :P), went to the beach a lot, and stuff like that. My mom and my sisters had to go home early because my sisters had school starting up before me (and I get out of school before them, hah!). I feel bad for Mom - she didn't get to do much of anything since she doesn't swim, and there wasn't room under the pier for her to practice karate. When they left, Dad and I were staying on a few days to get in some diving. I can't believe it's been two years since I last dove. So after we drove everyone back up to LA to get them to the airport (two hours each way @_@), Dad and I went to a dive shop and rented out some gear to do some diving over at La Jolla Cove. We forgot the air tanks at the dive shop. And didn't realize it until half an hour after the shop had closed. So that was not so good. Instead of doing an early dive at 7 am, we had to wait until 8 for the shop to open so we could get the tanks. Well, we finally got into the water, and the visibility was terrible. As in, less than ten feet. More like five. We lost each other more than once when trying to go under. And there wasn't much to see underwater anyway because there was a lot of kelp covering everything. But there were plenty of Garibaldis, which look like giant goldfish and they are very pretty, especially the juveniles which have neon blue spots. We decided to give up beach diving after that and so the next day we went to the San Diego Zoo, which was excellent. I loved the aviaries and the naked mole rat display. Heh. But yeah, it's a great zoo - they even have some giant pandas, which were really neat to see. The day after that, Dad and I did a boat dive over at the Coronado Islands. Visibility wasn't very good unless you went down pretty deep (at least 50 feet), but then it got really cold. And there still wasn't the great diversity that you see when you dive in tropical locations. Give me warm water diving any day! There wasn't much else besides that. And here I am now, back on the east coast. -____- Such as it is.

Oh yeah, I am settling into my new position as anime club librarian, and so far it's going all right, though I didn't get much work done during my office hour, which is not so good. I don't want to have things piling up for me there... o_o; Maybe I should spend some more time there. *shrugs* Anyway, I'm going to sleep now so that I can get up bright and early tomorrow for school!! Feel the sarcasm. ^^;

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Last Exile OP - Cloud Age Symphony
Current mood: Hungry

Summer Went... Where?

Ah, my poor little website... I know that I haven't updated it in a month of a half. No worries though - I've been scanning in stuff, and once I get back to school and decent internet, I'll get back into my regular(ish) updating self. I don't know - I'm not inspired to do any work on it here. Probably because I have more alternatives here - at school, it's either working on homework or website stuff. ^_^; So school is starting up soon... Uhm, actually, I'm going to be one of the last people to arrive on campus - I don't get in until the day before Reg Day. -_-; That's because my family's going on vacation starting next week, and I don't get back for, er, well, a while at least. But that's okay, because I won't have to put up with campus food for a little while at least, and besides that, we'll be in sunny, gorgeous California! There's the usual visiting of relatives (in smoggy ol' L.A.) but we're also going to San Diego for a few days, which is cool because I haven't been there in years. I'm going to be able to get in a few dives with my dad, which will be excellent because I haven't been diving since last summer (in Hawaii ^^;). I hope I haven't forgotten everything I need to know.

Hah, so this school year will hopefully be more exciting than the last. Though I think I'm just kidding myself if I think I'm going to be any more productive this time around. o_o... Especially since I'm getting myself all involved in the anime club (club librarian, yo *shivershiver*). So, this semester I'm taking cool classes, eheh.... FUN things like 6.002 (Circuits and Electronics - the class that all Course VIers at MIT seem to hate). I have to get a lab kit for that class, and keep a lab notebook and stuff. It's going to be time-consuming. I'm also taking 6.042 (Mathematics for Computer Science). It sounds even more complicated than all the math I've already been through. It sounds rather proof-intensive as well, which does not make me happy. x_X Besides those two, I'm also taking 7.012 (Intro to Biology) finally. I feel so behind everyone else when it comes to the biology front. And here I am, wanting to minor in bio as well. This class better be pretty easy - as in, I can do the p-sets the night before like Intro Chem. :P Although getting an A instead of a B- would be good too. Aargh. How did I get to be so bad at school? Well, at least I've been doing well in my summer Java class. Well, last but certainly not least, I'll be taking 21F.501, which is Japanese I! Now that is exciting. I hope it's good - I've been meaning to learn Japanese for quite some time now - my Mom's been teaching a Japanese class over at our dojo for the summer, and I've looked at her class notes and stuff, but that's about it for formal study. Ah well, I know my hiragana, so that's something. Maybe I can get all the katakana down before the summer's over... That would make life a bit easier, I'm sure. ^_^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Kawmoto Mokoto - Rurouni Kenshin - 1/2
Current mood: Kinda sleepy

Musings from my Mind

Today's entry is being written from the air-conditioned comfort of my dad's office. This is because the router at home broke, we have no wireless network (temporarily), only one computer can be online at a time now, and my laptop refuses to play along with it all. That being said, the end result is that I am here, where there is internet and air'conditioning, and a lovely view out the window of the office's dumpster. Whee.

It's been a while since I've felt like writing - mostly because of my Java class and all the homework that I have to do for it. I'm surprised though, that I've nearly caught up on all my assignments, and I'm only behind by one. Such a warm and fuzzy feeling. :P So if you've read the last post, then you'll know that MIT people came up two weekends ago. It was a lot of fun. We got to go to the Picnic Beach, where I haven't been in years, and we went swimming and had a cookout and chucked a football around, which was great because no one could actually throw it. :D We had a lovely little party back home afterward, and my friends enjoyed my dad's cooking (which, when it comes to barbeque, or just about anything else for that matter, can't be beat) and we all stayed up way too late and stuff. Such as it is. ^_^; Anyway, it was a great weekend, and I hope we can do something like that again next year.

I've been in such a slump dragon-wise. I haven't made anything since a few days before my birthday. <_<; Not so good since Old Home Days is coming up in a couple of weeks. Meep! We found out our booth location - it's not as good last year. It's way on the end, and not under a tree this time. Kinda in the back corner where all the ice cream trucks hang out. Hm, that could be a good thing now that I think about it... ^_~ Yeah, so besides not making dragons, I've been reading excellent shounen manga by Kubotite (Kubo Taito). That guy is so cool - he can draw the greatest smirk ever. Keep an eye out on my website - I drew a picture of Thraxxin Duluth based on Ichigo's awesome smirk from the second chapter of Bleach (check out Toriyama's World if you're interested in reading the manga), and I should be scanning it in soon. I can't wait for the school year to start because then I'll be more inclined to update my website (and my weblog as well).

Okay, now for the random part from the dark depths of my brain that you might not want to read if you are sane... Or something. Anyway, I want to write it down here so I'll be able to check back on it later if I want to... I've been thinking about dark elves recently. A lot, actually. Somewhere near the end of the school year, I started putting together a drow family, based on the Forgotten Realms setting. The main characters are four siblings, all sisters, with various talents. I've been thinking of setting them in Menzoberranzan, but I'm not sure if they would fit in with the existing culture there. Their family, House Del'bren'shazoren, would be of minor nobility, not very well-known, and not sitting high in Lloth's (the Spider Queen - the drow's main deity)favor. As such, they are not too likely to be attacked - one cannot really gain in standing by wiping out their house. They are rather looked-down on because they only use their full name and do not adopt a shorter, easier-to-reference surname (I remember something about using a different last name and keeping the real one somewhat secret from R. A. Salvatore's tales of the Underdark), and also because of their lack of priestesses. The houses of Menzoberranzan of course place their value on how many priestesses of Lloth they have. House Del'bren'shazoren is quite the failure because the Matron Mother of the house (no name for her yet) has four daughters, and none of them are quite what would be deemed acceptable in drow culture.

The eldest, Xanshaa, was not watched over carefully enough by the mother, and her father somehow intervened in her upbringing and trained her as a fighter. As such, by the time she was old enough to enter Arach Tinilith (the clerical school), she had no respect for Lloth and was deemed a hopeless case where magic was concerned. The mother was forced to allow the wayward Xanshaa to continue her weapons training, but she killed the father out of spite and picked a new consort.

The next child was Na'veen, and the mother was much more careful this time around to be sure that she was brought up in a manner befitting a young noble female. Na'veen seemed full of religious zeal and the mother, pleased with how things were working out, had another child by the same male, who was named Koroko. Unfortunately, a god of Death (name to be determined) became interested in spreading his influence through the drow society and somehow picked Na'veen to one of his first followers in Menzoberranzan. This is probably because he noticed Na'veen's blind zeal to anyone that could offer her power. As long as he could convince her that he was more worthy of worship than Lloth, the Lady of Chaos, then he would have her undying support. You might recognize Na'veen as being a former EverQuest character - a drow necromancer - that's where this idea stemmed from. So Na'veen has been empowered by this death-god and has the ability to raise her slain enemies from the dead to fight for her. She can also drain out her enemies' life force to support her own. This makes her just about as powerful as Lloth's strongest priestesses, and will invite much trouble once the other drow start learning about Na'veen's secret. Na'veen does have to keep her devotion to her god a secret because if anyone outside of the family found out about it, they would likely crush her as quickly as possible to make sure that the rival god never has a chance to expand his control. Of course, this makes it very difficult for Na'veen to find and create further followers among her people... She is known for being quite fanatical, especially among her sisters, trying to convince them to follow this death-god...

So then we come to Koroko. Since the mother was keeping such a close eye on Na'veen (single-minded woman, isn't she?), Koroko somehow stumbled into the hands of the family wizard (probably a brother or something), who recognized her inherent magical talent. He convinced the young drow that if she studied wizardly magic instead of trying to follow the capricious Lloth, then she'd never be short of power, or have to strive to constantly be in the favor of the Spider Queen. Koroko, being a naturally curious child, accepted his offer to instruct her and began her own nonclerical studies, right under her mother's nose. This of course, made her mother furious when she found out, which wasn't for a long time because this mother is not the smartest dark elf that ever lived (and you wonder why House Del'bren'shazoren has never gotten very far in the drow hierarchy... ), but she couldn't very well kill the house wizard since they needed him as protection. Koroko also managed to blackmail Na'veen into helping her keep the wizard safe from harm. Hooray for treacherous drow. In the end, the blame was laid upon the father, and that was the end of him.

So, in a final attempt, the mother conceived and bore another daughter - Ko'dakka. This child was much more promising than all the rest, mostly because the mother refused to let her consort with her other sisters at all during her childhood. Ko'dakka came to see her sisters as miserable failures and decided to uphold the family name all by herself by becoming the best cleric that had ever been. She's easily the most serious of the four, and generally looks down on them too. She's even more single-minded than Na'veen, and spends most of her time in the family chapel. However, even she is not exactly what the mother had hoped for - she dresses in a human priest's brown robes instead of the traditional dark-elven purple and black, goodness knows where she got them from. Also, because she comes from such a dysfunctional family, she does not stand very high in Lloth's favor, and as such, most of her spells that she casts do not work or worse, backfire. She of course, mistrusts Na'veen the most - Lloth is fully aware of the lurking presence of the death-god, but, being her usual chaotic self, she has decided to let the matter rest for the moment. Someday, Na'veen's secret is bound to get out, and then there will be plenty of fun to be had, oh yes...

Well, that was a lot of unnecessary ranting right there, but it was fun. I had to get it all written out anyway. It'll probably go nowhere in the end, but I always entertain the thought of actually sitting down and writing (yeah, right), or at least drawing something. The latter is certainly doable, especially since I've been drawing them for quite a while anyway!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current mood: None, since I'm in my dad's office...
Current mood: ^_^

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Meeee.....

Well, nothing has been going on lately and there hasn't been anything to write about.... Though I flew through Harry Potter V in four days, and I've been wading through mounds of Java programming homework, and going to karate, and oh, who am I trying to kid? I'm just too lazy to write anything down. ^^;

Haa.... So now I'm 19 - my birthday was yesterday. It was a pretty uninteresting day overall, though my dad did take the whole family out to lunch, which was a real treat. And I spent a few hours trying to help my dad put down this pink algae bloom that has kind of taken over our pool... Now that was a pain... And there's people coming over this weekend, and the pool might still be unfit to swim in... *pulls out her hair in frustration* Stupid algae. Well, maybe stupid us for not taking care of the pool. <_<; In any case, it doesn't look like the weather's going to be all that spectacular this weekend anyway, and that means I have to find something else to do. It would be great if it were sunny - I could take everyone up to the picnic beach, but if the weather doesn't work out... *muttermutters* It'll be kinda cool to have a birthday party... Especially since I haven't had one since 8th or 9th grade... It's been a while. ^_~ As far as I know, Sarah, Vikki and Vivian are all coming up from MIT, and there's a possibility of Janet coming too. Hmm.... Anyone living in the area want to meet some cool MIT people? Stop by on Saturday or Sunday. ^^

Kristen gave me the first volume of the Di Gi Charat manga that's been published in English! It's something of an anthology - a lot of different manga-ka have contributed to it. Funny of course, though I wish I could get an English translation for the Japanese volume that I have - I finally found out that that one's written by someone named Yuki something-or-other (it's not done by Koge Donbo, the original creator of Di Gi Charat), and she contributed some amusing four-panel comics to the anthology... They are as cute as ever. *heart heart* No, I'm not obessive over Di Gi Charat or anything... ^_^;

Well, I don't think there's much more to say... Other than that Mom's "musical karate" class on Tuesday morning went off quite well, and I was practically dancing along to some of the songs in there, even though I've heard them 10,000 times already. Oh well, what can I say? It was all my Ragnarok Online music that she used, so I'd better like it. :P And now, for the anticlimatic end of me going back to my endless homework. Arrays are my best friends, oh yes..... *shakes head in exasperation*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Pita Ten OP - Wake Up Angel
Current mood: Somewhat irritated...

Fireworks Like None Other

My, but I've been traveling quite a bit lately... This past weekend (well, Thursday through Saturday) I went down to Boston to hang out at MIT and to watch the 4th of July fireworks that Boston is famous for. I left for Boston on the 7:35 a.m. bus (yawn) because I had to get my stuff into Janet's room before she left for work at 9:30. Well, I made it just fine, and then I met up with Vivian and we went to the Museum of Fine Arts for the day. It was great - I found the netsuke collection - they've got their own room now. ^_^ And the Japanese swords and kimonos were wonderful to see. I also enjoyed the Egyptian section. It never ceases to amaze me that the ancient Egyptian culture was so death-centered. Ah well, what can I say? My favorite Egyptian god is definitely Anubis, the jackal god of death. We also paid to see the Thomas Gainsborough gallery. Fortunately, it's only $5 to get in past noon on weekdays. It was quite nice - they had one room full of huge portraits. They were quite good too. Lots of good artwork, though I wasn't too fond of his landscapes. They all look so dark and gloomy. His later works are really nice though.

We decided to go out to dinner on Thursday night (we being myself, Vivian, Sarah, Janet, and Vikki). Unfortunately, Vikki disappeared sometime during the evening, and since she doesn't have a cell phone (for shame! :P) we had to go without her. Turns out she'd been feeling sick and fell asleep anyway, so it's just as well that we didn't wait for her. Anyway, the rest of us went up to Harvard Square to this Thai restaurant named Spice. I was a little wary of Thai food since I've only eaten at the Thailand Cafe and their pad thai leaves much to be desired. However, after eating at Spice, I can safely say that Thai food has been redeemed. ^^ We also stopped by Tokyo Kid and Newbury Comics (yay, lots of manga!) but didn't get anything. We had the hardest time dragging Janet out of Newbury Comics too. <_<;

And then Friday was the 4th! We got off to a bit of a late start... Vikki organized APO (Alpha Phi Omega - a national service fraternity) to head down to the Esplanade to stake out a good viewing spot for the fireworks. They left at 6 in the morning. @_@ The rest of us got together around noon and decided to bake cookies to bring along. We spent quite some time cooking. We made chocolate chocolate-chip cookies. Verrry chocolatey, in case you couldn't guess. And we made jello and iced tea. But the tea was too hot to bring along, so we left it behind. And the jello melted long before we made it down to APO's spot, so that was kind of useless. But there were plenty of people that offered to buy our cookies. So Sarah and I know what we should do next year... *evil grin* Vivian and Janet wanted to take the bus, but Sarah and I were poor and felt like walking so we walked over the bridge and down into the mass of people. We found the APO "tent" which was made out of a tarp and some poles easily enough, but we didn't see Vikki right away and we didn't recognize anyone else. So Sarah and I went and sat under and shady tree to wait for Vivian and Janet.

We waited for quite a while. o_o; Finally, we called them and it turned out that they were still at the bus stop (after maybe half an hour of waiting!). The buses were running late, or not coming... You know how it is. -_- So Sarah and I went back to the APO tent and this time I noticed that Jim was there (finally, someone we know!). So we hailed him, and he pointed out that Vikki was closer to the water, lying down on a blanket. Several short Asian jokes were the product of this revelation (most of them on my part ^^;). Fortunately, it ended well; we dropped off the cookies and went for a walk with Vikki because she wanted food, and Sarah and I wanted to see the Hatch Shell, where the Boston Pops would be playing that night. Oh yeah, and Janet and Vivian eventually made it over the bridge to meet up with the rest of us. ^_^

It was crowded around the Hatch Shell - the further east we went, the more people there were. We couldn't get too close to the stage since you needed wristbands to get past a certain point. I'm sure Julie was there to see the Pops, or rather, Keith (winkwink) but I couldn't reach her cell phone. *sigh* So even though we couldn't directly see the Pops, APO's location wasn't bad because there was a big TV screen nearby. Plus, we were directly across from the fireworks barge. And indeed, we turned out to have the best seats in the house. The musical performance was great, but the fireworks were even better. I mean, those were the best fireworks I've seen in my whole entire life. Some were so big that they seemed to be heading right for us! All different types, all different colors (even blue - a rare color for fireworks!) - it was amazing. Words can't really describe it. After it was all over, Sarah and I could only look at each other and say "Wow." This is definitely something to see, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's in the area at the time. Boston's fireworks are legendary for a reason. ^^ Makes me want to play around with explosive powder now. ^_^;;

In any case, I'm home now. Vikki, Vivian and Sarah are planning on visiting sometime near the end of the month to celebrate birthdays. This is great - my birthday's on the 23rd, Vivian's is the 26th, and Alissa's is on the 28th (though she's going to be at camp for her birthday). So we can make a big party out of it, or something. ^^ It better be good. :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Linkin Park - Lying From You
Current mood: ^___^

I'm Back!

Hey look, it's July already. My birth month! Hey, that means my birthday's coming up.... *suggestive wink* Er, anyway, on with what I really wanted to say.

Whoo! NYC was great! The weather was just perfect - I'm glad all the rain finally went away. We were only down there for two days, but we got to do quite a bit. On Sunday, we went to Kinokuniya. It's this awesome Japanese bookstore that's quite large and has tons of books in Japanese and about Japan, and stuff. And the whole second floor was dedicated to stationery and manga! My, but there was a lot of manga. And all completely unreadable (for me, at least), but I was still in heaven for a little while. It could only have been better if all the books weren't all shrink-wrapped and unopenable. :P Anyway, I was quite torn between buying a big magazine with lots of pretty posters (that I could hang up in my room next year!) and getting a manga and trying to read/translate it. Which is amusing because I know next to no Japanese. But in the end I settled for the manga, and now I have some authentic Digi Charat manga! Oh, it is excellent - it's totally meant for little kids and so it's all in hiragana (which I can read!) and it's very silly. But at least it's not too hard to follow the storyline and I've got my mom to help translate, thank goodness. It's going to take me a while to get through the whole thing... Which is perfect. ^^;

So yesterday we went to Chinatown for Dim Sum (it was really really good) and then we walked over to see Ground Zero. There's not much to see - just a big fence, lots of construction workers, big hole in the ground, and 10,000 tourists (all taking pictures). Seriously though, what is there to take pictures of? All the graffiti scrawled all over the fence? The construction workers driving their trucks and backhoes around? Oh well, it's not my film. It was pretty fascinating to be in the area though; to walk through the streets, wondering how thick the ash fell there. It was especially sobering to walk by the fire station right next to our hotel. That fire station is the most annoying thing in the world - there's never a night that goes by when it doesn't have to send all its engines out, wailing at full blast (I counted 3 such episodes Sunday night). Fires just don't happen during the day - they're all at night. That's when the arsons come out of the woodwork. :P Anyway, they had a big flag with all the names of the men they lost on 9/11. Quite a few. o_o And there's a lovely little memorial garden/area with benches nearby, memorializing the men lost from that station. Kinda sobering, hm?

The rest of Monday consisted of my sisters and I wandering around Central Park (Mom went to Kinokuniya again, Dad stayed in the hotel to do work). Usually, in the park, we count dogs, but this time there was something more interesting to keep track of. Brides. Yes, you heard me right - there were married couples everywhere in the park! It was the funniest thing ever - first we watched this Asian couple out in a rowboat with the bridesmaids and stuff - the cutest thing ever. Then they left, and we eventually headed onward, grinning as we saw them getting pictures taken. Then we turned a corner, and there was another bride and groom getting pictures taken! And we looked down a side path and there was another pair! And then another bride in a white gown came out of the bathroom of the lakeside restaurant! All in all, we saw five newly-wed couples that day. In the same general area. All Asian. Beating the weekend rush, hm? I figure they were all related and decided to make one big party out of it. :P We played on the Ancient Playground a bit (well, my sisters did - I just sat down and massaged my blisters). Alissa claims that the playground has shrunk since we last saw it. ^_~

Anyway, the highlight of yesterday was going to see the Phantom of the Opera. We've seen it before, the last time we were in NYC. That's about three years ago. So we saw it again. It was fabulous, as always, though Christine was rather disappointing, and Meg was beyond annoying. Still, I loved Carlotta - she was hilarious, and Andre and Firmin made a fine, comic pair. Raul was easily the best Raul we've ever heard before - he was perfect for the part. The Phantom was interesting - he had a much deeper voice than what we've heard before. He put a lot of character into his part. It was very good, though I think he could have worked on the 'angelic' part a bit more. Still, it was a great show. I cried at the end... again. I'm such a sap. :D

Today was just the drive back. I didn't have to drive, yay! I mostly read (Princess Bride, and Digi Charat). Of course, for Digi Charat, it was mostly reading meaningless (to me) hiragana and getting the occasional explanation from Mom. ^^; Now I'm back, and it's still nice out, and Kelsey wants me to go swimming with her. Maybe I should. Maybe I will. In any case, that's enough writing for now. See you later.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Delerium & Sarah McLachlan - Silence
Current mood: Euphoric

New Layout!

Ha, I was so bored today that I made a new layout for my blog. The old one was so ugly, but I was always too lazy to change it. This, at least, is more entertaining... Anyway, it's just a stand-in until I can find a 'real' picture to use. :P Ahahaha..... I also covered up that annoying ad. No more advertising for Italian cuisine and online text-based RPGs. ^___^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Seal - This Could Be Heaven
Current mood: Accomplished

Inyaah...

Well, what have I been doing recently? Not much. Gee, how innovative. Well, I've been hard at work with making dragons - you should go check out my website because I put lots of lovely photos of them up! I've been reading (still working on Don Quixote) and going to karate a lot. But that's about it.

Oh yeah, we are going to New York City this weekend, which is exciting because I haven't been there in years. Back when my parents owned the toystore, we'd go down there every year for the Toy Fair and whatnot. Us kids wouldn't go to the show, of course, but we'd go check out all the museums and walk around in Central Park, looking for all the playgrounds. Speaking of which, there was one great playground there with a rope ladder sort of thing, and a rope you could swing from, but after we went there once, we could never find it again. So tragic... *sniff* Anyway, this time around, we'll be going to see the Phantom of the Opera again (how I love that musical!) because Les Miserables is on tour in Oregon or something. Other than that, I don't know what we'll be doing. I hope it's something air-conditioned!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Gravitation - Spicy Marmelade
Current mood: Hot, sweaty, and not particularly inclined to do anything

Home, Sweet, Boring Home

Well, I've been home for more than a week, and it's both nice and awful. I like being able to sleep, but there's not much to do around here. I can go to karate again, yay, but the internet connection is depressingly slow. Thank goodness it's not dialup, that's all I can say! So I've not been doing too much - I still have to finish unpacking. o_o; Fortunately, we got Dad's exercise bike out of my room. Now my room seems five times bigger. It's great. ^^ I've been busy making clay dragons - I had 18, but my mom bought one, and a friend wants one of 'em. My mom thinks I should have 60 for Old Homes Day. Sounds like a bit much to me. <_<;;

In an attempt to alleviate boredom, I tried downloading Ragnarok Online - an MMORPG - just to see what it was like. Well, lo and behold, I got it up and running today and it turns out that they started a subscription service yesterday! Aaaargh! I have such phenominally bad timing! This makes me mad - there's no way I'm going to pay $12 a month for a game that I just wanted to take a look at. I mean, EverQuest is cheaper than that! And there's no guarantee that RO would even run on my computer. *pouts* Oh well, so that's out. Guess I'm stuck with good old Aardwolf MUD. *sighs*

Still, there's still some good that came from that disappointment. I'm doing pretty well music-wise. I got a whole bunch of Ragnarok Online tunes - there were about 50 mp3s that came with the game. Guess that's the only thing I'm keeping. :P They're quite good too. Hm, I am also going to get some copies of the Matrix Reloaded CDs - they are quite good. And I went to Borders yesterday and bought 2 new CDs as well. One was a sampler that was only $4, and it's really really good. Evil Borders trying to sucker me into buying all the featured CDs. And I just might - they're good! ^^; So I guess I'm well stocked when it comes to music.

Here's the really depressing thing, though - I can't update my website from home! This makes me very very sad. o~o I have all these pictures scanned in and stuff, but MIT's firewalls keep me from being able to connect up to transfer files. Aargh! The world is against me! Anyway, I should go and do something more productive than sitting around here, griping about my current condition. Hrm. It's actually sunny today. I don't understand why it's always rainy and gloomy on the weekends, and then the weekdays are gorgeous. Oh well, at least I can enjoy the sun, unlike my sisters. Only 3 more weeks of having the house to myself!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Ragnarok Online - Theme of Alberta
Current mood: A bit depressed

Cynical Sophomores

Well, this is it! My finals finished today, no more classes and work until fall. Sure feels good. Feels great even. Today was a good day (after the final finished, of course), even though it was gray and drizzly. Amy and I walked around Boston, looking for this place that was going to rehair her violin bow. We found it no trouble - the place was so cool - violins everywhere! I was in awe. We stopped off at the Boston Public Library afterward, just to look around a bit. That place is so cool! So big, so many books. I couldn't find and sci-fi sort of section though, which was sad, but it was amusing to browse through the foreign language books. There were books in Estonian, Creole (that's a language?!), and Russian. The Russian section was huge, and there seemed to be three copies of every book. Half of them were romance novels... <_<; We found the music section and looked through the sheet music. I found a big book full of Gilbert & Sullivan oprettas, and read some of the Mikado. I love that play - reading the transcript made me laugh. G&S plays are hilarious. Wow, that library is great though. Must be a pain to find anything though. And imagine working there, having to reshelve books!

So that was a very nice walk right there... I also got my anime project back, thank goodness! I'm scanning that in as soon as I get home. Then Mike can be very scared by the weird things that I drew (project was based on me and him because I had some cartoons of us already). ^^; I spent the evening watching Gokudo-kun Manyuuki with Amy - a hilarious/bizarre fantasy anime with the worst anti-hero in history, and then we went to Next House with Sarah and Jim to visit Vikki, and to look around, because since Vikki's moving to McCormick (my dorm!), we'll probably never go down there at all. It was so nice, just to be able to hang out with friends, something I haven't been able to do for a long long time. So nice to not be studying! I feel bad for the people that still have finals tomorrow..... Or, rather, today. o_o;

Aieee! I'm moving out tomorrow! I'm going home!!! I've no idea when my dad's coming to help me though, so it could be weird. He'd better not come early in the morning or something, because then I will be very upset. Especially since I could be sleeping right now instead of typing this. But where would the fun in that be? ^^ So yeah, I'm sad that we're not going to Waterville Valley this weekend. It's something we usually do on Memorial Day weekend, but things didn't work out this year. Just as well, I guess, since this weekend's supposed to be lousy, but I'm still sad. Northern New Hampshire is so nice.... *sigh* I'm excited to be going home though. I'll be back on a normal sleep schedule! And I can go back to karate too, which is great. I've been so inactive/unathletic this year - it's terrible. Yeah, this past weekend, when studying for finals, I didn't go outside for four days. And in that time, I only left my floor once. Pathetic, ne?

Okay okay. I need to go to sleep. Wah! I'm going to miss all my friends (all 3 of them, antisocial me :P). But this summer's going to be good. No plans for work, too bad.... I should get a job. *guilt guilt* But I'm planning on coming to Boston for the 4th of July (I promised Sarah ^^). And Sarah and Vikki promised to come visit me, which will be totally awesome. Also, my family's planning on going to New York City some time this summer, which will be a lot of fun. I hope everything works out! See? I'm not a cynical sophomore yet. I've got a few more months of freedom. ^_^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: DDR - Era (DJ unF Mix)
Current mood: Need sleep... badly.

Status Report

Well, I'm two-thirds of the way through my finals, and I'm still hanging in there. Man, having three finals in three days is no fun at all! I haven't even started studying for 6.001 (Intro to Computation) yet, which is not so good. I think that's probably going to be the hardest final, though today's Differential Equations final was no piece of cake either. Strangely enough, my best final so far has been Physics. I'm pleasantly surprised because I performed horribly on the last two tests and I was afraid that I'd do poorly on the final as well (that happened first semester - my test grades kept going down, and then the score on my final was not very impressive either), but fortunately the test was not too evil. Actually, it was doable because most of the problems had been on previous tests and problem sets, so I was already familiar with what I had to do. I think pretty much everyone did well on the test though, so I hope I'm at least up above average.... I think I could have probably pulled off at least an 80% on that test, though I know I can't get over a 90 because I didn't answer one of the questions... <_<;

Math was not so yay... There was a lot of information to cover, and I couldn't remember everything. o~o Took me the whole three hours too - I was working right up until the end (physics only took me a bit more than two hours). So, hm, I think 6.001 is going to take the whole three hours as well. Kyah. I'm so ready for this all to be over! But then I'm going to have to look for something to do over the summer... Ugh. Vivian forwarded an email to me from a guy in Environmental Engineering with a UROP opportunity. Could be interesting I guess, especially since nothing else has turned up. It wouldn't have anything to do with bioinformatics *sigh* but I guess it's better than nothing. I'm just wondering if it's worth it - I'd have to be commuting... And that costs money! Huh, maybe I should have gone for summer housing here... But then, I might not even get this UROP anyway, and it would be useless to be living down here. Aaargh... I am such a lazy bum. I'm just looking forward to making clay dragons... That's not a huge source of income though, and I don't know how that'd look on a resume... Especially compared to a research job. ^_^; I wish I were braver/more proactive/I don't know.

Well, soon I'll be home, and it'll be good. I hope. Moving's going to be a pain. I'm leaving Friday! It's coming up so soon. I kinda wish I were staying here a bit longer - I won't have much time to hang out with anyone, and that's something that would be nice to do, seeing as it happens so infrequently. Sarah said that she and I are going to visit Next House (and Vikki's room!) before we leave, so I guess that'll have to be Thursday night. And Amy and I need to watch some Gokudo-kun too... Hm. Maybe I just won't go to sleep Thursday night. It would be nice if someone from my family would tell me what time they're coming on Friday. It better not be early (where early = before noon). <_< MIT - I'll miss it! Good thing I'm coming back in the fall. ^^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Gravitation - The Rage Beat
Current mood: Tired

Carrot Cake Girl

Wow. Today was it. Or yesterday rather. Can you believe it - no more freshman classes... ever! I'm still in shock.

Oh my, it looks like I'm famous or something now. Today, our RAA (residential associate advisor) took Sarah and I out for a meal at Fanueil Hall and then on to the Improv Asylum up in the North End (well, the whole advising group was invited, but Sarah and I were the only ones who wanted to go - I'll bet everyone wanted to see The Matrix: Reloaded instead). It was fun - we got food (a lot!) and then wandered around, trying to find the improv place. Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to find. The show was good - a mixture of improv and sketch comedy. But the highlight *blush* was that I had to go up and tell everyone about an exciting day that I'd had recently. When the woman asked for volunteers, Sarah and I were both yelling, "Aaaah! Carrot cake! Seven carrot cakes!" and so I got invited up front. I went up because Sarah was too wimpy (ha!). :P So I told them about Sunday and how I woke up, ate lunch, messed around on the computer, then helped Sarah make carrot cake for her TA. When I was done, people went and acted out my day. It was hilarious because it wasn't even the way that it really happened! The actors shamelessly made fun of us because they knew we were from MIT. Ha, math party? Measuring the pH of acid rain? XD It was funny because during intermission, some guy asked for my autograph. He was joking... I hope. And after the show was over and we were at Mike's Pastries getting dessert, these two women who had been at the show recognized me as the "girl with the carrot cake." So now, Sarah apparently thinks I'm famous... Maybe you should too. ^_~ I'm afraid I'm going to go down in history as the Carrot Cake Girl. What should I do - shoot for something even more illustrious or whip out my baking pans again? :D

Mmm... So it's down to final crunch time. I'm gonna have to study hard this weekend! I sure am nervous about my finals though... I hope I do all right. I so need to pass 8.02 - I don't ever want to take it again! Ugh, I don't even want to know what my grade in that class is... Heh, so I've been going on a music downloading spree - just a little bit insane am I? Yeah, I've found all these great new age groups and stuff and they are soooo good. Even though my sister doesn't appreciate them at all. :P And my new favorite song is this DDR song called Era - I've got both the short and long versions (different remixes) and they are sooooooooo great! I've seriously listened to them twenty times over each, and I only just got ahold of them this afternoon. <_<; I really do like them though. ^^ Speaking of my sister, she IMed me today and said "Happy Matrix Day." That girl is too obsessed. Once the third Matrix movie comes out, she will have nothing to live for. It's funny how so many people here are obsessed with seeing Matrix: Reloaded. Aiyoh, jealous sister Alissa read this! So many people went and saw it last night! Mwahahaha.... You missed out, you had to wait until the actual opening day to watch the movie! Ahahaha.... Erm. Uh, right. Anyway, I'm more than happy to let the crowds die down first. I like seeing movies with other people, sure, but I want to be certain to get a good seat at least. And hey, when I went to see Pearl Harbor with my dad, we had the theater all to ourselves and it was kinda fun because we could be as loud as we wanted!

So anyway, it's time for an update on the anime front. What has the Flykyr been doing about anime all this time, besides obsessing over being club librarian? Well, never fear, I have been keeping myself well supplied with anime, though I'm still as horrible about committing to series as ever. I've gotten totally hooked on Hikaru no Go - it's an awesome manga, and a great anime too! Yah, even though I've only seen the first two episodes of the anime. Blah, whatever, I've plowed through 50 chapters in the manga, and I absolutely love it. Between this and Prince of Tennis, there's a lot to be said for sports anime. They're interesting, fun, and there are always cute guys! ^_^;; Yeah, I'm a big fan of "bishounen eyes" - so prettyful. *drools* *blinks* *grins nervously with a big sweatdrop sliding down the side of her head* Weeell... Anyway, moving on. I think it's time for the... Year end anime review! Why? Because I feel like it. Let's see what I've seen this year...

Anime watched since the start of the school year:

.hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet - 12 episodes *completed*
.hack//SIGN - 26 episodes *completed*
Ah! My Goddess - 5 episodes *completed*
Chobits - 6 episodes *discontinued*
Cowboy Bebop - 5 episodes *discontinued - hopefully will continue*
Di Gi Charat - 16 episodes, Summer specials, Spring specials, movie *completed*
D.N.Angel - 3 episodes
Dragon Half - 2 episodes *completed*
Excel Saga - 17 episodes *discontinued*
Final Fantasy Unlimited - 8 episodes *discontinued*
Galaxy Angel - first 11 episodes, random episodes after that
Hellsing - 9 episodes
Hikaru no Go - 2 episodes
Inu-Yasha - 15 episodes *discontinued - hopefully will watch more*
Naruto - 13 episodes
Neon Genesis Evangelion - 12 episodes (and the last two eps as well! ^^;)
Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat - 7 misc. episodes
Pita Ten - 5 episodes *Kawaii!!*
Read or Die - 3 episodes *completed*
Rurouni Kenshin - 33 episodes
Serial Experiments Lain - completed, but I missed a few eps in the middle
Shaman King - 15 episodes
Slayers TRY - ~13 episodes (half the series) *already seen the first two seasons*
Those Who Hunt Elves - 12 episodes *completed*
Those Who Hunt Elves II - 5 episodes
Trigun - 7 episodes *rewatch - already seen in entirety*

Hahaha, pretty scary, eh? I think this is more for my personal reference than for anyone else's enjoyment. Sorry. :P BTW, this is just the stuff I've watched on my own - I didn't include any of the stuff I watched in my anime class and I also didn't include any series of which I've only seen 1 or 2 episodes (except for Hikaru no Go because I'll definitely be watching more of that!). That would make the list so much longer! ^_~

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: TaQ - Era (well, what did you expect?! ^^;)
Current mood: Yayness still! ^_^