Fun in the Sun

I've been in Florida for the past week or so. Vacation, and all that. We're going home tomorrow. It's been nice - the first couple of days were miserably cold, but it's really gotten much better, and now the weather's exactly as I'd expect it to be. We've spent a day each at Universal Studios and Disney World, and it's been fun, although the lines have been hideously dull and long as usual. I'm always amazed at the sheer number of people who come to visit.

I've also watched plenty of movies. Saw the Phantom of the Opera movie a few days ago. It was pretty good, although I can't say that I approved of the Phantom's voice. Last night, we rewatched the Mask of Zorro. Good movie. I'd forgotten all about it. Makes me want to rewatch all those old Zorro episodes. We used to love those to death when we were kids. Today, I'm going to see the Series of Unfortunate Events movie. It looks good. And the kids are so adorable! o~o

At Universal, I noticed that they had DDR Extreme in one of the arcades, and there was this little girl playing on easy-peasy mode, which made me cry because it costs $1.50 a play. Ridiculous! At the MIT arcade, it's only 25 or 50 cents, or something like that. I wouldn't mind getting up and busting out Afronova Primeval or So Deep (on Standard, haha) because they aren't too hard, but would probably wow the crowd anyway. But, it's not like my ego needs soothing that badly. Plus, it's just too darn expensive. In any case, I'm looking forward to getting home, where I can hook up my own DDR setup. It's been a while since I used it, and I don't want to feel that I brought my pad home for no reason.

Well well, I think it's time to go. I've a scarf that needs working on, a drawing that needs improvements, and music that needs to be listened to. Talk again when I get back home.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Content

Read, Bake, Blog

Been home for nearly a week now. Today was spent baking. I was totally up to my ears in cookies and breads (the kinds made from a box) because my sisters have all this Christmas gift nonsense tomorrow. Sigh. What would they have done without me? At least we have a million cookies now, when there were none for lunch.

My mom keeps foiling my Christmas shopping attempts by taking the van off places. Tomorrow she's going out to lunch with a friend and then they're going to tai chi class together. And dad will probably take the truck to work. Meaning I'm stuck at home again. Maybe I should look into bumming a ride off Kristen. I haven't talked to any of my school friends yet, this break. I didn't talk to anyone during Thanksgiving break either. Antisocial me. Frankly though, I'm getting a bit bored, with no place to go. I ought to see if anyone's around and has spare time.

I went to the library yesterday, and completely forgot that I was supposed to finish off the first Series of Unfortunate Events books. Silly me. Instead, as per Mike's suggestion, I checked out Steven King's book The Stand, since I thought reading another fantasy novel that's only one in a series of 7000 would make me gag. It's very good. Disturbing, but terribly engrossing. I've had it for a day and a half, and I'm just about halfway through its 1100+ pages.


Undecided about 6.370. Sadness. Christmas in a few days though, and then Florida. It'll be nicer than here - we got snow the other night. Don't feel like writing much else. Still no word on Japan. Final grades are in - overall GPA stayed exactly the same, and major GPA went down some more. No Masters degrees from MIT for me. I guess that might be a good thing though. It might be nice to go somewhere else.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Ayumi Hamasaki - End Roll (instrumental)
Current mood: A trifle depressed

What? Me, Study?

So I should technically be studying for finals... But I am feeling lazy. Go me. <_<;

A hawk killed a seagull or a pigeon yesterday right in the middle of Kresge Oval. I was walking from the student center back to my dorm, and I saw all these people standing around the oval, looking rather apprehensively at this blob in the center of the field. Made me think of the exploding coffee creamer - I wondered if it was a bomb. Then it moved, and I realized it was MIT's resident hawk. That bird is huge! It was busy eating something with white feathers, so I thought it was a seagull, but it also seemed kind of small (hence the pigeon possibility). There were police standing guard, and people were busy snapping pictures. Made me wish I had my camera and that it had film. I got really excited, but everyone else that I told thought it was gross. Come on, how often do you get to see a wild raptor eating its prey less than 20 feet away from you? It was awesome. Later last night, as we all trooped off to go watch The Incredibles, I wandered over to look at the sad-looking patch of feathers still lying on the ground.

Every year people ask me what I want for Christmas, and I never know what to say. I know I've been thinking of it this year too, and I thought of some things, but I forgot them all. Should've made this list sooner, sigh.

What the Flykyr is interested in:
- Manga! (especially any Chrono Crusade, Angel Santuary, Hana Kimi, D.N.Angel beyond book 1, Galaxy Angel 4 if it's out, Pitaten 6 if it's out yet, Peacemaker Kurogane book 2) Wow, yes, heavy on the shoujo, I know, but the only shounen manga I follow is Shaman King, and that's enough of little boys fighting for me
- If the manga list is too confusing, Borders gift cards work just as well ^^
- New earrings. Sounds like something my littlest sister would take care of. I feel like I haven't gotten new earrings in ages. Well, none since my birthday at least, and my sister was responsible for that.
- Any Amethystium CD. Oh, they're so good. I'd mostly like Odonata (the first CD) because I don't have that one... But I wouldn't mind legitimate copies of the others. I'm sure they're all gorgeous. ^_^
- Oh yes, completely unnecessary, but, since this is a wish list... How about an iPod? Heh heh. *has been suffering from iPod-envy for a good long while now* The mini ones are soooo cute. Although a 20gig one might be more practical for me. Hmph. Did I just use the word practical? How is an mp3 player practical? ^_^;
- Another completely unnecessary want: World of Warcraft. Oh, the excellence. I swore off pay-to-play MMORPGs.... But I really like this one. The undead rock. Well, other things rock too, but the fact that you can play undead is excellent.
- Money! Because I have to buy textbooks next term. And eat. And stuff. ;~;
- Fancy guppies. Not that I'd take them to school with me or anything. But going back to pseudo guppy breeding would be excellent. I miss my fish. I was sooooo sad the other day that we have no hamster back home. I really wanted to cuddle one. I'll have to remember to stop by the pet store the next time I'm at the mall back home. Why do we not keep hamsters anymore?! ;~;

Nooooo.... I can't remember anything else to put on this list. Sadness.

Sarah and I have been trying to plan a trip for sometime this IAP (January). We were thinking about the Grand Canyon, but I guess it's pretty darn cold there in the winter, so that'll have to wait. Brett wants us to visit San Diego (that's where he's from). 6.270 organizing, what? Oh well, it's a thought. Don't know if we'll act on it though. Still, where is there to go in January that's cheap and warm? *scratches head*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Witness Of Wonder - Emotion In Motion
Current mood: Lazy

End of the Line

Well, term's winding to a close at long last. Tomorrow's my last day of classes and since everything Bio Lab-related is cancelled, all I have is an hour of Japanese. Win! Too bad I still have about a half hour's worth of reading ahead of me tonight. Still have to finish my Long Term Project for Bio Lab as well. Bah, I am so bad at BSing, and that's what needs to be done to finish this paper off. So close to finishing though! I think I've put more effort into that paper than anyone else in my class. I'd better get a good grade.

Finals are next week. Desperately need to study for Algorithms and Genetics. Urrgh. It's going to be horrifying. I'm also taking the makeup exam for Bio Lab, since it conflicts with my Algorithms exam. Stupid Algorithms. Turning the hour-long "3rd exam" into a 3-hour final. On Monday morning no less. I hate that class with a passion. As I hate virtually every EECS class I've taken at MIT. Remind me again, why am I a CS major? o_O;

Sarah got mad at me the other night because I was complaining about not having heard anything from the MIT Japan program, but hadn't emailed them, asking for information. I guess I only have myself to blame. I guess it's true - I lack initiative. I'm such a slacker. Anyway, I sent an email last night and got a reply this morning. It seems that Hitachi has been known to be slow in making decisions, so I might not know until early next year. Arrgh! The suspense is killing me. Should I start looking for other job options for the summer? o_O;

I spent a few days drawing a picture for Brett. It came out pretty nicely - I was actually inspired for once. Sure, it was just my original characters again, but I drew them all together in one big group, and the proportions didn't suck too much, and almost everyone's facial expressions came out right, so I'm pretty pleased with it. I was getting really carried away and was about to color it, but then I realized that it would take me way too long, so I just shaded everything with pencil. Which still reveals my lousy shading skills. Ah well, Brett seems to be thrilled with it, so that makes me happy. He even offered to scan it in, so I can color it on the computer. Yeah, that'll take me another 10,000 years, on top of the other two pictures that I'm still working on. So slow is me. <_<;

I played a bit of Oni tonight. Hah, I forgot how amusing that game is. I also forgot how utterly awful it is with regard to the inadequate number of save points. After stupidly falling into a vat of acid, I gave up. But I learned that sniping is fun. Why didn't I ever use guns when I used to play that game back home? ^^;

Well, since tomorrow's the last day of classes, we're all going out to see The Incredibles tomorrow night. Never mind that I already saw it at home - it's a good movie, and since I'm going with all my friends, it should be fun. Still, 9pm's a little late to start a 2-hour movie... Hah. As if I were planning on going to sleep anyway. I lose.

Fwee. Anyway, I should go do my Japanese reading. Who knows? If I'm my usual slacker self, you might not see another post until after my finals are over and I'm back at home. Mmm... Home.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Amethystium - Hymnody (My new favorite artist, at least until something else comes along - beautiful tranquil stuff)
Current mood: Feeling like a slacker

Many Meetings

I went home for Thanksgiving, and I brought Amy with me. It was quite lovely. I've never been so happy to be home. My littlest sister was singing at every free moment - it was hilarious. I played tons of games and did a puzzle and a bit of shopping and ate good homecooked food and slept in my own room, and it was all so fantastic. I even got to go see The Incredibles, which is yet another great Pixar movie. ^_^ Having Amy visit was quite nice too. It kept me from contacting any of my friends, but heck, no one tried to contact me. No one ever does. It always seems to be left up to me. Where's the love, people? Oh well, I guess that's what happens when I'm the one who goes to school in Boston and most everyone else is far closer to home.

While I was home, I received a very belated birthday present from my aunt - a Naruto wall calendar from Japan! It's so very gorgeous, and I am totally ready to put it up on my wall (after finals, since it'll be January before I come back!). I wrote her a thank-you card and drew a picture that ended up looking really nice, but I didn't have time to scan it in, so she's the only one who gets to enjoy it, hahaha.... Oh, guilty secret, completely unrelated to getting the calendar - I started watching Naruto again and it actually became interesting once more (just had to get out of that horribly horrible running-through-the-forest-for-10-episodes section), after the whole stupid Orochimaru and Hokage battle ended (took forever, as does anything in Naruto, sigh). Just being able to see Naruto doing some daily training and living a normal life was enough to make me smile. It only lasted for five minutes, of course, but heck, I'll take what I can get.

Oh, oh, oh. I came up with another original character. It's really exciting because he's meant to be Jesper's half brother. Yes, Jesper might actually develop a storyline for himself. Who'd have thought? Hahaha, I'm sure you don't care at all. Anyway, the brother's name is tentatively assigned as Seska Asch, and although I have plenty of pictures, I haven't had the opportunity to scan them in yet. The basic idea behind him is that he's half demon, and he can tap the demonic side to become very powerful. This makes him transform into having wings and claws and stuffs, but if he draws out too much power, he overbalances and turns into a small and ineffective imp. He usually wields a spear. I want to see Jesper try to explain why his little brother's always trying to terrorize the general public. Yes, I know it's horribly hokey and sad, but it's an excuse for me to draw yet another grumpy looking guy with a bad attitude and spikey hair. The pseudo-Chinese outfit is also a plus. ^_^

We DDRed far too much last night, since it was Sunday and everyone was kind of on a post-Thanksgiving high. I failed nearly every Heavy level song I tried, but that's fine since we were using my computer. I also ended up with a bad headache near the end, which made jumping totally impossible. It ran on a bit too long, but I think it was fun. Brett says that I am as good as he is, but I don't think I believe that. Half the problem is that his pad was dying, and the other half is that I'm used to my simulator and he is not. I guess we're approximately equal though - it's a joy to play with someone who is equally skilled, since I'm used to catering to players with a lower skill level.

As an addendum to my previous post, World of Warcraft ended up being pretty cool. I decided that I really liked it and wouldn't mind playing it again someday, but for now, finals are coming up and I can't afford to devote time to something like that. I downloaded both the WoW soundtrack and the EverQuest II soundtrack, and well, WoW wins hands down. The EQ2 soundtrack confused me. It was too orchestral for me, wasn't intimate enough, plus Blackburrow went tribal. What's up with that? At least they didn't include dorky battle music... Perhaps they've gotten over that silliness? Oh yeah, I just realized that the EverQuest main theme is far too majestic for me. Usually I'm a big fan of the dominating trumpet lines and backing strings a la the Star Wars theme, but this just seemed overblown. I much preferred World of Warcraft's dark and brooding theme. It better suits my personality... or something. <_<;

Today at work was cool. I didn't get much work done (ha ha) but Granddaddy DJ was spinning a 4-hour trance mix on DI.fm because it was his birthday, and he was giving away mp3 CDs of the mix to the first 20 people to guess his age. And I was one of them! So I get a free CD. Winning things is cool - doesn't happen too often. Plus, the set was quite awesome. ^_^ And if you were wondering, today was his 50th birthday.

Mah, well, I've written up another enormous post because of my infrequest post frequency. Still, even if I posted every day, I'd probably still write tons. Kind of sad... Kk, it's high time for me to sleep. I never get to bed before 3, so this is quite a treat for me. Pathetic. XD

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: EverQuest II OST - Temple
Current mood: I've swung between laughing and being upset all evening, so I don't know... Worn out, I guess.

A Day of Comparisons

Ugh, I've put off writing in here for too long again. I had this whole essay about Japanese samurai vs. Chinese kung fu movies, but since I have some other things I wanted to mention, I'll keep it short. I saw the 2004 remake of Zatoichi last weekend, and well, I highly recommend it, if you can get ahold of a copy and aren't too distressed by ultra brutal violence (as well as tons of fake-looking blood - think the black knight scene in The Holy Grail). The ending is incredible, and I got a kick out of the whole soundtrack. The western influence was fascinating and the way they mixed the music with the various farmworkers was really different.

Max later told me that he was surprised by how short the final battle was, and that's what got me started thinking about the difference between Japanese and Chinese fighting movies. Both styles really go for artisticness - Zatoichi had this whole 'fighting in the rain with sunlight everywhere' thing going on, and I saw Hero a while ago and man, if you can see that too, go watch it! It's gorgeous. You can't get much more artsy than that (take the bamboo forest fight in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and multiply it a hundredfold XD).

Zatoichi was very Japanese in the way the fight scenes played out - short and brutal. It reminded me a lot of the book Musashi, which had plenty of fighting, but the fights were always very short. In fact, you could look at it as being 1000 pages of leadup to the final battle, which is only a couple of pages long. Well, of course, it's far more complex than that, but, if you want to get down to basics... So I've seen this trend across Japanese movies, books, heck, even anime. The old samurai fights were all about landing just a few blows and having a battle be decided by that. Swords are sharp - they kill.

Chinese kung fu movies, on the other hand, are all about the action. Fights are drawn out, people take forever to die, and maybe it's just been like this recently, but wire work appears to be a requirement. This certainly allows for more special effects and general prettiness, but, hm, people seem to die less. Maybe because swords usually aren't involved. :P Anyway, I think the difference between the two was pretty interesting.

I was randomly lucky and ended up getting a World of Warcraft beta account, so I've been playing that this weekend. Oh man, it's so much prettier than EverQuest. Haha, those were the days... I've got a night elf rogue and an undead priest. The rogue is cool, and I love the damage she can deal out, but I really get a kick out of the priest. Not only can she tank, but she's undead! How awesome is that? When she gets hit, her blood is green. XD I think it's great.

The animated emotes are pretty amazing. The 'bow' emote leaves me in awe every time I use it. I mean, it's just gorgeous. The 'sleep' emote is cute too. Plus, when you 'laugh', you can actually hear the character laughing. ('Dance' is scary though - talk about utter sluttiness). Also, when you talk or deal with merchants, your character gesticulates appropriately. I think it's a really nice touch. MMORPGs have come a long way since EQ. The scenery is breathtaking and the death system is pretty cool (when you die, you come back as a ghost and have to find your corpse to return to life - I mostly like it because the world is wispy and in black and white and it makes me think of LOTR... like I'm wearing the One Ring XD). I also really like the quest system. I'm more of a solo player, so I like to work alone, and the quests give me some purpose. Plus, they actually seem to have a point, unlike most of those in EQ. And with WoW, there's a bit of storyline.

The one thing I'd complain about (besides the awful lag, but that's because it's beta) is that the game is a little bit too easy. I remember the first time I played EQ, I accidentally started on a PvP server as a half elf druid in Kelethin and getting murdered by high level mobs and falling out of the trees and dying and getting horribly lost. Hahaha, I was such a newbie back then. It took me a long time to figure out how to play properly and even then, after two or three years, I had only made it to level 25. Of course, I only played on weekends, and never during the summer, but... it was hard. I remember being furious when Sony made it so much easier for newbies later on down the road, because I had it rough when I was new.

WoW on the other hand, is very user friendly. I appreciate that. But I think the game is really designed for people who don't have too much time to put into MMORPGs and takes out a lot of the inconveniences and frustrations. I mean, not losing XP for death? That's pretty much a standard. Their death penalty isn't nearly as harsh. As long as you know where you died, it's not so bad. Magic-users are more solo-able. You get very specific quests that point you in exactly the right direction. In one day of play, I had both a level 5 rogue and a level 7 priestess. That probably would have taken me a month in EQ. It's easy, it's great. It's a little too easy. That, plus the fact that I'm in college and really don't have time for stuff like this are the reasons that I will never buy and play this. I never came close to hitting the endgame in EQ, and I feel like I'd hit it too fast in this. I don't know - I feel like everyone's a bit overpowered. Maybe it gets a bit harder further down the road.

Anyway, kudos to Blizzard. The game looks great. I hope they can maintain it.

I was going to go book shopping this weekend, but since my little sister wants me to take her book shopping when I'm home for Thanksgiving, I decided to put it off. I need to sit down now and do some research for my MIT Japan internship. I need to decide which comapanies I want to apply to. This program sounds excellent - I want to spend a summer working in Japan! I'll supply some more details later, but for now, I think it suffices to say that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm going to pursue it for all I'm worth. ^_^

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Kamelot - Karma (Whoo! Kamelot is totally different from anything I've ever listened to before - I believe the term is 'symphonic metal'. It's pretty cool. :D)
Current mood: A little bit brain-fried

Brain Dump

Gotta keep this short since I've an anime club meeting to attend in a bit. The weekend started off nice - participated in the club's cosplay contest and got to look like an idiot. But I got free Pocky! Didn't get to see all of Blood: The Last Vampire. *sniff* I'll see if the DVD's in when I have my club office hour on Wednesday. Japanese people speaking English = excellent. Went to the Spooky Skate with Sarah, skated for the first time this season (and my first time in hockey skates), then went to Pumpkin Drop to watch East Campus residents drop pumpkins from the top of the Green Building (18 stories - tallest building on campus, and in Cambridge). There was DDR after that, until way too late (is this getting to be a weekly thing?), and then a little bit of sleep, before getting up to go to the parade (for the Red Sox, yay World Series!) and to take Janet out to lunch for her birthday. Waiting for food took too long, so we missed out on actually seeing the Sox, but the energy of the crowd was amazing. Plus, all the people wearing red and carrying around amusing signs or brooms. :D

Saturday evening was sad, as was the rest of Sunday, since it was Halloween and there were all these parties this weekend, and I couldn't go to any because I was stuck doing my Algorithms p-set. It was ridiculous - it took over 20 hours to complete, and the last few have only taken about five hours or so. Depressing. Somehow Vikki managed to go to all these parties and stuff, although she didn't come back after she went to John's party on Sunday night, while leaving us to take care of her cookies that she tried to bake in a glass casserole dish (it would have been horribly funny if we weren't so used to groaning every time something ridiculous like that happens). Probably didn't want to face us. I don't blame her. Sarah and I were ready to kill someone, what with that annoying girl talking on her cell phone for an hour (winner for most annoying laugh ever) and the screaming girls in the study room down the hall... Well, and by being abandoned by a friend who couldn't wait five more minutes to finish baking her cookies. Hmph. What bitterness?

This week is sad - two biology tests. One's tomorrow, and I really need to study, but I also have to do interpretations and prelab, and that'll take forever. I'm so screwed! o_o; And the genetics test will be scary because I have no idea what's going on in that class. I skipped Algorithms lecture today, so I need to watch that before Wednesday too. Ahhhh! It can't happen. There aren't enough hours in the day. Now I need to go to that meeting so we can all complain about how our Treasurer doesn't do anything ever. Same old, same old. Over and out.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Miss Shiva - Just More (A remix of the original song by Wonderwall. Aahhhh! Memories of Germany and MTV. Oh, the excellence.)
Current mood: Streeeeeeessssssssssssed

Gooooooooo Red Sox!

Heh heh... Who'd have thought? I've totally gotten dragged into the baseball craze and watching the Red Sox play is totally awesome. I think I've been totally missing out, up until now. I watched game 7 the other night, against the Yankees, and it was great. I think all the Yankees fans were really confused. XD And now... World Series! It's gonna be great. Tonight's game was totally stressful - the Sox had a great lead to start, but the Cardinals kept catching up - twice, in fact! There was a lot of screaming done in Sarah's kitchen. People would fumble the ball... Or get hit. Hah, it was bad. But the Sox won, 11-9. The coolest part is the fact that all this was going on just across the river from us. We ran up to the penthouse at one point to see if we could hear anything, but we could only see the stadium lights. Totally awesome.

Vikki's in Maine for the weekend, so Sarah and I did our Algorithms p-set together. We're nearly done too. :D Took us forever on the second problem, but that's because there was no information in the book, and also because we were watching the game at the same time. Heh. We also ordered Beauty's pizza for the first time this year, and it was fantastic as ever. Especially because we tried ordering "fresh" toppings for the first time. XD Ohhhhhh my, that's a long story, and it's sad but hilarious.

Last night, after anime club, we got together to play DDR in the east penthouse. Brett brought his pad and PS2, and I brought mine along, and we played DDR until 4am with Amy, Sarah, and Janet. It was a lot of fun, although it'd be even better if I had the dual-pad connector, and a way to hook my laptop up to the TV, since Brett only has DDR Max, whereas I have about 300 songs on my setup. :P 'Tis a project we'll leave to next time, I guess. Amy's totally awesome at DDR, Janet isn't bad, and totally improved over the course of the evening, as did Sarah, who is surprisingly good too. Brett, of course, is frighteningly good. And I think I totally sucked. Mostly because I don't think I'm used to the scoring on the official game - I think DWI is a lot more lenient as far as scoring goes. Plus, while there are several good songs on Max (Era, HVAM, AM3P... yeah, I like the wordless songs), most of my ultra-favorite songs weren't on there (So Deep, Night in Motion, A, Tsugaru, ahaha, more wordless songs). Still, it was great. And I'm glad that Brett finally knows that I don't utterly hate him or anything. Sheesh, I'm such an awful person. I need to learn how to talk to people. Or something.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Aphex Twin - Time to Find Me (Seefeel)
Current mood: :D

Which One Does Not Belong: Books, Movies, Acapella, or Criminals?

Ready for today's bit of history trivia? On Friday, I was working at the library, and I was checking in the daily mail (that's when we get books returned from other libraries) and I found a collection of film magazines... And the cover of one caught my eye - I thought the guy looked awfully familiar, and then I realized that it was Evil from Time Bandits! Hah, that movie scared me... Probably because I saw it when I was like, six years old. The article was an interview with the director... And if you ever saw Time Bandits, and like me, thought it was really weird, then perhaps you'll be relieved to know that the director also co-directed for Monty Python and The Holy Grail. He's actually done a lot of stuff with the Pythons - I think he also did design for Life of Brian. That certainly explained a lot for me. :P Anyway, that's kind of the only cool thing that happened at work, and I thought it was rather enlightening.

I went to the acapella concert last night. The poor Chorallaries! All of their best members graudated last year, and they desperately need fresh talent. They also need new songs. And they need to let their guys sing. *sigh* On the other hand, the Logarhythms are starting to sound good again, and Resonance sounded great, although they need to work on stage presence. The Cross Products were so very happy - yay Daniel! And yeah, the Muses are still the worst. :P

Last night, Sarah and I did our Algorithms problem set because it was pretty easy and we wanted to get it over with (and we did, and I'm supposed to be tooling for other classes right now, but I'm kind of writing this <_<;). We were down in the dorm's dining hall because the lighting there is good, and it was nearly 3 a.m. and we were almost finished, and all of a sudden the alarm went off in the dining room and totally freaked us out. We looked over at the emergency exit, and there was this creepy guy outside, waving at us. To what? Let him in? I think not! Anyway, we were totally freaked out and left. The security guy never even went over to check or anything. It was sad. Nobody cares. We thought we saw a police car go by outside, because we saw blue lights for a moment, but then they went away. *shrug* There's been mention made of some criminal who was just let out of prison that might be at fault for the thefts going on around campus. Sarah brought up a good point that perhaps they should post this person's picture so we'd know who to look for. I didn't get a very good look at the guy last night, but he seemed dark-skinned and had a patterned shirt of some sort. Weird. I wonder if he thought the door was unlocked or something?

Today there was a dorm brunch for the families for Parents' Weekend. We went, and it was great. Too bad they can't make such good food during normal dorm dining. Oh, I've drawn some nice new pictures recently - only lineart though, so I need to color them before I can put them online. One's a quick picture of Na'veen, the other is of Koroko in a Japanese schoolgirl uniform. It's amusing. It'll be good once it's colored too, but that might take a while. If I get enough work done, I'll work on it later tonight. But that means I have to do work first. So... I'm done for now.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Foo Fighters - Burn Away
Current mood: Feelin' unproductive

Felicitations, Sarah!

Today was Sarah's birthday (Happy Birthday, Sarah!). Things were a bit rough.... But I think it worked out okay in the end, thank goodness. I drew fish pictures for her, and also chipped in to get the explodingdog book, which is the greatest thing ever. I'd been planning on getting that for her for months. So yay.

Oh, happy story - I was down at the computer quickstation earlier tonight, trying to find Jim so that we could do cake and stuff. As I was waiting for the computer session to load, this guy walked past me, did a double-take, and then exclaimed, "Wicked background!" So that made me happy. (My MIT computer background is the Link background that I drew last year)

Thank goodness I have nothing due tomorrow. I've been up so late every night, doing work. Mostly bio-related too, but I guess that's what happens when you are taking two biology classes. I had an Algorithms test on Monday - worst thing ever. I was late, and it was hard, and I know I did so bad. Prelab writeups for Bio Lab take me forever, mostly because that's also when I work on interpretation questions, and I'm really slow with them. There was also insane SciComm writing, and it wasn't nearly as good as I wanted it to be. I also had a Genetics test on Wednesday. I was up late doing SciComm and studying, but I think I understood the test pretty well - I felt pretty good about it. Of course, I got an average of four hours of sleep per night this week, so that was pretty sad. Of course, this also means that I'm going to bed as soon as I finish typing this, so I can actually get a full night of rest for once.

I'm going home this weekend, since it's a three-day weekend. Woot. Vivian is coming to visit, and we are going to go apple picking. If the weather is nice, we might go hiking about over at the Robert Frost farm. Should be fun. I could totally use a break. And a haircut. :D

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War - Urban Wasteland
Current mood: Exhausted

A Look at the Past

I'm torn between going to anime club and watching boy angst, or going to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 at LSC. Tough call, really. Oh well. I still have a few hours in which to decide.

I've got my first round of tests starting next week. Mad studying is in order, methinks, although certainly nothing will get done tonight. I should try this 'going to sleep early' thing sometime, hm? <_<;

I have just found out how awesome the game Grim Fandango is... Too bad my computer's way too fast to run it, so it doesn't really work past a certain point. Who'd have ever thought that you could have too good of a computer? XD Shame though - the Mexican theme totally appeals to me, and it's just so... weird. The dialogue is hilarious too. :D

Work at the library today was pretty cool. I was barcoding books out of the biology/marine biology section and if you know me, then you know that I'm all about the biology. ^^ There were these books on undersea exploration, and there was this old book written back in 1934 by the first guy to go down to 800 feet in a bathysphere. It was really amusing because he was trying to be all scientific, but couldn't because the experience was so different from anything that he had ever experienced. Good for him, though. Especially since the deepest anyone had gone until then was only about 300 feet or so in an armored diving suit. Yeah, those were the days when they still had to send air down a tube for you. XD The bathysphere was pretty cool - it had an air circulation system (still, it had to get air from the surface) and a telephone for communication. I kind of wonder how that worked. The pictures in the book were amusing - there was one illustrating the danger of almost getting dragged into a standing rock wall by the towing ship. And there was an illustration of how one would only see the glowing lights of luminescent fish until they swam through the bathyscape's light beam. Ah, those were the days of high adventure.

Later, I found a more recent book that was also about undersea exploration. This one was from 1956, and it showed how echo soundings in 1951 had managed to map out the sea floor at a depth of 35,847 feet. We came quite a way in just 20 years, hm? Humans are pretty amazing sometimes.

And sometimes they're just amusing. I found a translated copy of some book of beasts, translated from Latin. All of the weird things seem to have come from India (think manticores and unicorns), but there were also plenty of real animals too, such as Castor the beaver (which, uh, castrates itself when being chased by hunters to save its own life - apparently beaver testicles were popular medicine back in the day), and the crocodile, whose picture looked a lot like a dog with claws for feet and an awfully long snout. Old-time illustrators are cool. :D I'll bet they'd never seen a crocodile so they had absolutely no idea what one looked like. Isn't that funny? We take so many things for granted these days.

Oh, haha, one last thing. I totally had a biology nerd moment the other day. It was awesome. Sarah gave me a cell phone strap for my birthday. It's from Hawaii, and has a sandal on it, and it's very cute. Anyway, I was looking at the rhinestones on the sandal and I noticed that the white ones in the middle had little blue ones inserted in the middle of them, and I was totally reminded of the cells that we had been working with in bio lab, since some turn blue in the presence of certain nutrients, and I had found a bunch that were white around the edges and blue in the middle. Of course, then I had to show all my friends and no one got it. That's what comes of being a CS major and only having CS friends. XP

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Kong in Concert - Chekan Winter (From the Kong in Concert project at OCR - check it out! This song is totally my favorite - I've had it on repeat for days.)
Current mood: Tired

Whew, Me So Tired...

Another week over, at last. It's exciting because maybe I'll actually get some sleep tonight, though I just got back from anime club, so I'm probably going to bum around a bit before sleeping. Tomorrow, we are probably going to Haymarket and the Boston Public Library (to study Algorithms in a different setting, boo).

The anime club lineup for this term is quite good - the two semester series we showed tonight were Kino no Tabi (a.k.a. Kino's Journey) and The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, both of which are excellent and have me quite excited. And next week's feature is Samurai 7! Yay! The club t-shirt seems to be quite popular, which makes me happy, seeing that I designed it and all. ^_^ I think we're going to have to reorder soon.

On Monday night, Sarah, Jim, Mimi and I went to the Museum of Science's Lord of the Rings exhibit, since it was College Night and tickets were only $5 each. It was a very good exhibit, and definitely worth $5. :P Seeing the costumes and weaponry was awesome. And the ring was there! Although totally encased in a column of plexiglass. The armor was of course, the coolest part. The wax dummy of Boromir was the most disturbing part (looked so real o_O). And the most amusing part was the scaling model where people would sit on different sized benches and look different sizes from each other. Jim and Mimi tried it out, and Jim was small and Mimi was big. And they sat there for like, five minutes because the attendants totally weren't paying attention and didn't realize that they hadn't turned on the cameras inside the booth so that Jim and Mimi could see what they looked like. So Sarah and I stood there and laughed. For five whole minutes. :D It was a really good night for a walk too, so that was good.

Okay, I'm going to bed now before I get tangled up in something stupid and end up staying up until 5. *wanders off and collapses on her bed*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Rammstein - Engel
Current mood: Sleeeeeeeeeepy

Punting is Bad for You

Ugh, it's kind of bad that I picked today to check out how Blogger has changed over the past few months. It's changed quite a bit, and I spent a while fiddling around with my weblog. It's kind of sad-looking. I need to make it modern and pretty or something. Like my website, haha. ;~;

Anyway, I got caught up in this silly idea for a new weblog. I have no idea if you know about my dark elf sisters. There're four of 'em, and I've been wanting to do something with them besides drawing random doodles in my class notes. I think that now might be the time introduce these girls to the world of blogging. I started up a new weblog with that idea in mind, but I'm still setting it up so it's not functional yet. But hopefully I'll be able to get some content on it soon... I think it could be fun. If this goes anywhere, I'm sure you'll hear about it sometime.

*coughs* I've spent way too much time on playing around with Blogger. Time to stop and go do my work. The prelab writeup thingy is going to take forever. *kicks herself* And here I thought I was going to stop procrastinating and be a good person this semester. ._.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Marc Van Dale - Sweet sinfony (quicksilver mix)
Current mood: Feelin' guilty

Adventures at MIT

My family came to visit last weekend. We went to Chinatown for Dim Sum. Yay. I love doing that. Especially because after that, we get pastries, and I usually get some egg custards and a moon cake. This time was no exception. ^_^ I also saw Saved! this weekend. It was funny, and not bad, but also kind of scary... And after that, we had Storytime in the Concourse Lounge, which was fun, but ran on for a bit too long. :P So yeah, this weekend was pretty good. It's probably the last time I'll have so much free time all term.

I decided to work at the RSC again this term. That's the library that I worked at last year (the Retrospective Collection - we deal with old books and archives). It was pretty routine (i.e. boring) until I went to go shelve the books that I had finished barcoding. The elevator in the library is a massive old freight elevator (the library used to be a warehouse), so it has two doors that you have to open manually - there's a gate on the inside and a door that you have to open to get out. Anyway, I rode it up to the 5th floor, reshelved the books, then decided to ride the elevator down to the 4th floor to say hi to Liz, who I hadn't seen yet. Unfortunately though, I had just missed her and she had left for the night. Now, the 4th floor of the library houses the archives, and it is locked after hours, so you can't open the outer door thingy. Usually, after the elevator stops, you have to open up the gate from inside, then the door, and then get out of the elevator. But there was a problem - the outer door had been locked! So there I was inside the elevator, able to open the gate, but unable to open the door... and with no way to get the elevator to restart, since you have to open the gate and the door, and then close them both again to make the elevator run again. Don't ask me why - the elevator is old and stupid.

I was stuck, and there was no way for me to get out on my own. I yelled a few times, hoping someone would hear me, but the elevator is in the far back of the library, as far from the office as you can get. Plus, it was closing time, so there weren't many people around. I finally mustered up the courage to push the big red ALARM button (after fiddling around with the gate for several minutes), and it would ring this loud fire bell-type thing as long as you held it down. I also tried the emergency phone, but it didn't work. <_<; So I went back to pushing the alarm button. About five minutes of fooling around with that finally attracted peoples' attention, and Moses ran up to the 4th floor and unlocked the door and let me out. After that, the elevator was stuck and wouldn't move... Probably because I had pushed every single button on the panel, and it was hopelessly confused.

Hah. That was a bit traumatic. I've never been stuck in an elevator before... At least the one at work is nice and big and had lots of collapsed cardboard boxes that I could have sat on, if necessary. :P Anyway, work was considerably more 'eventful' than I thought it would be.

I finished watching Chrno Crusade tonight. Man, talk about depressing. I sure hope the manga doesn't end up like that... Well, it better not, since I think it's still ongoing in Japan. Actually, speaking of manga, I read about thirty chapters of Death Note the other day (well, that's all that's been scanlated so far :P). Oh my goodness, L is such a hilarious character. He reminds me of Gollum, but in a good way. Something about the way he sits on chairs... Plus, the I-haven't-slept-in-a-week look cracks me up every time I see a picture of him.

Oh my, just checked the referrals of people who surfed over to my blog. People come here in search of "stupid people at MIT" (yeah, that's me, though I guess I'm only one person) and "DBZ anime music videos" (what the...?). Anyway, hi there to all of you who totally weren't looking for my random ramblings. And sorry, but no, I don't have any of those anime mp3s that you seem to be searching for. :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Aurelia - when night is falling vampires song (2001 canarias mix)
Current mood: Sad ._.

A VII Sort of Semester

Wah, I'm back at MIT and just finished my first week of classes. Maybe posting will get a bit more regular now. Man, I keep saying that... :P Well, there's a lot to talk about since I haven't written in forever. Canada was great - Halifax is a nice little city. Canada is very scenic... Long car rides did get a bit tiresome there, although I was able to get a lot more of my cross-stitch project done. Yeah, the one I've been working on since sometime in high school. ^^;

Swimming at home was awesome as ever. I got a bit better at DDR over the summer. Hm, I even got to visit Mike once near the end of summer, which was cool, although it mostly served to drive home once again what a pathetic person I am in public. *coughs* Well, other than that, I didn't do too much for the remainder of summer. And here I am and back into the old routine.

But this term is going to be a bit different from what I'm used to. I'm taking my Intro to Algorithms class like a good little CS student, and it looks horrible and frightening so far, but other than that, I'm taking the opportunity to be an honorary biology student. For those of you unfamiliar with MIT-speak, I'm officially Course VI-3, that is, a computer science major. However, I'm also trying to minor in VII - biology. This term I'm taking Genetics as well as Bio Lab. Genetics looks like a pretty easy class, and a bunch of my friends are in it, so that should be fun. And Bio Lab actually sounds exciting. Time-intensive, but exciting. Plus, it gives me the chance to meet people that I wouldn't normally meet otherwise. I'd say that it'll give me the chance to meet people outside my major, but my assigned lab partner is a Course VI senior who has never worked in a lab setting before, so that's it for that great idea. :P I was really worried about getting lotteried out of this class, so I'm especially excited that I got in. It better live up to my expectations.

My fourth class, of course, is Japanese. It's kind of scary because I don't remember everything, and we kind of took off running. Well, there's going to be serious reviewing this weekend, I think. I'm also totally excited that I'm no longer the anime club librarian, so I will actually be able to do stuff on Saturday afternoons instead of slaving away in the club office. Ohhhhh yeah!!! :D

So I guess that's about all that's going on with me right now. Things seem cool so far, but you know how it is... I totally expect that I shall be whining miserably in my next post. ^o^;

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Masterboy - Just for you (dj dolphin mix)
Current mood: Relieved

O Canada...

Just a quick note that we're off to Canada today. We're going to Nova Scotia, and it should be fun. Alissa had her birthday party on Wednesday and I got her a DDR pad - we hooked everything up to the TV and the sound system and it really rocked. It's nice to be able to hear the bass on all the songs. ^_^ Almost managed to beat Healing Vision (Angelic Mix) on Standard... Almost, but not quite. Someday I will be able to manage it. :E

Alissa also got a nice new Wacom tablet, so I get to adopt her old one. It's not fantastic, but since I don't have much spare time, I'm sure it'll suit my needs. I'm rather excited by it, actually. ^^ My family gave me presents too - nice belated birthday party. Mom 'n Dad gave me Borders gift cards, which are excellent. Kelsey got me some cute new earrings. Alissa got me a poster with four (count 'em, four!) pictures of Legolas on it. She called it the "Girls of Middle Earth" poster. XD

I'm glad that I'm finally going to be able to work on my cross-stitching. It's been years. I like long car trips. The trip to Canada is 10+ hours. Thank goodness we're not doing it all in one day. Hm, we should have left already. Off to a late start as usual. Oh well, nothing else to mention besides the fact that I loaded Myst III: Exile onto my laptop, and it is totally amazing. I love this series of games so much. Heh, I was inspired because I got ahold of the Exile and Riven soundtracks the other day. They are quite excellent. Heh, well, I guess I ought to run. I'll be certain to write about Canada when we get back, but it's going to be about ten days before that happens. Maybe I'll have some new pictures drawn by then. *smiles and waves*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Myst III: Exile - Deadwood Ridge
Current mood: A bit excited

Anime Roundup

Figured I'd take a break from writing recommendation letters to list out the anime that I've watched in the past year. I keep saying that I don't have time to watch anime, and yet, I've got quite a list going here... I blame the weekly anime club showings. :P

Anime watched since my last such post on 5/16/03:

.hack//GIFT: 1 episode *completed*
Chrno Crusade: 20 episodes *to complete as soon as the club gets the rest of the episodes*
Cowboy Bebop: 7 episodes *discontinued again - just can't seem to get into it*
Di Gi Charat -nyo: 6 episodes *discontinued due to liscensing*
D.N.Angel: 26 episodes *completed - this show was a total disappointment*
Dokkoider: 13 episodes *completed*
Excel Saga: 26 episodes *completed*
Fruits Basket: 4 episodes *currently watching*
Fullmetal Alchemist: 26 episodes *52-episode series - taking a break from it for now*
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!: 13 episodes *completed*
Galaxy Angel: First two seasons, 6 episodes in the third season *will eventually watch more*
Getbackers: 3 episodes *discontinued*
Gravitation TV: 13 episodes *completed*
Gravitation OAV: 2 episodes *completed*
Gungrave: 4 episodes *discontinued*
Kino no Tabi: 4 episodes *would love to continue someday*
Last Exile: 26 episodes *completed*
Lost Universe: ~18 episodes *to be finished eventually*
Matantei Loki Ragnarok: 14 episodes *discontinued*
Midori no Hibi: 6 episodes *hopefully to finish sometime*
Naruto: 74 episodes *currently watching*
One Piece: ~33 episodes *discontinued at present*
Peacemaker Kurogane: 26 episodes *completed*
Pitaten: 26 episodes *completed*
Platonic Chain: 26 episodes *completed*
Puchi Puri Yuushi: 5 episodes *discontinued*
R.O.D. TV: 9 episodes *currently watching*
Rurouni Kenshin: ~55 episodes *will eventually finish up the Kyoto arc... someday*
Saber Marionette J: 3 episodes *discontinued*

I'm sure that this list is by no means complete. It sure looks longer than last year's list, though I know I forgot to mention lots of series last year like Record of Lodoss War and Macross. Oh well. I'm sure I forgot plenty of stuff from this year too.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: J.D.K Band - Where the World Ends
Current mood: Dulled out by the weather

It's Over!

Wow, I slept for thirteen hours yesterday (I set my alarm clock for 10 pm instead of 10 am, whoops) and I'm still feeling really tired. All the girls left Saturday morning - it was really sad to see them go. Just wait until I get around to talking about the people who have replaced them. Grr.

Well, yeah, as I've mentioned up above, WTP has finally finished. It was a great program and I'm sad that it's over. Maybe just because I don't want to go back to school. XD This coming week will be both good and bad. Good because I can relax and not worry about late nights. Bad because we have to write recommendation letters for people, and that will be a bit annoying. Good because I pretty much have the 7th floor back to myself. Bad because of the Democratic National Convention.

OH MY GOODNESS! The DNC people suck already and I hate them. My birthday was on Friday and I have come to the realization that turning 20 makes you old and bitter. WTP girls are high schoolers, but they are all so cool. The junior statesmen staying at our dorm are a different matter altogether. They are all snobby little rich kids, and I hate them and I wish they would all go back home. o___O; Seriously, I don't think I've ever felt such innate dislike for a group of people, ever. I don't like how McCormick has suddenly become the 'junior statesmen dorm'. What are they thinking?! Maybe it's a good thing that I'm going home in a week.

Tonight we had a staff dinner to celebrate surviving WTP at the Cheesecake Factory. That place is great. :D Although they always give out waaaay too much food. Oh well. Leftovers. One of the greatest things about WTP is the option to get out and do stuff. I walked all over Boston so much in this past month. I went to read in Borders three times in one week. I went to the North End. I went to the Aquarium. We went for dim sum in Chinatown in one huge horde. I walked down the Esplanade more times this past month than I ever have in all my time at MIT. Boston is an awesome city - I don't think there's anywhere in the world quite like it. There are so many young people here - makes me wonder what will happen to me when I become old. Surely I won't be here my whole life...?

Jim reminded me of the existance of the New Media Center, which is totally exciting because it's on campus, accessible to MIT students, and has scanners! Whee! I went and scanned a couple pictures yesterday, which was great. I've been kind of behind on the whole scanning/updating website thing. I did a biggish update the other day, and I'll do another one once I get more pictures scanned. This makes me so happy. :D Guess it also helps that my family's going on vacation to Canada in August and I get to go along. I don't know, I don't think I've ever been excited to spend two whole days in a car, driving up through Maine. XP

Mike finally came back from "the Southwest", so evenings are a little more interesting now. Not that they weren't interesting before... It was just different. It's just too bad that the sound for his computer's broken. He cannot fully appreciate the excellence of Domo-kun and Daikenkai... Even if the combination of the two was originally his idea.

It's weird - I've been drawing Thraxxin and Jesper together a lot lately (well, lately is a lie - they've always been drawn together). But I've always insisted that they come from different dimensions, and shouldn't even exist together. Sadly enough, I'm starting to think that they make an awfully cute couple. Mostly sad because they are both guys. Well, everyone thinks that Jesper is a girl, but, uh, yeah.... My barely stifled love for shounen ai is manifesting itself here. o_o; Perhaps I shall have to make up a new story which includes both of them. Or something. How troublesome. Reminds me though that I should get back to development with the Del'bren'shazoren sisters. That was an interesting project that I was thinking about last summer. *sighs* Oh well. I guess thirteen hours of sleep wasn't enough for me to recover. Back to the land of unconsciousness goes I. Laters.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Ayumi Hamasaki - Vogue 'Groove That Soul Mix'
Current mood: Rather tired

It's Rainin' Fun

Well, I'm halfway through WTP (Women's Technology Program), and I'm having a fantastic time. It's true what people say - if you're in a bad mood, you are much more likely to write down your thoughts and frustrations than when you're having fun. So, the forty girls are here, and they are all cool, well, some have personalities that conflict with my own (and everyone else on staff o_o;). Work during the week is stressful and tiring. I have to help the girls with their programming - they really need to learn how to debug. Some are better at it than others. I'm usually exhausted at the end of the day, but I really enjoy what I'm doing. And on the weekends, we do all sorts of fun things - the sorts of things that any tourist to Boston would be doing. Orientation weekend, we went on a Duck Tour, which was great. There have also been trips to the various museums and even to Haymarket. Today, a couple people are walking the Freedom Trail, and later on, we're going to Revere Beach. We were supposed to go to Walden Pond, but I guess they don't let buses in during the weekend. Oh well. It's an excuse to swim, or at least to splash around in the water!

Last night was Karaoke Night and it was awesome. I sang "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" with my tutor group, and we sounded, uh, excellent. :D Tess is an awesome singer, actually. Then, us CS staff tried to sing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and were only partially successful. I wished my sisters were here to back me up, since they know the song inside and out. After that, I found a bunch of people who would sing "It's Raining Men" with me, and then we had to merge with another group that wanted to sing the same song. I was the only person who knew the song really well though (that's what comes of going to every single Chorallaries concert ^^), so I was kind of the star of the show. After that, I found a bunch of people to sing "Love Shack" with me, which was hilarious, although I had to be the guy because no one else wanted to voice his parts. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

WTP has kept me terribly busy, but during my free time I hang out with my friends. We've made mini cheesecakes, smoothies, and even banana bread (baking is yay). We've gone out to eat, gotten together to watch Buffy and Firefly, and did July 4th on the Esplanade again. July 4th was great as ever, and we couldn't hear the music again, but that was okay. We also went and listened to the Boston Pops' dress rehearsal on July 3rd. We actually got into the Hatch Shell area! Yesterday we went to the Burlington Mall, and ended up in the Barnes and Noble across the street for several hours. :3

The only reason I actually pulled up the blog and started typing was because of the interesting minidrama that I just witnessed. MIT has a resident hawk - it's huge and it's usually seen flying about or perching on the school buildings. Today, it landed on the opposite tower's penthouse railing and was sunning itself. I was marvelling at how massive it was, and how it probably got nice and large by catching squirrels. Then this mockingbird landed - it was about 1/10th the size of the hawk. Now, I know from watching the birds back home, that mockingbirds are fiercely territorial. This one was no exception, and clearly thought that the penthouse was a part of its domain. So all by itself, it started screeching and hopping about. At first the hawk just stared at it with a "What, I'm ten times bigger than you, what do you think you're doing?" sort of look. But then the mockingbird got too close to it, and the hawk took off. Was the hawk annoyed? Actually scared off? Or did it note feel like it was worth tangling with the noisy little mockingbird. Even as I continue to look out my window as I type this, the mockingbird keeps coming back to patrol the penthouse roof, probably to make sure that the hawk doesn't return.

Anyway, I need to grab stuff so I can go the beach. Laters!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Onegai Teacher - Shooting Star
Current mood: Excited

Time to Play Catch-Up

I am such a slacker. Even though it's summer, I still haven't felt like writing in this. Ugh, it's been a month already, and so much stuff has happened. Home was nice, Tortola was even better. Talk about a tropical paradise. The people are friendly, the food is good, the diving is great, and there are chickens wandering about everywhere! It doesn't get much better than that. :P Ah, so I dove my first night dive in Tortola - it was also my first wreck dive. o_o; We swam through the RMS Rhone, and it was a bit scary. Good thing we had flashlights. ^_~ Lots of crabs and massive lobsters and sleeping fish, but the best part was the bioluminescence. It was like swimming through a sea of stars. Plus, when we were going back to shore, the boat's wake looked like it was striking sparks. It was great. The stars there are amazing - there are so many. Here in Boston, it's a strain just to make out the Big Dipper at night. In Tortola, you feel like you can see forever. I was very sad that I didn't think to bring my star chart along. Well, that was a great vacation - wish my sisters could have come along too - they'd have loved it. But first, they need to learn how to scuba dive! ^^

Anyway, I've been back at MIT for about two weeks - staff training is almost over, thank goodness. I'm ready for people to come - it's really quiet on my floor. At least I'm back in the West Tower - my East Tower room sucks! It has no windowshade, and the ceiling light is broken. In my temporary West Tower room, I get two windows, windowshades, more space, and good ol' easily-cleaned tile floor (carpet makes me sad :P). Too bad I have to head back to the East Tower once the WTP finishes. -_-

The other staff members are cool, although someone keeps taking my paring knife and neglecting to put it back in my drawer in the kitchen. Karen, the Comp. Sci. instructor is really nice - I hope we're well-prepared for all these girls who have never done any computer programming again. I'm a bit nervous about it all.... Hopefully it will all work out all right. ._. Staff training needs to be over already - there's nothing to do in the evenings, which is dull. I've had to keep myself busy by drawing door decorations, reading, and playing DDR. I'm getting kind of good at it - I've moved on to songs in Standard, and I am working at becoming proficient at 5- and 6-footers. Which isn't bad, since when I started, I couldn't even beat all 3-footers reliably. ^_^; Ah, if you don't know how the difficulty rating system in DDR runs, 1-foot songs are the easiest, and 10-foot songs are the hardest.

I also made myself a 2000-san headband because I was bored and I thought it would look cool. Some Japanese people were bored and decided to personify all of the various operating systems out there, so Windows 2000 Professional is the intelligent one, Windows XP is the slutty one, and Windows ME is totally incompetant. It's so excellent. ^_^ Check out this link if you want to learn more. My insane idea is to cosplay as 2k-san at Anime Boston next year, but I don't know if I could pull off the rest of her costume... The headband is excellent though - cat-ear hairpins and a maid hat. ^____^

Well, that's all for now. I want to get outside and enjoy the fine weather while I can. Hopefully I'll post a little more often than monthly. It's embarrassing that Mike has made more posts than I have. :P

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: SuperGreenX - Save Me
Current mood: Amused

Summer Starts with a Bang

It's late. I'm sleepy. I have work tomorrow. I should be sleeping. But instead, dear reader, I am here, typing out something for your reading pleasure. *scratches her head*

Well, term finished. I passed all my classes. Still haven't managed to get an A in a Course VI class (a class in my major). Sigh. But it's over, and now it's summer. Not that you'd be able to tell, since it's been raining all day and I've been waiting for this stupid thunder-storm to end because I refuse to go to sleep while there's all this lightning and thunder going on outside. <_<;

I'm all moved into my summer room - it's in the other tower of my dorm. Looks an awful lot like my normal room, only smaller. I'll be working at the library this week, then I'm going home for a week, then I'm on vacation in Tortola (British Virgin Islands = warm water diving, woot woot!) with my dad. Then I come back here for the Women's Technology Program, for which I am going to be a comp sci tutor. I get to teach high school girls Java! Then, when that finishes at the end of July, I go back to working at the library and looking for a research job. It's going to be a busy summer... o_o;

Oh my goodness, it's been so long since I've written in this! Well, let's see, things that have happened since May 5th. We finished our Antichess game! It came out quite nicely. I still need to turn it into a standalone application and stick it on the web somewhere. That's tomorrow's project, I suppose. Like I said, I'm in the other tower in my dorm - two doors down from Sarah. I didn't help Vikki move. I feel like a bum. But then again, if you're moving to another dorm, perhaps you should make moving plans a little earlier than 'spontaneously as your friend is trying to move all her stuff too'.

Ah! I also bought myself a DDR pad as an end-of-term present. A rather nice one with hard foam - works great on my West Tower tile floor. Not so well in my East Tower room - it slides a bit on the carpet. It's a lot of fun, and I like to think that it's good exercise. I brought it home when I went home this weekend, and it was a big hit with my sisters. I totally got Alissa hooked. >:D My friends' reactions to my pad have been varied and amusing. Vikki was all 'ooh, I am going to visit you a lot', Vivian was all 'I want to try it', Amy was like 'that's so cool but I have to go home to Mississippi now', and Sarah was all, 'you are such a FREAK!'. It's too excellent.

Hrm. I don't think it's even raining any more. I should have gone to bed hours ago. *kicks herself* This happens all too often. Oh, I made a clay dragon tonight since I didn't have anything better to do. It's really been a while... *shakes her head* Anyway, I'm off, since I do have work tomorrow.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: SuperGreenX - Activity Unbroken
Current mood: Drained

Sickness = Lose

Myuh. I've been too busy to write in this. I have an interview test for Japanese tomorrow. It will be scary because I don't think I know the material as well as I should. Orgo test this Friday, which I will fail again. Gotta start reading and doing practice problems, like, yesterday. Aargh. Sarah says the 6.004 lab is easy. I guess I'm just stupid because I don't know how to do it. 6.004 test on Friday, which I will fail as well, but it doesn't matter because I'm getting a B in that class no matter what. Oh yeah, Japanese test on Friday too. Whee. Three tests in one day. 6.170 project is due on Tuesday. We're getting there, but we haven't done any work on the extension yet. Plus, Java graphics do not like me. I think I'm sick. My throat really hurts and it's hard to keep myself awake.

End of the term is coming up. I got summer housing here at MIT, but I don't have a job yet. *cries* Well, I could always work at the library, and that's a possibility if I can't get a paying research job here, but I want to do something more. I wish I were more, oh, proactive. Or less of a bum. I think I've become stupid ever since getting back from spring break. My room's a mess too, which is getting me down. I'm sure any one of my friends would look in here and say it's not too bad, but there's papers piled up by the windowsill, and stuff strewn all over my desk. I'm so disorganized. What the heck. I wish I were smart. Why am I here? I don't think I'm going to get a single A in any of my classes this term. No MEng for me. At the rate next term's classes are conflicting, no bio minor for me either. No summer job. My dad is probably going to kill me. I want to stay down here for the summer, but I need something to do. ;~; I'm so upset and my throat hurts. Where is my work ethic? Anyway, I'm going to bed now. I haven't been to bed this early in weeks and weeks and weeks. That is so wrong. *stomps off*

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Upset and coughing because my throat hurts

Blargh.

Just pulled my first all-nighter. I'm not proud of it. I wish our Antichess game worked. Stupid MenuBar. Oh well, time to go to class. I don't think there's any time for me to sleep at all until oh, after Tuesday or so. How very very sad.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: ~___~

Yay, Japan

I am bound and determined to keep this short for once. Ha ha ha. The sound of derisive laughter. Okay, here goes. This weekend was CPW - Campus Preview Weekend. We were mobbed by many prospective freshman. At the risk of sounding old and crusty, I can't wait for them to get their smiling faces back off campus - there's too many people around. This week was blah. Tests were sad. Lab was sad. I have another lab to do this week, aargh! I didn't have anything to do with Tangerine Tours - Sarah got suckered into being a Jack. And was up until 6. Hah. No, not me.

Amy and I made a trip up to Porter today to check out Sasuga Books - a real, honest-to-goodness Japanese bookstore! We were up in Porter during Orientation freshman year, looking for Japanese bookstores, and we were so close, but we never found Sasuga Books. ;~; Anyway, we went because they are closing down and next Saturday is their last day. I was hoping to find a present for my little sister - her birthday was last week. Couldn't find anything - not even anything for myself. I think their selection is running low because they've been selling off stuff and moving things and all. So we walked down to Harvard Square to check out Tokyo Kid, and I found this awesome Totoro pencilboard that I got for my sister. It's great. I got my sisters some Pocky as well, because Pocky is yay. And it was cheap. I also picked up a CD for myself because it was reasonably priced - Gravitation, because the music rocks. And it wasn't until a good while later that I realized that it was a bootleg, and that would explain a lot of things. Aargh! I'm an idiot - kill me now. Seriously, I've been wracked by guilt all day, which probably isn't worth it in the end. Oh well, it was a learning experience, and I'll never do something so silly in the future. I should have known though. You'd think I'd have learned something from sorting through the anime club's audio CD library. Oh well, I can't complain too much - the quality's fine and the music is good. I still feel really dirty about it though. <_<;

I got Sarah to go along with me to see The Last Samurai. It was great - since she's in LSC, we got in free. ^_^ I loved it so much - it was a great movie. So epic and beautiful (well, except for when people were killing each other), and the music is amazing. I gotta remember to get a copy of the soundtrack the next time I go home, since my mom has it, and I know it's great. Yay. It was Japan. And samurais. And random ninja. And yay. It was great, even if tons of people died *sniff Nobutada sniff* Uwah, it was great though. I don't know why I am such a fan of war movies (Gettysburg!), but I guess it also helps that it was Japan, and there was Japanese being spoken, and I could understand some of it, and I was amused. "Watashi... samui. Watashi samui!" I'm trying to figure out though, why the kanji behind the movie title (which was the same as the kanji that the kid painted on the scroll for Algren) was the kanji for 'time'. The significance of it eludes me. <_<;

All right. I'm going to bed now. Which pretty much means that I'm turning off my computer and am going to get stuck reading a book for an hour before I actually go so sleep. I am so sadly predictable. o_o;

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Radiant Silvergun Soundtrack - RUIN
Current mood: Yaaay.... Free to sleep.

Con Report

Whew. My head is spinning, my feet and back ache, and I'm half frozen and completely out of cash. And yet, I'm so happy. ^_^ These past two days have been spent at Anime Boston, Boston's very own anime convention. This is the second year that it has been held, and it was even better than last year's! So I'm sure I talked about last year's... well, a year ago. And it was fun. I went with Vivian and Amy and we just spent Saturday there and it was awesome. This year, I signed up with the anime club, and then pre-registration filled up and my other friends who didn't pre-reg couldn't go. So I had to go with the anime club instead. Nothin' wrong with that, though. ^_^

Last year, I was impressed by all the cosplayers. So much so, in fact, that I wanted to cosplay myself. So I dressed up as Hinata, one of the female ninjas from the anime Naruto. It was fun - I bought a long, hooded jacket, cut it way shorter, and added fur to the bottom part. I borrowed one of Ali-chan's Konoha headbands (ninja forehead protector) and wore it around my neck, and I cut up a holey old pair of jeans to make Hinata's capri-length pants. I added sandals and that completed my ensemble. Simple and easy, and not too shabby looking. :P Of course, I saw plenty of Hinatas at the con because it is such a simple outfit and because ninjas are popular. It's so amusing to see ninja mobs walking around.

I dragged Sarah along with me on Friday because she seemed a bit depressed, and the weather was so nice out... I thought a walk into Boston would do her good. It took about 45 minutes though... Mostly because I think we walked slowly. I signed in and met up with club people in the Clubhouse. Signing in was SO much better than last year. Took five minutes instead of an hour. :P Overall, I think the con might have been less crowded than last year. Felt that way, anyway. Maybe because the Dealers' Room was in another building, and was huge. Heh. Ah, back to Friday. We hung out, and Skuld and her girlfriend showed up in the coolest Guilty Gear outfits ever. Skuld must have been sweltering in all that vinyl, but she looked great. I wish I had taken a picture. This guy named Sean showed up too - he just moved into the area and he'd come to the con alone. I think he wanted people to hang out with, since he stuck with us for the rest of the day. :P After we finished hanging around, we decided to meet at 7 to go to dinner, and since it was only 5, there was time to hang out and do stuff. I headed down to the game room because Will had mentioned that there was a Naruto fighting game for the Playstation 2. So I went to check it out, and oh my goodness, it is the coolest thing ever. It's all cel-shaded and you can use chakra and execute special attacks on your opponents. It is SO freakin' cool! I just wish that they'd unlock the extra characters so we wouldn't be stuck with the same six over and over. I mean, come on, I totally wanted to play Hinata, but I had to settle for Kakashi-sensei (and died in about 20 seconds). I also played as Sasuke, and it was awesome, and I almost beat the other girl (so close!), but she got me first. Heh heh, ah well... I really enjoyed it. Reminds me that there's a Fullmetal Alchemist RPG out in Japan and it would so rock to play that too. Heh. After that, I went to a J-pop panel, which wasn't too interesting. But I was more interested in resting my feet anyway. Then we all walked to Chinatown to go eat at China Pearl, which is the best place there, and it was sooooo scary. Chinatown is a creepy place after dark. I was glad we were in a large mob. Food was good as ever, although we ordered a little bit too much. ^^; Then we returned to the con and instead of watching the anime music videos in the AMV contest, Adam, Sean, and I went to go watch the Urusei Yatsura movie. It was dubbed, and I was confused because I had to concentrate in a very different way from what I'm used to when I'm watching anime. Usually, I pay close attention to the subtitles and not the conversation, and this time I had to rely on sound. I'm so sad, aren't I? :P Anyway. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. It was SO weird! Aaaah! My poor brain was confused and sad that I didn't watch the AMVs. Oh well, at least I got to see the winning entries, but that wasn't until Saturday night. So. After Urusei Yatsura, it was 11:30 and Ali-chan and her sister were heading back to MIT, so I decided to go with them. We rode the T back and had a chilly walk back onto West Campus. I got back into my room and thought about sewing the flame patches onto my jacket, and then sat down in front of my computer and fell asleep for an hour instead. I woke up at 2 and got ready for bed and collapsed. I was wicked tired because I had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before because I was studying for a quiz (which I think might have gone all right).

I woke up at 11 and went to the 2/3E brunch that Sarah had invited me to. But she never showed up, and neither did Amy, and its their GRTs (graduate residence tutors) that were hosting the brunch. They even asked me where my friends were, since we're always together at these things. :P I had pancakes (with blueberries!) and sewed on the patches. I didn't get out from MIT until 1, and then I took the T over to the convention center. I went to the Dealers' Room first, and there was a bit of a wait to get in, but it was not nearly as bad as last year. Inside, it was huge, and there was so much cool stuff. I'd totally buy anime music if it wasn't $30 a CD. So I don't even bother looking. :P I totally spent two and a half hours in there. It's so sad. But there's so much stuff to look at. It's great! But it's also a good thing that I'm a miser and don't often feel a need to buy things - I'm just not like that. I am perfectly happy to wander around and admire stuff. But in the end, I went and bought stuff from the Sausuga Books stand - they're Boston's equivalent to Kinokuniya, but they're closing down at the end of April. Sheesh! Just when I find out about a cool Japanese bookstore that's nearby school, they have to get up and leave on me. >_< I felt stupid that I have all this manga that I have to read and that I didn't bring any of it, so I picked the first volume of Peacemaker Kurogane so that I'd have something to "read" while waiting for the masquerade. Heh, it's much more dialogue-intensive than my Zelda manga, so I really have no idea what's going on. I love the artwork though. All the guys are so hot, aaaah! And the fact that I can read about one word in every word bubble without help from a dictionary is beyond awesome. ^_^ I also got a mini pencilboard (shitajiki, yay!) with the Fullmetal Alchemist characters on it, which is awesome, because I have a full-size pencilboard that I've had for ages, but it's very white and very plain, and this new one is colorful, and it's also small, which means it'll probably fit in my small sketchbook, which is quite convenient. I also got a Fullmetal Alchemist keychain. Wai! I love that series so much. ^_____^; I was torn between getting that or a Naruto keychain of some sort, but my love for Ed won out, so now I have a cool Ed keychain and my old keychain that I've had since like, 6th grade, can finally retire. I looked for a FF7 keychain for Kristen because they were totally available last year, but I had no luck and it made me sad. I looked so hard too! But no, this year's hot merchandise was all from various shounen-type series - Naruto, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, DBZ, Inu Yasha and (aaah!) Prince of Tennis. I saw some stuff for D.N.Angel, but not nearly enough. And absolutely none of that cutesy stuff that I'm in to, like Pita Ten or Galaxy Angel, or even Digi Charat, for that matter (although I saw Di Gi Charat cell phone straps, but that was about it). Ah well. What can you do? After that, I went to go check out the "Name that Anime Tune" game. All the contestants were so horrible, it was hilarious. Most of the music was unknown to me, but I knew plenty that they didn't, like the Neko-bus theme from Totoro! I didn't realize they were giving out posters to audience members who guessed correctly.... There was this one song that stumped everyone, but I recognized it as the Battle Athletes main theme. Back in the day, when I first started downloading anime music, the first thing I ever downloaded was the Ah! My Goddess movie soundtrack, which I really liked. Then I downloaded the Battle Athletes soundtrack, and it was SO HORRIBLE. Aaah! I shudder to this day to think about it. They played this song from it today, and I recognized it, and actually placed it right away, and was disturbed. But the song actually sounded really nice, so I don't know what happened. Anyway, I didn't raise my hand, so no one knew what it was, and the music playing dude had to answer. Ah well, no poster for me. Not like I'd really have wanted one anyway - it was either a sexy Masamune Shirow girl or centerfold Fujiko from Lupin III. Heh. Thanks, but no thanks.

After that, it was time to wait in line for the masquerade! Dan was cool and got a spot quite close to the front, so we formed an MIT mob around him, and it was cool. Steph looked quite lovely in her Miyu costume, and I was sad that Ali-chan had changed from Claus (Last Exile) to Ryoma (Prince of Tennis), because her Claus jumpsuit was so cool! And her wig was awesome. ^o^ Sean was back and dressed as Xelloss (yay!) so I took a picture. OH YEAH. I forgot to mention that Rosie and Caroline showed up at the con! It was so cool! Rosie dressed up as Sesshoumaru from Inu Yasha, and looked really cute. She couldn't smile for pictures though... She had to stand and look all serious instead. :P Woohoo, it was exciting to see high school friends at the con. Anyway, back to the line. We finally got to go and get seated, and instead of having much reading of manga, they shut the lights off and played DDR AMVs and they were a lot of fun. Then the masquerade started, and that was great too. All of the costumes were really good, but the Gothic Lolita one from Alichino, and the Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess with the huge, foldable wings, were some of my favorites. Oh, and Vash the Stampede from Trigun. OH MAN. He had the coolest-looking costume ever. It was all made out of brown leather, and was so intricate. It looked amazing. And he acted the part too! He came in and did his Vash-dance and it was great. Not surprisingly, he won Best in Show. ^_^ Well, after that was over, and they'd finished announcing the winners of the AMV contest (and showing the winning entries) and announcing the masquerade winners, Adam and I decided to go eat because we were starving and it was 11:30. We ended up going to Legal Seafoods and I had some lovely fish and chips and we had a good time together. It worked out well because Adam likes to talk and I like to listen. :P It was cool to hang out with someone different for a change - someone who I've seen at the club all the time, but have never really talked to. Heh, I'm sure that the people in the restaurant must have been confused by a samurai and a ninja coming in to eat (Adam was dressed up as Kenshin - he's got long red hair, it's perfect ^^).

When we went back to the con, it was already 12:30, and the dance party was underway. It was the first rave-type dance party that I've ever been too, and it was the best thing ever. Man, the music was so much fun - it was all hyper and hardcore and fast, and totally addictive. It wasn't hard to start dancing at all. Dancing is great, and I've discovered that the best thing about dancing is to go to a dance where you don't know anyone. Then you can feel free to jump around and look stupid, but it's okay because everyone else is doing the same thing, and best of all, you don't know each other and you'll never see them ever again. The music was a good mix of stuff, though they could have used more anime songs. Still, they played a rave-style version of Neverending Story, which I liked very music. And there was plenty of DDR goodness to be had too. Heh, my ears are still ringing - the music was so loud. There was a screen that would usually show random swirly patterns and stuff, but every now and then, they'd play a video of old-school video games, like Mario Brothers or Megaman or Contra, and it was amusing to watch. Adam and I danced for nearly two hours, mostly in a circle with some other girls, and it was (whee!) so much fun. That was probably the best dance I've ever been to (sad, huh?), just based on the quality/type of music, and the fact that I didn't know people, so I could enjoy myself without feeling self-conscious and stupid. I think I need to go dancing more often, and I think it has to be at good places that don't play hip hop. Rave music, yeah! Glow sticks, yeah! Impromptu conga lines, ohhhh yeah! :D

So around 2:30, I figured I ought to get back to MIT. Adam decided to leave too, and so we walked down Boylston Street, all the way back to Mass Ave, and we split up from there. We figured we ought to hang out more often - maybe watch more Cromartie High (are we the only two people in the world who are amused to no end by that show?) or something. That would be cool. I mean, my friends are great, but it's also good to hang out with other people. And whoever is reading this had better not be getting evil ideas in your head or I will have to come over and beat you. Hm, yeah.

So this year's Anime Boston was a total success, and I had a great time. There's still stuff going on tomorrow, but I can't go because I need to hang out with my 6.170 group and do all the design stuff for our final project. Yay. So I'll just have to settle for playing with my new keychain and enjoying my memories (and photos if/when I ever get them developed :P). I am already looking forward to Anime Boston 2005 - it's going to be in the Hynes Convention Center, woo hoo! But before then, I must catch up on sleep. Heh. Hm, I don't understand why all these people have requested wakeup calls in their AIM away messages. I'm totally sleeping until noon. I've gots to recover from my con-going frenzy. ^_^;

Oh, one last thing. It was so amusing... I got hugged by random ninjas, but that was about it. Ninja camaraderie, yeah! ^_^ There was this girl that was dressed up as Kiba that hugged me on Friday, and then she hugged me again today, except she was dressed up as Ino (I had to get a picture of that - she was the only Ino that I saw, and her armbands looked great!). I also got hugged by a Shino - she's the one that beat me when I was playing that Naruto game with Sasuke. Ah, and a random person with a ninja headband took my picture. I felt so special. :P At least I wasn't like those shameless attention whores that walk around with signs that say things like, "Please pay attention to me" and stuff. >_< But the recognition is nice - I appreciate it. I totally need to make a rare, uber-complicated costume for next year. :P Yeah, as if. Ah well, cosplaying as Hinata was good - my own personality is very similar to hers - we're really quiet and shy. Next time, I should go for scary contacts so that my eyes are all white. That would be the best thing ever, but it would be ridiculously expensive. Oh well then. ^_^; Sleep now.

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: None
Current mood: Let me sleep already!

April Showers...

Woohoo! I am so happy! For Software Engineering lab (6.170), we have to build this graph thing, and we have to build the Nantucket graph in under 10 seconds. Mine was taking 20, and it was so sad. But I commented out this horrible iterator edge-checking thing and now it loads in less than a second! I am dizzy with joy. Now, if only I had managed to get this all sorted out earlier. Sigh. I must be a masochist or something.

So today was a bit of a mess - it started raining yesterday afternoon and it's still raining now. They talk about April showers, but this is ridiculous. You know it's been raining too much when Killian Court is populated by ducks instead of pigeons. I'm serious! Man, I lead such a healthy lifestyle - I walk everywhere. But that was bad today because I'd go outside and my pants would get soaked because umbrellas are sad like that. Then I'd sit down for lecture for a couple of hours, or go to work for a while... And when everything was nice and dry again, I'd have to go back outside again! So annoying! My tennis shoes got really wet because I was stupid and didn't wear boots.

Ah, yesterday my 6.170 team sat down to choose our final project. We discussed it over McC dining, couldn't decide, and continued later in an AOL chat. :P It's decided though, thank goodness, and we'll be working on Antichess, which sounds like a lot of fun. It's where you play chess, but you try to lose all your pieces first. It involves building an AI, which sounds scary, but I think it'll be really interesting. Goodness knows I need something to look forward to. The other option was Gizmoball, which is something like pinball, but it didn't sound as mind-engaging - it's more about the graphics. And physics. Yuck. Oh well. Both sound hard, but I hope it'll be fun.

And now, for the highlight of the evening.... Fred Gallagher (the Megatokyo guy) gave a talk this evening and I went! It was great - he rambled quite a bit, but it was all very interesting. He spent a lot of time talking about his college days and the advent of the internet. It was funny just to think back to how old I was then - this was all stuff that happened during grade school for me. He also talked about how he started with an online art website, and has had no formal art training. He's developed a great style on his own, that's for sure. As he answered questions, he drew a picture of Kimiko. It was neat. I really admire his hatching skills. He pointed out that in the anime style, if you have a head, depending on where you place the eyes, nose, and mouth, that can totally change a character's facial expression, and I was amused because that is totally true and I've noticed that myself. He also says that starting with the outline of the face is something of an unusual way to draw, but I'm not sure if I agree with him on that. I mean, we draw the same way - facial outline, hair, facial features. It's kind of interesting that I've noticed the same things that he has - I often fiddle with the mouth when I'm drawing because even subtle changes can make a big difference overall. So yes, Fred is very cool, even if he tends to mumble a bit. I was really glad that I went. He's quite the popular guy too - quite a few people showed up, and that was painfully evident when the talk ended and everyone surged down to the front of the lecture hall to get autographs. I brought my MT book 1 along for him to sign, but I had to wait nearly an hour. Fortunately, it wasn't time wasted because I got to study my next Japanese lesson. Aaaah! It's soooo difficult! *ahem* Yaaay! Since Fred was doing doodles, I asked for a sketch of Piro smiling because he totally doesn't smile enough. It's so cute! I love it! And I was a bum and didn't ask him to sign a poster for Vikki. I totally should have... and asked him to draw pretty-boy Ed, because that would be the worst thing in the world. And by worst, I mean best. As in, I would laugh for forever. But no, I felt spiteful and tired, so I just ran off. Lalala.... But Vikki, you do not have permission to hurt me because you didn't give me a book for me to ask him to sign or anything. In fact, I haven't heard from you all day so I didn't know what was going on. Blah. Anyway, I need to get back to work, and stop staring at my Piro sketch. Aaaah!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Motoi Sakuraba - Super Mario Bros. (a most interesting arrangement)
Current mood: Yay. ^_^

I'll Keep this Short

Life is sad. I cannot concentrate. I would work on my website, but I keep telling myself that I don't have any time. And then I go waste it some more. Hm. Well, I didn't fail the orgo test, though I came pretty darn close. Better luck next time, I guess. Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo fame is coming to MIT on Thursday to give a talk. I'm definitely going! ^_^ I'm so mad that I didn't have time to go when the guy from Exploding Dog came by. -_- Yep, 6.170 is still sad. My p-set 5 still has issues. And I haven't really started on p-set 6. Screwed as ever. There's a 6.004 lab as well, which looks annoying. And 5.12. And a Japanese lesson quiz on Thursday. Ugh. You'd think I'd be used to this by now.

Happy news. I scanned things, and I am too darn lazy to put them online. But I submitted a couple to Fanart Central, so you can see them there if those admins ever get off their lazy bums and approve 'em! It's so yay - I taught myself to draw Chrno's adult form (from Chrno Crusade) and it makes me so happy. I doodled him in 6.004 lecture today, and Vikki seemed very interested, but when I wrote out an explanation, she looked confused. Looks like that's another series that I have to get her hooked on. >:D Ah, so I got annoyed at how huge the font in my sidebar is. Well, same for the rest of the blog text, but I was too lazy to go and fix that up too. So I gave my sidebar a bit of a facelift... And now it has links! Mostly webcomics though... I'm so sad. But they are good! Otherwise they wouldn't have been worth the trouble of reading. :P

Tonight, instead of doing 6.170, I ordered books off of Barnes & Noble.com. It's really stupid... You can only use one gift card per order, which means I have to make like, three seperate purchases, and still buy over $25 for the free shipping. It's all part of their evil plan, I know. They want me to spend more real money. Oh well, I still got interesting stuff - D.N.Angel 1, Galaxy Angel 1, Megatokyo 2, and Windwalker (a book I've wanted for ages, but it only just came into paperback). And I used Ant Kone's gift certificate and it was yay! I need to write her an email sometime... I'm so bad at keeping in touch with people. Jikan ja arimasen nee.... (There is no time). Or, I just can't handle my time wisely. *peers at herself writing in her blog still* Bwah! I am going to go make that stupid 6.170 p-set work. I will prevail!!!

Quick side note: Vikki! Using the phone is NOT as scary as you think it is!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Peacemaker Kurogane ED - Hey! Jimmy
Current mood: Sad that I'm so pathetic

Spring Fever

Ugh, I know it's been quite a while since I last wrote in this. Many many things happened in between, and every time I wanted to write something down, I kind of couldn't. And now I don't feel like writing, but here I am with nothing better to do. o_o; So, MIT security finally figured out that my laptop was virused and they shut down my network drop on me. It was so sad - I couldn't get online. Not even on wireless! So I had to wipe my harddrive and reinstall and everything. Then I asked for my network drop back, and it took them a week to respond. A whole freaking week! In that time, I had to do all my 6.170 p-sets downstairs in the dorm's computer cluster. It was really upsetting, and I don't like being down there. It's too cold, and the glare hurts my eyes. So I slaved down there for a week. And I slaved and slaved, and you know, this class wouldn't be so bad if all my efforts paid off in the end with like, a good grade or something, but NOOOOOO.... I just got my auto-graded part back yesterday, and I think I passed 4 tests out of 20 or something. It's too depressing to go back and look. -_-; So yeah, my grade is not quite dead yet, but it's thrashing around on the floor in its death-throes, I think. I'm supposed to be working on p-set 6, but every time I look at it, my heart fills with despair and I cannot make any headway at all. Yes. Deepest darkest despair. I kid you not.

So. Anyway. Yes, this week is MIT's spring break (thank goodness!) and I've been home for the week. Have not done any work, except for Japanese, because Japanese is the only source of joy in all of my classes. I totally failed the organic chem exam on Friday, and well, 6.170. Yeah. Anyway, I am so glad to have my laptop working again, and without viruses even! Everything works great, and the wireless network at home is just... yay. I finally got to work and scanned in all the sketches I brought home. I'm wondering what happened to all my Thraxxin and Jesper gothified doodles - I suspect they're all in my 6.004 notes, which I didn't bother to bring home. So I've been enjoying the food, and I went out shopping at Goodwill yesterday because I needed to find a coat for the Hinata costume which I still have to make. I found one, and it was only $5! I thought it was perfect, albeit much too brown (her coat's really pale tan), but hey, $5, right? And then I watched more Naruto last night and realized that her jacket is really much shorter than the one that I got and I felt stupid. I'm going to have to find a good pair of scissors.... >:D Shoot. I was supposed to go to Ben Franklin and buy faux fur today for the jacket. Silly me. Sigh. I need to go to the mall to buy all sorts of things - VHS tapes for the club, and a semiformal-type dress for Ring Delivery. Looks like it might not happen though. Saturday is really busy - there's a karate promotion in the middle of the afternoon, grr. My sister has the SAT to take Saturday morning as well. Good luck to her on that - I hope she does well.

Ah! Back to cosplay. I went and got a haircut yesterday, and my usuall hairdresser was out, so I had to settle for another one. I thought she cut it awfully short and close, but I didn't get the full impact of it until I came home, showered, and dried my hair. Aaaaahhhhhh!!!!! My hair!!!! So I've been depending on my hairstyle when picking out possible characters to cosplay, because I have this weird, fluffy hair that sticks out, much along the lines of Hinata from Naruto, or Kosuzu from Dokkoider. And ah! It's gone! My hair looks so stupid now, I've never been so upset about it before. You know, everyone always complains about their hair, no one ever seems satisfied. But I've always been rather fond of my own hairstyle because it is rather distinctive. And what else are you going to do with so much hair? I'd refuse to grow it out. But too short is even worse than too long. I've got 2 weeks for it to get back to normal, but that won't happen because the layering is too extreme, so it won't get back to normal 'til I next come home and get it cut again. Well, it's a relief that hair grows out and you can change it again, but AAAHHHHH! I have never been so upset about my hair before.

Hah. So I made this vow that I would not talk to Mike until he mailed me the package that he was supposed to send me for Christmas. I mean, my friends and I had our Christmas party on the last day of January, but now it's near the end of March....! So yeah, I know I'm an evil person, but it was sort of convenient since I was much too busy during the week before spring break to really put up with much of anyone. The end result though, is that Mike has not sent the package, and I am still not talking to him. Not that it matters to me right now - it's spring break for me, and I'm not online all that much, but I know it's driving him nuts. I'm actually faintly amused, heh, well, what else can you expect of me?

Kristen and I got together on Tuesday and went out, and it was great. She's still wasting her life away, playing D&D, which annoys me to no end, but I've kind of gotten to the point where I can't bring myself to care about it too much. I mean, I think our friendship was really strained by the end of high school, and even through last year, but I've kind of calmed down together, and when I don't fret about what she's going to do with her life, we can actually have a good time. And it's even better if we don't go over her house and get stuck in front of her PS2, which always drives me nuts. So we went out, and we went to Borders and Barnes and Noble over in Nashua, and it was great. Borders has such an amazing manga collection - it makes me sad that all I have are B&N giftcards. Relatives need to make the switch! :P We also went to the Pheasant Lane Mall, where I haven't been in ages. We went to the pet store! There were hamsters, and they were huge and cute, and I couldn't touch them. ;~; I miss having hamsters so much. There's nothing small and fuzzy to cuddle anymore - the guppies are not exactly up for being petted.

I went to karate and couple of times and got blisters on my toes and it was sad. I've forgotten so much! Anyway, all of my friends must be enjoying the nice weather at their respective homes, but it's cold and rainy up here. Oh well, a good day to stay in. Huh, I've written way more than I meant to, but that's typical, right? Especially since there was a lot to talk about and I couldn't even get to all of it. I just scanned in pictures - perhaps I should work on those. Otherwise, goodness knows when I'll find the time for it. Never, probably. Why is life so busy?!

- Flykyr Skysong

Current song: Wave Race 64 OST - Castle City
Current mood: A little depressed