Life and a Game Recommendation

Didn't really know what to title this thing, so I just decided to come up with some lame-o title.

Of course, my life has gotten increasingly busy (as usual), what with work, classes, clubs, and the crunch that everyone is feeling as the end of the semester starts to catch up on everyone. I barely have time to breathe at the end of the day--especially yesterday, when the student government had to pass their budget.

Apparently, the college student government budget is a horrid, enormous thing that happens once a year in March. It gives the funding to all of the clubs from our Student Activity Fee. Then the members of student govt (treasurers of clubs and representatives from the dorms) vote on every single club's budget. It took seven hours over two days to pass the budget. There was a lot of tension, and as I have never been a part of student government, this was a surprise and a half. I still have a headache from part two, that happened today.

I'm actually surprised I have half a second to write in this blog. It truly has been quite insane, especially with my plans for this summer, which are continuing to loom over me kind of like a dark cloud. If they are implemented, I will probably write a whole separate blog on the events surrounding it. But for now, since these plans are not in solid stone and may change, I think I'm going to keep it under wraps for now.

I do have one awesome thing to discuss though. Over my Spring break (a couple weeks ago), I was really bored and looking for games on Steam. While looking for good adventure/RPG games (my favorite), I stumbled upon the Blackwell series. Although this series has so-so for graphics, I instantly fell in love with the characters and the storyline. You can find a trailer for the whole game series here. The trailer is just as awesome as the games, but the series is so intense. I'll probably have a review once I finish all of the games. I'm on game number three now, so be sure to watch out for that soon.

Until next time, also known as when I have some free time to write about my life.

Excuses and an Excerpt

Actually, I really don't have any excuses as to why I haven't been posting for about a month. It was just... after two weeks, I felt if I posted again, I would have to make an excuse as to why I haven't been posting. So I waited another week, and another week...

And finally I'm here, home once again from school on break. Spring break, in fact, and even though it is nearly the middle of March (not technically spring), spring has officially begun. 50s and early 60s on and off last week, and it's supposed to be warm all this week too. I really wish I would have brought my sundress, because I certainly would have worn it this week.

Since I have been away for so long, I figure it wouldn't be useful to fill everyone in that's been going on this whole month, because I could write about 10-15 posts at least about everything that's happened. What I'm going to do instead is hop back on the blogging bandwagon and post more frequently, aka a few times a week.

So for my first post back from hiatus, I'm going to put in an excerpt from my newest story in progress. I still have to finish this story, so don't mind if there are grammar/structure errors. This is a battle scene between two of my characters--a necromancer and a mage. Enjoy.

--

Sure enough, there was his cousin, Victor—standing in front of the case. His back was to Oliver, so he did not see his cousin. Oliver started to make an attempt to walk up to Victor without him noticing, but his foot stepped on a piece of glass on the floor halfway there and it made a sharp crunching sound. This gave him away, and Victor whipped around, the greedy look in his eyes changing to hatred as he saw Oliver.

   “Cousin, you realize that it will take you quite a while to open that case with the spells Celia and I have placed on it, do you not?”

   “Fool! I have already managed to destroy most of the pitiful spells your girlfriend has placed on the case. Had you gotten here twenty minutes later, the case would be gone and I would be the rightly possessor of my book again, my spells that are rightfully mine!” Victor snarled, brandishing his staff at Oliver.

      “Well, it's a highly good thing that I arrived when I did, otherwise you have already stolen away with it! Once I get the book analyzed from Aheem, I am simply going to extract the useful spells from it and then destroy it so you cannot get your gnarly hands on it!”

      Victor recoiled, as though his cousin had slapped him across the face. “You couldn't possibly be thinking about doing that!” he exclaimed. “That book has been in the hands of necromancers for CENTURIES! To destroy it would be destroying part of the heritage of the gift of necromancers. The gift that you rejected.”

     “Of course I rejected it! Your art is evil, and look at what practicing such magick has made you become! It has made you a selfish monster with no thought to others except for yourself. Is that what you want to do with your life?”

      Victor ignored his cousin's question. “Enough is enough! I grow tired of your needless insults. You know what I want. Give it to me without any trouble and I will not cause YOU any trouble.”

     “No matter, my dear cousin. You have already caused me trouble by destroying my property and breaking into my home! There is not much more that you can do that will cause me any more harm, Victor.”

     Victor laughed then, a gutteral laugh that sent chills down Oliver's spine. “Oh, I could do much, much more harm to you than you could even possibly know, boy. You are simply a mage. I am a necromancer, a darke wizard. We are much more powerful than you naturally. And I have trained in my art for many more years than myself.” He paused. “So, my dear cousin, be prepared to die!”

What A Week and New Words

Just... wow. What a week. I really can't explain my life in explicit detail right now, because a huge chunk of it is personal. But here is something that happened that I can divulge:


http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/573286/classes-at-suny-canton-to-resume-feb--20th-after-fire-in-chemistry-lab/ 

The link will lead you to a news story about how on my boyfriend's campus, his science building practically exploded, preventing him from going to classes for a week or more. Unfortunately, he was at my campus at the time, so he is practically without any belongings until he gets back to campus next weekend. So yeah, these past few days have been mind-blowing, just to say the least.

In other news, I had to read a scholarly article for a paper I was doing. Of course, there were so many words that I didn't even understand and I had to go to the Oxford English Dictionary and define them. Also I will include some words that I defined from the novel A Hazard of New Fortunes, by William Dean Howells. It's a long novel, but it's pretty good so far. That book is also for my Literature class. Here are some of the defined words:

Diatribes: Bitter criticism
Quixotic: Ideal, (referring to Romanticism in the novel)
Lacuna: Missing part of something
De-legitimation: Taking away legitimacy
Duplicity: Acting in two ways at different times
Aphonia: Unable to speak

Thanks to Lauren for giving me this idea. :)

First Week of February

My time has instantly went from not so busy at all to barely getting a minute in to write in this blog. Even though I have so many things to write about, just the time to write them has reached nearly zero. My life is still pretty exciting, I just wish I had more time to write about it.

Firstly, I have decided that every Monday, the day I have Thanatology, I will write a blog post about what we talked about in class/what I'm reading in the textbooks. This is mostly for Lauren, who is fascinated by the subject, but it's really for anyone else to gain insight as well. I mean, if someone can have a whole blog devoted to sea glass, I can have a post once a week about dying, right? Sometimes, however, I might have to wait until Tuesday, as I have a newspaper meeting on Monday nights. Speaking of newspaper meetings, I write for the newspaper, so I may put up general info articles I have written here in the near future.

Anyways, this week was slightly stressful, but still as interesting as my life could be. Work at the kitchens (in the bakery department) has reached a whole new level of fun. Even though the job does get repetitive and sometimes monotonous, the guy who works with me is really nice. Thursday he gave me a cranberry muffin :) I think it was because the muffin was extra and he didn't want to throw it out, but it was still very nice of him. My co-worker is very adamant about not wasting food, which is great. In the other place I work, the people who work there throw a lot of food out that they don't need to, which disappoints me.

Other things that have been going on in my life? My friend Bill will be coming back to town next Tuesday, and I will be going with a professor to pick him up. The place that he is at is an hour and a half away, so it should turn out to be an interesting adventure, to say the least.

Also, I didn't mention that I am taking astronomy this semester. One of my friends suggested I take it for the general education credit it provides, so I added it. Of course, I haven't mentioned yet on this here blog that I LOVE ASTRONOMY.

In fact, I dragged my boyfriend outside at 12:30 am last weekend just so I could look at the stars. He lives in a rural area, so the sky there is free of trees and looks absolutely fantastic on a clear night. Thanks to the star chart my professor gave us, I could pick out a few more constellations than I could before. A lot of the winter constellations wind through the Milky Way, so it's really hard to pick them out. What gives the Milky Way its cloudy appearance in the sky is the sheer multitude of stars that is in it. So it's hard to pick out the constellations. However, I did manage to see Orion, Gemini, the Big Dipper (Ursa Major), and Sirius (Canis Major). I couldn't pick out Ursa Minor or Polaris that night, but I'm learning more about them. Contrary to popular belief, Polaris, or the North Star, is not the brightest star in the sky. Sirius, or the Dog Star, is the brightest star in the sky, and also the inspiration for J.K. Rowling's character Sirius Black. Also, stars are measured by brightness using the magnitude scale, 1st magnitude being the brightest, and 6th magnitude being the dimmest. Something else interesting? I managed to see a moonbow the other night, which is when there is a rainbow around the moon. Because it is nighttime, a moonbow appears to be white clouds, but it is actually a rainbow at night. That's a very rare occurrence and I was very lucky to see it.

Wow, sorry for the rambling about astronomy. Something else I'm very excited about is that tonight is the Snow Ball, our college's equivalent of a high school prom. To me, the Snow Ball was the high school prom I never really got to experience (Tara and I were NEVER popular in school), and it's a great chance to unwind from this week and relax. Since college kids are much more mature than highschoolers (with a few exceptions, unfortunately), I always have a lot of fun at the college dances.

I think I've blabbered enough about my life. Until next time!

A Week in Review

It's really late at night; the clock reads 12:35 am. I should have been in bed an hour ago. But I just want to write. I want to write about the previous week and how interesting it was.

About my friend Bill--I did find out about him, and I found out (most) of the whole story about what happened, thanks to a couple sociology professors and a library clerk. However, due to the whole fragility of the situation my friend is in, I can't disclose what happened to him on the interwebs. But I do know that he's alright and I did talk to him on the phone. ...I just miss him a lot. I just keep expecting him to be around, and the fact that he's not lurking around campus like he always used to seems out of place. It has been one of the things lurking in my mind, and I have been thinking about my friend often. I hope I can see him soon and he comes back sooner than later.

I'm not sure if I should be doing book reviews on old classic novels I have to read for my American Realism literature class, but when I'm finished reading Washington Square, by Henry James, I think I will do a review. I've actually been reading it instead of skimming it, and I've found that it's not that bad at all. I really think I'm going to enjoy this class.

Speaking of classes, the books I've been having to read for Thanatology have been really interesting. Lauren seemed really enthusiastic that I was taking such a course about the sociology of death, and honestly she is one of the few that do. Most of the people I mention this class to have the following reaction... "Oh, that's cool!" *INSTANTLY changes the subject*. Even though the subject is really touchy and actually kind of depressing, I think I will devote an entire blog post about the subject and the class tomorrow.

I am simple going to mention one more thing before I head off to bed, and it is that I randomly watched Toy Story 3 this weekend. I absolutely loved it. Coming from the girl who watched Toy Story 2 very repetitively, this was kind of a no-brainer. But I loved it just the same. It had a lot of elements that differentiated this film from the other two, and it was those differences that made the film worthwhile and positively spectacular. Not only that, but this movie closed the fantastic story that the first began, with a happy, bittersweet ending. Watching this made my pretty awesome weekend even better.

That being said, here's to another week.

Life and Death

So, a lot has been going on lately and I've just been too lazy and too busy to record it on this here blog. I'm back in school and have completed my first day of classes; I went to a leadership conference (of which I want to write a whole blog post about), and an interesting scheme of events has occurred with a good friend of mine. I will try my best to put all of these events into summation as best as I can.

About the first day of classes--the classes I attended today were American Realism/Naturalism (Literature), and Social Thantanology. The funny thing about the sociology course is that it connects to my friend. But I'll get to that later. Anywho, even though the literature course is upper division, I feel that it is going to be pretty easy and fun. But don't count me on that, the professor sometimes throws a curveball and the course material gets harder. Even so, I think I'll enjoy it. Here's a funny fact--out of the fifteen people in this class, three of them are pregnant women. I think it's interesting, but I don't know what else to say about it.

As for Thantanology, it was just overwhelming, what with my other issues going on. The professor is a distinguished guy who founded the county's hospice program, and pretty much the area's expert on death, dying, and hospice in sociology and in other aspects. So he had a lot to say, even for the first class. I do have to mention that this class only meets once a week for three hours, which is a first for me. After the class, the professor asked for me and told me some much needed information about my friend.

One of my followers, Lauren, has a close friend named Bill. Funnily enough, so do I. He's an interesting character, my friend Bill. After I started to get to know him, it felt like Bill had walked out of a novel and into my life. Everything I have done with Bill and everything that has happened with him is unreal enough to be a part of a story. This feeling runs so deep that I feel that perhaps someday I will write a novel/novella/short story(s) loosely based on Bill and the misadventures I have had with him. The thing that makes our friendship interesting is that he is my father's age. That huge age difference has given me stares and accusations that my friend is a pedophile. That is not true.

Recently, Bill went missing. By missing, I mean I did not hear from him for several weeks, and when I tried to contact him, I could not get a hold of him. Naturally, I was worried and feared the worst. Thanks to my professor and a clerk at the college library, my worst fears are over. I do know he is okay, and something really bad did happen to him, but I'm not sure of much else. I desperately hope that I will be able to see him soon, which is what my friends did promise me.

Also, I sent some postcards out to Belarus and the Netherlands today with Postcrossing. I hope I get some back soon.

Ice Fishing, Bowling, and Deus Ex

So Monday, when we were supposed to go ice fishing, we didn't due to the weather. Lemme tell you, there has been a lot of bad weather lately. It prevented me from going to the specialist last week, and it did delay us from going ice fishing. So instead of going ice fishing on Monday, we went bowling instead.

I'm going to be honest with you all--I really, really, really suck at bowling. For those of you that know a lot about bowling, the highest score I attained was a 52. My boyfriend, Christopher, is much better at it. He picks on me a bit about it, but I don't mind.


So yesterday we went ice fishing. With Christopher's family, ice fishing is an all-day affair, from dawn to dusk. Fortunately for my frozen fingers, we didn't get on the lake until about 10 am. Once we got everything in order, everyone sat down and started fishing. It was raining continuously, so later on Christopher and I got out the two man shanty and used that to keep ourselves from the weather. For those of you unfamiliar with ice fishing terms (as I was recently), a shanty is basically a tent adapted for ice fishing. It keeps out the rain and snow and other bad weather.


For lunch, we had hot dogs on the ice. Apparently Christopher's mother usually cooks on the ice with a camp stove, but we didn't. Instead she cooked them beforehand and put them in a really insulated thermos. With some chips and soda, you have a makeshift fishing lunch right there. Chris's mom says hot dogs on the ice taste like steak. She's partially right.

As for the amount of fish... Well, everyone fished a lot. Christopher's mother fished the most--she had a whole five gallon pail by the end of the day. Chris and I fished together and caught about a quarter of a pail, and Chris's father caught about the same amount.

On the lake we fished, we caught a bunch of sunfish, bluegills, and a few perch. I promised photos, didn't I? There's one of me there on the right, and I'm holding one of the perch I caught. We were inside the shanty at the time, that's why the background looks all blue and shiny. Almost like I'm underwater. I think that's a really neat effect. Even though I was freezing and my hands kept swelling from the cold, I really did have a good time. Ice fishing is a lot like regular fishing--the only differences are the cold and the fact you use shorter poles (called jigging poles). That and you don't have to drill holes in ice in the summer!


I would like to talk about one more thing before I close this post. I've been playing the original Deus Ex game for the computer the past couple days. It's really the best shooter/RPG I've got my hands on for a really long time. I like RPGs in general, so adding the stealth, excitement, and thrill of a shooting game to an already good RPG like Deus Ex was really a good choice. The graphics are, of course, a bit choppy (much like Summoner for the PS2), but graphics don't matter when the gameplay is as amazing as this. When I finish the game, I will have a review on this blog.


I am leaving to go back to school in a couple of days. I don't want to go just yet, but I'm sure I'll have fun at the conference and I'll get back into the learning mode when classes start next week.