A Year of University Life

A lot of things happened in 2010 but I’ll talk about one thing in particular. The most profound thing I’ve experienced being so far away from home was being independent. There was no one to tell me what, how, why, or when to do anything. I was left to my own devices and at the beginning I didn’t feel it because I was carried away by dorm events, university scheduled presentations, orientation, meet n’ greets, and parties. A few weeks pass and what’s left is absolutely nothing except club activities (if you joined any) and classes. Which I promptly attended, punctually and enthusiastically.

Time has a funny way to chip at everything without mercy or judgement, all those people I met the few weeks and months I was in university just seem to drift away. I was never one to start a relationship I had no interest in and clearly the people that I had met had no interest in me. From those frequent messages of meet ups it slowly devolved into those awkward holiday greetings then into nothing. Clearly, I didn’t make much of an impression and the most peculiar thing about it was that I didn’t care. My involvement with society and people became less frequent as the weather got colder and at the beginning of winter in Australia I was completely alone. I ate dinner alone, I went to class alone, I did hobbies that were meant for one, I left the Kendo club, and I stopped participating in any event, party, or gathering. I knew, lying on my bed that if I had succumbed to a sudden heart attack my death would go unnoticed for a good long time. Was I sad? Angry? Depressed? For me at least, I felt nothing; contrary to popular belief the loneliness was none of that, I liked it. Now, I don’t know whether it was my mind denying my sad fact or was it my nature to like the loneliness I don’t know, but what I loved most about being alone was the quiet. It was blissfully quiet and that gave me a lot of time to think.

What did I think about? Well everything, and nothing. The months of loneliness gave me a lot of time to rethink my life, realign my paradigm, and re-evaluate my beliefs. However, as I got more detached from people so did my involvement in university; what I mean is, my grades went to fucking shit. I skipped classes because it was too lazy to get up, I blamed the lecturer for being incompetent, I blamed the tutor for marking my paper and giving me a bad mark, I blamed everything. Being alone, had inflated my arrogance level to over 9000!!! It simultaneously made me ask, “What the Hell is the point?”

At first I had serious doubts about my majoring in accounting and finance then I had doubts about my degree in commerce then I had doubts about my enrolment in the ANU. Finally, I thought to myself, “Why am I here? I don’t want to be a fucking accountant or a corporate cat. I don’t care about money, women, fame, or anything. I should have enrolled in a Malaysian university and save my parents the trouble.” The only thing I could not surrender was the dream. My dream, to become a writer and I didn’t need a fucking degree for that.

What changed? Time, or more precisely, time changed me – once again. It was not God, or a friend, or anybody, it was all me. I woke up one morning and muttered, “I’m such a fucking pussy.” Whatever happened, it happened several weeks before the finals and because I did not fuck up the assignments I managed to pass everything except one paper which I had to take a supplementary exam. In the process I found new respect for the art of accounting and a morbid curiosity for the shrewd practice of finance. After that I didn’t get much alone time, soon after my finals my folks came down and we drove along the south east coastline of Australia for about a month. And after that I had summer classes which took more of my time than I expected and now I’m here. Not totally alone any more because an old friend is now my roommate.

I like to think that I came out of that period of utter silence with something, I can’t be certain that I did, but what is certain is that I enjoyed being alone and though I can’t be alone any more I’d love to do it again maybe in a different city, country, or continent. Right now, I’m busy trying to get out of the mud of the past. This year will be a good year, because I fucking said so.

New Year’s Resolution (NYR??)

2011 is just over the horizon and as usual a few things come to my mind. Have I changed? Do I want to change? And what is Mizuki Kawashita’s current/ next project? (As far as I know she just wrapped up Ane Doki which I haven’t had time to read, maybe I will try to get my hands on Ichigo 100% again, that will be my 4^th time reading it)

For the other two questions, well I don’t know and quite frankly I don’t really care. The only things on my mind for the future is to get better grades, learn Japanese, get a part-time job and to continue reading, writing, and occasionally practise playing my guitar. Its funny how none of the things I do often are on that list, that being said I should really cut down on the shit that I do too often that is neither fulfilling or fun any more – video games.

I was browsing the forums of Team Liquid and came upon that annual thread about your New Year’s Resolution, 80-90 percent of the stuff being said was the resolution of getting better grades. How were my grades? Pretty Fucking NORMAL if you ask me. A slew of credits and one or two passes. Funny thing is I didn’t study much, a lot of cramming a week before the examination. I admit, I had my head up my ass. I think its less so now. Browsing that thread and inferring that gross statistic gave me a little perspective i.e. I’m not the only Fucktard that needs to wake up.

Getting good grades, going to the gym more often, getting a girlfriend, practising that hobby, and all that shit, is NOT my New Year’s Resolution. To me its something more specific than that, something that you would have to get out of your way to do. All the things I mentioned before are examples of stuff that I would already do without some silly resolution that is made once a year when the clock hands minute and hour, meet at twelve.

So what is my New Year’s Resolution? As I read through the thread and came to its end, without thinking I typed and posted, “Read a hundred books by the end of 2011.” Seemed like a good idea before but now, it feels like a great idea. That’s my NYR, to read 100 books by December 31 2011. How many books did I read this year? Probably less than five D:

So what is your NYR?

PS: Apparently anymore is spelled any more. My world has been rocked.

Cheeky Monkey!

My left hand is sore. How is that possible one may ask, well the answer is simple it begins with an S and ends with a –tarcraft 2. I’ve been gaming since morning till lunch then decided to stop and study, eat, take a shower and all that good stuff. So right now, I want to play the game and my left hand is sore. To be exact my palm muscle is sore and the only strenuous thing I can remember this hand doing was mashing on hotkeys.

Does Starcraft 2 live up to the hype? By now there are dozens of reviews out there that have the same general opinion as mine Starcraft 2 is a splendid game. I have some gripes with somethings like certain parts of dialogue and storyline but that’s a personal preference I can’t write a review but there is one of professional opinion that managed to express my gripes and loves quite perfectly: http://www.giantbomb.com/starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty/61-20674/reviews/

I’ve always regarded gaming as this addiction that I should try to grow out of. Ever since high school it has been a love hate relationship, I hate it for what it takes away what I could have been doing (opportunity cost) but I love it at the same time maybe due to its addictive nature or because of my long history as a gamer since the first command and conquer, your to blame Dad. I know some most people are either ignorant about it and listen to all that stereotypical media garbage or they make ass-umptions like the douchebags they are. I detest how society places people with ‘proper’ hobbies on a bloody pedestal to be glorified. How being good at a sport is seen to be more beneficial than being proficient in a game.

Which is true. I can’t deny that no matter what reasoning I try to use to justify the benefits of gaming vs. sports, sports always comes out on top. My opinion sort of changed once I heard someone saying something along the lines of, “Anything that requires you to work hard to be good at isn’t a waste of time.”

When you apply that sort of thinking into hobbies it actually makes sense, not all I’m sure I mean if your hobby is mopping the floor does that mean you can work hard and become a professional in the sport Curling? I think not. But it does bring up the point that just because it’s a game do we put off that hard work it requires to be good at it, because it’s a video game?

Personally I like sports that are game oriented like football, basketball, badminton, anything with rules. But most of these sports are team oriented which is not to my liking. The competition in any casual sport game is bogged down by its friendly nature to play nice. The thing about starcraft is that it is very competitive, something I cannot find in any real sport unless I acquire the skills to compete at a state level .

Adrenaline running in the veins, heart pumping, palm sweating, a held breath, a trembling hand, all these happening while your mind if caught in a battle of wits and choice. Do I expand? Do I tech? Do I build workers or units? Where is his main army? What is his composition? I should be scouting. Do I have the right mix of units? Has he expanded?

Needless to say, starcraft 2 is chess with a syringe of adrenaline stabbed into your thigh. And what really bothers me is that people with no knowledge of this game will dismiss it like any other game and lump it together with the likes of massively popular games such as Halo or Modern Warfare because it’s a video game and thus mind numbing. I’m not saying those two games are bad games or stupid by nature no, no ,no ,no, no – what I’m implying is that ignorant people would make those cliché assumptions of what a game is – violent and simple.

Meeting new people you understand how non-widespread gaming is but what grinds my gear is not their ignorance or their stupid assumptions, it’s that look of pity. Like when someone says he collects anime figurines or plays warhammer 40k the tabletop game or magic thegathering. I know not everyone makes that stupid face but those that do, can go fuck themselves for all I care.

At this point I have forgotten what was my intention of writing this. So I will conclude this entry with a youtube video. Oh, and about the title - well lets just say I've been using that a bit excessively right now.

iTunes Ver.2

Its been roughly half a year since the first iTunes post. Because I cant lug around my beloved desktop I've been happy to use a Vaio laptop. Its surprisingly awesome. Apple however is Fucking stupid (not to mention iTunes is a shitty program that eats up CPU resources), conveniently my iTunes playlist with all my songs and its respectives play count and skip count had a reset. Tried and could not fix the problem.

So here is my top 5 and yes, the top two is from an anime. Enjoy, or not.......jerk.

Jaydiohead
Lucifers Jigsaw (39) and Optimistic Movement (39)
the rest of the album + encore is awesome too

Jaydiohead - Jay-Z x Radiohead by Max Tannone

Right Now ~ Fort Minor
(play count: 41)



My Song ~ Girls Dead Monster
(play count: 45)

Crow Song ~ Girls Dead Monster
(play count: 68)

Evangelion 2.0

Its been a cool two years since I saw the first of the Rebirth of Evangelion tetralogy. I couldn't even remember how it ended, all I remembered was that it was awesome. Evangelion 1.0 was a mirror to the anime series, a remake (part of it, the best part imho) that had no plot changes the difference was in the animation, visuals, music, the technical stuff and it was superb; as expected from a movie remake.

Although my memory of Evangelion the original series is frazzled by time and space one thing is certain, the plot changes in Evangelion 2.0 gives the series a breath of new life. And to a certain extent an easier understanding of the story in general. The problem with the anime series (from my memory) was that it ended on a strange end of Gods, fractured realities of what could have been and an assortment of visual stimuli that would cause photosensitive epilepsy. The ending ruined the original series for me only because of its confusing nature and its sudden divorce from reality that made me go, "Wait....whaaaaaa?"

The past is the past, Evangelion 2.0 is an awesome anime movie. Not as good as Summer Wars but this isn't a competition of which movie can please you best. I think what made Eva 2.0 better than its original material is the better fleshed out characters. His father seems less of the asshole and Shinji, well I find myself hating him much more less than I did before as for the others, there is much more to them than I am willing or able to write about at this moment.

Another aspect that I love about this movie is its portrayal of daily life in Tokyo-3 their short clips one minute or two at best but its gives so much character and life to the city their trying to protect.

All in all, Rebuild of Evangelion is an awesome tetralogy (50% complete for now) and I implore anyone who is interested in any good story to watch it and enjoy.

Now I just have to wait for the sequel, another two years most likely......*sigh*