Winter Quarter 2010

I guess I missed making a post for January, I've been way too busy.

I actually wanted start off paying my respects to Fuzzy, our family pet chicken. He died earlier today and I was informed by my dad about it soon after when I called home. He was the last of the four pet chickens we raised. We've raised Fuzzy up to about 9-10 years and have gone through many memories with him. I'm sad he's gone, but now he can crow all he wants in heaven. R.I.P. Fuzzy (2001-Feb.5, 2010)

My sister was especially close to Fuzzy, it was her favorite. The four pet chickens were mainly my sisters to raise, though it ended up being our dad taking care of them the most. We all helped out to take care of them, and I helped take care of Fuzzy during my three years of Junior College when I was living by myself (waking up to his crowing every morning, gah...) He was an odd one, he would crow at odd times of the day and even night (yes, 4AM night...or morning, whatever).
Aside from the sad news I recieved earlier today, my work schedule has become a hurricane of madness. Dunno how many times I've said this already, but: 3 classes, 3 clubs, 3 recreations, 5 game projects, and 1 independent studies. For my classes, I have Chinese Art History, Culture Flows: Asia, and Project in Technology Hacking. It's a lot more work than I previously anticipated, but I'm hanging in there (somehow). I'm still in the same clubs: Videogame Development Club, Kendo Club (for extra practice), and Tomo no Kai. At the Anteater Recreation Center (ARC), I'm taking classes for Kendo, Iaido, and Kyudo (Japanese fencing, katana techniques, and archery respectively). For the game projects, I am mainly working as audio for the groups, a bit of design to finish up one project, and play testing a game close to being published. My independent studies is with a Professor on debugging a editor program he created for his research by making a game out of it and reporting all the errors and glitches I run into. I have a full plate to chow down on, but don't really have the stomach to take it all in (that being the time to do all of them).

Because of this crazy schedule I put myself into, I've been getting only minimum sleep. On Friday and Saturday nights, I would stay up playing videogames, yet I haven't touched any yet since I've been drawing tonight as well as blogging at this moment. (dang, 4:30AM...) I'm prepared to graduate, and I still haven't heard from the JET Program to know whether I get to go to the next step in getting into the program and get to study in Japan for a year while teaching English. I'm also thinking of interning at Blizzard Entertainment this Summer as someone in the industry had suggested me to do. I feel somewhat lost as I know what I WANT to do, but not sure what I'm good at to pay the bills (growing up sucks, lol). As much as I enjoy the "freedom" (if you could call it that), I miss having free time to experiment and work on things I like and being actually able to PLAY videogames. This quarter really is messing me up, but it's also building me up as well as I've been meeting quite a bit of people in the Interactive Entertainment Industry. I even got to go to Blizzard Entertainment for a presentation, but that's as far as I am at liberty to tell (I wanna protect the company you know?) If I did get hired for intern at Blizzard, I'd probably apply for QA for WoW or the unnamed MMO they announced last year or as a map designer for Starcraft 2. To be honest though, I really hope that Starcraft 2 gets out by the time I graduate though. I can't wait to buy the game and start making maps like I did back in High School~

Man I have a lot to blog about. Writing was something I used to hate a lot (I think) because I was forced to do monotonous assignments of reading and reporting long papers of topics I didn't care for too much. I think I started liking writing a bit by Jr. High because of an awesome teacher (I still remember his name, Mr. Holt) and became more competent in structure and grammatical syntax (though I'm pretty sure that my skills in writing from vocabulary choice to spelling is still flawed) from Mrs. Connors (if it weren't for her, I don't even know if I could have survived the rest of High School). ANYWAYS, my point is that I've realized I really like writing, as long as I'm passionate about what I'm writing. It's also a way for me to reflect upon myself and let my mind run free (and have all of you reading suffer from it, bwahahaha. Though probably no one reads my blog...)

I've finally started drawing again (here and there) and I can't get over how bad I am at it. I want to practice more, but given the limited free time I have, I usually spend on practicing on music or playing videogames ('cause I'm trying learn more about design, honest~). I'm glad I bought Acoustica Mixcraft, I've been able to improve on using audio programs and train my ears for various tasks. I really don't know what I'm going to do as a career (other than wanting to be in the Videogame Industry) because I still love drawing, I do videos, I do photography, I love music, I always have crazy designs, and I enjoy creating stories. I want to do everything right now, maybe I'll find what I'm good at and do that as my career as work and do everything else as a hobby.

OKAY, aside from all the boring and sad stuff, I am rather excited for 2010 line-up of games. 2009 was a scary year for the Industry because of the recession that caused financial upkeep problems and the termination of certain developers such as Pandemic studios. Here's what we get to look forward to this year:

Starcraft 2 - PC

Oh c'mon, who's NOT excited for this game?  I really want to get this game mainly for the map editor as it was the original Starcraft that really inspired to go into the path of the Interactive Entertainment Industry (although I always had that intention my whole life).

Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce - PS3

Missing out on an awesome $10 deal for the original PSP version, I'm excited to hear that it's being released for the PS3 with hi-res graphics.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - PS3

Not surprising as I am a big Castlevania Fan.  Being developed by another company, I am expecting epic battles, innovative gameplay, and memorable game time when it finally comes out.

Metroid: Other M - Wii

Let's just say I'm a big fan of all games as Metroid is one of them as well.  I have not play a Metroid game where I felt it was poorly made or a waste of time.  Along with Team Ninja's association with Nintendo, this game is going to be more exciting than ever before as well as shedding some light on the story.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 - PSP

Yup, second one is coming out and I haven't even started the first one.  I'm still play Universe, haven't gotten to the expansion, and I barely got anywhere on Zero.  I'm still playing Phantasy Star Online, that's how good the series is! =P

Ragnarok Online DS

Yay, they're actually bringing it to America.  According to Gamespot, it's in 10 days.  I'm so tied down with everything else, I doubt I'll be buying any new games anytime soon.

That's it for now, I really need sleep @_@; (frick it's 5:10AM!!!)

Life and school

I got back from Tomo no Kai's Semi about an hour ago, and I'm so glad that I went.  Thanks to Tricia for convincing me to go, I would have so missed out.  And thanks to all my Tomo friends for cheering me up tonight, becuase I've been having a very difficult week/month/quarter.

[Get ready, 'cause it's a lot of complaining]  It's mainly due to school.  This quarter, I was juggling 5 classes (20 units), 3 clubs (I'm staff for one of them), 2 recreational classes at the ARC, and in between I was signing up for housing, subletting for the summer, enrolling into classes, and getting ready to get into the Game Culture Program.  4 out of 5 of my classes are boring, I recieve 3-4 essays average a week, I barely get time to enjoy my World of Warcraft class (Game Design), and I'm only doing very average in my classes.  After a while, I got used to the consistant flow of the quarter, until mid-terms hit.

Stu Art 11A - History of Contemporary Arts class is very difficult to follow, and so I had a hard time writing a good paper for mid-terms (got a b-).  In my Visual Culture class, we have critiques on our artworks.  Before I presented mines, the people ahead of me showed theirs and people clapped and commented on them.  After presenting mines, the whole class was silent for the longest time....and when I did get some comments, they were negative ones are questions that challenged my project's intention.  I wanted to make my 3rd project really good, so I started planning right away.  I planned out to have 7 of my friends in the video, and we had very little time to work on it.  To make it things shorter: Everyone was busy on separate days, so I changed the story so that I could film each person individually.  I looked all morning the first day just trying to find a camcorder I could used.  After filming my first footage on the first day in the grass, I started having an allergic reaction, so my skin got really itchy and I started sneezing a lot.  When I finally got my footage recorded and tried to load it onto my video editor, none of them could read the format (MPEG).  I spent 6 hours just trying to find codecs and convertors and nothing was helping.  I just found out about 2 days ago that the Window's movie maker on my Vista side of the laptop works with it, it just freezes every few moments on me.  So I'm still working on the video.  But what worries me now is that I have 3 other projects other than that to finish and present this week.  So I'm already freaking about this, and more happens this month that makes it worse.....

I go to the counsoler's office often to check on my schdules and classes and see what requirements I could fulfill.  When we were looking through classes for next quarter, we realized that I had conflicting times for a series I need for my Major and for my minor.  Because of this, I have to stay an entire year longer in order to finish one of the series.  I chose to finish my Major series first because it was more important.  I really don't know what to do, 'cause I could drop my minor and graduate by next year.  If I stay an extra year, my parents have to support me fully, which I don't want to burden them with.  I'm still keeping that option open right now, and I got 4 classes (16 units) that I could sign up for.  Then more problems occured.  When my window opened, I couldn't sign up for all my classes except for Asian Art History.  I went to the Arts office again to straighten it out.  My interactive arts class couldn't be taken because I did not take 65A - Digital Imaging (I petitioned).  So now I have to petition for that class too (still haven't got a response).  I was able to get into my Artists as Writers class by having one of the counsoler's lifting whatever was blocking me from enrolling to get in.  My Independent studies I'm not sure how it goes yet, but I might not get to get the credits for it until next quarter.  So I was left with 8 units at that point.  Then on the same day I recieved a message about my housing (which was yesturday (May 29th at night), I get a e-mail that says my writing class had a schedule change, and it conflicts my Asian Art History Class.  So now I'm back to 4 units again.  I don't get financial aid unless I have 12 units or more.  I think the most frustrating thing more than anything was housing.....

Living in Campus Village has benefitted me a lot this year academically and mentally because of the enviornment and atmosphere.  I worked on trying to get into Campus Village again, and when I finally did, it kept erroring when I tried to accept it.  I was so busy during that time that I didn't get a chance to ask for help.  1 day before the deadline, I was already in a rush to get to classes and run errands.  I went into the housing office to get help and they got me through the process and I accepted it.  Then afterwards, I found out that I, myself, had to find someone to sublet my apartment over the summer since CV doesn't do it for me.   If not, I have to pay $1500+ just having it for the summer.  I knew I was signing a contract from June to June though.  So I'm still going through this stress of trying to find someone to sublet from me.  I was having troubles looking for friends to live with at CV next year, and I finally found 3.  Sucks, 'cause all 3 didn't get in.  Not only that, I found out that I got placed on the far end of campus village farthest from the campus grounds, on the bottom floor, next to the streets when I asked for a 2nd floor apartment close to the campus and community center.

If you've read up to this point, I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you would care enough to know how I'm feeling right now.  This isn't a first of dealing hardship, but I write like this to blow off some steam.  I think going to semi helped me more than anything.  Please message me or let me know that you have read this so that I know that my friends (you) care.  Thanks, and good luck to all of you on your finals.

Mid-terms and school

I'm making another short rant for the month of April.  Time is so limited and valuable now.  School, sleep, clubs, homework, downtime, lab/discussions, everything takes up time.  I'm averaging about 3-4 essays a week and about 2-3 reading assignments a week (sometimes more).  Then every 3 weeks, I have 2 projects to work on with the work on top of that.  I still go to all my club meetings and discuss on what I need to do for Videogame Development Club and Language Exchange Program.  I still keep up the work for those two clubs too.  Going to Tomo no Kai is my downtime (just to chillax and hang-out).  I'm taking Kendo and Iaido this quarter, but I skip wednesday's iaido practice since I have a class that conflicts time with it.  With all these going on, I fell behind in the class I like the most and the one I like the least: Game Design (World of Warcraft Class) and History of Contemporary Art respectively.  This weekend, I have a lot of work again, but I'm trying to catch up on both those classes.  I recieved my first Mid-term, which is a take home Essay that's 4-6 pages long for my History of Contemporary Art class.  That class is just torture to all the studio arts students of UC Irvine.  It's dead boring, hard to follow, and feels very useless as part of our academics.

But enough of the depressing stuff.  Times are tough now for everyone, especially with this "swine flu" talk going around the world.  It's really scary to hear about such things when they're so close to you, becuse you don't know what's going to happen but know it's going to be bad if it DOES happen.  Still, I've been trying my best to enjoy life if possible throughout these past 5 weeks.  I tried out the Japanese version of Phantasy Star Zero for the Nintendo DS and fell in love with the Opening song "Makenai Kokoro" sung by young and talented Okumura Hatsune (奥村初音) who is also very pretty! XD  But really, she started writing her own music around the age of 10, has done a few dramas, and has an incredibly beautiful singing voice.  I've never heard of her before actually, and I thought her voice was familiar when I first heard the song.  Anyways, the game so far has a great balance between action and story since Phantasy Star Online (PSO) was more about action and Phantasy Star Universe (PSU) was more about story.  It meets halfway between the two and makes it a enjoyable game for both PSO and PSU players as well as new players.  The controls are more similar to PSO than PSU but lacks the amount of feature customization when creating a character.  It's not that bad as you get to choose from a good amount (more than Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Shining Soul).  The graphics are great for a Nintendo DS, and the gameplay is just as fun as the past Phantasy Star games.  The sound effects of the game is a bit harder to judge since they sound very old-computer-ish like sounds, but it makes it funny and reminiscents old retro games.  The controls are a little hard to get used to, but new features in the game make it a new experience for returning fans and new ones (you can actually dodge and block now!!!)  Still, the story is told  by short clips of video and mostly reading, so I wasn't able to read the dialogue very well when going through the intro.  The good thing was I could read the names of the items and weapons that I picked up.  I can't wait for this game to come out in America, I'm so going to buy it so I could play online!!!

[Just a funny video I watched last quarter.]

I don't want to continue too long, but here's some other short rants:

World of Warcraft: I'm falling behind in my class like I said before, but I'm (sorta) having fun.  I have a Druid at level 15 (when everyone else is level 30) for my class and I started a Hunter not too long ago but don't have time to play it.  I also want to play a rogue, but I don't know if I have the time to do so.  I really hope I catch up with the class so I could group/instance/raid with them.

Puzzle Quest Galactrix: I tried it out and it's different from Puzzle Quest: Challange of the Warlords.  It's easier to create combos, but it's also more unexpected of what's going to happen next.  Fun game, not sure how often I'll get to play it though.

Space Siege: Wow, I can't believe I didn't play this earlier.  The game mechanics is actually really fun and more action than Dungeon Siege.  Along with being able to have more control over attacking and dodging, not having to worry about misc. items keeps the game going without having to constantly sort through my equipments.  I should really play this through LAN with someone, I think it's worth it.  One thing that does bug me is getting used to the controls the first time playing it.

-Well, I have about 30 minutes before I go to my Tomo no Kai meeting, so I think I'm going to play WoW for just a moment.  We're going to Karaoke tonight, so it should be fun (hopefully).