The marks are in and the requirements have been met. I’m graduating university with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. I’ve given it a lot of thought but I do not have plans to continue my studies in graduate school nor do I plan to apply for a professional program. It was a definitely a tough road and I walk away with a degree and many valuable skills acquired over the years. I still have a long road to walk and I still have a lot to learn.

Just walking to one of our labs...

This is my story and this is the road I walked.

I graduated from high school many years ago and it is rather embarrassing how long it took. Leaving high school, I said to myself that I wanted to get into Pharmacy. It is definitely a competitive faculty but due to my poor work ethics at the time, it was out of reach. Computer games just ruined it for me. I’ve thought about going into engineering but decided that sciences would be for me since I have that mindset of “why things work the way they do” over the practical “I want to make things work” aspects that an engineer has. I am not looking down at this mindset and by no means it is an incorrect way of thinking. It just wasn’t my way of thinking.

I spent the first couple of years of my university life was just trying to find what I wanted to do as I jumped around different departments. I’ve thought about going into physics but it was a weak subject for me. Astrophysics sounds pretty cool since I was huge into astronomy. I tried to go into microbiology through suggestion of a friend. Overall, I thought it was a neat area of study.  Working with bacteria colony and learning the ins and outs of it and the techniques was quite an experience. At the end of it all, microbiology just wasn’t for me since I disliked genetics and the amount of memorization involved.  Biochemistry was pretty much the same as it was just simply all memorization. I am very poor when it come to memorization so I tried to stay away from all that. Both those departments had a high number of females though…

I eventually decided that I would go into chemistry since it was one of my strengths back in high school. The harsh reality of first year showed me how little I actually knew about the subject but the thing that kept me going was that I enjoyed the laboratory environment. Organic Chemistry 2 was probably what sealed the deal for me. I truly felt challenged and it was something I wanted to understand and continue learning… this is when I declared my major.

In our organic 3 lab, the experiment essentially failed and our TA simply indicated that by drawing a sad face on our flasks.

As third year came around… The harsh reality came and I hit a mental roadblock. I felt like dropping out. I was tired of school. Although dropping out there would have been a waste of many years. I was not going to settle for a three year general science degree. I was going to finish it. It was the most difficult time in my academic life because it was mentally and physically straining. Every lab report became a formal lab report and the course material has been exponentially increased. I pretty much no longer had a social life as I am spending at least 6 hours on a single report where I end up saying to myself at the end, “I am fucking retarded… what is this shit I just wrote?”. I am so glad I finished it.

The most important thing that people have to do is to network. In the faculty that I was in.. a lot of people were rather antisocial. I really disliked that about my faculty. There were other faculties where people were a lot more welcoming but science just wasn’t that. I just felt that a lot of the people just didn’t know how to have a conversation. It was really hard to talk to some people because of a social awkwardness. Then again, I am not the most sociable person either but I try.

Despite all that, the networking thing also was a big thing that helped me get through my third year. I managed to become friends with someone who just seemed like a cool person I can get along with. Although we both have hugely different interests such as music and such. We both were walking the right path and took relatively the same classes. As we got to know each other a bit more, it has become mostly random antics in our labs and simply had good synergy in group. Helping each other out through the tough assignments and putting in our Saturdays to work on a lab. I would say that he was one of the biggest reasons why I kept going. We were both fighting the same fight.

If you can get past third year, you’ve pretty much jumped one of the largest hurdles in your life. People say that forth year is infinitely easier and it’s true and false. Third year usually weeds people out. Forth year courses does not necessarily mean that the course material is easier because in most cases, it isn’t. The people managed to make it through are just a bit more familiar and have the necessary work ethics to finish strong.

This is one of the two classrooms where I spent the majority of my time while in chemistry. You cannot see it but the ceiling has not been finish since I started... I don't see it ever being finished since our faculty is poor.

In my final year, I managed to also become friends with whom I now consider to be one of my closest and best friends. This person is the guy I studied with and put in 12 hours on a Saturday just to get work done. 12 hours does seem very daunting but it isn’t as bad as it sounds. Although it definitely isn’t for everyone, although I encourage people to try what we did. Firstly, you need to find a person who is willing to do this with you and whom you can stand to be in a room for 12 hours. You do not need to necessarily be in the same courses since my friend was in engineering and I was in sciences. Neither of us had the same courses but it just worked. Many times, we’ve invited people to come study with us and drawn away from it but they just do not realize that it isn’t just a 12 hour session. Frequent breaks where we have some hilarious and meaningful conversations. Then work for 3 hours without even realizing it. When you see your friend focused on writing a project report, you get motivated and don’t want to fall behind. You are motivated to work.

During my final stretch of school. I turn to my best chemistry friend during class and said to him how I really do not understand chemistry despite being in it for the last four years. He then turns to me and gives me this sage saying that I felt I felt was rather nice and I think it has a lot of meaning.

When you no longer feel like you understand anything any more and felt like you’ve haven’t learn anything about your area of interest… that’s when you know you’re ready to graduate.

When you feel that your thesis no longer makes any sense… that’s when you’re ready to receive your doctorate.

There were many regrets I had over the years. I should have finished faster and earlier. I shouldn’t have played so many video games and computer games. I should have been more social and make a stronger network. I should have done better in all my courses. I should have did a final project course in order to open the door for graduate school. Even though I don’t plan on going back to school I would have been at better ease to know that the door was open for me to walk through.

On the last day of school, I was talking to my friend after his final presentation and I was telling him about my regrets in school and how I don’t feel as if I deserve this degree that I’m going to get. He turns to me and gave me the most motivational speech and lecture.

You know what? Forget what they say. We’ve been doing this for the last 5 years. We’ve worked hard for this degree. Who cares about those little things. Who cares what anyone else says. Fuck them. How many people do you know from high school finished their degree? How many people you know even when to university? We did things that many people couldn’t. We have something that many people don’t have. We did it and we’re finishing. We finished university.

I took this to heart. I’ve though about the people around me and the people I know. A lot of people didn’t get their degree. Outside of my family, I can only think of a handful of people who actually been through the things I have.

I look back over the years and I do not regret my major, I had fun doing it. I look back at some of my labs that I did and I did a lot of cool things. I disliked writing lab reports but it was a necessary skill to learn. Inorganic labs had probably some of the interesting experiments which included making a ferrofluid, making a superconductor that showed levitation, and Fermy’s salt. There were also some unfortunate accidents including making a bomb calorimeter explode. Although my lab coordinator just simply laughed it off and now has a funny story to tell.

The bottom of the flask is mercury where the goal was to purify an organic sample or something... I don't remember.

A magnetic bar being held under a ferrofluid. This is a type of iron solid mixture that can freely move. This iron complex forms the spikes seen above as it lines along the magnetic waves caused by the magnet.

If I was to give advice to the people who are just entering university or those that are still working towards your end goal. Do whatever subject you want in school. No matter how long it takes, find something you enjoy.  Network with professors and get them familiar with you. Remember, that these people know what exactly you’re going through. Networking with other students is important as well as previously mentioned but just remember, they are going through the same thing you are.

It is a fact that there are some degrees that are more valuable than other but I will no longer crap all over them. Before writing my last final exam, I was talking to a complete stranger about his type of research. He was a Ph.D student in German History or something like that. I only talked to him for about 30 minutes but it was extremely interesting and I learnt a lot about what he does. I was impressed at how intelligent this person was and came to a realization that this person also worked really hard and continuing to work hard towards his goal.

No matter the degree a person has, they will usually be exponentially smarter than the average person straight out of high school. One thing about your degree is that it shows that you are able to think critically and the capabilities to do research. This is a skill you cannot learn in high school.

However, I will never look down at a person who decided to not go into post secondary education. There could be some outstanding reason why they could not go into it. It could be family or financials reason. There are some people are just simply not cut out to go to university. Perhaps trade work is their thing and we still need these types of people in our society. I managed to talk to someone whom I went to high school with and he was a bright student. He went into college and got a relatively ‘useless’ degree. I got to listen to his story and I feel bad how things didn’t work out for him but he does not feel any regrets. That is how you should live your life.

And finally, here I am. I can put away my books and walk away with my head held high. Although I still find myself going back to the campus to get work done (job applications) as it is the only place I can get work done.. haha… I hope that you can take something away from all my rambling. I’ve probably repeated a few things several times.

Thanks for listening to my story and I look forward to hearing about yours.

To those that are still finish up with school, good luck and see you on the other side.

To the Graduating Class of 2011, congratulation. We did it.

This is my mortar board from high school. In a few days, I will be receiving another one to commemorate, quite possibly, my final academic stepping stone.

Anyways, here is my list of anime I watched, games I played, guitar songs I mainly practiced, and stuff I did in 2010.

YEAAAAHHH!!

Anime

This list is the stuff I actually finished this year. I will not include the ones I dropped half way through. It probably sucked or I just didn’t feel like watching. (I heard a lot of people got trolled at the Panty & Stocking ending of season 1. I will watch it eventually but loool…)

• Ladies Vs Butler – I will be honest.. it was the tsundere Ojou-sama with that “tohohohoho~” laugh that made me keep watching. I don’t have any other reason.
• Omamori Himari – This one was suggested by a friend. I just kept watching.. I couldn’t stop.
• Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu- No comment.
• Dance of the Vampire Bund – meh.. wasn’t great.. wasn’t bad either.
• Durarara!! - With a lot to live up to (Baccano! being friggin’ awesome), this has got me immediately interested.
• Ookamikakushi – shit was slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
• B Geta H Kei – I am fucking retarded.
• Angel Beats! – Key made this. I had to. I think this was the reason that many anime watchers also watched this. Don’t you try to deny it.
• Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou – I don’t think this was well received among many anime watchers because it was full of fan service or something. I thought it was kinda funny. Also, tits.
• Mayoi Neko Overrun! - I watched this for the fan service.
• K-ON!! – The main motivation I had to watch this was because of the fact that they played music. Even though out of the 24 or so episodes, they only performed like 3 times. Half the time it was filled with moe rabbling and all that other crap. I don’t know. It was okay.
• Kiss x Sis – Twinest sorta.. I read the manga first and I liked it.
• Ookamisan to Shichinin no Nakamatachi – meh
• Amagami SS – When I watched the first episode, I knew it was going to be filled with high school angst. I decided to wait until it finishes before I began to watch it. I kept getting message and texts from my anime nakuma telling me how good it was.

fufufu

• Sekirei: Pure Engagement – This had a fucking stupid name. I watched the first season. I felt like I needed to watch the second. I’ve read the manga and it diverged, I am aware.
• Seitokai Yukuindomo – I was quite surprised at how this anime turned out. I didn’t follow the manga so I didn’t know what to expect. After watching the first episode, I found myself taken back at how hilarious it was.
• High School of the Dead – I guess it was okay. Harem with zombie killing. Tits.
• Asobi ni Iku Yo - I don’t know. I thought cat girls was a reason to watch it I guess.
• Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls – Friend telling me how he gets wet watching this or something.
• Yosuga No Sora – At first, I didn’t expect it to be softcore hentai but damnnnnnn… was it hottttt. I like the idea where it is split into several smaller plots for each girl. This is definitely a marketing ploy.. I wonder how many nerds went out to buy the game because I sure as hell would have. Nao is so sexy, Akira’s scene was hot, Kazuha’s scene is pretty good, and twincest. Yeah… I actually kind of liked this one.

Sora was incredibly tsundere... until it was up to her arc. Then she just simply became deredere.

• Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai – This is probably one the highest profile anime during the fall 2010 season. I decided to wait until the series finished up before I went on a  marathon to finish this. After I read reactions on Twitter at how much OreImo pissed off a lot of people and some I know in real life. I don’t see the big deal with the ending and all that… it’s a Disney ending. People take anime way too seriously these days. Also, there are a lot of hot incest doujins from this franchise.. I expect several more.
• MM! – I am fucking retarded. This was ass.
• Fortune Arterial – I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. Ending was terrible.
• Megane na Kanojo - uhh
• Squid Girl – This is an anime equivalent of Invader Zim… that being said. I think it is kinda funny.

bllleeehhhh

Favourite Anime of the Year

Seitokai Yukuindomo

I don’t have a good reason to say this is my favourite anime of the year other than the fact that there wasn’t any other anime I enjoyed as much as this one. I realize that anime has been kind of trash these last few years with a few gemstones hidden in the crap. This choice was pretty clear for me almost immediately for me. Again, I know that a lot of people don’t like it for the same reason I like it. Guess what? People like different things.

Almost everyone in this anime is a huge pervert. A lot of the dialog in this anime were things that I may not have ever say in public, ever… and I say a lot of stupid shit in public. This pseudo harem series is was quite enjoyable. Even though there is no clear cut path taken. It did hint towards some love interest between Tsuda and Shino. There were many occasions where I just simply laughed out loud.

A++ will definitely watch again (within the next 4 months). I am definitely looking forward to reading more of the manga and waiting for the announcement of the next season. I don’t know if it has been announced yet but was suggested at the end of the anime. I am not sure if that is considered official.

Honourable mention

Amagami SS

I think the general anime community agree that Amagami SS is good.

So moe~~ I'm gonna dieeeeeeee

Dude’s harem is good. Sae is so unbelievably cute. As noted with the screen cap above… I literally had to pause the video get up and walk around since I kind of felt a nose bleed coming. Ai is sexy with that swimsuit. Rihoko and Kaoru are up there for me since I have a soft spot for childhood friend archetypes (I actually had 2 female childhood friends whom are quite attractive… missed flags… fuck my life). Too bad Rihoko’s arc is total ass… oh my god.. I can’t believe how angry it made me. Haruka with that attractive personality. Tsukasa with her evil side was such a strange turn on… also her adult form… mmmm… Side character females like Miya and the teacher.. wowowow. Imouto isn’t a total bitch so that’s plus points. The teacher is fine. I got me a fetish for short hair girls and girls with twin tails. The final episode was a nice way to close the series in my opinion. Even with 25 episodes, there was just not enough time to go into each arc in a bit more detail. There is still a lot of things left out that could have been used for plot devices.

Games

This is stuff I played this year. I know I am definitely going to miss some. I may include stuff from last year but whatever.

• Grand Theft Auto: Lost and the Damned/Ballad of Gay Tony – Both GTA DLCs, they weren’t anything special other than the fact that you see cameo apparences from Niko. Just another 8 hours of game play… as expected from a DLC.
• Red Dead Redemption – At first, the idea of having a sandbox game set in a wild west city was stupid. When I started to play the game, I realized that I was wrong on so many levels. This was surprisingly good.
• Final Fantasy 13 - I have a problem when people say that 13 is the worst Final Fantasy game in the series. I definitely do not agree with their opinion and they are stupid fucks. Final Fantasy 10 was the worst game in the series. Also, don’t get me started at how FF14 is total trash.
• Rune Factory Frontier – This was the first RF game I’ve ever played. I spent many hours playing this game when I should have been studying for my midterms. The only problem I had with this game is that the pacing was extremely slow. You have a huge harem though.. which is nice I guess. I just didn’t like how you have to do runey distributions. That was such a huge pain.

I saw this image before playing the game and I was determined to get Bianca to say this very line.

• Rune Factory 3 – I cannot express how much I enjoyed this game. The flow of the game is fast, you do everything so fast.. I feel that the RF series has spoiled me and I can no longer play Harvest Moon games anymore. RAINBOW!!~~
• Super Street Fighter 4 - In general, the game is better than vanilla. Although many things about the game pissed me off which is why I just could not continue playing it for more than a month. I don’t necessarily thing this is a bad game.. but I don’t think this is a good game either.
• BlazBlue: Continuum Shift – A bit more balanced than in CT… not. Bang is retardedly good. Rachel and Noel are both unplayable. CS2 is out in arcades and I am looking forward to the patch to hit consoles. Generally better accepted in the BB community but then again… they will probably say the game is ass in a few months anyways.. They don’t know what they want.
• God of War 1-2 – Mash buttons, kill shit. Tits. Good games if you don’t really want to think.
• Demon’s Soul - This game is hard. It is no mystery. This game is good. That is also no mystery. This game will piss you off. It indeed, did.
• League of Legends – I played this and I didn’t like it that much. I only played because I told a friend I would give it a shot since he had problems getting a good team together. I don’t mean to brag but he mentioned how I was a solid player in DOMO for parties, despite being 10 levels lower than everyone else at the time. I thought I would be that person to help him out but I couldn’t get into the game.
• Starcraft 2 - I am not very good at this game. I, however, enjoy watching high level game play… I have a massive appreciation for those that play this competitively and bringing some cool matches. I hope it can reach the excitement level that SC1 provided over all these years. One of the reasons why I am not very good at fighters is because I have the RTS mindset where I am all about APM.
• Ragnarok Online – Peer pressure. Friends wanted me to play this game so badly. “I’m only going to play this game if Henry plays.” I hate you guys so much. One of the vivid occurence I had in this time I played was that I scheduled a guild party to do an instance then sleeping… then getting several phone calls and text messages from my guild members.. when I finally got back to the computer. I just simply couldn’t stop laughing.
• Recettear – Recette is really cute but kinda stupid… but cute. I felt this game was worth whatever amount I bought it for. 30 hours clocked. I posted it before and I’ll post it again. Why you should play this game.
• Minecraft – I spent 3 days playing this.

Favourite Game of the Year

Red Dead Redemption

All around badass

Another no brainer for me. This game is so good. A deep and solid single player story line, a likable protagonist, a wild cast of hilarious (or hateful) supporting characters, a wild and vest empty sandbox. Like GTA games, you can do whatever you want.  The addition of some unique in-game challenges add some fun things to do when you don’t want to progress with the story. I remember doing some hunting challenges where I was in the forest searching for bears to fight… then chasing one down for a few minutes with a knife in a hilarious reversal of fortune.

The multiplayer was not bad either. Free roam throws you into another sandbox of players for them to do whatever they want. You have another set of online challenges you can do, gang hideouts, or just simply killing other people. I like how there is also some real cooperative play included in one of the first DLC. Then there’s the gambling ones which some people may enjoy. Objective PvP. Finally, the recently included zombie mode with a spin off single player campaign which is another 6 or so hours of game play.

This is a great game and would probably the first game I would recommend to friends.

Honourable Mention

Rune Factory 3

Hopeless romantic

I loved the Harvest Moon series. That charm of just managing your own farm is strangely addictive and fun. Add that with fighting and taming monsters and collect their produce or to just get them to fight with you. It’s quite great. The one main problem with this game is that I felt it was too short. There should have been more to do. I guess it is what was expected from a handheld. The characters are quite unique. It is a shame that the unmarriageable females in this game were the best (lol MILF). I had a lot of fun with RF3.

Music (Guitar)

Practicing guitar is good. I love the feeling when a song I practice begins to come together and beginning to sound like it was meant to. This first list is the songs I am currently learning or already know. A lot of covers are from the same person though. There’s a dedicated group that make tabs or his covers which is a great convenience.

• One More Time, One More Chance (Byousoku 5 Centimeter) (lonlonjp cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57NnFOSv8Vc) – One more the more difficult projects I decided to attempt this year. I will get this shit locked down.
• Frontier Village Dali (Final Fantasy 9) (lonlonjp cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPeeZBhrbBk) – I personally believe this is my favourite village theme music. It is also an easy song to learn and incredibly fun to play
• Ocean (John Butler) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAkOhXIsI0) – Possibly one of the hardest songs I’ve ever attempted and I am still trying to get there. I am playing on a 6 string which affects the sound and feel. I am getting there. I’ve also grown my nails just to be able.
• Always with me (Spirited Away) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Zg_ca6Rig) - I am unsure who wrote the tabs for this one but this is the version I am learning. I will probably goto the lonlonjp version when I can find the tabs since his seems a bit easier. I feel that I should be able to master this already but I am too lazy to put in a solid week to prefect it. Stay stupid me.
• Simple and Clean (Kingdom Hearts) (lonlonjp cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnDqQm8pWkQ) – The intro measure of the song is pretty much the reason why I felt I had to learn it.
• Aerith’s Theme (Final Fantasy 7) (lonlonjp cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_bEkFR5jwE) – When I first heard this song for the first time when playing FF7, I absolutely loved it. When I recently rediscovered it. I had to play it.
• Far Off Promise (Chrono Trigger) (takaf221 cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCla6J4o0W8) -
• Cirno’s Math Class (Touhou) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1soDQVSbf1E) – I honestly do not know who made this cover.. it could be the uploader but I am not entirely sure.
• Canon (Kotaro Oshio) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSDr1eBd36g) – For a slow song… it is actually very very difficult. Also, I am extremely lazy to retune my guitar to Double D drop.
• Last Christmas (Kotaro Oshio) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asNJyfDKVlM) – I remember myself trying to learn this song well after the new years last year. This song has totally dropped off the map for me. I think I need another guitar to have several different tuned guitars since I have bad luck with string snapping on me.
• Brave Song (Angel Beats! ED) (dolce1211 cover) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N2Ela069-M) – It is hard to not love a song like this. This one is also quite a challenge I had and I gave up on it pretty fast…

This second list is just songs I feel are awesome and need to share. Inspiration to get this good but I don’t know. I don’t have the tabs for these songs to even attempt to learn.

Filler music image... also Miku is cute

• Roshinyuukai (Kagamine Rin) (niconicosamurai) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BYb1bogStQ) – One of the few songs I really liked with Rin.
• I’m Yours (Jason Mraz) (Sungha Jung) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyMQRVA2pnc) – I am extremely jealous of this kid.
• Souzou No Secruity (Ling tosite sigure) (niconicosamurai) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94w4Fj7Unt4)
• Disco Flight (Long tosite sigure) (niconicosamurai) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcZgsMS6_aw)

Movie

uhh.. yeah.. I think I only watched two movies this year. Scott Pilgram vs The World and Inception. If I was to choose, I would say I enjoyed the Scott Pilgram movie since the target audience was probably geared to gamers in their 20s.

Shit I did this year

This year has been rather eventful. I thought that there are many more things that I could have done but lack of money and transportation is a big deal… but not for long. I am looking to finally graduate this May. Work on my resume and send out applications in a few days.

I did blog about some of the things I did.. but more about random tidbits of stuff on my Twitter account. I hardly use my Facebook since I would rather see updates from strangers than people I know. I don’t talk to about 90% of the people on my friends list.

So, like last year.. a list of stuff I did or remember. I will just list them as they pop into my head.

• Going to AiKon2010. First anime convention in several years. You can read about it here.
• Went to an archery range. First time doing archery since high school.

Was so happy to just get it into the yellow

• Went to a golf driving range. Golf is a lot harder than I initially thought it was.
• Spent a single day playing tennis. I needed a good racket and those are expensive. Get some friends to go with as well.
• BaseLAN19 was fun for me. Didn’t get a chance to goto BaseLAN20 since I had no money and I heard it was quite a good one.
• I became closer with several friends and realize who was worth continuing to talk to. New bros are added to my list.
• I am still very lazy when it comes to practicing fighting games.
• I am always leveling up my guitar. More new songs to play and practice. It is never a grind for me.
• My blog posts are not regular enough. I don’t know what to post on anymore.
• My number #1 goto guy for cooperative games is Mikey. I can count on him to be an overall solid player and teammate.
• More steam games I hardly play.
• Finding a Toradora! figurine of Taiga, last episode. $120 regular price and -40% this Boxing Day sale. Probably will have the same promotion next year before buying it.
• Running around and doing administration work for graduation requirements.
• Drawing  a lot of random pictures.
• Still needing a tablet to do a web comic that I most likely will quit in a week.
• Watching a lot more anime than I thought.
• Playing a lot less video games than I thought.
• Writing a lot more than I thought.
• Cleaning my room and finding my high school mortarboard, $120, old video game magazines, and a shoe box full of old mementos.
• Buy an external hard drive to finally store all my music, anime, movies, and games.

So.. yea.. I guess that’s my update for this year. I will see what to do about this blog. I hope I have some neat new adventures and to get some more motivation to make more frequent entries. I am not too hardcore into anime and video games anymore so I don’t know what to do with it yet. Random reviews, life events, shameless self promotion, and all that other neat jazz. I can’t leave this blog alone to die. I will continue to update and post whenever I can or feel the need to.

Happy New Years and have a safe holiday… or something.

Lazy moe... so useless

It has been a few years since I last went to an anime convention and a lot longer to this particular one. Thanks to some motivation by some friends, I finally got around to going this year.

I was hoping to get a coloured badge since it was a weekend pass but apparently low budget or something. I also don't like the mascot girl that much. Too shoujo.

To be totally honest, I thought this year was going to be terrible. I was a bit surprised at the quality of many of the cosplayers this year. One of the things I enjoy doing is take pictures of and with cosplayers. Usually I tend to get people who carry props around to do a stupid pose. It’s what I do, I have fun that way.

Day One

First thing I do when I walk in was check out the gamers lounge since I’m that type of person. I actually spent quite some time in the gamers lounge over the entire weekend playing around with BlazBlue,  doujin games (lol th12.3), and watching my friend play DDR. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my stick so I was stuck playing very poorly on a controller. oh such woes.. Although I spent the majority of my time around the station where Touhou was set up… I probably would have enjoyed the game more if the weather system wasn’t completely stupid as hell… but that’s a different story. I see a Touhou cosplayer trying to present their own bullet hell game but it still had a long way to go. There was also the normal bullet hell stuff but I can’t say I was too interested since it didn’t have people fighting each other.

There was a SSF4 tournament taking place and I decided to take part just for the hell of it but I got knocked quite fast because I was an idiot to play Viper instead of Juri. That will teach me from ever playing Viper again.

I was quite surprised to see many people I know at the event, many of which I didn’t even expect to see. I didn’t even realize that they had that sort of hobby and such. Also got to see some people cosplaying as the same thing as they dressed at Comic Con.

I don't give a fuck.

I had many regrets on this day. There were many things I should have done but just missed it. Missed the Mode 7 concert that I was kind of hoping to see because of that tournament… should have got my priorities straight first. Another one was that I wanted to do was to get a picture with Haruhi, Nagato, and Mikuru in bunny outfits.  Yeah… those outfits. I only got a glimpse of them from afar and I thought I would get a picture of them later on I didn’t see them for the rest of the night.

Imagine this but in glorious 3D. I want the 3D version. ;_;

I saw a bunch of random sailor scouts running around as well. Good eye candy as well. It took me a little bit to get into the swing of things and start asking around to get some cosplayers to do those  stupid poses.

Day Two

I leave my house just after noon and was welcomed with some heavy rain. Although it was planned that we should have met up around 11 or so to be able to take part of a sushi/onigiri workshop that my friend was looking forward to but his lazy ass slept in.

Brainssssssss

Again, the first thing I do is to walk into the gamer’s lounge to play some video games like an idiot. I was greated by some of friends cosplaying as zombie Mario and Luigi. I spent the majority of the day debating whether or not I should enter the BlazBlue tournament happening later in the day. If I goto an anime convention and I should trying to enjoy some of the shows and events that was offered. I tried to avoid all anime showing since I can just watch anime on my own time.

Trying to kill some time before the cosplay contest, I would end up randomly walking out of the gamer room to get pictures… and a few shots of me doing stupid stuff.

Fuck you Clouddddddd

Fuck you pyr- guhhhhaarrr

Eventually, I started to stand in line for the cosplay contest. We waited for at least an hour just to get into the main event hall and was lucky enough to score seats. Although there were still many people standing. The cosplay content was surprisingly entertaining. The spin off skits was really random and at the same time very funny. There was a Vocaloid performance that was kind of funny but for a different reason. The performer was to show off her dance but for most of the performance, she spent most of her time trying to keep her midriff from falling off. I hope she wasn’t feeling completely emberassed afterwards, the crowd loved it and all thought it was funny. Unfortunately, I was not able to take any pictures since I was sitting near the back and my camera sucks ass.

The cosplay content ended early. I tried to get back to the gamer’s lounge and enter the BlazBlue tournament. It was full of scrubby players and I felt that I would have placed very well if I was able to play. The guy who won the tournament wasn’t very good and I felt that I would have been able to beat him if I was playing on stick. /ego

I ended up calling it a day early since someone else needed a ride home and I didn’t feel like acting a bit selfish in the hopes of getting more pictures.

Day Three

I was stuck going alone since my friend had other priorities to do. I get there before lunch and manage to enter the TvC tournament which like… people only entered for the hell of it.  I managed to placed 4th. Again, I should have done better but was playing on pad and another friend (who ended up winning the tournament) beats me with Zero for free… also not playing the game for several months might have attributed to not remembering my muscle memory. Team Sushi (Roll and Saki) wasn’t able to shine fully.

I felt today was more of a socializing day since I ended up talking to a lot of random gamers about their game and all that lame stuff that gamers talk about. BlazBlue players trying to improve their game and I was just destroying people with no emotion… still doing it on pad. I’m actually very bad at the game but people seemed to be impressed that I was playing Rachel rather well (I’m really not).

Since I was on my own, I wondered around aimlessly trying to find some pictures to take. I ended up running into a volunteer friend. She gave some weird ass grape drink.

GRAPE DRINK

Our conversation went something like this:

Her: Hey.
Me: Hi, what’s up?
Her: Nothing, I just went up to the vendor room and got this. Are you thirsty? [brings out drink]
Me: No, I’m fine. Why did you buy it?
Her: Because this was on the label. [she points to it and it apparently says it was amazing] Here take it, I don’t want it.
Me: I don’t want it either.
Her: Take it anyways.

I just orz’ed and palmfaced a bit inside. I don’t think I’m ever going to drink it. It will forever remain sitting on my desk.

There was on guy that hung around the Touhou station whom I ended up fighting in TH12.3 trading games. I think I did pretty decent considering I don’t even play the game. Convinced me to end up buying a doujin that I may never read.

Yeah.. I'm never going to read or open this.

He also suggested me buying a yuri doujin with lots of action. I look at him with a raised eyebrow thinking that if he was trying to make a clever pun but it seemed unintended and assured me that there was a lot of fighting. I would have bought it but I didn’t bring that much money because I’m poor and only had $15 at the time. Next time! Maybe… I ended up getting the guy’s contact but fail me, I fucked up somewhere while trying to take  it down. Oh well, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up seeing the guy there next year or something.

Since it was Sunday, the last day of the con. A lot of people just went in normal clothing. The population was still healthy but many people were probably just resting up from the weekend of doing nerdy stuff like goto an anime convention.

I take my leave and make the 20 minute journey back home and took a huge nap.

That concludes my Ai-Kon 2010 experience. I am looking forward to going to the one next year so I can mostly do the same shit. Probably spend more time checking out the other events and shows. I will try to have a bit of spending money so I can buy that yuri doujin if it is still there. I think a larger number of people I know will be going next time, it all should be good and fun times. There was a pick up line that I was saving to use but my broke engineering friend wasn’t able to make it out and he probably would have been the only person to fully appreciate it. Next year… next year.

Completion Time: 103 hours 46 minutes.

Now I can have to look back at the game and compare it to it’s predecessor, Persona 3 FES. Most of the stuff here will sound generally the same as anywhere else from an official review site except that I know what the hell I’m talking about. As much fun as I had with P4, I was quite disappointed in a few things about the game. But before that, here is my analysis of the game and every other thing about it.

A hell of a lot of spoilers here. Since I do not have a TV capture card yet. I will just throw in random Persona 4 pictures I find from the internet.

The Story

You have to move into a sleepy town called Inaba from the big city after your parents are out working overseas or something. During the train ride, you go into a sleep where you find yourself in the Velvet Room, a place where you will find yourself visiting several times in the future. With the cryptic message the Keeper of the Velvet Room gives you regarding your future. Upon your arrival, you are met with Ryoutaro Dojima, your uncle, and his daughter, Nanako. Yes, you have an imouto in this game. She eventually goes to call you her bigger brother.* It doesn’t sound as cool if you’re playing an English dub.

The very next day, you are thrown into the routine you will have to endure for the next calender game year. You are quickly introduced to some of supporting roles of the game. At school, you hear rumours of a phenomenon called the Midnight Channel where if you look at a turned off TV on a rainy night, you will see your soul mate. After school, you are invited to hang out with Chie and Yukiko. On your way to the mall, you walk past a murder site where the body was found in a bizarre way. You gave the Midnight Channel thing a shot and undoubtedly see a blurry imagine of someone. As you try to touch it, your hand gets sucked into the TV but fortunately for you, the TV was too small for your body to fit in.

The protagonist tells his classmates who suggested it to you and think you’re crazy. You go to the mall to hang out with Yosuke and Chie and check one of the TVs to make sure that you’re crazy. You stick your hand in and as they see half your hand inside. You and your friends fall into that world. A little exploration and you see some weird things. You eventually meet up with Teddie, a bear or something who lives in this TV world and kicks you out of his home. That evening you try the Midnight Channel again and then conclude that it was one of your ‘senpai’ who you eventually finds murdered and the body found in an unique fashion. No simple autopsy can explain their deaths and it seems as if they died due to unexplained reasons.

Your party figures out that the people who appear on the Midnight Channel is at risk of getting murdered if they don’t anything to stop it and decide that it’s up to them to figure out what’s going on and figure out who is the one that’s going around killing people. The first real mission you have to do would be to save Yukiko before the next fog comes in and that’s where you can really start to begin playing.

*Note: In most Asian languages, there is no word for cousin. So the usage of brother and sister is often to indicate that sort of familiarity.

The Game Play

Generally, the day life has not changed a whole lot. You still go around leveling up your social links and personal status to be able to hit on girls and do other activities. It is almost the standard visual novel style where you pick certain options and try to get the maximum “points” during each conversation. You can mess up and trigger the wrong flag and you’d be left to attempt to remedy your mistake but it’s not so serious where you’d game over.

When you’re not breaking the hearts of girls and leveling up your “real” life status. You are a super hero detective trying to solve the mystery in pursuit of the murders going on in the small town. A notable change from P3 is that you are doing your dungeon crawling during the day time. This changes a lot of the things you can do since you’d be giving up time to level up your social links. So it is rather important that you do not go into the TV world too often between each event. If you choose to go to the TV world, you can only level the night time social links rather than using that time to level up your status. The social links at night isn’t very hard to level at all since it is almost always open to do. The social links that involve your party members are especially important in this game as it gives you support in battles. It’s not just simply hitting on the girls in the game trying to get laid… even though that’s enough motivation to level up your links.

Combat with shadows is still generally the same as in P3. If you can hit them from behind, you can get a preemptive attack. If you get hit before you can attack, you start at a disadvantage. And there are those neutral stand offs. The main thing that changed about this is that shadows are more aware of your presences so getting a preemptive attack against a stronger enemy is very unlikely. This somewhat makes the game a little more difficult when you venture into a new area where you can’t simply just “level” off the tougher mobs. It just means that the battle will most likely start at neutral or at a disadvantage. That being said, it’s not impossible to get an advantage on tough mobs.

The Characters

Like in Persona 3, your character pretty much says nothing with the exception in battles where he screams out the persona’s name. The protagonist is seen as a more normal person as opposed to the dark mysterious emo character in the predecessor.

Almost all the characters in this game is a lot more likable this time around, especially your party members. Due to being able to create a link with them furthers their character development. During the main story course, you learn a lot more of them and you see the their desires and such. Yosuke becoming quick friends with the protagonist dealing is likable compared to Junpei who happens to be a bitch. Chie is quite a cheerful person, probably the most normal of all the girls. Yukiko, shy and timid for the most part with an odd sense of humour. Kanji, acting tough guy with unusual hobby. Rise, former idol, who happens to be very flirty and adds quite a bit of comic relief.

The normal links in the game as also a lot more normal and their link path is a lot less depressing. There are more characters you can interact with than there are links. It would require you to do a second play through to get them all since it depends on what club you join. Depending on if you join the basketball or soccer team, you will have either a guy who tries to figure what he truly wants to do or simply a guy who is bad with girls. The other case would be to join the liberal arts or the music club, who you can become lovers with. On that note, you have more choices when it comes to befriending girls in the game. There are parts where you can decide to become lovers or just friends with them. And yes, you can be lovers with all of them. I’ve experimented with it.

The Battles

The battles in this game has been reworked. The most obvious would be the interface. Although it is easy to adapt to the new setting. You are required to impose new strategies into the game. Having full party control is a major thing in this game. You will no longer have party members cast dumb spells, efficiently casting their spells, and priority targeting. As mentioned above, your party social links is an important time investment. Certain ranks will allow your party members to preform special attacks. Knocking down enemies may give them a chance to cure certain status effects, pick up fallen allies, and have them preform their own knockdowns. All this sounds good but the most important one would be to be able to take mortal blows for you. To be able to withstand mortal blows themselves, is also an important one.

Time for an all out.. wait what?

The knockdown mechanics has changed in this game. Knocking an enemy down will not make the enemy miss their turn. It will however give you a chance to make the enemy dizzy but there are some monsters that are immune to that. However, the all out attack system is still in the game and is still a valuable asset to finish battles fast.

You see recycled names such as Agi and Bufu in this game. Which is isn’t a big deal when you think of the history of the game.. All physical attacks fall into the same category now. There is no longer slash, strike, and piercing damage. The removal of combination attacks doesn’t seem to effect the game play too much since it was never really used (in my opinion at least). With the exception of two skills that were worth using, having weak personas in your list is a pain in the ass which.

The Presentation

Persona 4 is a well polished game. Just check out the opening. It’s really catchy! The unique sense of style is what really makes it one of a kind.

The interface has been changed a little bit and takes a while for you to get use to since it looks a lot different from P3. The town which you can explore is a lot larger but it doesn’t mean that you need to run around so much to jump to another section of the area. Hitting the square button will allow you a quick warp around to another section or go to the town map. Although the graphic wise, it doesn’t really push the system to the limits like in other games such as God of War 2 or Final Fantasy 12 (debatable) but it doesn’t mean the visuals aren’t pleasing. Messing with the camera at the school will show you that all the characters in the game do have faces and however they look like a cliche anime characters.

The dungeons is not like in P3 where everything looks the same with a new colour and wallpaper slapped on when you enter a new area. The areas are a lot more themed based on the character that created it. You will not get bored so quickly with the same repetitive background and seeing a change in environment is a nice thing every once in a while. The dungeons are randomly generated, so you’re not always exploring the same floor plan over and over and over again.

The battle graphics are a lot less pleasing however, it pains me to see Chie’s face because it looks all meshed up. It seems as if all the work went into the persona models which are actually very well done. They improve on the arts of some personas and has new models for some such as Susano-O.

One of the big things about this game and the last would be the music. The j-pop style of music is what really separates it with the rest of the RPG genre. The opening intro song sounds great and very addicting to listen to. The production value is very high even though it isn’t a high budget game. This is comparing it to series such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Tales series. Although you have full orchestrated songs for every area and all that. Low production eroges tend to have a j-pop opening song so getting good one at the start isn’t that difficult, especially in Japan.

Anime cuts scenes are pretty much the cinematic in the game, although there isn’t much of it through out the game. A lot of the game’s story is done through just simple dialog in game with full voice acting. It is understandable considering that the script of the game is said to be 1.5x longer than in Persona 3 and that is a lot. There will definitely be problems trying to get all that in the DVD. During the cut scenes, you are often given choices that make you think about the situation and makes it a lot more interactive with the game. Your choices can sometimes increase your status or give bonuses to your social links.

Overall Thought

The difficulty in Persona 4 just wasn’t there. I felt more challenged playing P3. I although I did die a lot more playing on Expert mode due to getting 1 shotted sometimes by kamikazes dices. I didn’t feel that the rest of the game offered much of a challenge. The bosses were a lot easier compared to P3 and the final boss was very anticlimactic. I think they thought that simply increasing the health and doing more damage with bosses is what makes the game more difficult. I don’t blame the programmers because what else can you really do to make an RPG harder?

Even though I pointed out many of the flaws in the game. I still love it. A game that causes me to get immersed into over 100 hours of game play something that many things can’t do. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game, aside from MMOs, Persona 3, and Tribes 1, where I spent more than 60 hours in. Final Fantasy 7 can be easily finished in 30-40 hours playing thoroughly.

The story is so well told and even though there is a hefty amount you have to take in sometimes, you are paying close attention since it is like playing/watching an interactive movie. One thing would be nice would be a fast forward or even a skip button for those that are playing this for a second or third time.

I intend on playing this game a second time later on in the future when it is less fresh in my mind. For now, my main focus would be on school and to finish Dragon Quest 8. I’m not really enjoying it however since it’s extremely slow compared to Persona but I will finish it.

Official Japanese Site
Official English Site
Wikipedia

This is more of a personal blog post more than any thing so reader beware. There is a few cheesy parts so don’t expect too much.

I think it is obvious by now that I’m a huge gamer. I feel that my blog revolves more around my games and the stuff I do rather than doing cliche episode by episode summaries that pretty much most of the anime blogsphere is doing. You got to be pretty bored to be doing that… I can’t imagine keeping that up for more than a week… It is just one of those small pet peeves. I don’t have a problem with people doing other things like showing off their figurine and such. As long as their content is original.

Still watching anime.

I’ve mentioned a few posts ago about how I love Toradora! I was quite surprised to see a preview of the next episode on 13. I initially thought of it being only 13 episodes after reading fansubwiki but this is good for the fans of the show. I felt that episode 14 was extremely satifying. I really like the direction that it is heading. In VN style description, major relationship flags as been triggered. All the characters, including the males, has began to shine. Minori has began to take notice Tasaku. Her serious mode is adorable. Ami is getting major points in my book with her maturity verses kid thing. Even Taiga, who I didn’t expect much, has began to grow on me. Tasaku playing an indifference card well. Showing little interest to Ami’s secret phone call. The deal with Kitamura has been getting increasingly complicated with his real love interest beginning to show. This season is going to be great. It is ironic for me to do something like this having mentioned originalty in the previous paragraph but this would probably be the last time you’ll hear me talk about Toradora! again until the series wraps up.

We’ll see what the next season has to bring. I’ve already heard rumours of some big name titles set for showing this year and I hope they don’t disappoint.

Always a gamer.

I know that one thing I can see myself doing repeated would be to pick up my PS2 controller and playing some jRPG’s. I will continue to replay my games because they offer such great replay value… who would have guessed that a game that takes 80+ hours to complete will have replay value? The PS2 is still lives! Those crazy Japanese developers. Please make RPG’s on the PS3.. I am waiting for something mind blowing. Persona 5 for the PS3?! There’s already an unannouced Shin Megami Tenshi title being worked on for the PS3 so who knows?!

I have a PS3 collecting dust but it most likely will not see any action for a few months until XEdge (Cross Edge) becomes localized in North America. (Thanks NIS!) I still have to finish Eternal Sonata which is still a pretty good game. I don’t have any lack of motivation to play it.. it just isn’t high up on what I want to do. I would rather play PS2 since it is more convenient for me.

Do visual novels count as games? I’ve made some personal goals to attempt to finish some during my winter break but I did not expect to spend so much time on Persona 3, Persona 4, and Space game. I have accumulated a lot of games on my hard drive but it is hard for me to get them started. Seeing naked anime girls isn’t high up on my to do list but regardless of that… there are still some I want to try out due to recommendation thrown out by other nerds whom seem to be an expert in the category.

Persuing other hobbies.

In my About page, I’ve written down that I like to pick up and play the guitar. I would like to get better at playing it which would in turn lead me increase my popularity amoung my peers. There are quite a few songs I want to learn how to play and I know there are definitely more out there for me to discover. After seeing the nerdy Mario Kart Love Song… I’ve gain the motivation to dust off the old guitar and play a few.

Another thing I had an interest in is web designing. Earlier today, I’ve decide to read up on the basics in hopes that I can eventually make my own WordPress theme. I already have a rough template/mockup made from last summer but later scrapped the idea since it looked too much like another blog.. but I intend on doing a few changes and making it truly mine… It is still very Web 2.0 and I intend on reading a bunch of resource sites during my spares in between classes to help me get it rolling. Jumping into PHP right off the bat would be a bad idea and I figured I would start by making a website for my guild as practice and eventually build up knowledge from there.

Original content.

I want to gain more readers… I mean.. what’s a blog for, really? My lack of regular posts isn’t really helping my case. It is all a motivation and time thing. I want to do something unique or different from the usual you would see on an aggregator site. I’ve briefly mentioned something like it above. Of course, I started this blog with random comments about anime and summeries on such was my initial plan but I just found that boring. Writing about my gaming progress seems to bring in different readers and I plan to continue doing that in the future. I suppose that getting a theme that really catches the eyes would be my first step to making it worth revisiting from time to time.

Getting a dose of sunlight.

Apart from going out to the anime convention happening in a few months from now… speaking of which.. I still need to get my gallery up.

I want to do some other random otaku things… Possibly I will go out to a couple fighting game tournaments to play some but I haven’t touched a fighting game in so long since my USB pad broke. I haven’t played MBAC, IaMP, and SWR in a few months now and I have little motivation to play Guilty Gear because it is extremely difficult to input commands on a pad.

A look back at last.

The friends I’ve gained over the last year has increased my personal status points and that itself I feel is quite important. We’ve met each other from an IRC channel before hand but never really knew anything about each. We all went into the game as relative strangers but came out as better friends. Through this, I’ve gained my real life stats is quite valuable itself. I feel a bit more charismatic, my leadership skills has gotten stronger, and I am beginning think more independently. These days around we just play Space Game and develop our gaming skills and keep us still relatively social with each other. We’re waiting for a MMO to really shine through in order to go into the game and make a name for ourselves like what we’ve done in DOMO.

Old picture but still has significant meaning.

Having gone and still going through some personal and financial problems. Some old friends began talking to me and seeing their success has motivated me even further to really work harder on my school. I know they have an alternative motive to talk to me but I benefited from those interactions as well. Further more, I came to realize which of my friends I can really depend on to have my back when I’m at an emotional low. Which hasn’t happened yet but knowing is still good. I suppose I am getting mentally more mature, ‘growing up’ perhaps.

The trip to Vancouver was quite a memoriable experience for me since it was my first time of vacationing with my friends rather than my family. This has further made me appreciate the smaller things in life and the stuff I usually take for granted. One of the things that really stuck to me when we met up with a friend in the general area said this, “you know who your real friends are those that you can sit around the table and just talk about things were you last left off.. no matter how long it may have been.” This would have been the first time we’ve seen him in a couple of months since he went off to do his military service. It is hard to disagree with such words.

The wrap up.

I realize that it is getting long a diluted. I never really intend on something like it to happen. It looks like more of a possible new years resolutions over anything else. I have a little more time this term regarding school (no labs reports!) so I should be able to throw in a few more posts ever now and then.

I’ve promised some of my friends to write some Facebook notes about my experience and adventures with my friends which I most likely will cross post it here. With my style of writing (whatever it may be), I suppose I’ve gained a few fans of my work due to the responses I’ve recieved protraying myself as the male protagnous without the harem. I’m glad people enjoy the stuff I write. Probably a reason why I continue to do so.

[02:13:44] [+Nihility] Give trance the Guts and prevail abilties
[02:13:48] [Mi-ki] rofl
[02:13:52] [Mi-ki] yea definately
[02:14:19] [+trance] I’m missing something here
[02:17:47] [+trance] Guts (???, Dokonjou):
[02:17:47] [+trance] * Completely restores the user’s hit points.
[02:17:47] [+trance] * Duration: Instantaneous
[02:17:57] [+trance] what does prevail do
[02:19:27] [+Nihility] Increased dodge, def, and hit% as hp drops
[02:19:43] [Mi-ki] haha that is just like trance

I hope that this post gives an insight to the workings in my mind. Again, I’m surprised that it was this long. I think that every bit here is important. I am not a robot. I am just a normal person trying to get through this game called life.