Know Thy Game

During my usual rambling of nonsense, I've been told something that made me think.
Everybody knows what game they know best... and like always, I don't accept myself as part of that group.

A statement was made: I must know Exalted better than Mage
Since I claimed that there is no measure of how well you can know a game, I've been informed that I do know what game I have read more and which I played more (all contributing to the knowledge of a game) so it follows I know Exalted better than Mage.

And yet, I feel unconvinced by this argument.
It is true that I read more Exalted books than Mage books and I played/run Exalted more.
If you were to ask me a question about Mage, I'd need to first look into a book. However, if you were to ask me a question about Exalted, I'd need to first look into a book... it happens more often that you think...

Just the other day I was asked what a player should roll to remember an information from their past incarnation's memory. So I guessed that would be Intelligence + Lore, then I looked at some Merit to find if there are any modifiers for that sort of roll. I found none, so I made them up.

Another player asked me if there are any smoke bombs in Exalted. I said yes so he asked about the book with them. To which my reply was: "I don't know, I made that up."

You might say that since I've had to read any and all information about the setting and use them regularly in the game I run, that I know it better. While it is true that I know every kingdom there is in the area we are playing in, what their political situation is, recent history, rulers, culture, military activity, the powers behind the scenes, the Essence lines, the history of the place, etc. and I know it all because... I made it up. All I could find in the official material is that there are hundred kingdoms in the area and they export food everywhere. You might say that I'm not running Exalted in its setting since the Hundred Kingdoms are said to rarely go to battle, whilst in the game I run, they are on the brink of a full blown out war with one another.

Since I know what Mage is about, its theme and mood, I read the base setting and I can refer to the book. I'll take those things, that feel of the game and add my own details. Just like I did with the Exalted game I run. As such I don't feel I know Mage any less than I know Exalted. Especially since there's a ton of people who answer questions about both games that I had no clue someone would ask.

Memorising the setting and mechanics is just not fun to me. I do fine with an excel sheet to do the math and a doc file to store the additional information so I don't have to remember it. I have a lousy memory so it often happens that I need to look into the rules for one thing twice in a game session... unless the player remembers it from before.

Setting discussion and mechanical optimisation of characters just bores me. I don't like anything that adds to the mechanics because that only ends up making my gaming experience less fun. In a game I don't look for either a simple or complex dice engine, neither to I crave for a rich setting of lack thereof (Scion!)... all I want is something to stimulate my imagination and that is easily achieved.

My conclusion would probably be that I wouldn't consider myself knowing one game better than the other. It might be bullshit on my part but yeah, I just don't see it...

Preferring one game over the other, now that's a different matter ;)

This just came in

You think you're so great Christian!

Sending me books for Christmas!

Human Occupied Landfill and Ninja Burger: The RPG 2nd Edition?!

I will not tolerate the way you stomp all over my pride...

Beware my wrath!

The last words you'll hear from me:
Thank you

and DIE!!!

40 questions of 2008

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
I joined a Roleplaying Club
I wrote stuff for a website
I failed at translating
I went on Polish conventions
I run a game at a convention

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I have no idea what they were at this point... next time I'll just write them in a blog post...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My aunt gave birth to my Godchild II

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nobody that I know of...

5. What countries did you visit?
Poland

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
an idea on what to do with myself...

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The one when Godchild I smiled at the sight of me...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Running a game at a convention

9. What was your biggest failure?
Realising I have no idea how to speak in Polish...

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Sore throat... at the heights of summer...

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I have no clue...

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Mine

14. Where did most of your money go?
Books... lots of books...

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
promethean_lord's visit...

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
None...

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
Same
ii. thinner or fatter?
Same
iii. richer or poorer?
Same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Work on my Polish

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
worry about the future

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Studying narrative...

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No

23. How many one-night stands?
-1

24. What was your favourite TV program?
True Blood

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope

26. What was the best book you read?
The Light Fantastic

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nightwish

28. What did you want and get?
didn't get anything

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
A tie between Iron Man and The Dark Knight

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 21 when me and my friends went to Cosmo to eat lots of things...

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting to translate a book...

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Clever Dead

34. What kept you sane?


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
None

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
None

37. Who did you miss?
my kitty

38. Who was the best new person you met?
promethean_lord!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
Don't get your hopes up...

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: dum dum dum dum!

That's the Internet for You

People on the internet are so easy to annoy...

Just tell the the truth and their opinion and suddenly it's all
oh noes, this is my thread not yours post what I want! It's mine, mine, mine!

Reminds me of all those times I was thrown out of playgrounds because it apparently belonged to some other kids...

eh, I need to take a break from the internet anyway... considering I need to work on a couple assignments and I'd like as much done as possible these next weeks...

and now, since it's 1am, I'll try to actually get some sleep!

Bad Mood

I'd like to update my blog with something, but I just don't know with what...

Other than studying, I'm not really doing anything... I'm even staying here in England for the Christmas break to study, how exciting is that?

Hobby wise, not much going on either
Haven't got the chance to read the books I bought
Online games are going alright
I might be running a Scion campaign starting next year

my major annoyances with life seem to be over...
still in a bad mood over some things but I don't have anything more to say about them...

so yeah... I don't know what to talk about...

Oh noes!!!

I have no idea when I'll get my bursary...

might even be in two months so I won't be able to buy people stuff for Christmas this year...

I'm out of money as is and I need to survive through this month...

Sorry...

DragonMeet 2008

The convention took place on the 29th November 2008 in Kensington Town Hall!

The previous day I had a Dane arrive at my doorstep. He didn't have the best trip considering the cab took him too far into the street I lived on and when going back, he missed my house thus being slightly confused as to where does the Pole live! He went onto another street and back before finding my place of residence, without saying much, he was tired!

Naturally, promethean_lord was given the proper treatment of spaghetti bolognese. Since he was kind enough to bring with him Danish chocolates for me, I treated him to Polish vodka! European traditions galore! We watched Hot Fuzz and then went to bed.

The next morning it was time for DragonMeet. I made myself a sandwich and was eating it while the Dane woke up. We called the cab at 8am, it arrived a bit early so I had to throw my sandwich away. I took it outside, but being inexperienced with cabs I had no idea you can't eat in one, I managed to take a huge bite out of it though. When we were about to stop at the station, promethean_lord noticed he forgot his wallet, so we had to turn around as there is no point going on a convention if you can't buy anything! The driver amused us with a story of a Polish military ship being stationed in the port here at Brighton when he was little, a story which not many know about, while we tried to explain to him what roleplaying was (he thought in the cop/nurse kind of way, the kinky bastard!). We were running late, so I told him to run and I went off, apparently I'm faster. The tickets were bought and we caught our train to Victioria! In all this madness I forgot to ask the taxi driver about student discounts... I suck, I know...

At Victoria we needed to go to the underground and find a ticket machine because the one I usually used was out of order. We found one soon enough and located the correct platform (there was a moment of We sense you, Roleplayer on the station). Then we had to wait in High Street Kensington for the rest of the crew. We were soon met by Insane Prophet and Afrohead, we had a discussion on how Deoq sucks for not replying to us contacting him! After Mithras and his friend, Cristian, arrived we had another goal! We had to locate cash machines to get some money and go to Tesco for breakfast... because not everyone has a sandwich in the morning like I do!

People bought tickets, I ordered two from the internet (2 pounds cheaper that way). We entered and went straight to the buy stuff area. It was fun to get game books and dice, look at what's available, talk with the people responsible for our quickly dissipating money and things like that. After a while, we came back together and took a table for ourselves to play a game! For a while the table was used for reading through our purchases due to Mithras and Cristian not being able to locate the room upstairs, I went down to get them and made evil looking gestures while they couldn't get out of conversations with Mithras's friends (who apparently are at University of Sussex on the other side of the street to my campus and they have a roleplay gathering just at the exact time I have a very long break between lectures! I was invited to find them.)

Finally, after everyone was gathered, I run Scion Hero for the group.

You can find the pictures with captions from the game on Flickr, here are the links:
Thumbs up, Use the Force, Roll Out!, Scion Hero, Geeks, Green, Dice, Giant or Halfling?, Ready When You Are, Sacrifice, Reading, Annoyed, Death, Inevitable, Rules-lawyer, Frog Bashing, Hello?, Wow!, Explanation, Aim and Shoot, Metagaming, Surprise, Make Love not War, Chatter Stop!, Trinket

Some of the game highlights were (feel free to add yours in the comments, I can always edit this post):
1) promethean_lord shooting a pesky NPC with his love gun, resulting in a very horny lady out to get the only female PC! Unfortunately, we didn't get to Lesbian Pr0n!!!
2) Mithras being so annoyed by his character not hitting a giant frog monster that he used all possible means to get successes on one roll which resulted in him cutting off the monster's limb and smashing it to death with the severed appendage!
3) A sudden attack by ninjas in the middle of a desert!
4) Revamp calling and texting us after he woke up at 3pm in Cambridge, at one point I just switched my phone off...

Mithras and Cristian had to leave so we quickly wrapped up the game with a Deus Ex Machina on part of Loki. Mithras shot him, but the God took the bullet out of the air and gave it back to him in the form of a flower!

Next up there was some dice buying and praying one of us would win something in the ticket lottery! Afrohead told us about his dream of building a temple made out of dice. Revamp appeared! We found dice that had a frog image on one side and decided we all should get one for memories' sake!

After that we went to the underground station, said our farewells and returned home. Nothing special on the way back, other than a guy on the train who kept staring at me and promethean_lord for some arcane reason. Then a walk from the station to my abode. Finally, a pizza whilst we watch The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising to end the gaming day!

The next day we made a video where we showed off our purchases and made some comments about things that transpired.

Work?

This week shall see me less online and more in Word.

I now have one document to translate, I expect another one to reach me today.

This combined with studying means I will die... especially since I can't work during the weekend like I usually do, DragonMeet on Saturday. While on Sunday I'll have a Dane staying and watching DVDs with me most likely...

That's also why I didn't do a weekly review of everything... eh, I better go start messing with language...

and it's cold... seriously... maybe I should drink another cup of tea... the sugar will kill me, I know it...

I learned something disconcerting about myself when I started thinking about my future plans.
I don't think that in this context I worry too much as I often do. I suppose we all think of where we're heading and what would be the best course of action. Decisions about education and choice of career, where to fit a hobby and entertainment in a busy lifestyle.

Right now I'm studying.
Before the northern hemisphere goes into summer, I hope to become a Bachelor of Linguistics.
During the summer I intend to take up a course that will give me teaching qualifications.
Then I'll wrest the demons of language to prove I'm worthy of the title, Master of Linguistics.
When that milestone is reached, I'd like to go to Germany (or Austria, hint!) to teach English and polish my German.
After a year, I was thinking of taking up an Open University course (it's like higher education over the internet) in Philosophy.
Although it so happens that I'd like to be a Doctor of Linguistics, so I think I'll spend two years familiarising myself with the linguistic community by reading journals and blogs to keep my knowledge fresh.
I suspect the Doctorate will halt my progress in Philosophy but that's fine with me, I'm patient like that.

On the other side of things there's my inherent creativity!
I want to spend the first year of my employment on saving up enough money to go see GenCon and possibly meet those Americans I talk to online.
I'm running online games, that won't stop.
I'm writing rp material.
I'll start a roleplaying blog with the start of 2009.
I want to try some more games.
I want to write books.
I want to practice drawing and try my hand at a webcomic one day.

I would say those are the two main aspects of my life but they are hardly the only ones.

So many things I want to learn: dancing (classical dance, because that thing people mean when they say everyone can dance is not dancing), martial arts, playing the violin, languages (I'm not going to stop on German), PHP, CSS...

and things that hold my interest in reading: mythology, philosophy, linguistics, folklore, fantasy, science fiction, sociology, theology, horror...

I love learning.
I love imagination.
I love art.

The only thing that really worries me is that I'm becoming self centred. I'm walking away from those years of waiting for a bright light to shine and take me out of misery because I no longer believe in that being possible. The question currently roaming through the vast expenses of my mind is quite simple: Is self improvement the way to being alone?

On one hand, I can see how many of the things I'm interested in can enhance my social experience.
On the other, I fear that I'll make myself into a workaholic.

Readership

There's one problem that I'm having with writing for Azylum. I read posts on other similar sites and the comment section really shows what kind of Poles read the stuff I'm writing. It's full of bickering, accusations and vitriol. Every time I sat down to write something fun, to contribute to the abysmal happenings in the WoD-PL scene, those comments appear in my head (and they're not even directed at me) and I feel discouraged from writing.

It's funny how this is true only to the PL side, when I post something in ENG, everyone is nice even if they don't agree with me. It's like in the ENG sphere people just want to have fun, of course, there are exception but they're still in the minority. The opposite is true in PL. Right now, the only thing keeping me in Azylum are the people behind it. A nice bunch, it's why I try to contribute in hopes that site will keep running. At the same time, I hope it will reach a point where it'll grow to the extent where one person leaving won't cause it to die...

I think I made myself sound important... I don't like that...

Now that I think about it, it's funny how Christian felt the same way (at least I think that's how he felt) about posting on the WW forum...

Thank you

The day started very plain. I woke up and had my tea. It wasn't long until a Czech car arrived to pick me up and we drove to Eastbourne where the three of us went to an Asian Restaurant. We ate a lot and I received a very cool present of a tiny cartoon skull that since then adorns my many hats.

We then went to our Eastbourne friend's house, where we spent some time talking and just being nice to each other.

After I returned home, I found an email. In this email, one girl that I knew from high school wished me happy birthday and made clear she understands what I'm going through in relation to my feelings for her.

Lastly, all those wishes on blogs and forums helped too.

It was an exciting day.

Thanks to all of you.

Birthday

For the first time in my life

With an honest heart

I can say

This day was the best day

I have ever had

Thank you

Thank you everyone

who made this possible

I'll try not to forget

(knowing my memory

it'll be hard

What was I talking about?)

Egyptian Dreaming

I was cursed to roam my castle as a powerless child. My court abandoning me, there was little hope for me. That is, until a group of grave robbers broke in and offered me their help. They knew how to lift the curse plaguing my being so I agreed that if I am to return to my true form before we next meet, I'll offer them as much gold as they can carry.

I returned to my normal state a few days later. Nearly instantly, my courtiers flocked back with proclamations of leaving on quests to help me. They were all so happy to have their Pharaoh back. We all suddenly heard very strange sounds. I went out to investigate and see my palace being overrun by dozens upon dozens of grave robbers who just plainly took everything that was valuable in my possession. Angry at this, I asked my court who is responsible for letting them in. One reluctantly admitted his fault, I snapped his neck.

In anger, I called out to the robbers to stop this instant but they would not listen. My next shout wasn't so pleasant as I plainly said all the ones who won't leave now will be killed by these hands of mine. They probably thought one man is no match for about 100 people. I jumped into the fray and told the guy picking out marble off the floor to stop. He told me "make me" so I proceeded to take his tools, go round him and make a hole in the floor he'd fall in. The guy laughed, grabbed a piece of marble and hit me on the head. A very astonished look appeared on his face when he saw the marble crumbling to sand in his hands.

Thus I spent the day getting people off my castle using my sand touch powers that are so much better than the uncontrollable gold touch! I then sat on a sand throne, created with my sand manipulation powers, and looked down upon those people fearing my might and wrath.

"You have angered me," I stood up and pointed with my arm to the east where a pit formed in the desert's sands. "But I am a benevolent ruler so I'll give you a choice. Discard your previous life into the pit, throw your clothes and memories into oblivion and live as my slaves or throw yourselves into the pit and be consumed by these sands."
"You promised us treasures, is this how you repay us?" their leader shouted. "By breaking your word! We held up to our word unlike you! It's you who have no honour!"
"You dare to speak of honour? You who did not come to my palace to ask for his reward? If you had done so, I'd given you as much as you can carry but instead you choose to forget about your host, come inside my house as if it was a brothel and take everything out of your own accord." I sat down. "That is your crime, this is your punishment."

And then I looked at the people making their decisions.

Fall for your Lives!

I apparently was myself and I was in the middle of travelling from point A to point B but as it often happens, there were delays...

Part of my journey was to get through a school. Unfortunately for me and other travellers, the gate we were supposed to go through was down for maintenance, so we had to wait inside the building until it would be open. I spotted a "no entry" sign in one of the hallways but looking through windows, I noticed the hallway led to where I was going so it would be pointless for me to stay with everyone else waiting for some stupid gate to open. Thus I went there and after a while I found a gym where some girls were training, all the doors leading out of the building were closed so I couldn't get out but at least I had a lot better internet reception, so I sat down and went on the internet.

Moments later the Principal came and told me he needs to bring me in for questioning as I committed a crime by coming here. After entering her office she starts talking while I gaze into the distance... the door was the only way out but I needed a key so I asked after being bored of boredom.

"Can I have the key?"
"No," she said.
"I'll shoot you with my finger if you don't," I pointed my index finger at her.
"Like you can!" she replied
"oh well," I sighed. "But at least I can do this!"
I jumped, grabbed her by the ankles and held her outside the window so she can have a nice view of the grass 5 floors below.
"Now will you give me the key?" I asked.
Unimpressed, she threw it down.
"Now you'll have to catch it before it falls," I said as I let her fall to her death then I jumped myself, grabbed the key in mid-fall and safely landed on the ground while she became a blood stain on the Earth's face.

NaNoWriMo Fail

I have to say that my current workload just won't allow me to tackle NaNoWriMo this year. It's mostly because of studying but writing for Asylum, running Exalted and Changeling The Lost, the secret project, taking part in a podcast, translating poetry, trying to write some blog posts for my RPG blog project, being more social and trying to get into the habit of relaxation isn't helping...

So yeah, can't go with NaNoWriMo at all this year... at least I have that Class Deceased book project to work on, if I ever finish it. Since last year, it didn't move in any direction at all. That needs to change! I'm unhappy with myself so I'll take what little time I have to work on it. I'll also use my Deviant Art page for all those writing/art stuff, but if you've subscribed to my FriendFeed, you'll only notice a content change.

I wonder if you guys even use that FriendFeed of mine...

This isn't going to work...

I've outlined the main plot and some scenes for my NaNoWriMo story but I just don't see it working as a 50k novel. At least for now, the whole idea and its direction is too fresh in my mind to make it into that length and have it not suck. I need to spend a lot more time working on the novel than I have in a month, so I'll have to shamefully admit I just can't write it at this point in time.

Class Deceased is what I tried to write last year, so it unfortunately goes to the very end of my novel writing list. The Door has some of the problems that the current story had, so I'll probably not tackle it. The Shaman looks a lot better, it's already a short story so I know what I want to do with it. I just need to add a lot more scenes from various points of view, learn how to speak pirate, polish the plot, add a few more layers to it, make up some more characters, get in the right mood and think of some potential subplots... that last one will be the hardest though...

Still, I feel a bit like cheating this way.
It's something I've already written while the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to write in a month...

I am become Death

Which Tim Burton character are you?

Emily - The Corpse Bride You are Emily, the lovely Corpse Bride. You have been betrayed in the past, and now only spend your days waiting for someone to heal your broken heart. You are very talented, always speak your mind, and try constantly not to embarrass yourself. You have a very delicate soul and sometimes are afraid to go on, but fear no longer. One day someone will come to set you free.

How do you compare? Take this test! | Tests from Testriffic

If I were a woman, I'd be a Goddess

What Greek Goddess are you?

You are Persephone! You are like Persephone, daughter of Demeter and wife of Hades. That's right...you are married to the god of the underworld...and that makes you QUEEN of the underworld. But you should tell your friends not to judge...sometimes good girls just fall for bad boys. Like Persephone, you are somewhat paradoxical, as you present a saintly aura part of the time and a wild child aura the other part. Whereas you can be a sophisticated lady, you definitely know how to bring out your politically INcorrect side. :)

How do you compare? Take this test! | Tests from Testriffic

Just Imagine

October, time to get a bit creative.
How much creativity are we talking about? I'll know after the academic year starts for sure.

I'm in the process of setting up a blog. My first serious venture into RPG blogging. I hope to buy server space from somewhere. For now I've only played on the Wordpress site, where the beta blog is currently at. Needs a better CSS sheet but I have little experience with those things. This in no way discourages me from creating content! First of which needs to be a post on what the oblivion is an RPG.

Again, it's October! Thus it's time to work out an outline and character profiles for my NaNoWriMo novel. In fact, I hardly have anything for it. I like me a challenge... though I still don't expect to write a 50000 novel. The only thing I know about this Story is that it revolves around the idea of sin... and there will be gore... you like people dying en masse, don't you?

I have also been asked to participate in a Changeling event on Asylum which requires me to write as much Changeling The Lost things as physically and mentally possible... and those will be released in English in due time.

I'm also trying to negotiate some translations... not as creative, but it's still something...

Lastly, I'm part of a secret project that I should not be talking about at all because it's such a big secret that ninjas will come to kill me if I do but I'm so awesome I'll kill them before and after they kill me...

I'm back in England

After 15 hours of getting from one country to the next... which wasn't such a bad trip knowing my track record, it was actually quite an enjoyable one this time around... I have done a lot of things over the past few days...

1. Shopping = new laptop, new router, enough food to go by
2. Updated my RPoL games = making nearly half a dozen new threads is not easy, especially if you go through a time lapse
3. Cleaned my room = it's not that my room was untidy when I got here, but with the stuff that I brought back with me, I had to reorganize a lot of things, put away everything I won't need for this academic year and make room for all those papers I'll inevitably get from my tutors this year
4. Cleaned the refrigerator = because going by the amount of unclean dishes in the sink, how empty and frozen the fridge was and all those pizza boxes lying around I'm apparently the only using that thing
5. I informed my landlord of my return
6. I went through all the letters I got...

Here's the thing, aside from the bills that I'll split up with one other room-mate, I received a very peculiar letter. Apparently, everyone who was living here the previous year must pay council tax!

See, in England you pay this thing called council tax by which your money goes to the city council, police and fire brigade... it's all cool if not for the simple fact that we are all full-time students, thus exempt from this tax. What's even more annoying is that I'm apparently the only one living here from the previous year, so I have to go to the city council now and someone make it apparent I not only shouldn't have been required to pay but I'm also incapable of paying 1,514.18 pounds...

on top of that, I still have letters to write...

The Wyrm made me do it...

Instructions:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair - just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.

Post these instructions with the picture.

This ended up long...

It's been a very long time since I last updated. As I told Exmiscellanea yesterday, it's about time I give you people some explanation why you had to endure without me rambling maddeningly into the internet void (how you did that, I have no idea)...

It all happened simple. I wanted to make some changes in my lifestyle, be a bit more outgoing and sign up for something (like martial arts classes). Alas that did not work because the moment my mom heard about it she shouted me down for being inconsiderate, uncaring and egoistic. Which also marked the first time I was ever called egoistic, after years of counsellors telling me I should be more egoistic instead of only thinking about others. She also got mad that I didn't want to spend most of my summer at my grandfather's. While I like it there, resting in an isolated area runs counter-productive to achieving a more outgoing lifestyle.

Next up was my grandfather getting dizzy and having headaches. That in turn resulted in his doctor calling for testing to see if he has brain bleeding. He turned out okay but due to the testing, he was in need of resting in bed to the extent he would need to lie there all day and night for a week. Unfortunately, with my grandfather the only possible way to relieve him of putting strain on his body through work is to take that strain away from him. In other words, I had to go there and work alongside him so he wouldn't work too much. In the meantime, I managed to go to Warsaw for a convention, mainly to talk with one person and get some things in order. I also bought a game and stuff.

My dad arrived for two weeks some time later, the first of which was spent in Masuria. The next had a cold war theme going on due to me receiving information on not passing a module... and the subsequent panic mode I naturally enter whenever something doesn't go as planned. The essay was being written, in the meantime I went once again to Warsaw for an anime convention with Vegael. It wasn't the greatest experience, but I got some cool merchandise (I'm such a geek). My soul was also consumed by Death Note before I managed to finish the essay.

That being done, the only thing that needed to be taken care of was to clean my Bionicle collection. It was an epic task in and of itself, I'll have pictures to show its size up later on.

If you think that's all that's been keeping me up from being more internet active, I should mention a few more things. I tried to correspond via email every now and then. It may not have worked out as I wanted it to, but it's better than nothing. I find it really hard to concentrate when everyone is home and running around. If it wasn't for the noise that it would have caused, I'd write more in the morning instead of quietly reading internet gossip so as to not wake anyone up. Civilisation IV also got my soul, I spent most days playing it with my sister because she wanted to spend time together with me and considering I might not have that opportunity for more than a year from now on, I couldn't say no. Don't forget that as a Godfather, I have the duty to corrupt a baby so he can grow up into an evil mastermind to rule the world, babysitting is fun like that. Having the PC divided between 2-3 people wasn't helping my internetliness either...

At present, I still don't know what's up with my essay. I don't even know if it reached my tutor, much less whether or not I'll pass those classes. Vegael and I want to start a speculative fiction blog and I probably should put my games off hiatus but my head hurts so much, I think I'll do it after dinner.

Now that I think of it, maybe it's a good thing I didn't had time to edit a video I made shortly after arriving here. As you probably noticed, I look awful on videos... but that still doesn't mean I can't make videos about consuming horrible things that you probably didn't know existed! (like sorrel soup, for instance) As work and school started for my mom (she was on sick leave for a week) and sister, I have more time on my hands. Expect stuff being written...

Oh yeah, there was a Mozart CD in the mail yesterday... listening to it now!

I am seriously mad

I went to the shopping centre with a friend. He wanted to show me some laptops because I'm probably going to buy one soon. He gets in (with a backpack) but me, being behind, don't... because I had a backpack. I was then told to put it in deposit. Okay, not mad yet but when I saw the deposit. It's just a locker that you pay 2 PLN to get a key. Hardly any security for whatever I had with me, just paying for it to be under zero surveillance and in a crappy locker that you could get into with a strong punch. I'm basically expected to pay for paying the shop money... and this is something I don't agree with. I want quality for my money, not some cheap cheese cake with nil insurance and security.

but that wasn't the worst

What really got me mad happened later on. We went to get beer, me not liking beer that much means that the very fact of it makes me slightly annoying (but I'm trying this social drinking, so lately I've been drinking more than usual = more than nothing). Like always I am wearing a cap and that seems a problem for the security guard. I am suddenly a threat that needs to be dealt with. God forbid I have a nice time drinking with a buddy in the non-smoking area... an empty non-smoking area. I still can't understand why it would bother anyone. Even the people who came in and passed us didn't run shouting in terror at the sight of a cap on my head. The guard didn't agree, and he was polite enough to show his disagreement with quite vulgar statements and threats of violence... which happened after I left (my friend told me about it), I just didn't want to bother with someone of that calibre.

See, it would be a different thing if the local required all patrons to wear suits or had classical music. Then I would happily comply with the order (I just can't call that manner of speech a request). As it were, it seemed like an informal club, I came there being informal and that's apparently not the impression the club was aiming at.

I Hit you with my Mighty Fist

Last week I had something interesting happen right next to the block I live in, close enough to see and hear everything from a window.

That way during the evening, a few hours after a football (I'm European, don't forget) match ended. There are these three guys who curse at anyone moving in their vicinity. I come up to the window to close it because they were getting too loud and I had enough fresh air in the room.

One guy came up to them and started cursing back. Threats were made, use of fists and knives mentioned, the two guys going at each other looked like angry roosters... I didn't have any popcorn.

After the verbal exchange, the guy (who wore a red jacket) went away. I was about to go back from the balcony when the guy came back... with friends.

It turned out, his friends were only an audience. The red jacket guy went up to those three guys and hit each one of them in the face. One guy wanted to challenge him and they started to go at each other the same way as before but with fists and leg work. After a while, the guy decided it wasn't a fight he'd win so he backed off and turns around. At that point, the red jacket guy grabs him from behind and throws to the ground. As he kicks the guy, the other two run away.

Seven or so kicks to the head/chest later, red jacket guy leaves. The guy lies on the ground and isn't moving. A few minutes later, his buddies came back for him, tried to wake him up but apparently decided it'd be better to just carry the unconscious block home... or somewhere...

Even my mom watched, we found it quite entertaining... aren't we sociopaths?

Not the Best of Times

After spending time offline at my grandpa, my parents took us all to Masuria for a week.

Upon arrival back home I learned I didn't pass one of my modules so I need to redo my essay. I have a month to do that.

Internet access and my projects need to take the back-seat (again!).

I really am not enjoying myself this summer...

Identity Crisis?

There is one thing I have to say

Exmiscellanea is right.

I need to stop worrying about relationships and patterns and just do what I always do, ride the current of reality up to the release of death...

I think I'm getting into some crisis.
I'm beginning to realise that I need not only think of a career but something more than that. Life apparently isn't just about going home/work. I need to fill it with something more than that. Gaming would be the obvious choice, but for some reason my mind thinks of it as the opposite of socialising... that old stereotype of a basement geek.

There's a real torment of emotion in me right now. To the extent that I don't really know what's happening. Being home doesn't help one bit because everyone wants me to do something. I don't mind most of them, I wasn't here a long time so it's understandable that my family wants to spend time with me. Unfortunately, that leaves me with little time to do anything else, while my family might think otherwise, keeping up with friends is also important.

I feel kind of drained, not really sure what to do, even though I have my projects (like cleaning this room)... depression? Maybe... is it wrong to hope that I'll find a job after graduating so I don't have to come home and listen to my mom telling me what I need to do as if I was stuck in one chapter of life, like life is going to be exactly the same after graduating like it was before?

I just want to do something with myself instead of waiting for a better future that will not come. I hope this summer I'll manage to do a few things that I wanted to try but been constantly putting them off.

The seeds have been planted, it's a fast growing plant, I just need to cut it right and enjoy the camp fire stories...

Slightly Occupied

As weird as that may sound, the between countries teleportation wasn't all that bad... I still can't believe it went well...

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do a full account of it. I'm just posting now in case you're wondering what's going on with me.

Last few days were spent on catching up with my internet presence, which included reading all your blogs, my YouTube subscriptions and some Lifehack...

I would like to say that I decided to redesign the way I blog. As you may know, I have a dozen accounts on various websites, some of them I put stuff to and since they have RSS (feeds are awesome!) I was able to combine them in FriendFeed into one big FEED that would show you everything I post... that way I will cut my blogging amount because I won't have to write the same thing to blog after blog and I could organize what I write to where I post.

This blog for personally introspective cogitating on the workings of the unknown universe and Twitter for short OMG! and Life-Sucks! posts (I'll probably leave my bitching on MySpace)... but that's not all! It also shows what sites I bookmark on delicious and what internet resources I Digg, what I favourite on YouTube (and I hope it will also show what I upload, that needs testing), it will give you photo links to my Flickr and what books I added to my inventory on LibraryThing...

I am pondering making a blog on Wordpress for my reviews (those that I wanted to do every Friday) and a blog on RPGs... they'll be added to the feed too...

So... you can either follow this blog where I just talk, add this and that to your RSS reader (if you're using one) or just pick up FriendFeed to get it all in one go... that way I won't bore you by putting everything and nothing in one place... and on my side, I won't be wasting time on writing the same thing again and again, I don't do copy&paste like that...

The Feed is here... seriously, I've got stuff to do, I'll write something more coherent and telling you what I'm doing later on... or make a list in the morning... I dunno, too many things to think about...

Naked Ride

While I was walking through the town centre I was witness to a sight most strange...

and I must tell you this...

Seeing all those people riding their bikes naked made me realise my 6 inches are in quite good shape... I wonder if I got another inch over those few years since I measured it...

One last thing, I shall never pierce MiniMe...

The women were topless or in bikini, only one was truly nekkid...

Semester End

I'm out of my last exam for this semester.

It's definitely one of my worst semesters and I'm still worried I'll either fail or get expelled. Time will tell... which won't be that long...

My laptop is still out of commission and tomorrow it goes in for repairs.
Meanwhile, I'm going back home on Monday.
The plan is to sleep in the afternoon, wake up near midnight, go in for a train, arrive at London, use the tube station, get on a train to Luton. I should be there at about 2AM, then I'll wait 4 hours, go to check in, wait another hour or so, board the plane, sleep for 2 hours in the air, land in Warsaw at about 8AM (or near 9AM, I don't remember off the top of my head). After that I would need to wait an hour for a shuttle bus that'll take me to Białystok in 3-4 hours, then I'll just take the ride home by bus and I should be there by noon...

Knowing my luck, something bad is bound to happen... I can feel it...

I'll write more on how the semester went later on, when I'll have internet that isn't public domain...

Fantastic!

Why did a Dalek cross the road?
To exterminate that bloody chicken.

Knock, Knock.
Who's there?
Doctor.
Doctor, who?
Exactly!

How many Daleks does it take to change a lightbulb?
Daleks do not change a ligthbulb! Daleks exterminate the building!

Death Follows in my Wake

My internet is dead and I'm having issues with the provider who is being annoying...

Now I need to go for classes, the normal schedule will return when I'll have it back, because honestly, I can't be online during my campus hours... and it's only those hours that I can access the internet at present...

Until next time!

Splendid!

My laptop died...

again...

I just lost everything I was working on the past week...

now I have to work on public university computers...

I'm so going to fail this semester...

The Hole in my Mind

I'm kind of better now. I still have the same things tormenting me as before but to a lesser extent, I guess telling the internet "LIFE SUCKS!!!" helps... so I thought I'll extrapolate on what's annoying me at the moment...

I think it all started with Domi telling me that when looking for a job I need to think what it can enable me to do, pay-check-wise. Which got me thinking... what do I want? And that's actually quite a difficult question because technically, I don't want anything. I like roleplaying games, graphic novels, books, manga, cool shirts, etc. but I have a hard time saying that's what I want. It's a bit like with my sister, she hoards money, I hoard stuff. Buying all those things to me is probably like breathing to you, you don't really think of breathing as something you want to do all your life but as part of what you are. In fact, when I saw this really cool device allowing you to watch cable/satellite TV over the internet, my first thought was "Dad's going to love that one." so my first thought is still about someone other than me... it makes me realise that I don't think of myself as worth attention and this is something I have to change. Thus giving in to all those people telling me I have to be more egoistic.

Next up is my dad telling me about finding work. That I shall fail because I haven't found one for 2 years. Doesn't matter I have no idea how to look for a job. Doesn't matter I have no idea where to look for a job. Doesn't matter I have a fear of talking to new people. I didn't find one on my first few weeks here so there's no chance in hell I won't find one. In part, I agree, it's only my own fault I am incapable of finding a job. I have barriers instilled in me that need to be overcome before I succeed, but it isn't easy.

Domi later on said I need to find myself a girlfriend. Suddenly, my mind just gives me reason after reason not to have a girlfriend. For once, I lack the resources of money and time. I have no idea how a relationship works. I'm too fragile and living in a very unstable state, adding to the stress I already have will only make me go down further. By unstable meaning university life with no certainty of living in one place in the foreseeable future. And there's the whole thing about how sex enters the equation, it all seems like intercourse happens in the early stages of going out but I just don't see myself sleeping with a girl after a few dates out.

I have a really hard time coming up with ideas for my games. It's not that I burned out or anything like that. If I sit down and start writing, I can move the story forward no problem, but I feel that sting in my heart telling me I should be studying for an exam or something of that sort instead of gaming.

I think that's all that's on my mind... at least I believe it to be... you know how awful a memory I can have at times...

My internet presence is waning but I think it's for the best. I had a lot of thinking, made observations and finally concluded that changes need to be made.

My main problem is that I held too much to hope.

When I was in primary school, I thought that I just need to be patient, that in time people will grow out of their stupidity and the fists will stop. They did stop when I reached high school but instead of intelligence they were replaced with harsh looks, social exclusion and verbal abuse. Being patient didn't help in this case either, people at university still are more interested in fashion, alcohol, getting laid and "cool" stuff rather than education and the pursuit of knowledge.

I came to the conclusion that having values is an innate trait rather than one acquired through being raised. I don't mind people having fun, but the extent to which I find myself surrounded seems excessive and meaningless to me. What's the point of having sex if you know you won't see that person ever again? What's the point of drinking just to forget today? It's not my thing and no matter how much I try, it never will be. I don't need to slowly climb up the party ladder nor do I need to find the right people. Even when I'm with people I like to talk to, I am incapable of looking forward to drinking with them.

It often happened that I killed a conversation by saying "none" to questions about what music I listen to or what do I drink. Most people don't see that as an answer but as a way of politely saying to shut up, which in my case is incorrect. That single fact got me down more than once because I wanted to meet people and find some worth my time but now I think that if the first thing you want to talk about is either of the two, as far as I'm concerned, you're boring me...

Which brings me to my other point, being too polite. There were times when I skipped a meal because someone was using the kitchen and I didn't want to get in the way or when I didn't work on my thing because someone asked me for help... well, I decided that people were right when they told me I need to be more of an egoist and think more about myself. So I tried to be a bit more self-centric lately and it actually works quite fine.

I started working out more, 30 push-ups and 30 of each of those belly and back muscles exercises (that I constantly forget the name of, even though Encart told me once) a day, followed by leg muscle stretching... I'm spending too much of my time physically inactive these days and I'm quite annoyed that I'm having trouble keeping up my running speed for the usual amount of time. I think it's also the best way for me to gain weight as my body can't hold fat for long, so the next best thing to do is to get some more muscles. Of course, I didn't do rigorous training until now because I'm just that nice of a guy that I didn't want to be so strong as to hurt someone when I snap... like I said, I'm changing my attitude into "I'm me, if you don't like it, try and stop me."

So to sum up, I'm basically replacing my "hope" mentality with my "hate" mentality... it's not something that I thought I would ever do, but I'm tired of living in a fantasy world.
Life sucks, there's no point to it and there won't be any any time soon... so I might as well do what I want because I feel like it...

A Shadow Over Heaven's Eye

Set in the world of Exalted, the book is a story about Swan's visit to Yane. It's a city with a society where people are assigned to a specific caste based on the alignment of stars during their birth and the social status of their families. Swan is a foreign diplomat arriving to help his friend, a royal of Yane. He is also a Solar Exalted, Chosen by the Sun and commonly believed to be a demon in mortal flesh.

The story focuses in part on Swan's mission to help in trade relationships between cities, a drug plot and young Maylea. It doesn't take long for Swan to note that Maylea, the daughter of his friend, is on the cusp of Exaltation. The young girl is flooded with new memories about herself and the diplomat which causes confusion to form between her and Swan, especially considering she is soon to be married.

For players of Exalted, Maylea's memories will end up surprising, I certainly never thought of using pre-Exaltation memories in such a clever way. Further tying them into the ongoing plot, which is revealed to be truly epic, is just one reason to applaud the author. Naturally, no Exalted book is complete without fight scenes between Chosen, this holds true here. Not only that, the final fight scene is in an exotic scenery which only makes it harder for Swan to come out victorious. All this as we slowly get to know how his final opponent figures into the story and what are her motivations.

While there are many threads running throughout the book, they are cleverly tied together at the very last chapters. Meaning the full picture is for us to discover after we reach the epilogue.

Bomb!!!

There was a bomb alarm on campus today, everything was cancelled so my German exam was rescheduled. It turned out to be a fired artillery shell...

I'm not feeling well. I'm not sick but I'm just having enough of the whole university.
My tutor tells me that before I conduct my research, I should write the questionnaire and send it to her so I she can give me feedback. It was the end of the week so I sent it on Monday. On Thursday I still had no word, I didn't inquire because I thought she's busy but there's still a few days left and Wednesday is a long day for me... so I went with what I had and surprise, surprise, I bump into her on Friday and she tells me she received my email but didn't know what to do with it... great, just great... and like it happened before with her whole module, I can't find any literature dealing with the subject of my essay and naturally that's the subject I'm most capable to deal with... this whole module is plain stupid and we don't cover anything during the lectures, I might as well not have gone on the lectures and I'd have the same problems I am having now...

Aside from that, I bought a new webcam but it has yet to arrive. I sincerely hope it will work this time around... I also bought a Lego Wizard, Wyrm sent me The Manual of Exalted Power: The Abyssals (which is awesome of him) and I tried to calm myself, but I'm still frustrated beyond measure...

On Monday I informed my fellow housemates of the gas bill and while they were eager to check the gas reading for any inconsistencies, they weren't as keen on paying the money by Friday... which means I can't pay the bill. Who would have thought? And this time I'm going with Exmiscellanea and demand that they pay whatever fine comes our way, because as far as I'm concerned, I have my share ready to be paid...

Thinking...

There's a couple that recently moved in. As with all couples they share a bed and since my room is next to theirs, I keep hearing exactly when they are engaged in intimate activities. It so happens that it's that time of the year that my mind drifts into the subject of relationships, love and sex. It's funny that my friend Domi recently told me "We need to find you a girlfriend." I think those are the words she used but due to my memory being as it is, I can't be certain. That, however, doesn't change the subject matter.

First of all, at the age of 20 I'm a total layman when it comes to having (or even pursuing) a relationship. During all those years I kept on having that dream of eventually finding a soul-mate. Two years ago a certain thing happened that made me realise how big a part sex plays in a relationship. I'm not sure what I was thinking until that point, maybe I thought it was some kind of supplement to love rather than the central point of two people getting together to share a life. As time went on I made some observations, read a bit about it and came to the conclusion that sex is an important part of being together, to the extent that not having sex is a sign of the relationship crumbling. Then there's also the fact that one night stands are quite a common occurrence where I live now but I never really thought of sex as being outside the realm of being in a romantic relationship, at the same time I didn't think of it as being part of it. I'm not even sure if I thought about it at all.

When I was a teenager, sex was a common topic in my age group. My disinterest in the subject always set me apart but I think it was mostly because I didn't feel the need to talk dirty about the opposite sex (something that I never grew out of). I remember how my peers kept talking about how hot some celebrity was, even if the actual person was indeed attractive, I couldn't see that in her picture. In fact, in most cases, the more attractive the woman in question seemed to be for my fellow teens, the less it applied to me. For some unknown reason I always had a problem relating to other males; football and cars just never interested me. On the other hand, I quite often read the women magazines my mum occasionally bought, the subjects therein were just more interesting.

At one point I thought all that would somehow make me a good partner since I could relate to women better and actually do things with them that they enjoyed. However, I'm constantly told that I need to be more as a guy to be a attractive as a man... but I'm fine with me being me, even if that means I'll have to be me alone. My magnum opus, the one I had since primary school, of forming a family doesn't seem like an option today. Nowadays I just feel like people my age have more experience and skill in building relationships than me. This means that on some level, I'm afraid of pursuing that relationship because I won't be able to meet the expectations of someone more proficient in this endeavour.

Yes, I got a bit mopy, but sometimes you have to let tears run free...

Happy Easter!

iPod

Today I was given my first iPod ever... I knew I would never buy one myself since I'm just not that much into music but I felt it is inevitable for me to not get one eventually, so the day has come!

Thanks Domi...

I'm back!

Virgin Media seemed to have confused my account with an account previously placed here. They thought I didn't pay my share of the money, naturally it took them two calls from me and two engineers to figure that much out.

As a side note, I think I'll give it a rest with all those daily one liners. I'm too thoughtful when it comes to writing and I enjoy thinking so when I make a one liner, it just feels fake... So there will be less posts from me but on the other hand, they should be more interesting... at least I hope so...

it's 8 PM and I feel like I'm going to collapse... I shall sleep now and when I arise in the morning, I shall work on my essay...

Being Smart

For quite some time, people kept telling me I'm intelligent. Before this started I only heard that being said to me from my parents as a reason for my social exclusion in school environments. Other than that, my peers felt it appropriate to call me an idiot.

I'm still fairly bewildered with this term being applied to me. I have only an above average score, nothing that would make me a Mensa member (and quite frankly, the one Mensa member I met on the internet was an arrogant prick who'd expect everyone to know everything). I have no idea where this claim of intellect comes from and I don't think I'll understand it any time soon.

I have to admit that every time this topic is brought up in a social context, I feel awkward. I am not sure how to react and just fall silent for a moment before disregarding the claim and moving on. Anything other than that would be either considered rude (disapproval) or arrogant (acknowledgement), at least to me.

The main reason why I don't consider myself intelligent is that simply put, I'm still bewildered with the world I find myself in. There's a great many things I don't understand and the moment I think I finally got it, the universe proves me wrong.

Before Death

Yesterday's talk with Vegael made me think about things I would like to do and stuff that I should be doing because they're fun, thus these few things might actually change me into the person I would like to be...

1 - Keep learning languages
2 - Read books, manga and graphic novels
3 - Write a book
4 - Practice drawing
5 - Learn to play the violin
6 - Sign up martial arts classes + gym training
7 - Make a daiklave
8 - Practice cooking
9 - Become a Doctor

in no particular order...

Big Email

I think I just wrote the longest email of my life.

1512 words, all dedicated to my bestest friend ever, Vegael...

Meine Goethe!

If receiving a film of Die Sorgen des jungen Werther was not enough yesterday. I came home to find the book, in German, sent all the way from Österreich at my door. It's a conspiracy! The only way out of it is to kill Wyrm when I see him next...

It will be an epic battle so make sure you'll have something to make photos with...

Ah the Sorrow

My German teacher surprised me today, she gave me a film entitled Die Leiden des Jungen Werther...

und mein Deutsch ist immer schlecht...

Krzyś is mean

There's one weird thing about me that a lot of people find a bit annoying. I felt like writing about it because it came up recently and it might have had a negative effect, though with the amount of sarcasm going around in the social circle, you never know. And hey, I still find social interaction confusing.

To start off, I'll remind you of something I wrote a very long time ago. I can be very mean towards my friends. I had said horrible things to my friend, which did hurt him and that he didn't take well. Not only that, I once punched him in the face because of an argument. In a way, that's an indication of a friendship bond existing between us.

I'm an honest person. I rarely lie because there's hardly a need for it, so when I speak I tend to do so truthfully. I will jest on subjects that aren't necessarily considered nice and I'll most likely do so in a sarcastic manner appropriate to the context of the interaction taking place. Meaning, I won't say something bad out of the blue and I will say it to you.

That's what I do to people I know and care about. I don't go around insulting everyone nearby because I just don't acknowledge their existence to a certain degree. They're not persons but social entities. Irrelevant to me as an individual. I only interact with them on a level appropriate to my social standing and the interrelations between our positions. The moment that interaction becomes something more, I start to act more freely around these people.

Unfortunately, I have raging emotions in me. I hit walls when I'm angry and I cry all the way through sad films. I am afraid when met with unknown situations and petrified to the extent I need to force myself to move if I'm met with an unknown dog. It often happens that those emotions are contradictory, like when I was holding my Godchild for the first time. I was happy, afraid and sad when he started crying.

I was happy because I just became a Godfather and I really do like children. I was afraid because I never held a baby and we all know how fragile they can be. Finally, I was sad because he started crying out of the blue and it traumatised me. So I said to my mom that when he gets older, I'll keep on reminding him that the first time I held him, he cried...

and that's mean! At the same time, that tells everyone that I really care about the little boy. I act the same way towards other family members because that's basically the way I am. I don't even remember what I criticise about because the content is irrelevant. There were times when I whined about having to do something while I was about to go do it and afterwards, I forgot about the whole thing. I suppose I'm just that pessimistic that I have to pick up on the flaws of people I like.

If you think being mean to people because you like them is mean, I am even more critical of myself. I'm a perfectionist and a pessimist because I pick up on every single one of my flaws. I remind myself constantly of them, even when I sleep I have dreams of people picking on my flaws in my voice. It's irrelevant of whether I'm awake or not, I can't stop telling myself how awful I am and that something needs to be done about it.

My family understands this, that I just have my moods. It's not logical to start an argument and then act like it was meaningless but that's the way I am around my closest social circles. In a way, that acts as a barrier for some, as they are unable to accept this and back off while they still have the chance. It's the rare few who can accept it and those are the people granted the friendship of a Scorpio.

While it's good to have lots of friends, I tend to go with quality over quantity when it comes to people.

Finally, I found out early on that no one is perfect so it's better to love people for their flaws.

Wien?

A conversation between students and tutor was made. We asked about the Masters degrees to see what the future may hold. After getting my Bachelor, I could go for a Masters degree but apparently, the one I could aim for without prior teaching experience isn't all that good. Since I would need to spend money for it, I'd rather invest the coins in the best way possible.

There is a diploma that could be done in a few weeks, after which you get a job and I could pick a place where to travel to and teach English. It's called RSA Celta and is offered by International House, after two years of working there I would be eligible for a higher diploma, RSA Delta, which is apparently a qualification sought after by employers. In addition, since I'd have experience by then, I could go for a Masters degree in Media Assisted Language Teaching. The downside is that they don't have a school in Austria.

I could go to Berlin though... obviously, the diploma isn't for cheap and I bet my parents won't be happy with me putting off getting a MA for 2 years, thus I (badly) need to get a job so I can somehow earn money for myself...

Venture into the Urban

I went to town today:

Put some money on my bank account so I won't go into overdraft by paying rent. It happened a few times now so I started tracking the numbers on my account with added vigilance.

I cut my hair! I took a shower today just so my hair would be clean for cutting. I was prepared for the dreaded cold shower due to the water not being heated up properly but to my amazement, there was hot water coming from it! Finally, I can cleanse myself of sin more often again...

I exchanged the book tokens from earlier for Beyond Good and Evil.

I embraced the Geek Side by buying boosters for Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon TCG. It's been ages since I last played or bought Pokemon cards and I nearly forgot how much fun they are... too bad there's no one I can play with...

Grocery shopping went well. I have a great many vegetables in my grasp now, combined with the ready meals it should enable me to last the whole week. I also bought some cereal bars so I won't be buying them from my school campus, cheaper that way.

I was about to buy a new webcam but I just couldn't make myself spend that amount of money. I was too scared that I will bring it home only to find out that it was a laptop issue. With slight resignation, I tried once again to plug my webcam in. Once more, a surprise! It worked so I can show off my lack of hair!

I have yet to check if it works properly as a video+sound recorded but today wasn't such a bad day. It even rained only at the time I was either in a shop or a bus...

Black Water

As human beings, we like to think of ourselves as being at the top of the food chain. Maybe that's why stories about man-eaters are so scary. We're not raised with the fear of our existence ending as a means of survival for a stronger creature. Naturally, even though animals don't hunt us, they can still kill us. That's what this film is about.

It starts innocently. Two sisters say their good byes to their mother before going on a trip into the wilds. They are accompanied by the husband of the older one. Their first stop: a crocodile park. Going by the music you'll probably already know who the main villain of this story will be. However, we don't see him up until the trio takes a guide and go into the swamp. They find themselves stranded, climbing a tree to survive, far from civilisation.

Their attempts are futile, they slowly lose hope. What I found especially interesting is how the film uses not only music to build up a mood but also a lack thereof. A short action sequence has an appropriate music to it while when they wait to try and think of something, there's no music, just the buzzing of mosquitoes. This creates a feeling of hopelessness and loneliness, it reflects their boredom as they wait for rescue and that it's them who they should look up for rescue. The film seems plain made, but that makes it more real, like something that could have happened. Apparently, it did as proved by the Based on a True Story intro. That one sentence just seems to spoil it. Creative liberties aside, I don't understand why there wasn't any information on what happened to the characters after the film's events. A simple technique, that even with changed names could only make this film better than it is.

Permitted ≠ Allowed

The following subject came up today on a lecture:
Should swearing be permitted in schools?

K: I think swearing shouldn't be permitted.
D: So you're saying it should be allowed.
K: No, I'm saying it shouldn't be permitted, shouldn't
D: That means it should be allowed.
K: No, it doesn't.
D: Yes, it does!
K: No, permitted and allowed are the same thing.
D: Okay, if you say so *rolls eyes*

It was longer in reality, but that's the gist of the exchange that went between me and Student D.

Ugh...

I've spent most of today on two lectures and reading a book about managing non-profit organisations...

I went home to see that the housemates don't believe me when I'm telling them they owe me money for March bills. I don't want to deal with this so I wrote a note containing all the financial details, I'll print it tomorrow and just stick it to their doors... one more thing, there seems to be another guy that moved in, I haven't seen him yet...

My tutor sent out another reading list and an assignment, late in the evening, I'll check it in the morning and take out some books on semantics tomorrow to go through during the weekend. I just hope people gave them back already because there just wasn't any last time I checked, it's frustrating...

Sieben Aufsatzthemen

I'm finally finished with my seven topics for German. This time I really watched the grammar of everything instead of winging it. It probably still has mistakes but at least I know I did my best, not like the previous time when I just wrote without thinking about the grammar side of things. I really hope there will be less mistakes than the previous time but that I will know in a few days after tomorrow.

However, I did make a few interesting observations:
My main problem is with articles and their inflection.
While I have enough content words in my vocabulary I need to shift them into active use so I can think of them faster.
My structure seems good if a bit complex but I have a certain degree of innate understanding of how German syntax works.
I have a significant lack of knowledge in the idiom and cultural reference department.

The subjects were:

Mein Leben als Student in England - My life as a student in England
Lots of bitching about how I despise the student culture... and a bit on how people annoy me in the library...

Brighton meine neue Heimat - Brighton my new homeland
Lots of bitching on how I don't like this place and how I don't consider to have a homeland so I can't have a new one...

Was ich von Polen vermisse - What do I miss from Poland
A few sentences basically saying "nothing"

Unterschiede zwischem Alltag in Polen und Alltag in England - Differences between an average day in Poland and England
The same like before but saying more about surface differences that don't matter and that after you go past them, there is no variety in life

Mein Hobby - My hobby
Roleplaying, 361 words, the basics...

Mein Lieblingsfilm - My favourite film
Ghost Ship, descriptions of death!

Mein Lieblingsbuch - My favourite book
The Sorrows of Young Werther, love and death...

Even I am amazed at how I'm able to make the simplest subject depressing to the extreme...

Answers

I called a friend today and an interesting question came up. She's really down because she doesn't know what to do with herself now so she asked:

1. Do I know what I want to do in life?
2. Do I miss my country?

The answers, like always, just dragged me down...

1. I think I know where my life is heading. There are some prospects for me, like my tutor said: I could travel the world as an English teacher. I could technically go to any country and teach English there but it's just not what I thought would be happening. I always thought that by this time I would be planning on having a family, instead I constantly prove to myself I'm incapable of living with anyone but myself and that I keep dragging myself into work thus not seeing anything outside of that concept. Meanwhile, all the people I know have someone, some are thinking of marriage, while one of them has a baby. I bury myself in books and pretend I don't exist...

2. No. There's nothing holding me here, nor to any other place in the world. I never felt like I belong and neither do I feel that now. In a way I don't feel as if I changed, but I did change. I learned that life is not worth living and that I should not go against who I am. So I stopped rejecting my hate towards people, their stupidity and their egoism...

One Week Down

The first week of intense studying is over.

Excessive weight carried each day to the library and back didn't work well on my muscles.
I'm stressed to the extent I sleep less than a human being has to, which means I'm quite cranky so it's good I don't know any German curses or I would end up spitting them on the Austrian reading this...

The schedule seems to be working. The online games I'm in are moving, even though I didn't post anything in two days due to extensive headaches. I'm reading to ease the nerves and posting on the forums just an hour a day. I also found out it's fairly easy to update this journal daily with insignificant information, which are then used to make a paragraph of some longer post that'll go up in the future after it's done in its entirety.

As far as the university goes, one thing annoyed me recently. It's about an essay that was marked and given to me, the following is an excerpt from the feedback form followed by an excerpt from the bibliography:

"You did not provide a copy of the catalogue so I was unable to actually see what you were referring to."

"The Lego Group. (2007) Lego Catalogue January 2007 [online]. Available: http://shop.lego.com/ByCatalog/onlinecat.aspx?c=uk4 [January 2008]"

Right now I have a deadline for something each week so it's difficult to keep up with everything... At least I'm done with one essay, the next is written and ready for submission and I have a subject to propose for another essay so I can focus a bit on practising German for an exam. Which of course will be a week before I have to give in yet another essay, but I can't start working on it as I don't know the subject for it at present.

Sacrament

The reader is introduced to Will Rabjohns, a photographer of soon to be extinct species. He has his deal of fame, an Englishman living in San Francisco and a gay.

After we take a look at the average day of the main character, Will falls into a coma. This acts as a way for Barker to shift our attention to Will's childhood. The reader goes over the major events that made Will into who he is now and builds the basis for the rest of the book. At the same time, it's uncertain how the book's present interacts with the character's past. In many ways, I was reminded of time travel stories. It's also the first time we are introduced to the story's main antagonists, although their true nature isn't revealed up until the very last pages.

I am not familiar with literature where the main character is homosexual but I am pleased that this fact isn't used merely for the sake of it. Will's homosexuality is part of the plot and one of the reasons why the main antagonist despises the photographer so much, it also correlates Will's perception of himself.

The story overall is gripping. I found myself craving to read what happens next. However, the main reason it caught me as much as it had was that the author doesn't limit himself just to pleasantries. I would imagine some might find the images this book gives to be slightly disturbing if not obscene.

Me liking Books!!!

On Thursdays I volunteer as a teaching assistant for Pre-Entry Level English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes for a group of adults without literary skills. I've been doing this for 17 weeks now and today the teacher I assist surprised me. She gave me book tokens to use in local book shops... not only is that job enjoyable, refreshing and relaxing but I also got free books!

Now I just need to decide what literary works I'll spend them on...

However first, I need to sleep, my head hurts...

Prima Aprilis

[insert clever joke]

[point finger]

[laugh]

[write lol]

LOL

Writing with a Passion for More

If you're reading this entry you probably already know that a significant amount of my time is spent on writing. I write on this blog, on forums and on games. It's not the only thing I write, there's poetry and prose to my craft... I started to think about it all because I suddenly remembered an old site.

I once had an account on Opowiadania.pl, back when most of my writing was in Polish. There are still some stories there that I fondly remember but they are lost in the thousands of works and I don't currently have the time to search for them anew. In English I know only of FanFiction.net for which I might write something one day, I'm not normally into fan-fiction but I could put something that happens in some already made universe, like the World of Darkness or some Anime. I don't know of any fiction centric website like that other than the one in Polish but that's a bit beside the point.

I'm starting to wonder why is it that apparently, I write a lot better in English than my native tongue. Maybe it's because I write so much in it and I do it because there's many people who speak the language and are interested in my works, but I knew some Poles once who were interested too and yet, I just don't write in it. It may be the reason why my Polish has eroded over the past few years but since I want to be a translator, I need to have sufficient proficiency in both. Thus I bought three books in Polish, two of them written by Poles, in hopes it will help me. However, I believe it would also be good if I were to write something in Polish from time to time. And not just articles for the World of Darkness websites! Some prose in my usual style, whatever it might be. One problem with that is that when I write, I don't like to write the same thing over again. Unfortunately for me, a story written in English is the same one written in Polish and I could never decide which one to write it in.

I often hear that I can come up with good ideas but the only indication of style I ever got were from three people. My teacher once said that I have the talent to take elements from various sources and turn them into something of my own. Another person, who left me with fond memories of our MSN sessions and I mourn the fact there appears to be a growing divide between us now, that person said if I were to write a book of erotic nature, they'd buy it. Lastly, my Creative Writing tutor at the university told me that the story I wrote reads like a book but she can't find all the other pages. That's something that really pushed me into a certain direction.

I always wanted to write a book. For a long time it remained a dream, as intangible like any other but at present it seems more material, more like something that can be achieved. I find myself dreaming of a time when I'll have a job, a steady income which I'd save a few coins now and then as I use what time remains in the day to work on a novel. And after a few years I'll have enough material and funds to go to a printer company and print some books. Then I'd send them to all the people I know, having signed each copy and with a letter saying how much it cost me, maybe some will be kind enough to pay me back. The rest, I'll sell to whoever is willing to buy them... at a price that covers the print job and a bit more so I can fund another book. That would be awesome. But first, I'll probably format them into pdfs and let them loose over the internet...

I always felt that it's more important to write for the readers' enjoyment than for your own pocket, but that's just me...