infinity zone

I need more coherent subject lines.

So I haven't been as active or talkative (or as I've been trying to be) as usual lately. I had a final portfolio due today and I had to give a presentation this morning -- so that's why I've been preoccupied. Gonna continue being proccupied while I write this paper for my internship. But that's due tomorrow, so I'm ... gonna take my time writing it.

Speaking of my internship, my contract's been extended for another three months. So I'm still with the company until December. Hmm.

I'm annoyed at myself that I've been splurging with my newfound "wealth." Two six hundred dollar purchases in two months. Yeesh. I really should be saving this money.

In other news, I've been listening to the same song for the last two days and I keep thinking of Albert and Chris. The song doesn't even fit a relationship between them, but I just imagine lovely little scenes that don't really fit their character. Guess that's what I get for adoring such a crack couple. But it's my crack couple, and I love it.

So the graduation ceremony was today at 10 AM. I woke up around 7, fell asleep until 7:30, napped somewhere between 7:50 to 8:20 and then started getting ready around 8:30.

Yeah, I'm not much for preparations.

The ceremony was really short; an hour long, including the 30-min social before the actual reading of names. My older brother and his girlfriend surprised me with a flower lei, a bouquet, and a giant grad balloon. *sighs happily* It was a nice affair. It's kinda odd to go through the ceremony even when I'll still show up once in awhile during the summer. I think.

Yesterday was my last day at CELT; we had an undergraduate party and I got an Amazon gift certificate. My little brother suggested using it to buy the last Harry Potter book.

Spent the majority of the day at one of my uncle's houses for a graduation party. One of my cousins got me a briefcase and a blazer, then threw in a pair of matching shoes. One of my aunts gave me a nice purse. And I got a lot of grad money. Lots of checks.

And my older brother gave me Odin Sphere, since I tried it last night and enjoyed it profusely (despite dying umpteen times against Belial). Aaron, one of my cousins, showed me an alchemy trick to try once I start gathering up a lot of Materials.

My room's a mess. I need to seriously clean once all of this graduation stuff winds down. I've still gotta go back to my party tomorrow. >_>

I CAN BREATHE.

I got my 30-min presentation on PHP done today. T__T I kept 20/35-min. napping throughout last night because I was finishing my slides up until the minute I left to walk to class. So I winged the entire presentation. There was discussion. And me nitpicking my slides. And a lot of questions.

And the instructor said I did a great job.

T____T <--- Tears of JOY

I ended up being the only one going that day because the two last presenters had issues; one got into an accident on Tuesday (and is on crutches now, ow) and the other still has technical stuff to work out for the MySQL/PHP setup.

So class got out early, and I sat in the lab with Rose, Jen, and Mark. It was really nice to relax. Then 403 was just course evaluations and discussing our papers due next week, so ... yeah, I had fun telling the department newbies about interviews, classes, and other fun things. From there, we went to Agua Verde near the waterfront, and I just got home from there.

I've still got a lot of work to do; editing for posTComm, the Flickr documentation, the VW campaign for 412, and papers for 403 and 438... But you know what? I'm going to kick back and catch up on sleep and video games for now. x__x Yessss...

And I'm supposed to hear back about the job today. If I don't, I'll be annoyed.

I feel so stressed right now. I've got articles to write and presentations to prepare and projects to help out with and stupid help procedures to edit and a friggin' research group to manage... ARGH.

But the good news...
-- I've bought my graduation ring and announcements.
-- I've been invited to a grad party. Will go for dinner, not for the drinking binge after.
-- I can still do the senior portfolio over the summer.
-- I've been asked for a second on-site interview with T-Mobile.

That last one alone is enough to make me jump and dance with glee. But I won't. Hopefully.

Career Fair today. I made the mistake of wearing shoes that are a little loose and thus make my toes hurt like hell when I walk for a long time. And then I got lost on south campus, walking behind the hospital for all of 25 minutes. Then I went back uphill towards the lab and walked through a bit of a cherry blossom storm.

Distracted me from my aching feet at least.

Oh, I forgot to mention that, in getting lost, I missed a class. Whoopee. At least I finished my value added assignment and turned it in beforehand. Otherwise I'd be in trouble, I think.

Apparently it was pretty obvious that I looked very tired; Rose and Jen both said as much. Sigh. I sat in an STC meeting for what felt like hours (but it was more like one hour, I think), then went up to the research lab to just veg. Bleh. But Wai asked if I'd do some content and transition button-pushing stuff and that's what I've been doing. Could be worse, yeah?

Still need to go to the Career Fair. And lead the research meeting today. Gotta stay awake.

So, I'm done with classes for the quarter. I intend to use the time replaying Suikoden and Suikoden II, RPing, writing, and chatting. And that's when I'm not off maybe-learning-to-drive and working. I really want to know if our abstract was accepted into the symposium, and I've forgotten when to expect an acceptance/rejection e-mail.

In other news, I finally updated my AIM on my profile page and added a link to my entry tags. I personally like going through my old entry tags dear god they need to be updated and reorganized, and I thought I'd make them available for people that might want to hunt down my drabbles and fics.

Fics that are pecking at my brain (all Suikoden unless noted):
Move Along
Shards
Healing ~ False Dawn
Half a dozen drabble/ficlet/vignette things for my Silverberg collection (Sana-Albert fic, Yuber-Leon, Yuber-Albert, young Albert-Caesar, AlbertII-Tir-Gremio, spirit talk)
Guide My Hand

Soooo... Characters responding to crack situations: comedy gold. Characters responding to breaking of fourth wall: too much awesome for the awesome scale.

Sync will continue blaming the landmass. Because his emo's been utterly crushed. Still need to finish the pime tarodox-ed event with Anise... Anise gets to see Ion again, even if she doesn't know it's not Ion and instead Ion-Ion, eh heh. And Leon invaded and vowed to electrocute Stahn. Ahahaha!

Avoria War is pretty cool, too. Legretta gets to kick ass and Ion's out getting himself in trouble evenwhenhepromisedJadehewouldntooooops. Fonic artes need to stay unlocked.

Plans for tonight: relax, relax, relax. I have the whooole weekend to do things (which I doubt I will do >_>) and Fridays need to be calmer as a whole. Maybe we'll go get takeout and play with my brother's cats (cat named Zoe and kitten named Chloe)... Maybe I'll sit with my birds and play The Sims: Life Stories all night (yaaay for it FINALLY WORKING)...

Just one class and the weekend starts...

So. How does one get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that a member of the department staff does not like you? Especially when said staff has quite a bit of sway in the department and you have to deal with them on a regular basis? Friends are surprised to hear me voice this ("Why would you think that?"), so I really wonder if I'm just paranoid. I'm just getting this stony vibe overall.

In other news ... uh... We have two more baby lovebirds at home. They haven't been named yet, but they're old enough to poke their heads out of the nestbox now. I'm hoping my sister doesn't play with them the same way she played with Sweetie; Sweetie's idea of playing now is biting really, really hard and not stepping up. Ugh.

So ... I've got a lot of crap to do this week. Interview to do and paper to finish today, abstract to write for Tuesday, arbitration to do with Alice on Wednesday (maybe??), group presentation to give on designing for foreign countries on Thursday... Add to that homework, work, meetings, and writing articles and transcripts for the newsletter before I start letting people down. (whyamIsomuchmorescaredoftheViceChairthantheDepartmentChair?? ~_~)

Tried Ar Tonelico. Now, I've played Atelier Iris 1 and 2, but ... Ar Tonelico rubbed me wrong in so many ways that I wasn't interested in playing 14 minutes in. Maybe it's because it reminded me so much of Atelier Iris that I wasn't impressed. Or maybe it's because I had ToA on the brain. I'll give it another try somewhere down the line.

Went to dinner with Jen and Rose at the Department Chair's house on Friday. It was lovely; I enjoyed just listening to all of the talk about the department and the field in general. And a three-course homecooked meal after college garbage was wonderful. Never having merlot again, though. Or maybe just wine in general. Bleh.

Joined a Tales forum a little while ago and submitted some clips for a ToA voice theater. Voice acting's always fun when it works out ... so I'm hoping it does.

... I really should write more to this information graphic analysis. But it's so ... boring. Sigh.

This is the earliest I've been home from school in two and a half weeks. Makes me kinda sad.

Thaaank you, suiko_rpg, for reviving my Suikoden muses. T__T Leon is now beating me over the head to write a family tree for the Silverbergs AlbertandSanaficWHUT?

I'm so happy I've got 猫又 Master songs I wanted... Just a little annoyed my brother had the full version of "Sayonara, Heaven" and didn't tell me. *sighs*

Hmm... What else? I'll be sitting in at a WiSE conference this weekend. Guess I'll be talking to high school and community college students about TC. Sounds like it'll be fun, since Rose and Danielle (and probably Amanda) will be there.

Oh! I had to give a presentation on information visualization of a depiction. *gags* I was so stressed out about it last Friday because the grad students were presenting before the undergrads, but by Monday, all the undergrads were ... high or something. Some of us were just laughing during our presentations ... myself included.

Me: "So, why an illustration instead of a photo?"
*ten second pause*
Entire class: *bursts into laughter*

Amanda said I apparently started laughing right before everyone else started laughing. *sweatdrops* The pause was intentional, but I didn't expect it to be that long or get that much or a response from everyone.

Me: "And I'm going to stop now because I'm at a loss of words."
Entire class: *good-natured laughter*

I love ending on a good note. That was pretty cool. Not the best way to end a presentation (no conclusion and revisiting of the main points hit), but I'm glad people laughed. I'm apparently a funny presenter when I do things on the fly. >_>


Hm... Maybe I'll write up this Silverberg timeline, too. I don't have anything due in class tomorrow.