Mood: It’s too early in the morning to know yet [Too early in the morning period].
Listening to: Spiral – Julien-K

Good morning, ladies and gentleman.
It’s 6:41 A.M. here. Ah the joys of getting up early to head out to class.

Yeah it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. Just haven’t felt like posting much, and haven’t had much to post about anyway.

Fall semester started on August 18th. I’ve got Psychology, Literature, History [American hurgh. This is the last semester of it], and Philosophy. Let’s not talk about how irritated Philosophy makes me. [Oops too late!] I keep an open mind because that’s how I roll. Being infuriatingly ‘right-brained’ [so I'm told] as I am, I’ve just got little patience for some of the crazy shit these crazy people have written. You see - the problem is that the reading assignments we’re given in the [ridiculously expensive] textbook we have are batshit insane. I think that the authors were trying to sound cool and profound when they wrote them. They essentially spend several pages talking in circles, trying to make a point they could easily [and less boringly] established in a couple of paragraphs [They are, as they say - tl;dr - like this entry]. Several pages of just… words. Just a sheer volume of words. They don’t just repeat themselves [Like I am, rant rant rant], they have literally filled the pages with gibberish that I suppose they thought sounded smart. Half of it doesn’t even make sense.   I realize that it always seems that way for some people who either don’t like or have difficulty reading, but that is not me. I love reading, and am [excuse my bragging, really, terribly sorry] pretty good at it. When I was in English class, all throughout my schooling, teachers always tried to impress upon us that being concise was important, and that we shouldn’t be too wordy in our writing [there are some authors of some classics that could have benefitted from that advice - also myself because I'm fairly certain I've started ranting], and while I understood that to a point, I was always a little annoyed, because detail is important – just as they say, not too much detail.
But now I really understand. They were trying to save us from writing something like what’s in my Philosophy textbooks.

Anyway, It’s almost 7 here, so I need to roll out. Seeya later!

~Aurelia

Mood: Happy.
Listening to: Daytime in Manuk – Ragnarok Online

Ladies and gentleman!
Meet my new pet. It’s name is Zhai. It is a Tribble.

Awww.

If you are unfamiliar with Tribbles, may I suggest Wikipedia or Memory Alpha?
I got it from Thinkgeek, an awesome webstore for all things geeky. [Or as they say, Stuff for Smart Masses.] Speaking of thinkgeek, this new shirt they have is really awesome.

Not much other news, other than that I’ve added my Xfire profile to my links/blogroll, as well as my MyAniGamer profile… thing. Normally I abhor social networking but it’s a small social network, and mainly attracts people of fairly similar interests, so I’ve made it one of my exceptions.

Oh also, I think it’s worth mentioning that the game I talked about in one of my earlier posts, Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, is slated for a US release sometime late this year. I found out a couple of months ago and forgot to post about it, haha. Also, I’m pretty excited about the Pokemon Gold/Silver remakes, Heart Gold and Soul Silver. Crystal has always been my favorite Pokemon game, so ever since Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green came out, I’ve been waiting for a remake of Gold/Silver/Crystal. Yay Pokemon!

I think that’s about all. Might post again soon, but I’m not promising anything this time. I’m out!

~Aurelia

Mood: Aimlessly Excited
Listening to: Do You Call My Name – Ra

HEYGUYS.
Yeah hi. I’ve been meaning to update but I just didn’t feel like it, and then I was gone for two weeks on vacation, which is why I’ve finally come to update to tell about it. Brace yourselves for the tldr; wall of text that may be my longest post yet.

EXPOSITION IMMINENT.
I live in Missouri, also known by the apt nickname ‘Misery’. It’s where I was born and I’ve lived in the same general area for basically all of my life. However, my father is from Michigan, which is a delightfully lovely state – so we go there on vacation fairly often. This was one of the years we did so – an approximately two week romp through upper peninsula Michigan and down through central Michigan, ending in Kalamazoo, which is pretty much where dad’s from. HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED.

ITINERARY
1.From Kansas City, we got on an Amtrak train to Chicago. It was my dad’s idea, to save some driving time and stuff through one of the most boring parts of the trip. And I’d never been on a train before so it was pretty exciting. Admittedly, this part of the train trip was a little less exciting since I was just anxious to get to Michigan. Spent the night in Chicago at a hotel. Got a rental car the next morning and from there went to our next destination.

2. Iron Mountain, Michigan: Itty bitty town in UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. Pretty much stayed there as a planned way-point/break in driving. Nice little place, but not terribly eventful EXCEPT for one element. Well for me anyway. Not far from Iron Mountain is a little Township called Norway. Within Norway is a tiny little unincorporated community called Vulcan. Don’t roll your eyes at me, I couldn’t help myself. I’ll spare you the picture of me standing under the tiny green road sign grinning with a Vulcan salute. We spent one night in Iron Mountain and then moved on to our next destination.

3. Copper Harbor, Michigan: We love Copper Harbor. Nice, quiet little [EMPHASIS ON LITTLE] town in the UP on the shore of Lake Superior (technically it’s a unincorporated community within a township). We’ve been there on several of our trips to Michigan, and this time we spent about 3 days in a Mariner Lodge cabin there. Fed the geese (<3 Canadian geese they’re such characters) and ducks, got Ice Cream (Jilbert’s RAWKS), rode bikes (and were eaten alive by bugs in the woods), and just relaxed. Left on the third day for the next destination.

4. Curtis, Michigan: Another unincorporated community within a township in UP Michigan. There’s a B&B-ish inn here called Chamberlin’s Ole Forest Inn that my mom really likes, so we spent two days there. Incidentally, I discovered when we were in a grocery store there, from an advertisement over the intercom, that Curtis is tiny enough that a business referred to it’s location as ‘on The Hill in Curtis’. I lol’d a little. Nice little place though. After this we left and crossed over the big long bridge between the UP and central Michigan for our next destination.

5. Charlevoix, Michigan: Town on the tip of central Michigan. We spent one night there as a planned way-point to our next destination. Not terribly eventful, but nice little town.

6. Holland, Michigan: Town in central Michigan with a strong Dutch heritage, as evidenced by the name. We actually stopped there for two days because I specifically requested it when we were planning the trip. I’d only been there once when I was really too young to remember it, so I wanted to see it again. Holland, MI is actually home to the only functional, authentic Dutch windmill, ‘De Zwann’, in the United States. By authentic Dutch I mean that the Netherlands Holland sold it to Michigan Holland, disassembled it and shipped nearly all of it there (minus some bricks that were reassembled dutch style, but still Michigan bricks), where it was reconstructed. We made a trip out to Windmill Island to see the windmill. While there I acquainted myself with some cows from the other side of the fence around a field they were in. They were funny. <3 FYI: every May, Holland Michigan hosts Tulip Time, a tulip festival. Unfortunately due to various circumstances, we can’t schlepout to Holland in May, so I’ve never gotten to see it, but it’s supposed to be awesome. ANYWAY, after two days we left for our last[ish], and sort of main destination.

7. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Kalamazoo is fun. There’s a lot of stuff to do there, but most importantly, there is the Air Zoo, which is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. It’s full of rare and historical/antique airplanes and SPACE STUFF, which is very, very exciting. One of the most exciting things I saw there was a SR-71B Blackbird, which holds several absolute speed and sustained flight altitude records. It was really, really, REALLY awesome, huge, cool looking, etc. I could sit here and geek out about it forever but I won’t. Oh yeah and I saw some old cars, the oldest being a 1926 Model T Ford. That was pretty exciting. Moving on, we also went to Milham Park, to feed the ducks and the rather alarmingly forward geese. The geese are really funny though, and are so brave that they will get close enough to step on your feet and such things. It’s mostly Canadian geese, but there was a quartet of white geese that were actually really frightening. They honked loudly and hissed and were generally in-grateful for the bread. There was one other white goose, a fledgling, that was actually really sweet so I fed him and steered clear of the other white geese. On the last day we went to South Haven, a nice little beach town nearby, to have lunch and walk along Lake Michigan.

The next morning we headed off to Chicago to catch an Amtrak train again. This time, since I wasn’t anxious to get to the next place, the train ride was actually really fun, and went by faster than I wanted it to. Worth mentioning was the outright boyscout parade (as in troop, after troop, after troop) that joined us on the train. Apparently there was some sort of huge national boy scout camp excitement going on in new mexico and they were all going there.

Anyway that’s about all for my family trip. This post is getting absurdly long, so I’m going to start wrapping it up.
On the miscellaneous front, I went around updating some stuff on blogs and other random places /unspecific. Aaand that’s about all, so I’m off to bed. I’ll probably update again soon[ish] /famous last words. Ciao!

EDIT 10082009: Fixed a typo I somehow missed for 3 months. Not humiliating at all [ohgod].

~Aurelia

Mood: Geeky.
Listening to: Septette for the Dead Princess (2nd Card Arrange) - Touhou: Immaterial and Missing Power

SO GUYS HAY. I’m fully aware that like maybe 2 people a day visit my blog but whatever, lmao.

Not really much to say. I’ve been playing Luna Online, and Ragnarok Online. OBT’d on Dragonica Online for a bit, but haven’t played very much for various reasons. It has potential, but the way it is now, I don’t find it very entertaining.

Two weekends ago I went to see the new Star Trek movie, and it was really awesome. If you haven’t seen it yet – go see it now! I’ve been to see it once, and intend to see it again soon – I hope. For better or for worse, it seems to have revived my inner trekkie.
I’d never really seen much of the original series before seeing the movie – I mostly watched Next Generation (<3 for Data) with my father. Since seeing the movie I’ve gone through almost the entire first season of the original series (god help me). Spock is my hero. <3

Anyway, I’m going to make this short(ish), because it seems all I can manage to talk about this week is Star Trek so I’m going to spare you, (Plus, I’m scaring the crap out of myself).  Later!

~Aurelia

So it’s been a few months. Not that it matters, lol. (WHO IS READING THIS ANYWAY? No one? Awesome!)

On the gaming front, I’m back to playing Ragnarok Online again. It’s just one of those games that I will continue to play until it falls off the face of the earth.

Speaking of such games, I recently ordered a Gamecube copy of Phantasy Star Online (<3), since it has a few things that Blue Burst doesn’t. Once I buy a GC broadband adapter in a couple of weeks I can get online and do some of the online and downloadable quests (seat of the heart sounds fiercely difficult @_@). Don’t talk to me about how Sega’s servers are down. I won’t talk to you about how that doesn’t matter.

Once I’ve finished with PSO, which will hopefully not be for awhile, I think I’ll get a 360 copy of Phantasy Star Universe. Not only is my PC disc missing as I discovered this week, but I was having some retarded gameguard issues as well (when is gameguard NOT retarded?). It seemed to involve gameguard flagging itself as a worm virus or something completely idiotic. And there was no help for it on the forums except for one person’s temporary solution that ended up not working. In truth there should have been solutions from SEGA, but apparently they don’t care enough. Anyway that’s enough before I start ranting about hackshields again like I did when I bought the game and discovered it didn’t work (months and months ago).

As far as College goes, I had my last day of the spring semester (wooo!) last thursday. I’ve switched transfer degrees as of this upcoming fall semester from Associate in Science-Chemistry to a general ‘associate in arts’. No not an art degree, just a general transfer degree to use for whatever I decide to do next. But it’s not going to be Chemistry, because I’ve discovered how not fun Chem becomes when I start taking classes for it. And how even though I’m not completely awful at math, the math classes I have to take alongside it are still torture. Anyway due these and other factors I’m no longer majoring in Chemistry. I’m not positive yet but from my general degree I’ll probably move on to Anthropology/Archaelogy, which was my original plan before I rather impulsively decided I wanted to be a Chemist my senior year of high school. I still love Chemistry. It’s just going to be my hobby now, like it was before. I can’t wait to dig around in the dirt it will be awesome. I’m going to have to wait a little longer than I wanted to though, because there are no anthropology classes at my campus. I was SO angry when I found this out – so very, very angry. As I may have said before, the community college I’m currently attending is a network of campuses. When you apply to the community college, you become capable of enrolling in about five different colleges. I’m not explaining it very well but oh well. Anyway the anthropology classes have like… one class at the campus I’m attending, and the archaelogy class and all the other anthropology classes are at a campus that is an hour away from where I live, so I’m fairly pissed. Oh well, I can wait until I move on from this crappy community college to greener campus pastures.

On a final note, I would like to end this with an anthropology related triumph.
YEEESS! </captain falcon>

Mood: WTF.
Listening to: Adema – The Way You Like It

HI GUYS. So apparently if Retro Game Challenge sells well in the US, Xseed will give us Fragile: Farwell Ruins of the Moon. So everyone go buy it RIGHT NOW. Please don’t make me mod my wii and import it.

PLEASE.

~Aurelia

Mood: Annoyed with stupid people
Listening to: Hamasaki Ayumi – Rule

So much for updating often.
OH WELL.

Anyway happy president’s-day-in-advance since I’ll probably be too glued to my games tomorrow to blog.
Since I’ve been too busy doing other things to blog, I’ll share what I’ve been busy doing.

A couple of days ago I bought ‘Big Bang Mini’ for DS. It’s lovely, and if you’re a fan of arcade-esque shooters in-lieu of space invaders, you should check it out.

I know it seems like I’m playing a new game every week – but I like games, okay?

Anyway while I’m still playing SMT: imagine on occasion, right now I’m participating in the closed beta for a pretty little chinese MMO called Ether Saga. It’s not perfect, but it’s an excellent game with a beautiful environment and lots to explore, which is really one of the main things I look for in an MMO. I’ll share a few screenshots. Click the thumbnails to see the full sizes in their full sized glory.

Character Selection

Grace Rock

Ancestral Spring

 I seem to be drawn to the places that have water. I like video game water. If it’s done right, it looks pretty.
If you’re playing the CB and you happen to be on the West Server, come say hi, I’m usually on Tsukiya, but I could also be on Tsuzurao, Shizuka, Aurelia, or Naosu. I’m likely to be on Realm 03 or 05.

Anyway, it’s 11 at night here, so I’m going to have to wrap this up so I can go sleep eventually.
LATERS.

~Aurelia

Mood: Bored.
Listening to: Super Junior – 돈 돈

HAY GUYS. Sup?

I have to go back to class tomorrow, which means I really need to get on that reading I’m supposed to do for English. I think the only time I ever actually avoid reading is when school is involved, college or no.
Regardless, while I’m avoiding those readings, let me tell you about what I’ve been doing over my break to avoid them.

I played some Touhou earlier in the break – Immaterial and Missing power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. You know, the fighters I mentioned the other day. If you don’t know what Touhou is, I can’t even begin to try to explain to you myself, so wiki it, or something. I hadn’t played iamp in ages, so I was a little rusty at first, but it was still fun. My main fighter is Sakuya Izayoi – you know, the time-controlling maid with all the knives? My second is Hong Meiling. Everyone hates her, but I think using her is fun, in a retarded sort of way. In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, I use Remilia Scarlet, followed by Sakuya. No Chuugoku in SWR – but it’s probably better that way, since Meiling’s projectiles are so crappy they’re practically nonexistent, and SWR seems more projectile-heavy than IAMP. Enough about Touhou, though.

I’ve also been playing Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine again. I figured I’d give it another chance now that it’s gone from closed to open beta. Also, I’m a slave to the SMT series. Atlus makes nice games. After getting to the thing with the Inugamis and Shikigami (if you’ve played – you know what I’m talking about), in which lots of death is involved, I remembered why I stopped playing last time. But I pulled through anyway, and in the end, I got to take my revenge on that f#$@er, Taraka. I have a trophy picture as proof, and would like to share it. Click the thumbnail to see the full-size image in all it’s shiny glory. Well, it was shiny glory when it happened. Jpeg quality ruins everything, sob.

I’ve played around in Photoshop over my break too – I made some new SWR themed avatars (like the older one that is currently my wordpress av – that’s Sakuya, for anyone who doesn’t know), and a signature image for MegaTen. Anyway I’m off to play some more MegaTen, then later make some pasta for lunch and watch Murder, She Wrote, (8D) while I eat. OH, RIGHT. And do that English homework. Eventually. Ciao!

~Aurelia

Mood: Neutral
Listening to: Hirahara Ayaka – “Reset” (Okami OST)

Me trying to keep my wordpress updated: Part One.
So I’ve been back in class for about a week now. And by a week I mean two days – Tuesday and Thursday. And I don’t even have class THIS Tuesday due to an inservice, so I’m enjoying a week’s break. My little sister in Junior High, with class every weekday, is ready to kill me.
So now that I’m back in class, I know what my new Professors are like. I haven’t really got any complains except for Chemistry, which naturally, is the most important class in my major. So of course my professor would end up being the odd one.

He kind of mutter/mumbles, so he’s difficult to understand. And though the second day wasn’t quite as bad because we actually started into the curriculum, he’s boring. Maybe I’m just spoiled because my senior year of High School Chemistry teacher was awesome/hilarious, but he lectured in this monotonous voice. Who would have thought Redox reactions could sound so boring? On the first day, he essentially monotoned his way through the ENTIRE SYLLABUS, VERBATIM. And this syllabus was in packet form – it was like 6 pages long, and it took him the better part of an hour and twenty minutes or so. Apparently summarizing isn’t his thing.

Anyway, enough ranting. I’ve spent the last few days messing around in photoshop and playing Touhou – Immaterial and Missing Power, and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody – two awesome danmaku fighters. Yesterday afternoon I went to the bookstore, sat in the cafe, and read manga for three hours. Yes, I’m a bad panda – but the price of manga in America is outrageous. It’s like 80-200 yen in japan – which is about 80 cents to two dollars – and it’s TEN BUCKS here. And it takes you like 30 minutes to read one. Bah.

ANYWAY. I’m off to read some Agatha Christie. Laters.

~Aurelia

Uh… Happy late New Year!

So it’s been lots of months since I last updated,  again. First semester of college is over, second starts… sooner than I’d like it to. In about six days, for me at least (I don’t have classes on the starting day). I only have class two days a week (*cackle*), and three (if you count lecture and lab chem seperately, four) classes on those two days. It’s kind of a busy two days, but it’s only two days - I figured what’s the point in showing up for like one or two classes a day, every day.

Anyway, I’m hungry and would like to go eat my (late) lunch, so I’ll make this fast. I changed my layout again (mostly because I was bored) and photoshopped myself up a header for it. Sorry if it hurts your eyes. Also changed my avatar; the Ema Skye one was getting a little old. In case no one has noticed, I really like purple. Okay I’m going now. Lunch time. BYE.

~Aurelia