Flow

Oh how I have wanted to update these past few weeks. It almost feels like I should be blogging every day, this being “the end” and all. I have three days of high school, all exam days, and then it will finally be over.

I have brought up the fact before that my feelings contradict each other, and this holds truer now than anytime in the past. I have always, always cherished high school. I have always looked up to it, looked forward to it, romanticized it. I blame television. I blame Buffy and Doug and Ouran and all those other shows I watched that left out the fact that school is hard work.

My first year was perfect, everything aligned unrealistically well to create a wonderful first year for me. But it also insulated me, made me vulnerable. My second year, dumped out into the actual high school experience, I struggled to breath, to walk, to awake. It was as if I was in withdrawal.

Before my third year started I swore to become better, and that process was actually chronicled very well on this very blog*. And I succeeded. That particular year didn’t reach the heights of my freshman year, but it was a great experience that flew by very quickly.

* I will soon begin adding all the old entries back again, and fixing the search function. The old entries will of course be made valid, and broken links and images will be fixed where applicable. I call it Carol of the Bells 7.1.

And this year… This year has been a mix. It hasn’t been a complete wash, but failing my first semester of English and losing senior lounge really took the wind out of me. And toward the end of it, these past few months, it was almost as if my own body was giving up on high school, refusing to awake at the proper times, refusing to obey. If there is a well of strength within each person, after this year mine is sorely in need of refilling.

But I’m glad I haven’t become bitter. I may be on the verge, but my spirits are still high. I still view high school in a good light, and I feel as if part of myself will die after it’s over. So, these feelings contradict, and I don’t know which one to side with. Short-term, I’m glad I won’t have to wake up at 5:40 AM anymore, interact with the people I don’t want to, and generally be annoyed by… annoying teenagers, but long-term I know it’ll be hard for me to not think about all the people that will move on, that I’ll never see. I’ll miss the teachers, my friends, even walking around campus and taking the bus home.

I think the long-term side will eventually win out. But right now, it’s hard to focus on anything but the short-term.

I mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer above, and I’m proud to say I now own all seven seasons on DVD (though the season five package isn’t ideal, doesn’t fit in with the others in terms of looks…) I had bought the first season a long, long time ago and tried to struggle through it, but eventually wound up skipping episodes just to make it to the finale. Last August, I sat down and started watching them all, and made it through. Then in October, I happened to find the first four seasons on sale at Wal*Mart for $15 each.

What a steal! I bought the other three that very day, and spent the next month going through all of them. At forty-five minutes per episode, and twenty-two episodes per season, it can take a while to get through if you just watch them in your spare time. I began looking for season five, my favorite, but nowhere had it. Wal*Mart didn’t, a comic book store that I went to later on didn’t… Eventually I bought seasons six and seven, (which Wal*Mart did have, oddly enough), and then ordered it online. It arrived promptly a few weeks ago, and I’ve been watching the final three seasons ever since. I’m currently in the midst of season six, and just watched my favorite episode, “Once More With Feeling.” (This actually may have provoked this entire entry, actually.) I know the entire script by heart.

I can definitely say this show has shaped me. I was incredibly wrapped up in the show in 2005, so much so that I thought that, maybe, perhaps, my own life could be like it, entering high school and all. I hadn’t watched many of the earlier episodes at that point, which can maybe explain why I enjoy season five so much. Something about the close friendship between all of the main characters and how the entire world seemed to revolve around them was attractive for me, I suppose. And maybe it was the fact that their enemies were tangible, and despite their hardships they always conquered in the end.

I need to start buying the season eight volumes.

Oh yeah, E3 2009 finished up last week, didn’t it? Above all I wanted to blog this event, and now am kicking myself for not transcribing my immediate excitement for future ridicule.

This event was great. As someone who only owns a Wii and DS (well, two DS’s at the moment), it was still a great show and I’m very, very happy the show is finally regaining its momentum after 2006′s massive downsizing. Maybe it’s because someday I hope to attend, and I want it to be as big and raucous as possible.

Obviously, some big Nintendo games were announced. To be completely frank, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is my most anticipated game since Twilight Princess (at least, possibly ever). After viewing the above trailer, I was compelled replay the first Galaxy completely (121 stars, baby), and am currently in the middle of that. This game is amazing, from the art to the graphics to the physics to the controls to the innovation to the music (can’t forget the music), the game renovates the old into the new age while keeping it definitively Mario. As someone of the thought that Super Mario World is the best 2D Mario game, the addition of Yoshi, controlled by the Wii pointer, brought such joy to me that I yelled out when he made his on-screen debut during Nintendo’s press keynote detailing the game. The mere fact that a 3D Mario platformer (and not only that, perhaps my favorite game, tied only with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), is getting a true sequel (the “2″ really hammers that point home), is unbelievable. I can’t help but think this game was announced just for me. I have sworn not to view any further media or information about this game until after it releases.

Another Mario game will be getting a sequel for Wii, this one being New Super Mario Bros. I’ll be frank once again: I don’t really like NSMB for the DS. The music and level design was bland, and while I liked the fact they incorporated some aspects of Mario’s latest 3D games into the 2D design (wall-jumping and triple-jumping, in particular), I felt the game was at times trying too hard to emulate the original NES games (Mario 1 and 3). However, like Galaxy 2, NSMB Wii invokes aspects of Super Mario World into its design- namely Yoshi, although I suspect the World emulation will go a bit deeper than that. For these reasons alone, its at the top of my list for games coming out this year.

But that’s not even mentioning its four-player simultaneous co-op play. My older sister, her boyfriend, and occasionally my younger sister routinely sit down to play multiple sessions of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (and lately Mario Kart Wii), and I truly believe this will the the successor to the local multiplayer throne in my house.

Other titles at E3 that I’m very interested in are the frightening combat-less Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the atmospheric localization miracle-child Fragile, the long-awaited action-RPG Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, the recently-announced Wii MotionPlus-exclusive Red Steel 2, the 2D platforming angel A Boy and His Blob, and the previously Japan-bound Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. Of course, one of the unannounced titles assuredly coming over next year is Pokemon SoulSilver, the remake to my favorite Pokemon game and RPG, but that’s usually how localization announcements for that series works. You will definitely hear a lot more about these titles on this blog as their releases near.

I want to sit down and crank something showable for my game out soon, but as seen above I have my hands full right now. I will say, though, that I want to complete the game in time for the second round of the Android Developers Challenge in early August. My goal was always to finish the game by the end of the summer, and this gives me a huge incentive to accomplish that. In order to do this, though, I definitely need an Android device of my own, and I’ve been cell phone-less for about two years now anyways, so I figure it’s time to finally take the plunge. I’ve been strongly looking into the HTC Magic, as I’ve mentioned before, and it may launch before the end of this month in the US as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G. To be honest, it’s a horrible name, but I think the black version with black keys (pictured above) is incredibly sexy looking. I’m hoping to get an InvisibleShield for it, so hopefully fingerprints won’t be too much of an issue.

With so much going on and so much to be excited over, it’s hard for me to think of somber thoughts about this phase of my life ending. I just tell myself life goes on, and that I’ll have to forge a new phase afterwards.

Such is the ebb and flow.
-Andrew