"Sometimes the shortest posts are the best ^_^" ~kawaiifan, former Board 8 veteran

School or whatnot.
What can I say... school is going exactly how it's expected to go. I'll give the break down anyway, because I'm a cool kid, and as my ramblings prove, I have a lot more to say than I actually thought I did.

Chem is truly.. beautiful. It is the only word that can describe it. I got a 95 on the massive test, bringing my term average to a 91. Now if only I could secure 100's for those two labs. Aah, Baumritter, how much I love you and hate you; it's a relationship that I may just never figure out. You have no grasp of partial credit being more than a point, yet you often mark things incorrectly. Your lab grading policy is a joke. You can't teach. Your eye contact has made you a hallway laughingstock, and indeed it is amusing. And you don't care. Aah, Baumritter.

Jerry, as we have come to expect, is a bastard, and his class basically sucks. In classic English teacher style, we have only one grade so far for term 2, which was the 112/130 on the test. A quiz shall ensue tomorrow. I better own the Indian on it.

Grucela, oy. No new grades; a 93/78 split yields a current grade of an 85, which should be jacked up several notches by the close of the term. Overconfidence? Excessive pride? Who gives a damn. I'll do it. Just watch. That last essay was simply chock full of big words and flashy sentence structure. Mmm-mmm.

AE Bio, after clearing up the "dilemma" about the "missing lab", has returned to a stable 95 average. Again, it remains an empty victory, one that can only sustain a 4.25 weighted GPA, but a victory nonethless. Besides, how many people can say that they're owning two science classes at once? Don't answer that. AE Bio is a class filled with inane bull "learning experiences" that help a signficantly tiny amount, but it's an easy class, and it would be wise to pounce upon the opportunity to own it.

Trig of course remains the golden class, with a near-100 average. Plus, I schoolaged!!!! Indian and Patrick on the last quiz. 48/50, 47/50??!? OOOOH!!! OOHHH!!!! That class is still amazing. Noeth is just.. a beast. A beast he is. Though, I should probably do some homework for that class once in a while.

French? Well... heh.

As I have analyzed in my personal writing journal, I have come to realize why it is so despised to me. For indeed, instead of the apathy I feel toward Jerry, French is a class toward which I actually feel a massive contempt, not dissimilar to the one I felt in Lotz last year. Why so? I suppose that there are numerous reasons.

First of all, it's not a great class. Because let's face it: Our World Language department, in comparison to the absolutely top-notch Math, Science, and History departments, is a joke. World Language has never been a great class. But then, English ain't a great class either. So why French? Well, French separates the two best periods of the day - Period 5, Trig class, and Period 7, my sole consistent free. It can only be expected that feelings of impatience stir in that class. Not to mention that I hope every day that Arnoldy will be out, just so that I can have the elusive sixth free, with leet peeps and less hunger. For indeed, often I starve dans la class de francais.

On another note, French is in itself not a subject with mastery skills that appeal to most reasonably smart people. The memorization from Bio and Math surely should never appear in one of the "liberal arts", one of the beauties of the world. And yet it does. Painstaking, idiotic, essentially pointless details fill the French III H course. And this isn't just because I got that 73 >_>. It seriously shouldn't be this way.

Speaking of shouldn't be this way, French is the noisiest of my classes. The social situation there is simply out of control. In an honors class of 34, the teacher shouldn't have to babysit her students. A total lack of respect for the class from the students (and lack of friends, for me) cause complete chaos, a disrupted learning experience, and basically, an empty class. Worse, in fact, because of the migrane it causes me. So there you have it. A full-fledged rant on French class.

Moving off this topic, how bout them crosswords? Jesus, Anandh and I are becoming beasts at this. Every day, it's like arrive in Chem, imitate Patrick, sit down, have class, do the crossword second period, and do the crossword during Jerry. Because why not? It's far more productive than anything we ever "learn" or do in that class. I hate those stupd obscure reference clues...

Games
I don't live in the past. I have been playing Final Fantasy X. And I must say, graphically it's one of the most beautiful games I've played. Similarly, it's presentation is clear and relatively concise; its soundtrack magnificent in class Uematsu style. The battles are pretty and charismatic. so it behooves me to ask, "What's wrong?" Out of the experience I've had with Square, which isn't much, I've found that their games are beautifully crafted. See Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, two of my favorite games. See Kingdom Hearts, the apex of Action/Classic RPGs. Final Fantasy X has much of what it took to put FF6 and Trigger up there. It has as least the vibrance of Kingdom Hearts that makes me love it. Yet, its linearity.

FFX takes linearity to the next level. Or not. Actually, it does just the opposite. It regresses in linearity. Whereas many others were linear in the sense of "progression of events", FFX is truly "linear: a line." For what do you do? As in many open-ended exploration games, a map is presented you, a goal apparent. So you say to yourself, okay, sounds like Metroid Prime. As you continue forward along this path, you realize that truly it's a work of art. You may even enjoy some of the well-crafted cutscenes (though I must say, they tend to be lengthy, too common, and downright cheesy sometimes).

But back to linear: Think side scroller. Yeah. You're moving in a line right? To finish your level, to advance to the next, to fight the boss? That's pretty damn linear. Compare that to your 3D game; there's simply no comparison. Mario 64 - you're pretty much presented a path, but only you can walk it, and you choose how to do so. Even if you had to do levels successively, you could move freely in your world, with certain restrictions of course.

But how far do these restrictions go? In FFX, the restriction is so great, the games so straightforward, that all that you ever do is walk in a line. Oh yeah, the turf may wind, there may be corners - but straighten out the map, and you will see, that it is only one line. There may be items on either side of the line, people placed strategically along the line - but the path you take, is a single line. Consider that. Think back, to your most primitive platformer, Super Mario Bros. The founding father of modern gaming. You moved in a line, right? You always moved to the right... but how to go? Jump! Smack! Dodge, Run, Jump! Many platforms awaited your footsteps, different planes could be explored, tall and short paths alike. Pitfalls littered your way, ready to consume your soul and body. Now in FFX, all of this freedom is removed from you. You walk forward. You battle after a randomly programmed number of steps. Now you are confronted with an epic decision: Walk forward, walk backward, or stay still. That is it.

To give you an idea of "going backward", I'll have to use yet another comparison, but this time to its own grandpappy, FFVI. As in FFX, a large portion of FFVI follows a defined story. The game tells you where to go. It yells in your face "Oy! Go here!" And when you got there, a scene would happen, and essentially the game would say "Oy! Go there!" So you'd go. What's the difference? In FFX, the game doesn't say "Go here!" It actually takes you by the hand, sets you in front of the path you must take, runs forward, puts up boundaries so that you can't deviate from the path, and prods you along gently from behind.

It's ridiculous.

But other than that, despite this massive rant about its disgusting linearity, I actually really like FFX. Just that one lil issue. ACK. Which makes me think: What is happening to this great world?

Well *deep calming breath* I've stopped playing Tetris compulsively due to low batteries. A pathetic end to my mastery, I'd say, and a bit ironic. I've also been playing Paper Mario 2 in small doses. I have my gripes there as well, but I'm sure that they can wait.

Random Bits n Pieces
Burn. You expect me to write more after ranting my mind out about the faults of French class and the glaring flaw of Squaresoft in their representative of the generation? For shame.

Vacation rapidly approaches. As someone has been quite kindly reminding me, that leaves three school weeks till the semi. Well. I'll be sure to keep that in mind, and to start "bucklin down".

On the other hand, what do you think of the site now? it's received quite a touch up. Interest all but died for the last half a year, but I'm back at it. With some vigorous updating including a new front page, new pics, a new news page, a new logo even, and a new forum, I'm ready for a revolution. The only question is: are you?