Crunch Time

Four large school projects.

Three major personal projects.

Two volunteer projects for friends.

A job search.

A grad school search.

Two Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.

Moving across three states—again.

The last month of college.

Bring it.

Hereafter

He is Risen, praise God!

Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, whatever day you want to call it, Christ has Risen and lives today, and He's way better at living than I am, so I think I'm gonna try to follow His example.

Later today I'll be back with my other family, and then tomorrow I'm driving the rest of the way back to college, where I'll spend a month laboring the final stretch until someone hands me a piece of paper and it's time to drive all the way home again.

What really strikes me is that I'll be leaving behind a load of good friends when I leave school again. Yeah, I've got Facebook and Twitter and Skype and Steam to keep in touch, but it's not the same as seeing them in person. I've got so many good memories built up from my time there, and it will certainly be a sad thing to go away knowing there are some of them I'll never see again, barring class reunions. I ought to think of some way to let them all know how grateful I am for the time we had.

I'm a writer, maybe I can think of something.

First World Problems

My friend and former roommate Kyle posted this as his status at some point today, and I think it's a pretty good summation of what's going on in Christendom at the moment:

"This is the in-between day. The day when the reality of Christ's death sank in. The day when they were forced to recognize that it really happened. He was really dead. The day in which nothing happened. On Good Friday God asks us, "do you trust Me?" On Saturday He ask, "No, really, I mean it. Do you trust me?""

I'm facing an interim year. Once I graduate, I'll be moving back home with my parents (with my wife Rachael in tow) for the time being. My current plan involves applying to various MFA creative writing programs (specifically the ones with fellowships attached) and waiting a year to find out if I get in, because I was late for the party for the coming academic year.

What this means for me is that I have time to make bank, if I can find a way to make bank. As was so recently hammered home for me, this means making connections. And that means interacting with people. My Kryptonite. Whelp, that's just the way it goes. Time to deal, right?

Merf.

So anyway, that's the sort of thing on my mind today. There's fun stuff happening with Guild Wars 2, like that it's now officially rated Teen (I think). I spent some time watching a Let's Play of Kid Icarus: Uprising, which is another one of those pretty games I'll probably never get to play because I can't afford a new game system and won't be able to until I make bank, like I was talking about earlier.

I could spend some time creating a backlog of games I want to play.

I could spend some time creating a reading list of books I want to read.

I could spend some time creating a watchlist of films I want to see.

Each of these things would cost me money, unless

1. I can borrow games (and their respective systems).

2. I have reliable access to a library with a good collection of books.

3. I manage to bum my way through the theaters.

None of this I can realistically expect to happen. I can look forward to spending my money on gas, food, and bills for the foreseeable future, which renders one array of my writing-resource sucking tendrils totally paralytic. I'm aware that one must intake if one is to put out art properly. Another concern.

I'm noticing that I don't tend to write these blog posts until the end of the day, and that they're egregiously organized. Maybe I'll work on that. Or not. We'll see. For now, I'm going to work on not having to punch my own face.

A Good Day

We are dust. You may have heard the statistic that an adult human's body broken down into component compounds would sell for $20 on the market. Some scientists like to say that we're stardust. Regardless, we're a bit more than just the carbon and water and oxygen and aught else that makes up our bodies. We are, as Shakespeare once wrote, "the beauty of the world" and "the paragon of animals." But the conclusion of that praise, calling us a "quintessence of dust," is not a flattering proclamation.

It is good to remember that we were fashioned from the stuff of the earth. It reminds us of our true worldly ties, and it puts a check on our belief in "our better angels," as another wordsmith of the English language put it.

Today is Good Friday. For Christians like me, that means it's a pretty somber day. It's the day we remember Jesus's death. I've been relatively happy today. Earlier, I had some moments of distress, as I thought about my need for a job once I graduate, and worried about my future, but during the Good Friday service, as communion came around, I became eager.

I'm usually anxious or a bit depressed when it comes time for communion. It's rare for me to be eager to celebrate what Christ has done for me pursue His purpose in my life. When I put it that way it sounds odd, but there it is. For just this moment, I'm excited to be a Christian and to be going out into the wide world at this time in history. I want to shine for Him. This is a big deal for me, because I've always been reluctant about the whole ministry thing.

The emotion is temporary, I'm sure, but I mean to retain this attitude.

Sorry for all the seriousness. Well, that's a lie. I'm not sorry. Deal with it. :P

The Sader of the Lambs

Every year around Easter time my family does a Sader meal—it's like Passover with added communion and celebration of Jesus's fulfillment of, well, pretty much everything important ever. Part and parcel with this is the cooking of a lamb in delicious fashions, including citrus and other various things I don't know about because I don't know the first thing about cooking.

This is how I've known Easter since I was in middle school. As opposed to the stereotype I really don't understand. I know where the bunny and the eggs came from—as well as the time of the year it falls under. I guess this makes me weird, but to me Easter's a bit more important than candy, egg hunts, and the like.

My little sister thinks I should blog about how I punched myself in the face today. I've noticed it gets a lot more attention than the alternative. Maybe I should just make this a face-punch blog. But I won't. It is just a bit painful and shame-inducing.

Unfortunately, I don't have much else to ramble about. Talk to you tomorrow, folks.

Penance to the Face

As you might have noticed, I failed to produce a blogpost for yesterday. As recompense for this disgrace, I present to you a video for your derision.

Defensive Gaming

Today, I played Brawl with my friend and my sisters. I used to be way better at the game than any of them, because I had more access to the game. Now I'm about even with Ethan, and my sisters get better every time I play against them.

My best character is Link. In my family we always do five-man stock matches, and the reason I do so well is I'm able to keep from being K.O.'d until it's just me and one other person, and I can use the many tools at Link's disposal and my experience with the game to win a one-on-one.

I'm a very cautious person, so my gaming strategies reflect this. I'm quite poor at games that require me to aggress for success—for example Starcraft 2. I also like to be able to handle myself in many situations. Thus Link, who fights with a sword but also sports several long-range options to rely on when the fire gets too hot.

From my extensive reading into Guild Wars 2, it's a very aggression-oriented game. Because every character has primary responsibility for his/her own well-being, the game mechanics are designed so that no one can rely on turtling to stay afloat. Even the guardian, a profession based on the idea of protecting one's self and others, can't just bring all the best defensive skills and armor sets and then stand there exchanging blows with a cave troll. You do have some particular tools, like the dodge mechanic and movement-while-casting, but that must also be coupled with making sure you're doing damage.

I am a mite-bit concerned that I might not be as good at Guild Wars 2 as I'd like to be, considering I've never been so hyped up about a game in my life. Maybe I'll need to relearn some things, but I can't know how things will go for sure until I put fingers to keyboard and try the game myself.

Meander For All You're Worth

There's a lot of things I could talk about today. The mediocrity of Torchlight, the joys of hanging out with friends. Dagorhir. How my old youth pastor—the pastor who performed my wedding ceremony—spent the end of 2011 and part of 2012 trying to get his back sorted out.

I'm home now, and spending time with family, which makes it awkward for me to avoid the face-punch punishment I established for myself a few days ago.

I recently decided I want to apply for grad schools, but I'm too late to make it in for this fall. So I'll be waiting a year regardless. There's much of my future that I'm unsure of, and it's kinda distressing. There's also taxes to sort out, and many other things I'm not gonna bother mentioning in this blog.

I'd rather talk about fun things than all my uncertainties.

So yeah, Dagorhir is super fun. But I never really stopped creating and acting out stories outside (read: LARP), so I guess that influences my preferences. I don't like sports much, but inasmuch as Dag is a sport, it's my favorite one. I wish I had the money to make more swords, and go to events. Maybe I'll be able to after graduating college.

Do you know what else might be fun? Teaching a freshman writing class. I like the idea of being a really tough teacher, especially for the ingrates who want to float by on rivers of beer.

I'm pretty scattered and, as I said earlier, I'm at home spending time with loved ones, so I think that's about all I have to say for the day. I won't mention that I also wasted my free/alone time earlier today.

How Farmville is a good idea.

Have you played a Free-to-Play game lately? Maybe some Spiral Knights or a Facebook app by Zynga? Or any Facebook game, really. You may have noticed the energy meter, which slowly drains as you play the game.

Now, I realize what this mechanic exists for. The hope is that you'll pay to play the game more than this meter allows. But there's a side effect that comes with it. You see, I like to balance my gaming with time spent doing more productive things. Like blogging. When I run out of energy in Spiral Knights, it helps me to realize I have better things to be doing than playing a game at that moment, and I can drag myself away. As opposed to, for example, Skyrim, which has claimed near a hundred hours of life despite the fact I don't even own the game.

This perspective may be the equivalent of looking at the faintest rosy glint from a pile of polished dung, but I'm not nearly as opinionated about this sort of thing as some people.

OMGW2!!!!!!!!1111!!!1

I figure after a year of silence on this tiny little blog I would repurpose it for something a little more, well, purposeful. Starting with the month of April, my plan is to blog about whatever's on my mind that day, every day, for a month.

I'm not going to lie, there's probably going to be quite a large portion of my blogging space here taken up by discussions of Guild Wars 2. And by discussions I mean frothing fanboi love-rants. To go along with this, I may be posting some fan-fiction set in that game's world.

Essentially, this blog is going to be comprised of whatever floats my boat. That being said, this is both an experiment and a serious project—I intend to become accustomed to blogging, and if I go a day without posting anything I will punch myself in the face. Heck, I'll even do it on camera and post it to the blog. Scout's honor.*

I think that's just about all I have to say for today. I can afford to be lazy until tomorrow. Then it starts in earnest.

*I’m not a scout, though I do play one in Team Fortress 2.