Blather, rinse, repeat

So let's see. I'm a bad girl because I skipped out of classes today. I was seriously tired, also one of my classes this week was canceled and I thought, gee, if I skip out today then I could end up sleeping in for the whole week! And isn't that nice? I missed A&P2 (I could skip the final and still pass, at this point,) and Eastern Nutrition. That's an easy one to catch up on.

I did some indoor gardening (my exotics,) went shopping, tried a new recipe (quinoa rice, agave syrup and raw cacao powder, YUMMY,) and wrote and wrote and wrote. In fact I will continue that just as soon as I catch up here.

On Sunday, my wonderful friend Kim came over. We watched Inkheart and I loved it from the perspective of both a writer and a Paul Bettany fangirl. As a hack writer, I love the idea of characters coming to life. God, I'd give a lot to meet my characters, just like the writer in that movie. Oh, has anyone seen it? I don't want to give it away if you haven't. I mean, it was cheesy in some spots and there were places where we were going, "But why didn't they just..." But it was still fun.

But aside from my own characters, I think I would pick Roland Deschain from the Gunslinger series. I'm not going to try to be all highbrow and be like, "Oh, yes I would totally choose to meet Hamlet or Mr. Rochester by golly," although that would be interesting and I do love those stories. Seriously, in wish-fulfillment fantasy it's all about self indulgence, right?

In which case, screw literature. I'd choose Sirius Black or Remus Lupin, or hell, even some of my favorite manga characters. Count D, Marron Glace, someone pretty and magical.

Could I pick a video game character who appeared in a manga? Like Cloud Strife? I think I could. In the movie, the power was in the written word. (As it is in real life, too.)

(Incidentally, I wrote that part of the entry a few days ago after I had this dream of total madwackery which involved said fictional bishonen hero. My life is indeed strange and I am way too much of a geek for it to be healthy at this point; however in my defense, I do rarely dream about video games.)

Anyway. After the movie we got to talking, as we always do, about politics, life, reality, the mystery of consciousness and all that other stuff. We always go there. There are so few people with whom I can really go there and she is number one on my list. After, or during that conversation, we started watching old videos on Youtube. She was telling me about her experiences in Berlin, before and during their revolution (for that's exactly what it was.) She showed me some videos and songs from that era. Eventually we just ended up watching all kinds of videos from the 80's and laughing along with them. “You Spin Me Round,” “Goody Two Shoes,” all that good kind of stuff. I found an obscure Faith No More song that I used to love in college, Das Schutzenfest, (which is obviously in German,) and played it for her, asking her to translate. Some of it was untranslatable, (I explained that with FNM, even some of their English songs were untranslatable!) but what she did get made her laugh so hard that she could barely tell me what he was saying.

Fun times. ^_^

Well, it was fun times until I found out that Haku had another seizure while he was staying with my parents. That was on the 12th.

I have this bluejay who I just call “Heavenly” for right now because I don't know if he's going to live or not. He is so weird. He falls over onto his back and then he can't get back up. He tries really hard, but in doing so he hooks his foot into his wing. When I got him I wondered why he had all these weird scratches all over them; then I realized that he made them himself. Sunday, while trying to turn himself over (while Kim and I were out getting pizza and ice cream,) he shredded the skin clean off his wing, from elbow to wrist, right down to the bone. I bandaged it, and he started holding it funny. Today when I took the bandage off, his wing feathers are curled. And he's still all wobbly. It's like something in his brain doesn't connect to his body. So strange.

What am I going to do with him when I go to China, and Laura is away too?

Heigh ho.

There's this dude in my school and I drove him to the train station after class one rainy day. Now it's a habit and I drive him every Thursday. Last Thursday he said he had a present for me in return for driving him. He opened up this big case and showed me all of these DVDs of movies that are still in theaters. He gave me: Angels and Demons, (EWAN!) Transformers 2 (not interested,) and Drag Me To Hell (standard gory horror fare, OMG is that the Mac Guy, LOL yeah it is.)

I'm watching a spider build a web from my computer to my lantern. Cute!

( This bit of fangirling has been years overdue. )

This is seriously what happens when I get overtired and bored on a rainy night.

I did not win the lottery. I'm still poor but still happy. ^_^ I also found out that one of my professors did distance learning and got a doctorate. OMFG, that's what I want to do. It was the exact same school I was thinking about, too. But I have to find out more about it. I'm not switching out of this school yet, because I want to get certified in massage and hang on there until I get my M.S., then after that I might do the naturopath doctor thing and possibly switch out to do nutrition somewhere else. Yare yare. I dunno.

Today it quit raining for a little while and I finally got to plant my new cherry tree, Leon. The Boychild was about and he watched me plant it as he sat on a bench going, "Water, WHY? Tree, WHY? Dirt, WHY?" Because everything is "WHY?!" now. Then I tell him, "It needs water to drink; trees get thirsty too." WHY?! "Because they are alive." WHY?! It's so freaking cute the way he says it; it cracks me up. His other thing is, "It DOOOOIN'?" as in, "What is it doing?" Whatever "it" is, I tell him what it DOOOIN and then it's "WHY?!" Eventually I run out of answers though. It makes me laugh just thinking about it!

Anyway, my new tree, ( clickety! )

And, this has nothing to do with trees but it was so cute. Haku has been really clingly lately, and if he's not velcroing himself to me, he's constantly all over Sano.

( CUTE. )

Or as Boychild says, "Tyute!"

Haku's sort of acting as if he would be having a cluster of seizures if he wasn't on medication. All the attention-seeking and the clinginess, plus he keeps doing that one thing he does right before a huge seizure, which is fly-snapping at his back end (this one particular spot,) but then he stops doing it and goes back to whatever else he was doing. It's so weird. I'm grateful for the medicine he's on.

Tonight was Kung Fu, and I pulled up to see Saucy Tart's younger brother, let's call him Te Ji Nan from now on (it means "the young stuntman," because he videos himself jumping off his parents' deck and such,) outside doing staff form under the apple tree. I have to tell you, this kid has awesome kicks. His roundhouse could reach an adult's head, his switches are fast, and his butterfly kick is juts freaking enviable. He just won all kinds of awards at the latest tournament.

Anyway we are doing this bear-hug drill WHICH SERIOUSLY REMINDS ME OF THIS ENGRISH ADD and I could hardly stop giggling for thinking of it. It was cool though because it ends in a really neat throw.

Well, I have to get up at ass o'clock again tomorrow but I don't have to stay as late; class ends at 2:30. Tomorrow I have myology and Swedish Tech. My first real massage course! I'm going to love that class because we all practice on each other. ^_^

After school my wonderful friend Kim is coming over, and we are going to smuggle ice cream into the theater as we go see Huge JackedMan in Wolverine. :D SQUEE.

Completely off topic: The seiyuu for Cloud Strife did an interview and, OMG, I love him. ♥

More, quickly, locked!

Okay, so lookit: if you're one of these "zzzOMGS MCR doing the theme song from Final Fantaseee!!111" then please don't bother. I try not to be all "I was here first" or whatever, and if you're discovering FFVII for the first time, hey, that's great! But, discover Final Fantasy VII. Not just Advent Children because some LA raaaawkstah did a song that bumped the original ending song. >_<

I realize that the original game is very hard to come by these days, and it doesn't play on PS3 (WTF?) but there has got to be a way to download it and still play it on your PC or something, right? Right? Don't be a Compilation whore. If you're going to be a fan of the story, play the damn original.

If you're a FFVII geek and you want to show Advent Children to your friends, but you have freaking no clue how to sum up the entire plot and its subplots without skipping this and going back to that and then changing so and so, then maybe something like this can help you keep track. I know this because I have attempted to show AC to friends and myself gotten completely lost trying to explain the plot. Or maybe you want to write a fic and you want a reminder or two of what happened when.

But really I just wrote it because I wanted to. :)



Believe it or not, I also made a two part, twenty-minutes-all-told video recap of the game.

(  Under the cut )

Keep in mind always that all of this is up for interpretation, and yours might be different from mine! Or if I made a total mistake, feel free to let me know and I will correct it. ^_^ I am open to all sorts of conversations about how other people saw these events.

When Square-Soft released FFVII back in late 1997, they probably didn't have any idea exactly what they were getting into. They wanted the newest installment of Final Fantasy to be popular and successful, of course, but I doubt they set out to make a masterpiece. Which, I think, is exactly why it is a masterpiece; a spiritual cyberpunk tragedy told in the medium of an RPG.

The story takes place on a planet known as, well, "The Planet." Its themes are environmental; science vs. nature; the tenuous and mutable nature of reality and how belief affects it; deceit and self-deceit; preservation and sacrifice; and the hazy areas between "good guys" and "bad guys."

Truth is an illusion.

Battles are fought not only with weapons and skill, but with Materia, a condensed form of Mako with specific powers. Mako comes from the Lifestream: a green, glowing, physical construct which surrounds and permeates the Planet; a kind of Planetery Qi. There are hypotheses that Mako and Lifestream are made up of human consciousness that has left the Planet, or a "world soul," or things like that.

Some Materia has the ability to summon creatures of great destruction in order to fight enemies.

The Planet is in jeopardy. The people are ruled by the greedy ShinRa corporation. ShinRa uses Mako reactors to suck up the Mako from the Planet to fuel the world; and the Planet is beginning to run dry. President ShinRa is at the head of the mega-corporation, and seems to be the the de facto president of the entire world.

( And this is how it went. )

BUT!! Advent Children is a whole different creature. It is gorgeously rendered with an awesome soundtrack, it's total eye-candy and it's a really fun ride if you let it be one. I feel free to enjoy it without reservation, because the original game is still there to play, unchanged. And because Squenix dedicated it to the fanpoodles. ;D

Should Square Enix ever decide to remake FFVII, I'm sure they will butcher it by leaving out all the best parts: Wall Market, the Wutai arc, all the random and quirky dumb little things you could do that made the game what it was. But I would still totally buy that bitch and I would play the crap out of it. Nothing can take away the original. :)

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed this fangirl's perspective, if indeed you managed to sit through it.

I am totally open to all discussions of interpretation! ^_^

A few more things I want to remember before going into the rest of my usual babble. One was the last day we all had with Gran. She wasn't awake, but could probably still hear us, so Mom, Dad, Chrissie and I each took some time alone with her to tell her whatever it is we had to say. I spent a lot of time telling her how I wanted to be like her, how I had always sort of idolized a lot of things about her, like her toughness, her fighting spirit, her sense of humor, her love for science and how she could beat all the boys at sports. It took me a long, stumbling time to say all those things. Me, the "writer." Then my cousin Chrissie came in and just said, "My beautiful Grandma," and I realized how simple it was. (She also did tell her, she later told me, how glad she was that Gran raised her and made her the woman she is today.)

Here's something funny that I missed, but Mom told me about. When Grandma was in the hospital and not quite lucid, she had a hard time telling if she was awake or dreaming, and she was extremely uninhibited. So, one of the nurses came in and was talking to her about where they grew up. She said to Grandma, "Hey Woodside, how are you today?" and Gran answered her, and they talked for a little while about Woodside and Queens etc. Then, still smiling, Gran told the nurse:

"All rightie! Now, why don't you just shut the hell up and get the hell out. Because you're BONKERS."

The nurse laughed so hard she almost fell over. My uncle (Gran's son) and my aunt (his wife) were there at the time, and they were practically rolling.

Also, Grandma loved to sing, and she sang until the day she stopped talking. She wasn't any kind of fantastic singer, but this never stopped her from singing loud and proud. (I'll never forget this one time in Florida when she was in the room next to my cousin Celie and I, and we heard her singing "Sentimental Journey." We peeked over the balcony and looked in on her, and we saw her waltzing around the room by herself, with a walkman on. It was great.) Anyway, so even up until a few days before she passed, she was still singing. "Let's all sing like the birdies sing! Tweet, tweet tweet, twat twat!"

I would always say, "My Grandma, ladies and gentlemen!"

I can't imagine that I will ever stop missing her.

So that's just a few other things I wanted to remember.

On the other side of the world of my brain, today was my last actual day of classes. The rest are all finals and they are all on Monday and next Saturday. Monday I have two, and the big one is the herbs final. Then I have four days off, and then Saturday is Anatomy and Physiology, which is going to be INSANE, and then intro to OM.

Today, A&P ended mad early and I had about three and a half hours between classes. I told myself I was going to finish writing up my labs and then study a bit. Instead, I ate lunch, went for a free massage, and played Crisis Core for two hours straight in the upstairs waiting room, while it rained like a bitch outside. I mean I have all next week to study, right? And I will, I seriously will. And finish writing the labs, too.

Anyway, so yes, today is the day I started playing Crisis Core making this a HISTORICAL FANGIRL DAY.

But Crisis Core is lots of fun, and I have to admit that the graphics are like soul-crushingly beautiful. I wish I could play it on my TV. I bought a stupidass too-short cord to hook it up to my TV, and all the eight thousand goddamn prongs are color-coded to holes in my TV, so I spent an hour trying to get under my wall-mounted TV to match the prongs to the goddamn holes, and even then it didn't work.

That's because it's Sony's new stupid piece of crap that doesn't effing work:



I must have watched that about ten times already, and it doesn't stop being funny.

Welp, tomorrow is easter schmeaster and even though that means absolutely dick in this family, (and most of my friends: my good friend Snarklit said to me today, "Happy Zombie Jesus Day!") it's still a day to eat baked stuffed shells, which is kinda awesome. First I have to go out (prolly with Mom) to get a nice thank you gift for the emergency hospital that took care of Haku, and then also one for my wonderful friend who works there who went completely out of her way to care for him. Those things are pretty late, but obviously there was other stuff going on.

And then I have to study like a BITCH for Monday's final.

So that's where I am today.

Yesterday I had my chem final and I think I probably did pretty well on it. At the end of the class, Dr. H shook my hand and thanked me. I was like, "You're kidding? Thank you. I finally learned some chemistry." So, I felt pretty good about that. Today was Channels and Points, and I will be totally surprised if I pass this one. It's funny; we had our last test first, then the practical part of the final then the written. On the last test, I got a 90-something, at least a 95 I think. (She marked them but didn't write the graded. O_O ) But even on the practical this time I was flummoxed. I couldn't think and I got two points wrong. One slightly off, one just plain wrong. It was so weird. Then on the written one I was doing that thing where I'm going, "Okay, I marked down B like three times in a row; the next one has to be A, C or D" followed by process of elimination. It was insane. I hate tests like that. So much worse when they are finals.

So, those two classes are done, and next week I have a whole four days in a row to study if I want to. Or, I could study and play Crisis Core, which I bought today. :) You can hook the PSP up to your TV, so I can play it like a regular video game and that makes me happy. I'm going to start it tomorrow. It will be a historical fangirl day.

Oh, and it snowed today.

Yesterday Gran did so well. So well. She got up and walked to the bathroom, and sat in her chair and was seriously her normal self for a few hours in the afternoon. Earlier in the day she told me, "All yours. All yours," as she gestured to her china closet with all her tchotchkes in it. I was like, "Gran, I don't want your stuff, silly." When she was sitting up watching TV in her chair she said:

"It's great when the doctors tell you you'll never get out of your bed again, and then you do."

And I am so glad she did, because today she's worse than yesterday. She keeps talking to Grampa and saying he wants something, or as if they are planning something together. I am never quite sure what I believe when it comes to things like that--I surely don't believe in a typical heaven where all your loved ones are waiting for you and you get to frolic with them and this silly, petty God who lets you in if you do what he says--but I'm also not convinced that you just become dust, either. I guess I really don't believe that all of these people she's talking to (and there are many, and they're all long dead,) are really hanging around talking to her. I know the brain is capable of amazing things in times of stress. I do think it odd that some part of her remembers who is living and who is dead, though, especially when she doesn't know what year it is. I don't know what that means.

Whatever it is, it's not for living minds to grasp. And I'm sure there's a science to it, but I don't think that takes away from it or makes it smaller or less interesting. I think it makes it better. I guess my only real hope is that some kind of consciousness continues.

But, I've been down this road so many times. I suppose I think about it a lot.

Today Gran said, "I wonder what it's like?" And, "Let's go somewhere beautiful."

Myself, I just hope I "go" somewhere interesting, or that some part of me on some other reality is self-aware. (So I guess what I mean is "continue to be somewhere interesting" or maybe "somewhen interesting.) But if Gran wants beautiful then that's what I wish her to have. Although that's out of my hands, obviously.

And it snowed today, too.

/babble

ETA: Mom told me that Gran said, "You know, I know all about love."

It's funny, she and Grampa fought so much, but they never separated, and a lot of it was that "annoyed old people" fighting.

She also told my Mom, "Dudley, he was your boy," but Mom doesn't know who Dudley is. That's interesting.

In the last couple of days:

I got a PSP and started playing Final Fantasy Tactics. Not only is it mad hard to figure out (for me) and the fighting system is a little WTF, but it doesn't feel like Final Fantasy. What, does Squeenix just put games out and call them "Final Fantasy" now because they know the title sells? No matter. I got the PSP so that I could play Crisis Core on the plane to China. 'Cause I'm pretty sure a flight like that can only be described as "longass."

I got 100 on my herbs mid term.

I also started a project so goddamn geeky that even for me you'd be saying, "Holy damn. That's really geeky."

Haku has been on the mend (*knock on wood*) but then today he seems to have run eyeball-first into a branch. I heard him yipe when he was running around like a damn fool, and he came bounding back to me with his eye all closed and watery. It's still all closed and watery. Well, his follow-up appointment is tomorrow so I will have them take a look at it.

My Gran is really sick. She's got a pretty bad virus, but you know, that's not the worst of it. In the last month or so, her mental faculties have just gone into the basement. I don't want to go into too much detail, but it hasn't been pleasant. I know it's got to be worse for her. I think it can only be so frightening to be lost all the time. The other day she thought Grampa was still alive and she was calling him when she couldn't get up. (My Mom told me all of this.) When told that he had been gone for almost ten years now, well I can only imagine that it's like mourning all over again.

How difficult it is when because of all the pills she's on, her body has literally outlasted her mind. I don't know how else to put it. I've considered being worried for her, but the truth is that the worst is here, now. You don't get better from dementia. So instead I just feel so bad for her, because she can only be so confused, which has to be terrifying.

Well, in the end, all anyone can do is their best. I feel for my Mom, because she is getting the brunt of this. She's the one who cares for my Gran. Physically, I mean. She handles all the pills, insulin, doctors and daily care. I know it's exhausting. There's just really no good side to it.

Well, I have been doing lots of reading (and some studying!) and this geeky project of mine which has been tons of frustrating fun. Kung Fu has been superb, with some really tiring drills in basics, and then forms in black belt class. Sometimes I plateau with forms and then sometimes I get over it and just try to keep getting better. I hope that I do.

Next Wednesday is the meeting for the China Trip! I have so many questions I need to ask, not the least of which is what gadgets I can bring and what I will be able to use, and how. Perhaps that seems petty when going to the Shaolin Temple and you're thinking, "Like you're going to have time to listen to your iPod at all! Please!" Well, I probably won't have time in China, but I will have tons of time on the plane, and I also still like to keep a journal like I did in Hawai'i, all those many years ago.

Anyway I'm psyched. I will be nervous when it's time to go, but right now I'm just super excited.

Oh! And also, I got my parents the Wii Fit for their anniversary. They love it! I'm so glad. I went to their place to set it up for them and I took a shot at it, too. It's adorable and lots of fun. Very spooky, too! I got on the board and it was like, "Oh, you have a problem with your left leg!" OMG IT HAS BEEN WATCHING ME SINCE CHILDHOOD.

Well, that's my update. Quite a mixed freaking bag.

Watch FF13 Versus DKΣ3713 in Gaming  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

So!

What is more amazing: the achingly gorgeous graphics of the upcoming Final Fantasy game, or the fact that no matter how achingly gorgeous the graphics are, Squenix will never even come close to FFVIIin all its boxy pixelated glory?

Also, shouldn't they just rename "Final Fantasy" as "Gackt and Rinoa" already?

No, but seriously. Seriously.

Hahaha!

I got a 95 on my A/P quiz today. I hope I can keep rocking this class when the mid term and final come around. O_O

:)