I have only five deadlines remaining now for university, then hopefully, if I should pass them I'll be graduating. Overall, I have enjoyed my time at Bath Spa, and would like to make a post in the future about my views on the university. Because I have still not finished my work however, I feel I will concentrate on this first.
But what is an appropriate thought exercise is deciding what steps to take towards the future. I have decided I would like to remain in Bath for a while, however, along with council tax and bills, I will need over £500 a month. This seems almost impossible.
The benefits that I will receive in Bath are phenomenal and worth fighting for that impossible however. My GP is a lot more efficient and sympathetic in Bath than in my hometown, I feel there is even hope that they may be able to help improve my health. I have suffered from numerous health issues and despite going to the hospital regularly as a child to see a 'specialist', both my mother who took me and I knew that it was a complete waste of time.
I also have very close friends in Bath which I would like to spend at least another year in the company of.
Bath is also a very beautiful city that is only two hours from London, close to Bristol, with a mix of brilliant architecture and countryside.
In the end, I will make sure I will always have enough money to catch a train home. Before then, looks like I'll be sofa hopping for a while.
Colds. What are they good for? Feeling completely unmotivated to do anything but procrastination? Having a headache which makes words wiggle up and down and not make sense?
So here we go. Of course, the first thing to do is to grab that potion from the PC...
Better have a chat with our in-game mum or 'mom'.
I've played from Yellow - White 2, and never had mum said anything... Mum like. Not I miss you? I love you dear? Where do you think you're going? I will never let my 12 year old daughter go to Mt Moon on her own????
Well, see you later, obsolete character.
So I'm at the lab after Prof. Oak has to rescue me from the perils of level 3 rattatas and pidgeys. Here's a confession. As a kid, Pokemon Yellow was my first hand held game I ever played. And it took me AGES working out how to move on from this bit. I didn't realise the mechanics of pressing the a button pretty much every second. It's kind of disappointing that FireRed purposefully makes things really simple for players. Perhaps that makes me sound like a stereotypical old lady waving a cane and proclaiming "back in my day things weren't as easy", or maybe my nostagia is over compensating. But I truly think the not obvious-ness of the pokemon series is kind of a theme. Lemme just point you to EV-training.
Anyway. Moving on, I choose Charmander.
Named him Percy.
I go out to Route 1 and crash into a Rattata which means I can no longer catch any pokemon along this route. Ah well.
It's around here I decide to change the options to text speed 'fast' and change the frame.
Did anyone else change the 'frame' option when they played these games?
I give a parcel to Oak and take a solemn glance at Prof. Oak's last POKéMON. (EVER.)
And time to truly begin my adventure. At this time, Percy is level 7. Woop!
Time to catch pokemon. See here, my helpful addition of the cross regarding where I cannot catch pokemon. I decide to go left of Virdian City and try my luck in finding a Mankey.
Now a Mankey is a really helpful addition to the game, with it's fighting moves and what not, so it's always a good idea to try and catch one. Of course, in Nuzlocke rules, I can only catch the first pokemon I see.
Of course. This happens at the only area nearby where I can catch a guaranteed useful pokemon. Thank you, Rattata.
May as well dream.
As I go on, an old man shows me how he catches a weedle - by simply throwing a pokeball while it has full hp. Very educational.
I wonder if Game Freak was intentionally sarcastic there...
So onwards I move to Route 2, hoping to catch a new pokemon. I come across another Rattata, and under a short while of thinking, I decided catching duplicates would be okay. Besides, it'd be kind of cute if I owned two Rattata brothers. I'm not sure what I'll name him but--
Ah.
Now I truly understand the look of fear on that Rattata's face.
"We abandoned you on route 22 for a reason!!!!"
So here's the new map so far. We didn't really get far, but I'll take a break for now.
It also makes my childhood self squirm in happiness.
I went to An Cafe's earlier concert two years ago which was amazing. Simply the best live concert I've ever been too. The An Cafe members were amazing, the music was amazing, I got to be near Kanon which was amazing. The crowd was amazing and so nice! It was so cool.
I've never been to a Miyavi live before, but I've wanted to go for such a long time. I'm a bit unsure of what he'll be performing this year, kinda nervous actually, since I'm bringing a friend along, but hopefully that'll be great.
VAMPS is a band whose style entertains me. I've no idea what a concert would be like with them.
Girugamesh is a top band, of which, I own quite a few albums with compared to other Jrock bands. I am really looking forward to seeing them, and I know they'll be awesome!
So I had a little dip earlier, but I'm feeling much better now. I messed up a bit with uni, but it's okay, because I can try harder now in the months I have left.
Today I am working on my Japanese essay, my dissertation, my novel and my rpg game of which, shall have a blog post soon :)
I miss my rabbit. For some reason, I can no longer upload photos of her from my phone, which makes it really hard to edit her blog. If you haven't seen it yet, you should totally check it out! :)
So in my project, The Girl and the Dragon, the point is that the first main character - Aethelinda - wants to destroy a set amount of towers in order to complete her contract with a dragon. Her dragon friend is quite a pesky chap, and becomes angry if she does not do what he wishes.
So onwards, to the first tower.
And it's taking me such a long time.
Firstly there are bugs; bugs everywhere! Some are easy to fix, some are very time consuming. For example...
If you look closely you can see a shadow to the right of the players. Yeah, this dude isn't meant to be able to do that - he's only meant to be sticking to the ground. (Though it does a look a wee bit more creepy.) I didn't realise that this tileset allows players to walk through the roof tile. (The tileset presumes you'll always want to add a wall tile between.) If I want to keep the design I need to make a black impassible tile all around these maps which will be very time consuming. I probably won't be fixing this for the first demo.
Throughout the tower there are many various events to interact with, which also causes bugs. I'm already running out of ideas for the first tower, so while I was keen on making 14 of these bad boys, I think I'll stick to 9, and possibly start playing more rpgs for ideas.
Still, there is a lot to explore right now, with 5 levels so far (only 2 more to go!) and about 4 hidden characters to find.
The inbuilt character creator is currently weeping from exhaustion.
I'm getting closer and closer to that demo, and I'm really excited to share it.
I think those who know me in person might have varying opinions on my social confidence. Some may say that I am a shy, quiet person, others would say that I am a confident, talkative person. I would say neither of these really fit who I am.
For example, I am fine with having a conversation with a stranger but I get a room full of anxiety if there are lots of unexpected guests invited over. There's nothing wrong with my housemates doing that (it's their home, and they're lovely!) it's just something I need to get used to and learn how to deal with. I wrote about it in poem here.
When I am upset I could anaylse the cause of my anxiety by looking into past Tulin, but it's not something I want to carry accidently into present Tulin - like going into a dusty room and accidently bringing some of that dust back with you! I don't think understanding the past will help solve my problems, so better leave that one be.
In the most recent situation, the best thing I could have told myself was to relax. Chill. It's ok. At the end, what is this? The situation is that there are lots of people in the room I'm in. Ok, so just go upstairs. But I'm hungry. They'll be gone so. But what if they're not? Then what the heck, I'll buy chinese.
Mmm chinese.
I reason with the inner voice that is scared, like a big sister talking to a little sister. My method has been to try and find a logical short term fix to the matter at hand to help feel better. My creativeness tends to be good at this. It's just getting to the stage when the big sister can say what she wants without the little sister crying and getting upset with herself.
I'll work on it.
I can get nervous giving my opinion on something or talking about certain topics such as faith or health. It's hard to have this private, logical reassurance during this time. I'm still not too sure how to manage these things, other than not to talk about it. I end up shaking when I go to the doctors and I have 4 medical appointments up and coming. Perhaps I'll try to turn of some of the switches.
Have you ever been able to emotionally detatch yourself?
I've been able to do this both intentionally and unintentionally. Sometimes, when someone is hurt or there is danger, I can rely on reasoning and thought to deal with the initial situation until it is over. This has generally almost always been a benefit.
However, sometimes I've gone through days and wonder what's wrong with me. I feel like I've suddenly lost emotion completely. It's quite terrifying really, because I think usually I'd feel this, or feel that in certain events that happen and I just don't. I can be cruel and cold without feeling guilt during this time.
Perhaps if I could learn how I could switch this on intentionally when it's useful. It wouldn't work for avoiding guilt, but it might help lessen the impact when things go wrong or drama happens.
I could do with one for empathy too.
Oh? Despite occasionally cold I recieve others emotions?
It's not 100% but yes, I can. Sometimes to the extreme when it can affect my own emotion. If someone is angry, I can feel it, and I can feel angry too. Same with anxiety, joyfulness, sadness, etc. Luckily it doesn't tend to affect my mood too often unless it's quite substantional. This "empathy" has been useful and detremental in many ways, though I would say most useful. For example it can help me learn quickly whether someone is upset, or on occasion, when someone is about to have an epiletic fit. However, by learning there is something wrong, sometimes I can cause harm by directly asking that person and being concerned when they don't respond, or by over-worrying the possible loss of a friendship to a point where I actually do lose that friendship. I need to still learn when to act and when to wait for others to come to me.
How does this empathy work?
I don't think there's too much to it, other than being observant and recognising body language, voice tone, speech, and remembering a filter of how I and other people have behaved before and finding links. Sometimes I can't remember the evidence to why I feel someone feels a certain way, it's just a gut feeling.
Back to anxiety, empathy can make me feel anxious too, so I need to really try and get some kind of switch or fuse going on here. I don't have too much to say anymore, so I think I'll end this post here.
I left my harddrive back at home, which has been annoying as I've been itching to continue writing my novel!
I'm currently working on reading the books I've got from the library. I have an addiction to issuing books from the library only to never read them. Right now the most interesting and amusing book seems to be 'The Rise of the Vampire' written by Erik Butler.
I have no access to my game, The Girl and the Dragon right now, but I'm casually updating Little Cat. Though I doubt anyone is interested, I should be releasing demos soon, yay!
