Terrible TERRIBLE Time Sinks

Well, this shouldn’t have been unexpected.  I had a feeling that, much like Dawn of War 2 before it, Starcraft 2′s campaign (Wings of Liberty) would become a massive time sink for me.  I was right: twenty-odd hours later, I’ve managed to finish it, though it earned me itchy eyes and a massive migraine in the progress.  I think I need to lie down for a bit.

Now don’t mistake my one-sitting playthrough of the campaign as a sign of competency; I’m pretty much just a casual gamer, so anything harder than normal is a challenge for me.  And even then some scenarios on normal make me want to tear my my hair out.

And so I free admit to using some cheats, at least on this first playthrough.  I’m working on my second run through the campaign now though, without the crutch provided by those in-game cheats, and while some of the scenarios are still a wee bit on the tough side for me, at least now I’m ready for the challenges of each stage.  Whether or not my poor micromanagement skills can keep up though is another matter.

Purchasing Urges

I’m sure that everyone has felt the urge, at one time or another, to just go and buy something even though somewhere in the back of their minds there’s this voice trying to remind them that, “No you don’t need that” or (much more frequent in my case) “No, you don’t have the funds for that”.  So for all that teeny-tiny voice’s warnings, you  go and buy whatever it was that caught your attention, and only after the deed is done do you realize belatedly that your savings account is in the red as a result, or your already significant credit card bill just increased to even more unreasonable levels.

I try to remind myself about the fact that I’m not employed right now, and am barely just subsisting on the kindness of my parents, but at times the impulse to buy useless stuff overrides all good sense.  I mean, sure I don’t do impulse purchases all of the time, but when I do my bank account feels the pain.

Tsk, it’s at times like these that I just wish I was still working, if only to replenish my depleted bank account.  I don’t think it can take any kind of impulse buying anymore.

Drowsy

I should be happy that I’ve been able to get a full night’s worth of sleep, after what amounted to a full week jumped up on energy drinks and cola, but in reality I don’t feel like I’ve slept at all.  I feel sleepy, and generally lethargic.  At first glance it seems just like the normal weekend laziness I’ve experienced for the last few weeks, but I don’t recall feeling so stiff or leaden before, or waking up with a god-awful backache (which I’m still experiencing as I type this post).

A reaction to the stress that had piled up over the week perhaps?  I’m not sure myself, but if it is stress-related, then it’s got awful timing, as the source of the aforementioned stress has already been dealt with.

Oh well, I think I’ll just have to lie down some more and hope that the pain somehow goes away.  Without any assignments hanging over my head, it’s a perfect time as well to catch up on my reading.  My backlog of unread books is much lesser than it was prior to my enrollment in the postgraduate course, but that’s probably only because I’ve been buying a proportionately fewer number of books.  That said, it’s surprising how,  for all my purchases of academic-related reading material, I’ve still managed to add books to my ‘to-read’ piles.

Speaking of reding backlogs, I’ve caught up on some of the manga titles I’ve more or less just glossed over the last few months because of my classes: Needless, Sora no Otoshimono, and Houkago Play (the characters in the picture used in this post is from that series).  The two are shounen titles of course (I find Shounen generally easier reading, and I don’t really need any Shoujo melodrama right now), but the latter is pretty much a casual 4koma.  Just the thing I need for a (hopefully) relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Welcome Respite

I am finally done with all my final requirements for this term, and for all the procrastination I’ve done over the past three months I really feel that I’ve earned this break.  Frankly I could count the hours I’ve slept over the course of the week with my two hands.  Cramming… is never good, especially when it’s for an all-important project that could quite really make or break your final grade.

So I will probably be dead to the world for most of this evening and a good part of tomorrow morning.  I don’t think the weekend is going to be totally restive, as now I have something else to feel anxious about of: my final grades in both of the subjects I took.  I think my prospects in Dr. Evasco’s class are a bit iffy, and even if I do well in Dr. Baytan’s Lit Research (HA!), a below-average grade will drag down my GWA.

Igh.  I’ll just try and be as optimistic as I can about my prospects.

Last Stretch… Again

Almost done.  Won’t be able to post that micro Thesis tonight though.

Personally, I’m beat.

Oh well, I’ll just post it on the class group when I wake up tomorrow morning.

Splodge

Ah.  I’ve got a blinding headache right now, but I admit to it being entirely self-inflicted.  I’ve spent the good chunk of the day catching up on Berserk, but I think it’s time well-spent.  Definitely not something I’d suggest to anyone younger than eighteen though, what with all the messy, messy ends characters seem to suffer.  Such is the nature of seinen, but much like Gantz I find myself eagerly anticipating the next chapter.

Gah. Look at the time though.  I better salvage what’s left of the day, and prepare my notes for tomorrow.  Ten-page micro-Thesis Proposal, and all that.

Foregone Conclusions

I think it’s really come to the point that my sister should give up nagging me about finding work in the BPO industry because, frankly, as long as I’m taking up my postgraduate degree, it’s never going to happen.  My inflexible class schedules will always, ALWAYS, cause problems, particularly during the final interview.  Like my run-in with Convergys this afternoon.  Really, my only decent chance at finding employment probably won’t be in with BPO-based companies.

After today, I’m not sure if I should be frustrated, or be just sad that companies won’t even look at you if you’re school schedule conflicts with theirs.  I mean, couldn’t they suggest a position in another account that won’t somehow conflict with the fact that I’m taking up a master’s degree?

Equivalency

For a brief moment I was worried that I would have to submit a Review of Relevant Literature today.  Then I remembered that, since I’m taking up a degree in Creative Writing and not a degree in Literature, I don’t have to.  However, I will have to submit a brief background as well as a description of what it is I’m planning on writing.  It’s only slightly easier, but it still means that I have to post something later on in our class’ little Yahoo group.

The thing is, I’m still not sure what it is I’m going to write about.  Okay, that’s not necessarily true; I have an outline, but that’s all it is at this point, and I’m not confident right now that it’ll pass muster once presented to the forum that is my class.  I realize that the best criticism comes from one’s peers, and this is a good opportunity to see whether or not the concept has promise, but there’s always this nagging fear at the back of my mind that it’ll suck, and what’s worse, it’ll suck so much that it’ll get laughed at.

*sigh* I really shouldn’t be worrying too much.  At the end of the day, the concept that’s going to be used for my class’ final paper isn’t necessarily going to be the subject for my final thesis submission.  If it doesn’t work out, I can either try to salvage the good parts, or try again right?

Speaking of which, I better start working on it.  Three pages should be fine for it, I think.

The Great “Slice of Life” Argument

It just had to happen sometime.

I think my own opinions on the nature of what defines a ‘slice of life’ show were made clear, but it’s interesting to see what some of the members of the blogosphere think about the matter.  The fact is, the term ‘slice of life’ is used more and more these days as a word of convenience, for shows that don’t seem to fit the expected forward-moving narrative mode.

The thing is, this doesn’t really fit with how ‘slice of life’ was defined just a few years ago, where a ‘slice of life’ show in one way or another demonstrated the concepts of mono no aware and wabi-sabi, a fixation on the ephemeral nature of objects or events in one’s daily life that gives a better appreciation for existence as a whole.  That is why shows like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō/ヨコハマ買い出し紀行, ARIA,  and Sketchbook count as ‘slice of life’ shows for older viewers, due to the use of a mono no aware-focused storytelling style.

These days, however…  As mentioned, the term has been used more recently for its convenience, at least in anime.  To give an example, the anime K-On!! has been categorized as a slice-of-life show (I call it a 4koma comedy myself), by virtue of the fact that very little ‘plot’ is apparent over the course of its airing.

It should be interesting to see where the discussion goes, especially if or when it goes into the minutiae of the term’s contemporary definition (or what some would say its misuse by people who don’t know better).

Here are the bloggers participating in the exchange as of this edit:

• Novajinx, who got the exchange going.
• Omo, who comments on the artificiality of the recent use of the slice-of-life ‘metaphor’.
• Kurogane, who posits the use of an alternate term instead of slice-of-life.
• BigN, who talks about the essence of the metaphor (Don’t think. Feel. Then Think.) compared to how it is commonly misunderstood.
• Lelangir points that the argument, in a way, is moot, as definitions shift.
• RyanA comments on the discussion itself, and the controversy behind the use of the term.
  

Lost Habits

Maybe it’s a consequence of the time I spent in the call center/BPO industry, a result of my lack of proper time management, or just simple laziness, but I’m not able to devote as much time as I used to for reading books.  It’s ironic, given the fact that, since I’m not working anymore, free time is all I have, and yet I couldn’t even build up the urge to pick up something from the book pile beside my bed (and believe me, there’s quite a bit)  and actually read it.  I don’t even remember the last time I was able to lie down and leisurely read a novel from cover to cover, and I think that’s more than a little disturbing .  After all a writer also has to be well-read (it’s something that my professors never fail to remind me and my classmates over the course of the program), but here I am not doing any reading.

Maybe it’s because I’m just easily distracted.  The games installed on my PC aside, there’s also the stuff that I find whenever I log on to the Net.  The next thing I know, hours have passed, and I’m either too tired or no longer in the right mindset to do casual reading.  It’s kind of ironic, since I used to make all sorts of excuses to get out of whatever it was I had been doing to be able to read, even when the work in question was vastly more important.

What happened to that healthy reading habit I used to had when I was still studying, I wonder?