The Irony of "Hard Work" in Gaming

It's been a long time since I wrote something decent of length and substance. I don't quite know my purpose for writing the following- maybe it's because I haven't written anything fancy in a while- maybe it's just another one of my bitter rants in disguise- but I believe most of it stemmed from a very, very stupid thing which I am still hung up about from last night.

Perhaps I should give you some context. It might not take much to guess that I was playing LoL again last night. You might have gathered by now, that I am by no means a gaming prodigy and that I do not have the skills of a professional player, though it is one of the many things I want in life. I thought I was slowly improving though, which contributed to my positive experience of the game- because I was able to play with friends who I couldn't physically see, and meet with someone who is now quite important to me, but I might have never conversed with otherwise.

Ah- alright, I'll get to the point. I was playing with 2 other friends last night, and we had 2 other random people to form a 5 player team. Then I started getting harassed by random player 1, because I was pulling the team's leg by sucking at the game. I didn't think something so stupid would get to me- because let's face it, I've faced assholes online since I started playing Runescape almost 10 years ago. Yet in the end, it did. Not that I reacted much in game- in fact I pretty much said nothing and continued playing, because I'm too old to be swearing back over chat to a stranger who I met 15min ago.

Random player 1 never ceased swearing at me- and it got to random player 2, who gave up playing altogether, though it was still early in the game, because I died too many times. I was feeling pretty annoyed inside, too- thinking inside, "and this is why I hate playing with randoms over the internet". Though funnily enough, it was my own friend who dealt the cutting blow- he told me that it was me who practically threw the game, and that if I didn't suck so much the other two random players wouldn't have given up, and that we could've easily won. That was when I started reacting- it's not like I expected him to defend me in game, because I understand how embarrassing it'd be for him, to admit that this shitass player was in fact his friend. I told him that I wasn't a professional player, that while I am playing quite a bit, I have other priorities in life and that I am playing this game for fun.

We surrendered that game at the earliest mark you could surrender- I would've liked to keep playing, but the two random players had too much fun swearing at me, and my friends couldn't be bothered when the whole thing had turned out this way. As we organised the next game, my friend told me I should practice on bots (AI opponents) to learn the game, and that he himself practised many times before he decided to battle against real people. This was when my inner fuse blew, and I retorted that I am not going to make gaming a chore for myself, that I play games to relax, and if I wanted to spend effort concentrating I'd go back to my work. We got caught in quite a tangle there, and my friend decided that I just didn't understand the competitiveness in LoL, and that LoL wasn't the right game and I shouldn't be playing--- then he told me I should go play Farmville or something.

I still marvel at how I didn't rage at him last night. In fact, I kept calm and we played a few more games until I went to sleep. I only realized how unwell I was today, when I went on YouTube and found my history of a series of LoL videos, and felt horrifically disgusted. My mind keeps going back to the moment when my friend told me "it was practically all your fault"--- and while I rationally understand he was probably joking, I guess even I can't claim to "not care" when my own friend joins some random asshole on the internet in telling me how much I suck.

I'm dying on the inside

Now, if this was an inspirational movie, you'd expect me to secretly practice every night and come back at world-champion level, and tell all those people who looked down on me to go fuck themselves, right? Except this isn't an inspirational movie, this is my own life. Now that I've written it all out, I figure: I'm not upset by the fact that I'm bad at playing LoL. I'm upset by what I conceive as a betrayal by my friend. It's hard for me to get over because I have trouble forgiving people, and even when I do forgive I never forget. I was just caught off-guard by the complete maliciousness of a stranger- because I haven't had that happen to me in quite a long time- and then subsequently wounded by the words of my own friend.

I guess it's ironic in a way that I pissed off my best friend recently by commenting "nice miss" while playing LoL with her. Back then I could not understand why she'd be upset over such a simple comment, but maybe now I can understand better. Well, I still can't sympathize with how seriously people take this game, but now at the very least, I realize that only those people who you care about hurt you.

I've decided to take a break from LoL for now. It sounds like I'm rage quitting, doesn't it? In a way, I guess I am. I don't really know how to face my friends playing LoL, because last night was a wake up call for me. I suck at the game, but I'm unwilling to practice to make myself better--- and I didn't realize this, but my friends who care a lot more about the game probably felt obliged to play with me- and it must've annoyed them a great deal how I was on the team. I should let them get on with what they're doing.

Taking a step back, I can see that my best friend aside, the rest of my LoL friends and I are actually very different people. For various reasons we have become friends, but we fundamentally live in two different worlds. I do not believe in investing solid effort into a game, because a game is just a game for me- but they believe otherwise. When you come down to it--- since I'm not a gaming prodigy, I guess I will never be as good as them at playing LoL, because I simply refuse to play as much or as often as they do.

This whole time though, I've been comparing myself towards everyone else on the scale of LoL-skills. Hah, as if that was what truly mattered. I'm forgetting that my own existence is something remarkable. All that stuff about being clever, good looking and generally charming aside--- when I'm distressed, I write massive blog posts analyzing my own mood and why I'm feeling a certain way. That's kinda cool, right?

Well now, since I've just decided LoL isn't worth my time- I guess I'll go study about liver metabolism instead. At least studying is something I'm naturally better at than most people.

Consistency of Blogging

So I'm deteriorating at a rate which is not-that-slow. My life is basically a toggle between tutorial and LoL. I don't remember whether I've slept, I don't remember whether I've eaten, and sometimes I really have no idea what I'm doing, and I just seem to be always walking from one place to the other.

Every time I don't blog for ages, it's not like I don't have time to blog. It's like I've forgotten about it, or because I thought I've already wrote something--- or at least I thought about writing something, but then never got around to it. A lot of the time (like now), I don't even know what I'm saying, and I think I just enjoy the feeling of tapping on my keyboard and seeing words appear on the screen at a fast rate--- so everything is more of a typing exercise as opposed to a writing exercise.

I do love my typing speed. It's one of the redeeming factors about me, considering how much I appear to be sucking at playing LoL.

Every time I feel like I might have gotten the hang or something, or that I might be doing alright, someone just comes along and rolls all over my dignity. It's like, I can see it pressed against the floor, with tyre marks in it. Kinda horrible to visualise.

I guess I could go back to doing what I always do, and bitch about everyone and everything around me. Except now I don't even feel like talking about the people around me, because they're all nice at core despite  some details which annoy the shit out of me--- and well, if I go into any further detail it's like I'm just hating on everyone around me--- which I tend to do but I don't feel like it right now and the world isn't grim enough and I don't feel like they deserve my hatred (yet).

I'll probably get there when I get really stressed studying for my exams.

I uh, just went to an intense study session tonight, and the amount of stuff I didn't know only served to depress me further. How much do you have to fucking study in 2 months? God fucking dammit. After looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to know, I'm just thinking, well, I might as well be the fucking encyclopaedia.

Alright, I'm done. Gotta cut myself off. Saving the rest of my rant for further blog posts. Not that I'll be needing things to rant about, ever.

Scarred Forever

Ever had those experiences where you get curious about something, look for a picture of it and then regret it forever after? I did that- just then. While looking at the anatomy of the brain, I somehow stumbled across the words "spinal bifida" and "anencephaly"--- both smart-sounding words which I did not know the meaning of. Being the conscientious person I am, I decided that look them up. So spinal bifida wasn't that bad (relatively speaking), it just meant that someone had a split spine.

Then I looked up anencephaly, and I wanted to claw my eyes out. It was horrific. The sort of thing you'd expect in a horror movie, but this is worse than a horror movie because it's real. I find it dreadful even thinking about the people who actually are involved with cases of anencephaly, and I'm just thinking "I can't feel sorry for you enough".

It's at times like these that I wish I were magical, and that I could fix everything ever.

Lethargic

As I left the lecture hall today, a friend commented that I looked lethargic. Makes me wonder, since I casually slept through the first two lectures like it didn't matter, and only got my ass out of bed so I could make it some boring ass lecture in which I almost slept through again anyway. I don't think it's because I don't understand what's going on. The lighting in the lecture hall is just so goddamn bad, when I walk into that room I just want to sleep. The chairs make me uncomfortable too, and sitting upright sometimes is just too much effort.

Blergh, I don't even know I why feel so excessively drained. Even playing LoL I felt so tired. And now it's midnight and I'm trying to study-worst idea ever. I'm staring at my own notes which I made less than 30min ago thinking, "ah-yup, sodium ions, and potassium ions, and they move around, and yes, shit happens".

I'm really not making a whole lot of sense right now. Better sleep some more... not that sleep helps with anything...

Flash of a Weekend

As you know, I spent most of my weekend sleeping, eating but most of the time watching the LoL tournament. So first day, it was the first time I've ever watched a LoL tournament, and it was just so intense because I was shit and of course everyone there was just so totally insane because they were professional players. Then a bit later down the track I kinda became detached to that, and I'd make comments like "okay that game was like a 1v9 not a 5v5, there was one good player and the rest of the shitty team just threw it". Just sitting here in front of my computer I felt all this aggression build up as teams I didn't want to lose lost anyway and later in the tournament it just became less and less fun because it was always a landslide victory towards one team.

Anyway, the LoL tournament was held in Shanghai, and the Chinese team was playing. I was cheering for them the whole time because I felt a sliver of patriotism rise, and also because the other teams looked kinda not-very-attractive in terms of facial features, and at least China had some decent looking men who could play LoL. Anyway, I was really hoping China would win.

Then along comes Korea with their bullshit and they trash everyone. Korea rolled through EU, then rolled through NA, and then they rolled through China in the finals. It was like, there was nothing the whole game. Felt like watching this avalanche where everything just fell down and whichever team the Koreans played got buried.

So now I'm kinda hating myself for not having done any work, and the finals were so crap anyway because the Koreans just dominated both games from the best of three. Except I know that if I watched all that build up to the finals and didn't actually watch the finals, I'd hate myself for it. I know there are always replays I could watch at a better time, but there's just something exciting about watching things live. 

Well, time to start my crapload of work, now that the LoL tournament is over.

E-sports

I think last year I wrote something about not-watching the Olympics for whatever reason, and I always thought I hated watching sports in general, because I just didn't understand. Except it seems that I never minded being a spectator in a crowd, just that not many sports interested me.

My world view shifted with the start of the LoL All Stars Tournament this Friday. It's probably the only thing I did on Friday- watch about 4 hours of LoL being played by professional players, and cheering for my favorite players. Considering I started playing LoL not very long ago, I surprised myself by getting this into it. Within almost no time I learned the names of my favorites, their position in game (yes, LoL has positions as well) and random trivia like their age and their place of birth.

I thought it'd be kind of pathetic, sitting in front of my computer watching a live LoL tournament, but it was so exciting. And over on Skype is my best friend, watching the tournament live with me, and we're just casually commenting on moves and what we think of both teams.

I'm having a very good weekend.

Reading Dictionaries

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't done anything substantial apart from playing LoL for the past week. I don't think I blogged much at all, either. My friend alerted me last night to the fact that we've played at least 6 hours on a Wednesday evening. Funny thing is, that didn't even sound like much to me. I remember back in year 10, where I'd get home at 3.30pm, and play until 12am with roughly an hour in between where I ate dinner and showered. That pretty much went on the entire year.

Anyway, my gaming history aside, I've recently bought this medical dictionary because- well- it's a good dictionary, but mostly because it was on sale and shipping was free and I was like WOAH 20 BUCKS FOR A HARD COVER MEDICAL DICTIONARY I'M BUYING THAT SHIT. So I bought it, and then I remembered that I'd never want to consult a medical dictionary if I have internet access- after all, I can type much faster than I can flip through a dictionary.

Normally at this stage I just put my dictionary away and come to terms with the fact that I'm a sucker for consumerism and I bought something I didn't really need. This time, however, I decided I'd try to be one of those "legends" out there who read the dictionary and became super-successful. Like that Chinese guy who memorised the whole English dictionary, and started a business which taught English to Chinese students. Apparently he's now super-rich and everyone's like wow you know more words of the English language than a native speaker.

Anyway, I was going to do that with my medical dictionary, and sadly I must say that I am not "legendary" material. People have always told me that those I admire are not "smart", they simply work harder than I do. Now I just comfort myself by saying, "I'm a smart cookie. I don't need to work hard" when I fuck up my own plans to study by playing too much LoL.

Well it's not like I opened my dictionary and flipped it shut right away. I did read, starting from "A". Then I got bored at about "ascites"--- and I don't remember what "ascites" mean or whether it's even a word, and I flipped to "sex". Because come on, what else would you look up in a dictionary. I felt like I was 13 all over again. It's not like I didn't know what sex was back when I was 13, but there's just something about looking up the word "sex" in the dictionary, and all the terms related to sex.

And yeah, that's pretty much what I did as bed time reading. I read about sex in the dictionary.

Ups and Downs

I realised only today that life has gotten significantly better since I started playing LoL: I no longer feel bloody miserable. Well, school's still a chore, and a lot of the time I'm like "I don't care, I want to play LoL", but it's like I've found the right balance between having a life and working. I found that I actually do more work now that I'm playing LoL, maybe due to the fact that I feel guilty playing, so I find blocks of time to work and blocks of time to game.

Though it shouldn't surprise anyone that I'm still up at 1.30am trying to finish off tutorial materials. Despite the lecture I'm trying to understand now being given by some guy who I thought was super-cute, it turns out his cuteness never stopped me from sleeping through at least 3/4 of his lecture. I did pick up the keyword of "pressure" (see my recent post), but now I'm staring at it and it's like, "yeah I just want to go to bed".

In fact, I will go to bed. I'll learn this some other day...

Pressure

Judging from the title I guess you'd be expecting me to write about how much pressure I'm under. Well, sort of, not really. The word's just on my mind as I'm trying to understand osmotic, oncotic and hydrostatic pressure. I wonder if it'd be better if I studied physics instead of economics, then I remember: oh wait, I hate physics. 

Anyway after a lot of reading I sort of understood that everything had something to do with fluid, and it might've been helpful if I didn't sleep through the lecture on this subject, however for the parts where I was awake, all I saw was lots and lots of diffusion and I had no idea what the relevance was. Yes, some membranes are semi-permeable. So what?

Having missed the entire point of the lecture, I'm now slowly revising, but I'm really not getting anywhere. I will proudly say that I have improved in my endeavours to one day beat everybody ever at games like DotA, LoL and HoN, because I no longer suck so much it depresses me. Now I just need to get back to studying and obtain my super high marks to make myself a generally remarkable person. 

Pressure, pressure, pressure.

The Joys of Anatomy

Having recently come close to failing my mid-semester due to failing anatomy, I decided that maybe I should give a shit or two about it. So I've jumped extremes from not-touching my anatomy textbook to installing anatomy quizzes on my phone, and it isn't much of a surprise that I'm failing the anatomy on my phone too. I realized how retarded I was last night, when presented with the same question 3 times, I failed 3 times even though I was given the answer each time. Right now I'm still doubtful as to whether I actually remember anything.

Essentially life is trying to toss me the shits right now, because I can't do well at school and I'm still failing at LoL. Luckily my work isn't that hard, and I'm still tossing up between studying for bragging rights or just passing the course. Despite almost failing the test, I'm still strangely pleased with myself, because I feel as if I've learnt so much. Yeah look at me, I've fallen into shallow self-satisfaction because I passed my test and I started with not knowing what a protein was.

Anyway, back to studying. I'd like to keep not-failing my exams.

Life's A Mess

Having lately realized that I probably play too much LoL for my own good, the fact was reinforced by my exam results which were as joyful as my last assignment. To be fair you can't say I fucked my exams because of LoL, because the first time I played LoL was the afternoon of my exam. Looking at my pitiful ranking, I feel like I should study harder, because I realllly dislike the idea that almost everyone I see knows more than I do, but then I realize my expectations for myself are gone and I don't really want to study.

Maybe if I didn't feel so goddamn sleepy at 7pm I'd be more productive. The only aspect in which I have become closer to a plant is that I shrivel at sunset. I'm buying a heater. I can't stand the cold. Having moved up north I thought it'd be so much warmer- and it is so much warmer, but obviously not warm enough to keep me at a happy temperature.

So my room mate is outside with the guy who clearly likes her, and because I vow not to be a cock block I decide not to join them. Except I can hear bits of their awkward conversation and I'm just thinking, "I don't even need to be a cockblock". Makes me slightly jealous though, because, at least neither of them runs the fuck away when one tries to talk to the other.

Ah, bitter, bitter me.

Anyway, I should probably do more studying so things get back on track. I know I only need to pass, but now that we have rankings, I can't just let myself fall to the pits with a "pass". I don't have to be the best, but I don't like people thinking that I'm just a "commoner", because I've been special all my life and I don't want that to change.

Life's a mess.

Too much LoL?

I haven't posted in I don't know how many days- I'd use my assignment as an excuse, but I've been "completing" my assignment since Friday. I officially finished Monday evening, a couple of hours before it was due. Then I decided it was a clever idea to play LoL instead of double checking my assignment. If my friend hadn't looked over my assignment for me, God knows how many marks I'd lose.

So yeah I'm slowly losing my soul over to LoL, despite being legit bad at LoL. When I get destroyed in game, I just go offline and do some work to regain self esteem... So it's like, "I may be bad at playing games, but at least I can still study". I wonder if this is why "try hards" study so much; because they can't stand the embarrassment of getting thrashed in every game ever, so they study to redeem themselves, and earn the approval of general society. 

Just a fleeting thought.

I am freezing in my room, as you do when you don't have a heater. I've deduced that my room faces either North or South, because I'm getting like, zero sunlight all day. I'm actually quite sensitive to light, and that's how it wakes me in the morning- well, how it should've. I need to close my laptop before I sleep, because the glow from the corner of the room is apparently enough to prevent me from sleeping even when I'm tired as hell. But now I just sleep all day long, and I've had a 5 day weekend because I'm just that bad ass, skipping all my classes. 

As a consequence I'm trying to finish my notes for tomorrow- and it's dreadful, because I only have a couple of hours and a fuckload of material to get through. I just want to throw it all in and say "I don't want to do this any more, let me go to sleep or play more LoL". I treat my school days like it's the holidays, where I do nothing but eat sleep and play games. Healthy, I know.

Anyway, back to tutorial preparation... 

Devil Survivor 2; Re-addicted

As you may or may not remember, I am quite a fan of Devil Survivor 2 (DS 2), an NDS game made by Atlus. I think it was around this time last year that I spent the entire school holidays playing over the game 3 times, to achieve 3 different endings. Except I don't think I achieved 3 different endings, because I was going for the perfect ending the 1st and 3rd time, and I fucked up on the 3rd time even with a strategy guide, because I couldn't resist building character relationship with a character that I wasn't supposed to build with, and then I ended up fucking my entire perfect ending over.

But look how cute he is...

I suppose that doesn't make much sense to you, so to recap: as the protagonist I'm an 18 year old Japanese 3rd year high schooler. Then one day as I was just chilling around and doing my own thing, the world around me started to literally break down. Then this mysterious application appeared on my phone, which allowed me to summon demons, but at the same time a fuckload of demons also ran loose every where. As the main character my demons are naturally overpowered, so I decide to go "fuck it, I may just be a 3rd year high school kid, but I'm gonna take my OP demons and investigate the origin of demons and why the world is breaking down. Then I'm going to battle supernatural powers and save the fucking world". Depending on my choices in the game it ends differently.

OP protagonist who 1v1's all the bosses

So to my great excitement the anime for DS 2 was released earlier this year, and I've been following it ever since. The anime, being vastly different from the in game storyline, was vastly dissatisfying at times, except they gave my favourite character, Hotsuin Yamato, A LOT of screen time. Sure he's a major character in the game, and compared to his pansy rival, you do get to see him a lot more- but in the anime, watching his interactions with the protagonist, I'm just like, "cut it out, you guys. Freeze the whole scene and just fucking kiss. I see where this is going."

Now we all know where this is going, so why don't we get it over and done with

In all seriousness though, DS 2 is a great anime. I'm really looking forward to how it's going to end, given that Yamato is now a major character and one of the late-game bosses has actually exposed himself super-early. When I chose to watch the anime, I was dreading a story which was exactly the same as what I got in game, because I didn't even like the "perfect ending" I never reached. If I wrote the story though, I'd probably just ship the protagonist with Yamato and then it's like, screw every other character.

Anyway, I'm re-addicted to DS 2, and I've got the biggest anime crush on Yamato.

He's sexy even when he looks like a serial killer

Internet Uncapped

I was up last night playing LoL (as I may or may not have told you, and I don't remember because I was up last night playing LoL), my internet uncapped. In my great excitement I decided to download lots of everything ever, and I don't even know why but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So now that I'm sort of awake (it IS early afternoon) and the Sun is so warm and bright, I decided I'd abuse my uncapped internet on more constructive things like YouTube. Yeah alright that's pretty bad, but at least I remember what I watched (unlike last night). I casually check out my YouTube-star friend's videos, because I totally subscribed to him and I care (sort of) about his life, and maaan check out what I found.

Now I don't know whether I should be proud to have such a famous friend or to pretend I never fucking knew this guy. Dilemmas. One part of me is like, "OH GAWD ONE DAY HE'LL BE ON SOME STUPID TV SHOW THAT HAS SUPER HIGH RATINGS, AND I'LL BE HIS LEGIT FRIEND" and another part of me is like, "dude, I should stop watching his videos and get back to studying so I can become a psychiatrist- he'll obviously be needing my services in the near future". 

Ah, I kid. He's batshit insane, but when he becomes rich and famous it'll be worth it!

I'm just kidding again~ har-har. Maybe it's not him that's just batshit insane. Maybe he's actually like everyone else and I just think he's crazy because I'm the crazy one so I think everyone else is crazy instead. Aaaaah deep shit right there. I should've been a fucking philosopher.

Yeah alright I'm going to sleep, even if it's 2 in the afternoon. Sleep deprivation is taking its toll on my sanity.

Lamb

I've been slowly not-eating meat for the longest time, because I still haven't given up the idea of eating enough plants so that I become a plant myself. Anyway today I got home from tutorial and I was really hungry, so I decided it would be like, the greatest of ideas to make a hot pot with lamb, fish fillets, fish tofu and whatever the fuck else is in here. Idk. It tasted pretty good though, when I started.

I was like, "oh my God this meat is delicious" (yeah "that's what she said", I know, fuck you too). After about 3 bites of pure deliciousness, I didn't want to eat any more. Except I put a fuckload of lamb in there, so I felt like I should keep eating. And I ate, and ate, and ate. I ate very slowly, because I didn't actually want to eat anything any more after my 3rd bite of lamb, and it just became less appetizing as the temperature of my food went from hot to very warm to warm to cool to this tastes fucking disgusting.

I still have my left over food in front of me, and I'd throw it out except I feel really bad. Except it's not like I'd want to eat it in like, the next month, so I don't see why I'd bother storing it, either. Chances are I will end up chucking it out, and not eat meat for ages.

I don't think I remember the appeal of meat any more. All I can smell is the oil and the--- I don't even know what it is I'm smelling, but it's gross. Fish seems to be the only tolerable thing right now--- fish, fish and more fish. Yay mercury poisoning.

Why is it that even my food is conspiring against me...

Casually Skipping Class

I am shivering in the frozen chamber that is my room, and skipping out on my lab practical. While I do loathe my labs (the smell makes me sick and the sight is just disgusting to look at), I generally make a point of attending because I do find them beneficial. Today, however, I just decided that I really didn't want to fucking go, and I'm on my way to failing anatomy anyway so if a fail is a fail, it really doesn't matter how hard I fail it by.

So now I'm just casually reading tutorial material I need to prepare for, and it should be done in like an hour. I could've done it last night and gone to the lab this morning without having to worry about the tutorial this afternoon, but I made the wise decision of playing a fuckload of LoL last night- and while that was fun and all, it was totally unproductive. On the other hand, I am no longer so shit at LoL that the game becomes a chore to play. I have significantly consolidated my friendships with some people through LoL, and it's a welcome change to make friends who spend their time playing video games instead of studying. When I "joined the gang", so to speak, one of them did say to me, "say good bye to your degree". I thought that was a little harsh, because come on I may be bad at anatomy but I'm not stupid, but now that I'm skipping half my fucking classes I can see why it can easily become reality.

And while I vow to not-fail my classes, I am really doing very little to aid that. I'm just covering myself with a safety blanket of "I am a genius so I will not fail", but even I know that's a load of bullshit. If it were up to me, I'd love to spend all my nights going out and socializing (yes I'd even have a drink or two), or I could sit in my room shivering all day and playing LoL. I can't remember how many meals I've skipped playing LoL, but I think that only makes my point about how I haven't been eating properly. At this rate I'm either going to get really fat (because I'll eat more when I'm hungry) or I'm going to lose a lot of weight (because I won't eat at all). At this stage I'm still hoping to stay somewhat healthy, but if I had to choose between the adverse health affects I'd choose the latter, because at least being skinny is attractive in modern society. I was explaining to my room mate last night that while I joke about dieting and losing weight, I'm not actually doing anything to lose weight. Therefore, when I'm not doing anything to lose weight but I actually am, it's bad. Sure it sounds like some sort of magical fantasy where I put in no effort and the weight just falls right off, but when you consider the real life implications of that, all I can think about is whether I have some sort of disease that fucked my metabolism right over.

Anyway, no use worrying about that now. I have work to do, and a fuckload of LoL to play when that work is over.

Shatter and Fall

So everything is starting to fall to bits, but somehow I'm still cruising along. I'm behind on my tutorial work, I haven't started an assignment which is supposedly due today but luckily got extended, aaaand my sleeping patterns are still fucked. I get up in the morning, drag myself to school and continue to sleep during the lectures. I tried to stay awake: I really did. But the lecturers are actually horrible public speakers, and I just nap through it all.

I could try to use my time more effectively, and do work when I have time and sleep otherwise... OR I could play a couple more games of LoL. Eh, even though I say that, I haven't been playing that much LoL lately. The-guy-who-is-totally-into-my-room-mate started playing LoL with me, but God he's terrible. I know I shouldn't judge, because I'm terrible as well, but I'm not as terrible as he is, and I'm just starting out. Not that he's played much either, because he said he hated the game; so I don't know why he sounded so eager to play when I turned down his offer for another game.

I can't believe the excuse I used was "when I say I play one game, I mean one game". Ah that's the biggest bullshit ever. Like when I'm up late at night watching TV shows: one more episode means watching until I physically collapse or until the season is over. "One more game" is just another code for "at least 3am; when I fall asleep mid game; or when the Sun rises". It's not that he's so horrible that I don't want to play with him: I do have an early tutorial in a couple of hours... but okay, if he was better I might've been more inclined to play more.

Anyway now I'm still awake trying to finish off my tutorial material at half past one, and it doesn't seem to be that bad. I mean, I feel as if I've understood everything (what's NOT to get?), but when I have to write stuff on it the whole thing just seems excessively painful. I figure I'll just show up to tutorial tomorrow and bullshit my way through like I have for the past 2 weeks.

Solid effort right here. I WILL NOT fail my exams.

Long Nights

It feels as if the Sun sets at 4pm, which is not long after I wake up. Due to being slightly addicted to LoL, I haven't been getting many hours of daylight, because we play at night and sleep through the day. I don't think it's the game itself I'm addicted- it's more got to do with the fact that all my best friends play and I have a lot of fun joining them. Now that we're separated by distance, I almost never see them face to face- but through video games I can sort of forget that I'm trapped in a shitty foreign city.

Well actually this city isn't that shit- it has a beach. I've always liked beaches. I went down to the beach with my room mate and another friend not long ago, and we had quite a bit of fun. Well, they went into the water while I walked along kicking sand, because you know, mild aquaphobia and everything. Sitting on the sand and staring at the ocean, I realised; I really do like the sea. I just don't like being... in it.

Anyway, right now I'm up and awake, and I could be studying, but everything else is simply too distracting. It's just that studying never seems as fun as... well, not-studying.

Ah I really need to pull my shit together.

Anatomy

Things haven't been going that well recently: I've just been excessively lazy about everything ever, and I waste all my free time sleeping or playing around with my computer even though my internet is still capped. It turns out that even if you give me dial-up speed, everything is still fine, because apparently I can still do whatever it is I usually do, minus YouTube.

Anyway, I've been slowly deteriorating in terms of Japanese, because I don't understand grammar and I can't remember all the grammar rules as I speak. I'm still desperately trying to learn mountains of vocab, and because I haven't been to a single class in like 8 weeks I'm kinda just... falling behind. Well it's not really like I'm falling behind in terms of what's dictated on the course outline, more so because they do these extra grammatical exercises in class which I haven't had time to do because I was too busy preparing for tutorials or whatever.

Japanese aside, I'm supposed to be catching up on all this work (which I haven't done) and learning the ins and outs of the female reproductive system (heh, get it?). Even though I'm cracking bad jokes about it, the subject is not nearly as fun as you would imagine. After staring at the diagram for too long, trying to figure out the difference between a vestibule and an orifice, I realised what a grotesque thing I am staring at, and I'm just thinking to myself: "porn will never be the same ever again". Sometimes I wonder if sex is just a lot less exciting for anatomists- I mean, the reason we all giggle about genitalia is because they're usually not-exposed, right? But imagine if you had to sit down, with a textbook on each side of you, trying to remember the name and location of every single fold and crevice of the female genitalia. Like, that's what I'm doing. Just sitting here, blankly staring at this picture drawn in great detail- labelled and everything. I mean, I'd attach it but then half of you will probably flinch back and go "OH WHAT THE HELL" whilst blocking your eyes with widespread fingers.

Yeah, I know you too well.

So I'm not sure how to feel about a lot of what I'm doing. Sometimes I think I'm having a bit of fun and it's not so bad, other times I regret everything I've ever done in life, and then there are times where I just wish I was a plant. PHO-TO-SYN-THE-SIS~!

You know the joys of life are slowly diminishing when you no longer find images of genitalia amusing. Remembering back to the good ol' days, when my friends found great amusement in drawing penises in the pages of my exercise books--- all I can think of now is how it was anatomically incorrect...

God I hate myself sometimes.

The Guy Who Is Totally Into My Room Mate

So there's this guy who I met a while ago, like, half a month ago? Anyway, he was the one I said I had an amazing conversation with, where it never ran dry. We became friends after that, and we went to a movie night (which I might have briefly mentioned) a while later, and while he was somewhat quirky- in the darkness, with the TV lights flickering with each changing scene, he might have been mildly attractive.

Anyway, every Wednesday night my room mate goes out and socializes while I stay and home and do my own little thing. And she gets lifts home, late at night, from this guy I'm talking about. Now idk wtf happened in between (because as far as I was aware he was just some guy who my room mate introduced me to who I thought was mildly attractive), but one night, at 12.30am, as he, my room mate and I sat in the lounge, I finally picked up that this guy was being oddly flirtatious.

Well it wasn't "oddly" flirtatious, he was always kind of like that, but I assumed it was part of his personality. Not his real personality, just the sort of thing you build yourself to give yourself an identity, like "oh she's the innocent one who doesn't get dirty jokes" or "oh he's the dirty one who keeps on telling dirty jokes"--- and it just so happened that "oh he's the one who's really desperate for women because he keeps on getting friend-zoned".

But that night, as I sat, somewhat groggy at having been woken at midnight by the return of him and my room mate, some part of my brain chemistry just worked, and my brain said to me: "hey, I think he's desperately- very desperately, hitting on your room mate". I was quite dismissive then, because I had other things on my mind (someone was sending me midnight texts which I placed a priority on responding to), and I figured that he was just up late and kind of high--- or something.

So when two hours later I found him and my room mate sort of sitting on my bed and refusing to leave while I also sat in bed and typed away on my computer, I didn't think much of it. Yeah, alright, I'm kind of slow at times. Some part of me did think "huh isn't this kind of late", but I was up waiting for my off peak internet times to kick in, and it was going to be amazing because we were capped and I was desperate for high speed internet.

And that was like, episode 1.

Episode 2 started yesterday afternoon, where I ran out of milk and was desperate for groceries. By then I had roped the poor guy into driving my room mate and I down to the shops and I felt guilty enough that I offered to cook dinner for all 3 of us. Yeah, I've changed, I know. Anyway, we also happened to drink, and because he couldn't drive after drinks he just stayed... late... again. Before I knew it, he and my room mate were kinda like, semi-wrestling in my bed and I was just kinda sitting in a corner with my laptop... because for fuck's sake, it was MY bed.

And I would've totally told them to get a room... except they did have a room... MY room. Oh the FML moments of my life...

So we settled for a movie, and we just kept on watching some shitty zombie movie for ages. And it finally got to that point, where after however many hours of watching stuff, I finally told them to GTFO, and to take it back to another room. That was pretty much as effective as telling duck to play baseball. Some how I remained in bed while both of them ended up sitting on the floor of my room, and it was a while before any of them actually left. I do vaguely remember asking the guy if he was sure he wanted to drive after such a long night, and he said he was alright so off he went.

And this afternoon, as I stared blankly at my laptop doing whatever the fuck it is I do, the fact finally sank in: whoa that guy is totally into my room mate, and I've just been a massive cock block the entire time. That made me feel quite awkward for about 5 seconds, until I realized they were in MY room so ffs I'm the victim.

Now, my dear room mate, if you are reading this, rest assured; as I am now aware of the circumstances, I will make sure to leave you guys alone next time. But for the love of God, do your thing elsewhere- i.e. not my room.

My Sleeping Patterns

So here I am, 2.30am, having woken about 2 hours ago from deep slumber (after my room mate returned with some inconsiderate guy). It's okay because I've slept for roughly 8 hours already, and God this feels great. I am completely and utterly alone, it's early morning, and for once I'm not tired because I've slept already after wasting my afternoon. For some reason at this point in time, I feel far less inclined to waste time and more willing to do work. Maybe because I've always been used to doing work early morning, when the assignment's due on the same day and I tell myself to pull my shit together and get stuff done.

Anyway, now that I have royally fuxed my sleeping patterns, I guess I feel kind of fearless in a way. Not being with parents is so great: this is like the first time I've learnt to abuse my freedom. And it's working out! My plans are actually going to plan, because there's no one to interfere and fuck with them once I've set out everything and managed my own time.

Being awake at night makes me feel alive...

Capped Internet

So for pretty much the first time ever, I'm experiencing capped internet. Well it's not like I've never gone over limit before, but we were on a plan that said we'd just pay extra and not compromise internet speed. That plan was quite atrocious though: we had 100G off peak and 5G on peak. On peak was pretty much from 12pm to midnight, and considering that I went to school, you can figure how much off peak I actually used. Needless to say I blew right through 5G per month (I had to share with my bro, too), and we ended up paying $40 extra that month or something. After that lesson we finally got a new internet plan, and from then on I don't think I ever got closed to the limit, because my brother moved out and I didn't have that many things to download.

But ehhh here I am, in a shared house with other university students. WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG WITH LIMITED INTERNET ACCESS? To be fair I don't think I've done anything OTT--- so I downloaded LoL and patched my other game, maybe I downloaded two seasons of GoT and copious amounts of music, but according to my usage stats I've used 35G in the last 60 days--- and even if I used all 35G in the same month (which I didn't) it's barely my fair share of download quota.

Well, it's no use going on about that now. The reality is my internet is slow as fuck, and the ungodly speeds are driving me crazy. It's not as bad as dial-up, but I don't think there's much worse it can get. I'm doing that thing that someone suggested to me a long, long time ago: sleep early, get up at 3am, work until sunrise. It sounded hideously stupid back then, but I can see why it might be feasible in this place: it's still hot despite it being May, and since my off peak times (where I haven't blown the limit) are 2am to 8am, it's really the best plan ever.

So here goes: a night of no sleep, and I'm going to get up (actually get up) and do my work. Yes, it will happen for sure.