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Sep. 18th, 2009 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiyaAnother one of those posts where I kick myself for not posting more regularly. XD; Since the last post, there's been some developments, mostly in the sense that I've played a ridiculous load of video games. And done some uni work. But you know.
Uni:
* Reaching that part of term where I start missing classes because I'm just too tired all the time, but I'm somehow managing to slog my way through. The semester break is FINALLY coming up; one more week. \o/
* Assessment hell is finally calming down a bit. Ikeda-sensei is super nice about extending deadlines, which has been enormously stress-relieving for me. (He's taking both my Japanese classes this semester.) Family law takehome got finished and handed in on Monday, Japanese->English translation of essays last Wednesday. Between now and the break I have the weekly English->Japanese translation ("weekly" notwithstanding, they kind of take HOURS) due Monday, the Eng->Jap translation assignment (done, looked over, just need to see if I can wheedle a native speaker into checking my grammar) also due Monday, and a short essay in Japanese on the total failure to talk about WWII in this middle school Japanese history text (srs, it skips straight from WWI to "after the war, there was the American occupation--" "... what?") on... monday. Um. Although that last one Ikeda-sensei has kind of told us to just hand it in when it's done.
* Also on Monday, I have a video conference negotiation with the Negotiation team from Sophia University in Japan. I am kind of hella nervous about it, because I have to do it in Japanese. .___.
Video games:
* Finished Dissidia as Cloud. It probably says something that Cloud is on lv 91 and the next highest are Tidus and Cecil in the mid-20s... I went up about 20 levels fighting and losing against Chaos, though, it was kind of tragic. orz I'm still playing it every now and then because I want to see the special character scenes for beating the optional bosses with their appropriate counterpart. Not that I care about the interaction between the main character and villain in at least half the final fantasies (srs, who cares about Darkness? Kefka? Exdeath? NOBODY, THAT'S WHO) but I might find out interesting things about the characters and I definitely want to beat Golbez as Cecil, for example. The Sephiroth-Cloud scenes were all really satisfying. Even if I feel kind of like a creep for still shipping it when Sephiroth was being the possibly abusive stalky ex-boyfriend in this scenario...
* Now have all the summons in FFXII except for Zodiark. Need to go finish the mob hunts, do the last few of the sidequests and get Zodiark, and then I'll be satisfied enough to finish the game.
* Finished Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon: Majo to Shojo to 5-nin no Yuusha (aka Chocobo Fables 2). And FFXII: RW. Both of those things may have been before the last post, but I'm not sure I mentioned it at all. They were both really enjoyable, especially the Chocobo game. Got lucky with the fact RW in Japanese is much easier, though, I suspect I would've been frustrated when I couldn't get the special ending otherwise. (Not that I've actually SEEN IT yet since I tripped over my power cord and froze the cart in the credits, but it wasn't too hard and I'll play the final battle again when I finish FFXII.)
* Played and finished Gyakuten Kenji, AKA Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth last week. Despite my reluctance to play it in Japanese after playing the first four in English, it didn't bother me too much. Possibly because Phoenix was never referred to by name in it. (Seriously, NARUHODOU, I twitch every time I hear it!) Edgeworth's name grew on me, Franciska's first name grew on me although it continued to be weird when she was called Karuma rather than von Karma, and Larry's name is better in Japanese (YAHARI! I actually laughed every time there was a joke on his name, unlike in English). Just couldn't get used to Gumshoe's name, though. It's too long and awkward.
... uh. On the actual game itself, it was really fun. Edgeworth is made of awesome, the sidekick system is fun, and the Logic system works really well, unlike the Perceive system in AJ. It worked a lot better for me than AJ did; the cases flowed well and were interesting. And now I'm kind of super craving Edgeworth/Phoenix, despite Phoenix's lack of physical presence. .__.
* Started Avalon Code, decided to not bother with it. It's cute and the premise sounded interesting, but it doesn't have a strong start where it really sweeps you into the story and the system is really convoluted and would take forever to complete if you were being an OCD perfectionist, which, well, I have that tendency. Decided I have much better stuff to play and gave it a raincheck.
* Finally started Tales of Vesperia! So far I'm really enjoying it. Yuuri reminds me of Jade a bit with all his sarcasm. Estelle is sweet... my favourite so far is Rita, though. Actually I'm kind of shipping Rita/Estelle at this point. (Which is just after the hills on the way to the port city.)
On the note of gameplay... is it just me, or is it weirdly hard somehow? I mean, I played most of Hearts and Abyss on hard level, and I'm struggling on normal sometimes in Vesperia, wtf?
Work:
* One of my English students had to stop lessons because she couldn't afford them for the moment. The other is still technically taking classes, but we had some mixups with times and I haven't had an email back from him in over a week. I wonder if he's okay...
* Everything at the medical centre is going as per usual. That reminds me, I need to get someone to cover my shift Thursday week, since I'll be in Sydney.
* Once I've got assessment-free time, need to get cracking on research assistant work! note to self.
Other:
* Got the draft in on time for Star Trek Big Bang. It's not actually completely finished-- in fact I need to write most of chapter 4 and add/rewrite a fair few scenes in chapter 3, but I should have time to do all that before it goes live. At the moment the word count is ~36,400, but it'll probably end up closer to 50K when I'm done with it. << And then I really need to get back to BBX. I wanted to have it finished by this Christmas, but that's looking unlikely, especially since I'm spending December in Japan. Should at least be able to get an update done by then, though.
* Working on a translation of a short story for a competition. My Jap->Eng translation teacher said she thinks I have a shot, and she's one of the judges. The prize for winning is 60,000 yen and publication of the translation, so it's a pretty big deal... It's fairly hard going, though, because the story is 30 pages and fairly dense with description. Description of an Austrian monastery. My rather lax Catholic upbringing only goes so far - google has been getting a major workout. (God, translation in the days before the internet, just the thought makes me cry.)
* Starting to move back towards the urge to watch TV. Have been watching Ashes to Ashes and United States of Tara on free-to-air, just started with a British comedy called Fear Shock & Anger. It's been a while since I've been motivated to download and watch anything, but I watched the first episode of Gossip Girls earlier tonight. I'd probably be watching ep 2 or so now if I hadn't been turfed off both TVs by my parents. T__T Dad is watching the football in the other room, which usually I can get to myself. At least the season is almost over, though. (And yes, this is why I'm updating LJ: because no TVs means no boobtube OR Xbox and I'm out of fic to read and not in the mood to write or translate. XD)
Anyway, my mum's last day of work is Tuesday week. I won't really notice the effects of it straight away because I'm going up to Sydney that week and she's going to Brisbane the week after, but I do wonder how this is going to turn out... I'm not sure how well I will fare without my no-people time, it was hard enough moving back into my parent's house when I came home from Japan...
Uni:
* Reaching that part of term where I start missing classes because I'm just too tired all the time, but I'm somehow managing to slog my way through. The semester break is FINALLY coming up; one more week. \o/
* Assessment hell is finally calming down a bit. Ikeda-sensei is super nice about extending deadlines, which has been enormously stress-relieving for me. (He's taking both my Japanese classes this semester.) Family law takehome got finished and handed in on Monday, Japanese->English translation of essays last Wednesday. Between now and the break I have the weekly English->Japanese translation ("weekly" notwithstanding, they kind of take HOURS) due Monday, the Eng->Jap translation assignment (done, looked over, just need to see if I can wheedle a native speaker into checking my grammar) also due Monday, and a short essay in Japanese on the total failure to talk about WWII in this middle school Japanese history text (srs, it skips straight from WWI to "after the war, there was the American occupation--" "... what?") on... monday. Um. Although that last one Ikeda-sensei has kind of told us to just hand it in when it's done.
* Also on Monday, I have a video conference negotiation with the Negotiation team from Sophia University in Japan. I am kind of hella nervous about it, because I have to do it in Japanese. .___.
Video games:
* Finished Dissidia as Cloud. It probably says something that Cloud is on lv 91 and the next highest are Tidus and Cecil in the mid-20s... I went up about 20 levels fighting and losing against Chaos, though, it was kind of tragic. orz I'm still playing it every now and then because I want to see the special character scenes for beating the optional bosses with their appropriate counterpart. Not that I care about the interaction between the main character and villain in at least half the final fantasies (srs, who cares about Darkness? Kefka? Exdeath? NOBODY, THAT'S WHO) but I might find out interesting things about the characters and I definitely want to beat Golbez as Cecil, for example. The Sephiroth-Cloud scenes were all really satisfying. Even if I feel kind of like a creep for still shipping it when Sephiroth was being the possibly abusive stalky ex-boyfriend in this scenario...
* Now have all the summons in FFXII except for Zodiark. Need to go finish the mob hunts, do the last few of the sidequests and get Zodiark, and then I'll be satisfied enough to finish the game.
* Finished Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon: Majo to Shojo to 5-nin no Yuusha (aka Chocobo Fables 2). And FFXII: RW. Both of those things may have been before the last post, but I'm not sure I mentioned it at all. They were both really enjoyable, especially the Chocobo game. Got lucky with the fact RW in Japanese is much easier, though, I suspect I would've been frustrated when I couldn't get the special ending otherwise. (Not that I've actually SEEN IT yet since I tripped over my power cord and froze the cart in the credits, but it wasn't too hard and I'll play the final battle again when I finish FFXII.)
* Played and finished Gyakuten Kenji, AKA Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth last week. Despite my reluctance to play it in Japanese after playing the first four in English, it didn't bother me too much. Possibly because Phoenix was never referred to by name in it. (Seriously, NARUHODOU, I twitch every time I hear it!) Edgeworth's name grew on me, Franciska's first name grew on me although it continued to be weird when she was called Karuma rather than von Karma, and Larry's name is better in Japanese (YAHARI! I actually laughed every time there was a joke on his name, unlike in English). Just couldn't get used to Gumshoe's name, though. It's too long and awkward.
... uh. On the actual game itself, it was really fun. Edgeworth is made of awesome, the sidekick system is fun, and the Logic system works really well, unlike the Perceive system in AJ. It worked a lot better for me than AJ did; the cases flowed well and were interesting. And now I'm kind of super craving Edgeworth/Phoenix, despite Phoenix's lack of physical presence. .__.
* Started Avalon Code, decided to not bother with it. It's cute and the premise sounded interesting, but it doesn't have a strong start where it really sweeps you into the story and the system is really convoluted and would take forever to complete if you were being an OCD perfectionist, which, well, I have that tendency. Decided I have much better stuff to play and gave it a raincheck.
* Finally started Tales of Vesperia! So far I'm really enjoying it. Yuuri reminds me of Jade a bit with all his sarcasm. Estelle is sweet... my favourite so far is Rita, though. Actually I'm kind of shipping Rita/Estelle at this point. (Which is just after the hills on the way to the port city.)
On the note of gameplay... is it just me, or is it weirdly hard somehow? I mean, I played most of Hearts and Abyss on hard level, and I'm struggling on normal sometimes in Vesperia, wtf?
Work:
* One of my English students had to stop lessons because she couldn't afford them for the moment. The other is still technically taking classes, but we had some mixups with times and I haven't had an email back from him in over a week. I wonder if he's okay...
* Everything at the medical centre is going as per usual. That reminds me, I need to get someone to cover my shift Thursday week, since I'll be in Sydney.
* Once I've got assessment-free time, need to get cracking on research assistant work! note to self.
Other:
* Got the draft in on time for Star Trek Big Bang. It's not actually completely finished-- in fact I need to write most of chapter 4 and add/rewrite a fair few scenes in chapter 3, but I should have time to do all that before it goes live. At the moment the word count is ~36,400, but it'll probably end up closer to 50K when I'm done with it. << And then I really need to get back to BBX. I wanted to have it finished by this Christmas, but that's looking unlikely, especially since I'm spending December in Japan. Should at least be able to get an update done by then, though.
* Working on a translation of a short story for a competition. My Jap->Eng translation teacher said she thinks I have a shot, and she's one of the judges. The prize for winning is 60,000 yen and publication of the translation, so it's a pretty big deal... It's fairly hard going, though, because the story is 30 pages and fairly dense with description. Description of an Austrian monastery. My rather lax Catholic upbringing only goes so far - google has been getting a major workout. (God, translation in the days before the internet, just the thought makes me cry.)
* Starting to move back towards the urge to watch TV. Have been watching Ashes to Ashes and United States of Tara on free-to-air, just started with a British comedy called Fear Shock & Anger. It's been a while since I've been motivated to download and watch anything, but I watched the first episode of Gossip Girls earlier tonight. I'd probably be watching ep 2 or so now if I hadn't been turfed off both TVs by my parents. T__T Dad is watching the football in the other room, which usually I can get to myself. At least the season is almost over, though. (And yes, this is why I'm updating LJ: because no TVs means no boobtube OR Xbox and I'm out of fic to read and not in the mood to write or translate. XD)
Anyway, my mum's last day of work is Tuesday week. I won't really notice the effects of it straight away because I'm going up to Sydney that week and she's going to Brisbane the week after, but I do wonder how this is going to turn out... I'm not sure how well I will fare without my no-people time, it was hard enough moving back into my parent's house when I came home from Japan...
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:49 pm (UTC)It won't stop. That game is just chalk-full of gay. I'm pretty sure Judith is the token lesbian elf (think the bunny village in FFXII) and Yuri and Flynn are all kinds of questionable. Not even to mention the part where Carol cross-dresses...
Also, it's not just you. Vesperia is kicking my ass. I keep having to put it down for a couple of months at a time to cool down before I attempt it again. The other thing is the game cock-blocks you from just leveling to the point that you're stronger than everything.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 03:01 am (UTC)... Yeah, just met Flynn, and I have to say, that is... a relationship of somewhat dubious heterosexuality. XD
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 08:59 am (UTC)MORDORPLAY VIDEO GAMES!!! every time I do a tiny amount of work. XD;no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 05:43 pm (UTC)It took me about five minutes to ship them. I took the game in the middle, but...
Hum, didn't have any problems with Vesperia, but then I've played Rebirth, so...
Good luck with the translation~
no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 09:03 am (UTC)Yeah, I finished Rebirth too... I don't remember if I had any issues with it aside from being a little annoyed about not being able to order Annie to heal me. I'm settling into Vesperia now, but I actually had to turn one of the bosses down to easy mode early on to beat it, which was a bit disgruntling, but there was no way to buy items or heal so I couldn't level grind... I think it helps now I'm getting all the burst arts and things, though.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 05:56 pm (UTC)Well Probably what was hard is that apparently you keep having to do parts without some of your party... (the part I played we didn't have estelle, and had to rely on Raven and Karol for healing ^^; And then Yuri learned a healing tech too, so I as Rita was the only one who didn't have one, but then I never got hit, so... XD )