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What a month.
Apr. 19th, 2008 03:27 amAnd it's not over yet. This really is the eye of the storm - many of the major projects and papers are done, and turned in, but finals haven't started. And it's been real turmoil.
Study abroad things finally in, excepting a secondary insurance policy and the eventual visa application.
But there's been one, small change in my status lately. Between being sick over spring break (twice! - and repeatedly since!! sheesh) and working every weekend... I have had only the slightest inclinations toward creativity. The mind's been willing to contemplate the abstracts, which to me were always more comfortable ground than concrete ideas. They're nice and formless and delicate, and though sometimes they're a little hard to grip, mist can't cut you.
The conceptual design part of my brain has been utterly dead, and the less said about my interest in actually making art, the better. I've written little snatches of ideas, but I haven't had any spare energy to make them really go; physical artwork has simply not happened.
So I've been turning to consumption of creativity instead, largely reading and playing Oblivion. And I've realized a handful of things, some of which are rehashings of forgotten knowledge, some entirely new.
I'm actually a pretty good gamer when I have the time. And I'm an absolute blithering perfectionist. (Okay, "blithering doesn't really work ideally there, but I was so eager to type it...)
I may not have been willing to shell out the money for a PS3, and I still think that - for the experience they offer (not the technological/ logistics of the console) - they are overpriced; as usual, my appreciation for the developers of games (Bethesda, here, mostly) exceeds my interest in the machine running the game (only natural - creativity trumps logic most of the time, for me. I'll scrape for Sheogorath before I bow to Julianos. Yes, I did just say that.) In the end, though, Oblivion alone has been worth the price of an average console. More on that later. I still prefer the Wii's gaming style immensely, prefer its menu style and its general attitude. Cute doesn't automatically nix amazing, nor does powerful automatically translate into impressive. My notion of pricing for the (experience of owning a) PS3: $300.
Oblivion: Gorgeous. Not flawless, but lovely, often delightful. The inclusion of readable books is a great carryover from earlier games; they seem to have improved their content (granted, that's a limited sample.) The stats page is similarly a lot of fun; "jokes told" always gives me a smile to look at it and it's nice to see whether something a cursor (buggy) says is permissible to take is actually stealing. In my short time in-game I've gotten Benirus Manor cleared and leveled at least three stats to expert, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well. Got a number of magical weapons I never use, and purchased tons of spells I never quit casting. Access to a feather spell has been immensely helpful.
I started with a Khajiit character, because they were so much fun to play back in Morrowind; frankly, though (and I'll grant my ingame experience was marred by their suddenly plantigrade stance, yes, but this would be my opinion nonetheless:) they're just not as much fun anymore. Sure, it's great to start with such cool stats, but they're best as thieves, and the Thieves Guild quest line... just... doesn't rock me like it used to.
So I decided I'd try something really different. Started a Breton character based on an old roleplay character of mine. Her behaviour is closely modeled on a very specific individual (her appearance less so, but I think I did a pretty killer job designing her features, I never get tired of referencing her face, as I always see the intended character in it - a little worn, a little weatherbeaten and tired, maybe even a little sad, but with a pleasant plump prettiness and a kind eye.) The individual in question was a very straight-and-narrow path healer, someone well-acquainted with fighting and war and entirely sick of it. So I built a custom class (I danced around "herbwife" and "witch," before I eventually landed on "seer") around restoration and alchemy, with speechcraft thrown in for good measure. She'd always been well-loved, although I'm not sure I'd characterize her as "lovable," as she actually (and very uncommonly, for my preferences) held herself apart from everyone she met, knowing that circumstances would yank her right back out of that world and she'd never see any of those characters again. But she had a knowledge of herbs, and worked as a healer, and wound up picking up some friends along the way, anyway. So she's essentially quite similar, and I've been holding her to the strict code of conduct this character embraced - to the point that in a lot of cases where it wouldn't make any difference in-game to do something that might be construed as "harmful," I won't do it, anyway, because in any real world it would be. (I finally succumbed to raiding public gardens.)
And I love this - I've got her destruction spells as restoration credits - using "Absorb/ Consume/ Devour Health" as attacks, something not too far out of range for the original character. Earlier today she'd killed fourteen people (bandits, conjurers) and 400 creatures; this has gone up considerably in the last three hours of vegetation, by at least four people and another dozen or so creatures.
And I've been arranging flowers, vases, food and other props in my new house. The positioning of certain planters can work wonders; the boyfriend was a little stumped at my need to get things perfect, and frankly, so am I, to a point; if I've been tired, whence comes the motivation?
I think it's because I don't need to think. I simply act, and if something goes wrong there's a load point. And I've badly needed something like that for a long while, as it seems lately that everything I do comes at such risk, and that the possibilities of reward are much lesser. It's nice to do away with that, for a time.
Study abroad things finally in, excepting a secondary insurance policy and the eventual visa application.
But there's been one, small change in my status lately. Between being sick over spring break (twice! - and repeatedly since!! sheesh) and working every weekend... I have had only the slightest inclinations toward creativity. The mind's been willing to contemplate the abstracts, which to me were always more comfortable ground than concrete ideas. They're nice and formless and delicate, and though sometimes they're a little hard to grip, mist can't cut you.
The conceptual design part of my brain has been utterly dead, and the less said about my interest in actually making art, the better. I've written little snatches of ideas, but I haven't had any spare energy to make them really go; physical artwork has simply not happened.
So I've been turning to consumption of creativity instead, largely reading and playing Oblivion. And I've realized a handful of things, some of which are rehashings of forgotten knowledge, some entirely new.
I'm actually a pretty good gamer when I have the time. And I'm an absolute blithering perfectionist. (Okay, "blithering doesn't really work ideally there, but I was so eager to type it...)
I may not have been willing to shell out the money for a PS3, and I still think that - for the experience they offer (not the technological/ logistics of the console) - they are overpriced; as usual, my appreciation for the developers of games (Bethesda, here, mostly) exceeds my interest in the machine running the game (only natural - creativity trumps logic most of the time, for me. I'll scrape for Sheogorath before I bow to Julianos. Yes, I did just say that.) In the end, though, Oblivion alone has been worth the price of an average console. More on that later. I still prefer the Wii's gaming style immensely, prefer its menu style and its general attitude. Cute doesn't automatically nix amazing, nor does powerful automatically translate into impressive. My notion of pricing for the (experience of owning a) PS3: $300.
Oblivion: Gorgeous. Not flawless, but lovely, often delightful. The inclusion of readable books is a great carryover from earlier games; they seem to have improved their content (granted, that's a limited sample.) The stats page is similarly a lot of fun; "jokes told" always gives me a smile to look at it and it's nice to see whether something a cursor (buggy) says is permissible to take is actually stealing. In my short time in-game I've gotten Benirus Manor cleared and leveled at least three stats to expert, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well. Got a number of magical weapons I never use, and purchased tons of spells I never quit casting. Access to a feather spell has been immensely helpful.
I started with a Khajiit character, because they were so much fun to play back in Morrowind; frankly, though (and I'll grant my ingame experience was marred by their suddenly plantigrade stance, yes, but this would be my opinion nonetheless:) they're just not as much fun anymore. Sure, it's great to start with such cool stats, but they're best as thieves, and the Thieves Guild quest line... just... doesn't rock me like it used to.
So I decided I'd try something really different. Started a Breton character based on an old roleplay character of mine. Her behaviour is closely modeled on a very specific individual (her appearance less so, but I think I did a pretty killer job designing her features, I never get tired of referencing her face, as I always see the intended character in it - a little worn, a little weatherbeaten and tired, maybe even a little sad, but with a pleasant plump prettiness and a kind eye.) The individual in question was a very straight-and-narrow path healer, someone well-acquainted with fighting and war and entirely sick of it. So I built a custom class (I danced around "herbwife" and "witch," before I eventually landed on "seer") around restoration and alchemy, with speechcraft thrown in for good measure. She'd always been well-loved, although I'm not sure I'd characterize her as "lovable," as she actually (and very uncommonly, for my preferences) held herself apart from everyone she met, knowing that circumstances would yank her right back out of that world and she'd never see any of those characters again. But she had a knowledge of herbs, and worked as a healer, and wound up picking up some friends along the way, anyway. So she's essentially quite similar, and I've been holding her to the strict code of conduct this character embraced - to the point that in a lot of cases where it wouldn't make any difference in-game to do something that might be construed as "harmful," I won't do it, anyway, because in any real world it would be. (I finally succumbed to raiding public gardens.)
And I love this - I've got her destruction spells as restoration credits - using "Absorb/ Consume/ Devour Health" as attacks, something not too far out of range for the original character. Earlier today she'd killed fourteen people (bandits, conjurers) and 400 creatures; this has gone up considerably in the last three hours of vegetation, by at least four people and another dozen or so creatures.
And I've been arranging flowers, vases, food and other props in my new house. The positioning of certain planters can work wonders; the boyfriend was a little stumped at my need to get things perfect, and frankly, so am I, to a point; if I've been tired, whence comes the motivation?
I think it's because I don't need to think. I simply act, and if something goes wrong there's a load point. And I've badly needed something like that for a long while, as it seems lately that everything I do comes at such risk, and that the possibilities of reward are much lesser. It's nice to do away with that, for a time.
