#i feel like there's weirdly a lot of overlap in what appeals to me about these two stories

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

i was just forcibly clobbered by the realization that if my younger self was in the driver's seat of my life, i would have written an ed/stede moulin rouge au by now ✨✨✨

[redantsunderneath]

The À la Recherche du Temps Perdu of gamer you tube videos

One recent mild obsession of mine is a >10 hour review of Cyberpunk 2077 that came out this week from Action Button dot Net (Tim Rogers), who used to be fun to read about video games in the aughts and who started doing long-ish entertaining videos for Kotaku a while back, but who now is doing marathon videos for his own youtube channel. Cyberpunk playlist:

Channel:

This all started because my kids mentioned a couple of weeks ago that super long youtubes attempting to exhaustively talk about a game were becoming a subgenre. I watched some dude's almost 8 hour Morrowind video until I stopped, but found AB.net's channel after not thinking about him for a decade, watched the 3.5 hour Doom one, and really dug it. The other genre examples I tried seem to be trying to find everything in-game to talk about in order to detail obsess the subject into submission. Rogers is doing something different.

You can call it new journalism (which arrived about four decades late to videogames over a decade ago but whose all-about-my-experience weirdly is the opposite of the idea of look-at-the-text-only "new criticism" of ye olde era, though Tim is clearly criticism not journalism) but I think it is something more interesting than that. It is more like the project of an (Mendelson’s) encyclopedic novel, trying to make a Ulysses of the late millennial gamer experience. There is a world map in these things individually and collectively - I haven't finished but this "season" but it has the feeling of really inspecting one by one the rooms of a childhood home. Moby Dick kept coming to mind (guy whose favorite book is Moby Dick: "I'm getting some Moby Dick vibes off of this") because of the feeling of narrative exhaustion, of discursive burnout. This is a thing Homestuck, Cerebus, Claremont's X-Men, the Worm (?maybe, haven't gotten too far there) give you as well as the obvious literary reference points.

David Foster Wallace isn't a bad comparison as there's a kind of diaphoretic almost horseshoe bipolar energy that seems to risk burnout (the hospital story is very IJ). All six vids cover different aspects of his life/development and there is a sense that the Cyberpunk one needs to be watched last as a more meta unifyer of the others (who am I kidding, but also yeah, that scans). There is, as those things above and early 10's Kanye, a feeling of obsessives with well developed craft giving over to an unmediated creative possession that they then can't help but hone because they are so good at their form. A kind of madness or channeled crisis wrought into art.

You miss a significant number of jokes if you aren't ready to pause and read text, which is insane. The Cyberpunk one is interesting as a piece of ergodic text, or at least cybertext, where there is a hidden substructure beneath his appeal to do a "choose your own adventure," with a "good ending" in there. If you read the comments (yes, on you tube, I know) there are people identifying as "5-6 ers" - there is just a kind of formal play going on that feels like experimental exploitation of how you do this kind of stuff on line that isn't an arg adjacent thing. There is even what feels like an annular narrative, a piece of himself that one needs to risk the parasocial police to try to find (I have not gone deep enough, but there is a ghost of something there).

There is a more general point about "everything goes in there" literary efforts that attempt to stake out an identity through unconcious overlapping magesteria that encompasses something bigger in the 40,000' reflection. Don't get me wrong, this isn't there yet. It is entertaining, experimental, interesting, and formative of something to come. But the frame is still small. We get a little early struggle with mortality, tar baby melee with an artistic form, a lot of social commentary, some pseudo-postmodernist, post-marxist division, philosophy, just a pinch off existential angst, but not a proper gaze into the abyss, no boxing with "God." That's a lot to ask for and it's only just suffering as a point of comparison with great art in mature fields. but there's always a season two and whatever this will conjure up in new creators' minds. Maybe the headline should read "the Velvet Underground of gamer you tube videos," but I feel like there is something here that in its modest aims is more along the lines of War and Peace ("Aggro and AFK"?) than a Pewds thing.

[copperbadge]

kissmeagainarthas replied to your post “Is NOAA having a direct line that gives you a local weather forecast...”

So this is what it feels like when I tell people that there's a phone number you can call to check your [insert chronometrical object here]'s time against the atomic clock and they look at me like I've sprouted a second head.

That one I actually knew about! Although I always wondered who was using that. Like who needs that level of precision? I guess scientists doing extremely precise timed experiments and a certain kind of Dad.

maverickz3r0 replied to your post “This was a terrible journey.”

It's actually really good and I don't even like football! The football itself in the story is barely recognizable as the sport usually anyway.

What’s so interesting to me is that a bunch of people have said that, but in the little bit of reading I did in it, football is paramount to it. It’s written so clearly for football fans, a very specific subset of football fans, the kind who watch the pregame and postgame shows and read articles about football on football news websites. 

Like, that’s not a criticism of it or you, it’s great that it appealed to such a broad audience outside of that, and obviously you’re not alone since it won a couple of spec fiction awards. But it was so clearly football fanfic for the football fandom. There were moments before I stopped reading where I was like “I can’t believe most of fandom read all the way through this.” There’s definitely sports/fandom overlap, but not usually of this kind. 

drgaellon replied to your photo “Brother, do thou even barnraise?”

@copper​badge "do you" formal or "dost thou" informal.

Normally I know, but I thought the Amish were one of the ones that when speaking English use the modern verb but the anachronistic pronoun. I could be mixing them up with someone else though, or just confused in general. :D 

laughingacademy replied to your post “This was a terrible journey.”

How is this simultaneously something I could never have predicted AND totally on brand for you?

Yeah, it’s up there with the time I picked Instinct in Pokemon Go because I was wearing a yellow shirt at the time for pure Samness. 

ignotussomnium replied to your post “This was a terrible journey.”

A lot of people saw it as horror but I thought it was weirdly sweet.

Yeah, I have to say I fall into the horror camp. I stopped reading before the end, which is purportedly very uplifting, though, so I won’t criticize. 

[wallkickswillwork]

signal jamming

incoherency is comforting because of the narrative weve been fed our whole entire lives that in order to be palatable media must in some way be complete and have beveled, well-defined edges rather than being a mess of finger paints, bright colors, strange dialogues and verbiage, build trees of moods.

thoughts on: -futuristic anime, 90s anime and the unique sense of mood in toonami shows. they are a very good series of shows for people who are coming of age and who must slowly be forced to reckon with the industrialization and mercenary nature of adult life, as it is increasingly held captive by capitalism. there is also something essentially spiritual about it, especially shows like precure and dbz, where an interior or exterior-made-interior force is responsible for the protagonists' success in the face of an oppressive world-system. under capitalism, it frequently is the case that the entire world or entirety-of-world is against us. heroes must overcome overwhelming odds to leave their mark on a gauntlet of greats. -cowboy bebop, final fantasy 7, metroid as meditations on loss, urbanization, dating back to blade runner. this is a type of meditation that is present in much of cyberpunk, but its also not exclusively cyberpunk, and can extend in nature to non-cyberpunk works.

thinking about necrobarista and how its attempting to "resuscitate" anime, while this approach doesnt really examine what contemporary anime like jojos, precure, and slightly more dated anime like hidaske and nichijou do well. if we get all this tunnel vision for gurren lagann and flcl we can never look forward. i think a lot of the visual work that needs to be done is probably in movies. i think maybe there could be work done to marry cinema proper with its animated counterpart. steven universe seems like it gets it, and there are some anime that really seemed like they got it. i dont think were beyond salvation.

-listening to the whos "tommy" and thinking about how trauma and the humanity of that trauma is experienced and lived-through by the main character in socratic fashion. these stories are discussed by people whose actual, authentic experience of trauma irl is doubtful at best. they are great successes on stage who dont struggle in the sense that an actual victim would struggle. calls to mind how a lot of freuds patients would fabricate csa in order to fulfill the expectations of the therapist. but in other cases, actual patients with csa would repress their experiences or not feel comfortable discussing. so thats how i feel about gurus like meher baba or i guess alan watts. less trustworthy and more like scam artists. i do believe in what they teach, however. i think that a guru can teach the truth even if that guru is a liar. maybe its the truth, but the guru doesnt know it to be true, or else, the way the guru teaches it is untrue.

-for a while i imagined my own autism to be the result of childhood trauma that was repressed, but later emerged that those memories were fabricated, to my knowledge, and was left wondering.

-learning to regard the world with a sense of wonder from media like cowboy bebop and ff7. these worlds are jaded and decaying realities but there is a sense of awe at the vast, uncompromising reality. truly vast, sprawling and yawning cities and vast starry skies up above. beholding these things and beholding the starry skies and huge cities of our own planet surely stirs something in me.

-fantasy anime tends to go the joke route like slayers or else the route of "we are all kids, bro, stuck in an mmo" and i think this is mostly due to the admittedly antiquated setting of high fantasy in european trochets and history which to japanese people probably feel like white person set dressing and as they should, i mean. there are more high fantasy themes in something like inuyasha and japans history can be feudal, edo, the meiji restoration, primordial like princess mononoke, etc, so theres more wiggle room for historical works there. slayers et al is usually reduced to "characters moving around the forest" which is almost like this grand slice of the collective anime consciousness as it stands overlapping with, say, pokemon, to the extent where its one of the cliche anime things everyone thinks about, alongside high school, robots, nurses, etc.

-another thing to which we could probably ascribe the success of something like slayers to is wizardry and by proxy dragon quest. small graph paper monster garden games. the appeal is entirely mathematical so there are only a few directions that anime directors tend to run with it (goofy gag comedy if youre making a show or cut and dried authentic dungeon crawlers with moe characters instead of the usual dbz ones). going off what you definitely learn in japanese history class if youre a japanese student, for starters, there are thousands of years of chinese history, so you have romance of 3 kingdoms type stuff. or you have high school romances accounting for the various fire emblems where the appeal becomes game of thronesy "which of my characters in dragon quest land can i make kiss each other and myself", very good ground to cover as we start asking the important questions. theres samurai stuff as we already know, drawing on years of samurai media, kurosawas films and zen spirituality, art of the blade type stuff, jeet kune do in some instances and reaching so far afield as to probably raise some interesting and important questions about pan-asiatic cultural identity which this author (white) is ill-advised to answer. but reeling it back in, the question mostly being of history, and how a lot of fantasy media draws more from History proper as a codified cultural body than histories being individuated familial experiences. its true that when a work does something unique with history (earthbounds hippy dippy approach to the 1960s, undertales handling of furry culture, yume nikkis south american murals) its tended to be seen as that works "thing" as if because hulk hogan was an all american wrestler that precluded john cena from being same, or at least, embodying a similar if slightly modified niche. nobody can make a hippy dippy rpg now or something because itd just be called an earthbound ripoff rather than a loving homage. and i think thats wrong headed and how genres become stillborn rather than invented and developed upon. we have this vast morass of stuff from the 20th century and we could be developing various 60s, 70s, 80s fantasies. hindsight is 20/20 i guess. who knows, we could see bluff city become something in 50 years time.

i feel this is because of extreme stringent expectations of intellectual property laws and their dissemination into everyday discourse online. i dont really like or agree with monolithic cultural expectations like intellectual property or *shudder* advertising, but only to the extent where i can acknowledge that whether or not i agree with them is irrelevant to their all-consuming scope and the need for marxists to actively combat them. its one thing to say "x is bad" and another to clamor for urgency of fighting x, which is, if you believe what we read every day about global warming, too late, so its not important. nevertheless there are a multiplicity of settings that could be developed into genres and identities and ideologues that rarely are if only because it would be seen as "oh yeah like that other thing". people are fickle and develop dwarflike strange moods when it comes to defining what constitutes original versus hackneyed and derivative. i think its mostly dictated by star signs and the weather.

so lately if you follow me on twitter youve probably noticed im doing sort of a tweet concrete kind of thing where i post plaintext quotes from various media taken out of context. i decided to do this for a while, maybe a few weeks, because aesthetic blogs and the aesthetic style of blogging allow me to pool and channel my energies towards larger and more ambitious styles of writing. i usually get loaded on caffeine during this process and frequently watch large amounts of anime and meditate some. its definitely a process and its geared toward something hazily, vaguely spiritual but with pretentions toward being authentically publishable as theory. the idea also being i would like to make some money to support my livelihood, and i like to write, and am somewhat skilled at it, or at least experienced in kind of a ramshackle homespun sort of way. so if my social media presence is pretty boring and kind of weirdly nostalgic or else contrariwise if you feel it has improved lately thats the reason why that happened.

ive been getting very hazy and foggy mentally lately. i feel like it has to do with caffeination and lack of sleep. its important to get everything flowing properly, and sometimes depression and anxiety make that difficult to do. theres anxiety over unemployment, something im trying to remedy, and theres anxiety over theory and where to proceed next via theory. for years i was a devout buddhist in some ways, and meditated a lot, almost every day. i prayed to the bodhisattvas and copped to buddhist metaphysics, something which, based around personal life experience, i had every reason to believe was true. lately and in my own, strange way, ive begun to question this ideology and interpret it as part of a patchwork of ideologies, each one which attempts to describe a totality, a totality which is rarely if ever described properly by any ideology. grasping at straws in a structural sense, and feeling nonplussed but with no ground to run to, and im back on the boss level in super mario 64 where bowser smashes the ground to make it fall away. attempts at restructuring as this dissolution transpires only serve to create new protocols equal in scope to pre-existing paradigms. and there are plenty of people who dont struggle this much with religion and probably still go to heaven, or think theyre going to heaven, or something. hows marge and the kids. did jerry get that new promotion. mom just got back from vacation in cancun. smalltalk style concerns arising in every day transitionary speech feel distinct and very distant from these kind of hazy, pie in the sky questions. plato never wrote about the kind of stuff you see in a cheers episode. there are philosophy books that try to merge the two, but they usually get shelved in the comedy section.

so its mostly a matter of trying to absorb and contain new information, which abides in abundance, and trying to corral it into sort of a pointing arrow to direct me where to go, in my hewing, a feat not easily done. probably the endgame is in the crafting and solution of art, but what kind of art, and whether i have the tools at my disposal to even create it, is less easily answered. so for now, i guess, im absorbing, waiting, asking questions, and who knows, and who can say.

earliest memories of religion are of the greco roman religion and not knowing about the mystery religious rites but knowing about an abstract concept of wisdom and the ocean and extrapolating the existence of athena and poseidon in that way. later i have memories of exposure to christianity and buddhism and bahai but none of these things feel particularly useful to me at this time in my life. i can more readily receive a picture, a kind of enlarged image, of a broad religious landscape and some of the questions it attempts to provide answers for, or at least, a way of thinking about. the greco roman religion, for instance, is a presentation of a deleuzian multiplicity, and the monotheistic religions are a monad, but i also dont think either of these things can say the other is inherently undesireable. tolerance seems to be the best method, but also, and likewise, not dwelling specifically in any of them. acknowledging they all exist, but not being any of them. enjoying in surfeit the tension between multiplicity and monad. that there can be many things and one thing. like the album cover of dark side of the moon.

[lentils-writes]

Day 23: Goddess/human AU

(this is...sort of the plot of Thor but like SHUT UP Thor is great!!! also the ending sure does...happen lol oops)

It’s the graveyard shift, so Melinda’s pretty much alone, until 4:30 AM when her patrol route overlaps with Isabelle’s. She doesn’t mind it; the world is better when no one else is around, and she can be totally focused on her surroundings.

She’s not expecting much, because it’s three AM on a Tuesday night. But then while she’s patrolling the outside of the building, she hears a weird crash around the corner and goes to investigate, hand on her taser.

She’s thinking maybe it’ll be an animal that knocked something over, or some idiot kids trying to break into the building for laughs. What she’s not expecting is a woman, totally naked and staring at her.

Melinda sighs and lowers her flashlight so it’s not shining in the woman’s face. “What are you doing here?” she asks firmly. “Why don’t you have clothes?”

“I am Kara, goddess of illusions,” says the woman, “and I am here to explore your world.”

“What the fuck,” Melinda deadpans.

---

Melinda regards the woman sitting at her kitchen table with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “So...you’re a goddess.”

The woman - Kara, she said her name was Kara - nods, swallowing the mouthful of cereal she was chewing. “As I told you, my realm is...in the midst of changing, and I decided to travel to your realm in order to observe how you mortals live.”

“Uh huh.” Melinda tilts her head. “And clothes don’t travel between your realm and mine?”

“No,” replies Kara. “And as I mentioned earlier, in my realm we often forego clothing, as it is considered unnecessary.”

“Okay,” says Melinda dubiously. “Well, you’re here on Earth, where clothing isn’t optional.” Even though, she muses, Kara’s objectively gorgeous. Kara’s currently wearing the set of spare clothes Melinda keeps at work just in case she ends up needing to go in early and sleep a couple hours before her shift. It’s just a sweatshirt and baggy pajama pants, but Kara still looks like she’s just stepped off a runway or a movie set. “To be honest, I’m not sure you’re not just fucking with me.”

Kara swallows the last bite of cereal and smirks. “You think I am lying to you. I can assure you I’m not. Would you like proof?”

“Yeah, I really would. You’re not drunk and you’re too lucid to be on drugs, but you’re sure as hell not making sense.”

Kara nods. “Very well.” She stands up, and, after a moment, starts to shapeshift. Soon, a perfect mirror image of Melinda is standing in her place.

Melinda prides herself on being able to keep her face fairly neutral even in the most innocuous of situations. This definitely tests that. “Huh,” she says, “Okay then.”

Kara shifts back and smirks at her. “You see, I can make people think I look however I please. Is that proof enough for you?”

Melinda snorts. “Well, it’s something alright. And you’re, what, a tourist on Earth? Is this like a visit to the zoo for you?”

“I think that’s a bit of a cruel analogy.” Kara says. “I don’t think of you mortals as animals. I merely wish to...understand you better. You do and say many things that I find puzzling. You continue to make the same poor choices over and over again, or you act without pausing to consider the outcome of what you are doing. It fascinates me.”

Melinda shrugs. “That’s what being human is. We make stupid decisions and then we live with the consequences. Sometimes we get lucky, but usually not.”

Kara nods and hums as if she’s thinking. “Interesting. And you? What is your life like?”

“Not very exciting,” admits Melinda nonchalantly. “I go to work, I come home, I eat, I sleep. I sometimes see my friends. I had a girlfriend up until recently.”

“Girlfriend,” Kara says, furrowing her brow. “I know that humans sometimes use this word to refer to platonic companions as well as romantic ones. Which was true in your case?”

“Romantic,” replies Melinda. “Maria and I...we called it quits about a few months back. Just wasn’t working out. We were together about a year and a half before that.”

“You loved her,” Kara says. “Yes?”

Melinda sighs. “Yes. But like I said, it wasn’t working out. Sometimes that happens. You just learn to live with it.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara says. “I don’t want to make you unhappy. We can talk about other things if you wish.”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep,” says Melinda. “I usually pass out when I get home from work, but I figured you...needed help.” That was sort of an understatement, but it sounds kinder than “you were walking around naked and baffled and I almost tased you before you convinced me you weren’t dangerous, and I had to get you out of there before my coworker found you.”

Kara nods. “I understand. May I have leave to explore your home? I will do my best to avoid breaking or damaging anything.”

Melinda’s so tired she just nods. “Whatever.”

When she wakes up, Kara’s figured out how to work the TV and is watching a marathon of House Hunters. “Does everyone who wishes to purchase a house need to have their search broadcast on television?” she asks when Melinda stumbles out into the living room. “It seems impractical.”

Melinda snorts. “No, just rich people who want attention.” She starts preparing her tea and throws a bagel into the toaster.

“Oh, I see. May I have some food as well?”

“Sure, when mine’s done I’ll make you a bagel.” Melinda comes over to sit down next to Kara. “Have you just been watching House Hunters this whole time?”

“For many hours, yes,” says Kara. “It’s interesting. I already feel as if I’ve learned so much about humanity from watching it.”

“Great,” sighs Melinda. “The goddess is getting ideas about how people work from reality TV.” At least it hadn’t been Dance Moms or The Bachelor.

---

After a few weeks, Melinda gets weirdly used to having Kara around. She becomes a little less stiff and formal, and even though she still asks dozens of questions, she does a lot of research by herself, often while Melinda’s at work. Sometimes Melinda will come home and Kara will immediately ask her about something she discovered but didn’t understand. (One particularly memorable day had her asking, “Can you explain the appeal of anal beads?” Melinda had just blinked and, at a loss for words, deadpanned, “Some people just like to stick things up their ass” and then gone to bed.)

She takes her places too - grocery shopping, the library, the gym. Once she took Kara to her favorite queer bar, but Kara ended up flirting with every available woman in the place and making out with a few of them. Melinda doesn’t offer to take her again. If you asked her, she would say that it was reckless behavior that she shouldn’t encourage. (The pangs of jealousy she got every time Kara laughed with another woman had nothing at all to do with it.)

By this point, Kara’s figured out how to charm everyone she meets into liking her. Melinda, who mostly ignores everyone unless she has no other choice, is baffled and slightly horrified. “You know regular people don’t do that,” she says, after Kara gets involved in a fifteen-minute conversation with the pizza delivery guy.

“Do what?”

“Talk to strangers like that. Treat them like they’re your best friend. Most people just want to do their job and not talk to people. It’s weird.”

Kara shrugs. “He seemed to enjoy the conversation. I enjoyed getting to know him. I don’t see the issue.”

Melinda shakes her head. “You’re so…” She trails off, unsure of what to say.

“I want to learn as much as I can,” explains Kara. “I can only learn so much from reading. Speaking to people is helpful. Could we go to the bar again? I found that fascinating.”

“No,” says Melinda quickly. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Kara asks. “I wish to see how the experience of having sex with a human woman compares to having sex with someone from my realm.”

Melinda wrinkles her nose. “Don’t.”

“Why?” Kara presses. “You have presumably had sex with other women. Provided that all parties are consenting, why is it objectionable that I should have sex with a woman?”

Melinda opens her mouth to try and explain, but instead what she does is lean over and kiss Kara. She hadn’t exactly been planning on it, but here they are.

Kara seems surprised when they break apart, but not unhappy. “That was one of those impulse decisions I mentioned,” she says, smirking. “You didn’t think that through at all. You just did it.”

Melinda feels her cheeks heat up, but she just shrugs. “Well...I didn’t like the idea of you finding someone else,” she mumbles. “When I’m…”

“A willing volunteer?” teases Kara. “For my experiment?”

“Something like that,” says Melinda, kissing Kara again. This time, she kisses back.

[angeltriestoblog]

Your Comprehensive Guide to Surviving Grade 11

WARNING: The longest post I’ve ever made in the history of my blogging “career” is up ahead. Nevertheless, please read it so my efforts won’t be wasted.

In a nutshell, last school year was me trying to secure the Guinness World Record for the number of breakdowns on a bedroom floor. The amount of workload was unforgiving, the pressure to perform was crippling, the competition was inadvertently fierce and the standards set were higher than fun.'s friends in the Empire State. (Please get this reference.) Surprisingly, I survived and lived not only to tell the tale but to also help incoming Grade 11 students prepare for the year that is to come so they won't have to deal with the many risks of premature stress like I did! This is where this guide (with some unnecessary blabber on the side because will it really be an Angel Martinez post without it) comes in. Though it's a given that not everything that happened to me won't apply to you, I still hope you use these to better your experiences and emerge as a stronger and more productive person! Like me, I guess. In a way. 

To kick this off, let me just say that I know this notice might be coming in a little late, since enrollment for most schools (in the metro, at least) have already come to a close. Thus, by the time you've read this, you may have already chosen a strand of your own! The selection of some schools may be limited to the basics: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM) and Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) which are all pretty self-explanatory in terms of the topics of focus. But from what I know, others also offer Arts and Design and Sports for those who wish to devote their full attention to the talents they wish to hone and even a general academic strand for the benefit of those who remain undecided. I, for one, chose ABM: I didn’t feel like committing to a certain career yet and wanted to opt for the safest option among the choices.

The process of choosing which way to go is pretty intimidating at first especially once you figure out that the rest of your life may very well be at stake. But, it isn't that much of a pain once you reflect on your interests enough and see if those align with what you want to do and where you want to be in the future, if that’s not too forward looking for you! I know a couple of people who’ve had to compromise their true passions for the sake of pleasing their families. Whether it’s to continue a legacy that’s been passed down for several generations or fulfill a dream that belonged to someone else, some parents believe they have every reason in the world to demand their children’s future, even if it’s obviously against their will. Yes, I believe that it’s their responsibility to guide their kids through the process of figuring out what they want to be in such a fast-paced and ever-changing world where anyone can influence and be influenced for better or for worse. They must be able to provide the insight that only they possess after all the years they’ve spent collecting wisdom. They should help us plan out what’s gonna be on the blueprint of our lives, not finish it by themselves, present it and expect us to follow without any questions.

But as per usual, I digress. TL:DR choose the track you want, you don’t owe anything to anyone.

Generally, Grade 11 will be the hardest year on you. It doesn’t care if you came terribly unprepared, if you haven’t slept a wink in eons or if the people you live with barely even know who you are anymore. It’s unforgiving and relentless in the pursuit of giving you the biggest ordeal of your life. Based on my personal experience, I reckon it’s due to the fact that our teachers stand by their decision to treat us as young adults, seeing as we’d be in first year college anyway if the K-to-12 program wasn’t a thing. When we were children, everything we needed to know about a certain topic would be put on a silver platter and handed over to us, usually in the form of photocopied sheets of old handouts. All we’d have to do is memorize whatever was on them and eventually ace the tests that usually came in multiple choice or matching type form.

But now, we’re in charge of making our own notes, deciphering cryptic explanations for a certain lesson and most of all, making our own creative output based on what we could be often inaccurate interpretations. Grade 11 gave big importance to the performance task, much to the dismay of everybody. Whether individual or by group, it was always half our grade and due way before any of us were ready to face the task at hand. It also required coming up with original ideas, or solutions to the most common problems and it’s either bland when working alone or chaotic when with classmates, because everyone wants to be heard when we’re actually fighting for metaphorical spots.

I didn’t feel it much during the first semester though, because I had the best schedule on campus. Classes ended at 2:30PM for me so I had plenty of time at my disposal. I could hang out with friends, have a chat with my mom and procrastinate (responsibly) before proceeding with my work and still be able to go to sleep before the clock struck ten. My subjects weren’t terrible as well. Yeah, not all of them were anchored in the very foundation of my track but I was able to get grades far better than I would have expected, so it’s all good. Here’s a briefer on each:

General Math

A solid 8/10, which is a big deal considering the fact that Math has never been my strong suit. First quarter covers topics I barely understood when they were discussed to me in Grades 9 and 10, namely functions (linear, quadratic, polynomial, The Problematic Trio aka rational, exponential and piecewise) and equalities and inequalities. Second quarter focuses on business math, weirdly enough when there’s an entirely different subject for that, but the lessons don’t overlap. Annuities, stocks and bonds, and loans were explained plus a little bit of logic towards the end.

The key to Math is a heck lot of practice. Practice, practice, practice. Even when you know the answers, or more preferably when there’s no key given. Answer every problem in the book on a separate sheet of paper, make up your own, explain the procedure of solving to yourself, help a friend out and refresh your memory simultaneously. Do it when you get home, or when you have a free period at school or you have no idea what else to do seeing as that’s the only way you’ll develop the skills needed to become a human calculator.

Business Math

A more practical Math subject: every single topic discussed was something that could be applied in real life and useful to us when we have careers. The first few weeks consisted of our reviewing our favorites: fractions, decimal and percentage, and ratio and proportion, so it evidently started on a good note. It later on proceeds to buying and selling, computation for salaries and wages then the presentation and analysis of business data in table and graph form.

Though the lessons here are undeniably easier than our previous Math subject, it still wouldn’t hurt to practice, especially if everything isn’t clear to you from the get go. If your teacher is anything like mine and thrives on class participation, recite as often as you can whether it’s to give a recap of yesterday’s lesson or show the solution on the board. Her personal favorites in our class were those who made it a point to raise their hands as often as possible.

Physical Science

A mix of the deadliest sciences mixed in one subject. Physics and chemistry, folks. Just as appealing as it sounds. If you like both of them, you’ll breeze past this, no sweat. But if you’re like me and you stopped paying attention in science class after the teacher was done discussing the body system, you’ll have a lot of catching up to do. Subject matter included motion, energy, chemical reactions, force and energy. Don’t be too excited that there are only five, because these took two semesters to properly shove in our craniums.

There’s no downtime in this subject, you have to hustle every single day or else you’ll fall behind while the work just keeps piling up. Read up on everything and do not leave out even a single detail: know which causes what, and why well enough to the point that you can recite it in your sleep. Memorize the formulas and most importantly, invest in a double liner calculator! It’s a bit pricey but spending the amount required is far better than having to enter multiple parentheses to work your way around an equation.  

Earth and Life Science

Personally the superior science for me, considering that the topics were genuinely interesting and made me gain a better understanding of how the world works. We studied the origin and structure of the earth and beyond, earth processes, natural hazards, bioenergetics, perpetuation of life, evolution, organ systems and interaction and interdependence.

The only downside for some is that many terms will be introduced throughout the course of this subject, and you’ll obviously be required to memorize them all and at the very least, identify their definitions. Making flash cards for each lesson would definitely come in handy, even if takes a while and could very well cramp your hand but there’s this app called Quizlet which basically serves the same purpose and is easily accessible in any device you download it on.

Oral Communication

I think I was the only one in class who actually enjoyed what was going on for the most part of Oral Com, since I enjoy talking to a crowd and writing. If the mere mention of that phrase alone gives you shivers down to your spine, I guess you’ll have a lot of mental and emotional preparation to do. Normally, this subject would heavily rely on application of learnings through exercises and presentations but there was still a bit of (unnecessary) discussion here and there on topics like public communication skills and communicative strategies.

Expect a lot of speaking in front of the classroom! Tasks will range from impromptu (no time to think beforehand), extemporaneous (short preparation time upon receiving the question) and prepared speaking. Groupwork is also high in number: the teacher will give you a situation (e.g. you’ll be selling a product, your house is on fire and you need to call the fire department, ya know… the usual [?]) and you’ll need to propose your solution in the most eloquent and spontaneous way possible. Which means no reading aloud of lines scribbled on your hand with a G-Tec.

Organization and Management

Basically an introduction to the world of business and thus an essential subject for my strand. Points discussed were the nature of management, the firm and its environment, environmental scanning (PEST and SWOT analysis) and the functions of a manager in detail (planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling).

This subject was very detail-heavy so as much as I was willing to learn, I couldn’t avoid being overwhelmed by the number of things we were trying to run through in around sixteen weeks. It also didn’t help that we didn’t have a book to refer to and had literal stacks of photocopied handouts to lug around instead. But I guess by now, your school has a textbook to provide you with and if not, there are some published by Rex Bookstore available in big branches of National Bookstore like in Quezon Avenue. The best thing to do to survive this subject is to read so you can understand all the concepts. Everything discussed is important and the quizzes and quarterly tests you’ll take will require not only what you think it means, but also how you’ll use it IRL

Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Potentially one of your favorite subjects, if you’re given the right teacher, since it focuses on the intricacies of our lives as human beings. From the study of humans past and present and the complexity of our cultures (anthropology), we head on to the analysis of government systems and activity (political science) and the nitty-gritty of our development and functions in human society (sociology).

I didn’t have a problem with this step the lessons were comprehensible enough to grasp my attention but just make sure that you exert effort to understand everything! Because even though a chunk of the activities also include matching type, true or false or fill in the blanks, essays are a mainstay. Usually, they’re not based on facts too but on your own personal opinion and the teacher will be able to tell if you don’t have a particular stand or you do yet you fail to back it up with actual evidence, so be sure to find a basis for everything you say.

Unfortunately, all fun and games were over when the second semester rolled in. Our privileges were taken back and our schedule was reverted back to the usual 4:20PM. Thanks to the fact that my busmates never went straight to the bus upon dismissal and liked roaming around the campus, leaving our conductor to search for them like she was in some sort of treasure hunt, I went home at 6:00PM every day. To make matters worse, this just so happened to be the season when the research papers started rolling in, one by one, all poised and ready to kill us ever so slowly. Let me give you another quick recap:

Pagbasa at Pagsuri

Definitely not the kind of “Pagbasa” I was expecting, if I’m being frank. I thought we were going to be reading and analyzing contemporary Filipino literature, which excited me since my knowledge in that genre was close to non-existent. Turns out, we would be looking at different kinds of texts (informative, persuasive, analytical, etc) then finding out how to write them afterwards. There’s a chance you might not experience this unless we go to the same school, but our teacher invented the ADIDS method in order to help us learn this more effectively through application. I forgot what it stands for, but basically all you do is discuss each facet of a very broad topic thoroughly in the form of a well thought out class presentation.

Meanwhile, the research paper takes up one whole semester. Not to sound boastful, but I had thought that I would be able to do this with ease because all I ever do with my life is write I mean I practically came out of my mother’s womb with a pen and paper in hand and I speak more Filipino than English these days seeing as  I spend a bigger portion of my day in school. But, the finished product is often bland and makes use of the same words over and over in a failed attempt to accurately describe what I want to put on paper. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the topic also had to be narrowed down repeatedly to suit a particular audience, from a specific place within a specific time frame so we ended up doing a research on the effects of Jason Derulo’s songs on the opinions of Grade 11 students from our school in the academic year 2016-2017. Please don’t laugh at us.

You also don’t just write the entire paper, but also be briefed on its parts, their functions and determine what sets them apart from each other, and the specifications in making each of them. Which includes stuff as minuscule as the measurement of the margins, font sizes and types to use et cetera. It’s not that hard though because as you’re working on the paper, you familiarize yourself even more.

Komunikasyon at Pananaliksik

The easiest one I took the entire semester, and for obvious reasons, my favorite. Our teacher was brilliant in the sense that he was well-versed in the subject matter and got work done yet let us watch Train to Busan or Seklusyon on the TV if the schedule permitted. The topics weren’t mind-boggling either: we just covered the history of the Filipino language and communicative skills (which further cemented my belief that this was basically the counterpart of Oral Com). They may be confusing at first but the key is to notice sentence patterns! The number of activities given to us was reasonable and not particularly stress-inducing: just quizzes that were few and far-between, a groupwork and reaction paper for a performance task.

Fundamentals of Accounting

A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of studying Accounting, and I’m not surprised. It’s always described as something that relies on analysis and numbers, two things that we normally don’t excel in at school. But it’s actually nothing to fuss about as long as you do your reading, understand the basic guidelines, practice at home and have a qualified teacher who has the proper training and skill set. The first few chapters don’t even involve computation of any kind yet. You’ll just be acquainted with the very foundation of the subject: the branches of accounting, the users of accounting information, the forms of business organizations and types of businesses. Maybe the most important lessons that you could pick up are the accounting equation (assets = liabilities + equity), types of major accounts and the generally accepted principles because they serve as the rules to follow for making your accounting-related decisions.

Eventually, you’ll make it to business transactions and their analysis, where you’ll be taking a trip around the whole accounting cycle. You’ll have to fill out a journal, ledger and unadjusted trial balance then adjust that trial balance using the adjusting entries normally provided to create your income statement, balance sheet, closing entries and the end goal, the post-closing trial balance. Sounds like a lot of work, but it’s seriously not that difficult if you do your homework! It’s also best to invest in an actual journal and worksheet, instead of solving on sheets of yellow pad that can easily be misplaced.

Statistics and Probability

Stat was weird for me in the sense that our lessons were generally ambiguous unlike what their names insinuated and I seemed to understand everything while it was being discussed but the minute I got home to work on assignments, I found myself staring at a wall until a friend who actually knows what to do goes online on Messenger. Later on, I found out it was because I needed to practice on my own to be familiar with the procedure instead of trying to memorize all the steps when it depends on the type of problem. We covered random variables, probability distributions, normal distributions, sampling, estimation of parameters and hypothesis testing (which was actually quite fun).

If you’re not keeping up to speed with everyone else, please do work on it as early as possible. The lessons here are somewhat connected to each other so if you failed to catch the drift on one of them, it’ll create a chain reaction and by the last topic, you’ll have zero knowledge of how to solve anything. Ask help, preferably from your teacher because not only do they explain it most accurately but it helps them see your initiative to do better, which they take into consideration when computing for your final grade. Do not settle for the exercises found on the book. Make your own, if you’re in the mood to cramp your hand, or turn to websites like The Oxford Math Center for useful worksheets with answer keys.

Contemporary Art

The very bane of my existence. The perfect way to sum up this subject in six words. Art was never my strength, anyone who knows me is aware that I can’t draw to save my life, but it didn’t really have much of a dent on my report card since it happened to be a minor subject. But thanks to the implementation of the new curriculum, it is given a new sense of purpose as a core subject with a weight of O N E. We had dealt with the different periods of Philippine art extensively, the National Artists of the country and different contemporary art forms such as film and the oddly interesting performance art. (Trigger warning for some graphic content though, so do be careful when searching these up!)

Activities ranged from making presentations similar in format to those in Pagbasa at Pagsuri, creating manifestos for the Philippine youth in relation to their role in the art world, holding a class exhibit to display the work you’ve made and my favorite: going on a fieldwork to hunt for contemporary art in the city. All this will lead to the culminating activity: the creation of your very own output, where anything is possible and depends solely on the one calling the shots.

This art class is no longer focusing solely on the physical aspects of a certain work, but also on what it actually means and what its relevance to society actually is. So, a good tip would be to always look at the bigger picture when given something to analyze! It’s hard at first, I admit I didn’t have much to say during the first few meetings but as the floor is opened to more interpretation and intellectual discussion, you’ll get the hang of it and instinctively feel the need to join in.

** We are about to dive in a zone that is fittingly named The Deadly Trio. ** Actually, if these were stand-alone subjects, I’d be fine but the fact that there are three of them in one semester when they’re basically discussing the same things and giving the same ridiculous amount of take home work was enough to drive me up the wall.

Practical Research

As implied by the very name of this subject, the main focus would be the creation of a qualitative practical research paper throughout the entirety of the semester. Discussions here were very minimal, as the teacher thankfully wanted us to focus on getting as much work done in the classroom as possible. I slacked off moderately during her period instead of lessening what I’d have to do at home, and in the end I ultimately suffered. But anyway, topics discussed include the importance of qualitative research, finding a good topic and sources to build it up, reviewing different types of literature, understanding and collecting data and further analyzing it to later on be able to report our findings.

One another thing to look forward to (not in a good way) is the dreaded thesis defense, where your paper will be dissected and closely examined for any possible shortcomings and held against you in front of a panel. It doesn’t always have to be the bane of your existence: as long as you contributed to the making of the project, you’ll know enough that you won’t be humiliated the minute you open your mouth.

A tip to take into consideration is to choose the right groupmates. Unless teachers pre-determine who you end up working with for two straight quarters (in that case, you’ll just have to learn how to accept your fate, whether it is for better or for worse), as much as possible, go for those who are responsible and actually care about their grades. It’s never fun to work with people who send you a montage of copy-pasted statements from Wikipedia pages and pass it off as their “contribution”, go offline Messenger the minute you even think about asking for help and think that printing the paper is a valuable addition to the team.

Reading and Writing

Contrary to what I initially thought, this was not the counterpart of Pagbasa at Pagsuri in the English language and I was thankful in a way because God knows the pain that inflicted upon me. The first quarter starts off quite easy, with critical thinking, fundamental reading skills, selecting and organizing information and critical reading skills. It may sound like a mouthful, but most of these are stuff you’ve picked up long before, without the assistance of a teacher! Some people may find patterns of development a hard topic, but if you read books, I guess identifying them just comes natural to you.

The latter part of this subject is where the ugly stuff goes in. I personally felt deceived into thinking that it would be as simple as our first lessons: identifying and writing the thesis statement and topic statement then it suddenly escalates and turns into SO MUCH ACADEMIC WRITING. When I saw that we were going to be making book reports and article critiques, I shelled out some of my favorite fictional reads and Man Repeller stories of the month only to find out that we’d be reviewing serious, educational material with very specific and strict guidelines to follow to make it as formal and cohesive (and basically not fun) as possible. Research reports, project proposals and position papers will also be in the works at some point: they are very structured and usually have to revolve around topics that are related to your strand, so there is a chance you may find it boring.

English for Academic and Professional Purposes

When I saw I had this for a subject, I was actually glad at first since English has always been my forte. So I was anticipating a repeat tutorial on all parts of speech and the basics of the subject-verb agreement when in reality, all I got was a dupe of Reading and Writing. Which is why, I had no idea why we had to take up both of them during the same semester.

Besides all subjects that required the submission of a research paper as some sort of culmination, this was the most demanding in terms of written output. During the first quarter, it’s still permissible to chill as you’re only going through reading and writing different types of academic texts (does this sound familiar to any of you?) but as the next one rolls along, BOOM. Reaction paper. Reflection paper. (Yes, there is a difference.) Concept paper. ANOTHER position paper. Report.

Now, if you’re already thinking about how you’re going to make it through when your writing is as lifeless and flat as can be (e.g. It is a sunny day, I ate an apple, I need to pee), don’t sweat it. That is exactly what your EAPP teacher will be looking for anyway. Academic texts do not require flowery writing that went through EDSA traffic before getting to the point (which was obviously an inconvenience for me): nobody cares about your opinion unless they say so and even if they do, they’ll probably require a sentence limit.

 Well, that’s a wrap! I spent approximately twelve hours working on this post: one of which was spent on the Kitkat bench in Landmark trying to find a catchy way to start it off, and my eyes hurt and I may be suffering from carpal tunnel but all of that means nothing as long as I’ve been able to guide one hopeless soul out of the dark. I’ll be back with much lighter content very soon if I can factory reset my head and get it to work properly again.

 Stay in school, kids!

Angel

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

UV Unwrapping Hell, Rigging, and Learning that I Don’t Always Have To Do Things the Hard Way.

Last week I was going to start rigging the model, but realised that it still needed UV unwrapping. I didn’t want to delay animating more, but some research showed that apparently UV unwrapping after rigging can mess up the rigging. Also, I rig and animate in blender and UV Unwrap in Maya, and porting the model between the two already rigged tends to break the rigging. 

I was using a subdivision modifier to smooth out the model and make it look more appealing, but had to apply it before exporting and UV Unwrapping it. This made UV Unwrapping harder, as the model went from less than 5000 points to 50,000. However, subdividing an already unwrapped model can mess up the UV Unwrap. 

UV Unwrapping is a tedious, repetitive job, and there’s only so much you can do to make it faster. Initially, because of how I’d made all the objects by extruding from a single face, every single face on the model was sharing the same UV space and was tiny. I auto unwrapped the model, which mostly worked, but each piece was broken up into dozens of pieces. The less seams in a model is better, as this is places where you can see visible cuts in textures where the textures don’t line up and places which have strange artifacts when hand painted. I had to go around stitching all the pieces together, and a lot of the times the shapes didn’t nicely fit in with each other. That meant lots and lots of point pushing as I reshaped large portion of the UV mesh to both line up with other parts and not be weirdly stretched. I also couldn’t allow any overlapping of faces, as that would make painting textures difficult and broken later. I’ve experienced it once, where large portions of a texture overlapped itself and made it basically impossible to texture. Drawing one line in one space made the line show up in hundreds of different faces on the model. 

Most of the model was fairly easy. The dress was easy, as it’s only about 30 faces. Same with the scarf tail. The body took a bit longer, especially bits like the hands and face, however I kept up a good pace.

However, just like with modelling, I got to the scarf and turban and progress slowed to a crawl. There were so many seams, and due to the overlapping, looping shape of the objects, that meant many overlapping, looping UVs. 

This is the scarf after the auto-unwrap:

Thats not too bad, except for some weird patches, the jagged edges, and the seams being pretty visible. This is after I fixed it:

The seams are tucked into the folds, the UV shells are much larger and there are fewer of them, and the seams are all straight lines. There are still some visible lines, but that’s about as I good as I can get it. It took me a full day to do the rest of the body, and a full day to do the scarf. 

The turban was even more confusing, with its many folds and more circular shape. That also took a little over a full day. By the end of the week I was Unwrapping UVs every time I closed my eyes. But now it’s done and out of the way, and I can move on to rigging.

Making the skeleton was easy, and took me about half an hour. Rigging the skeleton and weighting it correctly was not. Because I’d subdivided the model, I now had 10 times the points to weight. Instead of having, say, three rings around an elbow to weight at 1, 0.5, and 0.1, I now had ten to weight at 1, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7... etc. I was starting to think I should have unwrapped the model without subdividing it and take my chances with breaking the textures and animations. 

I messed around for a day yesterday, getting a (kind of) functioning knee and attempting to get a hip working. Hint: it did not work. I have very little experience rigging so far, and while I was following a tutorial a lot of my numbers were guess work. What I got looked crunchy, broken, stretching weirdly in some places and not at all in others.

I tend to want to do work myself and learn how to do things properly, as saying ‘yeah I can rig and animate something’ isn’t really ‘yeah I can hit this button and there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it automatically rigs it or doesn’t know how to do it, and if that happens you’re on your own’. However, I have five weeks to create a dozen animations, and the list keeps on growing. Practically, I just don’t have the time to spend the next three weeks learning to rig a full model from scratch. 

I caved and tried to use the auto-rigging function in blender. To my surprise (it’s kind of buggy and usually gives up on more complicated models, e.g., 50,000 point models with overlapping geometry like scarfs and turbans) it worked. Mostly. Lesson there for me - sometimes just use the tools to skip the hard work. Especially on a deadline. 

I checked out how Blender rigged it, and that helped my understanding of what to assign to where. There are still areas on the model that need reweighing, as a few bones were affecting parts of the model that they shouldn’t (the bag was flying all over the place when I moved the spine, so I added a bone for it to keep it in place) and some parts of the model weren’t being affected by bones that should have affected them. The tunic around the shoulders isn’t attached to the arms, so I’ll have to go through and and fix that. However, a lot of work has been cut out, and I can look at the existing rigging to inform my rigging of the missing areas. 

I’m aiming to get a basic walk animation done by the end of the week. I’m also going to look into Mixamo, which has a bunch of stock animations to use. Depending on how long it takes to make each animation, I might use some from Mixamo to speed up the process. (Again, I have five weeks).

I’m finally caught up on my work, as I was behind for the last two weeks due to being ill. I’m feeling much more positive about my progress now that I’m back on track.