My last day at con!
The day was =quite= a long one for me, as I started off by getting up early and having to pick up and drive parents from SF in the morning. After that I went back home, packed up my stuff, put on some eyeliner, and headed back to con.
I didn't have much planned for the day, except I was supposed to drop in for a wcs private, and also play melee with Eddie. So after I grabbed a sandwich from Subway (yep! Still snuck in a visit to subway), I made my way over to the B&W ball room, where I met both Bleu and Eddie, and then worked on some WCS stuff. It was a bit helpful I think -- not sure though, will have to practice it the next time I actually go WCS dancing. Which I'm not exactly jumping out of my chair to do anyways...
After that I sat down there with Eddie and we played melee on my laptop for a while while they were teaching a bunch of group lessons in the room. We played quite a bit, until eventually my laptop ran out of juice and that was that. We made our way around to the Artist Alley where Eddie ended up buying two prints from the artist who work for this site. Funnily enough I just looked them up and I have actually played one of their VNs a long time ago, Phantom Seeds, which was released back in 2010. What a small world...
Next I headed over to the gaming room where I said bye to Eddie, met up with Allen at the TGM3 machine, and proceeded to dump a whole bunch of quarters into TGM and play a whole bunch of Master mode (along with one go at Shirase, which went pretty decently actually). I had some good games; and especially after that Shirase game I could feel the adrenaline, haha.
I walked back to my car and put my laptop and controllers away and packed my dance shoes to get ready for B&W ball which was starting at 6PM. On the way back, though, I ran into Isabelle Wendy Kotaro and co who were going to dinner, so I tagged along! Ended up having poke, which was not too bad.
They needed to go back to their hotel room so I decided to just go straight to the ball where I met up with Lann Alex and co. Very surprisingly, I actually ended up staying at B&W Ball until midnight when it ended! I danced with Lann and co a bit, and also found some of the B&W ball staff to dance with at some points, but then Isabelle Wendy Rebecca Eddie and Russell showed up and we had a mini Stanford crew thing going on, which was quite fun. Lewis Joy and Mindy showed up later, which was really pleasant surprise! It was nice getting to catch up a bit, hang out with people, and of course do some dancing too.
I ended up staying until the dance was officially over, at which point I bid farewell to the other Stanford kids, did one final loop around the gaming hall and main hallway, and left Fanime. Along the way I passed the Subway store (which was still open) and had a brief flash back to two years ago when I grabbed food there after I left con on the last day and had someone take my photo and strike up a short conversation.
As much as I'm currently off of dance and keep on talking it down as being not the highest priority for me, I think tonight really did show me that I should give it a little more credit, just because it's through dance that I have these friends that I can hang out with and be in good company. Granted, I definitely could have just checked out B&W ball briefly and left after an hour or whatever, and maybe that wouldn't have been so bad, but it felt really nice to see everyone there and have our own little mini dance crowd. This might sound crazy, but I may have ended up having more (???) fun at b&w ball than big dance this year -- which is not to say that big dance is the worse event, because =clearly= big dance is the more awesome event, but I think due to a combination of unfortunate factors I wasn't as into it this year as I could have been. (better luck next time I guess!)
I left Fanime, saying a mental goodbye to the con-goers, to the convention center, to the wonderful atmosphere, and to Fanime itself. I was sad that it was over, but at the same time wouldn't go to more even if there was much more to go to. It's been a tiring but good weekend.
I think looking back on this year, this Fanime will mainly stick out for two things -- one is the absolute lack of plans and normal con-scheduled activities that I had; I spent a whole lot of time just hanging out and not really doing much of anything! The other is staying through b&w ball the whole time and having fun with the Stanford dance crew. Shoutout to all you guys!
Edit: Oh, right, duh. This year's Fanime will also stick out for AiviSura's concert which was really epic!!!
Photos from today:
Monday, May 29, 2017
Fanime 2017 Day 3 - Dance and Goodbye
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Fanime 2017 Day 2 - Hanging Out
Saturday -- Day 2!
It was a really chill day overall today -- not that I really minded much!
I got up slightly earlier than expected and decided to do eyeliner-only for my makeup -- a decision which I definitely don't regret! I was out of the door a bit earlier than expected and parked at Safeway again...which, I now realized afterwards, was a mistake -- the parking lot across the street is cheaper, both on weekdays and weekends! I probably realized this on previous years too but just totally forgot about it. So I'm making (another?) note to myself here that I should park in that lot instead.
Anyhoo, I headed to con and met up with Angela, whom I ended up hanging out with for basically the entire day! :D We ate lunch at this Malaysian place which was not half bad at all, then while I was photographing this Merida cosplayer (yay Merida!) this super random lady came up and said something about the Malaysian food and that we should go again something something she's there something something (????). And she asked us if we were from Malaysia (uhhh, no?), and where we were from (uhh...here?). Very odd. I basically said "okay okay okay sure okay okay whatever" and that was that. Our best guess is that she worked at the place we had just come from and ....saw me there or something? but had left, and then recognized me again on the street from my distinctive costume. ... or something. We were quite confused.
After that we spent a good deal of the day just wandering around and doing random things, including skimming through the dealers hall a bit, and going through the first two rows of artist alley (which I had skipped yesterday). We also spent some time in the gaming hall, where I played some more Tetris, including a pretty good master run where I topped out somewhere in the 800s or 900s and got an M1 (M2?) rank. Nice! We didn't get to play Bishi Bashi, but I did hop onto the 3rd strike machine and beat two other people pretty handily (heheh), despite my execution being pretty off (I'm going to blame the sticks, as fighting game players are prone to....but for good reason, stick differences REALLY do throw you off a lot, especially when it's a different type of gate or stick than you like to use). We also had a run on Beatmania 3 (not IIDX, sadly -- there was no IIDX cab this year due to some issue or another), which was kind of fun.
We spent some time wandering back and forth -- also I ran into a record number of people from MZ today for some reason O_o -- and also at one point stopped by Stage Zero to watch the B&W ball staff perform some random dance stuff (we said hi to Russell at this point too). After that we plopped ourselves down on the floor to the right of stage zero where I sprawled out my dress (every year I try and make some time to just sit on the floor with my dress laid out in a circle), and we chatted, people-watched, and had people take photos of me. Jeremy also said hi to us at this point, having just made it into the final bracket for smash 4 (go Jeremy!), though he would end up getting knocked out thereafter.
We met up with Nate and he wanted to check out the tail end of the AMV contest, so we went into that and got to see the last few, which were on the comedy side. We split off from Nate and I met up with Lann, Alex and co in the Gaming Hall, got a photo and chatted a bit, and then it was time to start thinking about dinner! We briefly said hi to the RWBY cosplay group before venturing off on our own to dinner...which we decided to get at Safeway! It was not only convenient since it was right where I had parked, but also ended up being pretty tasty too -- I got myself a toasted sandwich with salami, cheese, veggies, and pepperoncinis -- which I had literally the hardest time communicating to the guy on the other side of the counter, "pepperoncinis" partly because this was the first time I realized how that word was actually spelled (seems that it's also spelled "peperoncino" sometimes too!), and partly because the other guy thought I was talking about pepperjack cheese or something. I also didn't realize he was going to ask whether he should toast it and then ask for toppings afterwards. The end result was that he eventually understood what I wanted but put the pepperoncinis (peperoncinos?) on before he toasted the sandwich, which was...I guess unusual. Communication is hard, lol. Fortunately the sandwich tasted great anyways, and I got to pair it with a Naked juice smoothie -- my favorite treat, Orange Mango! (which I still have not seen a large size of....)
That was it for Fanime today! After that we drove off to the Art Boutiki where Aivi & Surasshu were going to perform. Turns out we were wayyyy early and nobody else was there and they weren't ready to start checking people in either, so we just hung out outside at some tables and ate our dinner while chatting some more. We went in, waited around, and surprise -- ran into Vu and Rose, who were there for the concert too! We caught up a bunch, chatted, and then enjoyed the concert, which opened up with Noah Hafford (very fun, good stage energy), Omniboy (great music, pretty progressive sound, but also really hit the spot with some sweet rhythms and stabs and such), and Slime Girls (I wasn't as big of a fan, but they seemed fun!). And then it was onto our beloved Aivi & Surasshu (whom I had gotten to say hi to earlier before they went on)!
Aivisura had a great set and I was so happy for their performance! They played a handful of stuff, including Lonely Rolling Star (ahhhhh!! *squeal*), Here's How! (very fun, very groovy, a song that I didn't realize was so great to listen to while standing up), a cover of Yuri on Ice (which holy crap, gave me chills -- just...the emotion...wow), a song from their new album (so cool!), and a final song from Steven Universe for all the SU fans. Lonely Rolling Star (I keep typing "Love Everlasting", haha) was great as always...the song from their new album was super interesting and you can tell that their musical style has really developed since The Black Box and all the work they've done for SU. And they really did great in terms of performance this time too! It was super fun and surasshu's jammin was less awkward-adorable and more just plain fun and awesome :D The highlight was Yuri on Ice though, wow, I really felt that in a big way. I haven't even seen most of the anime, and have only heard that song like once before, but man...
And that was it! I stayed behind for a bit to say hi to aivisura, give them my shiny new business cards, as well as two special ones with the Love Everlasting art on them. It really makes me happy to know that they are still thankful for Love Everlasting, but even more happy to see them still making great things that I can connect with, as a musical artist. It made me smile, too, to see another fan telling them that their music helped bring him through difficult times in his life. Looks like I'm not the only one, heh.
Photos from today:
That's it for today!
As for tomorrow...I didn't get contacted regarding speed dating so I'm assuming that's off the menu (shrug...). First things first, I gotta get up and drive all the way over to SF in the morning to play chauffeur for some people (zzzzzz). But then I'll be relatively free for the rest of the day -- technically I'm supposed to have more private instruction time from 12:30-1:30 at the B&W ball place but I'm not even too concerned about that to be honest, I might just let them know I had my share already. B&W ball itself is tomorrow night, but aside from that I'm mainly just hoping to hang out with Lann, finally get to play Melee with Eddie, hang out at con for the last day that I can, and play some more games of TGM3.
Things have been pretty good so far. Let's keep it up!
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Fanime 2017 Day 1 - A Full Day
Despite claiming that I would take it easy, I actually spent a good 12 hours at con today, getting there at around noon and not leaving until almost midnight (!). I probably loitered around longer than I should have...
I woke up after a pretty good night's sleep and after showering it took me about half an hour to do makeup and get ready for everything. I don't really terribly mind it too much but doing that for 3 days in a row might end up being a pain. If I'm not feeling into it I might dial it back and just do eyeliner only or something.
I got to con at around noon and grabbed a pita sandwich from Pita Pit to eat for lunch. This is only my second time eating food from there and I did a terrible job ordering from Pita Pit last year, but fortunately I did much better this year. The sandwich ended up being pretty expensive ($8-10??) but was actually pretty darn tasty.
I ran into Isabelle as soon as I got to con and we hung out for a while, perusing the Gaming Hall (which was the only thing open at the time) and wandering around a bit. (Here I also discovered that we had TGM3 not TAP set up!) At one point we went out to take some photos of me in my outfit because the weather was this gorgeous cloudy sky that felt and looked great, but as soon as we set foot outside the convention center the sun came out behind the clouds and ruined everything. orz Maybe tomorrow...
Eventually we joined up with Kotaro and made our way through the Artist Alley. Around this time I had also ran into a bunch of other people, including Lann, Alex, and their friend, Bleu, and even Poochy. Going through Artist Alley was pretty fun and I even picked up a new Journey print (which you can see later below). I think I felt this last year too, but this year going through Artist Alley I definitely felt myself glossing over so many of the more "cheap" art styles and the only things that really stood out to me were the ones that had good composition or just....were good artistically, haha. It was interesting for sure.
Me and Kotaro also spent a good deal of time in the Gaming Hall today, which was great fun. We played through the entirety of Metal Slug 5, which was pretty fun, though I'm not sure it was the funnest Metal Slug game I've played. I don't think I've ever played 5 before, as most of the stuff seemed pretty unfamiliar, but I think by far my favorite is still 2 (or X), for a lot of reasons.
I also stopped by the TGM3 machine to play a round of Master mode, where I got an S5 or something mediocre like that after dying at 6xx or something (eh), which was also when we ran into Allen! After that, we went and played the most awesomest game ever -- Bishi Bashi! It was even in English this time, which was neat, and made the roulette game MUCH easier. We did not too bad and I actually made it to level 17 before dying to the always-ridiculously-hard Sushi game. It was easier being in English, but....not by very much at all. RIP.
I also managed to get some relatively fun games of SF 3rd strike in against a Dudley player who beat me a bunch until I finally eked out a win. My skills were definitely rusty and all, but it was a good time and we both enjoyed it quite a lot. Me and Kotaro also played through most of this random shmup called Wyvern Wings, eventually deciding to leave it at the last level.
We also made our way through Dealers' Hall where we basically just skimmed over a bunch of stuff but didn't buy anything.
At this point we were getting pretty hungry so we met back up with Isabelle and Wendy (who had just arrived) to go grab dinner. We ended up going to HoM Korean Kitchen, which was not the place I was thinking of at all but was actually very good! After that nice dinner we headed back to con, said a brief hello to Jeremy, then went back into the gaming hall where I parted ways with Kotaro and met up with Eddie instead! Me and Eddie made our way to the swap meet where we did a pretty efficient sweep of the place and I actually came back with a pretty reasonable amount of stuff! I'll go through the items in the photos section below. One notable thing was that at one point a manga set of Kokoro Connect caught my eye and I was contemplating whether to buy it or not -- at $2 per book, it was only $10 total, which wasn't very much at all! I remember very much liking the premise of the show and how it started off but also remember not liking how it ended / the second half as much. I decided to walk away from it, but ended up coming back. Unfortunately either they had misspoke or I had misheard and it was actually $3 per book...so I said no. $15 is still pretty darn cheap for 5 books to be honest, but eh...it wasn't a manga I particularly wanted to have.
After that we thought about heading home but instead decided to stop by the ballroom for B&W ball staff private lessons. We both joined in on a WCS private....but it wasn't very useful as it wasn't actually a "private" as it was more of a small group lesson and we were way ahead of the rest of the group. So me and Eddie just ended up working on some stuff by ourselves afterwards, which was good! After that Eddie took off but I hung around with the WCS instructors to glean some extra knowledge (they recognized me!), and they worked with me individually on some things too! One thing that I've definitely come to notice with WCS is that (like a lot of other things) it's taught in so many different ways by different teachers, and it's really up to you to figure out what to "believe" and what you think is "right". I think it's good that I'm not entirely vested in WCS because I feel like I'd be a lot more frustrated by that if I were.
Here's the photos I got from today!
The Pita-Ten art book was $10! It was perfect because as the person was looking up the price I said to myself "hmm, I'll probably pay at most......$10 for this", and it turned out to be $10 =P Yay Koge-Donbo art~
The Nanoha booklet and pencil/eraser/ruler set was just $1!
The Sumikko Gurashi re-ment was $7...probably the most pricey thing that I got, but I feel like Sumikko Gurashi things make pretty good gifts ^^;. Also I like them a lot now too.
The 3 stationery sets were $1 each! And the one in the little book-shaped container has a few different designs in it. I always feel great taking other people's stationery off their hands because it's super cheap and I always get to tell the owners that they'll be put to good use :)
The Hello Kitty.....thing....in the middle we have no idea what it is yet. The Katakana says "Sanrio Chara 'Puchisurara'" which made no sense to me....or the other two people I asked, who verified that it does indeed say "Puchisurara". Wat. Well, in any case it was only $3, so I got it anyways.
Also right above that is a Cinnamoroll tape dispenser, only $1!
And the Journey print was my get from the Artist Alley -- $7 or $8 if I remember correctly. It's a nice one, featuring a Scarf Jelly~
All in all not a bad day, though I probably stayed longer than I should have, and got pretty tired. As always it was really great when people recognized and liked my costume. :)
Tomorrow my goals are mostly to hang out with Angela and Lann, and also perhaps to set up some private melee time with Eddie. And of course, after dinner, heading straight to Aivi & Surasshu's concert! And heading home straight after that.
Thinking of going to con around lunchtime again...should make sure that I get a good night's sleep still!
Friday, May 26, 2017
Fanime 2017 Day 0 - Get Hype!
It's that time of the year -- Fanime is upon us again!
My last writeup (for 2016) can be found in 2 parts: Part 1 and Part 2.
It's currently the night before Fanime "proper" starts on Friday and I'm just doing a bunch of mental decompression as I'm getting ready to go to bed, including this post as well as working on my post-mortem for Raven Delivery Service.
Also! My business cards from Moo came in, which is super duper exciting!!! They are beautiful and I'm so happy to finally have them in my hands. Will try and take some photos of them tomorrow morning!
Every year at Fanime is a bit different. Last year the main takeaways from my experience were that I was a lot more chill about the con in general -- sometimes leaving earlier, not going to ALL the things, etc. which was to great effect I think, and that I was able to spend more time actually hanging around friends, which also was great. There was also no TGM (sadness) but we did stop by the B&W ball for some fun times (yay).
This year I'm hoping to replicate the more easygoing approach and mostly take it easy while spending time with friends and in general just having fun being around, being in my wonderful Journey outfit, and basking in the general Fanime atmosphere. I've got three whole days at con and I don't actually have very much planned!
Friday there is a Melee tourney but I feel like I'm like 25% to enter; I do feel like I will probably have better things to do and don't want to just wait around in the gaming hall forever. There is also swap meet that night! That said my dance friends are also putting on a dance that night and despite the fact that I have been off of dance recently I might actually be feeling up for it. So maybe I'll go and do that instead! It would be a shame to miss swap meet, but....actually, not really. Last time the only notable things I got from there were some new card sleeves, which were great, but I don't even get to play MtG at all at the moment so that is no longer a concern of mine. So the only things I would really pick up would be cheap sanrio stuff and random stationery, probably, haha.
Saturday night I'm going to see Aivi & surasshu perform live which should be super great! Ahh, I hope they'll perform more original works >w<. I have a couple of my business cards which I made with my Love Everlasting album artwork that I want to show them too :)
Sunday morning I have to drive to SF to play chauffeur a bit (zzzz) but I'll also be doing a WCS private lesson (whee!) and probably having fun with the other social dance kids at B&W ball.
Other than that I really don't have much planned, besides doing the usual rounds of everything at con. I may also actually (?) register for speed dating this time (actually as in, don't just show up too late and be "eh w/e" like i did last year) but even that is not really too big of a deal. What IS a big deal is that TGM (TAP i believe???) will be back this year which means awesome Tetris funtimes ahhhhhh so excited for that. Ooh, and Bishi Bashi will be there too! And I hear they'll even have Metal Slug there; I actually want to just play through that entire game with someone if possible :) So maybe a lot of fun gaming is to be had at con this year!
I've packed up most of my stuff in preparation for tomorrow and will probably be making it to con lazily sometime in the late morning or early afternoon depending on whatever I feel like (I've taken the day off of work). My costume is the same as it was at V-ball, but with a minor addition -- I now have two Journey-themed messenger bags and will be using one to carry my stuff around with me at con! Not to mention I still have my Journey lanyard for holding my Fanime badge (the badges look awesome this year btw!). So yeah, pretty cool :) I will have a bunch of stuff that I'll be leaving in my car, like my portable melee setup, extra controllers, watercolor supplies, etc, as well as just-in-case stuff like my ironing board and scissors, etc etc. I won't need 80% of those things but it doesn't hurt to be prepared!
Main thing tomorrow is just to wake up, shower, do makeup, and make my way to con! Since it's Friday perhaps there will actually be parking in the convention center structure? If not, I'll head to the old standby--the Safeway parking garage, hehe.
Hopefully I don't get super tired of wearing makeup for the whole weekend. I never put any on nowadays. I'll have to try and put it on in a somewhat reasonable amount of time, ha ha ha...
I'll try to be blogging about each day as it happens. I know it seems I never really do that for things these days but I actually think it's great for me to just type out everything like this as a way of relaxing. You know, for the same reason that journaling can be great.
Hope to see people at con tomorrow!
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
One year ago, I wrote:
"I left Kiki behind. After seeing her one last time, I left her behind. And I think part of me knew already, even when we spoke about "keeping in touch", that it was the end -- or more specifically, it was the end for me. And I left her behind. Will I someday leave you behind too? Or will you stay, watching over me, like one of the wishing stars in the night sky?"
Did I really ever leave Kiki behind though? I still write about her, think about her, even once in a while reach out to her. And, she still holds a place in my "sanctuary". Perhaps by "leaving behind" I meant that I accepted that I would not try very hard to see her again, and to reach her. But my connection still lingers. And I wouldn't have it any other way, would I?
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Big Dance 2017
Last Friday I went to my 7th Big Dance, which was also my 5th all-nighter (9PM-6AM).
Big Dance was...quite interesting, and a wildly different beast than it ever has been before for me.
I arrived early while Richard and the Gang were still setting up, and was there for the first dance of the night (full credit!). Unfortunately I could sense somehow that my feet were definitely going to cramp up later in the night -- muscles felt a bit cold and despite my attempts to stretch I ended up running into the aforementioned muscle cramps a while later which was quite terrible, ugh. I'll have to do a better job of warming up next time.
I took part in both the intergeneration and ambi swing contests, which were both fun, and judged the ambi waltz contest, which was intensely stressful. I'm making a note to myself that I should never ever get worried or stressed about entering a dance contest anymore because being on the other side is 100% more pressure for me. Sheesh. My main disappointment through the contests is that we didn't actually get to see much ambi dancing at all. I hope that that might change someday.
In terms of lasting through the night, this was most assuredly the most difficult Big Dance to get through, probably for quite a few different factors. Not only have we not done a proper all-nighter since 3 years ago, but I also wasn't able to do quite that much to catch up on sleep beforehand, and probably more importantly, I'm just getting old(er). I never really had any doubt that I would make it through the night, and I knew I wouldn't need to take a nap partway through (cheating!) or anything, but there were definitely times where it felt more like a slog than anything, which has not been the case in the past.
A lot of that is also just due to my changing relationship with dance as well, now that I'm such a veteran / oldie / etc. It's difficult to explain succinctly, but it's a different social experience, I think. At the same time I -do- still care about dancing, improving, and all that. It's a sort of odd middle ground that I feel like I've been in for a while, to be honest. What I can say for sure is that I really appreciated the company and presence of the older dancers, especially getting to see and hang out with Gem which is one of the highlights of every single Big Dance that I go to!
Other notable things that happened during the night....I successfully made it through Dawn Mazurka as a lead with no real issues, we had a lot of great performances that made me smile, and omg, the best part is that we were able to have dance activities that involved something other than balloons, ribbons, and dodgeballs! wooooo~
My new waltz song got premiered, and although I didn't get to dance it to my fullest due to my feet cramping up (lol), it was really well received and I was happy with it. Even after making my entire Celestial Melodies album I still have never really made a good danceable cross-step waltz that I'm totally happy with, but I think this one might fit the ticket! So that's exciting.
I don't remember too many of the dances that I had throughout the night, but some standouts were the first waltz I did with Gem which was super fun, and also dancing a WCS with Audrey which was a blast, omg haha. Also a cross-step waltz in the middle of the night with Talia where I spoke "softly" like I used to in the past -- I think I'm going to start returning back to those ways sometimes.
I'm quite ready to take a break from dance for a while now, with no reservations about it, either.
My next big event is Fanime, in which I hope to mostly "take it easy" like I did last year (which worked to great effect if I recall correctly) and hang out with one or two friends whom I know are also going. I'm excited to wear my Journey cosplay again of course, but also to go and see AiviSura perform live for the second time!
I've been spending most of my free time on website redesign and business card designs and my labor is starting to bear some fruit now! I've updated the front page and nav bar of my main site at http://ddrkirby.com/ (you may have to force refresh to get it to load properly) and it's looking much nicer now.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Feeling a bit better about life...
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Did you know? Starting with my current desktop, my computers are all named after Protoss units (got the idea because of "Corsair", the case/parts manufacturer). It's nice to have a convention!
So my home desktop is Corsair, my laptop is Shuttle, and my desktop at work is Archon. Maybe my next computer will be called Reaver!
Note: I am not a 'toss player. Zerg for life!
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
A friend of mine who is graduating from college this year wrote about struggling to come to terms with the fact that their college experience is ending, and questioning whether they made the right choices, spent their time on the right things, and will be able to leave it behind with so many avenues unexplored and experiences unhad.
I was very fortunate in that I was able to spend a 5th year at Stanford (finishing my coterm) and I think it made a very big difference in how I felt leaving it all behind (despite the fiasco that happened at graduation). But that is not to say that I used my 5th year exploring all that there was left to explore at the place, or even that I spent it making sure that I would have no regrets when I left. To be perfectly honest, a lot of what I did during that 5th year was pretty much more of the same as what I had been doing earlier. In fact, I would say that I cut out a lot of new experiences from my life and snuggled into a comfortable place (extremely comfortable, in fact -- I was living it up in my premium studio at Munger).
But I think that is the thing that let me feel so happy about my experience at the end. That after freshman year having to figure out everything all from scratch, having to let go of things from high school despite not wanting to, after sophomore year switching majors in what was a major conflict at the time (but seems absurdly logical now), after dealing with physchosomatic pains, counseling, saying goodbye to Kiki, struggling with gender identity, and all of that, I was finally able to just be myself and do my own thing -- making music, programming games, ditching classes, controlling my own sleep schedule, learning to cook, getting better at social dance, and in general just having a lot of "me time".
I never went fountain hopping, nor steam-tunneling, nor any of those other things. I didn't have regular friends throughout my time at college -- not that I didn't have friends, or even close friends, but never friends who I would stick around. But at the time, I really didn't think much of it. These were mostly things that I chose not to do, out of disinterest.
I think it wasn't until afterwards when I started becoming closer to other people, being exposed to different worldviews, especially talking with other people going through college in different ways that I began to really question whether I had done all that I should have. Hearing about all of the wonderful things that other people had found made me really wonder whether I had missed out by turning away and doing my own thing off in the corner at Stanford. I, too, wanted to have had close friendships, to have had interesting and exciting classes outside my major, to have interesting and exciting classes =inside= my major, to be part of a close-knit student group. I think I suffered a little bit of a delayed mini-crisis after the fact, thinking back on it.
But now, 5 years later (yes, it really has been that long), it's so obviously clear to me that what I did in college was =right=. I think it is sometimes really easy to get caught up in thoughts about what could have been, and what you missed out on -- the greener side of the hill, so to speak. But to do that would be discounting all of the things that you DID choose to do, and also discounting all of the (probably valid) reasons that you didn't do those other things.
Through my college experience I:
- Matured as a person, at least a bit, from my more ego-centric and judgmental past self (though there was still much work to be done)
- Came to terms with letting go of marching band from high school
- Formulated a start to my career and learned how to forge ahead on my own, disregarding the choices that were previously laid out for me by my parents
- Started to work through a great deal of gender identity questions that I had never previously considered
- Found a lifelong passion and community in the social dance scene
- Found another passion in the Japanese language, which I practiced until conversation became very easy
- Found several important people in my life, including Kiki
- Discovered and used counseling services for the first time
- Was miraculously saved from a debilitating case of psychosomatic pain
- Forged and refined my music production skills intensely through One Hour Compo every week
- Started my first forays into legitimate game programming, and started entering Ludum Dare
- Started learning how to cook (barely)
That is actually quite a lot of important stuff. But there are other things that I think I felt like I "missed out" on (in quotes).
I never had a regular friend group; in fact it was debatable whether I had any regular friends to the extent that we would spend time together on a regular basis for an extended period of time. But to be honest, as much as I often find myself "wishing" for better friendships, I think there is a very real truth in that I'm just way too introverted to deal with people on a very "social" level. That has always been something that confused me before but thinking about it now it's very clear that being part of a "friend group" would never had made sense in the first place.
I didn't invest in many of my classes. In fact, I didn't even GO to many of my classes. Did it feel silly that I was staying for an extra year at Stanford and paying so much extra tuition despite not really caring about any of these upper-division CS courses that I really wasn't interested in? Yes, of course. But that extra 5th year had so many other benefits that it was worth it in the end. Also, just knowing that I was not interested in those classes has been instrumental in pointing me towards what kind of things I enjoy and don't enjoy.
And so on and so forth.
Were there things that I would have done differently? Well...absolutely. I would have not gotten lost in psychosomatic pain, for one thing...also I would have tried my hardest to prevent the whole graduation fiasco. I wouldn't have bothered taking those EE classes in a way that felt so inauthentic to me.
Knowing what I know now, I think there is perhaps even a bigger change that I would consider -- not going to Stanford in the first place. I think it was a fine choice and I wouldn't give it up for the world, but knowing what I do now, I wonder if I would instead choose to go to an institution that offers programs for game development more specifically, even programs that are more cross-disciplinary and involve working more closely with creatives and actually making real projects. I would have for sure wanted to take classes in visual art, even if just on an introductory level. If I could take instruction and go through processes of game design, that would be even more fantastic.
But at the time, 9 years ago, how was I supposed to know that making indie games was going to become such a large part of my life? And that I would be so interested in visual art? How was I supposed to know that the art of game design, storytelling, and shaping a player's narrative experience were things that I would become intensely interested in? Some of these things didn't even exist in the medium yet!!!
We do the best we can, with what we think is right for ourselves. And I think it's important to recognize your own successes, take a good look at just how far you've come, and understand exactly what led you down this path. There was always a reason that you chose to keep walking in this direction. Even if that reason was a mistake that teaches you a lesson further down the road, that doesn't invalidate your choice.
Of course, all that being said, I am me after all, so of course I still miss my old room at Munger, of course I still miss my Japanese classes and most of all my senseis, and of course I miss crashing Richard's social dance classes, I miss the eating options on campus, I miss the fact that everyone was...slightly....less busy with their own lives (slightly), and I still miss Kiki.
I won't have the chance to hang out with people in their.....slightly (very slightly) less busy state anymore. I won't have the chance to take those visual art classes. I won't be able to change my mind and go to a game development and design institute. I may not even be able to see Kiki ever again. But I can still learn visual art. I can still take visual art classes, if not part of university. I can still study game design at GDC. I can still meet people at social dance. And perhaps, if there are things in my life that could only be accomplished in that short 4-year period, maybe those things aren't quite as important as they might seem.
Well, it could have been worse. I could have spent =more= than 2 hours thinking about the past instead of sleeping...
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Yesterday was a really interesting day...I had a really hard time getting out of bed for some reason, and fell pretty soundly asleep during the morning train ride as well. After getting off the train the city was oddly quiet in a way that made me wonder whether there was some holiday going on that I was totally unaware of. I was feeling pretty cranky too, for some reason, imagining negative scenarios in my head, as one is prone to do when feeling grumpy. Maybe I just have some sleep to catch up on.
Feedback has been coming in for our game, Raven Delivery Service, and people have been liking it! I'll try to do a post-mortem post about it, as well as just advertise it via posting in general so we can get some more plays.
Aivi & surasshu are performing later this month at Fanime! What a pleasant announcement to hear -- it actually makes me quite excited to go. Steven Universe is also getting an official soundtrack release next month -- about time! More importantly, I overheard that their next original artist album has a name, "valk hollow"? That's actually more exciting than anything, as you know the main reason I'm a fan of aivisura is because of their debut album "The Black Box". I am not-so-secretly hoping that once they release their next album I will be able to do a full remix album of their works again, as I did with "Love Everlasting". That album was one of the most interesting and rewarding projects that I've undertaken as a musician and I'd love to try something like it again.
Big dance is also coming up this Friday! Everyone should enter the dance contests, especially the ambi ones!
Looking back at my records, here were the themes for those years, to help people remember:
2011 was Firefly
2012 was Star Wars
2013 was Last Airbender
2014 was Game of Thrones
(2015 was a Little Big Dance)
(2016 was a Little Big Dance)
2017 is Back to the Future
(old-timers will remember some other ones, like pride and prejudance, etc)
Remember, Little Big Dances do NOT count as all-nighters! (since they didn't last all night, of course) So this'll be my 7th Big Dance, but my 5th all-nighter. Hopefully it'll be fun, despite the fact that I've been shying away from people interactions lately. I was half-wondering whether I should take a page out of the past and try and compose a song real quick for big dance so that Richard could play it. But I don't think that will happen, hehe. Not ruling it out as a possibility though -- inspiration could strike at any moment! It would actually be pretty cool to start a tradition of writing a new dance song every year for Big Dance specifically. Maybe!
Speaking of dance music, next month I'll be going to a ballet performance set to my Celestial Melodies album! Super interested to see how that will be, and never thought as I was writing it that my music would ever be used that way. This is also a good point for me to try to design some (long overdue) business cards. Hopefully I'll be able to use the All in a Day's Work 3 artwork, as that has become so iconic to me, but perhaps there are other options as well. I'll have to decide what urls to put on there as well -- probably ddrkirby.com and ddrkirbyisq.bandcamp.com for sure, but I should really clean up the ddrkirby.com landing page. I guess if I make a more proper landing page for ddrkirby.com I can just feature that, DDRKirby(ISQ), my name, and possibly a contact email (?) and have the landing page direct you to everything else. More work that needs to be done! Looks like a lot of designery work is in my near future...
My birthday having passed now, I decided to go ahead and order a whole bunch of stuff online as I was in need/want of quite a lot of things here and there. Yesterday those shipments finally started to get to me, so I now have an anova sous vide machine, a whetstone for sharpening my knives, a jaccard meat tenderizer, a mortar & pestle, new earbuds, a car vent mount for my phone, and a zojirushi vaccuum-sealed food container. I also did a ton of grocery shopping last night, so I basically have a ton of new stuff to play around with and eat, whee! I'm pretty excited about all of the items, haha.
The Risk of Rain devs are apparently working on RoR2, in 3D??? (using Unity, as of course is the trend for everyone and their mothers now) That's...cool, I guess? Of course, it's still a project early in development, so it's barely even worth thinking about when or whether they'll finish, but...I guess that's cool? It's not the most -exciting- thing because I don't think 3D is really necessary, or even a boon to the gameplay, but maybe they are just trying to take a page out of Overwatch and such games. It makes me a little sad for my pet project Zenith Fighter which I abandoned, which was aiming to be an arena-style game with platforming and RoR-style abilities, as well as a bunch of upgrades.
Speaking of pet projects, Rhythm Quest is on very shaky footing now as I haven't touched it in so long. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but the fact that I'm not regularly working on it is a red flag and I wonder whether it will actually become a thing, or whether it's not actually exciting anymore. We'll see I guess, but for now I am going to remind myself that the reasonable thing to do is not to worry about it because I have other projects that are more pressing -- namely, finishing up my Sentience album, designing the business cards and redoing my landing page.
Speaking of my Sentience album -- it's getting close to being complete! I'll probably aim to do one or two more songs and then package it all up for release. Very exciting to be doing another original artist album that is getting a full physical CD release, especially since this one has such a strong theme and could be called my first ever "concept album", I guess.
I've been continuing to make my way through Hyper Light Drifter, which has still been great! It's cool that, just like with Shovel Knight, I feel much more well-versed in the sort of "vernacular" of its level design, and am starting to really become familiar with where to look in order to find hidden areas and secrets. I'm currently in the last of the four main "areas" (at least, that I know of!), though the game has made it very clear that even when I've beaten the boss there I will have to do quite a bit more searching and exploring.
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I told someone recently that while many people find themselves needing to let go of their past before they can move forward, I find myself unable to move forward if I feel like I am letting something go. I've been asked before just =why= the past is so important to me and there are many reasons -- I think loss is painful, letting go is painful, I'm strongly motivated by nostalgia and memory, I would much rather stick to what I know than embrace new experiences, I value lasting connections, I genuinely want to believe that things will last, etc. -- but in the end the answer basically is just that's the way that I am and I have learned that that is the way it has to be. After many years of questioning myself and my feelings toward the past I came to a realization that even if it "slows me down", connecting with my past is ultimately something that I just have to do, out of necessity. And if I try to avoid it and break free, I would only end up circling back again and not moving anywhere at all -- because "breaking free" is something I would never want in the first place. And that is the reason that I can be so sure when I tell people I will always be here. Always and forever.
...or at least, that's what I'd like to think. After all, the girl of the stars also chose to leave her tower. The story of the star and the girl is one that is incredibly important to me because represents a central conflict in life that I must always come to terms with. The fact that "always" is not forever, and that despite my feelings and intentions, in the end I must accept that I cannot bring the past forward with me, and that I =must= by the nature of life move forward. It pained me a great deal thinking about how the girl left the tower. It still does, and always will. But it's something that I need to understand too. I think in the end, sinking deep into memory, holding traditions, treasuring artifacts, and "living in the past" are all ways of coping.
Who can say where the girl is now? But no matter where she is, the tower and the star will always be an important part of her. Maybe she will be able to come back to the tower someday. Maybe she will be able to see the star again someday too. But even if she does not, it will still be in her memory, as something precious and treasured. In the same way, my friend Kiki is someone who is always on my mind when I think of the past. My relationship with her, in many ways, represents my relationship with the past, and that is a reason why it has always held such significance to me.
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
My dream wedding (if I decide to get married) would aim to be as different from a traditional wedding as reasonable. I don't like weddings...