[PP] I'M ALIVE!!!

It's my baby!!

Hello everyone, I'm back to the blog!
Before I go into anything else, I would like to tell you all about why I was gone, if you care please read on, otherwise just skip this paragraph.
Anyway, I was in college back then and I was taking a Robotics class. In addition I am also the new stage manager for my college Glee Club and a college tour guide as well. These three things have single-handily kept me busy the whole 4 quarter, known as d term in my college (we do a quarter system NOT a semester system). First things first we were given a gigantic final project in robotics, where we had to design, build, and control a robot that would compete in a class competition. Although it was a lot of fun, I missed so many meals and hours of sleep over this. I was literally in the RBE lab all the time. The project itself went well, our first round in the competition went amazingly, but then one of our motors overheated (we think so at least) and then things went for the worse. O well it was only a fun competition, no grading occurred during then. Thank goodness.  But that's only a third of what I have been doing. Tour guiding is fun, but takes up a lot of time. When I wasn't in the lab, most of the time I was giving tours to prospective students. Sometimes you meet crazy parents (its never the students themselves xD) but that only makes the tours interesting lol. And finally, being stage manager is a lot of work. Now the stage manager position works a little differently than what you would think. Instead of running the stage and lighting and whatnot, I'm mostly in charge of just concert stuff in general. Therefore I am ordering all the buses, I make sure that the concerts we do generally go smoothly, I keep the tuxes in order, and a bunch of other random stuff as well. It's a lot of fun, even if its a bunch of work.
However, that all finished (mostly) when summer started. My business has turned from that to other things.

I've gotten myself into a tizzy with fan-fiction. I am working hardcore on all my stuff and people are liking it a lot! It's awesome to write up a work and have people love it. My first fan-fic, A Little Ship Lost in Space, is a Mass Effect 3 ending story that simply picks up the pieces that was the ME3 ending and goes from there (indoctrination theory FTW!!!!). The fan-fic itself has 3 chapters and sets me up for other fan-fics. It is my most popular of most viewed of my fan-fics.
My second most popular is Memory Eternal, a fan-fic (that I need to tweak a little) about Thane and his last moments. It won second place in the Retake Mass Effect fiction contest, I was very happy. There are other Mass Effect fan-fictions, but those are the biggest ones.
My newest Mass Effect fan-fic, From the Ashes, picks up immediately after A Little Ship in Space and concerns the reconstruction of Earth, which Shepard gets dragged into. I just posted it today on fanfiction, soon I will get it up on deviant art as well.
Just recently I also went down the Avatar route, submitting No is for Naga, a story about how Korra met and befriended Naga. Although a tiny bit sad, people are loving it!!

My stuff can be found on my profiles on these sites: Fanfiction.net and Deviantart.com. (the links go straight to my profile btw)

Now before I go, there is one last thing I want to go over. I'm going to attempt to change the structure of the blog around a little bit to make it easier to read and more fun (sort of). If you look at the title you can see that two letters, P and U, are bracketed before the actual title. Those are what I will call reference tags, and they denote the subject matter (to a degree) that the post will be going into. So far the reference tags are as follows:

[PP] = Personal post. These posts will be about me, myself, and I. I am shooting for one a week, and anyone who is interested in what's going on in my life can read them!!

[FP] = Feature post. These posts will be anything cool that I find on the web, or to showcase anything awesome that I have done. Look out for these for the cool stuff!

[AN] = Author's note. I used to do my author's notes in the descriptions of all my poems, fan-fics, and art. Since I put the fan-fictions on two sites, I don't want to have to write the author's notes again, plus they take up space and some people don't like to read them at all. That is why I will be moving them all onto the blog, so in the description I can just link them over to here. I also will have the time and space to put in EVERYTHING that I want to say about the piece. The title of the piece will immediately follow this tag, so keep an eye out for these ones.

[EP] = Editorial Post. These posts are ones where I argue my opinion for a certain side, and make an attempt for people actually discussing it on the site (but we will see how that goes).

[IP] = Important Post. Finally, this last post is for anything very important related to the blog or any other announcements. When I have this tag there is something big going on.

I have been debating whether or not to have multiple tags in one post, but we will see how it goes I guess.
Anyway, I have a lot of stuff that I want to put up on the blog, so I'll be busy with that, and of course with fan-fics as well!

NotCras

What I have done as of late

I have always enjoyed writing, and have a lot of stuff that I have lying around.  Back in High School I fancied myself a poet, which produced some good poems (I'd say at least).  Most of them were whiny and depressing, but whatever that's what teens do. In order to practice my writing I have been trying some writing prompts, mostly making my own, and one of them produced a poem that I was surprised with.  You see what happens in it is sorta-kinda true, I definitely changed things around so it would work, but I am very proud of it, especially since I hadn't don't anything like that in a while.

It occurred to me that maybe I should share my writing stuff on the blog because this is about my brainfarts right? So without further ado, I present to you, my poem... I don't have a name for it.  I feel that this one doesn't need a title because you can tell whats happening Its about a guy that cant get his love, and has to leave because he cant bear the sight of her again.

My ship is at dock,

And I am ready to depart.

I prepare myself for the shock,

That we will forever be apart.

I glance back at the bar that bears your name,

The one I frequented always ordering the same.

Many a man would visit you often,

Some for a drink, and some for a night to stay.

I, a prospective businessman, saved to buy you but then,

A millionaire stood in my way.

In the months that followed,

I still came to your bar.

But I sunk into depression, I became hollowed,

And you were the final reason I needed to go afar.

I write this goodbye not for you but for me,

To cleanse you from my heart eternally…

And so once again I may be happy.

Im very happy with how it came out, but I know its not perfect.  Any suggestions for me??
Also on the note of writing things, I recently put up all my recent stuff that I had written so far on fanfiction.net. Anyway, I have been getting such a good response from people about my Liara ending, in fact someone wanted another chapter.... Now I wasn't planning on one because I wanted to leave it open to the reader, however there were several ideas that I had that I couldn't work into the story without extending it, so I will happily oblige with the plea to extend it.  My confirmation story, the one on the yahg has gotten less views and not really a lot of people are saying anything about it.  Now maybe I just need to wait a little longer, we shall see but it was the one that I put WAAAAY more work into, I just want to see some kind of response.... but o well.  I also had the idea for another ending, but I am torn whether or not I should write it because I had wanted to write one ending and stick with it... But the ideas just keep flowing. DARN IT haha.

In addition, I want to talk a little bit about how the blog is coming along.  A lot of people are checking it out, mostly from the links I post on websites.  I am searching for the right topics to talk about, and for the right audience that will listen to what I have to say (and possibly follow me :P) but I'm working on it.  I enjoy the color scheme and I think that it's turning out well, my posts have become more organized (if you're wondering what it was like before, check the neotokyo post...). Furthermore, I have found a sort of schedule to my blogging, usually around Wednesday Ill send out a post, and possibly on the weekends I like the prospect of a sort of post schedule, but hear this I will not adhere to it at all.  This blog is about whatever is on my mind, and well you cant put your mind on a schedule. xD
I have been very active on the forums for Mass Effect 3.  I have forsaken BSN and instead gone on to a small but awesome forum, the Theorycrafting forums. The people on there are awesome, they will listen to you, AND no flame wars.  Its what the admin set out to do, make a BSN type of environment WITH NO FLAMING. I love it, we actually have to use facts and whatnot in our arguments. Here it is, use it well: Theorycrafting!!

How are you going to get down??

My final point of this blog post is one of bittersweet sadness.  I had wanted to hold off watching the early Legend of Korra premiere until I had finished watching the whole Avatar the Last Airbender series. But now the premiere is off the interwebs. And now for an Avatar rant: The series was perfect, and it reminded me why its my favorite television show.  Much like Mass Effect, it made you feel for the characters, but it also made you feel for the world.  Some of the philosophy discussed in the show is true no matter what religion you are, and the show is full of superb writing. The music is also to die for, in the Sozin's comet special, o gosh it was so perfect.  Zuko asking forgiveness to his Uncle Iroh was one of the best scenes in television, I was on the verge of tears (which for me is the equivalent of crying).  Just the whole character of Zuko is perfect, I loved his character development, making him my favorite character.  The others are awesome too, and they only lose to Zuko by a very small margin, but nonetheless he is my favorite character... Man I feel like such a traitor to the others by saying that.  I'M SORRY :(.  The ending scenes, first the coronation and second at the tea shop, are perfect as well, the music spot on and it just made you smile. After it was over, I was silent relishing the moment, not wanting to leave... but it was around 130 in the morning so I needed to sleep.  Later I was actually moved to meditate, which in itself was an experience Ill touch on later.

EDIT: Well I guess I was wrong. I found the two episodes online still! First episode is here, while the second one is here.  For the first episode I ended using one of the mirrors instead of the standard player, the one called Putlocker. I used the 3rd mirror for the second episode.
More on The Legend of Korra on the official website here!

I guess after having seen the episodes I'll give my spiel on them.They really remind me of Avatar the Last Airbender, but its also totally different. They really did a good job finding a way to make each series unique. (Small spoiler alert go to next paragraph if you dont want to see them) I feel that the show will not just be about Korra, instead it will also focus on Tenzin. It seems that they both will learn from each other. Before I get into the spoilers more, I absolutely loved the troll that the creators gave.  In the end of Avatar, it is assumed that Zuko found out where his mother was.  However we don't know what happened. Katara is just about to answer that very question when she is interrupted... and she doesn't go back to it. Bah Humbug!

I can teach you to be bad-ass and awesome Korra.

Anyway, my initial impressions on the series without any more spoilers is that its going to be one heck of a ride.  I dont know if it has the potential to be better than Aang's adventure, but it will be awesome nonetheless.  The cameos serve as nods to the former series, however that is all.  Everything else is new, for better or for worse, and I look forward for more of the series. And I also look forward to seeing Aang as an Avatar spirit. If he's anything like this fan art here, I cant wait. I cant wait to see what bad-ass remarks he'll have too. Anyway, this is the next thing to look forward to, for me at least!

But I have to get some things done right now instead of being distracted here. xD

NotCras