Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Ritorno

Hey guys. I'm back.

For some reason this is feeling more emotional that I thought it would be. I'm not weeping as I'm typing this, but there are plenty of inexplicable feelings floating round in my chest right now.

First it was the lull of the holidays. No motivation to blog. As I tell everyone who asks, my schedule for the hols if it were to be printed out would be just 'ANIME UNLESS OTHERWISE SCHEDULED'. Come on la most of you can relate. Just change ANIME to KOREAN DRAMA or SLEEP or SIT STAND SQUAT.

Then after that, school started, and because it's summer, the homework and project trains came blasting down the tracks while we were still taking our time to cross it and hit us all smack in our c-... well. It hit us real hard. Even Andrea, except that she is The Greatest and had an impertubable aura of protection. Boy did the trains regret even trying to take her down later.

Anyway more on this semester later. Before your attention wanes and you close this window I want to talk about my impending blog shift. For my oldest and most loyal readers they'll know I've shifted from Fortissimo to DeN, here. I will be shifting to my own domain soon, given time and motivation (and webspace). I will post the link of course, on my final post here. As for Fortissimo and these two blogs, I'll just leave them as is. So you can see the various stages of my life in not just my posts but my layouts.

Abstract sophistication banzai~!

And I promise I will tag properly instead of trying to shove posts into neat categories.

Right so, back to this semester.

Here's the thing about life. When you think you ain't gonna learn anything new at this point or period of your life (I'm assuming my readers are intelligent enough to know that they learn stuff as they grow up), ho boy, the next thing you know, you're plunged into inexplicably deep shit, and you struggle and wade your way through, gnashing your teeth as you swallow liquidated excretion and screaming in pain as germs bacteria and viruses gleefully enter you through your open wounds.

What? I'm being descriptive.

And you think to yourself, 'Fuck. This isn't the way I'm going to die. This isn't the way I will be dragged down. I WILL SURVIVE!' And pa-dum-pum-pa! You gain that all-consuming energy born out of survival instincts, and you go turbo.

I think all of us spent a disproportionate amount of time on Malhotra's work. What was probably meant as a constant stream of work to keep our engines warm and running turned into everything short of living hell as the work was compressed into 1/3 of the usual time. But diamonds, as they say, are created under extreme pressure, and everyone knows diamonds are a girl's best friend (I'd like to know too if you can create diamonds under extreme pleasure). I've found areas of myself I never thought I possessed, and may I say, grown quite abit.

Now I agree with my dad when he advised me to live and learn from my mistakes, and not form any negative relationships that might prove itself problematic should we have to cooperate again later on in the corporate world. And I hold no grudge against my teammates. I have every right to, but after 19 years or calculation and pettiness, I just can't be bothered to anymore. Honestly you're killing no one but yourself. If you want to put it crudely, or are the sort who needs vulgarities to comprehend things, it's simply fuck it and fuck off.

But I want to be frank here. I'm not going to shade stuff and be nice just to protect relationships that might or might not even happen later on in life. Tomorrow can worry about its own troubles. Sufficient for today is its own trouble.

Profound? Straight from the Bible brother (sister).

As if the compressed workload wasn't enough to crush every soul except Andrea's and Celestine's (gods can't be crushed), my teammates did next to nothing. Many reasons were given, and I who can hardly bear to strike accepted it when it seemed legitimate. Now it all seems like excuses. Mere excuses. There were many times one teammate or the other excused himself or herself from work due to physical unfitness. I could have refused their reason with the fact that all I needed was a flick on the forehead to send me into comatose, that's how stretched I was. But as I've mentioned somewhere before, my gift/curse of compassion prevented me from doing that, and all I could do was heave a sigh and take the work from there.

Or was I just wimpy?

Let me just make it clear before I carry on that I didn't do 100% of the work of course. That's insane (well hey... maybe I could have. Just wasn't pushed to that corner thank God). My teammates did do work, and at times that amount small as it was saved me precious time. Compared to my friends however, it was just dismal. Dismal and frustrating.

And just when I broke down and went with my other teammate to complain about the third, and just when the third was beginning to show signs of improvement, the other teammate switched off her engine.

At the end I just gave up. Gave up and told the teacher of the situation. I've done my part, why the hell should I do theirs? Doesn't matter what people say about Malhotra. He may be a madman with 30 hours a day and who requires only an hour of sleep each day, but I've always found him to be rather fatherly. And he's very understanding. And thank God he especially values teamwork.

Also, I felt myself losing steam as well. A boost is a boost, not an everflowing stream of boundless energy.

One thing I've been contemplating from the second half of this half semester is whether I based my standards too high. See, my clique left me alone to lias with the gods in their thirst for power (and of course they were more or less fried in the process la the idiots). So I've been hanging around almost every weekday with Andrea and Celest since they were the master puppeteers of my dear friends. I just wonder whether basing myself on their insane levels was being considerate towards my teammates. There was once my teammate murmured something about 'Andrea is on another level la huh don't compare with them.' and it was on the brim of my lips to tell him to fuck off and start working. Despite my usually lazy level of working, I can cope with this amount of work, and nothing proves the point more than the fact that I survived this module with decent grades (as far as I can tell). But is it really fair for them who aren't used to this level of dedication to their work? (If I ought to be corrected, I'll be happy to be informed). I mean gee, one's known for skipping class, the other for not being a team player (except maybe in CS). If even my friends were suffering in research hell, what made me think that my teammates would be able to keep up?

Of course that puts me in even better light la. :D I managed to get close to the gods mostly on my own! Never got to their level... never expected to la. Also don't want the gods to feel threatened you know? Later they plot to exile me from Mount Researchia. Then I'll be just another useless DotA hero.

Summon Dark Research Lord

Feared for his potential abilities, the goddesses of Mount Researchia cast Farinelli out to ensure that they would suffer no usurps. Skilled in the fearfully revered art of research, centuries of sacrifice and experience gave rise to spells and magicks too horrifying to speak of. Bitterness and hatred caused Farinelli to turn to the darkness, exponentially multiplying his powers.

Strength - 17 + 1.1
Agility - 18 + 2.5
Intelligence - 30 + 3.8

Learns Encyclopedia, Research Aura, Dark Tome and Final Say.

Attack range of 400.
Movement speed of 250.

Encyclopedia

Stuns enemies with confusing facts.

Level 1 - Stun for 2 seconds.
Level 2 - Stun for 3 seconds.
Level 3 - Stun for 4 seconds.
Level 4 - Stun for 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 4 seconds.

Level 1: 80 mana.
Level 2: 90 mana.
Level 3: 95 mana.
Level 4: 100 mana.

Research Aura

Gives allies around Farinelli +7 Intelligence.

Level 1 - AoE of 75.
Level 2 - AoE of 130.
Level 3 - AoE of 200.
Level 4 - AoE of 250.

Passive.

Dark Tome

Farinelli throws a tome saturated with the darkest of black magic at target enemy hero, dealing damage and sapping the same amount of mana.

Level 1 - Deals 100 damage and saps 100 mana.
Level 2 - Deals 220 damage and saps 220 mana.
Level 3 - Deals 360 damage and saps 360 mana.
Level 4 - Deals 485 damage and saps 485 mana.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Level 1: 100 mana.
Level 2: 175 mana.
Level 3: 250 mana.
Level 4: 300 mana.

Final Say

Calling upon Evil itself for protection, Farinelli returns any spell cast by enemy heroes back to themselves, multiplied manifold, killing them instantly. If that hero's ally or allies is/are within a range, they will be dealt damage equivalent to half of whatever life the killed hero had before he fell under Farinelli's spell.

Level 1 - AoE of 75.
Level 2 - AoE of 110.
Level 3 - AoE of 150.

Cooldown: 120/110/100 seconds.

Level 1: 500 mana; 120 seconds cooldown.
Level 2: 600 mana; 110 seconds cooldown.
Level 3: 650 mana; 100 seconds cooldown.


Okay maybe not that useless. Too gay to even consider probably.

ANYWAY, it was a great feeling to finally hit 90 on my last weekly homework assignment. What was even better that it was almost overwhelming was the congratulations that I got from Andrea and Ben, and the others whom I forgot, if I forgot (hey these two were the ones who raved on for 10 15min about my hidden powers hor don't complain if I left you out). It's not something I'd like to do for life, I did not find my calling please pleasepleasepleaseplease nooo never again, but well, finally I felt that I gained some respect for doing something totally out of expectations. And of course. Andrea herself conferred to me the title of Renhao The Greater (she already took The Greatest).

I hope I'm not sounding full of myself. I'm not, please don't misconstrue. I'm proud of myself I guess, but not to the point that I start blowing trumpets that aren't mine. Sorry if I sound like that. If I get enough feedback I'll edit this post to alter my tone, but let me assure you boasting is not my intention here.

So let me wrap up by thanking Team ChuaChuaLeong and Team CheongTangYeo. It was great, fascinating and amusing even, to get to look behind the scenes of Andrea's imba-ness. And thank you to all 6 of you who helped, in whatever degree, especially Andrea and Ryan. And thank you also to all those I ranted to - thanks for listening.

It's been an enlightening Summer (I).

Expect a regular flow of posts again. I should have more time now.

EDIT:
Well Kaiyan complained that I only included his slavedriver's name and not his. So ok lor KY. Your name's in now.

And I got A- for Marketing Research.

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