That troublesome week of major projects and tests is over.

I have a test today in Statistics. Problem is, my teacher is a complete bitch when it comes to grading. If you don't specifically cite the explanation she wants for your answer, she'll mark your answer wrong. Even if you are right and explain the logic behind it. No specific term, no credit. This of course flies in the face of the idea that La Salle promotes critical thinking. Recitation may be the ideal medium for learning in the Asian context, but it produces spineless and incompetant fools armed with BA's. The beauty of it is, if this bitch wants to fail me because of her screwy grading system, I have the means to fight it.

Anyway, to make my day worse, actually this will top off the week now that I think about it, but my school binder went missing. Thankfully most of my work for my classes has been completed already so nothing really serious was in it, but all my notes for class as well as the poems I had collected for my Introduction to Poetry are gone. Also my Application for transfer credentials was in that binder so I have to start over again. The thing is...I KNOW that stuff has to be in my room. The problem is...my goddamn maids put things away so I can't find them.

What else. Oh. My parents have been getting on my case about the online college courses and the State Department exam. As much as my dad tells me i "think I know everything" when I obviously don't, it is...funny how goddamn hypocritical he is. He thought I was just being lazy, but I already checked. Maryland wants two 3 unit science courses. I have one. I'm okay for UCI since they lumped science with a bunch of other subjects. Still he couldn't understand what my problem was for Maryland. "General Ed is General Ed no matter where you go" he says. Fine, I agree with that, however the unit requirements are different from school to school. Then he goes on to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and that he does and that the general ed requirements are the same for all schools. Now I am rapidly losing my patience here and I point out that he went to college 20-30 years ago and that the standards have changed since his time. At the very least, he stopped arguing with me. Then the old woman comes in saying "Oh I talked to my friends and they said that making 10 dollars an hour in the States is a bad thing"

...

I *knew* that. 10 bucks an hour isn't much at all, but I can't expect to be rolling in cash. That's part of the reason why I want to move in with Kyle and the others. At least the damn living arrangements can be taken care of for cheap.

I swear...each and every little piss off I'm putting up with now is only cutting my fuse shorter and shorter. I'm probably going to snap before I finally get out of this place.

I was putting this off because I had a lot of schoolwork to do, but as Kyle's post indicates we have made some progress with the BESM characters. As far as I can tell, only Kyle and I have actually made concrete characters. As I've mentioned before, we have tinkered with Beast Mimicry and yesterday I came up with two names for the two different approaches to the Clan technique.

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This is/was a busy week. It seems every single one of my classes had some significant thing or another just this week.

Language in Literature had a Mid-term exam (Done)
Literature 2 had a term paper (Done)
Introduction to Drama has a presentation on Russian theater tomorrow (which I haven't started yet)
Introduction to Poetry has a group presentation this Saturday
Statistics has a test on Friday
PE is a bitch no matter what (swimming -_-)

Odd. Since most of the term my classes gave me very little in terms of work. Now it seems they're all piling it on at the same time.

Am I the only one who thinks Gwen Stefani can't sing?

This term there is nothing worse than waking up on Tuesday mornings.

Yet...there is nothing better than going to bed Tuesday nights.

Tomorrow I have a term paper to write. Only 4 pages double spaced as far as I remember and the introduction was done in class last week so it will be just a matter of providing the analysis of the book in question and a conclusion.

Pure vanilla. Hell, one...two hours tops.

So...we have already started to toss character ideas around for the coming Scopecon game which as I have mentioned before will be a Naruto based BESM campaign. Kyle and I belong to Clan Inuzuka (we haven't changed the name because...well I guess we're just lazy), but our particular interpretation of the clan is somewhat different from the original. Namely, our version of the clan has two seperate approaches towards Shikakyu no jutsu (quadraped technique). Some members of the clan fully embrace the beast aspect of the jutsu. They do not learn the other traditional ninja teachings but have reached a point where they and their canine companions can assume their quadraped forms at will. The other members of the clan have chosen to explore the more traditional path of the ninja and thus have less control over their beast aspect so they require the soldier/food pills to facilitate the transformation. To off-set this they have training in more traditional ninjutsu and taijutsu (and genjutsu as appropriate).

My character is Inuzuka Kazuki and his companion is an akita husky named Shiromaru. Kyle's character is Inuzuka Kusu and his companion is a wolf named Awamori. Since his character was originally supposed to have used some drunken fighting techniques, there are some obvious joke references in the names he picked, but since he's ditching them I think Kyle might change. I can always edit later.

Anyway, character concepts...

Kazuki is the 'traditional' ninja while Kusu is the 'bestial' ninja.

Kazuki prefers to fight with ninja-to, kunai and shuriken, only going unarmed when he and Shiromaru have to resort to their 'trump card' beast mimicry. He thinks tactically and stays at range when he can, preferring to let the Kusu and the dogs go at the enemy in melee.

Kusu fights exclusively with beast mimicry. He is bigger than Kazuki and much stronger but since his mind is pretty one-tracked, he generally lets Kazuki do the thinking for both of them. His mimicry isn't completely perfect though. His beast mimicry is difficult to get out of once he and Awamori slip into it.

Both have trained together and have developed some combination attacks. For example, the Lion combo is a 5 person combo that requires a fifth person (for this example I shall use Rock Lee). The attack opens with Lee performing Konoha Senpuu, knocking the target into the air (any attack that would send the enemy airborne will fit for this), by which point the two Inuzukas and their canine companions in beast mimicry attack with gatsuuga from four different directions (I think attacking from the four cardinal directions of the compass would be a nice touch). The combo is completed by the fifth character who performs an aerial finishing move...perhaps one that would drive the opponent into the ground. Hard.

So apparently for the so-called Scopecon game (which is going to be BESM...and will shamelessly rip off Naruto) I'm going to be a Kiba clone...which is to say Pet monster trainer/Ninja

Awesome. He's my favorite ninja that ISN'T too awesome to play as. I simply couldn't let myself play a Shikamaru or Neji clone.

Heh. Kyle and I are going to both be Inuzuka clan. But his character is going to be far more feral than mine (he'll have a wolf instead of a dog).

This sounds fun.

Moving out this time around is requiring me to do a lot more than it did the first time around, or when I moved back in. Let us look at what Joe has to do to make the defection complete.

1) Pass my classes this term with reasonable grades (this will be troublesome with my classes -_-)
2) Collect the many signatures required of my application for transfer credentials (I have gotten three so far)
3) Learn how to drive
4) Get my passport renewed
5) Apply to the University of Maryland for their online English course (I'm effectively going to be taking almost a year off since I will not be able to get into UCI until January...might as well cram some more courses in, right?)
6) Bug BJ about details for Ateneo (so I can say I did. I am not staying here. Period.)
7) Take the State Department competency exam
8) Apply for a job at the embassy to raise money for a car*
9) Apply for a job at Irvine PD to raise money for a car**
10) Get a replacement Social Security Card
11) Destroy the autobots
12) Warm my parents up to the idea of Raztopia (I might have to settle for my own place...which won't be TOO much of a tragedy now that I think about it)
13) Pack up all my crap for the move and ship it to the States
14) Overhaul the old Dell and transfer it to the parental unit for their exclusive use
15) Move in to wherever I wind up

I honestly cannot remember a time when I had so much to do stacked on my plate. Still, this needs to be done. This will be a busy year for me, but a good one I think.

*This assumes I do not come back early and am in fact here for awhile longer
** This assumes I do come back early

I feel...very irritated right now.

I do not enjoy the helpless feeling one gets at seeing a gross injustice and not being able to do a damn thing about it because "that's just how it is" no matter how many times I may repeat that very trite cliche to my more idealistic friends and peers.

This is especially true when it involves something I love.

That being said, though I have started KotOR II and I enjoyed what I have played so far (the bugs and other inadequacies I have already noticed withstanding) I refuse to play it anymore. I remember Edrie telling me he heard from a friend that the ending was mediocre but I really did not want to believe him. I wanted to believe that his friend was a know nothing wannabe and that he was wrong. Today I let my curiousity take the better of me and did research on my own. I was very disheartened to see that Edrie's friend was right on the ball.

Then I learned that this was not the end of it. No, it got worse.

Apparently, there are piles of unused script and voice files for material that was cut by Obsidian for the final release of the game. Scenes that would have made the ending not only coherant but emotionally moving. I looked around at some of the tidbits fellow fans of the KotOR series have discovered in the installation directories and I was no longer disheartened.

I was pissed.

Let me clarify at this point that this is not mere speculation. If you look in the KotOR directory, you can see the files just sitting there. One was this delicous line from HK-47 where he is mocking Carth and Bastila as he relates to another character past companions he has had.

HK-47: "Statement: Oh yes, my master had quite the collection of tortured individuals that seemed unable to confront their basic personality conflicts. Let me cite some specific examples.

Mockery: *in an accurate rendition of Carth's voice* 'Oh master! I do not trust you! I cannot trust you...or anyone...ever again!'

Mockery: *in an accurate rendition of Bastila's voice* Oh master...I love you...but I hate all you stand for...but I think we should go press our slimy mucous covered lips together in the cargo hold...'

Conclusion: Such pheromone driven human responses never cease to decrease the charge in my capacitors...and make me wish I could press a blaster pistol to my behavior core and pull the trigger."

Seeing as Obsidian has said absolutely nothing concerning this great failure that taints what would have easily been a great game that surpasses its predacessor, we the fans are left to conjecture as to what in the nine hells happened.

Popular belief is that Obsidian was forced by either Microsoft or Lucasarts (or a combination thereof) to cut material so that they could ship the game for the XBOX in time for a Christmas 2004 release. They were banking on the immense popularity of the first title to carry the sequel (which as far as I can tell worked). Logically, though they had a good couple of months extra to make these changes to the PC version, this would short change the XBOX owners (who may or may not realize they shelled out a couple hundred bucks for another PC with a fancy black and green casing) so of course they left the game as it is. The difference is, we on the PC side can look at the files installed on our computers. The XBOX people cannot.

I really do not want a lecture on "good business" practices. I realize they have to turn a profit. However, when we take into context the fact that KotOR II was the highly anticipated sequel of a much beloved game, it is my firm belief that the release date would have been irrelevant. As soon as it hit the shelf the gamers would have been flocking to the stores to pick it up. Period.

I still have faith in the guys in Obsidian. They made some of the best CRPG's I have ever played and this...stain on their record is not enough for me to start doubting their skill. The unused content in KotOR II is evidence enough for this.

Unless something is done by either Obsidian or private modders to implement positive change in KotOR II, I somehow doubt I will be playing it again.