Just dropping by

It's been over a year.
Nothing noteworthy happened.
What did happen, and I am noting it only to toss some content out there (and avoid responsibilities), was that I am suffering through the third month of inexplicable itch everywhere on my body, and even more inexplicable affinity to burst into tears for no apparent reason more or less twice a month.
I also fell in love.
Not with a person, I don't think so, rather with the attention and affection they show me, which has me clinging rather desperately and very pathetically to them. Poor sod hasn't realized yet that I burn and the warmth he gets from me isn't scalding because I hide the embers deep, so very deep, and bury them under temperance and kindness.
Or maybe I simply overreact to my own emotions and the barest hint that a person finds my company remotely enjoyable.
In other news, I still talk little, do less, browse the Internet and somehow still got a scholarship, which rekindled my hopes to save enough money to build (have someone build) me a PC that will support new games for at least three years. Maybe even as soon as for Christmas.
Life is good, even if sometimes I have to fight tooth and nail to hide my crying.

Heatstroke

It's stiflingly hot again, the heat clinging to my skin and clogging my mind, quelling any motivation to do anything productive. The temperature is only bearable downstairs, where I holed myself up for the better part of the afternoon with a book and a cat. Descending the stairs feels like peeling a thick layer of wool off myself, finally hearing and seeing my surroundings with clarity. In this weather, I feel excused from being creative. However, reading Neil Gaiman's introductions to Smoke and Mirrors had my mind boiling with concepts; the brief descriptions of each of the texts' genesis proved to be an inspiration surge like few things these days. I didn't get through many of the actual short stories before I had to go water the garden, yet I was influenced by the visions he paints with his words already. Fun thing? Once I got out from the blessed chill of my basement, all of it fled my mind without trace or even a word of farewell. Ergo, it's high time I moved north from the polar circle; incessant daylight would only be a perk for someone with no regard for the time of day, anyways.
Two months ago I promised myself a NaNoWriMo and only got down five pages in my trusty notebook, out of which perhaps a half is of any literary worth. Words are assaulting me at times, but they dart about so erratically that I have little chance of capturing them and writing down, let alone incorporating into one of the pieces I'm currently working on. The closest I got to writing in recent days is this post, a sorry ass excuse for a text; here's to hoping it gets me back on track and making progress on any of my WIPs.
Cheers, everyone; cheers, my anonymous IE user from the USA, the apparently only visitor to my blog, if the stats Blogger provides me with are worth anything. [:

A Gaming To-Do List before Ubi's candy shop opens in November + What Tirra hopes to study this coming school year

As a potential SPRINT-WRITE* student and recently self-discovered video game enthusiast, I took it upon myself to broaden my gaming horizons, because let's face it, a grand total of one film-based game and one franchise topped with one or two MMORPGs at which I sucked is nothing impressive. For the sake of order (and because I forget lists easily) here's what I have or want to lay my hands on before the two games I'm awaiting impatiently enough to have dreams with the protagonists come out. They are more-or-less in order according to how much I want to play them or, in Hitman's case, how easy access to them I have. 

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution | currently playing
• Hitman (1, 2, Contracts, Blood Money) | obtained
• Devil May Cry (4 and any of the earlier if I can get them) | in spe
• Bioshock Infinite (and 1 if possible) | in spe
• Dragon Age (??? whichever I find first) | in spe
• Mass Effect 3 | promised
• Witcher | promised

The list is going to expand, shrink, or alter as I go. The games I'm waiting for you can guess easily enough. If the post title and one of my previous entries to this blog weren't an obvious clue, I am talking Assassin's Creed 4 and Watch Dogs (and boy am I anxious to try and save for one of the extended editions of either... or both?).

  *SPRINT stands in Polish for Studies of Interactive Entertainment Design, the -WRITE part is pretty self-explanatory. It's combined with English language studies, thus encompassing my main interests: lingual studies, writing, films and games. From what I gather, I'll be learning the usual spiel of other philologies: translation, language, culture and history of the English-speaking countries with focus on USA and UK, but with the addition of courses on various aspects of modern culture, virtual environments, ethnology and sociology, game studies, leisure studies, and gender studies, and that's not even a quarter of what the programme comprises of. 

  No shit, right now I am literally reading through the programme overview and hyperventilating with excitement. These three years are going to be hard work, big words, and - hopefully - endless enthusiasm. There'll be lectures on Star Trek and Star Wars, Tolkien, writing a scenario for different media, creating characters, designing HUDs and GUIs, preparing storyboards, directing and scenography; I am about two sentences away from keysmashing in glee, borne from the fact that these things will be taught to me and in three years' time I'll possess the skills to work in game and/or film industry while writing a SF novel on my days off. 

  I never really had a clear image of what I want to be when I grow up. Even as a kid, my dream wasn't to become an actress or singer, or doctor, or mother, or whatever; I can't recall making any plans that weren't changed or dismissed before the week was over. I knew I liked books, and I knew I wanted to write one someday, but I don't think there was a time I thought that would be how I'd earn my living. Later I discovered I liked films, too, and as years passed I developed a lukewarm enthusiasm for games, never growing hotter because I was convinced I just wasn't a gamer material (and I never had the hardware to play on; not that I do now - my laptop gives a passable gameplay, but with painstakingly low fps, especially on cutscenes). These things never changed, and I kept growing up with the knowledge that unless I write a bestseller, I'll never be able to tie my career to the things I love. Then I actually started playing and saw how impossibly long end credits after games are, and found out about the SPRINT. And I thought, for fuck's sake, there's gona be flocks of people educated to be lawyers and translators and doctors and accoutants; if I study THAT, I'll surely find myself a place on a game developer's payroll and crawl my way up until I'll be making the next Marvel movie and Assassin's Creed game. And someone finally has to replace Bowden, for the greater good of game fans worldwide! That's also when I realized that there are options beyond the obvious and that there actually are ways to get paid for fangirling (and earning fangirls and fanboys in the long run) if only I take a look around and try. 

  Now, here's to hoping I qualify for these studies; if I don't get to study it, I sure as hell will be trying next year, no matter if I get recruited for a different course.

a noob's excitement

  With more time on my hands than I know what to do with, I am easily lured anywhere on the Web, oft directed by one of my friends. Recently this was how I learned of Ubisoft's newest production, coming out shortly after AC4: Black Flag (which in and of itself makes me giddy every time I as much as think of it - come on, it's ninja pirates! And a new ass in the family!). It was my precious soul sister who introduced me to this seemingly brilliant piece of sandbox brought to a new level: Watch_Dogs. From what I gather from several videos, including a gameplay (with the graphic quality of a cinematic trailer that could be released no more than some three years back, which blows my mind and will surely blow my current gpu to smithereens), the city becomes my playground - literally. Aiden can hack practically anything with a swipe of finger on his smartphone - beating BBC Sherlock's Moriarty by several leagues. Far from a typical hero-protagonist, he is a more interesting, morally questionable character with fantastic mocap, creepy habits and mad skills from the on-the-go hacking, through combat and freerunning to driving not unlike in GTA. Even if I grow to dislike him during gameplay, well - I'll only be breathing on his neck most of the time, and it is my choice whether to drop him off a building or not in retribution for a dick move in the plot, no? c: Another advantage games have over films.

   Another thing are the collector's editions, particularly Vigilante and Dedesec - one with Aiden's cap and mask (asdfghjkl;!) as the cherry on the cake, the other with a 23cm figurine, which doesn't entice me as much - it's cool, but serves no purpose other than gathering dust - but is also packed with an artbook, a map of Chicago, steel casing for the disc and some space-fillers like pins and augmented reality cards (or something). It's the artbook that sings a siren song to me, because concept arts are something I could ogle for hours, then proceed to whine how I'll never draw this good and try anyways, and they occasionally contain some extra trivia about the world, characters, or design itself. However, graphics - and sometimes even artbook scans - can be found online, while donning the original headdress of Pearce and going out to the streets is something I'd rather not pass up; not to mention it's two items less to fabricate if I ever try cosplay. Still, the price is mind-numbing and the perks beside the cap and the mask aren't that fabulous; also, unless I'm mistaken, it costs the same as the dedsec_edition, which is considerably better equipped, both in physical and digital goods.

  #First world problems. Yeah.

  I'm but an aspiring gamer; my entire gaming experience so far is with all the Assassin's Creed games for PC, Tron: Evolution which had more potential than it made use of, and one or two free MMOGs that I quit because the main activity after reaching a certain level was PvP or quests requiring teamwork, which is not exactly my thing. And the "free to play" thing became "free to suck at without shop items". There's a post-it on my wall, however, listing all the games I want to play sometime soon, with AC4 and Watch Dogs on the very top and an unorganized assortment of Dragon Age, Devil May Cry, Witcher, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect and Journey below. Fun fact? The ones I'm most obsessed about I have to wait for. Insert a "best things are worth waiting for" quote and I'll punch a wall; waiting for premieres - be it books, films or games - is all I'm doing, apparently. Aside from complaining how I never have the money for everything I want, but let that be kept outside this blog. (:

O klawiatury męczeniu

  Lubię pisać.
  Wynika z tego wiele rzeczy. Albo nie wynika z tego nic? Lubię, gdy z mojej głowy wypływają zdania, czasem mające sens, czasem nie bardzo. Płyną sobie, prowadzą dokądś, ale częściej po prostu donikąd i strumyk wysycha, zanim dotrze do celu, jaki by on nie był. Pisanie na blogu, który w zasadzie niczym się nie różni od pamiętnika, bo nikt nań nie zagląda poza mną i osobami, którym podaję link do jakiegoś postu ze względów czysto praktycznych, jak post do RP, ma tę zaletę że jedyne wymogi, jakie mnie dotyczą, to te, które narzucam sama. A tych nie ma wiele: ma być poprawnie w dowolnym ze znanych mi języków i... ma być. Tyle. Nawet wpajane mi przez dwanaście już lat edukacji szkolnej reguły, że każdy tekst ma mieć wstęp, rozwinięcie złożone z logicznie z siebie wynikających punktów i zakończenie podsumowujące ww punkty poleciały przez okno. Czułabym się z tym lepiej, gdyby wyrzuciła je tam moja intencja, ale żyć muszę z faktem, że zrobiło to lenistwo i to, że jestem ograniczona jeśli chodzi o logiczne i literacko poprawne podsumowywanie własnego bełkotu.
  (Być może dlatego nigdy nie napiszę jednotomowej powieści; moje zakończenia będą otwarte do usranej śmierci, a głowić się nad ostatecznym końcem będą moje wnuki lub zajmą się nim Jeźdźcy Apokalipsy, przynosząc koniec świata zanim wszyscy moi bohaterowie pomrą.)
  Ta upierdliwa niezdolność do doprowadzania myśli i wątków do końca jest zaledwie jednym z efektów tego, że w mojej głowie jest głównie biały szum, jak w telewizorze z zepsutą anteną. Składają się nań przypadkowe myśli, fragmenty piosenek usłyszanych pół roku wcześniej jednym uchem, samotne słowa które chodzą za mną i kołatają mi w mózgu bez powodu, gorsze niż rzepy u psiego ogona bo nie da się ich złapać i wyrzucić. Dzieje się tu wszystko naraz, nic nie ma wielkiego znaczenia, czasem tylko jakaś myśl, problem czy emocja wybije się ponad ten odmęt i pokona większy kawałek nad powierzchnią niczym latająca ryba. Nawet, kiedy autentycznie nad czymś myślę, stada takich szkodników przelatują w poprzek mojego toku myślowego, rozpraszając mnie jak bańkę mydlaną i zapadam z powrotem w jednolicie nierównomierną przestrzeń, w której mogę patrzeć na ścianę przez ładne kilka minut, marząc o niczym.
  Zarazem w mojej głowie rodzą się potwory. fantastyczne kreatury, światy, postaci z wielowymiarowymi osobowościami, bogatą historią i charakterem; opowieści, spiski, bajędy i kłamstwa posplatane niczym rzeczywistość. Problem zaczyna się, gdy próbuję to uporządkować lub - ba - chociażby do czegokolwiek wrócić. Wielowymiarowa siatka powiązań, która spontanicznie się w mojej głowie rodzi, powstaje zbyt szybko, by ją zapisać w jakikolwiek sposób, a gdy próbuję się na jakimś detalu zatrzymać, dalsza część pędzi beze mnie i się urywa, ucieka w siną dal, albo zmienia się, gdy skupiam się na jakimś zapomnianym elemencie; stare węzły i połączenia rozpadają się w niepamięć, tworzą się nowe, a im bardziej staram się je uwiecznić, tym bardziej nienaturalne się stają. Pisanie na podstawie czegoś takiego to mordęga i łamigłówka, jakich mało - jak w takiej złożonej strukturze poprowadzić opowieść jedną linią, by uwzględnić wszystko, i to gdy zdarzenia modyfikują ten układ bez końca?
  Biorąc pod uwagę to wszystko, aż dziwne wydaje się, że lubię pisać. Może jednak dokładniejsze byłoby stwierdzenie, że lubię mieć coś napisane; sam akt pisarski bowiem nieraz porównywałam do przeciągania sobie drutu kolczastego przez ranę na wylot z powodu wysiłku, jakim okupione jest składanie tekstu tak, żeby nie uszkodzić materii, którą przekładam z konceptu w prozę. Momenty, które dla dobrych pisarzy są normalnym trybem pracy, gdy słowa zbierają się same i układają bez wysiłku, naturalnie, są dla mnie rzadkością i nie trwają długo. Czy kogokolwiek dziwi zatem, że do pisania zabieram się rzadko, rzadziej niż powinnam i niż bym chciała? Praktyka czyni jednak mistrzem, więc za cel stawiam sobie pisanie więcej i lepiej, niż dotychczas; podobnie z rysunkiem.

Regarding tattoos;

  As most young people (at least I believe this is true for most young people), I find tattoos to be a rather enticing way of changing one's looks. Long ago have I abandoned concerns about how it would look in thirty years; the quality and availability of laser removal services have vastly improved (if not cheapened) since I first decided that tats are cool and I want one, and by the time I actually get one - let alone decide I don't want it anymore, if it ever happens - they will have improved even more. One of my classmates had his forearm inked almost as soon as he turned 18 and no longer needed parents' consent to visit a tattoo studio; a close friend of mine has just unwrapped her favourite Tolkien quote around her ribs. Call it foolishness of the youth, but although I can't vouch for the guy - we had barely any conversation at school at all - I know my friend's decision was a fully conscious and well thought-out one. Maybe we are exceptions, but for us both, and for most of the few people with whom I have breached the subject, a tattoo is a statement, a reminder to self, or a proclamation: not something to be taken lightly by anyone, let alone ourselves. The idea of barging into a studio on a whim and getting a bunch of stars down your arm (or face) gets an eyebrow raise from us; have fun regretting that, indeed.

  This is the main reason why I still haven't even neared a parlor yet: the permanence of the meaning must match that of the ink. Even though the removal is, as I mentioned, increasingly easy, I think on my choice as though the lines were there to perish no sooner than in my grave (yeah, I got poetical there; basically I'm simply realistic about my probable ability to shell out enough money for the lasers). See, I still haven't picked what I want; there are several themes I am attracted to, including feathers, birds, deer and trees - the last in particular - but seeing as I have, and have had for close to a year, a growing obsession about one Yoann Lemoine, also known as Woodkid, I have more than once given thought to inking his keys on the inside of my wrist, at the small of my back or elsewhere along my spine - the location at the base of neck as depicted in the video for Iron is neat, but pretty exposed, and I'd like my first tattoo to be easily concealed should the circumstances call for it.

More than just thought, actually.

  One of the other ideas I've had (and still haven't discarded) is a caption on the wrist, reading "Notes", along with several lines to take down data when I'm out of paper or need to remember something important. Practicality at its best, wouldn't you agree? (;

Bełkoty pomaturalne

  Wakacje się zaczęły. Właściwie już w zeszłym tygodniu, w środę, po czwartej po południu. Wtedy to wyszłam z sali 303, w której przez trzy lata znosiłam edukację przedmiotu język angielski poniżej mojego poziomu oraz lekcje wychowawcze, gdyż anglistka miała również pecha być naszym wychowawcą. Ostatnie, co w tej sali robiłam, to pisanie matury z historii sztuki, notabene na poziomie rozszerzonym; gdyby egzamin ten był obowiązkowy i mógł zaważyć na moim zdaniu lub nie, nie spałabym do 28 czerwca, do ogłoszenia wyników, obawiając się najgorszego.

  Matura to temat rzeka. Wielu moich współabiturientów narzeka, że to jedyny temat poruszany z nimi na spotkaniach rodzinnych - jakże zresztą w maju częstych przez pierwsze komunie. Sama również dawałam upust swojej irytacji z tego powodu, gdyż nie było wizyty u wujostwa, podczas której ktoś by mnie nie pytał albo o egzaminy, albo o studia, w ciągu ostatniego... półtora roku właściwie. Z jednej strony jest to denerwujące o tyle, o ile wszystkim się zaczyna wydawać, że w moim życiu i osobie nie ma nic interesującego poza edukacją, której się poddaję, podczas gdy moje zainteresowania leżą zupełnie gdzie indziej; z drugiej strony, trudno ukryć że mnie też prościej rozmawiać właśnie o maturach. Jest to po prostu temat wystarczająco neutralny, poza tym o bezcelowości egzaminu ustnego z języka polskiego mogłabym nadawać przez godzinę (nie, wciąż się nie pogodziłam z faktem że moja prezentacja, gdyby nie kretyńska restrykcja do piętnastu minut, trwałaby niemal pół godziny a nie przyłożyłam się do jej przygotowania wcale). (: