Refraction

I have never played D&D, although I do have some experience with computer games based on that kind of world. One day at work, one of my co-workers suggested to me that I might be a Chaotic Evil character (please don’t ask how this got started.)

Anyway, here’s a meme to prove otherwise:

I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Wizard/Sorcerer (1st/1st Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-9
Dexterity-12
Constitution-12
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-12
Charisma-11

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Half-Elves have the curiosity and ambition for their human parent and the refined senses and love of nature of their elven parent, although they are outsiders among both cultures. To humans, half-elves are paler, fairer and smoother-skinned than their human parents, but their actual skin tones and other details vary just as human features do. Half-elves tend to have green, elven eyes. They live to about 180.

Primary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Secondary Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

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My credit card was declined today. 😐 I don’t know what’s going on–I haven’t lost my card or anything, I paid my balance in full last month, I have plenty of available credit (uh, relatively speaking), and there are no unusual purchases charged to it (as far as I can see). So why can’t I use my credit card? I haven’t done anything unusual in the last few days, and as a matter of fact I used it just last week to order a transcript.

I was also trying to use it on a $28 purchase, so I’m not exactly breaking the bank here.

Ideas?

I am now half-convinced that these authors just made this citation up. I’ve looked in the journal and I can’t find it at all.

So randomly today I started reading about the poet Rilke, and I stumbled across this poem:

“Woman in Love”

That is my window. Just now
I have so softly wakened.
I thought that I would float.
How far does my life reach,
and where does the night begin

I could think that everything
was still me all around;
transparent like a crystal’s
depths, darkened, mute.

I could keep even the stars
within me; so immense
my heart seems to me; so willingly
it let him go again.

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold.
Like something strange, undreamt-of,
my fate now gazes at me.

For what, then, am I stretched out
beneath this endlessness,
exuding fragrance like a meadow,
swayed this way and that,

calling out and frightened
that someone will hear the call,
and destined to disappear
inside some other life.

Translated by Edward Snow

Now, I’m aware that this is a translation, but it’s still the first time I’ve ever seen “undreamt”… organically, shall we say. Without really looking for it.

(It’s still a lovely poem, isn’t it? Rilke wrote French poems as well as German, so I’ll have to dig those up sometime and just enjoy them.)

I’m tired and I’m a little sick of lab reports and problem sets, so here’s a bulleted list to while away some time:

• I enjoy synchronous communication greatly. It’s so much better than the silly asynchronous kind of the IM-Facebook-e-mail-phone tag variety. Especially when the latter methods are divorced from things like tone of voice and response time and body language. Yeah. (This seems a little random but I’ve come to realize over the last few years that it’s really the best way to do things. Planning dinner with friends? Phone them and ask them if they’re coming (berate them if necessary). Don’t try to do it on Facebook. That fails. MISERABLY.)
• I am almost officially a volunteer for for a certain prof’s research group. 🙂 Apparently they need to buy insurance for me. Not a bad idea for undergraduates. I also have a desk in the Chem building now! I certainly feel special *_*
• That ASUS EEE PC is looking more and more tempting every day. >_>;;

(Yes–I am procrastinating. Yes–I will pay for this later. No–I probably shouldn’t be doing this. And no–this will probably not make any sense. At this point I am just SICK of “reflecting on my writing process” in French.)

I’ve been listening to mink’s Shalom album a lot lately. I like mink a lot, but for some reason I always feel extremely guilty when I listen to her music. I think it’s because I find some of it rather formulaic and almost Celine Dion-esque.

僕は、何をするだろう？何を見るだろう？
何を聞くだろう？何を語るだろう？

And then some of it just makes me think of the 80s, and not in a good way: think heavy synthesizer and sugar-coated bubblegum hooks. I’m thinking specifically of “Automatically.”

僕は、誰に会うだろう？誰に触れるだろう？
誰を愛すだろう？誰を許すだろう？

mink’s English is not bad, although it’s not as good as either LOVE’s or Rie fu’s. Her English lyrics, though, wow–some of them are quite beautiful. Take this excerpt from the English version of “Blessing of Love”: “How can I live without the hope that we/Might touch the edge of heaven’s light”

きっと、すべて愛おしくて、すべてきらきらして
でも寂しくて、そばに居て欲しくて

I picked up a mink single and a mink album from Book Off about a month ago. I’m not super-keen on the album, although I do love the single (which also has karaoke tracks for you aspiring divas. ;D)

世界で一番奇麗な場所: あなたの側で

I feel… buoyant. 🙂 My panic was completely misplaced, and even though my nerves did get the better of me, eventually I did calm down a bit and it was fine. I may be working for an awesome prof this summer. 😀

Lab reports and problem sets are bringing me back down to earth a little bit, but I’m still feeling rather pleased.

I am currently in PANIC mode over my appointment with a potential future employer tomorrow. I’m not really sure what to expect, which no doubt is the cause of all my PANIC.

I’m currently reading about his research, and now I’m wondering–why do I even bother? All this stuff is clearly over my head, I have no relevant experience, and while it’s interesting, I can’t think of a way to say that which isn’t trite.

ARRRGH.

I just realized that I have completed 91 credits at school. I’m not exactly sure how that’s possible given that I’ve really only completed five academic semesters. It averages out to 18.2 credits a term, or ~6 courses (assuming one course = 3 credits.)

To all the Arts students out there: I’m clearly not kidding when I say I have a heavy courseload.

(Naturally, there is some explanation for this: many Chem courses are 4 credits, rather than 3, and I did take a couple of summer courses. If you take out the summer courses, it comes out to a much more reasonable 5.7 courses per term.)

What’s slightly more interesting is that I have 31 transfer credits from high school and certain summer programs, so technically I have 122 credits. If getting a degree were just about accumulating credits, I could have been out of here by now. Unfortunately I also have to fulfill something called “upper-level requirements.” Alas. That’s what happens when your transfer credits are good for nothing but elective space… and you elect to fill elective space with a French minor.

I’m back at school now after a year-long hiatus in the working world.

I’d forgotten the things about school that I like (fun profs; learning things; seeing old friends) but there are also things that I don’t miss (midterms; buying books; bureaucracy; competition).

It’ll be an interesting term, to say the least :3

I miss my former co-workers.