Not only have I gotten a little more motivated, I feel like I have a better handle on PHP and MySQL!  By no means could I do anything on my own though.  It’s just that I spent weeks using a book geared towards people who already know a programming language and screaming in frustration.  So finally I looked online for tutorials and bookmarked 10+ pages that have helped me, or will help me once I understand it all better.  There was a book recommended (the name escapes me now) that I’ll buy sometime, or I’ll ask for it for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, my sister’s boyfriend is spending Christmas with us so that’s one more person I need to think of a gift for.  And buy.  I don’t have any Christmas gifts yet, but the birthday gifts are taken care of!  There are 3 birthdays between now and Christmas that I buy gifts for.  Hopefully, I’ll get more hours than I have been getting so the gifts this year will be nice.

Well, we didn’t go into Chicago on Halloween.  A pipe underneath my car broke so I had to get that fixed instead.  So I passed out candy :c  Also made the avatar/icon for this post, it’s Iggy! xD  He’s not a real favorite, but his “marshmallow” song cracks me up!  I think I may do something else with the background, he looked better without it…  And I may add a ghost or something.

Lastly, site stuff.  Made a decision to keep only the domin names I love.  What?  Why yes, I have other domain names.  They just have nothing there.  Hence why shouldn’t keep more than I’d hopefully use.  Planning to make one of the remaining ones a site for sozai, or at least have it on a subdomain.  Gah!  They all are amazing (at least to me) yet I can’t think of anything suitable for that specific name.  Anywho, I’m making sozai now, mainly “one point” but I’ve got a few other things on peppery-peach that I’ll use.   Yes, peppery-peach is one of the ones I’m getting rid of.  Unless someone else falls in love with it and wants me to host their site.  Which probably won’t happen.

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Makes me think of “last friday night” xD  Ahem.  My sister flew into Chicago with the USC band Thursday and we met up with her on Friday, it was so good to see her again!  It had been almost a year seeing that she didn’t come home for summer.  Just went out to eat and talked, oh and watched the pep rally at Navy Pier.  On the way back, I wanted to check out a kawaii store that I had no idea existed up until a month ago.  Unfortunately, they were closed :c  Checking their Facebook page again it seems like they may not be around next year which makes me sad.  So my mom and I are planning to go back on Monday (yes, Halloween) to check it out and maybe go up to Arlington Heights.  I’m really hoping we get back after trick-or-treating, I hate passing out candy.  Stupid kids that don’t dress up.

Anywho, on Saturday I went to the USC vs. ND game with my dad.  We sat on opposite ends of the stadium but I was so glad I went!  Eventhough the ND fans are kinda harsh, then again if it were at USC I’m sure USC fans would be brutal.  The game was great, to me at least!  I like it when my team is winning the entire game!  Really, I like winning more than a good game.  Kinda sad, ne?  But watching the band was fun, USC has a stronger prescence to me.  I’m biased, I know.  Oh but I’m glad I was finally able to see the “stake” in person.  I have no idea what to call it, when the drum major stabs the field with his sword.

Fan-girling (for lack of a better term) aside, USC was really lucky they won.  Lots of penalties in their favor.  Not to mention the ND defence “didn’t know what was going on” as an ND fan said.  Something that really bothered me was all the standing.  Can’t people just sit down?  Standing changes nothing except you make everyone behind you stand too.  It was up and down the entire game >.<  One last random thing, there was a USC fan sitting a couple rows down from me and he somehow vanished durring the 2nd quarter…  Yes we were in an ND section, I wasn’t wearing anything to give my position away.

Not much else to speak of, working on a new layout.  All of the ones I’ve been getting together in Photoshop seem rather crappy to me…  I need a change but I have no inspiration.  I will perservere!

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I think so!  Well, more like mood deterioration.  I wake up, ready to cope and by the end of the day I want to yell till I’m blue in the face.  So I end up stewing in my room at night.  Thankfuly, my dad took grandma and cousin up to visit people in Michigan today through part of tomorrow.  And they leave Friday morning so less than a day left to deal with them.  *sigh*  Hopefully I won’t do something stupid or rash tomorrow.  Just a little longer…

I finally beat Black!  It was soooo goooood~  Makes me wanna hug N.  But I totally didn’t expect to fight Ghetsis after N!  And for their pokemon to be at such high levels!  A walkthrough said lvl 45 minimum, for the elite four and mine were 46-48.  Used almost all my max revives, too bad you can’t buy them.  But I really am surprised that I didn’t lose.  Oh, another thing that surprised me (more like downright shocked), that Rashiram/Zerkrom and Victini aren’t “auto-catches” if you will.  One being an intrical part of the story and the other being an event.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  It’s just that for both Rashiram and Victini I threw 1 ultra ball and it caught.  I figured it was part of the story/event but I’m reading that you should load up on ultra and dusk balls before the elite four.  For Cobalion and the grass one (forgot its name…) I had to keep chucking ultra balls.  Weird.  Maybe fire types like me…?

In the same vein, transferred a couple dittos over and got my Rotom (Eeks?  What kind of nickname is that?) and bred a female dratini with extreme speed.  Yay?  Got a lot of breeding to do.  And transferring so I can breed.

And I’m realizing just how bad I am at graphic design.  I knew I wasn’t good, but now I know I need to read some books or something.  In addition to tutorials, but knowledge before application.  It depresses me, but at least I have a better idea of how far I need to go.

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A people sort of storm, not the natural disaster sort.  Well for my emotions it may as well be a natural disaster.  Yes, I’m talking about my cousin and grandma.  They’re due to arrive in less than a week now.  I have a horrible feeling that things won’t go well.  I’ll do or say something rash, I won’t call it stupid yet, and there’ll be another fiasco like last time.  If that does happen, I hope my dad will actually stand by me instead of cater to my bratty cousin.  Time will tell.  In a more practical sense, I’m cleaning the bathroom.

May as well get the negative stuff out of the way now.  Some jack ass on VDex is trying to, in essence, steal from Shiro.  I won’t quote the article or go into detail, but that’s unjustifiable and inexcusable regardless of their economic standing.  It really pisses me off how low some people are.  I feel horrible for Shiro that she has to deal with all this crap on top of her own life.

Back to more mundane topics.  Started playing Aika with a few people from Gaia.  I’m only lvl 10 but I can’t tell what the fuss is about.  So far, it’s just grind, complete quests, and purchase skills.  Not much in the way of character building or community so far.  I really want to play Rift though!  Unfortunately, it’s $50 and I’m broke T_T  Oh well, it’ll have to wait.

Completed my first trade in Pokemon Black!  Got a couple White exclusives (Solosis and Petilil).  Right now I’m grinding to make sure I can beat the last gym and am planning to get a legendary or 2 before that.

Oh!  That reminds me, I’m switching over the fanlistings to a collective site.  Link is on the right.  And along with that, I kinda started archiving my games and pokemon…  Yes, I have no life.  I’ll put up FCs sooner or later for trading purposes.  I think that’s all the site news.  Probably, I don’t do much with my hosting x.x

Filed under: Family, Games, Life, Rant, Website by Victoria
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I just noticed that 1/3 of all my cookbooks are devoted to sweets and another 1/3 are devoted to beverages.  Not that I have a ton of cookbooks to begin with, but I just bought another one and had to make room for it.  Maybe I should start a cafe or pastry shop xD

But anyway, my parents and I went to the Blue Chip casino today, well yesterday now.  My dad wanted to try his hand at cash game poker and my mom and I just wanted to check it out, I had never been to casino before.  First, because I guess I look young enough to still be in high school, my license was swiped/scanned/something and when the guy asked me my age, I almost blanked.  Pretty bad for a 22 year old.  Anywho once “inside” there was much awkward standing around.  None of us knew what to do so I proceeded to lose 60 cents on a slot machine.  Which my mom promptly won back plus some.  I really didn’t think the smoke would bother me because my grandma used to smoke, but my mom and I decided to leave my dad to go shopping because I felt sick…

Usually, when I go to the Outlet Mall, I find it boring and get really cranky waiting for people to finish looking at and trying on clothes.  Maybe because I knew what the alternative was (sitting in a smoky casino losing money) I was much more patient.  Or maybe I was in a better mood?  Who knows.  But I found a butane torch (for creme brule) and a cookbook for desserts to go with coffee!  Can’t wait to try some of those recipies!  Oh, and a pair of sandals from Sketchers, it was BOGO 50% off so my mom told me to find something.  I like them, I just hope I’ll use them!

And the icing of the cake was the fact that UCONN won!  <3  Yay huskies!  ^_^

On another note entirely, I’m trying to get back into polymer clay again.  looking up different techniques and making different things.  Currently trying to make pokemon…  And failing.  But practice makes perfect right?  Also I’m planning to try to teach my mom the basics of crocheting.  Key word: try.

Sorry about the misspellings and the jumping around, as I’m rather tired.

Filed under: Family, Life by Victoria
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Ok!  Everything except for toiletries, my laptop and a couple chargers are packed.  I’m all set for tomorrow.  But I’m coming close to hyper-ventalating.  No good reason why, just really anxious.  I don’t want to go because of my parents and family obligations.  It just feels like I’m shutting down, both physically and emotionally.  I feel sick to my stomach, if I could vomit, I would.  And emotionally I’m irritable, lethargic, and depressed.  I just want to get on the plane and be done with it.

But it has been an interesting couple days.  Thursday I went shopping for a swimsuit and all they had was tankinis…  I put on a lot of weight over the past 5 years or so and trying them on was a painful experience.  I got 2 sets.  When we get back I’ll have to start excersizing.

And on Friday, my sister and I were going to drop off library books and see The A-Team but her car broke down.  Thankfuly, we had already dropped off the library books.  First the brakes started to go, but we thought we would make it there and back no problem.  Then at a light the car stalled, neither of us heard it but whatever, we kept going.  Before we got to the next light it had stalled.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still going, but she couldn’t accelerate.  Pulled into a random driveway, power steering and brakes failed but we stopped without hitting anything.  The next hour and a half was spent calling people, she was calling friends to see if someone could rescue us and I was calling my dad, a repair shop, and a towing company.  We both called home in the hopes that my mom would answer the phone but she was mowing and didn’t check the messages when she got in.  Thankfully, Amanda found someone to take us home and the car was towed.  Even better, my dad oked it to be fixed and we picked it up that night.  Oh, and there wasn’t anything wrong with my car so it’s good to go.

I found a wi-fi hot spot walking distance from my grandparent’s house so if it is really there, I may post once or twice durring the next 2 weeks.  If not, you’ll know why.  See you in July!

Filed under: Bipolar, Family, Life by Victoria
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Well, I edited the entry to add in the Kurayami walkthrough links and started working on a layout for Shattered-Sky.  Layout is being thrown together because I don’t have any inspiration, I figure the blog layout can wait.  I need to find happier avatars too, most of the ones I have are quite depressing.

Yesterday, I went to a middle school to jog on the track with my sister.  Unfortunately, the gates were locked so we had to hop the fence.  I hate climbing over fences, my shoes never fit nicely in the chain link.  Anywho, we walked/jogged a mile and then walked a least another mile, wasn’t keeping track for that.  We had an interesting conversation about running styles, she jazz runs with short steps and I jog.  Well, I guess I kinda run, but not just with my toes like sprinters.  She jogged almost the entire time and I walked the curves and ran the straights.  We kept about the same distance.  I really need to work on my endurance and muscle strength, my legs feel kinda tight and sore.

Made an appointment for my car because the check engine light is on and I need to take it to Chicago on Monday.  Well, my dad will probably drive it.  You know the family trip I’ve been mentioning?  That’s what Monday will be.  I haven’t started packing or getting things together that I’ll need.  I have no idea what I’ll take specifically, just in general.  But what’s really stressing me out is my parents.  I have a feeling that when we get there, it’ll be chaotic for us.  Prioritizing, planning things out, and actually getting things done.  My dad has to plan just about everything out and nothing has been planned other than our tickets.  I don’t think he reserved a rental car or set anything up for him coming back.  Tangent: Rental car; I would love to rent one but it’s super expensive!  Not to mention I’m under 25 and would have to pay extra everyday.  That’s not what’s bothering me, my dad is only putting one driver on the rental is what’s pissing me off.  He would probably put himself on and not my mom even though he’s coming home a few days earlier!  We (my mom, sister and me) would have to rely on him or my grandpa.  We could take my grandpa’s car on the weekends but he works weekdays.  Grr…  I’ll try and talk to him about it.  Back to what I was saying.  I have a feeling that my dad will be a dictator and plan everything out according to him, not taking into account the rest of us.  We’ll have to see.  But I’m anxious about seeing my family, I haven’t seen most of them for at least 5-6 years.  Not sure how well I’ll get along with them/they get along with me.  Not to mention obligatory family stuff.  Gah!  I don’t want to go!  My ticket has been purchased and it would look really bad if I didn’t go.  A bright spot about it is that’s a free wi-fi hot spot within walking distance from my grandparents house, they don’t have internet.  I deliberately left out where we’ll be going.  In this area at least, it’s a big deal going there.  I want as few people to know as possible (ironic that I blog), but will reveal the location in another entry.

Enough about that!  Something else that’s ticking me off is Gaia.  I’m not exactly sure why, but it feels like everyone on there is really stupid and obnoxious.  All take and no give.  They’ll keep you around when they need you but stop talking when they have what they wanted.  Most conversation is about them and they don’t care about the person they’re talking to.  I admit, I am guilty of this in a few cases.  But I ask about them and they don’t ask anything back!  Make me angry.  I read one person’s post how it’s all about having the best/most expensive avi and not about decent conversation.  Maybe it’s just me, but Gaia is turning into a place where immature teens go to act out, get attention, and be idiots.  Ok, that was 2 rants already.  I’ll just shut up and make dinner.

Filed under: Family, Life, Rant, Website by Victoria
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Not really!    Took both doses Wednesday and couldn’t fall asleep.  I was so tierd, but couldn’t sleep.  At my mom’s prompting, I tried again at 8 on Thursday.  Kinda worked.  Had my alarm set for noon, but pushed it back to 1 ’cause I was tossing and turning till about 9.  Then kept getting up.  So at 12:30 I got out of bed because I couldn’t fall back to sleep.  I didn’t feel any more awake, but at least I wasn’t cranky.  So I didn’t take it yesterday and finally got a good nights sleep!  A full 8 hours!  I got up with a headache but that’s ok.  But my dad wants me to keep trying it so I took one dose already, not sure if I’ll take the second.

Now, what else do I need to talk about/share?  Oh!  Saw Alice in Wonderland last night!  So good!  Want it for my b-day!  The Belmont is tomorrow and I can watch it!  I couldn’t see the Derby or Preakness due to work.  But no triple crown…

On to more serious stuff.  My sister bought a bunch of Disney movies on eBay and she’s finding out that most of them are bootlegs.  I thought she knew what she was doing, so I didn’t warn her.  I wish I would have.  Now, she has to send them back.  She was quite depressed and angry last night because of that.  I feel horrible.  That is why I’m leery of eBay.

So, I’m not working this entire month.  Business isn’t good so I can understand why they’re switching the schedule around.  I think I’ll be working in July, so that’s a plus.  I still need to look for another job though.

Now, short story about my dad setting the planter on fire.  He cooked out Friday and my mom suggested he dump the coals in the planter seeing that it’s not being used for anything.  Obviously, my dad agreed.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  The weeds in it and the planter box caught on fire.  I only found out about it after he put the flames out.  But it was still smoldering so I had to help put it out.  I wouldn’t have minded because hey, the house could go up in flames.  But I did because he was trying to use water.  The faucet in the back is shut off because it’s broken so he was carrying bowls of water outside.  If the faucet would have worked, it wouldn’t have helped my irritation much.  I should have stated this earlier but the planter is made out of railroad ties, which are soaked in oil.  Water+oil=bad  I was going to use baking soda or the fire extinguisher, but he kept sending me back in for more water.  Pissed me off.  Not only that, but he was trying to take apart the planter with a shovel.  Makes sense sans the shovel part, but I offered to help or go and buy an ax a half dozen times and he was being all manly/macho about it.  Grrr…  And it didn’t help that this was at 3 in the morning.  Ok, I’m done ranting.

I need to do a whole bunch of stuff, but I’m too lazy right now.  I’ll get to the trip later, if I start it’s going to be a rant/letting out stress and one rant is enough for this entry.

Filed under: Bipolar, Family, Life by Victoria
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Meh…  I’m not really depressed, just lacking energy and motivation to do anything.  I blame Adderall (sp?).  First half of the day was great, good mood and stayed focused, though not on important things.  Second dose, and I’m not doing much, low energy level.  It probably doesn’t help that I got 5 hours of sleep last night.  I keep going to sleep late (5-6) and waking up at around 10-11:30.  Don’t know what’s wrong with me.  Ah, I haven’t mentioned the appointment with the psychiatrist.  He thinks that I’m suffering from more social anxiety, I was feeling quite depressed prior to that and surprisingly apathetic.  He was going off a psych test I took years ago and my anxiety from years ago.  So that’s where Adderall came in, helps focus as well as subdues anxiety.  I’ll have to continue taking it to see if all this is normal.

While I am quite lonely right now, I just don’t want to talk to anyone for fear of bringing them down.  Or not providing good conversation.  I’ve been lurking around Gaia Online, playing zOMG! and Booty Grab.  Not much else to do, none of my friends are really up for conversation right now.  What a waste of time, wandering aimlessly through the forums. 

I finished Kurayami.  With the help of walkthroughs.  I’ll dig up the links and post them later, both are in Japanese.  Links:

http://www.otentosama.com/A_Kurayaminohate/top.html

http://schloss-gennou.sakura.ne.jp/kurayamikouryaku.html

I really enjoyed the game more than I thought I would.  I just didn’t care for Sakuraba, everyone else was enjoyable, even the killer!  It amused me a lot!  Haven’t played any other game (sans Gaia) since beating it.

Well, Amanda’s home!  We’ve been bored a lot though, not much to do around here with little money.  There are things I should be doing, but I really don’t feel like it.  Oh!  I finally saw Avatar!  Loved it!  My sister went out and bought it after we saw it.  I’m thinking of asking for it for my b-day.  Really nothing eventful has happened.

There are a bunch of things I wanted to talk about in this entry but the words aren’t coming.  Main highlights: Family trip mid-June, my dad set a planter on fire, and I’m not working this entire month.  I’ll go into detail later, just not feeling it right now…

Filed under: Bipolar, Family, Games, Life by Victoria
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I’ve put off posting for as long as I could because I was feeling extremely depressed and a touch suicidal so I didn’t want to bring anyone down or be all emo.  I’ll get to that later.

But I beat Explorers of Sky!  Ending=love!  I’m a sucker for sad yet happy endings.  I kinda wish they would have left it but there would be no reason to keep the game if there was no post game stuff.  I got bored with going to random dungeons and I don’t have the patienceright now to get all those secret missions out of the way.  So!  I finally played Kurayami!  Love it!  I really don’t understand Japanese that well so I just listen to the voices (boy that sounded creepy!) and look at the pictures to figure everything out.  Doesn’t work too well.  I had 2 bad ends, 2 normal ends, and, thanks to walkthroughs, 2 true ends.  I’m pretty sure I have all of Sakuraba’s CGs and I’m missing 3 of Aoi’s, 1 is his death CG.  And everyone else doesn’t have too many.  So I think I’ll go for Honami (I think that’s his name) because he cracks me up and return to Aoi to get the 2 CGs I’m missing.  But, unfortunately, there is only 1 killer.  I’ll do his ending last.  But I’m curious to see what happens if you let everyone die, if you don’t pick the killer, or even if that’s a possibility.

Back to my issues.  I’ve been feeling really crappy lately.  Not gonna go into detail, but I started to feel better Mother’s Day and yesterday I was extremely irritable and locked myself in my room.  I was hoping that I suffer from depression and am not bi-polar as the mood stabilizer that works for me is very expensive.  So I’ve been off of it for a few months to test that theory out.  Obviously, it’s more than just depression.  I’ll be seeing another doctor in about a week so hopefully it can get sorted out.

On a high note, Amanda is coming back on Thursday!  I can’t wait to see her and have her cat stop bothering me.  But seriously, I miss my sister.  That was emphisized Saturday night/Sunday morning when I went to pick up a Mother’s Day card.  As I was looking for my car, I ran into Amanda (a friend, not my sister) and her mom and sister.  We talked for about an hour, I was standing outside their car for some of it, and then my mom called so I had to go back in to find an excuse for me to be at Meijer at 12:00 AM.  So the 4 of us went back in and it reminded me of when my sister and I would make “midnight runs to Martins” if we were craving something.  Meijer if it was after midnight.

Now why was I out that late?  Because a co-worker asked me if I wanted to meet at a bar an hour after we got off work.  Ok, I was trying to avoid agreeing not only because I’m not interested, but because of the location.  A bar?  Really?  There’s nothing wrong with going to a bar, but I hardly know this guy and don’t really trust him with my well being.  So by the time I got home, I had to leave.  I changed and found a smaller bag and was running at least 10-15 minutes late.  Got there and didn’t know where to park so I just found easy parking and walked.  Poked my head in, smelled smoke and didn’t see any black guys so I turned around and left.  I felt quite relived but now I have to deal with him thinking I stood him up and explain that I got there 30 minutes late.  Yes I need a life, but I really don’t want to get one that has him in it.

Filed under: Family, Games, Life, Random by Victoria
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