Tag: Spring 2019

A mid-April snack

Intelligent Systems definitely lined up weird banners for 2019, didn’t they?

First we got hot springs units. Now we get picnic units.

The whole idea feels a lot like a springtime gimmick, which is unusual considering we’ve gotten our spring banner this year. But I do like this aesthetic over Playboy bunnies.

So these units can’t be that bad, can they?

Flora — Signature Dish

Sæhrímnir (Might = 14, Range = 2)
- Effective against beast foes. Grants Attack +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Resistance > foe’s Resistance, reduces foe’s Attack and Defense by 50 percent of difference between stats during combat (calculated before combat, maximum penalty of -8). After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions.
Iceberg (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Resistance.
AR-D Attack/Resistance (A Skill)
- If defending in Aether Raids, grants Attack and Resistance +Number of defensive structures during combat.
  - ≥5 grants +10, 4 grants +7, 3 grants +4, ≤2 grants +1
Bold Fighter (B Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack, and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
Armor March (C Skill)
- At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to an armored ally, unit and allies can move one extra space.

Lukas — Buffet for One

Luncheon Lance (Might = 14, Range = 1)
- If foe initiates combat, grants Attack and Defense +4 during combat.
Pivot (Range = 1)
- Unit moves to opposite side of target ally.
AR-O Attack/Defense (A Skill)
- If attacking in Aether Raids, grants Attack and Defense +Number of foe’s defensive structures during combat.
  - ≤2 grants +10, 3 grants +7, 4 grants +4, ≥5 grants +1
Wary Fighter (B Skill)
- If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, unit and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.

Genny — Dressed with Care

Toasty Skewer (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- If a foe initiates combat against an ally within two spaces of unit, grants Defense and Resistance +3 to that ally during combat.
Psychic (Range = 2)
- Restores Health = 50 percent of Attack (minimum of 8 Health).
Fireflood Balm (Cooldown = 1)
- When healing an ally with a staff, grants Attack and Resistance +6 to all allies for one turn.
Wrathful Staff (B Skill)
- Calculates damage from staff like other weapons.
Defense Opening (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Defense +6 to ally with the highest Defense for one turn.

Felicia — Off the Menu

Eldhrímnir (Might = 16, Range = 1)
- Effective against beast foes. Grants Speed +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Resistance > foe’s Resistance, reduces foe’s Attack and Speed by 50 percent of difference between stats during combat (calculated before combat, maximum penalty of -8).
Glacies (Cooldown = 4)
- Boosts damage by 80 percent of unit’s Resistance.
Speed/Defense Bond (A Skill)
- If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Speed and Defense +5 during combat.
Special Fighter (B Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 to unit and inflicts cooldown charge -1 on foe per attack (highest value applied, does not stack).
Close Guard (C Skill)
- Allies within two spaces gain: “If foe uses sword, lance, axe, dragonstone, or beast damage, grants Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.”

I can’t say they’re bad, but I do have problems here.

Why did we decide to only do half an Echoes banner here? Genny and Lukas are great, especially considering Celica is the only unit we’ve gotten alternates for. But a banner cannot exist without Fates or Awakening units on it apparently.

I do like Flora and Felicia, and their norse mythology-themed weapons (a hog in Valhalla and the utensil to cook it) are cool.

But why couldn’t Flora have been a blue-haired girl from Echoes?

My other problem is the fact that Genny seemingly got shafted. The others are strong, mostly unique armored units (even if the Aether Raids skills make me further consider removing self-written text), but the perfect sheep girl is just another healing cavalier.

They didn’t even have her ride the doe in her artwork, which would have been incredible!

Oh well. I suppose that’s a nitpick.

Genny and Lukas are my top choices, with Flora as a close second. Felicia is good, but faces stiff competition in the “powerful axe armored” category.

Don’t feel bad, Felicia. You get to be the best part of this banner’s Paralogue at least!

Paralogue 33 — A Season for Picnics

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Out of all 33 Paralogues, this picnic banner has to have the most bland premise.

Princess Sharena drags the Order of Heroes out for a picnic. Then constantly yells at them to act like normal, relaxed people until they become subservient to her will.

It’s a trope you’ve seen before, I’m sure.

Where this banner’s story stands out is with the alternate characters.

The first map has Flora feeding Genny delicious sandwiches before warning her to stay away from her sister Felicia’s food. It’s cute — as most things with Genny are.

The second map cuts to Felicia giving a sandwich to Lukas, who loves the taste (as he is so used to war rations like wheat flour).

Future Tempest Trials reward Leo is there, and the most brilliant writing in the series rears its head as he makes fun of Felicia’s cooking.

Hsays he’ll never eat it… Until she brings out tomatoes.

Reluctantly, he proclaims “I guess I have no choice.”

The sandwich he eats as a result is described as having a texture mixing slime and dust. It’s a great moment.

The third map loses that to an extent, but poking fun at Felicia continues. The battle is also shown to be one of those rare times where all five new units are on stage at once.

Luckily, that extended cast does not make the duel any more difficult. When the picnicking units are dispatched, Sharena once again shuts down the teams’ neuroses so they’ll relax and enjoy the sunny day.

The end.

And that’s another new special banner in the books.

Overall I’m really not sure how to feel about this one. Having Echoes units like Genny is wonderful, but when she’s the least impressive on the banner that excitement is quickly deflated.

Luckily that nice dialogue in the Paralogue made up for it, in my opinion.

But hey, that’s just my opinion. Let me know what you think about these alternate characters in the comments!

Succumb to the rabbit lore

The fact that we’re seeing our third Spring banner gave me an existential crisis.

I felt like the banner with Sharena and Alfonse just appeared, but it was 13 Paralogues ago.

Not sure what happened over the last year, but I don’t think I’m down for this whole passage of time thing. It’s starting to scare me.

Even if cute bunny characters kind of make up for it.

Palla — Eldest Bun-Bun

Pegasus Carrot (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- Effective against armored foes. If unit has weapon-triangle advantage, neutralizes status effects and disables skills that prevent follow-up attacks during combat. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces through their next actions.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
- Boosts damage by 30 percent of unit’s Attack.
Swift Sparrow (A Skill)
- If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
Disarm Trap (B Skill)
- When attacking in Aether Raids, if unit ends movement on a space with a Bolt or Heavy Trap, cancels trap’s effect.
Hone Fliers (C Skill)
- At start of turn, grants Attack and Speed +6 to adjacent flying allies for one turn.

Marisa — Crimson Rabbit

Flashing Carrot (Might = 14, Range =1)
- At start of combat, if foe’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +2 during combat.
Reposition (Range = 1)
- Target ally moves to opposite side of unit.
Speed/Defense Link (B Skill)
- If a movement Assist skill is used by or targets unit, grants Speed and Defense +6 to both involved units for one turn.
Flier Guidance (C Skill)
- Flying allies within two spaces can move to a space adjacent to unit.

Bruno — Masked Hare

Ovoid Staff (Might = 12, Range = 2)
- At start of turn, restores 7 Health to unit and adjacent allies.
Martyr (Range = 1)
- Restores Health = damage dealt to unit +50 percent of Attack (minimum of 7). Restores Health to unit = half of damage dealt.
Miracle (Cooldown = 5)
- If unit’s Health > 1 and foe would reduce unit’s Health to 0, unit survives with 1 HP.
Attack/Defense Push (A Skill)
- At start of combat, if unit’s Health = 100 percent, grants Attack and Defense +5, but if unit attacked, deals one damage to unit after combat.
Dazzling Staff (B Skill)
- Foe cannot counterattack.

Veronica — Spring Princess

Veðrfölnir’s Egg (Might = 14, Range = 2)
- Grants Speed +3. At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 75 percent, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.
Glimmer (Cooldown = 2)
- Boosts damage dealt by 50 percent.
Green Duel Flying (A Skill)
- Grants Health +5. If unit is 5-star and level 40 and unit’s stats total less than 170, treats unit’s stats as 170 in modes like Arena.
Chill Resistance (B Skill)
- At start of turn, inflicts Resistance -7 on foe with the highest Resistance through its next action.

Talk about a bizarre blend of characters.

Bruno and Veronica make sense in the footsteps of Alfonse and Sharena (even if the Paralogue story confuses everything). However, this being Bruno’s first and Veronica’s second non-canonical appearances as units is pretty weird.

They also have forgettable skills. Bruno is a healer with healing attacks, and Veronica is just a better Spring Camilla.

Two years worth of power creep, yo.

Palla is probably the most solid unit. She’s a flying red dagger that’s built to kill strong armored bois like Surtr, and with her Whitewing sister Catria appearing last year we have a cool progression to Est in 2020.

Cool all around.

Marisa is the real surprise. Because I love the game I can’t complain with more Sacred Stones representation (even if I wish we had new characters), but she doesn’t seem to mesh well with the others. Despite having an amazing character bio.

Plus her skills are very basic.

Yet being lukewarm on my opinions toward Marisa means she’s prime material to get unexpectedly summoned in my first round:

The fact that most of her quotes are about watching rabbits as research is incredible. Really makes up for everything.

Marisa was special from being a Sacred Stones rep, but the only other character I’m interested in is Palla. Don’t know if she’s worth pulling for alone, so I might save my orbs.

Paralogue 32: Regal Rabbits

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Now, let’s get into the real meat of this banner: That sweet Rabbit Lore.

Like I teased earlier, this Paralogue does some bizarre things with the status quo of holiday units.

Right off the bat we have our world’s Loki trying to convince Veronica to go to the festival:

She does so using Bruno’s appearance as leverage, but this just raises a bunch of questions.

Usually special units are from alternate universes to explain how two of the same characters exist in one place.

But Spring Bruno and Veronica are just our versions masquerading. Technically we are getting our world’s Bruno and Veronica, just dressed as alternates.

Yet there’s also a Spring Loki while we have regular Loki — but the Spring version is still ours according to the Paralogue.

In other words: It’s all a fucking existential mess.

Except none of that matters because the whole reason they’re there is to see whether Loki is lying to them:

Bet you didn’t remember that storyline is still going on while the Order of Heroes fights death herself.

The Order never appears here. Which is a nice change of pace as we saw with the 2019 Valentine’s Day banner.

The whole Paralogue centers around the Embla family. Palla and Marisa have a totally disconnected mission that feels like they’re conducting goofy business as usual while two canaiving people sneak around.

By the end we find out what that treasure is, and it’s arguably the most interesting thing about this:

I certainly didn’t see Taguels being referenced. Especially so soon after Panne got added into our ranks through a Grand Hero Battle.

While I started to question the relation of rabbit people to a festival where people dress like rabbits, Intelligent Systems doesn’t give any answers. They simply tease a continued treasure hunt with Loki telling Bruno and Veronica where they can find the answers.

Even if we have no idea how Taguels are supposed to help with their blood curse.

Guess It’ll all come together eventually, but at this point we’ll just have to table the discussion and get back to our non-Playboy Bunny lives.

Speaking of real life, did you all hear that Google is planning to launch a console for streaming video games?

Because I think it’s a very interesting concept that I’ll have no interest in buying. I prefer cartridge/digital download games that don’t rely on constant internet access, personally.

I just figured that would be a better segue out of this post to show that I pay attention.

That said, let me know what you think about these Spring units! And let me know how you feel about the endless march of time.

Because… Yeah, that still hurts.

First attempt syndrome

Someday I’ll move on from talking about early semester school-related things. I promise.

However, today is not that day. I spent all afternoon doing homework and have nothing else to blog about.

Silly as it might sound, I actually do have a good amount for this only being the first weekend of the semester. Probably as a result of my seven classes, many of which only meet once a week if at all.

If you want to read more about that, you can check out my blog post from yesterday.

To be fair I’m not sure the content of the homework itself is necessarily why it has taken so long. A lot of these assignments fall under ‘first attempt syndrome.’

You know, that sensation where you’re more apprehensive going into the first of a thing? Happens all the time for exams especially in my experience, and even real life things like shaving or going on dates.

The most egregious example of that first attempt syndrome with today’s homework came out of my Comm Law class. My professor’s TITANium assignment portal is a bit hard to grasp for first timers like me, and at the end of the mini-documentary I had to watch there was a quiz.

Doubling down on that anxiety.

Her quiz system being somewhat strange didn’t help. We all got three attempts to take the quiz, and two tries at each of the fourteen questions.

It’s really generous all things considered, and for that matter the documentary-watching portion had a fill-in-the-blank note sheet available online. Something I haven’t seen since Mrs. Mata’s AP Psychology class back at Redondo Union.

So I guess my Comm Law professor is just really nice about her assignments.

… Though that alone isn’t the full story. See when I say two tries at each question, that apparently doesn’t mean full credit if you answer correctly by the second try. Instead it’s a system where there are 20 points for those 14 questions (scaled so every one offers a point or two points), and each wrong first try results in half credit.

Thus, despite getting every question right by the end of my first attempt, I had a 15/20 for second guessing three questions.

While I feel the general lack of clarity there is somewhat underhanded, I can’t complain too much because we were allowed to use all three attempts to average out a better score. After the first attempt I got 100 percent on the two following, bringing my score up to 18/20.

It was a lot of extra time and confusion, but the ends justified the means.

Especially considering every right answer came with a snarky response, like calling the Supreme Court racist bastards for their Dred Scott decision, or poking fun at Antonin Scalia’s quote about “never dying” from well before his death last year.

The rest of my homework has been more straight forward. For my Senior Honors Colloquium I simply had to make a game plan for the semester, and I’ve started to distill down my resume for my Internship class’s required Career Center visit.

The only other stand-out so far is my Gaming class. By our next meeting I have to read the first two chapters of this lovely book right here:

An anthropological study of World of Warcraft? What’s not to enjoy!

I feel obliged to give my friend Darlene a shout-out here for offering to help pass along a few of the books I needed for this class, even though it didn’t work out. She didn’t own Night Elf or Coin-Operated Americans:

Can’t blame her on either front considering the two bookstores my Mom and I visited yesterday didn’t have them either.

We wound up going to Amazon to find and order them, and miraculously they’re already here.

Guess I’m just further evidence as to why brick-and-mortar stores are going out of business. Kinda wish the book stores put up a bit of a more competent fight.

The funny thing about these assignments is I really didn’t have to put as much effort into them today as I did. I quite literally have four-day weekends to do homework this semester.

But I just get the feeling that the mentality underlying that procrastinating statement might get dangerous with so much dense work coming soon.

Finishing more of my homework now gives me time to focus on the important things going further into the weekend. Like video games, racking up hours for Gladeo or writing my novel.

I did tell Dr. Perez I’ll be trying to write about 20 pages a week, after all. I’m hoping to get myself in a state of mind that will better facilitate the extracurricular work going smoothly.

Only time will tell whether I gracefully succeed, I suppose. But with the sheer number of mental checklists I’m making already, I get the feeling we’re off to a good start.

Spring 2019 first impressions

Alternate Title: “Last Ditch Effort”

Last semester I started what could be considered a tradition by writing about my early class impressions.

Granted that “tradition” was started literally one semester before the end so it doesn’t mean THAT much… But hey.

Traditions.

Given that it is my last semester at Cal State Fullerton, I actually have a pretty strange class layout. I’m taking seven, but only four are on campus.

Oh, and one of those four on-campus classes doesn’t meet every week.

As a result I’m essentially at CSUF two-and-a-half days this semester.

I’m not sure how I managed to achieve that while taking seven classes, but I guess that’s the nature of being a near-graduate.

As a result of that weird schedule, the degree to which I can talk about my classes varies. But it’s about as good a time to do so as any.

Cognitive Psychology

This semester we start with my only multi-day class and the end of my journey into a Psychology minor.

I took Cog Psych on the recommendation of a friend from my Sensation and Perception class. She had taken this course before and figured it would work out well for me considering my previous experiences.

Based on the curriculum so far I can’t really argue, even though I have a different professor.

In the two class periods we’ve had, the early subjects have all overlapped with things I previously learned. A third of the semester will even be focused on Learning and Memory, which I took last semester.

So if my general knowledge keeps up, I might just be ahead of the curve.

My biggest complaint is nitpicky, tying into how the desks are randomly dispersed and require students sitting in the same column to have to enter from different aisles.

Aesthetically annyoing, but harmless.

As far as my professor goes, I do like her thus far. She’s apparently a semi-recent immigrant from Egypt, which makes her an intriguing character with a slightly thick accent. Seemingly new to teaching, which could be good or bad depending.

However, considering I came in so positive about my last two Psych professors and got burned hard, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Guess I’ll just have to see.

Communications Law

Working for the Daily Titan may be the capstone course for the Journalism program, but Comm Law is considered the cream of the crop in terms of difficult classes.

Whether or not I succeeded in saving the work-heavy class for an ample time depends on your take regarding my ‘seven classes versus two days on campus’ debate.

Even though I don’t have the usually lauded Journalism department head as my professor, I still got the impression I’ll be very interested and engaged just from our first three-hour class.

My professor is plenty energetic and casual about the subject in a way that suggests her breadth of experience and all-encompassing love for it.

My one trepidation is that she seemingly decided to start winging it in the middle of the first day, shifting course to more of a traditional lecture style instead of a reversed classroom, video lecture style.

I’m not sure how much that will actually change things, and I think I prefer the sound of what we’re doing now, but it’s hard to inspire too much confidence when the immediate impression is “let’s wing it.”

Though maybe that ties in well with the casual air I like about the professor. So it could all mesh together quite nicely now that we’re past the initial civics recap.

Gaming and American Culture

In case you missed it, I wrote a post yesterday more or less discussing my first impressions about this class in service of a larger debate.

So I’ll keep it brief here and thank myself for the foresight.

Despite the fact that I apparently didn’t bother to fact check myself on the course’s name, I think this will arguably be one of the best things I’ve decided to do with my college career.

We’re reading great books, watching great movies, playing Dungeons and Dragons, analyzing video games (and board games and sports) and at the end I might even get to record my own pseudo-take on a Let’s Play.

It’s quite literally 15-year-old Jason’s dream class.

Senior Honors Colloquium

This is the class that I mentioned will only happen on certain weeks.

Ironically, this week was not one of them.

Because it’s taught by the Director of the Honors Program, she needed to be at the Welcome Back event held that same afternoon.

As a result I really can’t say much about the class itself. My friend who had it on a different day said the experience was pretty chill.

All I know is that it’s essentially going to be a bunch of planning to finish our Honors Projects, culminating in the conference of presentations at the end of the semester.

Shouldn’t be too bad.

With that, I’m all out of on-campus classes.

The remaining three are kind of similar in that they’re independent study experiences.

One is my Comm Internship class, where I just need to log 120 hours doing Gladeo-related stuff and turn in a few reflection papers online. Nothing too crazy.

The other two are Senior Honors Project Blocks, one of which is scheduled with my mentor Dr. Rizzo. They’re more or less the actual work half of the Colloquium class. I’ll be meeting with Dr. Rizzo on a weekly basis, possibly doing some outside meetings with people and going over my novel.

That about sums up my semester.

I’ll have two-and-a-half days of classes, with the rest of my four-day weekends being devoted to homework, work-work and writing.

A strange culmination to my schooling experience, but one that makes sense as a denouement for three converging threads of study.

At this point the best I can hope for is a more fun experience than last semester, which drained the life out of me by the time it was through.

Smooth sailing to graduation here we come!

… He said, obviously jinxing himself.

50 shades of analysis

So I just flew in from Fullerton, and boy are my arms tired!

…

Does that joke work over text?

I guess the more important question is whether that joke works considering I drove to-and-from Fullerton instead of flying, but nobody knows that.

And if I have my way, they never will.

Anyway, today was the first day of the spring 2019 semester for me. If it’s not already obvious, the whole affair has me a bit exhausted and delirious.

That being said I can’t complain about the contents of my day as much as the fact that it was required in the first place. I enjoyed my first two classes and found out that my class tomorrow was canceled, meaning I get an extra day off.

But I want to save a week-in-review post for the end — Thursday or Friday.

Thus today I’m going to go in a completely different direction and talk about something I discovered which helped keep me sane during the return to form.

While listening to the recent Split episode of Nando V. Movies‘ podcast, “Mostly Nitpicking” (which sounds like a paid plug but comes solely out of a fan’s love), I was recommended a different YouTube channel’s video series.

That series was the “A Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades” trilogy by an analytical writing-focused channel called Folding Ideas.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “50 Shades of Grey? That series of mommy porn books from the early 2010s? That stuff was trash, why should I care?”

Trust me. I was the same way.

I’ve actually seen this video series floating around in my recommended feed considering I spend a lot of time watching similar analysis channels [Examples one and two] to both help my own writing and laugh at bad writing.

I just never cared because 50 Shades wasn’t a series I got into.

But I happen to trust Nando’s opinions because I enjoy his content, and because I am succepible to media influencers apparently.

Now I’m here to pass on that recommendation to all of you because this Lukewarm Defense trilogy is wonderful.

For the most part, especially in videos two and three, the guy is more than eager to lampoon the terrible, awful writing of the books and how they translate into terrible, awful writing in the movies.

Except it goes so much deeper than that.

The video on the first book goes in-depth on the history of translations from the fan fiction to book to movie, and offers a wealth of positives about the first book’s movie adaptation to contend with all the obvious negatives.

It succeeded in making me appreciate the filmmaker’s zeal adapting what must have been a garbage fire into something more palatable and well-crafted.

A lot of his points about things like the removal of the main heroine’s inner-dialogue making her a more self-driven and competent player in the plot are really successfully delivered thanks to an editing style that presents evidence from both mediums simultaneously.

Of course most of the positives are confined to the first book’s adaptation, considering he also goes into why the other books are worse and had worse movie making conditions.

But I never thought I would appreciate 50 Shades of Grey — the movie — near as much as I did while watching this.

That’s not even to mention how funny the guy’s content is in its own right, and how successfully he tangles brief jokes or asides into relevant points multiple videos down the line.

It’s just excellent content. Enough so that I’ll go back and watch more.

To be fair, I am somewhat more open to narrative analysis content at the moment considering I’m swinging back into more focused work on my own novel.

However Folding Ideas presents some serious, evergreen writing advice. If nothing else I’m going to think way harder about paying off plot points in my own writing because I watched this guy destroy 50 Shades for dropping the ball so often due to the original nature of its production as a serialized fanfiction.

If you have about three hours to kill, check out this mini-series. I promise it’s worth your time whether you’re into script doctoring or just laughing at terrible content.

It certainly kept me sane on day one of the semester, and for that I owe Folding Ideas a lot.

Featured Image courtesy of Teesta31 via Wikimedia Commons

Overheard at a Starbucks counter

For all intents and purposes, this morning has kind of been a bust. I’m going to spend a good chunk of this post complaining before getting to the fun Starbucks bit, as a fair warning.

I woke up extra early today, around 6:00 a.m. or so, that way I could commute to campus and show up for 8:00 a.m. walk-in hours at the Communications advising center. I’ve already complained about that and referenced it twice after, so I’ll yadda yadda that and send you over to my complaining post for further details.

If you aren’t interested in reading that post, and I wouldn’t blame you considering you’re probably here for Starbucks stories thanks to the title of this post, basically all you need to know is I had one question about the application of something in my planned schedule next semester that I was going to take regardless. A really quick, little question that I couldn’t get answered with an appointment because they were all booked up for the next month or whatever.

Figured if I showed up at the beginning of walk-in hours today it would be fine.

Boy I sure am glad I commuted to campus at 8 a.m. this morning so I could ask an advisor one question during walk-in hours only to still be sitting here waiting at 9:30.

— Jason Rochlin (@jdrochlin) October 24, 2018

Then this happened.

Turned out even with my early commute I was the fourth or fifth person in line and everyone is allowed 20 minutes at most. Many people needed that full 20 minutes, as it turns out.

Adding insult to that injury, my question wound up being negligible anyway. Apparently the collateral category I was interested in applying this class to goes away once I complete my minor in Psychology.

Which is something I was made aware could be the case via the internship coordinator on Monday.

So I guess I got confirmation that it is, in fact, the case… But the nearly two-hour wait certainly didn’t feel justified to get that confirmation.

Oh but that’s not all, I also had some salt rubbed into that injury which was subsequently insulted. By the time I got my Comm advising, the office hours of my Psych professor were basically over so I couldn’t go there. Then it turned out the Honors Program Director isn’t around until next week because she’s at a conference, so I wasn’t able to have my project proposal signed off and finalized.

Basically. Getting up super early this morning was a bust. Don’t feel super justified doing it.

That ends the “let me complain about things that annoyed me on my personal blog” portion of my post, though.

Because the fun Starbucks-focused thing you all probably jumped on this train to hear about came while I went to get a drink and drown my annoyance.

Now there are a few caveats I need to elaborate as scene setters.

The Starbucks I went to is on the ground floor of the Pollak Library here at CSUF. It’s kind of the most central point on campus so it’s a very busy spot.

By 10:00 a.m. or so, the lineup to get coffee was long and the place was booming.

After ordering my drink I popped one headphone in and continued listening to a podcast I started during that two-hour wait.

Mostly Nitpicking, the podcast put on by that YouTuber I love Nando V. Movies, for anyone curious. It’s great and you should be listening.

BUT ANYWAY. Point is I might not have been the most cognizant of my surroundings.

Even so, I swear to god this is true. While waiting for my order to get thrown onto the counter I saw one girl attract the attention of a barista. She leaned in, mumbled “Order 66,” and the barista got the most solemn look on her face as she nodded, turned around and went to the back room.

Being the nerdy loser I am, the only way I could have possibly took that was in the framework of the Star Wars prequels.

Like now I’m totally convinced some random customer at Starbucks is secretly Emperor Palpatine and all of the younglings in the back room of the coffee shop have been chopped up by future Darth Vader barista.

There’s absolutely no other way to interpret that scene.

Especially not one that involves the mobile order Barista Vader brought out a few seconds later.

Total coincidence.

…

Yeah, that’s the whole story. Don’t know if you think it was underwhelming after spending a chunk of this reading about a guy complaining about his first world problem of getting up early for no reason, but I personally thought it was hilarious.

Probably in good part due to the aforementioned lack of sleep and general annoyance.

Figured if nothing else it would make for a good blog post to write and fill the extra three-hour time gap before my first class at 1:00 p.m.

So I hope you too feel that reading this was a good use of your extra time.

Like a chicken with its head cut off

Some of you may have noticed I missed a blog post yesterday, which probably seems hypocritical and dumb just a day after I literally wrote a blog post while sitting in the corner of a party where I was the only completely sober person.

But I swear I have a good reason for it.

And that reason is… I’m just really god damn busy this week.

It isn’t quite the same kind of busy as I was during midterms a few weeks back, this time my responsibilities are a bit more external.

On Friday I have to register for spring 2019 classes. However, in order to be prepared for that, I have to meet with half a dozen people.

I sat down with the Communications internship coordinator this afternoon when I was done with class.

Tomorrow I’m going to Professor Rizzo’s office hours so I can show her all of the material for my honors project (and hopefully get a proposal signed off on so I can sign up for different classes I need).

Wednesday I have to head into campus by 8:00 a.m. to see guidance counselors during walk-in hours (which is a subject I complained about previously). Big fun for a commuting student.

At least then I’ll be able to try and meet my Learning and Memory professor during his office hours to get some more clear feedback on my essay.

I potentially don’t have anything extraneous on Thursday, but that might be the day I meet with my Mass Media Ethics partner for a presentation we have to give next week.

Finally, Friday is a Gladeo meeting day and, as I mentioned, the day I’m officially signing up for next semester’s classes.

It’s all a bit of a time crunch with a ton of moving parts and I’m a bit on-edge.

Then let’s not forget about the other balls I’m juggling. For instance, homework.

The bane of students everywhere.

I also have to try and work out future internship hiring stuff for Gladeo with Michelle at some point in the near future per suggestions made by the internship coordinator. Both so I can have my work apply toward required internship credits and so we can encourage more reporter interns to come work with us.

On top of that I’ve also been working on different summer 2019 internship applications given the deadline for many of them is November 1.

Put together the extensive application for the Boston Globe yesterday. Now that’s floating around in the aether alongside the Washington Post.

I’m not expecting anything of course, but I am anxiously holding my breath.

Plus let’s not forget my other personal pursuits that I’d like to slip in somewhere within that timeframe.

Like finishing my newest armor set in Monster Hunter.

Or possibly buying Shantae Half-Genie Hero, which I saw is on sale right now thanks to the WayForward twitter.

There are just a lot of balls in the air right now. Being able to list them all out here on the blog does help me relax a little, both because it’s keeping track of my responsibilities and because it’s just fun, stress-free writing practice.

But you can essentially take this post as my fair warning that I might be a little more quiet the next couple days, as I’m literally running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

…

Except for maybe tomorrow when a new Fire Emblem Heroes banner drops. I’ll probably have a post about that.

Because I can’t resist.

Academic Advising Woes

Because of my status as an honors student, I’ve very rarely run into any problems signing up for classes each semester. Honors students have priority registration, so nothing has filled up before I’ve gone for it. Plus, I’m pretty cognizant of what I need to take thanks to our graduation requirements being readily available through a Titan Degree Audit in the CSUF portal.

So of course it just so happens that the one semester I’m interested in sitting down with an advisor, I’m having trouble pulling it all together.

I’ve been up to the Communications department advising office a number of times over the last week, trying to sit down with an academic advisor and with the internship advisor. All the times I’ve gone, I missed the walk-in window for the prior and have found the latter out of her office.

The frustrating thing to me is that the scheduling conflicts are honestly a major inconvenience surrounding a minor concern. I don’t actually have very extensive questions to ask either person, because like I said I’ve been able to work out most everything on my own. I know the classes I need and want to take, and I’m very prepared to sign up for all of them.

I mainly just want brief explanations on a couple of issues I’ve been mulling over.

For instance, I want to ask the internship advisor whether my previous experience working with Gladeo can count toward the credits I need. It’s a long-standing internship I had in a Communications field that resulted in a proper job, so that seems like a perfect candidate.

Then the only real question I have for an academic advisor is whether a class I’m interested in taking, and likely will take no matter what, can count toward a collateral credit on my Degree Audit.

Even if it doesn’t that won’t change my desire to take the class. I’m likely going to have an extra semester of courses anyway, so I can fill in those gaps on the backend if necessary.

I suppose I’m just finally experiencing the pains of being at a highly impacted University, the kind of pains I’ve been able to gleefully avoid up until now because of my priority status. I just wish that the pain wasn’t over something which would likely be a five-minute conversation at most.

The Psych department’s advising office seemed to have it right. The other day I walked up there and was able to catch an advisor for a two-minute long chat about a concern I had. I didn’t need the appointment necessarily because it was an in-and-out deal, and I really appreciate the availability.

But for Comm, going online to try to schedule an appointment reveals that there seems to only be one advisor available for all the junior and senior students who need them. Other advisors, focused on freshman and sophomore students, have plenty of availabilities over the next week; but the upper division one does not.

I wouldn’t even be wracking my head this much about all of my concerns if my registration weren’t scheduled for next Friday, Oct. 26. But because it is I’m kind of running out of time to pitch these short questions out.

If I have a wider point for this blog post, it’s just to vent and internally wish that a University like CSUF hires more advisors. Even this minor exposure to the problem has seriously opened my eyes to how much of a ridiculous, frustrating problem it is.

But that’s seriously the definition of wishful thinking, and I understand that.

Consider this just another opportunity for me to vent about my concerns, as the annoyance was a somewhat sour bookend to an overall great week.

It’s honestly never a good time when I need to face the reality of commuting to campus for an 8:00 a.m. potential walk-in appointment. Just for a quick in-and-out question.