the kangaroo communique --> back-up style!

Been meaning to update for a while, but it's become a real effort to check any of the usual internet haunts these days. My shitty connection is one of the main reasons, followed by a few other things that happened this month. Thankfully, the personal storms have died down (thank god for friends who choose to stick by you in spite of everything), so I'm slowly crawling back to being around on the virtual sphere.

The connection hasn't really improved at all, though.

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At the moment of my writing this, I've finished checking all of the student works that have accumulated over... well, the past month. Maybe more. I'll be heading on campus for the last time this school year tomorrow, to give my final exam for the Lit 14 kids under me, and to get the last batch of student submissions that I'll need in order to compute for their grades.

This year has been pretty instructive, on the teacher front. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and work on a complete overhaul of my curriculi - like, schedule everything in an orderly fashion, and add extra modules that'll hopefully improve the cailber of the students who end up getting me as their teacher next year.

Got to look for schools, too. I've decided to finish my MA degree in ADMU rather than abort it mid-sem to go elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't prepare all the same.

Speaking of school: the paper I mentioned in the last post? I managed to get my topic of choice - that is, proving the theatricality of tabletop and play-by-post RPGs - approved. I also managed to submit it in time, although my professor will be out of town until the 26th. Grades are due on the 30th... I do hope she'll be able to check it in time.

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There is something grim yet beautiful about measuring your life through the pills you pop at night.

Conversely, there is something amusing but perfect about having a cat who's ridiculously attached to you. Gouto has a MOM MOM MOM meow. She uses it often, especially when I leave her behind in the room.

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As the plurk list knows, I've been tripping out on Final Fantasy 13 and the Ace Attorney series. At Chapter 11 for FF13 - taking my sweet time because I want to complete a lot of the quests.

(Which reminds me: does ANYONE know how to do Mission 27? I have no clue how to reach the mark when it's at the center of a circle that I can't walk to.)

Finished the Wright and Justice games, and I've just started Edgeypoo's game. It's good stuff, although I do think they could've afforded to expand on a few things a little more.

I don't think I've gamed this much in a while. It's one of the many things that I've yearned to go back to for a while, I realize. Writing, archiving, marathoning series I follow, fixing my music, mixing and doing my icons are a few of the others too.

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Completed my usual Lenten ritual, which involves me somehow getting struck with the odd urge to read through one of my older works. This time, it was Gravity Attack.

I'll probably flail about this in another entry, when I'm more in a mood to spazz at length.

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And I still owe everyone photos.

Had an absolutely lovely weekend. Friday was devoted to our first play test of a homebrew Persona system for World of Darkness. Mahar was the ST, and I got to play with khursten, gzep, psychoshoujo, Mia's lovely little sister and a guy named Meyer.

Suffice to say, it made me totally miss tabletop and even wonder why I bothered with so much wank and shit from sticking with LJ RPs the way I did. I return from the experience enlightened, I think, and more than ready to run my own campaigns again. Or play in others.

Don't get me wrong; it's actually impossible to compare LJ RP with table top since the dynamics are very different. Still: nothing beats gaming with friends whom you know and love, and wielding an original character whom you have full authority over. Someone who you can mold. Someone who is still ultimately separate from you, and will grow in ways that are bound to surprise you.

[/ramble]

Anyway, Saturday was the usual date with yukitsu, khursten and kye_kestrel - we watched Sherlock Holmes AND OMG JUDE LAW = WATSON IS THE BEST THING SINCE INSTANT NOODLES.

Felt sick by yesterday though, although it cleared up some by evening...

...Only to come back today, which leaves me cooped up at home, sniffling like the shit. The good thing is, I won't miss TOO much since my English 12 classes are on track. Now I just need to worry about my Literature 14 class, since their midterms are coming.

But first: tags, archive and icons. Oh, and naps.

Naps are good. orz

It's Christmas Eve for some of you and Christmas Day for the folks down here, so:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ♪



MASTER LIST OF CHRISTMAS GIFT FICS

+ AIR GEAR. Feral child raised by puppets. (for lyra_star)
+ BLACK LAGOON. (for annotate)
+ BLEACH. Questions that never breathe. (for mlina)
+ COWBOY BEBOP. Love me little, love me long. (for icecream_parade)
+ DARKER THAN BLACK. Dreams of the impossible. (for _sabriel)
+ DEVIL MAY CRY. Wine not found. (for salavin)
+ FULL METAL ALCHEMIST. I’ve squandered all these years. (for questofdreams and tasogareika)
+ GINTAMA. Stop whispering; start shouting. (for nonartisan)
+ HOUSE M.D. I know it well, the nakedness of truth. (for braidedstars)
+ HUNTER X HUNTER. The proof of living that you gave me. (for kye_kestrel)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! And may tomorrow be wonderful too. (for umarekawareru)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! Lay me down in a field of flame and heather. (for kasugai_gummie)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! Snow falling on cedars. (for audiopain and tyreling)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! The rope to the ivory tower. (for starkissed)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! The sun of life's morning. (for signifies)
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! We are but weaklings pretending to be tough. (for rodickparker)
+ KINGDOM HEARTS. Something pure and out of my hands. (for g3ssh0ku)
+ METAL GEAR SOLID. Morning glories make a roof. (for mushroom18)
+ OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE. No dust upon the furniture of love. (for istrill)
+ OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE. Ownership of such fragile devices. (for tsunekipanda, special flag to factorielle)
+ RPG FANFICTION: KHR - PUBLISHING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. All the little things. (for redmoonmurder)
+ RPG FANFICTION: KHR - PUBLISHING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. Lost in a dream from which I can’t awaken. (for desumethis and akaru_hana)
+ RPG FANFICTION: THE SKYTIDES. And he chants the hate of a million years. (for schmot_gurl)
+ RPG FANFICTION: THE SKYTIDES. Under the shade of flowers. (for fae_of_the_rose)
+ SOUL EATER. Xanadu. (for foxarashi)
+ SUIKODEN II. I thought I'd stop and say hello. (for jusrecht)
+ SUIKODEN II. Instruction through interpretative dance. (for osmalic)
+ SUIKODEN TIERKREIS. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. (for factorielle)
+ THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU. I believe in peace, b*tch. (for mienaihoshi, special flag to factorielle)
+ XENOGEARS. In praise of surfaces. (for ukefied)


Everything is up on stitchedophelia, as always!

Still working on my gifts for psychoshoujo and yukitsu. Sob, those ones take a lot more time and thought. ;^;

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I also want to pimp out the wonderful things that people posted for me!

SenBasa: Kojuurou Masamune x Date Masamune from kasugai_gummie!
KHR: 1896 from desumethis!
TST: 691896 and the Vongola from signifies!
KHR: D6918 from lyra_star!

Kudos as well to audiopain, who gave me an FST for Return on Investment and scanned a lovely 1880 doujin for me. And then to mushroom18, who drew me giftart for Flik & Viktor! *A*



Much love to all of you, your friends and your families. ♥♥♥

Before all else: FIC PIMPS!

Fanfics for kye_kestrel, in celebration of her birthday!
+ SUPERNATURAL MEETS soul_campaign. Feel the freedom like no tomorrow.
+ HUNTER X HUNTER MEETS soul_campaign. When burning bridges won't come down.
+ KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN! In the custody of trolls.

Other fics:
+ OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE. No dust upon the furniture of love (Christmas gift for istrill!)
+ METAL GEAR SOLID 4. Burn the length and breadth of the sky (iWHORE request from gaijin_ikei!)

sob, I'm going to have to prepare to write a crapload very, VERY soon.

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LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY CRAZY WEEKEND, FLIST. ...Although the crazy didn't actually start over the weekend itself, but last Wednesday.

Little brother's organization was scheduled to sing Christmas carols at our house on Friday night. Everything was pretty much set - both my parents and my grandparents were going to stay in to watch, and my mom was even going to bring in Anika, my niece, to be cute and listen to the performance. They received word, though, that the mother of one of our family company's most loyal co-workers passed away in Baguio, and that meant that both of them had to go right over and be with her for a bit. That meant that the kids HAD no audience, especially since they planned on bringing our grandmother with them and my older brother Paolo was likely going to choose his latest computer game over watching the kids sing now that my parents weren't going to be around to keep him in place.

That is where I came in, because mom promptly left me in charge of finding them a new audience. Which I did, by posting a shoutout to Plurk (thanks to everyone who replied or tried to make a way to make it, btw!) and poking my buddies at the Faura smoket. At the end of it all, khursten, psychoshoujo and yue_dermond joined me for the evening, in exchange for free food, nice beds and good company. :3

The kids were really, really good for something totally amateur, and the best part about it was my lovely younger brother sang a full song in Filipino! I've never heard him sing in Filipino before. o_o It was also nice hanging out with the girls and kicking around, and I'm especially happy that Yue was able to come because I know how far my place is for hers~

The day after that was the start of my Epic Weekend, which involved Khursten and I zipping over to Trinoma in order to meet up with yukitsu, kye_kestrel, 77ws and the mythical synatri in order to celebrate the purchase of Yukeh's First Dress Ever, and Lynffles' birthday! Traffic was a bitch, which meant that I didn't get to stay all that long since I had somewhere else to be right after lunch, but I got to eat with them and chill for a bit! My only real regrets are that I didn't get to be with Lynffles all that long for her birthday blowout aaaaand I didn't get to watch my other half get dolled up. OTL

Bore through more terrible traffic in order to go to Pasig and come to mlina's lovely house and celebrate Christmas with her and her group! Managed to spot dreamlessness, nonartisan (WHO GAVE ME ANOTHER MINI GACHAPON CREEPER TO HANG FROM SOMEWHERE) and mochalic before they had to zip off, and chillaxed with Noey, redmoonmurder, Kang and the rest of Noey's friends before I had to leave YET AGAIN for the party I was going to host back at my place.

Faura Smoket Crew (guest starring psychoshoujo again, because I wanted to take her out for a weekend!) trickled in car by car sometime after I managed to get home (through significantly less terrible traffic), and it was absolutely lovely to have nearly everyone under my roof! THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD slakdhgakshd household prepared stuff and everyone brought something to either eat and drink! And I introduced the lot of them to my parents (who all found them "respectful" and nice, ahaha!), took them on a tour of the whole first floor of my house (two batches with commentary, lol), and smoked a lot of interesting things from Jakarta, which Faith brought back with her from her vacation there! It was beautiful and fun and amazing, and the people who weren't able to make it were really, really missed BUT NO MATTER WE SHALL HAVE ANOTHER PARTY SOON.

khursten and I slept sometime after 4 AM - she and Mia woke up a little before I did hours later, and I was totally incoherent until we had lunch with my family. Saw them off sometime after that (BUT NOT BEFORE WATCHING THE SEASON FINALE OF GLEE), then kicked around until Mass. Dinner with family was nice as always, and I ended up accomplishing about 70% of all my backlogged student things before bed~

THIS COMING WEEKEND IS LOOKING CRAZY AS WELL, AHAHAHA. Hello, holiday season!

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With the general paperwork out of the way and my students on track before the break, this week looks like it's going to pan out rather nicely. Kicked it off, in fact, with dinner with Anjo and khursten at Kamimori + dessert at this amazing DIY yogurt place called Fruity Froyo - I treated my little brother out to both once he managed to join us, since I figured I ought to do something nice for him for Christmas.

...Speaking of Christmas gifts. I've been weirdly inspired to give lots of people stuff - like, people beyond the usual suspects anyway. I guess it's because this is my second year of gainful employment at ADMU, and I've got money to spare. Time to give something back, y'know?

I am also going to spoil myself by buying a PS3, and I'll likely have a unit in my home sometime before the end of the year.

Yep.

It is time.