You know, I hate to talk about this on public space, but things are really getting worse around here. It's barely past the first quarter of the year, and already all sorts of problems are showing up, all sorts of excuses/non-answers/promises(probably empty)/contradictions are appearing in response, and nothing is getting better.
Thing is, the problems alone are fine if there are steps taken to resolve it, but there doesn't seem to be any action. In fact, the symptoms (the problems) point to a negligence since a very long time ago, as well as either terrible foresight, or a deliberately dirty devious plan.
I doubt it'll change anytime soon. We have till 2016, but by then, alot of things can happen, and it will not be an easy 4 years like this. In a time as late as this, to resolve such problems, drastic measures are actually needed, but no: gradual and insignificant measures are taken. But yet, while on one hand, something is seemingly done, on the other, nothing is done, and the result is the two effects cancel each other out, leaving only an "false sense of resolution" which they are hoping many will buy into. I wish I could, but I'm not as rich as them.
For the next 4 years, I'll be almost disconnected, just back in time to help decide on who should be chosen next. I sincerely hope that at least, I will still find familiar surroundings, or else, I guess that this will be a lost cause, and there's no point staying.
Ok, I don't actually know whether to be happy... or to be sad for myself, but well... my dreams have started to incorporate 2D elements, and by that I mean: Anime has blended into my otherwise more "realistic" dreams
Just this morning I was fighting a war as an infantry soldier (unknown rank and position) in the jungle alongside 魔法少女(Mahou Shoujo)... from... you guessed it: 魔法少女マドカマギカ (Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica)
That wasn't the only one though... I remember a having a few other small "cameos" (if I were to call them as such) here and there in my dreams.
And then, I ended off playing Reflec Beat with FripSide songs and witnessed another anime cameo appearance... this time probably from Hidan no Aria I think, since I vaguely remember playing one of May'n's songs (which is not on Reflec Beat btw). May'n sung the OP for that anime in case you weren't aware of it.
When I woke up I was really going between "wtf", "this is so cool", and "I think I might be actually a sad dude". I dunno... considering I started in August 2010, it took quite a long time for it to penetrate into this level of my mind, but nonetheless, it's now reached what I would think is, the depths of my mind, and is permanently stuck there... likely forever.
It's not that I mind at all, and I'm actually embracing it. I'll see if tonight results in anymore of these, but well.... I dunno what to make of this really...
Consider this: If you were to rate your life in terms of happiness, how much would that be? In fact, how would you actually come up with a system that rates it properly over your entire life?
If you were to try a 0-10 scale now, the rating would surely be different on a day you're feeling like shit, and vastly contrasting with one of those "best day of your life" days (face it, we actually have more than one "best day of your life" since best is only referring to "best yet").
But supposed if these kinks were worked out, and everyone could obtain a life rating for his/her own life, it will become another measurement of success. Currently, many people judge other people's lives using mostly wealth, job, and health. Satisfaction should be another factor, and while wealth, health, and job are more stable in the long term, happiness is not, and can swing back and forth with a wide variance. In fact, it's almost impossible to predict how good or bad you would feel with great accuracy over an event that has yet to take place.
So, you can't just measure current levels of happiness due to its fluctuating nature (which could even dependent on the time of the day). As you might think, averaging it out is the key. And that's where we suffer another problem. Our memories. For most of us, recent happenings are easier to recall than past, and our memories tend to get more sparse the further back in time we probe into our minds. We also have a tendency to forget certain events and remember others. This skews our perception of happiness.
You may argue that perception of happiness is everything, but then, I am intending this rating to give a kind of idea of what it will be like to live as another person, and also as a means of comparison between people. (Comparison has an importance. I'll come to that in a while)
So, to average it out, let's say, I'll give you a scale of 0-10, and since the time you can understand enough to start doing your own rating, every day, you'll rate your day's happiness on a 0-10 scale (10 being the happiest day in your life). A problem surfaces immediately. Remember what I said about "best days in your life"? Well, while we have a few (and possibly many) of them, none of them are equal. Right? It's always the "best day yet". But if we were to just average out these numbers, then, each best day would be equated to each other, and that's not right is it?
Since, as we grow older, we experience more, and are able to better judge current events, then we should make age a deciding factor as well. As simple and crude as it may be, since it's practically impossible to do the math for this, I shall assume that experience and age are linear, and correlated. So, instead of a fixed scale of 0-10, let's make it 0-(your age). I understand that the "best day of your life" when you are younger may trump many of the other better days in your life when you're older, I think this might not be common, since, with age, you usually gain independence, capability, power, and freedom, which tends to allow you to seek happiness, and very more likely find it, to a higher level as well.
So using this rating scale, you add them in fractional form. 6/10 for one day, 5/10 for the next makes 11/20 in total, and so on. The percentage will then be your "life happiness rating". But we shouldn't stop here, because there are many problems with this system.
One of them is that, let's say if there was an "absolute value" of happiness for each event that you experience, then for one who has experienced a really really high absolute value of happiness relatively early in life, against another who didn't, then the life rating for the one who did would be lower, simply because now his "100% standard" (best day of his life) would be raised far above the rest of his life.
People tend to normalise their own happiness over time too. Let's say you got into a really really great job, or school (basically position in life), and you're extremely elated to take it on. First day on the job/in school, you're over the moon, and your rating is very high. But as the weeks go by, the months, you tend to find it normal. The saying goes "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" expresses this effect in simple terms. We normalise things if we find that they're happening on a regular basis. This means that although two people may have the same "life rating" they could be on extremely different levels of "absolute happiness".
So how to solve these problems? Somewhat of a solution is to use more statistics. Get the variance or standard distribution, get the peak to peak difference, get the occurrence rate of a certain level, say, >80% or >90%. These will all indicate aspects that will give you an idea of a person's life. E.g. the occurrence rate of >80% or >90% will give an indication of how often that person experiences great joy. The variance will tell you how "spicy" their life is, and the peak to peak difference will tell you the range of happiness they have experienced.
The best part, however, is when there are numbers that differ from person to person, it will be compared. More so if the numbers matter. But what does this do? Well, if you do realise, no one wants to lose out on this, cos, well, having a low number would definitely suck. Thus people will try to rate their numbers higher, and then feel good about it. This... produces happiness in itself, muahaha! So it actually gets everybody to feel better about his/her life. Now isn't that advantageous?
Interesting idea, and just pure thought entertainment. Wish it could happen though.
Haha, well, after naturally rising one day to 7.05, and then dropping, the very next day to 6.4, it prompted me to have a look at the rules that govern the rise and fall of one's Jubility.
I must say that I'm happy with the progress and migration I've made so far. Coming from the iPad after almost 1 year of practice, not forgetting it's my first platform that I played Jubeat on, there's alot to adapt to, and I'm trying to improve my spatial awareness. (more about this in a while)
Anyway, Jubility, simply put, is governed by a function of score and level of song. Each score for each song level has a certain Jubility assigned to it. If your current Jubility is under it, you'll rise by 20% of the difference. If yours is over, you'll drop by 2% of the difference. But if you get SSS and above, you cannot fall in Jubility (this allows pros to play lower level songs for relaxation or whatever they want to play them for, without risking their rank)
Back to Jubeat... I'm sure this is equal to a normal music instrument. Which is why we all keep telling Demel that if he takes up piano, he should be darn good within just a few years.
There's an awareness of the 4x4 squares that you need to build, and this will allow you to hit notes on sight, without over or under shooting (something I keep doing, but now less). This can only be overcome through more practice. No drills can help.
Then knowing how to maneuver your hands across the grid requires practice and studying... no choice lol. There's really not much to say about Jubeat (unless you go into individual songs), accept that it's like every other rhythm game: the more you practice, the better you get.
But one main thing I'm trying to figure out is what's the "duty cycle", or "practice cycle" that is most optimum. Playing continuously tires you out, while resting too long makes your standard dip. So where's the optimum point? This seems to apply anywhere, in anything that requires regular practice to get better, be it body building, to computer gaming. There's also a chance of "injury", like spoiling your technique if you continue to practice while tired. It has happened to me in piano before, so I'm quite aware of such a possibility.
And for the record, I'm back to Gentle Seijin again at around 7.10+, cos I know how to get there. I also managed to get my friend to 8.00+ within one credit. Knowing what to do helps quite a bit.
Now, having fully recovered from the ordeal/enjoyment on Tuesday night, I shall hammer down (as now we don't "pen down" anymore) my recollections and documentation from that night while in a state of stupor, trying to get back home using the nation's public transport.
It was my first time ever going toward my limit. (I consider the limit of a person the point where either he/she blacks out, or has lost total control of himself, whether mental or physical.) Nevertheless, while fighting so hard to maintain composure, I still tried my best to type in my phone my exact feelings and experiences just so that I could write this post.
Approximately 10 shots of sak�, 2 cups of umeshu, and 1 cup of sochu (if that's how it's written). That was what I took, and what it took, to impair my physique.
While at the table, I noticed that my brain was starting to get cloudy. I had experienced this kind of feeling before, and knew that was the onset. The cloud is merely like fog, and although it produces an extra input in terms of input from your senses, it did not really affect my mental state yet.
Continuing on, I noticed the cloud wasn't getting thicker, and looking back, it didn't get thicker at all, all through the way. What happened instead, was a feeling of dizziness/giddiness started to swamp me. I understand why people say their head is spinning. It was as though I had just spun several rounds and tried to walk straight. My semi-circular canals were giving me false input, and if I hadn't resisted, I would have been stumbling much more than I did, when I got up to use the toilet for the last time before we left the place.
Being seated while drunk doesn't really get annoying, since your movements are minor, and thus you don't need to put much effort to keep yourself functioning normally. However, the trip home was extremely trying.
I had been fortunate that my only main road crossing was at least with two other people from the group who were in a less impaired state than I was. My vision was already affected by then. The expression "tunnel vision" comes close. But unlike its origins, I could still see my peripherals. I just couldn't really resolve it. It was... blur. Not Gaussian type of blur, but distorted blur. Something like underwater blur. Only my vision at my fovea was clear enough for use, and even so, it was not straight. Like I mentioned previously, I was dizzy, and my vision was appearing to spin slightly.
I kept talking about feeling disconnected from my body to the other two who was accompanying me for the initial part of my journey home. That was practically true, and I described myself as being "in a dreamy state, despite being alive as ever". I was hoping for a similar experience to a lucid dream, and I guess it was somewhat close, except that I was dizzy.
I guess the impairment also affected my sensitivity to motion, because I was really glad to get off the bus to transfer to the train. It was getting me motion sick already. It then occurred to me to use my phone to document my sensations. Thankfully, I was using my 2G phone, and I could feel my way round the keys, because, by then, it was such that I had problem focusing on near text, and text that wasn't big enough. I really couldn't bring myself to carefully see what I wrote. It's like answering an sms in the middle of the night when you were roused by your phone's buzz.
I didn't forge many memories of the train ride home, mostly because train rides are boring, and I had my eyes closed most of the time. I relied on the announcements, which was feeling a little more distant than usual, and didn't have the usual piercing effect into my head. Peering at my documentation, I described the feelings then as very dreamlike, and with a little nausea by then. I almost vomited in the train, but managed to hold it in.
I was hopelessly dizzy by then, and could only "feel my way around". Not literally, but I was going home, so familiarity took over, and I let myself more of "drift" towards my destination, rather than actively taking any action. I unfortunately couldn't hold any longer, and at the station where I transferred trains, I tried to minimise, but still left a small puddle on the floor. It definitely made me feel better, and I am certain it's psychological only, because the effect is too immediate for any significant biochemistry to have taken place. Hence I'd recommend if anyone feels like puking, they should, in controlled situations. (Unfortunately for me, there's no station toilet, nor grass patch along my way home aboard the MRTs)
Upon boarding the next train, I noticed a patch of vomit on the floor of the train. Well, I clearly wasn't alone that night. My handkerchief was in my hand now, just in case I couldn't hold in again. It isn't nice to throw up on high traffic walkways and paths.
After alighting at the final station toward home, I still had to walk about 200+ metres. As I documented it, "it's almost like a torture. My legs are like jelly" (I typed in as kelly. I made all sorts of other spelling mistakes, oh well.) Despite being so disconnected, I still overtook a woman (young) while walking home. These people walk so slow, that even in such a state, my walking speed is still significantly faster.
Nearly reaching home, I did my usual stomp on the unbalanced manhole cover to make a sound (I always do that normally). It came out more half-hearted than usual, but at least I did it. I then crossed a minor road before arriving at my apartment. It was at this instant that I realised I definitely couldn't react if I needed to. If a car had decided to jump the lights, I couldn't dash out of the way. I would have to actually think to react, rather than being spontaneous. Everything I did now, was instructional movement. Indeed, it's very dangerous, and it is also why the number of drink-driving accidents is so high.
I made it home safely, and thankfully my parents weren't aware of the state I was in because they were asleep by then. While bathing, I managed to let go everything I needed to get the nausea under control. It wasn't alot, but I definitely felt better. Sleeping... was... unusually easy. lol.
The next day, however, was shit. I didn't get the usual head-splitting-headache, but I was still somewhat dizzy, and this caused me to experience alot of motion sickness despite not actually moving, or nauseating motion sickness aboard a smooth ride on the train. I guess I'd prefer that to the headache that others experienced. Water probably helped. Warm water too.
Thankfully, today, this has all cleared up, and I'm in a good lucid state to make this post.
I've noticed a jump in the level of things I do. Photography is one of them. After processing the best photos from the Japan trip, there are quite a number of them that are at a higher level than any of those taken before. They're of course uploaded into my portfolio which is viewable here, which brings me to the next point.
The gallery has been upgraded. Why? I now have over 80 photos to show in my portfolio (even though I removed some of the lousier ones. Do you remember them? No? That's why I removed them). With 80 photos, I'm sure you don't like seeing them in one long list, and so I broke them up into several lists sorted by genre. And I did this all using the same php script. Pretty neat IMO, and very easy to add on extra genres as well. What's that? You prefer the long list? Well, there's still the "All" category you can click on that will give you the nice long list, if you like viewing pictures that way.
Of course, I like trying funny stuff, and so I included a "hidden category" in the gallery. I'll link you to it for the Japan Trip hidden category: right here. You should be able to figure out how is it that it's a hidden category if you know a little of php. But if you don't, you can still figure out how to "search" for hidden categories by trial and error. I'll give you a hint, the other hidden category is "thailand". I have no others, so don't bother finding (yet).
So that's more coding from me.... and next is level up in Jubeat. Ever since I've gotten back from Japan, I have really been hitting the arcade for Jubeat on the real machine. Not the downsized version on the iPad2. And well, I do see some improvements after the initial "hand-eye coordination shock" from moving to a larger interface. I was too used to the iPad's size, and I'm glad I've moved to the real one now. Speaking of which, I just got my gold card for Timezone!
I know I mentioned here that I don't want to spend tons on the arcade... but there are things you can't do with the iPad (which I didn't actually realise how much difference there is between the machine and the iPad). So no choice... gotta start. And I'll stop buying sound packs on the iPad. Trade-off. So yes, I'll spend tons on the arcade.
Another level up: I've also been catching "better" anime of the late (better to my taste that is) than before. That was more in Dec of course, with Steins;Gate, Madoka, Fate/Zero. I still love the moe genre of course... Papakiki was awesome (but it had other awesome stuff too besides pure moe).
And figurine collection. More anime seen = more figurines to collect. It has grown significantly. Like, just in Jan, I only had what.... 4? figures (nendo's figmas and full scale included). Now I have more than double the number, and it's going to grow much more regularly.
Change is inherent in me I guess. Simply looking through my earlier blogposts (as I was trying to find the old posts to introduce the "Travel" tag) reminds me of what I used to be then. And somehow... I sort of can't believe why I hadn't done all those things I have done now. What I'm really saying is: I'm happy with the change and wondering why it wasn't sooner. I'm not gonna try to reason with myself for this. I know I couldn't have done it anyway, and I can't do it now either way.
Also, I can't really get over the Japan trip. It was really too epic. Did I mention I've collated a montage in video for the trip backed by the song 胸の行方 by Kalafina (that song is really amazing!) to give it a nostalgic feel? Well, now I have. And, as you might guess, I watch it now and then, because it was such a mind blowing trip that I absolutely cannot, and must not, forget. I'll be going back there some day... and I'll make sure it's soon too.