Day 46 -- Insomnia?

So it's technically Thursday. It's 4:31 AM at the moment, and I have slept maybe 6 hours total today, all of the hours being from little naps.

It's official: Laptop + Internet + Travian = No sleep.

I'm surprisingly not tired, though. Maybe it's all the caffeine I regularly consume, or the lack of movement (aka burning off energy) that has brought about a sense of alertness. I feel awake. Refreshed. I can sleep for an hour and wake up ready to do a whole day.

Could I be showing symptoms of being an insomniac? Probably not. But it's still something to keep in mind.

But Travian is taking up a whole bunch of my time. I'm on it so much, I'm thinking of making my own Travian blog, just so people can see how I play and better their game, or maybe even better my own. :D

I need to do my Composition homework... we actually got to write a little blurb on a messy room. I'll stick that on WF sometime soon... haven't been on that site for a while... Travian takes up most of my day... :(

Day 44 -- Travian Starts Again

So I started Travian again on the 29th of May. I am now in college, as everyone should know, and I have way too much free time on my hands. So I thought, what better way to pass the time than to play Travian? So here I am.

There were quite a few so's in that last paragraph, as my Comp. professor would say. But so what? :D

For those of you that don't know what Travian is, here's about as quick of a rundown as I can possibly do: It's a RTS, or Real-Time Strategy for non-nerds, and consists mainly of building up resources and buildings and troops and then attacking the crap out of everyone around you. You play with tens of thousands of other real human players, so the experience gets pretty wild. Emotion plays a big part, because if you make someone mad... watch out!

I decided to play Romans, the easier of the three tribes, in my opinion. I have a couple friends playing with me now, like Andrew, Nissen, and Jon. I also have my old ally from server 2, Karen, so we should be able to do a little domination.

Only problem is... this takes a lot of time to do, lol. I spend about 3/5 of my day online now, building, raiding, messaging. No time for anything else, lol. :D

Another thing... while I was checking out strategies and such for the new server, I found this website with a guy selling a book on strategy. So I think to myself, hey this has to be a scam or something... But he's willing to give 12 or so tips for free so we can see he's genuine. TRUST ME: He IS genuine. :D Not to mention funny... Anyway, without trying to sound like an advertisement whore, here's his website: http://tips4travian.com/

Anyway, the main website is Travian.com, and I am registered in server 9. If you want to join an alliance with me, just message Darkdyer! :D

Day 37 -- Beginning of College

So I'm sitting in the computer lab of my college (DMACC), and I have this overwhelming sense of glee at the thought of me being free and out in the world to do whatever I want. So far, however, today consisted of burning a bunch of cash and walking. A lot of walking. BUT, I am now completely paid for class-wise, and I have also started to move into my campus apartment. My roommate is some Indian guy that has a quite large stack of video games, a laptop, Xbox 360, and a perfect gaming computer.

In other words, as best of a friend as a guy like me can get. :D

I don't have much in my dorm, and probably won't. Classes start tomorrow, and as of right now, the library and bookstores are about 20 feet away. So I'll make sure to buy my books in preparation for the work ahead. Tomorrow I have Principles of Macroeconomics and Intro to Philosophy. Sounds vividly exciting. But hey, it's a start. Thursday I'll be in Composition I, and that's definitely a me-friendly class.

Day 32 -- Last Day

Today is the last day of my high school career. After 13 long grueling years, it's finally over. In a matter of 3 days, I will be living on my own and going to summer classes. Even though I've been counting down the remaining days since there was roughly 110 left, it still seems as though this all suddenly leapt in my face.

SURPRISE! You're graduating this Sunday!

I'm like, holy crap! It definitely wasn't supposed to happen this fast. Yesterday I was dating my first girlfriend, and a week ago I was watching Gumbi on the TV with my mom. Now tomorrow I'll be graduating from college, and a week from now I'll probably be married and perhaps even with a kid. I ask myself, am I ready?

I think I am. Heck, I hope I am.

Anyway. Just felt like venting for a little while. I won't be able to throw a post on here until the 27th or so. I won't have any internet access until then. Let's try this graduated mentality on for size, shall we?

Day 23 -- A Novel Idea

So I'm sitting here, thinking about my future writing career. Beings that I'm going to go into college to pursue a degree in English or whatever, I should probably think about what this will entail. I want to be able to publish my works for cash. Who wouldn't? I think I have the skills necessary to do this. I even have the motivation.

I have written a total of six works so far. I know, I know, this may not be much to those out there with fifty or sixty things done. But to me, it's a lot... because until August of last year, I had never finished anything. Nothing good at least. And I've been trying to write for six years now. Not a good ratio. But now I'm taking this seriously.

I have to look forward. I can't sit here for the rest of my life writing short stories and hoping to make minimum wage. That's not very likely. So I have to take all my writing prowess and dedicate it to a novel. But what idea? I have been told that "The Bloodlord" would make a great novel, and after giving it some thought I agree. The Blood Oath could create an underworld of magic, a dark fantasy of the likes that I am dreaming of. And the assassin idea? Great! I want to write a novel about that so much. Another idea would be a sort of expanding of "The Gray Eye." A sort of zombie apocalypse run by distinct clans of women that is challenged by holy powers. There would be a neutral group of plain wizards. Dark VS light, where dark is the main character's POV.

I'll have to figure it out. Anyone have any ideas?

I apologize, btw... the link from before didn't work. I posted it in the Writer's Workshop, so I can't link it for non-members (Thanks, Tiamat). I'll try to get some of it for the general population later.

Day 22 -- LIterary Maneuver

First of all, I have to say that I watched the latest X-Men movie this weekend. Finally. I think the one week wait that I had to endure was way too long. :D But it was amazing. Simply amazing. The movie had a 5-star rating before the firing squad scene... and never strayed. There were a couple cheesy parts, but those work in superhero movies.

Onto other topics. On the forum that I spend most of my time, there is a contest going on called the Literary Maneuver. I got pretty excited about it. Seemed up my alley, a good bit of training. The concept: Write a 500-word flash fiction that has to do with a main element. For this contest, the theme is "We'd like to know a little about you for our file." Pretty intriguing idea, and the first scenario that popped into my head was an interrogation. Too lame. I knew that would be done. So I settled for an idea about part of an interrogation that led to this guy figuring out he has special abilities that may have been erased from his memory. It was an easy write, about an hour, but the killer was editing it to be 500 words without detracting from the story. I'm done, just got to type it, but I think it turned out OK for my first time. I plan on a couple more of my own Lit Maneuvers to hone my writing and editing prowess.

Other news... finally finished typing "The Gray Eye." I posted it on WF, and hope to score a few crits. Here's the link: The Gray Eye.

Day 17 -- AP Calculus

It's finally over. Took long enough, in my opinion. This class has been challenging, from integration to derivatives to tangents and other crud. We took the test today, which cost about $44, and it took from 7:30 to 12:15. Wasn't in the least bit fun, except for the breaks and the camaraderie between me and my fellow Calc-Mates. The end of all of it sucked, but that's a different story. I'm thinking about making a t-shirt with a couple of the memories on it. Like "+C", and "It's beyond the scope of the text." The class was interesting, to say the least. And now all the worry is going to dissolve into watching movies for the last 11 days of class.

Worked on "A Small Touch" last night. Which was great. I realized that I really do have difficulty writing anything except action scenes and dialogue. I have no trouble with those. But when I'm trying to describe how the cold is affecting my main character so much... I fail. But I'm still trying. I have one and a half pages done. It should be about 4, just like "A Gray Eye." Speaking of that one, I need to start typing it.

Got my Literary Maneuver for WF done a couple days ago. It ended up being 580 words instead of the 500 it was supposed to be, but I have no motivation to edit it. Heck, I don't like editing anything. My English teacher gave me a crit for "The Bloodlord," but I haven't done anything more than just look at it. I've got a problem with this senioritis.

A so-called friend of mine has pretty much crapped out on me, though I meant for it to happen. He's acting extremely immature, which gives me a reason to dislike the fellow. He needs to grow up. Hopefully sooner or later. I came to the realization today that the people in high school will judge you mercilessly just so they appear more popular. Once a person is out of that zone that they were in for 13 years, they really find out that people don't know what you did to so-and-so and etcetera. You have a clean slate. And when they found out you're a nice guy... feel's good. No more senseless popularity-searching. So in 11 more days... no more of this. I start anew. All my friends are in my writing groups, or people I rarely see. And I'm okay with that.