Standard Tournament Outpost

(note that the author of this post does not actually know what people play at big tournaments now or what decks are good. things obvious to you might not be obvious to me^^)

Today only 12 players (including me) gathered to participate in a Standard tournament open for everybody. The tournament is mainly aimed at beginners but everyone is welcome.

We have few relatively new but really hard trying players. Jan Podrouzek trying his luck with green/red deck and Dan Krucky with simple burn deck with which he usually succeeds pretty well. Next we have few players from a school nearby. Jakub Matejka with RB Vampires and Ondrej Altman who came with his RG Werewolves and fought well. Not so many players try to play control decks at this tournament, but one showed up - Ondrej Pem with Grixis Control (too bad he lost in the last round).

Before the tournament I decided to update my deck. I build it before Innistrad was even out and did not really change it much after Innistrad was released. I ignored Dark Ascension completely.
I took out Liliana of the Veil and Phantasmal Image, 1x Think Twice, 2x Dissipate, 1x Tribute to Hunger and 1x Unburial Rites. I added Lingering Souls in playset, 2x doom blade, 1x Grave Titan, 1x Snapcaster Mage and 2x ??. I changed the mana base as well, making it more white and adding two Ghost Quarters. My sideboard consisted of Nihil Spellbomb, Timely Reinforcement, Dissipate, Oblivion Ring, Go For the Throat, Consecrated Sphinx, Revoke Existence, Day of Judgment, Think Twice and Ratchet Bomb. I hoped that the deck would not screw me up on the manabase as I wasn't really calculating it. It worked better than before.

Round 1
In Round 1 I played against Jan Podrouzek. This player is really eager to try out new cards and build decks and that's what the local players need. We need players like that. With more players like this the community will be healthy. Unfortunately his deck couldn't keep up with mine. But I learned one lesson ^_~ Hellrider is quite an annoying creature and a deck could be build around it. Jan though wanted some good creatures there and put in there Huntmaster of the Fells and Vorapede. I would actually take these out and replace them with something much less expensive like CMC1 or CMC2. Young Wolf came to mind and the best attacker in red or green is probably Stormblood Berserker, but that did not come to my mind at that time. Anyway this creature with Volt Charge can be annoying. Volt Charge also charges undying cards like Strangleroot Geist. With all these little creatures he would be able to deal quite a lot of damage soon and the Hellrider would be used to its fullest. I gave him some advice about the deck and the different approaches he can take, so we'll see next time. He's on a good track for sure.

Round 2
In Round 2 I played against Ondrej Pem on Grixis control. That is where Lingering Souls is a good card - to be countered. I hoped that my opponent would counter it at least once so I could play something I needed more later. He did. Actually it seemed that my opponent had 3 Mana leaks from the beginning of the game. I tried to let him play cards and not allow him to play too much Forbidden Alchemies and slowly waited for some Titan or Wurmcoil Engine. I played mainly Lingering Souls not caring about if it gets countered. Anyway those tokens actually dealt quite a lot of damage. Some got countered and some died to Slagstorm. After the first game I sided out Doomblades that are useless against Olivia and Grave Titan and put in Dissipates.

In this game I tried the same approach and soon was enchanted with Curse of Dead's Hold. So some bigger creatures needed to finish my opponent. Wurmcoil Engine on both sides, but I had unburial rites to reanimate my Wurmcoil Engine after it died.

Round 3
After these nice games I played against Jakub Matejka, probably the most conscious Magic player from the school kids in the area. His primary deck is Goblins but they are not standard legal. He played some kind of Black/Red but unfortunately wasn't fast enough nor was able to come up with a threat I would need to cope with immediately. This player though will be a very good in the future if he will be still playing Magic.

Round 4
Last round I played against Lukas Jenco playing Red Deck Wins (quite many player play it now. They usually try something, figure out that it does not work and then switch to RDW). He wasn't really happy to play against Solar Flare as he thinks that he can't win. I won the first game fast since on turn 3 I played Forbidden Alchemy and put Wurmcoil Engine into my graveyard and two turns later I reanimated it.

In the second game we both were mana screwed. If any one of us would get some lands that player would win. Timely Reinforcements and Snapcaster Mage + Timely Reinforcements tried to deal with Chandra's Phoenix, Stromkirk Noble with 4 counters and Stormblood Berserker with 2 counters on it. My only chance of trying to survive was by getting some life from Wurmcoil Engine, but that was stolen from me and I was killed by it instead. I had nothing else to do.

In Game 3 I changed the deck to a more control version still keeping Timely Reinforcements in and won, but not that it could be called a game. My opponent mulled to five and his draws weren't particularly good.

What I learned? Lingering Souls is a strong card and if popular I will need to deal with it. For that I can play Curse of Dead's Hold and put in few Ratchet Bombs (I had them in SB). Why didn't I think of this earlier? Hopefully my opponents also found some new information, learned from their mistakes and had fun.

At these events we don't get packs but instead we open the packs in the prize pool and pick the cards according to our standing. Lukas Jenco being second wanted to first pick Mikaeus Foil so I let him. Hope he enjoys the card and congratulation to all!

Esper Control by STsung Creatures 1 Grave Titan 2 Phantasmal Image 2 Snapcaster Mage 2 Sun Titan 2 Wurmcoil Engine 9 cards Other spells 3 Liliana of the Veil 2 Day of Judgment 2 Dissipate 4 Forbidden Alchemy 1 Go for the Throat 4 Mana Leak 2 Oblivion Ring 3 Think Twice 1 Tribute to Hunger 3 Unburial Rites 25 cards Land 4 Darkslick Shores 4 Drowned Catacomb 2 Glacial Fortress 3 Island 3 Isolated Chapel 3 Plains 4 Seachrome Coast 3 Swamp 26 cards Sideboard 7 ? 1 Day of Judgment 1 Oblivion Ring 2 Revoke Existence 3 Timely Reinforcements 1 Wurmcoil Engine 15 cards

(movie) The Warrior (2011)

I wanted to see this movie for a while now. The movie is highly rated so I had to see it.

Two brothers. The older one, married with children but trying to solve a financial problem (having three jobs and trying as hard as they can but to no avail) and the other one torn apart by events in his past - his mother's death and death of his brother-in-arms. Their father, sad and regretting the period when he was drunk and when he was neglecting his family. He would love be closer with his sons, but he hits a stone wall - none of them wants to have anything with him.

At the very beginning of the movie hearing the background music and seeing Tom and Paddy meet each other after a long time was something that provoked some kind of mood in me. I knew that this would stick with me for the reminder of it. Not so many movies have such an effect on me.

The fighting was really well done and really well shot. The fights really look realistic and the shots are really great. I haven't seen such quality yet. I felt the feeling when you ran at somebody grab him, take him down and lock him and then you wait for him to tap out.

Personally I don't know how to rate this movie. It emotionally moved me, it reminded me of how it feels to fight and I've seen a really well done fights and shots. The mood of the movie seemed perfect to me. The ending could have been more of an ending, but as the emotions are more important than the actually story it is fine.

Personal Rating: 3/5
Even though I think the movie was stunning I just don't feel like giving it a 4. I could find reasons to give it anything between 3-4 but still for that it would have to appeal to me much more I guess.

Kurimix and some random stuff

After showing my Time Based project and a painting showing my hands and Real Edition I was asked if I would show DDR to the class. I wanted to do that, but I wasn't sure about using DDR Extreme. After a while I decided to use a different software even though I was aware that problems might arise with (that I can't solve as the data is packed) and that the game's beginner friendliness is similar to early DDR mixes.

Anyway brought Kurimix 3 and 4 to school and installed it on the school's computer. I brought my Impact Dance Pad and plugged it in. After a while trying to figure out where something like Game Controller properties are I managed to make it work.

I started the game and played a song - finding out that the large TV in the room is completely off. I tried listening to the music and managed to get the yellow gradings^^.

After that I wrote how other students can try to play the game and left it there to see if anyone tries it and they tried^_~.

But I have to admit that the easiest difficulties are still difficult and without stage fail off it's really difficult to stay alive even for a 1/3 of the song. Anyway if anyone manages to survive any one song and tag himself/herself he will receive an impact dance pad from me.

Since that day I played Kurimix whenever I went to school and had some fun. I have to say that the charts will make one move^_^. It feels great. Except for one thing, I injured my knee during the last World Championship I attended and can feel that. I should be cautious. My body weight has risen by 25kg (it's mostly water) so I shouldn't strain myself much....

I understand more clearly what Positive Gaming and Kyle and Chris were/are doing with their charts and music. There are two different attitudes and ways of doing the steps and cuts for the songs. But neither of them is wrong. I just wonder how it came to the fact that many western players are so elitist? I look forward to reading Aaron in Japans book about this matter. Many of those also think that ITG is the way to go, but I wonder how many of these people actually play ITG1 or 2 songs? Anyone? It is true that ITG style is here and people are creating similar work. But some people should wake up and understand the fact that the work people do is not ITG.

You know, personally I would be glad to have music and charts like from Kurimix and/or PIU songs/charts (even though in Fiesta one can find ITG like steps and songs that are a novelty to PIU). I don't feel the need to play difficult songs and score 99.xx on everything. Even though it feels and sounds great. Just...there are songs of lower levels that are fun and can be relatively 'challenging'. Yeah, sure not for tip toe/heel and using the bar, that can be really boring. But still why not AAA everything? And with everything I mean from beginner chart to oni chart. Overgate reminds me of Aaron words about this. The game is complete only after you play all the difficulties and AAA them. True.

The Czech National Championship is going to be held at Animefest in Brno this year. That means that it's the first week in May. I wonder should I come? I've been asking me the question each time I was supposed to go and play. Last time I went there to have fun and play songs I like in the tournament and random in finals and you know, it felt really great. Much better than...ok what should I play? What my score will be on song A or B? Coming there to just have fun and see what is there at the festival is much better approach and then even with ITG I can have fun.

Seeing people I know, friends and trying out new things is good. I'll go if I'll be able to go on that day. Making a fool out of myself for not being able to play ReRave, playing some dance games, watching some anime, swearing about naruto fans. Even going from one building to the other... One can have something out of it and treasure that. Have a walk and say hello to Cerny Rytir or wonder what that giant penis in the city center is supposed to be (it's a clock actually).

Hm ok that's enough for now...I just wanted to say something about Kurimix...

Avenger of Zendikar p2.

I'm trying to figure out how to make the plant look better. When I get back to school I would like to try to meddle with it a bit to make the flower stand out more. I did not care much about the outcome when I was doing it, but now I would like to experiment with it a bit more and see if I can make it more refined.

Who knows, the little plant might look better^^ and not be completely overwhelmed by Avenger of Zendikar.

I experimented a bit with copics, but it seems that it won't work well on Magic cards. I'll see how it behaves on acrylics later when I manage to have both at one place.

Facebook and RSS

If you are a follower of my blog you probably know that I had a really weird night. There are many things inside me that are surfacing and I don't know how to deal with them. This is not your concern in anyway but one thing out of all them is - the continuity of this blog.

I don't know who reads this blog. I have followers and there were people on facebook reading my feed. There are other people subscribed to the feedburner feed. So if any of you care about what I write this post is for you. I don't even know if I know you. I was thinking about discontinuing this blog but I decided to give it another shot. My bf probably does not like the idea of me blogging or does not understand this and there are other issues we ran into and that is the reason why I stopped using facebook the way I did for a while and I'm not personally interested in spending my time using Facebook.

I registered to facebook ages ago when the social network was new as our class was using it for intern communications. I wasn't using facebook for several years after I left highschool but started using it some time later for some reason (when it started to be really big). Facebook helped me stay in touch with people I can't meet as they live to far away and allowed me to follow what they are doing and how they are. This might not be right in terms of humam socializing or whatever but for me it helped. It's an easy way how to share information. Now I have to use it for business purposes. It seems that social networks are very important in this digital era.

I started writing a blog in 2003 (I think) and since then I'm posting something somewhere. I actually ran a series of blogs and was contributing to others. I don't do that much right now. I dropped music games blogs and Czech DDR one. I keep two blogs - this one and univstsu.blogspot.com. The second blog has posts relating assignments or work for school. I created this blog because we had to collect some kind of documentation of our progress somehow. For me it was easy to create a blog and keep it that way. I was adding categories and exporting those so the teachers wouldn't need to go through other posts not relating to their class. After 2.5 years of my studies there I start to appreciate the blog and I feel that it has a higher value than my personal blog that deviated greatly from the first aim.

After years of contributing content or posts to forums I just can't stop but I wish there would be something worth to read.

Since this day my blogs should be once again feeded to facebook. So feel free to read my blog and comment there. I'd like to clean up my blog and restructuralize it in the near future but I don't know if it is worth the little time it takes.

Anyway there were many posts since November on both blogs. If interested you can browse them on the original sites as that won't get feeded.

(TV Series) Homeland

Highly rated series for what reason? I just had to see for myself.

After seeing the pilot I knew that If work and school would not interrupt me I would just watch the whole season in one day/night. We watched it in two sessions first six episodes and then the rest.

Homeland is a tv series based on Israeli series Hatufim (Prisoner of War). It is about a CIA agent (played by Claire Danes) who comes to believe that an american marine, who was held captive by Al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war for 8 years was turned by the enemy and now poses a significant risk to national security.

Ok well I can't describe what this series really is, you really have to watch it.

Claire Danes is my favorite actor and I have to say that there are scenes that had to be seriously hard to do. The acting overally is astonishing and it makes it 'believable'. I don't usually watch a series without thinking how wrong this or that is but it wasn't happening often with this series. It was most of the time 99% perfect.

If you haven't seen this yet, go get it. It really is worth the time.

Personal Rating: 5/5
This counts for Season 1.

(Movie) In Time 2011

My bf downloaded this movie (ok sorry no money to whoever should get it) and it was just there on the HDD waiting to be watched. Some time passed and one day we finally decided to watch it. We didn't know anything about it, so we did not really expected anything. I actually checked IMDB for rating and 6.5 wasn't convincing even though...yeah it's well over 5.

The first few sentences told us in general what the movie is going to be about but even knowing that I couldn't just wonder or think during the movie and lately I don't do that often. I either see a movie based on a book or a comics that I've already read or see something completely stupid (not to be taken seriously, but there's some truth to it). This movie shocked me quite a lot.

The movie is set in our worlds' future where the only currency is time. When one turns 25 five a clock on his hand starts a 1 year countdown. Rich people can live for decades, poor people fight for a minute. The protagnist is from a ghetto where people kill for a week of time. One day though he gets over a century of time and his journey to a different world begins. (go see the movie).

First what you see is the protagonist and his mother (being 25 even that is hardly believable). Anyway this is striking already. One starts to think, how it came all to this. How people could have gotten genetically altered to stop aging at 25? And then in the movie, one has to ask a question...how it is possible that there are kids with time on their hands? How come there are people that look older than 25?

Anyway this movie is not some awesome looking science fiction. Do not expect beautiful special effects and action. This movie is just about time being a currency and what impact this has. It provokes one to think about the current problems (rich vs poor people) and time and money. Without these provoked thoughts I can imagine the viewer not liking the movie much. There things that are hardly logical and need to be discarded in order to be ok with the movie. But still the movie shows a different perspective on life and the questions that might show up in your head are interesting and it is good to stop for a while and think about it. I personally think that this movie is worth watching and I would recommend it to anyone even though that if the movie would be done in a better way it could have been a real bomb, even for those not really wanting to think about the issues the movie is addressing.

Cillian Murphy playing the 'bad guy' was really superb and he made that movie alive. It's a pitty that there wasn't more about his background/past. I wasn't convinced about the main characters played by Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. Seyfried reminded me of some japanese anime character representing a caucasian character... Olivia Wilde though was good and I couldn't miss Johnny Galecki even though he wasn't there for long. But well..I guess that after watching a series for several years it strikes you that the actor plays someone else in a different movie. Or is it just me? Maybe yes...

I don't know what more to say. It just provoked a real chaos in my mind and I couldn't stop thinking about the movie. Even after few days I just had to think about time, life, money and our society.

Personal Rating: 3/5
After writing this I realize that the movie is not really well done, but the message is there. Thus I give it 3/5. It does not deserve more even though I wish the director would take it to another level and made it better.

Weird Day

At noon we were supposed to be on our way from the hill to the bus station. I headed for school and my boyfriend had some important business to do. We parted our ways at Andel.

I arrived to school earlier than I expected. I took out my EDH decks and was going through the cards. At one point I had Avenger of Zendikar in my hand. I got it out of the sleeves and decided to paint on the card. Wasn't sure about what...I read the text and realized that there is 'may' in the landfall ability. Anyway the word was just above the word 'plant'. At some certain point in my life I was drawing Plant tokens and I had them in my album for quite some time (just copying the original token painting). I decided to paint the plant.

I painted the plant in shades of grey. Then I started adding a bit of color. A bit of yellow, green, brown and red. In the end I added a bit of black. I wasn't aiming at copying the token image correctly nor using the same colors. I just needed to do something. My head was full of the teacher and I had butterflies in my stomach. I really did not feel well and I started to be afraid of what the encounter would provoke in me. So I was painting my little plant while waiting for him to show up. (I played a bit of Kurimix as well). The scan of Avenger is above. I'll probably work a bit on it more. I like the little plant but it would need different colors and hard edges. I wasn't in mood for that. (I'll try experimenting with copics and magic cards)

After surviving the lesson with my hands folded all the time I headed to 'rival' game store in Prague. I wanted to get something for my boyfriend and play few games if possible. Money was a issue but I had album with some promos and foils on me. I put that on the table next to me and soon I had people coming to me asking if they can see it. I sold few cards right away for about 400 crowns. I bought Lion Starter deck for my bf and then played few games with fellow players. One player borrowed me his deck featuring Primeval Titan + Kessig Wolf Runs and Inkmoth Nexi. Nice games, but it seemed that I actually had the best deck (even when oddly build and not being competitive) as I always won. After that I played with my Mimeoplasm and won with Avenger of Zendikar, Phyrexian Metamorph (being Avenger) and having 13 6/7 plants. That was an overkill. Hopefully the players will still continue playing magic and building decks^_~. We need players like them.

Few minutes later someone asked me if I don't want to play a game, so we played. My deck was always winning against his Glissa. In the meantime there were other people asking me if I have this or that or if they can see my album. The majority of the boys was talking to me as if I were a boy as well except one boy who concluded with 'duh, it's a girl!'. His sentence was probably not heard by many. I don't know, sometimes I wonder what I would have to do to be considered a girl while being in a game store, playing magic or whatever. I'm afraid that wearing a dress wouldn't help either (and for once I wasn't dressed in too big magic the gathering t-shirt). I sold and traded few more cards.

When I lifted my head from time to time I couldn't but notice another girl in the room (there was one more playing WoW but she's coming there often). She wasn't a player for sure and was probably waiting for her (boy)friend or brother to finish a game. She was ignored by everybody there. But what stroke me was that she was staring at me with a fierce and hostile look. It did not feel good at all. Whenever I lifted my head so I could answer someone about some trades I saw her watching. Being called a boy felt better than this (happens often no matter how I look like). This was really strange though. I started to feel pretty awkward...

After that I left and had a good dinner with my bf and we got a coffee as well (at least in my case). It was nice, but that teacher was coming back to my head. After arriving to Beroun it just had to get out...Playing Magic and being with my bf helped ... but it's not enough.

Erm, I don't know if I want to tag this post with 'Magic: The Gathering'...ehm...

Weird Night

Yesterday erm during the night ... well ... between 4am and noon I was trying to figure out why I'm at Fine Arts programme. If by a chance some of you did not notice that. I'm currently studying BA Experimental Media.

Actually I know why I am there, at this particular school and programme and I highly appreciate being there. I will never regret that and I a grateful for this opportunity. There are teachers and people that gave me lessons that are really important. Education is not only about knowledge and skill as many people believe in this country. What I need is to explore who I am and what is in me and to go my own way. All this is good but there is one person at the school that I dislike (and he can read this if he likes) and I have a really hard time listening to him. Not that I would ignore him, I listen but I won't probably look like that. Anyway the problem with this person is...that he was the head of the programme and he's the one having the final word. My last 15 weeks of school will be with him. During that night there were many things that were slowing surfacing ... until they surfaced. (follows, hopefully this will help me with my anger a bit.)

Here's my story. I signed up for Interactive Media programme few years ago. One of the thing that interests me is 3d modeling and character design. It is something I wanted to do and never managed to self educate myself well enough to be able to do something like that. I needed guidance for that. This programme has classes teaching animation, 3d modeling and animation in 3d. Two of these classes are taught by this person. This class was supposed to be the most difficult one and I dedicated 90% of my time for this goddamn class. It brought some fruit and probably not of a great quality but I learned a lot during that time. Unfortunately I never received a feedback for any of my submitted work. Not verbal, nor written. I was really sad about this and later pretty angry after several meetings about this matter. I SHOULD HAVE FILED and official complain about this and send it to Teesside. I regret not doing that.

There were other episodes of me running amok because of this person. We had classes rescheduled. The dates were already bad for majority of the class and the time (8am) was a killer for some. No matter what (I don't miss classes just because I don't want to go there or something) I got up at 5:20am and left for school. I was let in at 7:40 by Ken and waited till 8:10. At that time I was the only student for the class there. Few more arrived later and we started looking for the professor (one also not living in Prague). We came to ask the reception and we called him several times (the reception). His cell phone was turned off though. Ken also was looking for him at several places and did not find him. At 10:30 or so we left the class room and went for a coffee. I was furious. I spent 62 + 60 + [insert coffee price] CZK to get to the school. It cost me 7 hours of time. All this would be ok if one more thing did not happen. When I arrived home I checked my email. There was a message from the teacher.

Dear All,

Because I was alone in class at 8.00 I decided to leave and to reach thour workshop in the Studio.
If you have any problem to finish your assignments, you ll find me there next days. If any question or help needed, let's join me there.

Regarding the QTVR, only complete the tutorial i created on moodle. You'll find there the tools you need to finalize it.

Best wishes,
[his name]

I was in the studio at 10, he wasn't there. No matter what I was at school from 7:30. I've seen every person coming to school before 8 and he wasn't one of them.

Regarding the mentioned QTVR whatever it is. You don't need to know what that is. At the previous lesson(s) that were at the worst possible time ever, he told us that because we don't have enough time to finish everything we don't need to do part one of the assignment. Too bad for those who heard those words and did not do that because our work was given back to us, without any possibility of getting a good grade. I WAS FURIOUS, SERIOUSLY. I thought I would cut his throat or just kick him till he would start asking me for mercy.

I was avoiding classes with this person for a long time till I had to take another class ran by him. I was coming to the lessons, listened and started working on my VJ project. After coming to class where our teacher wasn't present (because he was too busy - yeah, cool) or classes in which we had no information that could help up I decided to entirely work at home. I needed to record quite a lot of videos and set my computer to run everything and figure out a way how to mix the videos online and well following pre-mixed music. It was fun doing that and it was worth doing that. When the time for us to prepare everything for the show came we did not get any information regarding it. The lesson that was obligatory and should not be missed was one I came to hoping to get some information. (The information in moodle were more than one year old and the assignment briefs were really off. So we really needed information from him directly). The teacher did not show up though and we stayed there and continued working on our projects. The next lesson. He came in a hurry 30 minutes late already telling us that we need to have our works ready and copied to this and that computer. He left afterwards and left us alone. We arranged everything under the guidance of Peter Marencik and one more student (forgive me, I can't remember who it was - but the person SHOULD BE NAMED and should be given credit for that).

Few days before the show, I met the teacher several times. He was asking people if they could come to HIS show and see it. My anger was at a stage where I couldn't control it.

I came to the bar where we had our show and I started helping with the installation. After some time we went to get something to eat before our performaces. Jorge one of the other teachers was there as well. I told him about my concernes with the other teacher and I told him that I'm not sure if I want to show some of the videos that took. They were rather more personal and geeky. (my performance had two parts - dancing one - para para dancing and a gaming one - videos of me playing different music games). I did not get any feedback about anything I've done so far so I wasn't sure about anything. I just want to get over it.

The other teacher also promised us that he would take footage of the whole thing and he would give us the videos later - they were needed for the assignment submission and I'm sad we didn't get the footage. But about that later in the text.

After a short talk with Jorge I found some motivation and energy in me to go to the stage and do my thing. It started well, I was dancing correctly and the video effects were looking good. Somewhere near 2/3s I put in the music games videos which brought even more attention to my performance. People liked it I heard many other people who were saying that was good. Who knows maybe it was.

I've seen the teacher this post is all about. He was drinking (probably alcohol), talking to another teacher not even watching or really listening. I was deceived.

After the show we were waiting for the tape from the camera. We didn't get any information. The only we got was that there's something wrong with it. A week after submission date, on Thursday, through Facebook we learned that the tape is bad and the data is lost. I submitted everything late, which resulted in a failed class. I NEVER received any feedback. All I have I know is that my performance had a great success and no one probably read or went through what I submitted. After this I decided to keep the last class with this teacher for the last trimester. I did not want to see this person again.

The last trimester came quite fast and I had to sign up for the Advanced 3d Modeling class. The good news was that the teacher was not the only one running the class. That brought some hope to me. Maybe I would get a feedback or a better grade than Fail or Pass without any given reason.

There were two parts - one modeling and the other was something about doing a website and some javascript. I don't remember that much, but I pretty much ignore that as I don't have a problem with ... well creating a simple website with some scripts included. The final project is this -> Outpost Model

I did not manage to finish the project as the time given for the assignment was really short. I worked hard and was becoming sick on regular basis because of staring into 3dsmax for too long (I can't blame anyone for this, it's because of my eye defect). This was a problem as I couldn't look at the screen for two days when this happened and I needed to get the work done - not to mention that I'm a complete noob using 3dsmax. Ok, I've got some experience with it..but not big. Anyway I uploaded my stuff and submitted my assignment.

I didn't get feedback. But this time I also got a different grade - Distinction - and I highly doubt that this was because of the teacher I'm writing about and in the end I also have no idea what for I got this grade. Was my project worth it?

So why I write about all this? One reason is the one already mentioned - the next 15 weeks mean that I'll be regularly meeting this person and I'll have to listen to what he has to say and I will have to cooperate. There is another reason though. Due to these experiences I decided to give up in trying to be good or to please someone. I do the assignments and do what I want - I do this for myself. I don't care about the grade. Because of this my grade from one class was lowered. Because I WON'T do something PLUS when the school should be providing that and help me with that. The teacher for that class told me that this is a lack of critical thinking and that even though he would give me Distinction he can't due to my attitude. He was right. He gave me a lesson but it won't change anything on my attitude. I wrote this to him later. I was well aware of what my action (in this case inactivity) would provoke and I was aware of possible consequences, but due to this goddamn teacher (the one this whole post is about) I really did not give a damn. Just screw it. Ok Distinction gone...I am Merits and Disctinctions material, but there are people I just can't stand. Anyway thanks to this teacher there things that actually started moving at school. There were additional responsabilities added to student book and the teachers were supposed to take their own responsabilities seriously. Since this day and this teachers action things got better. So my ignorance and strike was actually worth something in the end.

And the last reason and probably the most important is this: after experiences with this person I completely gave up on what I wanted to do for years and I can't get over it for some reason. This is the most sad thing about all this. I tried really hard for nothing. That's how I feel and I can't find the motivation or will to start doing that once again. Now there is an exhibition project ahead of me and it should be something featuring interactive media. Will I find the strength to do it? Motivation? Will I be able to endure all that what is inside me and do something I'd like? I have to weeks to come up with my idea. Due to all that contained in this post my first semester ended up in a completely different direction. A direction I want to continue, but a direction I can't be serious about just yet as my skill lacks a lot and I'm in the period of finding who I am.

Thanks for reading
Big thanks goes to Jorge who helped me through part of all this. He's the one, who can really motivate and I will always be grateful for that and I will never forget that.

Small L5R Tourney

The tournament was supposed to start at 2pm but at that time there were just four players (counting me). I ignored what was going on and continued playing Magic for a while. Noting that I don't really feel well and that I really need to concentrate to be able to play well (and I was playing Zoo, nothing complex).

I hoped to play against some decks I haven't seen or played against. But unfortunately I played against my boyfriend first. We played against each other the night before so I knew the deck already. My bf played Scorpion Dishonor. He got Distractive Priorities and Kameyoi early. It did not seem that good for me but after I was able to buy 2 additional holdings early in the game everything seemed fine. I had enough gold to be able to buy anything even paying 9 gold per personality. I was pretty soon below 0 but managed to destroy first province early. I tried hard to rehonor my personalities at battlefields where I was opposed and buy enough personalitites so I could in the last round attack two provinces. I sent 4 personalities to each province. Their force wasn't great (4F lion, Kagako, Ancestor and Gohei on one province) but I had Wall of Honor to lower the strength of the province and two movements which allowed me to send there two personalities. My opponent ran out of cards and I managed to destroy the remaining provinces.

In round 2 I played against Spider Commander. I first read the stronghold ability and I did not like it much. My stronghold now read: "Target your unbowed Personality. Gain 2 Honor". I expected the player to have some big 'wurms' as followers (champion of thunder etc).

I killed his personality somehow and counterattacked with my paragons destroying a province with Daigotsu Hotako in it. Next turn I had time to buy personalities and a holding. The following opponent's attack failed as well. In the last battle I had big units on the other side with Followers I couldn't destroy (would negate their destruction) and send home actions not weren't really working. I had to get over 45 Honor in order to win as my province would be destroyed no matter what and Alter History was in play. Anyway I was capable of gaining 16 Honor in the battle getting me over 46 so I won. (2x Tezuka + My Enemy's Mercy, playset of Surety of Purpose, Stronghold, 2x Nishijo, Paragon's Strength...)

In Round 3 I played against Crab Berserkers. I knew that this match would be more about the (in)consistency of my opponent's deck rather than anything else. Everything went fine for me but my opponent had 3 attachments in his hand and retribution. One of the attachments ended up in play - armor of the heavens - but I destroyed it with Sundering Strike. That lost me 2 Honor but I still had 27 when the battle ended. I destroyed remaining personality in battle and was ok. My opponent conceded as there was no way how to destroy 4 provinces in time.

Next I had the unique possibility to play against Unicorn Shugenjas and our little friend Akikazu (he was pretty annoying).
My opponent bought a personality and small farm on turn 1 and attacked on turn 2. Once again Kakihara tried to defend and was eventually tapped which raised him his force by 4. I really needed that as the unit facing him had force 10. After playing all cards from my hand I finally untapped Kakihara and played Great Sacrifice killing the only personality. This way my opponent lost 2 rounds (as he needed holdings first and then personalities). I was without cards but still would be able to buy enough personalities to defend. I got Blighted Region next turn and had 4 to 5 personalities all the time so I could defend everywhere and move one personality there. I had to sacrifice Dairuko and Kobi to successfully defend one province and safe my only card in hand. On turn 5 I got to 43 Honor.

The decklist follows (changes from last time)

EDIT: Erm I won (the tourney, I received some really weird promos)^_~

Shamate Keep

Dynasty

Shamate Keep
1x Border Keep XP
1x Bamboo Harvesters (pas sure)


2x Traveling Peddler
1x Family Library
2x Chugo Seido
3x Remote Village
3x Copper Mine
1x Stolen Merchandise
2x Indomitable Home

1x Akodo Kobi
3x Matsu Nishijo
3x Akodo Tezuka
3x Matsu Koyama
3x Matsu Gohei
1x Matsu Fumiyo XP
1x Akodo Dairuko
3x Akodo Kakihara
1x Kitsu Kagako
3x Akodo Dosei


1x Imperial Gift
1x Jurojin's Blessing
1x Blighted Region
1x Alter History

Fate
3x Greatful Reward
1x My Enemy's Mercy
2x Brawl
3x Great Sacrifice
1x Creating Order
2x Honor of the Lion
1x Ring of Fire
2x A Paragon's Strength
2x Heavily Engaged
1x A Game of Dice
3x Wall of Honor
3x Surety of Purpose
2x Entrenched Position
2x Broken Alliance
1x Guided By Honor
2x The Perfect Moment
3x Siege Volley
3x Cast Aside the Weak
3x Sundering Strike

Melody - this time properly done in Live

After doing my piano version I tried to come up with the version I had in my head. For that I used Ableton Live. ^_~ Here's the result. Hope you like it.

Small Exhibition

My wall at school. There's a bit more to see but well...couldn't manage ti fit everything in the photos. I'll try to make better ones with my camera later.

Glissa update

Just a small update on my Glissa deck. I wasn't taking this deck seriously but it works, so maybe I might try to improve it later.

Anyway I added Grim Backwoods. I like that land^^. (EDIT: tcgplayer did not recognize it, I'll try putting it back in the list...it reverted back to the original decklist...argh)

EDIT2:

Ok the update is bigger than I thought. I changed the mana base quite a lot. I added fetchlands, bayou, grim backwoods, command tower and reflecting pool. I decided not to play svogthos. I just never used that land as a creature. Card draw and the possibility to sacrifice something is much better.

I added few more creatures (sheoldred, ink-eyes, genesis) and bitterblossom, beacon of unrest and maybe something more (memory jar). I actually discarded all the discard and added creatures and card draw. The updated decklist is at tcgplayer ->

Glissa, the Traitor

Kyuden Kitsune Revisited

Today I bought a Lion Starter so I won't need to be telling my opponents that my Central Castle is actually Shamate Keep^_^. Anyway this posts is about Mantis not Lion.

I just did not know what to do with the two decks I keep. Military was weak and Honor was simply to slow. So I tried to take best of the two worlds and create one deck. My military deck needed more force so I tried to increase in Dynasty.

As far as Fate deck goes, I just took cards that seemed good and put them together. Even knowing that many cards require bowing my personality and that Heart of Darkness is not that good with Gina etc. But if you know what you have in the deck and how to use it it works. The deck still feels the same as my previous military. Probably this can change to Honor even though it will take ages. I might actually help it a bit in Dynasty and/or Fate. It could easily work.

Now the deck feels relatively good.

Kyuden Kitsune

Dynasty
Kyuden Kitsune XP
Border Keep XP
Bamboo Harvesters

3x Kobune Port
3x Remote Village
3x Ageless Shrine
1x Imperial Treasury
2x Traveling Peddler
2x Archery Range
1x Indomitable Home
2x Overgrown Grove
1x Yoritomo's Guidance XP
3x Qalyar
3x Sleepless One
3x Shakash
3x Moshi Tomeno
3x Kitsune Tokoru
3x Kitsune Gina
3x The Red Hunger
1x Yoritomo Hiromi
1x Kitsune Hisano

Fate
3x Fury of a mob
3x Siege Volley
3x Sundering Strike
3x Great Sacrifice
3x Satoshi's War Fan
3x Broken Alliance
3x Sneak Attack
3x Entrenched Position
1x Creating Order
3x Reckless Rush
3x Tireless Efforts
3x Pearls and Spirits
1x Ring of Water
3x Heart of Darkness
3x Oblivious
1x A Game of Dice