uneasy

Right now, I feel like I'm having a panic attack, or the nearest thing to one.

I just feel so uneasy about nothing, or more precisely, about doing nothing when I'm supposed to be working on too many things at the same time. Don't get me wrong--I did start on the last piece of the Tambayan Complex maps, the left side one, but midway the feeling surges. So I stop.

The most I've wished for is that I can physically get rid of the feeling by vomiting.

To pass the time and wear out the sick feeling, I try to make mental lists of what to do. Know that there are too many items to be drawn for game/thesis, but there's no urgency still. Watch a rerun of a TV documentary on an epic gas pipe leak that obliterated a major thoroughfare during rush hour in a major city in Mexico. In between I text him over in-game politics, about a server merge of a game I barely played and decide to write (during this sentence I get interrupted by a command by mom to open the lights in my bedroom, or more appropriately, the cats' room, because they're wailing like hell. My grandfather echoes her--which brings the total number of the times he told me to do that to around 4 or 5, but I was so busy earlier that I didn't follow--and so I snap on my way up to the room. When I get back down, mom orders me to say sorry, which I follow, in the typical insincere way that kids do when faced with the infallability of a mother. To avoid any such moments again I grab my headphones and play rock music loud).

Mom told me earlier this is just fatigue; after all, I had a make-up class from 9am to 1pm earlier. She forgets that deadlines do not understand that concept. Nor does the real world.

And I don't understand how I can be so tired when I've done, in my opinion, barely nothing. I know what to do, and as far as I know, I have no reason to fear continuing my work. So why am I not moving on?

I go back and write, to make sense out of it all.

(f-_-f)

Now to write something up before I go *blag* on the sofabed again.

I've finished only part of what I expected to finish last week. Blame it on the time spent looking for a free streaming site for the Pacquiao-Cotto match (found a live stream from some Hungarian sports channel that was taken down during the sixth round), this weekend's bad case of the sniffles, and of course, laziness. Most of the stuff that got done were org stuff--typing up letters for the UP Lingua Franca's appeal for org recognition and the sponsorship letter for that ice cream eating contest next year.

There were also some stuff in Project1 that got done--the Tambayan Complex map set was almost completed. Since I can't possibly, I've split the real-life Tambayan Complex into three parts:

• the small left portion, where the SPECA tambayan, the ruins of the Writers Club tambayan and the back of the ASKAL stores are;
• the center, where most of the tambayans are: LF, AME, UGAT, GRAIL tambayans;
• and the right side, where the tambayans of Circulo Hispanico, Writers Club (new and compact!), UP Singing Ambassadors, Asterisk, plus the ruins of the Tomo-Kai tambayan are. (I'm still currently deciding which sector to put the Deutsche Verein tambayan: center or right?)

So far I've only finished the center and right parts; I need to finish the left part and also cleaning up/troubleshooting the maps by Wednesday.

Since I'm using the same tile set for all the Tambayan Complex maps, it somehow came to a point wherein many of the tambayans looked a bit similar. (Tiles are the building blocks of the map: like a collage, you stick smaller pictures together to make a bigger picture that ends up as the map.) Aside from the limited tile options--which can actually be remedied by the very tedious process of making new tiles--there is also the issue of space.

Because the camera angle of RPG Maker XP is similar to the old school RPGs on consoles--an aerial view at an angle--you need to place objects in the foreground and the background to give an illusion of height and distance. And that illusion of height is built through the layers, where the ones at the background/ground go on the first layer, then other elements on the layers above it. The layers work in the same way as Photoshop layers, or imagine it as something similar to having just three sheets of transparency film that have pictures on top of each other. The different pictures on those sheets of transparency film overlap and create a newer picture.

However, RPG Maker XP only has three available layers where one can put tiles on. Even if I had wanted to put more detail for each tambayan, since you can only put one tile per space per layer, I cannot add too much detail. The first layer itself is already reserved for the grassy ground, so I only have two layers left to work on.

It all came down to how I would differentiate the tambayans through the one-paragraph descriptions that pop up whenever my character goes near and "inspects" each tambayan. And since it's my character that is doing the inspecting, I can only share what my character's insights are.

In the creation of the descriptions, I've also noticed how little I knew about the other orgs, or how what I know about the other tambayans are really from the POV of an outsider, in reference to what I know.

Then again, this is supposed to be an essay and I'm still the one writing it. Can't simply erase myself from it, can I?

And yeah, screenshots:

been a while

And a lot has happened.

Funny though that the thing which initially kept me away from this blog--acads--is bringing me back. Plurk has kept me away, too, but that's also my acads' fault: if you've been writing a lot of pretty long stuff (fine, not that long, but at least more than 140 characters) on demand because of school, you'd appreciate the short form of Plurk. But that's not to say Plurk is lesser; it's just the practice of brevity, something that's pretty much treasured in my course and I generally feel comfortable with now (see: mother's sabaw moments).

I did miss the longer form of the blog post, during times when lengthy arguments were necessary, when there are (quite deviant) points to be made. Plurk's easy reply system cuts lengthy arguments in odd places, with too many other people replying at the same time to said plurk.

That said, I'm returning for my thesis. Muse on a Moodswing will work in a way similar to a devblog for the game that I'm currently working on. The game, tentatively titled Project 1, is based on a writing exercise from my CW141 (Creative Nonfiction 2) class. Platform, of course, will be the PC; ever the scriptkiddy, I'll be using RPG Maker XP to build the game. Blog will be updated at least once a week.

For now, a screenshot from Project1:

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grappling with air and fish

Haiku

Grappling with air, the
Fish just out of water swim
'Cross plastic valleys.

----------------------------------
Couplets

Grappling---the thoughts
fluttering still,

Within captured
essence, silent

Air. We hang still
like marionettes.

--------------------------
Villanelle

The table, empty and clean.
The boss, still not risen up from bed.
She asks: What do you mean?

Cloth, white to the seams.
The fish, finished up to the head.
The table, empty and clean.

You, ordered: polish 'til it gleams.
The daughter has, instead of him, broken bread.
She asks: What do you mean?

You didn't dare interrupt as you think he dreams.
But she insists, and there had to be led.
The table, empty and clean.

'Tis not good, she deems,
As you echo her dread.
She asks: What do you mean?

Nothing is what it seems.
The patriarch, now dead.
The table, empty and clean.
She asks: What do you mean?

oro, plata, mata

written for CW100--fiction--under Prof. Coscolluela

Her high heels echoed as she walked out of the service staircase and into the marble hallway of the building's top floor. The heavy wooden doors, marked "Executive Offices", waited for her at the end of the corridor.

She knew he should still be there, as she turned the ever-polished ever-bright brass doorknob. She then stepped inside and found him there, seated in front of a reproduction of Caravaggio's David and Goliath. It was not as hard as they--the veterans--had said, she thought.

"O iha, akala ko ba tapos na shift mo?" he casually asked, surprised at her arrival. "Baka naman masobrahan ka na sa OT nyan."

The remark nearly caught her off-guard. She tried to look the part--stoic, cold. This was a man, that despite all her preconceived notions, managed to earn her respect in the short time that she "worked" for him. It was just so sad that we had to be on opposite sides, she thought.

"Sir--"
"Yes?"

She hesitated...but she felt the cold metal brush against her skin, with only her thin blouse between steel and flesh.

"I'm sorry."

She drew the gun and shot him in the head, point-blank.



---------------

Revision: 26Sep08

Her high heels echoed as she walked out of the service staircase and into the marble hallway of the building's top floor. The heavy wooden doors, marked "Executive Offices", waited for her at the end of the corridor.

Such a far cry from where she began, just another employee from a rival company. Then the offer came to join the elite Circle; and propelled by the need to do something about her mother's allegedly accidental death, she said yes.

She knew he would still be there, as she reached the door and turned the ever-polished, ever-bright brass doorknob. Probably poring over work—and the little dirty details associated with it, such as forcing another company CEO to resign. But no matter--the business is dirty as it is.

She then stepped inside and found him seated in front of a reproduction of Caravaggio's David and Goliath. It was not as hard as they—the veterans—had said, she thought.

"O iha, akala ko ba tapos na shift mo?" he casually asked, surprised at her arrival. "Baka naman masobrahan ka na sa OT nyan."

The remark nearly caught her off-guard. She tried to look the part--stoic, cold. This was a man, that despite all her preconceived notions, managed to earn her respect in the short time that she "worked" for him. 'It's just so sad that we had to be on opposite sides,' she thought. Had only he joined their side.
"Sir--"
"Yes?"
She hesitated...but she felt the cold metal brush against her skin, with only her thin blouse between steel and flesh.
"I'm sorry."
She drew the gun and shot him in the head, point-blank.