MAILER_DAEMON's Journal of Whatever
Well, after squeezing two semesters worth of Koine Greek into two months, I can honestly say that I'm drained. Most of my friends down there went back home, leading me to drive home every weekend, and the town I was in is one of those places where there's a lot of do if you have friends to do it with (like hiking, swimming, whitewater rafting, camping, and other social things), but without 'em, it reduced me to basically Greek and Gamespot (which begs the question why so many comments in the last blog were of the "welcome back" variety... I went nowhere).
I'm one of those people that gets along with most, but as for actual friends, that circle is rather small. There 10 guys and girls total that I'd say I truly consider friends, since I'm close to them in one way or another. Shrink that down to people who know more of what goes on inside, and that number drops to about 4. The friend that was still there at school fit into the first category... not that I'm complaining, but considering that during fall and spring two of the people in the second category were there, it meant a lot of going home over the weekends. I haven't make quite as many friends at Lee as I'd like to have yet, but I've still got another year and a half/two years to do that. 
The strangest thing for me is the fact that I've actually got a break right now. I don't have to worry about being in class again until Aug. 20, and I'm leaving on a trip for the Keys with my dad and siblings tomorrow. Considering we're all in our 20's now and haven't been on a vacation together since I was in high school about 7 years ago, this should be interesting. I think I'll enjoy it, though... I've been to Florida virtually every year of my life, but this is the first time I'll have gone further south than Ft. Myers. We're flying into Miami and driving on down. Should be interesting, but I don't know if I'll have internet or not, so I may not be here until the 13th.
I don't really know what to expect other than that we're going to Marathon Key, but I do look forward to going to a new place. My southern boundaries will be expanded... as far as the US goes, I've been as far north/east as NYC, as far west as San Diego, and tomorrow, as far south as the Keys! 
For the record, I don't count when I've left the US, which includes visists to the Bahamas, Hungary, and Romania.
When I get back, I'm hoping to visit my friend in Kentucky for the first time (he's always come back down here, but I haven't been up there yet) and otherwise catch up on various summer activities, like tubing, camping (maybe... 'tis kinda hot), swimming, and waiting on that stimulus check from Uncle Sam. Maybe a bit of gaming in there... I just picked up The World Ends with You and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the trip, but Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy XII, and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn still need to be finished. I'm kinda glad that Chrono Trigger isn't coming out until December, given my backlog. 
So yeah, 'tis about all I can think of right now. Summer begins in July, and don't forget to respect the sacrifices of those who have gone before us this Friday. I know I will, even if I won't get to see a fireworks show in downtown Knoxville or at my church with my friends. 
Ah well, there's always Boomsday...
Excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on!
*thud*
...
What, you thought I'd try to use my brain on a night when I finally don't?! Seriously though, a follow-up will come some time tomorrow, before my internet access becomes uncertain for 10 days.
Update: Ok, hold the phone. This is big. This literally brought tears to my eyes. For real. o_o It's real. It's real. As real as Mega Man 9 was last week
This.
Is.
Real.
... one that focuses on aorist passive participles, the genitive absolute, subjunctives, and infinitives. Summer school ends in 2 weeks... along with my 1st year of grad school!
In other news, I replayed MGS3 in lament of the fact that I don't own a PS3, much less the money to get one. Like I tell people, there are poor college students, and then there are poor grad students. Meaning I have the money to pay bills and eat, and have about $100 per month for gaming, if that. The last new game I bought was No More Heroes back in early May, and that was on sale for $20.
However, I've got quite a backlog, and my rediscovery of Dragon Quest VIII (which I'm still not too far in), Twilight Princess, Bioshock (gotta get that 51st achievement), and Radiant Dawn are keeping me busy. When I think about it, I never finished Xenosaga I (never bought the other 2), Baten Kaitos 1, Final Fantasy X-2 (lost interest due to the surplus of sidequests), Valkyrie Profile 2, Super Paper Mario, and Viewtiful Joe 2. There are probably many others, but even worse is the fact that Psychonauts and Super Mario Galaxy have been setting on my shelf completely untouched. Never played. Sad. As for Mission: Impossible on the NES, I'm resigned for that to be my lifetime acheivement or something.
Anyhoo, the PSP that my friend Brad broke has been replaced... with a 2001 model. Crisis Core's loading times have been cut, and apparently I can use Skype now. I think the older one was actually more comfortable though... and in the year and a half that I owned that first PSP, I didn't get a scratch on it. This used PSP (2000+ models are the slim redesigns) has about 4 that I can't do anything about. Kinda annoying, plus the disc tray feels like it's gonna snap off one of these days. 
Amidst all of this, I still want a new JRPG. There are two Tales of... games on the horizon that I can actually play later this year, though.
There won't be much coherency or free-flowing thought to this one... more like a list.
1. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn didn't deserve a 6.0 on here. I'm having way, way, way too much fun with the game for it to be "fair." Yes, challenge and all.
2. My PSP broke when I loaned it to my friend Brad, who had it in his pocket and leaned against something too hard. He's getting it replaced.
3. Wii Fit rocks. I played it at my friend's house with her parents (the same people from the Wii story last summer), and through some soreness I can say that Nintendo's got yet another hit on their hands. If you don't understand the appeal of games like Wii Fit or the Wii in general, then I suggest you try harder. If you resent people of all kinds for liking games like Wii Fit (even a "core" gamer like me), then that's your problem. There's a reason why this stuff is selling... and I wonder how many people still think Nintendo is going 3rd party? 
4. My 360 hasn't gotten much playtime lately. I'm anxiously awaiting games like Tales of Vesperia and Too Human, but the fact is that $60 is just more than I want to pay for a video game. The only 360 games I've actually paid full price for to date are BioShock and The Orange Box.
5. No More Heroes is one of the most unique experiences I've ever had. Excuse me while I force some more lackeys to lament their lost spleens...
6. Koine Greek is a tough language to learn. If I knew how to write Greek letters on here w/o copy/paste I'd put this word in Greek form, but you know that game Castlevania: Order of Ecclasia? Well, Ecclasia is cognate to like the Koine Greek word for "church" if you change the c's to k's (so it's spelled epsilon, kappa, kappa, lambda, alpha, sigma, iota, alpha) Just thought I'd pass that along. 
