UW-Madison 2013 graduation commencement ceremony

Hi humans.

After another two-hour-long dizzying ride back to Madison, I participated in my bachelor’s graduation commencement ceremony back at my university.

It obviously wasn’t the best experience, because it was two hours of listening to people speak and read off graduates’ names, and the fact that the Internet inside the stadium barely worked made the whole situation worse. Either way, it’s finally over now.

My dad took a bunch of photos of the event, but in a majority of them, you can’t see what’s going on because they’re so blurry. Out of the 40 or so photos that my dad took, I picked out five photos in which you could actually see the content of the picture.

The first two are of the Kohl Center, the building in which the ceremony took place.

Ignore the blurry black thing at the bottom-left corner of the photo above – my dad accidentally included the camera’s cord in the picture.

The next photo is of the screen above the ceremony area. The Kohl Center is usually a basketball stadium, which is why this was there. During the ceremony, it was used to give a close-up of the speakers and graduates, as well as closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

The last two photos are of the ceremonial area before commencement began.

All the other photos my dad took of me are too blurry because they were seated so far away. There were, however, professional photographers taking pictures of all the graduates, so once those get processed, I’ll be able to keep those as a souvenir of the ceremony, and possibly post them up here if they’re not too awful.

 

They should rename Picture Day to Waiting Day

Hi humans.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the Deerfield location of Chicago Martial Arts for photos. We had so many people there to get photos that my instructor might as well have told me it was Waiting Day, and not Picture Day.

But of course, that wasn’t that huge of a deal, because that meant I got more time to spend with Kyra, the academy’s mascot.

Kyra had to be locked in the main office a majority of the time so she wouldn’t interfere with the photographer’s work, so I stayed in the office a majority of the time with her so she wouldn’t get too lonely. I do, however, regret not bringing my laptop, because I got pretty bored in there.

After finally getting our photos done (and being gently forced to do some poses and kicks for individual photos, which consequentially led me to overextending my leg muscle as a result of not stretching enough prior to the shoot), we bought way too much fried chicken on the way back, and had dinner back at the Mundelein location while playing League of Legends.

 

Back to my home town

Hi humans.

After a dizzying two-hour car ride from Madison, I am finally back in my home town in the Chicago suburbs.

Because our family business was left unattended during the time my parents came to pick me up, we had to go straight there to make sure nobody set off firecrackers inside and burnt a hole through our ceiling (fortunately, nobody did).

That also meant that I was easily able to go to my martial arts academy (because, for those of you who don’t know, it is next door to our family business). After playing a game of League of Legends with Simon, my instructor, we went out to the main gym area as classes began, to teach.

Tomorrow, I’ll be headed to our alternate academy location for martial arts photographs – this also means that I will have new photos of Kyra, our mascot.

 

My second-to-last semester of undergraduate studies is over

Hi humans.

As of today, I am officially done with the second-to-last semester of undergraduate studies, and the last normal semester (seeing as my overall last semester is going to be this coming summer, during which I will be doing an internship for course credit).

I finished my last final exam earlier today for my criminology course, and now all I have to do is wait for all my exams to be graded and the scores compiled, calculated, and entered into my transcript.

As you can probably guess, this is also why I haven’t really been updating my website much lately or streaming at all – I’ve been studying for my last stretch of final exams.

As of right now, my plan is to spend tomorrow in Madison taking care of final move-out stuff (such as returning office keys to my various workplaces, packing up, and cleaning). My parents plan on coming to pick me up Friday early afternoon, and I’ll be headed back home for the weekend until Sunday, which is when we’ll be coming back for my graduation commencement ceremony.

I will also be taking this time to catch up on a lot of website maintenance stuff I’ve been falling behind on, as well as preparing to produce more content. Like usual, I’m not able to stream from home be­cause of the poor Internet connection, but I do have access to a better Internet connection at a different location during different parts of the day, so this doesn’t mean that I will never be streaming again in the future.

Stay tuned in the next few days as I get more information and am able to provide more updates.

 

Video: [LoL] Best gank NA, brought to you by Jayce

Hi humans.

This Jayce thought he was sneaky when he came to gank my lane after I had killed the enemy mid laner.

What he didn’t realize was that I was running ability power masteries, started a Doran’s Ring, and was maxing my Q first.

After he got chunked down really hard by my Hungering Strike, he promptly used his To the Skies on a minion to create distance, and even Ghosted away.

It’s almost as if I had ganked Jayce without even leaving my own lane.

(Click on the image to view the video)

(Linked image not working? Try this direct URL. http://www.twitch.tv/parkzer/c/2236314)

We’ve all heard the saying – wards save lives … or help you take lives of others.

 

Video: [LoL] How to save a Thresh

Hi humans.

Today’s highlight clip of the day is from a stream session during which I was leveling up an alternate account to level 30.

Although it’s nothing actually amazing, because I was playing Kayle and her champion was essentially designed to save people from death, I still thought it was funny that Thresh survived for this long in the first place, then I barely reached him in time to secure his getaway.

(Click on the image to view the video)

(Linked image not working? Try the direct URL. http://www.twitch.tv/parkzer/c/2219333)

 

Video: [Tetris] How not to do a two-wide combo

Hi humans.

For the first time in a pretty long time, I streamed some Tetris because I had a little bit of relaxing time.

I asked the Hard Drop shoutbox what they wanted me to stream, and the only main request that I got was to do a stream session together with Virulent.

The only Tetris game Virulent likes to play is Cultris II, so I went ahead and downloaded it, and streamed it for a few hours. Unfortunately, I happem to be really bad at Cultris II, and it didn’t end up too great for me.

Today’s highlight clip comes from the stream session, and is a simple, classic misdrop fail.

(Click on the image to view the video)

(Linked image not working? Try the direct URL. http://www.twitch.tv/parkzer/c/2209325)

 

TERA: First piece of Conjunct armor

Hi humans.

After weeks of Battlegrounds matches (and losing a majority of them), I finally got enough credits to be able to craft myself a Crasis Robe, the cloth body of the Conjunct PvP set.

I considered dying it white as well, but I instead decided on blood red to add some variety to my gear. And, I can tell the tale of how my robe started out white, but turned bloody red as a result of all the souls I’ve slain on the battlefield.

Of course, I don’t have my Conjunct gloves and boots yet, so those white gloves and boots are part of my Abyss PvE set (which is why they don’t match). I will eventually be getting the PvP Conjunct versions of my gloves and boots as well.