24.07.2006 or "Ants"
Today started like any other. I woke up, took a show, cup of blendy, wiped the sleep from my eyes and headed out in search of food. My ultimate destination was school but I felt the need for burgers, which is strange for 9am in the morning. So I made my way over to McDonalds, casting all notions of a healthy diet aside and putting up with the sweltering morning sun. I should have really known I was too early for proper menu stuff but I made the mistake of asking for a Big Mac anyway. Long story short, I went to Mos burger which is right across the street, no big problems there. Mos burger looks like a fast food chain but in reality the food is really good quality and the food takes a while to come, i.e. they give you a number rather than a soggy cheeseburger which has been sitting on the hotplate for hours.
I had the spicy Mos cheeseburger which was great. Filled with jalapeños and the special Mos burger sauce that looks a bit like puke but tastes really good. A bit like mashed up baked beans and onions, only problem is, it never stays in the burger for more than one bite, leaving you with a napkin which looks like you or someone else has puked in. Maybe i'm the only one who has these kind of thoughts.
So, onwards to School. I really had no ideas what to expect of my new classroom. A walked through the lobby smiled politely and was greeted by a strange warning. "Watch out, bees" the kind lady said. "Sorry?" I replied. "There are bees, be careful" she added. I tentatively poked my head round the door and looked out onto the open air courtyard and saw two workmen waving branches around in some kind of effort to enrage/ calm down the bloody huge hornets which were floating round the middle of the stairwell. The children were going about there business without fear but I legged it up the third floor, patting myself down like a big girl and finally shut myself into the classroom. It was hot in the classroom, really hot. I switched on the lights and two ceiling fans but the air conditioner looked way too big and intimidating to play with unsupervised. I set up my laptop stood on the tatami mats with my hands on my hips and had my first real glance at the classroom.
It was about this time, or possibly when I sat down to use the computer that I realised we had a pretty serious ant problem. There were hundreds, everywhere, and they kept coming, from the cupboards, from the Tatami mats, from the computer monitor, I spent about ten minutes just trying to get as many as I could to clear a path for myself to sit down and work. After a while I stopped caring about the ants and started caring about how I was going to transform this bare shell of a room into a Kindergarten class within the week. Luckily I have my co teacher to help me after Wednesday and since I let the school know about the ants, it might be sorted or reduced by the first day of class.
The more time I spent milling around the classroom, finding old scraps of work, photos and such from the previous teachers class the sadder I became. It was a very strange feeling. I met the guy who preceded me and he seemed like an incredibly genuine and resourceful guy and he spent his time building up a class and relationship with his kids and they spent every day together for a year. And now, it was all gone, taken down and ready to be replaced with whatever I felt fit. All of a sudden I became aware of the enormous shoes I was going to have to fill to do a good job here. On one level the thought of that inspires me to do my best, on the other, it scares the hell out of me. I guess the trick is to make yourself believe that you are the most capable person in the world; I better get working on that.
Once my work for the day was done I wandered home. I spaced out for what must have been hours, playing on the net and chatting to friends back home. It seems like I’m missing quite allot. We ordered some food in and then mustered up the energy to head to the department store. After spending a while choosing some new jeans I left everyone else and headed up to the trusty 16th floor for some Taiko no Tatsujin. (And also Mr. Driller, is that game as boring as it appears to be?). I must say, after a really disappointing set last time in Tiger City, I was on my best form tonight. I started off slowly, if you can call difficult mode slowly, and I was concentrating less on perfect songs but more about the drumming variations. You see a veteran of two years schooled me on the importance of variating the hands and never using the same hand twice. Its all about the rhythm and maximizing the time you have to follow each note, building up a constant stream of hits which you can variate the speeds accordingly.
Anyway, at one point, about the third song in, something just twigged in my brain and I no longer had to think about which notes to hit, the circles became a constant stream of commands which my arms were following. I have experienced this before when I played games like Beat mania and Gitarooman, you just get to certain level where you are able to read the commands much faster and without thinking. All of the great Bemani game players have to reach this point, it’s like a pain barrier. Its like the first week of playing a guitar, if you quit before then, then you will never learn, but get over that first hurdle of getting your chord changes fast enough then you will get better and better from that point onwards. Anyway, I am making far too many analogies, what I’m trying to say ladies and gentlemen is from this point onwards, I think I can become really good at this game. Asia good, Oni level good, and once I do, I will film it and show you guys.
Phew, that was tiring. If anyone is getting really sick of hearing about this game then let me know. It probably won’t stop my obsession but let me know anyway. I will leave you all today with a rather bizarre video I put together from footage which was floating around on the memory stick. Hope you get something out of it, next time I might try and make something that has cohesive links between the scenes and subjects, until then, enjoy then nonsensical mish mash of images.
Seeya!
I had the spicy Mos cheeseburger which was great. Filled with jalapeños and the special Mos burger sauce that looks a bit like puke but tastes really good. A bit like mashed up baked beans and onions, only problem is, it never stays in the burger for more than one bite, leaving you with a napkin which looks like you or someone else has puked in. Maybe i'm the only one who has these kind of thoughts.
So, onwards to School. I really had no ideas what to expect of my new classroom. A walked through the lobby smiled politely and was greeted by a strange warning. "Watch out, bees" the kind lady said. "Sorry?" I replied. "There are bees, be careful" she added. I tentatively poked my head round the door and looked out onto the open air courtyard and saw two workmen waving branches around in some kind of effort to enrage/ calm down the bloody huge hornets which were floating round the middle of the stairwell. The children were going about there business without fear but I legged it up the third floor, patting myself down like a big girl and finally shut myself into the classroom. It was hot in the classroom, really hot. I switched on the lights and two ceiling fans but the air conditioner looked way too big and intimidating to play with unsupervised. I set up my laptop stood on the tatami mats with my hands on my hips and had my first real glance at the classroom.
It was about this time, or possibly when I sat down to use the computer that I realised we had a pretty serious ant problem. There were hundreds, everywhere, and they kept coming, from the cupboards, from the Tatami mats, from the computer monitor, I spent about ten minutes just trying to get as many as I could to clear a path for myself to sit down and work. After a while I stopped caring about the ants and started caring about how I was going to transform this bare shell of a room into a Kindergarten class within the week. Luckily I have my co teacher to help me after Wednesday and since I let the school know about the ants, it might be sorted or reduced by the first day of class.
The more time I spent milling around the classroom, finding old scraps of work, photos and such from the previous teachers class the sadder I became. It was a very strange feeling. I met the guy who preceded me and he seemed like an incredibly genuine and resourceful guy and he spent his time building up a class and relationship with his kids and they spent every day together for a year. And now, it was all gone, taken down and ready to be replaced with whatever I felt fit. All of a sudden I became aware of the enormous shoes I was going to have to fill to do a good job here. On one level the thought of that inspires me to do my best, on the other, it scares the hell out of me. I guess the trick is to make yourself believe that you are the most capable person in the world; I better get working on that.
Once my work for the day was done I wandered home. I spaced out for what must have been hours, playing on the net and chatting to friends back home. It seems like I’m missing quite allot. We ordered some food in and then mustered up the energy to head to the department store. After spending a while choosing some new jeans I left everyone else and headed up to the trusty 16th floor for some Taiko no Tatsujin. (And also Mr. Driller, is that game as boring as it appears to be?). I must say, after a really disappointing set last time in Tiger City, I was on my best form tonight. I started off slowly, if you can call difficult mode slowly, and I was concentrating less on perfect songs but more about the drumming variations. You see a veteran of two years schooled me on the importance of variating the hands and never using the same hand twice. Its all about the rhythm and maximizing the time you have to follow each note, building up a constant stream of hits which you can variate the speeds accordingly.
Anyway, at one point, about the third song in, something just twigged in my brain and I no longer had to think about which notes to hit, the circles became a constant stream of commands which my arms were following. I have experienced this before when I played games like Beat mania and Gitarooman, you just get to certain level where you are able to read the commands much faster and without thinking. All of the great Bemani game players have to reach this point, it’s like a pain barrier. Its like the first week of playing a guitar, if you quit before then, then you will never learn, but get over that first hurdle of getting your chord changes fast enough then you will get better and better from that point onwards. Anyway, I am making far too many analogies, what I’m trying to say ladies and gentlemen is from this point onwards, I think I can become really good at this game. Asia good, Oni level good, and once I do, I will film it and show you guys.
Phew, that was tiring. If anyone is getting really sick of hearing about this game then let me know. It probably won’t stop my obsession but let me know anyway. I will leave you all today with a rather bizarre video I put together from footage which was floating around on the memory stick. Hope you get something out of it, next time I might try and make something that has cohesive links between the scenes and subjects, until then, enjoy then nonsensical mish mash of images.
Seeya!
posted by Aaron | 9:01 AM
2 Comments:
Top notch blogging skills today man! The vid at the end makes it all so real and tangable. Hearing kitty's fragile body hit the floor was fried gold my friend. It really sounds like you're in for some interesting times ahead with your job. I'm really jelouse actually as it's a real job and I think all those kids are going to love you.
Arcadefinger news, it seems like blogger is letting me post again so I'm now in two minds as whether I go back. I'd really like your opinion, Blogger with its oppertunity to leave comments, or the new one which I can make look however I want?
Take it easy out there dude,
Dave
Forgot to mention the other druming game in you vid. I'll call it 'the western one'. This may seem like a weird question but I'd like to know if the sticks were just there with the machine unattached? I just wanted to see if Taiwan is more trustworthy in its arcades.
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