Welcome to Gaia! ::

I've enjoyed most of Christina's stuff that I've read, but sometimes she gets too ranty for me, at least if I don't agree with or care for the point. I haven't read a lot of John Cheese, I think I've liked the couple things I have red, but yea I definitely skim and read parts of entries as well. It's why I'm more likely to read a "5 things..." "6 things..." etc article than a sole narrative piece. It's less of a commitment, I can finish bits that I think will interest me without having to decide if I'll finish the whole thing.

And just now seeing Karma's added more pictures than when I first looked. When I first looked she only had the tie tying ones up and a few with quicksilver. I was wondering if blue spy might be you, but ya know, masks. razz

Flurried rants when I don't agree sometimes get me really frustrated and angry. Especially lately, probably because hits too close to home with past issues. If I'm thinking of the right stories I do find John a good writer, but yea, lately just only read Cracked for funny these days.

Guess if there are photos of you unmasked Karma didn't upload them. Most of the tie ones have captions like "Go away spy we are doing something" and focusing on sniper trying to get medics tie on razz

They are generally whinny, which is alright. I just try to avoid them when I'm not in the mood to be whined at. razz

Heh, yea the comments did say that Sniper (who doesn't wear a tie) is the only one who could tie one. There are just no shots of your tie getting done up. So don't worry, your face is safe. wink

Just watched YGO TAS 54, I rather enjoyed it, it's been awhile. Loved the bit with the stairs tirade and Yuugi/pharaoh being a douche was just hilarious.

I'd forgotten he'd started abridging season zero until I saw season zero abridged #2, and frankly I don't remember #1 at all, in fact I'm mainly letting #2 sway me to believe that a #1 exists...it sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm just not sure. Few funny moments and phrases but didn't like it as much as most of the rest of what he's done. I do like the line "I hate you, with all of my hate" though. That's a nice line. XD

Congrazzles on graduating, and on graduating c** laude. Any leads on the job front or things you are specifically looking into? My last impression was you weren't planning to go any further than the BA, so since you are done with school (or at least done for awhile if you do end up changing your mind and wanting to go back through that joy again razz ) are you looking for career type things or just a way to earn some money and get on your feet before moving to bigger things?

I still plan to do my PhD, it's been awhile so might not have mentioned my plans have shifted to starting in Fall rather than Spring. Admin is just a little bit difficult and with having to do loans and a student visa it just seemed easier to not kill myself trying to rush it all. I will however start at the end of September and look to go back at the end of August. Missing my boyfriend but starting to like Cali again, at least not feeling too aimless. Completely unplanned I've ended up coaching my old swim team again. They can run on 3 coaches when all 3 can be there pretty much all the time but they had too many conflicts this year between school and other coaching jobs. The team president called Jill (another former coach, 2 of the 3 currents worked with Jill and I and we both left at the same time and they decided to get one replacement not two) and she was busy and he asked her if she knew if I was about and I happened to be sitting by her at the time so she handed me the phone. There is even a fifth coach now. She's mostly sub, only coaching practice one day a week but she will be at meets. At first I was afraid it was going to be you know who, that would have been hard because I really didn't want to get into an "I can't work with that person" discussion but luckily it was someone else. Although actually she did show up at practice last week to visit, I'm unsure if she knew I was coaching again, I assumed she should (her bro is still on the team and her mom was at practice my first day back - though has been conspicuously absent ever since). Anyhow she ignored me, whined at a lot of people for not telling her they were hiring. She hung around for hours too, even just talking to a 13 year old girl for an hour at one point rather than go home. I know she doesn't want to talk to me so I have to assume that she was trying to piss me off (or is really that pathetic) which partially successful. However rumor mill has it that she's really not doing well so trying to just let past feelings go and just feel bad for her rather than hold onto the anger and feelings of betrayal. I would really just love to get past the anger. Whatever, I'm also applying to lifeguard for the city of San Leandro. I'm happy to be coaching Treeview the team again but I don't want to work for Treeview the club. Hours aren't good, pay is low (which makes poor hours an even bigger problem) and definitely harder to avoid certain people. If that works out I'm going to also look into some online writing recommendations from a friend of a friend. They won't pay well at first but I'm more looking more to have some reviewing/editing experience under my belt more than anything else atm. That'll be very relevant to the kind of opportunities I hope to have during my doctorate. So yea was aimless for awhile but doing very well again. Eager to get back to the UK but this summer really seems to be shaping up (although already way to hot for my tastes).

It'd be nice to see the guild cleaned up and hopefully reactivated. Let me know if you need help with anything. I plan to have enough on the work spectrum to keep me busy but still plenty of free time to just relax and enjoy life before the stress of my doctorate for the next 4-5 months. Don't know how busy I'll be come the end of September when I start my doctorate (plan to still have time for things like the guild though - because I definitely plan to quit and even block most Facebook games once I start the PhD) but for now I have plenty of time to help in any way I can.

Hmm, maybe it was the first series movie, I could have sworn there was one, I had such a deja vu like feeling and I never get those. My being completely crazy is totally plausible though, or else confusing it with the abridged movie perhaps. I haven't seen Episode 55 yet (assuming that's it), the last thing I watched was Michael Bay's YGO abridged. That was amusing for about a minute but did get old fairly quickly. Shall aim to watch Kabia vs Noa sometime this weekend.

I totally planned for this to be a quick short post and I'd get into more depth later. I really should know myself better than to think I could be brief after 3 months. xd Glad you are less stressed and feeling mentally more alive though!

Hahaha, glad the reaction was "good to be" and not like "oh not this again." xd

I don't blame the reaction, I'm already worrying about what I'll do in three years, but attempting to not worry that far as I can't do anything about it now. Shall just try to do as well as I can with my doctorate. I got a call today from the aquatics director for San Leandro recreation and I was officially hired today, and I have a slightly hire than standard starting wage since I'm a summer only employee + have experience which was really nice. So definitely looking forward to summer now with that established in addition to coaching. Good luck finding internships and whatnot. If you have the luxury to take unpaid opportunities it'd be great to spend now building up a resume and hopefully getting a job/career you'll be very happy with.

Certain run ins are unfortunate but at least it hasn't been anywhere near as frequent as I feared it might be when I came home. It might be more often come summer but now that I have work and such to tide me over I just don't care. Things are going very well for me atm and I'm just going to try and not let the past get to me anymore. Advertising is probably not my strong point either, but if you think of a direction I can try to help in whatever way I can. Can you change it back to a private guild if you make it public? Because if this isn't a one way decision you could always open it up and if increased traffic isn't worth a non-peaceful environment you could close it again and filter. Or if there aren't too many issues just continually filter any problem cases.

Yea the blowing up did make me chuckle the first time but it just got too annoying. Which I know is the point that was trying to be made but it was still a bit grating to sit through. Still haven't watched TAS 55 though, will hopefully get to it in the next few days.

Finding paid internships are hard without experience, one of my friends who did graphic design was really lucky she had an instructor who had some temp stuff which turned into a pretty good job. Although she's going to try and find something new next year. However she's now had the chance to build up a pretty good resume while paying off her loans. So maybe you'll at least be able to find a mix of paid and experience jobs. I mean I totally understand needing the money, but I've also watched friends prioritize needing to pay bills exclusively over getting the education or work experience to go into the fields they want. It's why I'm sucking it up and taking out the loans to get my doctorate, the longer I stay away from my field the harder it'll be to achieve what I want to do. The upside to living in Europe (especially where I am) it's pretty easy to get by without a car. Not sure what you're planning to look for car wise but if you're looking at used cars and aren't too picky on what you want you can probably get something that won't set you back too much/require loans to get.

I'll give ad ideas some thought and think if I can think of anything fun and creative. Think the main thing initially will be to keep bumping an ad to attention and being conversational. A great ad/hook that gets buried won't be useful. As for banning I say hope for the best for now and work on handling the worst when it comes down to it. I think if anyone is actually being hostile to you if you try to address them politely and professionally, and if on top of that clearly has no familiarity with or even interest in YGO, it'll be a lot easier to ban them. Plus if they are that level of troll they probably will just take being banned and go on their way. For now though perhaps worry about bringing people in and hopefully there won't be any need to throw them out.

I'll attempt to get to the episode Friday. I'll have a lot of free time before I have to go fill out paperwork for my Lifeguard/Swim instructor job with SL on Friday.