I had it. Finally. About my insecurities and worries and such involving school, grad school, and other things. I feel much better. Doc said that I just need to focus on what's in front of me and not worry so much about other things at the moment. If I just get things done one at a time, I won't be so overwhealmed and I'll be able to focus better.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
So, yes, now many of my fears are alleviated. He also thinks that taking a year off and getting theater experience in the area would be a very good idea. Mara and Matt, the two people from Dana who have gone on to do theater, didn't make it their first year out of college. Matt never got called back till his 2nd year of auditioning, and Mara may be on the coast working, but she was never accpeted at first either. That, and I'm only 21. I have the rest of my life to do this. Its not like there's a big hurry to get through grad school or anything. Things will take their course, and I just have to relax and take them as they come.
So, yeah, I feel much better.
Yeah, the musical is going . . . interestingly. The music itself isn't very difficult. Were are having problems, however, because whoever arranged the music was an idiot. Basically, everyone sings everything. One second you might be singing a bass note, and the next, you'll be singing higher than the tenors. And its like that for everyone. We typically have to spend 10 minutes before starting each song just to determine who sings what. It's very chaotic. It sounds good so far, though. I still have no idea what my solo or duets sound like though, and it would be nice to find out. One thing that kinda irks me, though, is the surprising amount of solos Tommy has. I do not know what the deal is, but apperantly all these staff members like his voice. He gets solos from Palmer left and right, and now Brandon is giving him solos left and right and I just don't get it. He doesn't have a bad singing voice, its just very . . . not . . . clear, maybe? Its hard to explain. Its not polished by any means. There's a lot of shakiness and unneccesary vibrato that makes everything sound shaky and jumbled, and I just don't think it sounds good. I can't imagine why all these other people think it does.
Another thing that's interesting is that half the cast was designed to be Black people, apperantly. This is just what I've overheard. Probably from the various soul or blues-ish songs in the show. Anyway there was a joke that we should all start tanning so we look black. Someone suggested that we just use make-up.
Apperantly that is illegal.
I had never heard anything that absurd before. Why is it illegal to put on make-up to look like a black person? It doesn't harm anyone or infringe on anyone's rights? And for that matter, if it's illegal to look black, then why don't we just lock up all clowns we see that put white make-up on their faces. If its illegal to look black, you ought to make it illegal to look white.
God, I hate double standards. It just pisses me off.
On the FFXI front, I was surprised to realize I have actually made 75,000 gil in the past couple days. It really wasn't all that much work. And I didn't miss out on anything as all the other people were hunting HNMs.
My brother, however, has been looking at a different solution: gilsellers. Basically, people who play the game solely to get as much in-game currency as they can. Then, you "buy" the currency from them. You give them dollars, and they give you gil to use in the game.
Now, yes, this "business" is against game regulations. Its also highly frowned upon by players, as most people get frustrated trying to earn gil the honest, hard way, but have to compete with people who's sole reason to play the game is to earn money in Real Life.
The thing is, you have to have gil in order to progress through the game, and the process of obtaining gil is extremely dull and boring and time-consuming. It adds to the already huge time-sink that the game is. My brother wishes to circumvent this time-sink by purchasing gil with dollars.
This is incredibly surprising coming from my brother, the stingiest guy I could ever imagine. For him to actually volunteer to pay for gil, he must be very, very frustrated, indeed. I even agree with him. I would really rather not have to waste time earning gil intead of enjoying the game itself.
But to "buy" gil?
I have enough money problems as it is without pouring even MORE money into this game. I just got done explaining how I was preparing to take a break from it.
But Kelly is all excited to keep accomplishing things. I don't want to dissappoint him. And the truth is that we get along much better after we started playing this game together. Its something else we have in common and can talk about and spend time with eachother. It's quality time with my brother.
I'm sure there are other ways, yes. Its just nice that we can do something together that we both enjoy when we usually agree on anything.
The going rate on gil has dropped do to Square's efforts at thwarting gil-sellers. My brother showed me a gil package of 8 million gil for $330.
Now, I know that $330 is a LOT of money. And it is. But 8 million gil in the game could easily fund most of a person's way through the game. They could play almost from start to finish without having to go out of their way or waste time with the tedious task of earning gil. All that would be left to the game is the fun task of completing quests and missions and things like that.
Now, of course Kelly and I would split the cost, and split the gil. So it'd only be $165 each . . . But I really don't have that kind of money, and I told him so. There are other things I would rather put my money towards.
But, we will talk more about it later. It was only an idea he had. We shall see.
Eric 1/21/2005 02:43:00 AM
