Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS!! How it be? How it be?! How's life my peeps? Haven't written a blog in a while, and I usually like to write one at the end of every semester, so how about I type one up now! By the way, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa and a happy new year! Speaking of which, it's 2012 everybody! Yes, yes I know, centuries old urban legend has stated that the world will come to an end on December 21st, 2012, and though I personally do not believe in apocalypse forecasts, I am curious to see how the human race will react as the day draws near. I don't really remember much about the whole Y2K bug, but I expect the reaction for this to be even bigger than that LQTM! Anyway, as per tradition, there's quite a bit of stuff that is currently lingering somewhere within the confines of my brain and I would like to translate all that stuff onto digital paper, so how about we get this show on the road. I'm just sayin'!

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

So I picked up this new game that's supposed to be super awesome about a month and a half ago. You may have heard of it, it's called the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and I will admit that it is quite super awesome. Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword came out in stores November 20th and probably for the first time in my life, I stood in line for a midnight release of a video game. It was really fun, I stood in line alongside a friend as we were both second and third in line respectively with probably more than a hundred people behind us jaja! Regardless, I picked up the game and have been playing it on my free time ever since then. Now for those of you who have never played a Legend of Zelda game, it's essentially a sandbox game, which in layman's terms means an exploratory adventure game. In the past I have played many Zelda games with my favorite predictably being the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which many people consider to be the greatest video game of all time EVER!! So when all of a sudden Skyward Sword is getting glowing reviews with several of the review sites calling it even greater than Ocarina of Time, you know I'm pumped. Those are actually pretty tall words to be calling a game better than Ocarina of Time, and though I don't know whether I agree or disagree with that statement, I do have to say that Skyward Sword is a very enjoyable game. It's definitely up there on the list of some of the greatest video games I have ever played.

This one takes place in the past, before all the Zelda games that have been released and is supposed to tell the story of the origins of everything. I guess they did this to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the very first Zelda game, but it's a neat origin. Our hero Link has to get Zelda out of a pickle and he embarks on this wild quest that takes him through several different areas and dungeons as he begins to unravel the mysteries of the past. The game isn't exactly packing in the story department as to this day my favorite story comes from Majora's Mask on the Nintendo 64, but the cinematography is definitely the best I've seen out of any Zelda game. The gameplay however is excellent, and the use of the Wii Motion Plus definitely feels natural, though it sometimes isn't quite as precise as I'd like it to be. The soundtrack is also amazing as everything has been orchestrated for your hearing pleasure.

All in all, if you're a Legend of Zelda fan, there's no reason for you not to pick up this game. It's big, creative, and probably one of the most unique Zelda games in quite some time. At first I didn't know what was so great about the game but little by little as I began advancing through some of the dungeons, I began to turn around to it. It's definitely one of those games that get better and better the farther you get in to it. As of this blog, I am in the fifth area and have yet to enter the fifth dungeon, but I have enjoyed the game from what I have played thus far and from what I hear, the next couple of areas are even better. If you have a Wii, give yourself a break and check this game out, it's probably the best game I've played on the Nintendo system.

Hurricane's Score: 9.5/10

Seventh Semester Summary

Well that does it as far as my helping of video games goes, as for as everything else…it goes well. To be honest I'm having a really hard time scratching the surface on what I want to type, so instead I'm just going to type up a bunch of random thoughts for your reading pleasure! It'll be a tad more disorganized than usual, but I like to think the mind works that way as well; as a schizophrenic ball of schizophrenia!My seventh semester at Texas A&M University has come and gone and grade point-wise it was my best semester thus far. I mean, it better have been considering I toil for my studies! Toil like a little helpless tiny ant carrying a large piece of food back to his home as he sweats profusely in the never ending cycle that is known as a workday. The feeling of being overworked was a frequent feeling for me this past semester, but one thing I've learned is that complaining won't accomplish anything, so might as well just do the work without the unnecessary baggage. Probably one of the biggest truths I was ever told at the beginning of my college tenure was that college never really does get any easier, the only thing that happens is that one begins to grow accustomed to the work load. My civil engineering schedule is helluva demanding, but at least I know that this is more suited to what I want to do at least more-so than the electrical/computer engineering path I was taking two years ago. I find it to be more interesting, outdoorsy, and probably more applicable to improving society, but that's just my biased opinion on the matter. I also got a sweet research job for my civil undergrad career this past semester. I am not doing much at the moment but it certainly pays well. But from what I have worked on, I find it to be very interesting.

But enough about school and work! The cult of personality CM Punk would be ashamed if all I did was abide by the status quo and merely mention the academic aspects of the university. I mean those things are good and all, but where the most enjoyment in the college life lies is in the social aspect of it, namely friends and peeps. I always consider the Autumn season to be easier than the Spring when it comes to dealing with people and life in general. I don't know what it is about the vernal season, but it never fails me that every Spring, a poop storm of fecal matter always gets stirred up in my little pudding bowl of life. I have gone from mental torture of almost giving up on my future because of my career path to absolutely restraining myself from murdering some girl who I had feelings for. Jeje oh first world problems! But this past Fall had none of that thankfully as Fall is usually more of a laid back season and it tends to show in people's motivations and character traits. Everything went smoothly (well for the most part anyway) and I even got some quality time with my fellow peeps that is all the rage in these "true friendships". Not too shabby! To be honest though, the amount of closeness I have grown to certain people is both a gift and a curse. It's a gift because it is always cool to have your broskis and your siskis watch your back whenever life beckons, but it's also a curse because one day we are all going to have to part ways.

The Revolving Door

This next Spring will be the penultimate semester of my undergraduate career at this university and once I graduate in December it will be difficult to let go of the relationships I have built up for the past three and a half years. I don't know about you all, but I have a very hard time saying goodbye. Some people find it easy to just walk away from something and never turn back, not me. I know life has this tendency to work as a revolving door, people come and go and some you will probably never see ever again, but the thought of saying goodbye, it's something I have a hard time coping with. I try not to think too much about it because I still have a whole year left before I graduate but the notion cannot help but fester in my mind from time to time, like a tiny parasitic worm never resting and always coming back to help itself and feast on the deliciousness that is uneasiness. Another sensation that has also come up quite a bit alongside this one is the feeling of growing apart.

To those of you reading this blog, did you keep any of the friends you had in middle school when moving on up to the world of high school? How about keeping the same friends in college? I know I haven't. Slowly diverging away from friendships one used to have as one gets older is rather unfortunate, but at least it has a much smoother transition than just flat out being forced to say goodbye due to circumstance. It is a strange sentiment when one's old group of buddies ceases to be the main social circle he or she communes with. Whenever two old friends finally bump into each other after so many years of non-communication, it's not quite the same anymore. This past summer, I got to meet a lot of great people on a retreat I went to and it was quite possibly one of the greatest weekends of my life. In just one weekend, from Friday afternoon to Sunday around noon, the people I sat with at my table were some of the greatest people I had ever met in my entire life. When it came time to part ways, I had this feeling in my head that we would be able to set some sort of reunion in the future and we could all catch up on the warm and fuzzies known as the good times. Well, try as we might, a reunion never happened as everyone had conflicting schedules and eventually everybody just stopped trying as they all went back to the comfort of their own social circles that they had already established. Aside from one or two people, I have not seen any one of them since the retreat. Sure a text message is sent every now and then between us commemorating whatever holiday the day happens to be, but overall, those friendships have ceased and all the networking has turned into nothing more than casual memories of people of yesteryear. A lot of the names I have collected both in my human memory and on my phone's memory are merely empty contacts that will eventually meet their demise when it comes time to get a new phone and transfer only the important contacts. It's a sad sad fate, but I guess that's what growing up entails.

There's a theory called Dunbar's number that states that people are only capable of having on average around 150 friendships at one time. The number varies greatly from person to person, but typically we all have a limit. If we surpass that limit, our brain can no longer manage the overdose and one of the friendships begins to go out on to the periphery and become more of an acquaintance in one's mind. The more that time passes, the more and more I believe this hypothesis. I guess things can change and I can always attempt to revisit the old friendships I once had, but as always expectations need to be readjusted to confirm that things truly won't be the same again.

One of my favorite quotes which comes from the ending of the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask game has the Happy Mask Salesman speaking to a Young Link right before he's about to depart. He tells Link

"Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. However, that parting need not last forever. Whether a parting be forever or merely for a short time, that is up to you"

And you thought I wasn't going anywhere with the Skyward Sword review I posted at the beginning, didn't you? It's such a simple quote, but it holds so much truth. The people that grow apart from us are generally the people that we allow to grow apart. In the end, I'm a firm believer that if a friendship does remain true and geographic circumstance allows it, the connectedness can remain for a lifetime. So as I look onward to starting my eight semester at this institution, I strive to make this the best semester of my life just as we should all be striving to make every day better than the last. In an old interview, John Cena was asked what was his personal favorite match or moment he's participated in, and John stated that he does not like answering those types of questions because he believes that his favorite moment has yet to happen. When you think about it, it makes sense. By acknowledging a moment as the best moment of your life, you are essentially saying that nothing in the future will ever top that moment and that it was all downhill from that memory in the past. Well, I'll follow Cena's mentality and continue to look on in to the future with high hopes. Though the people around me are bound to change, there will always be something to hang on to and get the euphoria high that we all love so much.

So do any of you have any stories about growing apart from past friends? Tell me your story and thanks for reading!