Tag Archives: class

A Dark Blue One

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“I only own one gi, and it’s getting pretty old, dirty, starting to fall apart. I want to get one of the dark blue ones, but I don’t see many. Do you think you have any in my size?”

“Why blue?”

“White looks dirty very easily. My pants are pretty much permanently gray. I have a black cat to boot.”

“I like them. Forces people to wash them.”

“They look dirty even when do wash them, though.”

“Ever seen the pink gis?”

“YES! Yuck. I don’t think I’ve never seen anyone in one though except for the internet. Do women actually wear those?”

“Yeah, when I was in California there was a all women’s class of like 30, all happily rolling in their pink gis.”

“Well, no pink and co-ed classes here, and I prefer it that way.”

“We can order you a gi and you won’t have to pay shipping. Just look on the Gracie website. Did you want to get that in a women’s size?”

“Women’s size? Do they have a different sizing system? I think this one is like an A2 or A3. I’m having a hard time finding a tag where it isn’t completely worn off.”

“Yes, they do have women’s sizes and the gis fit different.”

“Cool. What colors do they have? Do they have the dark blue.”

“No. They only have them in pink.”

“…so that class of women? How do you know they were happy to wear pink if they only had the option was pink or a gi that doesn’t fit right? Maybe they’re actually all angry and feel ridiculous in their pink gis?”

“So… you don’t want a pink gi?”

“…nah, I want a dark blue one. A pink one probably still won’t fit right anyways. It’s not like most womens’ pants do.”

Fantasy Story Ideas

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I come up with ideas for writing in a lot of different places. This is something that was kicking in my head from a dream that I expanded on in waking times, in the shower, driving to work, falling asleep. At some point sometimes ideas stop kicking around in the head and I try to put what I’m thinking on paper. Sometimes I start writing the story, and other times I write character sketches, draw places, write scenes, or in this case: figure out mechanics.

One of the most fun things about the Sci-fi and Fantasy genre is the mechanics of how your world works. What makes it full of magic? What are the systems, schools, and conventions by which normal people become adventurers?

In this case I had the idea of four of each type of three categories of adventurers. Where (and if) you fall on this grid is determined by an extensive and even dangerous test, kind of like some sort of spirit journey. By the end of that journey it has been divined what school(s) you fall into.

Here are some of the sketches I did in my Blue Book (on of my journal sketchbooks) to help me figure out this grid. I figured each school next to each other should have abilities in common as well as each school having its own unique focus. There are 3 main schools: Warrior, Wizard, and Toil. Warrior covers the types of fighters. Wizards are the ones who harness magic. Toils are those who use worldly skills to make something otherworldly. If you read the charts the other way, You get the four worlds: Physical World, Natural World, Inner World, and Spiritual World.

To help figure these out, I thought of people I knew and what they might be based on the system I figured out.

Each particular class has a name and color. Each also has one main focus, and four minor focuses (or abilities) that are shared with the surrounding major focuses. Primes are those who only have a single class and those four surrounding abilities. They also usually have a special ability unique to having a strict focus. These abilities vary from person to person and sometimes are not immediately apparent. Most of the time, it s found out by the time a disciple has left their school.

I also left room for mixing classes across the grid: dual, tri, and quad classes. The further divided you are in your classes, the further split your focus.

A dual class gets two main focuses, but only a total of four surrounding abilities. Those four surrounding abilities have to be two from each focus and must be either horizontal or vertical.

A Tri class is also known as a Worlder as they pick a world. They get three focuses, and only the shared abilities from their world (those listed vertical). This gives them three main focuses and three abilities.

A quad class is usually known by the larger class name: Quad Warrior, Quad Wizard, or Quad Toil. They have those four focuses going across, and then the abilities between each. Since the classes have more abilities, it is usually found by the time a disciple graduates that they are weak in a couple of the abilities or lose a couple of the focuses. Those who keep their focuses remain Quads, as the abilities that are weak can be improved upon over time. However, if a focus is lost, the Quad usually will become a Prime or Dual. This is not considered a bad thing or a dishonor to have a more narrowed focus or a more broadened one, it is simply the way things naturally occur in a particular person.

Wednesday Night

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I was recently talking to one of my Portland friends. She told me about a failed attempt to hang out with someone who she thought wanted to be friends. It turns out the person all but dug away in the dirt to avoid the impoliteness of saying “Uh, not interested, weirdo”.

That leads me to Wednesday night and my continuing quest to understand people from a first person point of view. Sure, I was able to tell my friend before hand that I wasn’t sure about this girl. This girl has a bit of a judgmental streak, and for weirdos like us, we just can’t comply. In the case of all the people in my own life, I’m fairly clueless.

Wednesday night was my last IT class. We finished out WAN build lab after designing, subnetting, documenting, installing, group policying, pinging, and yes, even establishing a VPN connection.

Afterwards we were off to a bar where the night was on our instructor’s dollar. I figured I could:

A. Not drink since I have an hour drive or
B. Drink enough so that I wouldn’t mind sleeping in my truck.

On top of this theory, every thriftiness bone in my body wanted to get the most value out of the night. On top of that, before the night began I found myself offered:

A. A place down the street to stay and
B. A ride to that short distance.

I would have ordered drinks, sipped water in between, and stopped when I felt content but:

A. There was no water served complimentary (and I’m bad enough at getting the wait staff attention and deciding on a beverage)

B. Even after I was kind of done, shots kept being brought over on large round trays.
C. I started eating stuff but got distracted.

Before this night I had only thrown up two times in my life that I could remember. Now the count is up to three.

1. The first time I can remember, I was six years old and had the flu. I didn’t know I was going to throw up because I was not familiar with the process. I went into my parent’s bedroom and uttered, “Mom, Dad, I don’t feel so good.” before emphasizing the statement with the ultimate exclamation point. If I would have understood what was happening, my bedroom was right next to the bathroom.

2. I was hospitalized. No, not hospitalized for drinking, but for some malady that I was stuck with an IV and given anti-nausea medication with morphine and vicodin afterwards. I slept a lot on a couch in the kiln shed for days (as this was my tent days). The fact that mice and bugs were likely sleeping with me didn’t even phase me I was so sick.

3. Wednesday night.

Before I was sick, I observed both people getting wasted (with the full intention of driving home) and people who weren’t drinking (because they needed to drive home). I chatted up people with less and less clarity. Then, so and so hair washer from Communication Revolution: Quashed!, if you remember that post, wanders over.

At this point, I do remember what happened, it’s more of the order of operations that gets vague- so anyone who might read who was there, I apologize for anything I mixed up.

He wandered over, started making some vague confessions about how he knows I wanted to be his lab partner along with some vague, drunken implications of how he’d miss me. I confess to the company around me, my lab partner (on my left) and someone who sat on the other side of me those six months (on my right) being stood up in February. I admit that I haven’t really talked or interacted with him since, and he with me. And now, suddenly, awkwardly, he was talking to me like we were old, close friends.

He comes back over, from behind, playing with my braids. He admits that he was sorry we didn’t hang out. I clarified that he stood me up, like he had to wash his hair or something. He clarified he stood me up because he was worried about what his girlfriend might think. I clarified that I just wanted to hang out and not hook up. He clarified that of course we were just going to hang out in a very unconvincing way.

I have to ask if what just happened actually happened. I was told that yes, yes it did. That this dick just admitted he stood me up to wash his girlfriend’s dog’s hair and that he was expecting to hook up with me.

The king of awkward wasn’t crowned yet as he hadn’t yet told me about my boobs. Now he admitted that wow, I had really nice ones. He said that the shirt I was wearing was very nice and that my boobs were very nice and they looked very nice in that shirt. I couldn’t tell you how many times he mentioned my chest. I was asked if I dressed up for the last class. I told him that most of my hot summer weather clothes were like this. This was an odd throw back to some things that were said when we were communicating via net send. He then implied that I looked good. That was flattering. Flattery like that, versus having your boobs talked to shifts the line over to Creepyville, population: this guy.

He told me he was sorry he’d stood me up and that we should hang out. He said I had his number and I should call him. I don’t think he was looking at me to answer. It was that good-looking, charismatic guy thing where he obviously thought that my boobs had answered for me, and of course we’d hang out some time.

Why do assholes like me?

This is about when I started feeling sick. One could argue that the reasons why this was were listed further up in the post. One might say that the more recent events broke the camel’s back. Some might even go as far as to point out that it was an appropriate reaction to what was said and done right before hand.

Still, it’s pretty embarrassing and not something I would like to take up on a regualar basis. I can say with some confidence it’s not something I’d ever really want to do again.

So, the guy sitting on my right, the guy who had been sitting at my right these past six months, helps me up and over to the ladies room where I proceeded to give the cleaning staff a challenging and fun filled evening. The sink was closer and I have bad knees. The sink also clogs faster.

When a someone stands by when you’re at your worst and doesn’t make you feel any more guilty about it afterwards, you know you’ve found a great person. So, Righty follows me into the restroom shortly after to check on me, having received permission to be in the sacred temple of Women’s Restroom. By now my time sense is completely gone, so I don’t know how long we were in there with me confessing how much of jackass I felt like and him confessing that he’s done crappy things in his life too, and he’s happy to help. I shouldn’t worry. That made the evil looks of the wait staff as they brought me ginger ale a little easier to take. I don’t blame them. I’d be giving me evil looks.

Wednesday: the best of people, the worst of people.

Someone who teaches for a living and does it well is still essentially doing their job, even if the people being taught are eternally greatfull for not getting someone who sucks. When one is graduated and is no longer in a teacher-student situation with a person, and you’re just people, there’s no real underlying motivation to go above and beyond. There especially is no clause saying you have to give that person a place to crash, your bed, clothes to sleep in, cab fare, and a juice box.

And once again, no additional guilt was given. It was: easy-day, being called a ‘little rock star’, and saying that we’ve all been there.

So, now that I’ve arrived there, I will admit that it’s still not something I get. I don’t expect to go there again any time soon.

I appreciate all the messages I got asking me if I was okay, and really, I am. Even more so since I was surrounded by good people, along with those who suck.

I don’t know what will happen with said people as I have experienced time and time again how hard it is to make long and lasting connections with people, especially when you give them such a positive, lasting impression. I do know that they’re likely not to offer me anything to drink.

Historical posts:
Communication Technology
Communication Revolution: Quashed!