First day at school

Well school has started. I have been to my first class. I have another at 3:00. I was thinking of going to Wal Mart but I'm not sure I would make it back in time. It takes a while to get down there. Maybe tomorrow, after work.

My first class was chemistry. It was mostly the same old first day stuff, go over the syllabus, start the first lesson with the extra time, etc. Thursday is the lab so I have to make sure to bring my goggles. The teacher (Dr. Olga Fryszman) is really nice. It looks like I need to just use a scientific calculator, though, so my nice blue TI-83 (a graphing calculator) will likely be sitting at home this semester. There is one at home I could borrow (it was Mom's) or I can buy one most likely (it's cheaper than a graphing calculator).

I will probably go to orientation today for CIS 105 to get that out of the way...heck what else do I have to do?

The other day I bought the GBA game Kim Possible 2: Draaken's Demise. Somehow, I got to the third level. Like my Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon GBA game, it involves a lot of jumping, attacking enemies, and special moves. At least they show you within the game how to do the special moves, and they have a "training" part of the game for the basic moves. The easiest way to die in Kim Possible 2 is to miss a jump or, more often, from spikes or other traps or from missing with the grapple gun. Actually, missing a jump to a flagpole swing is pretty common too. The worst is when you have to do a combo, like in level 3 where you have to flagpole and grapple across an acid lake. Actually there is something like that in level 2 also, where you have to flagpole to some ledges, jump up the ledges, then grapple.

Actually Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is harder because it's almost all jumping, and jumping is hard. The wall jumps in this one level are hard to do...half the time you fall back down. Also in one level there are poison bats that poison you so you lose health, and the only way to get rid of it is either to wait for it to go away (I think it does eventually) or wait till your chi gauge reaches max and press L to use the "Chi Recovery" move. You don't gain back health, but at least the poison goes away.

I have taken a break from Tales of Symphonia and have been trying to conquer Mt. Battle on Pokémon Colosseum. This is a great way to pass time in this game because the game itself (in story mode, anyway) is actually very short, judging from the player's guide. Most of the player's guide is the Pokédex and various battle rosters for Story and Battle Mode, including a 10-page foldout thing with a bunch of charts. Also Mt. Battle is the only major battle area that allows you to use Shadow Pokémon (I think the Pre-Gym in Phenac might too...I don't remember), so it's a good place to use them in battle so you can empty their Heart Gauges. The only problem is that things get tough for these Pokémon later on in Mt. Battle, since they don't actually gain levels till after they're purified, which puts them at a major level disavantage. I kept having to use Espeon and Umbreon all the time, since they were closer in level to my opponents (Espeon is at level 57 now, I think...and it learned the healing move Morning Sun, which helps a lot).

I also figured out a trick to cleansing Heart Gauges. Talk to this lady in Agate who is standing on a cliff in the Daycare/Pokémon Center area, after you save Mt. Battle (you may be able to do it earlier, but this is when I did it). She will give you a Cologne Case. You can then buy scents for it from the Poké Mart in Agate. They are Joy Scent, Excite Scent, and one other whose name I forgot. They are pretty inexpensive. The cheapest one, Joy Scent, is 600 Pokébucks I think. Then select items from the menu (press Y or X to bring it up, then go down to "Items") and select "Cologne Case" from the Key Items. A window will pop up asking which scent you want to use. Select the scent, then select the Pokémon in your party to use it on. Most of the time, if you use the scent, it will say something like "SETH massaged ESPEON with JOY SCENT." Then it will say "ESPEON was delighted" or something similar. But last night I tried using a Joy Scent on Hitmontop, one of my not-yet-purified Shadow Pokémon, and after it said "HITMONTOP was delighted" it said "Its heart opened a tiny bit!" or something like that. And sure enough it did, so I did it again, with the same result. Every little bit helps, after all.

Well there's not much else to say. Bye for now.