As of last night, 6/8/2012, at around 9:00 PM, I am now a high school graduate. It's finally over, and I couldn't be happier about it. Last night was also one of the most interesting and incredible experiences of my life. After feeling something almost like magic during the ceremony, I was whisked off to travel about with my fellow graduating classmates on a fun-filled night called "Project Graduation." I got home at 5:30 this morning, hardly even tired, thinking of one of the funnest nights I've ever had. Looking back, high school was quite the journey. It had its ups and downs, but my senior year was very much an uphill ride, with very few issues. I've officially graduated from Spaulding High School in Rochester, NH. I ranked in the top 30 (I believe I was around 26 about half way through the year) of a class of 280 people (we had 500+ people at the beginning of our Freshman year but.. They sure got weeded out as we went along). I was given an award called "The President's Award," which only 6 people (including me) were eligible for, four of them ranking within the top 10 of the class. For Project Graduation we started inside the school's auditorium. The 135 graduates that were going were restless and excited at first, and most of us were bored by the thought of watching a hypnotist perform. It ended up being the funniest thing I have ever seen. One of my friends got so heavily hypnotized that he fell out of his seat, and later was convinced to think that laughing was against the law. It was a lot of fun to watch. After that, we moved into the school's chorus/band room for a dance of sorts, while we waited for the buses to show up. We then rode up to Maine, where we watched a movie at Smitty's, a unique movie theater where you sit in rolling chairs and get served food at a table. My group watched Snow White and the Huntsmen. It was a decent movie, but I didn't love it. The night ended at a building usually dedicated to sports, where we found a few different bounce houses set up. Everyone played around for a while, and then once 4 AM rolled around we loaded back up to head home. The entire night was a blast, and I am happy that I was able to share it with my girlfriend. Today was quite busy as well, because Olivia (my girlfriend) had her graduation party. We woke up after sleeping for a few hours and headed over. At the party, I had my first real conversation with her father (I had met him the night of graduation). It was hard to act like I didn't despise him, because I was so biased against him before even meeting him. Hearing about how he left his family and made Olivia miserable as a child really pissed me off, and I wanted nothing to do with him. He seemed like a nice enough person, though, and I think his years away from his children made him realize the mistakes he made. At any rate, he and Olivia seem to get along well, so I don't have much room to complain anymore. I've been overwhelmed by the generosity of my family over the past couple of days. I've never been the type to expect much from them, because I don't like costing them a lot of money or being much a burden: I've been doing a lot of self-support since I started working at Kmart last August. I was surprised when my parents said that as a graduation gift, they were going to buy me a laptop. I had been planning on only having them help me pay for it, and I had been saving up money from work in order to pay for it. It was officially ordered yesterday before graduation. I customized an HP Envy 15 after weighing the options, and the 33% off coupon that got me a $1600 laptop for a little over $1000 helped my decision quite a bit. It should ship on the 19th, so I'll have it by the end of the month. I'm excited to finally have my own laptop. What really touched me, though, was what my grandparents did for me. It's not only that they gave me quite a bit of money; money isn't that important to me beyond the obvious reason that I need it in order to buy things. It's that they saved a letter I sent to them years ago. The card they gave me was fairly generic for a graduation card: "Congrats *insert relationship here*, you graduated!" It was what was inside that got to me. Years ago, I had sent them a letter telling them what I wanted for Christmas. I gave them my little list and then signed my name. In the PS, I told them where they could find the items, and then I said something like, "But it's okay if you can't find them, because Christmas is about being with your family." I couldn't have been older than 8 when I wrote that letter to them, and they saved it to this day, 10 or more years later. Now that I've graduated, I've opened my availability at work a bit more, so that I might get a few more hours in a week. I still told them I wasn't available before noon on weekdays, because I know I'll want to stay up late and sleep in just as I always like to do during the summer. I'm hoping on being able to find a balance between work, personal time, time with Olivia, and time gaming with my friends. I have a scary backlog of games I would like to finish, with more coming out soon. It'll also be easier to keep up with anime that's airing, because I'll be able to watch it later at night without having to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn for school. Around the beginning of August, I'll be traveling down to Maryland to move into college. I'll be attending Hood College full time as a new student, with my major being Computer Science. I'm considering putting a lot of focus on writing as well, as I enjoy writing and wish to give myself the opportunity to improve myself to the point where I might be able to make money for it in the future. Olivia is going to the same college as either a Political Science or History major. It's going to be a long way from home: 10 hours by car, to be exact. I'm going to miss my family, but I think I need some time away from the nest. I've never been good with trips away from home because I spent almost my entire childhood close to home. I need to put myself out of my comfort zone for a while so I can adjust to it. Hood looks like a great college, and I enjoyed my visit there at the end of March. It's a small, pretty place with around 1000 students living on campus at a time, so it'll be a tightly knit community. They've got a big gaming room in one of the buildings, with tons of TVs and comfortable chairs, and almost all of the new games that release. I'm looking forward to finding my place in that room, and making new friends. I'm going to try to become more active here again. I know I've said that a lot, but I've found myself gravitating back towards the site again lately as my interests in video games and anime have been rekindled. So you might see more of me around, if I am able to manage my time well enough. Well, that's all for now. One journey has ended, and another is just beginning. Thanks for reading. ~Sora

It's certainly been a while since I last posted a blog to let everyone know what's up (and at this point I'd be surprised if anyone would actually check to read this), so I figured I'd pop in and tell you all what's going on. First and foremost, I got accepted to my college of choice: Hood. It's in Maryland, about nine and a half hours away from my current home. On top of my acceptance, I received a scholarship valued at $18,000 a year for four years ($72,000 for those of you who struggle with math for my "excellence in high school". I'm pretty excited about getting to go there, and to make it even better my girlfriend got accepted as well (and I don't want to make this blog about her but in a couple of months we will have been dating for a year). I'll be majoring in Computer Science come August. Due to the transition to college, I'm actually expecting to visit here more often. I'll have some off time between classes most of the time, and since I'll usually be stuck on campus, I'll have time to actually post again. I'll probably limit my posting to a bit on System Wars and the Toonami Union, since I've recently rekindled my interest in anime and manga. So yeah, my senior year is going good and all, straight A's so far and all of that good stuff. Still working at Kmart. Nothing too drastic has gone on in the past few months besides getting accepted into college. Well, the Nyquil is starting to make me feel a bit drowsy, and I don't want to bore you, so I'll end this update here. Take this as a chance to possibly start seeing more of me from here on out. See you around. Oh, and PS: I probably won't read your PM if you sent me one. i've got a ton of them.

As many of you probably have already noticed, I haven't been around much at all lately. The combination of school starting, getting a job, and spending time away from the computer has really REALLY decreased the amount of time I spend on the internet. I don't like saying this, but it seems to me like Gamespot has taken a back seat in my life; I've drifted away from it quite a bit. I know I have responsibilities in unions and I know I have a lot of great friends on here, but I just don't know if I have time for it anymore. So consider this an announcement of sorts.. Sora isn't going to be around much anymore. I'm a senior in high school, I work a part time job at Kmart, I'm in a serious relationship, and I can't be here much anymore. The times I will probably be seen around here will be weekend nights when I'm not busy; other than that, I won't be here much if at all. I've enjoyed the past 3 and a half-ish years here, and I don't plan on this being the end. But this isn't the best time for me to spend hours browsing forums and making posts. This isn't the best time to argue about video games or share my artwork. I have to balance my time out, and sadly, Gamespot has to get pretty much bumped out of the picture. Thanks for all of the fun times up to this point, everyone. I'll hopefully be around sometime. Don't miss me too much! Farewell for now, Sora

As of Thursday, I am now on summer break. I would have posted this sooner, but I haven't really had a moment of free time since I got out. I spent the two days immediately following my last finals nonstop with Olivia, so I didn't have time to stop and say anything here. Now that I have some free time, I'll throw something together for you guys to read. My struggle with grades pretty much came to an end over the past few weeks; my GPA this quarter rose back up to where it should be, a 4.188, which makes my cumulative a 4.197. I also found out that my class rank is 31 out of 321, which means I am in the top 10% of the cIass. I want to get into the 20's next year, so I'll be working even harder. My biggest disappointment with my grades was my Advanced Math Honors grade. I had done poorly in the first half of the cIass, averaging a 74 and failing almost every test and quiz we had. This second half, I was able to pull a grade of 87, which brought my average to an 80: a B. BUT the world hates me, and I got a 70 on my final in that class, and since it is worth 10% of my grade, my grade dropped down to a 79.3. Yes. I was .2 off from getting a B in the cIass. Saddening. :( Other than that I did fine in my other cIasses. I got an 87 in English III Honors, an 88 in US History Enriched, and a 98 in Computer Technology. That makes this quarter my best of the year (GPA wise, since I was taking Honors courses). Next year will be even better. Next year excites me. I'm looking forward to my Virtual High School Computer Science AP course the most, because I plan to major in Computer Science. That course is a full year long, as well as my Computer Technology 2 course. I'm also taking Calculus Enriched, Principles of Technology, Economics Enriched, and College Composition. This will be my senior year, and it looks like it will be a lot easier than the last few. The hardest course I'll have will be Calculus, but I've always been good at math so I'm not worried, especially since it is an Enriched course instead of an Honors course. I decided I wasn't going to take any AP courses besides Computer Science, because I'm tired of feeling stressed about school all of the time and because I would like to take it easy next year and enjoy my senior year. But that's enough about school. That's over and done with for a couple of months. :P 95% of my time is spent with Olivia. We're approaching 3 months dating (July 11th will be 3 months) and I have enjoyed every moment of it. It's a great feeling, and it is great fun. I've changed a lot as a person as well, I've gotten more confident and more secure about myself. Not to mention I'm more social, hence the lack of posting here. :P That means that my hobbies have dwindled down quite a bit; I haven't been gaming as much, I haven't been reading as much, I haven't been watching anime as much, and so on. I don't really have an issue with that, because I'm still really enjoying how my time is spent. I've done a tad of graphics over the past few weeks though, take a peek:

Nothing fantastic, just some dabbling here and there. I'm hoping to start doing these more actively again now that I don't need to worry about school. I've also been trying to keep up with manga. I've been keeping up with some of the big titles like Naruto, Bleach, and Bakuman. I've also been rereading I''s because I told myself I was going to do that. I also reread Shaman King, which might explain my new theme. :P Once I finish with I''s, I'm not sure what I'm going to move on to. Suggestions are welcome. As far as gaming, I haven't been doing much. I will occasionally play some Bad Company 2 on the PC (in fact, I kind of feel like doing that right now, so I might do that once I finish with this blog) and I've started The Witcher 2 on the PC as well. Besides that my gaming life is just about dead. This is, it will be until Battlefield 3 comes out. I am really looking forward to that game. I'm kind of upset that it is coming out after I go back to school. I would have loved to spend my summer with it. :( One thing that I haven't been skimping on is music. I've gotten back into Metal lately, and I've been finding a lot of new bands. I'm trying to get Olivia to like some of the music that I do, so I've been locating bands that I thought she might like, and then starting to like them myself. I've discovered: 55 Escape, Artas, Bleed the Sky, A Broken Silence, Brother Firetribe, Come to Dolly, Degradead, Delain, Denial Machine, Destrage, Dimension Zero, Dreamshade, Egypt Central, Empathic, Eye of the Enemy, Fail Emotions, His Statue Falls, Icon in Me, Imaginary Flying Machines, Index Case, Northern Kings, The Rose Will Decay, Shatter Silence, Signs of Betrayal, Tracedawn, The Unguided, Universum, Vanisher, Within Temptation, and Zonaria. Woah, that's a mouthful. :o Since I'm almost 17, it's time for me to get a job.. according to my father. So, what is a 17 year old teenage boy to do to make money over the summer? Well, I decided I was going to start a computer repair service! Since I love computers and I've been fixing them for over a year and a half, I figured I might as well make money from it. People make mistakes with their computers all of the time, and they're willing to pay money for them to be fixed. And since places like Geek Squad are really expensive, I figure that if i offer a lower price I can get quite a few customers. I'm off to a decent start so far, but I still need to get my name out there. And it's gotten my dad off of my back, so it's a win-win situation. I was planning on going into more depth, but with all of the distractions I have at the moment this blog has taken me quite a while to type up. So I'm going to cut it off here. What is everyones' plans for the summer? :o ~Sora

Maybe the 5th time is the charm?

Yes, yes I have become successful in my journey to getting a girlfriend. Please, please, hold your applause to the end. I asked her out on Monday and she didn't even have to think about it, she just said yes right away. That was the first time I had ever actually asked someone out, so it went well I guess. I pretty much just said "Will you go out with me?". Quick and simple, and yet maybe the best words I have ever spoken. I'm sure many of you will think to yourself "Well this isn't that big of a deal, it's just a girlfriend" but what this represents to me is more than that. It represents me finally moving on from things that have happened in the past and it is something that gives me a lot of self confidence and experience. Yay me. In other news, I'm finally on Spring break. I could really use a vacation, so I'm looking forward to this week. It will hopefully be filled with sleeping, anime, and Olivia. Sounds good to me. ;) I would also like to take this time to advertise my FAVORITE BAND. They recently released their debut album (it releases on the 19th here in the U.S., but it's out in most other countries at this point). And let me say, it is incredible. They are a mixture of Death Metal, Pop, and etc. and they have three singers; a male growler, a male singer, and a female singer. I love their music an incredible amount and the album made this past week even better. :P So without further adieu, I present to you.. Amaranthe!

Track List Leave Everything Behind Hunger 1,000,000 Lightyears Automatic My Transition Amaranthine It's All About Me (Rain) Call Out My Name Enter the Maze Director's Cut Act of Desperation Serendipity

I recommend that everyone listen to at least a few songs. My favorites are 1,000,000 Lightyears, Automatic, Amaranthine, and Leave Everything Behind. I love them all though. Check them out. :D They need more fans. I haven't been playing video games very much lately, just some Pokemon White here and there and maybe some Bad Company 2 and Killzone 3 sprinkled in. I feel kind of like an idiot for having built a gaming PC that I haven't used for much, but I don't have any money to buy games right now and I've been busy (read: busy with my girlfriend) lately. On the bright side, I'll have plenty to play over the summer.. BUT I probably won't be having much free time over the summer. I recently applied for a paid internship at the UNH-IOL at a local college where, if I'm accepted, I'll be doing computer networking as an intern. This calls for 40 hour, Monday through Friday work weeks from early-July to mid-August. Kind of stressful for a 16/soon to be 17 year-old, but I could use the money. I want to buy a 3DS and some games for that, and I also want to do some computer upgrades so I can be ready for Battlefield 3. Anime-wise I've been lazy lately, and I've only watched a few episodes of D.Gray-man. I've been too tired to stay up until 4am like I usually do on vacations. I may attempt it tonight so I can see if I can get into that habit again and blast through the rest of D.Gray-man over break. I also read through the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga. It was quite interesting and gave me a different view on all of the different characters that I had known from my childhood. It was very very dark and much more violent. I think that about sums it up for this little update on my life that most people don't care about. :P I'm going to go find something to eat, go visit my grandfather that had surgery a few days ago, and then spend the rest of the day with Olivia. Cheers, and thanks for reading! ~Sora

Level 38 and I are very well acquainted by now. I think I've been through it like 3 times by now. Maybe I'm destined to be a DJ Boy. As my moderation history gets longer and longer I'll get banned for good. I'll probably just ending up moving to TDH permanently. Anime-wise, I've been doing quite good lately. I've watched Soul Eater, Higashi no Eden, and Durarara. I also started D.Gray-man today. It's 103 episodes long though, so it will take me quite a while. I haven't been doing much gaming at all. Just some Pokemon White here and there. I've lost my interest for the time being in favor of anime and my social life. Which is what this blog will mostly be dedicated to. I've made a lot of changes to my life, I guess, since the last blog. I pretty much hang out with a different group of people now. I like it better this way though, I'm happier now than I've ever been. I have a date to prom now, she asked me. I've come to like her a lot and I'm quite sure she likes me as well, and so I'm hoping soon to ask her out and start a relationship. Wish me luck. :D Most of my other friends have been getting mad at me lately. All girls. I met them when I was a less social person. I was a pretty lonely person at that time, and so the idea of having pretty girls for friends caused me to do anything it took to get their approval. This led to them being able to control me and manipulate me, and I think now that I've started to spend time with other people they've gotten mad that they've lost their control over me. I've since made up with all but one of them, and things seem okay between us, but they'll never be the same. It's okay though. I'm happy. :) I'm working on fixing my grades as well. I've brought my English grade up to a 90 again. Computer Tech is still my best cIass, with a 99. My Advanced Math class is really f***ing me up though, I have a 78 in there. And in US History I have an 81, but I'm working on that one next. I've been too distracted from school. And I've been sick a lot. I'm actually sick right now. I've missed 17 days of school so far this year. :( Another big thing going on is that I'm planning to apply for a paid internship at a local college (UNH). It's for computer networking and would give me a good summer job. It's a Monday through Friday 40 hour work week all summer, but will be worth it because of the money. I'll be able to feed my technology addiction and upgrade my PC and buy a 3DS and all that fun stuff. I've also been trying to balance my hobbies more. I've been playing more guitar lately and spending more time with friends instead of playing video games all day. I've lost a few pounds over the last few weeks, but not that much. I'm hoping to work on becoming more fit over the summer when I can actually go out running and start a routine. I want to start reading more as well, so I'm going to try balancing that in some more. Same with designing. Well, I think that's all for this blog. I don't feel very good so I think I'll go take some medicine and lay down in bed until I fall asleep. Thanks for reading! :) ~Sora

Do I have your attention now? Okay, good. :P I am incredibly bored right now, so I think I will write a new blog. I haven't written once since Christmas so I'm sure I can fill up some space. Prepare for a (hopefully) long read. :D Let's start off with what I've been doing lately for GAYMEN. I've been playing the Killzone 3 Open Beta quite a bit, along with Gran Turismo 5. I'm kind of giving my PC a break from gaming; I haven't done much on it yet because I wanna finish up with my console stuff first., since I know that once I get into some of the games I have I won't be able to bring myself to turn on my PS3 anymore. :P I am very sad to announce that my Wii is officially dead. :( It will not longer read disks of any kind: new, old, scratched, clean. And another sad thing is that there is no way I can afford a new Wii right now, what with all the new games and the 3DS coming out soon. It's a good thing the only Wii game interesting to me this year is Skyward Sword, so I can borrow my sister's Wii long enough to play it. On the PS3 front I'm only really planning on buying Killzone 3 when it releases next week. I'm really tight on money right now so I have to make some tough decisions for what I want to buy. I will probably have to wait for Christmas for most games. But that's okay, I have plenty to tide me over for now. On the PC I've been playing some Witcher and some Oblivion, but not too much. Like I said before, I want to save those games as long as I can so I can get through the summer. I have played some Audiosurf on and off (It's a ton of fun to play for a little while every week or so), as well as some Recettear. I tried Bioshock and am not a huge fan so far. It just doesn't appeal to me very much. I'm enjoying Mirror's Edge so far, but I'm kind of stuck so I have to look up a guide or something to keep going. Crysis I have been having a hard time getting into. I don't know why. I'm not really a huge FPS fan, so that may explain it. The game is beautiful though. I might mod it a bit more to admire its beauty even more. :D And finally there is GTA IV, which I've been having some fun with. My mutliplayer PC games are on hold until I have more people to play with. I have a headphone/microphone combo so I can talk to people while we play, but I don't have many people to play with. My friend Andrew is building a PC of his own soon enough, and since he is my main gaming friend I will have plenty of use for games like GTA IV and Battlefield Bad Company 2. PC games I plan to buy are The Witcher 2 (after I finish the first one) and Portal 2, at least that's what I'm planning. I will probably get Portal 2 on the PS3 because then I could get it for free on the PC as well. But anyway, that's enough about gaming for now. Onto designing. I've been doing a bit more designing than usual lately, since I gained a little bit of interest in it again. Here is some stuff I've made in the past couple of months:

Feel free to comment on any of these, or use one of them. :D

MUSIC TIEM. I've recently been drifting back towards Melodeath again. I've been mixing my music all together and listening to a lot of different stuff.

I've been playing my guitar a bit more as well. The newest song I've learned is Zetsubou Billy by Maximum the Hormone. PERSONAL LIFE TIEM. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow and everyone has a Valentine besides your's truly. :P But I don't mind too much. I usually get chocolate from girls anyway. :P I don't know if I will this year, since most of the people that usually give it to me have boyfriends now. But I don't care too much, since I've done some changing myself. I don't know how many of you remember when I was under the impression that I was depressed a couple of years to a year ago. I don't know how many of you remember that after everything happened I said that I was fine. Well, I feel even uh.. finer now. I'm not really afraid of rejection anymore. I know that most high school relationships won't last outside of high school anyway. I'm also not worried that I haven't had a girlfriend because I've had plenty of girls like me, but with my good luck I've always liked someone else at the time, or they didn't tell me that they liked me until later on. I've moved on from anything that may have happened to me before, and feel like a much better person for it. I finally got my hair cut. :P I grew my hair out for almost 4 years before finally getting it cut. Before, it was past my shoulders. And now, it is maybe three quarters of an inch to an inch long. I actually like it better this way. It's a lot easier to take care of. I feel more confident now too. And no one can make fun of me for having never shaved before. :P Before I had my hair cut, I never had to shave because my hair covered it all up. Well, after I got it cut, I've had to start shaving almost every day. I want a beard though. So I have my fingers crossed. :P Well, I think that's all for now. :D Catch you later. Thanks for reading! ~Tyler OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT THIS PART. ANIME TIEM. Okay so I've started watching anime again lately, and catching up and keeping up with manga. I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished lately. :D I've watched: -Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood -Motto To-LOVE-ru -Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou -Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai I'm working on Baccano! and Mitsudomoe right now. Baccano! is a lot of fun, but I'm almost done with it. Then I'm on to Durarara!. Mitsudomoe is okay. I'm only watching it because my friend wanted me to. It's a bit too over the top for me. Manga wise, I caught up in Bakuman and have been keeping up with Naruto and Bleach. I also had a Fairy Tail marathon and caught up in that. I haven't started anything new in a while, since I've been more focused on anime. Maybe I'll fix that soon.

Yeah, and I thought last year was amazing. This year definitely takes the cake and then some though. Let's get right into things. -My PC is all built and running. I am typing this blog on it. I'm installing my Steam games and just finished installing TESIV: Oblivion. The Witcher Enhanced Edition is in the mail. My friend also gifted me Bad Company 2. So I have Left4Dead, L4D2, BC2, Team Fortress 2, Bioshock, The Witcher, and Oblivion so far. -I got $200 in cash. Definitely gonna buy some games. -I got a $100 Mastercard (prepaid). Definitely gonna use that on Newegg to get some new equipment. I also got a ton of clothes, including some really nice fleece pajama pants. They are really thick and warm and I love them. I also got some sweatpants, socks, and a sweatshirt. -My sister got me a PSN card for $20. I got BC2: Vietnam and played it a bit, but most of the day has been building/installing stuff. -Movie passes I wasn't expecting to even get all of the computer parts, but I ended up getting all of them, a monitor, and then all of that. I'm completely blown away, and incredibly happy. So, how was your guys' Christmas? :)

Seriously, JESUS CHRIST, next year is going to be murder on my wallet. Not only will have a huge list of PS3 games to check out and Skyward Sword on the Wii, I'll have a brand new gaming computer to get games on.. Man, this coming year is going to be amazing. I mean...

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Not pictured: Mass Effect 3, and TES V

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Ow.. My wallet hurts already. BUT THERE'S STILL F***ING MORE. HOLY S***. There are games that I want to get still that have been out for a while. For starters, I have a huge PC game library to explore. Games I definitely plan on getting right away, and some other games, are:

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:shock: I'm going to be going out tomorrow to get GT5 and I'm going to be trading in a few games. I'm hoping to get enough money for GT5 and a few cheap PC games. But.. Holy s***.. I don't think I've ever looked forward to a year of gaming more than I am 2011. I mean, I'll be adding a whole new system to my arsenal, and there are going to be a ton of games coming out. I'm going to have to get a job. :lol: That should be interesting. So, what does everyone else look forward to next year?