A Slice of Life with Sylverstone Khandr

Well, I haven’t updated the blog ever since the “Rise Above Rejection” post I made earlier - but I guess I do have enough to say if anyone’s wondering what the heck’s going on now.

I did get an acceptance letter from a college - even though they explained that my original major wasn’t what they considered me for (yet) but instead, they gave me another chance to get myself into college.

Champlain College of Burlington, VT is only one of two institutions that wanted me - three if you’d count that Drexel University has me on a wait list. I haven’t heard anything since, so… I’m looking to make a bee-line for Champlain.

I was thinking about transferring into the Game Design major after I put in a decent amount of work, since they explained that their 20% acceptance rate for the major was a factor in me not being able to make it.

Either way, I’m still glad for the opportunity.

As for other things, I’m a bit tired - thankfully the Easter break is still in effect but I haven’t done much to further development on Project Atarashii. I may save that for a weekend, but time is going by and I need all I can to produce a proper product by the first week of June. I want PA to be done by my birthday (May 27th), so I need to work much harder to make that deadline work.

On a much grim note, I learned from my girlfriend’s father of her recent hospitalization for a throat infection. Now, I haven’t seen Cassie in about 2 weeks due to my schedule being very much a figurative bitch to work with, and I was very surprised that I didn’t know about it until today.

There are little details that I have to work out, but hopefully I’ll be getting some answers soon. I just wish for Cassandra’s recovery to go very well - I owe her a lot in my life currently and I definitely need to be there for her.

That will be all I can say for now. Thanks for reading.

(Also, I’ve reopened the Sylver’s Edge blog - more info to come around soon.)

 Check out Project Atarashii’s development blog!

Today was an okay day.

I woke up at a decent time, was able to get some work done, got to school on time, figured out my problems in “Project Atarashii” and had an okay day of classes.

After school, I was expecting to receive mail at home from a stranger on Reddit.

My latest GameInformer was shipped without the special Kid Icarus AR Card, and this stranger offered to send me his. I got it, and thanked him a lot.

My next bits of mail were… interesting, to say the least. They were all from colleges.

The Borough of Manhattan Community College already accepted me, and St. John’s University wanted to let me know I still had a chance. The final letter was from R.I.T., and I was thinking that it was no more than a typical “hey, we got your application, now wait for a couple of months while we process” letter.

It was the letter that changed the outcome of my day.

“After a thorough review of your academic credentials, we regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to RIT at this time.”

At least they were able to say, don’t give up on college because we turned you away, just keep trying and maybe when you get somewhere, we’ll re-think our decision.

So, essentially, I got future endeavored by RIT.

It was… not shocking, to say the least. It was able to get into my head for a few minutes, but I realized that I was too enthusiastic about going to RIT. I had gone ahead and immersed myself into the culture of the school (via Reddit), but I guess it’s time to look towards other choices.

I’m expecting more mail next week, hopefully another decision letter - this time from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). They were my next college choice on my Common Application. I have two others, and WPI technically is the farthest away (it’s in Vermont). I could still try out for DigiPen, if they’re still taking in students for the next academic year but I’m unsure what that would mean for me.

I still felt bad that the representative shut down my ideas for the BSGD program, but I could still try for the BAGD program (which I might, considering time constraints and deadlines and so forth).

Anyways, I’m not exactly feeling down due to today’s events - after all, I had some nice responses from friends of mine via Facebook and Twitter expecting to carry on and try harder. To them, I say thanks.

Let’s just hope the next few weeks turn out well in my favor, shall we? 

Beginning this morning, the last trimester of the school year begins.

It’ll mean many things. This week also brings to life many things:

- The beginning of Project Atarashii’s heavy development schedule.

- The dawn of a new season.

- The slow road towards the end of high school.

- A continuation of the road towards college.

There are many more things worth listing, but I’ll withdraw them for now.

Normally in posts like these, I would sound extremely overconfident and so sure of what’s coming ahead, but I realize now that it’s been really stupid to think that way. I’ve learned that in many instances that things do go wrong, and it’s very hard to bypass without severe repercussions.

In my mind, there’s very much internal struggle - anguish, internal conflict, teenage angst, you name it. “I’m just a moody person,” I uttered to Rose when she confronted me about my bitter Saturday night while on the senior trip.

I feel bad for not being completely honest with her, but that’s how it is. People throw up walls to protect themselves, either from the truth or the necessary help they need. It’s a common thing, and I’m one of those people.

I listen to reason, but then there’s moments where I feel like everyone around me just hates me. I have moments where I hate myself - by that, I mean my alter ego puts down me for different things. He’s there to help me, though - so it’s not like I’m being driven to do something completely radical.

I’m fine. I don’t need help. I could cry to myself, and not worry about tomorrow or the next day or the future. I have my own means of comfort, even if it means talking to myself for long periods of time.

I give my own advice, I put myself in very wacky situations and I either rise above or sink below. It’s something common. It’s a reason why I conduct social experiments from time to time - changing moods, selective mutism, being completely overbearing - I love to see how people react to these radical changes in their life. It’s almost as if their day comes to a sudden stop when there is a sense of imbalance.

I can’t fault myself for being me.

Today, I felt helpless when listening to a friend of mine. He was presumably feeling the same way I was right now - self-hating, a part of the problem, alone, miscellaneous feelings that I can’t even begin to describe. But we’re different people. People have their own kinks. It’s what makes them… them. I can never stop that. All we can do is observe.

Either way, the final stretch is upon us. There are many events to come, and there are many spectacles to be had. I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but things will happen and whether I’m ready or not - they will occur.

As per tradition for the past 2 years, I (try to) write a poem on Valentine’s Day, just for the hell of it! Enjoy!

____________________________________________________________________

A year has passed, and much has been done

The lone wolf has finally found the one

The one which he so longs for

That very one which he’ll adore

———-

Forever and ever, the two may stay

That is until the time comes - when the lone wolf must go away

A new frontier calls for him very soon

The countdown begins after the month of June

———

He realizes that his time is very short

So until that day, his lover he’ll have to court

All day, every day until that fateful date

Where he must go, to become one that’s great

———

And when he returns, will he ever be the same

A constant victim of the cruel love game?

Unless the other can promise to be

His only lover, it must be her guarantee.

———

What am I supposed to do at 4:30am on Thursday?

Oh yeah - sleep. It’s too bad that I’ve suddenly been downed by major fatigue - it’s almost as if I needed another break from school.

Anyways, this post is basically a free write. I guess I could recall the events of yesterday. It started out rather okay and then slowly descended into discord.

I was just a little ticked off that someone would try to call me out for being lazy in one of my classes (which is false). I’ve been burdened by many things and I don’t see anyone but a few friends and Cassandra taking notice of that. I mean, isn’t it strange how I try to force change - only for that change to have serious repercussions?

I was incredibly snarky to a few of my friends (I humbly apologize), but then again - I needed to let out some buried thoughts. Better then letting things come to a boil in my head and experiencing a catastrophic meltdown.

Now, I don’t see myself as a mentally disabled person - sure, I have tendencies to switch emotions on the fly and assume two different personalities but that is pretty much normal to me. Other people find it very problematic because they have no proper control. My switches are triggered by various situations that happen around me, and as such - it’s either being the angelic person people assume that I am, the incredibly villainous fiend I know I can be and the weepy, fragile spark that people rarely see.

For now, it’s pretty much a struggle coping with the end of high school and the transition to young adulthood and college. I desperately wish to do things by myself now and I’m better off being away from here than living with my family. Speaking of family - I haven’t spoken to Dad since the year started. I’m not a monster, I just barely reach out to people. Like I said, being alone is something I’ve learned to cope with. Misery and isolation are things which kept me happy during high school, especially in Jamaica where people rarely liked me.

I’ve grown past that phase of wanting people to like me - it’s not like anyone really cares about an 18-year old who struggles to keep up with the demand of real life. At least I’m lucky to have found great friends - those that genuinely care.

The only thing that remains the same is the misery I’m forced to live with - that can never go away.

So it’s around 4:30am at the time of this post.

Yesterday will go down as a day where it was just continually derpy.

Woke up late, managed to throw on my gear and hustle to the train. As I reach there, I realize that I left my bag in my room - back home. I was furious as I headed back to the house with the cold assaulting my face. I was able to catch a train, but was 15 minutes late to class.

Ignoring that, I had some work that was unfinished so I spent most of the day trying to rectify those problems. I got most of my stuff done, which was good. At lunch, I was pissed because somehow, my money manages to keep disappearing from my wallet. Now I have absolutely no clue as to how this even happens - I suspect my brother, but I’ll work on that thesis some other time.

After school, I headed to Cassandra’s place, expecting to have someone to explain my horrible day. I ran into her uncle at the door of the building and after an awkward exchange, I just bailed - I decided to shoot her a few messages about it. I make it home and I’m completely spent. I fell asleep before 5pm and woke up around 11:30, just because I was hungry.

The last few minutes consisted of me trying to recall the day’s events with friends and also, tearing down my room to find an SD card with my music on it. I decided to just export the files to my other SD card because it wasn’t as memory-hogging as it was in the past.

Sure, tomorrow will be somewhat “better” - I guess I needed this week off from school too.

Here’s hoping, I guess.