Aion used to be one of the few games I considered getting the Collector's Edition for just to commemorate what I imagined would be the start of a game I would play for years to come, back when I had money. Even if I had the money I'd feel like a complete idiot for getting suckered into buying that, I know I'd regret it. I wish I had bought the Collector's Edition of Resi 5 instead. Well, apart from the fact that the European one sucked. The Escapist : Forums : Gaming Discussion : Resident Evil 5 Collectors Edition; a perfect visual analogy of how Europeans keep getting screwed

I guess I'll go back to my usual philosophy of "Collector's Editions are never worth it." Hell I don't even care about having the box most of the time either. Spoken like a true pirate! I think I'll go fund terrorism now.

I can't get over how ugly that statue is. What's with the ugly hair and huge black appendages and mixing orange with purple... and then of course, the super light lilac bikini bottom thing.

You know, when I buy stuff, I'm a sucker for collector's editions. But this one... this ones a little easier.

Anyway, I understand your situation better. For now, I recommend you take some courses at a local community college to discover what your passions really are. Make sure to take classes that you can bring in with you as transferrable credit to a wide number of future universities you might want to attend. If you can, try to get into a ladder school that will ensure your transfer is as quick and painless as possible. Times are tough so the whole strapped for cash thing I understand, but still pursue your interests and self-betterment, if you can.

Don't mind the course structure. You might not like it in the beginning, but that's life, you know. I'm going to go all Full Metal Alchemist on you and say that's the Principle of Equivalent Exchange. Because that's what life is. A series of tradeoffs. Every gain should come with a sacrifice.

Anyway, you've probably heard that a million times before so I'm damned sure you don't want to hear it again and I'm probably ****ing you off ( I would be ) so I'll just cut it off there.

In closing...

Celestin is not crazy. Prove Celestin is crazy! You can't do it, can you!

Kismmeetttt defend poor Celestin from mean Lunais!

I also <3 Minami-ke.

Also, Selvaria, you're a crazy *****, but I <3 you too. I promise your massive ****ies have nothing to do with it.

Universities offer a variety of supplementary credit. There are limits of course, to how many you can apply, but you can get credit for all sorts of stuff. AP ( American advanced high school classes that can be applied as college credit ), work study ( work relates to what you are supposed to be learning ), transfer ( from a different school ) and the best one of all, independent study ( lets you freely transfer credits between courses, study independently with teacher supervision, more on this later ). The general idea is you need to jump through a certain set of hoops, but how you jump through that set of hoops is generally up to you so if there's a high level of association between classes, schools will let you switch around.

Independent study is just do what you want, but to get credit, you have to get a teacher signature. I used about four of these to transfer credits from my electives into core. One particularly flagrant exploitation was using 199 to retake arts 50 for credit a second time. Arts 50 kind of cycles topics every quarter, so I took it one quarter, then took it again two quarters later, applied for 199 on the premise that the classes were sufficiently different while still related to my minor to be reapplied, and had my arts 50 applied to arts 60 I think. I also had an engineering lab 199'd to a computer science lab.

You can call on Kismet all you want, but she agrees with me, I think. We back each other up in the 'Celestin is crazy' argument.

The problem with University is that I don't want to go there if I am just doing a course I have no enthusiasm for and fail at. We have too little money in the family to indulge in flights of fancy like that. I really do want to go to University, but I've already wasted so much cash and other people's time that I don't want to mess up what is essentially a very lucky second-chance for me. I actually would like to do a course offered at my Uni which is a mixture of Business Management and Psychology, but to get into that I need to get into Psychology as part of Science department, then hopefully when I am in ask them if they can let me do Psychology as a Social Science which means I can also do Business Management. My friend who already does Psychology at that Uni says that with most of the courses once you are in the University you can switch to somewhat similar ones, just as long as you are already in there and keeping up.

I guess the fact I couldn't do the course structure I wanted straight off the bat (grades weren't high enough) has been a bit disheartening, I'm not 100% sure they'll let me change, which means in that case they'll want me to do Psychology and two other science subjects, which would really be awful for me. Perhaps in this case not going at all would be better than acting spoiled about it and 'just trying anyway'.

No, not one of those popular kids.

To be fair, I went to Winter Formal, and based off of my experiences on Winter Formal, decided not to go to prom.

I think my exact words to him were along the lines of "It'll cost you around $200 ( tickets, corsage, suit, transportation, after prom events ) so I guess prom is worth it only if you consummate, ala American Pie. So think of it as your first prostitute."

WTF CELESTIN IS NOT MESSED UP. I am very well adjusted and am plenty popular enough. Whatever could make you doubt that for a second!? Kismet! Where are you!? I need you to defend my slightly wounded pride.

But seriously, how is a future where you jump off a tall building better than a couple of moments of discomfort / lack of enthusiasm leading into a potentially better future? Trust Celestin on this one, university is something you don't want to miss out on. You will level up, increase your base stats, acquire new skills, leave with a new perspective on life and likely find yourself in debt. Also, you'll feel compelled to send your children to college which will likely negate a significant amount of the additional income a degree will earn you. But, my friend, progress has but one direction and that is forward. Forward, ever forward, and that is the direction uni will send you on.

No more edits. Feel free to reply. Have work anyway.

Since when did you have a little brother? Is he popular enough to actually get y'know...a date? Is he one of those popular kids? If so he should go to the Prom. If not then screw it, it's lame. I didn't go to our version of 'prom' and look how I turned out! I'm a well-adjusted, bright, optimistic young individual with plenty of potential and a determination to make it somewhere in life. But seriously, I'm curious about your brother; is he as messed up as you?

The way you pull out your Polearm was pretty cool, I kinda spun it around myself and then did a menacing pose with it. After that though you just seem to swing it around like its kinda heavy and slash at things.

Screw College, I get the distinct feeling I'm just gonna fail again at it. It's worth a shot, sure, but I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for it. Probably gonna end up as an Office Grunt for the rest of my life at this rate. The thought of having to put with 'normal' co-workers who ask me on 'nights-out' and talk about soccer/what they saw on 'telly' last night/that HILARIOUS YouTube about people jizzing in their pants (3 years too late)...it's enough to make me wanna jump off a tall building already.

Am I evil? My little brother just asked me if he should go to prom. I gave him the pros and cons, told him it generally wasn't worth it, by the time he's two years into college most people in serious majors laugh at prom...

Oh and that he should think of it as his first prostitute.

Polearms are more satisfying than dual wield

Especially if they are all Asian about the polearms and have those fancy stances and whatnot e.g. Ether Saga.

Understood about the life sucks part. Go back to college already :P

In my experience Dual Wield almost always is the best option in games. Particularly Dual Wield geared towards fast attacks. Poor Polearms don't get a look in so much.

Sorry I haven't got round to the e-mail yet, I've been in a bad mood lately (perhaps fed-up is a more appropriate term) and I'm willing to bet given the chance to do so I'd start whining at length, which no one wants to hear. Hope things are well on your end.

Hmmm... sounds good. Maybe I'll try AION when the game actually gets to coming out after all. I don't know.

AND YES. POLEARMS ARE FREAKING AWESOME. I don't even know why because in a lot of games, polearms usually suck. Most of the time, because polearms are always two-handed, you have to give up a substantial chunk of defense. And then you either want really quick weapons for a constant stream of DPS or you want a really slow weapon for bursty DPS. But polearms always seem to walk the middle line, being neither slow or fast and usually just get passed up by better alternatives...

But there's just something about Pauline-chan. I mean polearms. I sometimes name polearms Pauline. Pauline-chan the polearm.

Just kidding. But I / you totally should.