Kite's Desk

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

Hello everyone!

To start, my name is Kite. I'm just your friendly neighborhood....Kite...yeah, not the kite you fly in the park. Anyway, welcome to my desk. My desk is a desk of reflection and possibly a place to ramble. It serves as my work station and also from time to time, as a soap box when I choose to get out of my chair and stand on the desk so that my words can echo through the sea of cubicles that contain the people to whom I'm trying to speak. My words may not hold wisdom, nor may they hold power, or even truth. I am no prophet, nor am I world class author. I'm a normal person like all of you (well some of you) and it is my hope that through this blog I can at least stir some sort of reaction from the community and possibly cause a few people to reflect and maybe come to some sort of minor epiphany or some jazz like that. Most of what I write will probably seem like trash to most, but believe me when I say that what I will write here is stuff that I feel is worth mentioning. The topics are limitless, spanning from our own little community here in Ultimate Shinobi, to anecdotes of my everyday life; anecdotes laced with opinions and ranting.

So then, now that that is out of the way, without further delay, let's get this show on the world!

Entry #1

Jun, 7, 2012

Meeting The Family

So as a few of you already know I currently find myself in the middle of taking a very long course of exams. This is nothing new to me, unfortunately. My exams tend to span over a course of 2-3 weeks depending on how the examination department of my University feels. Over this time I am expected to take 6 exams, which when taken together have a 100% weight on my grade for the semester. Understandably (I hope) this leaves me rather stressed. It is not uncommon for me to go days on end with little to no sleep during exam time. In fact I often find myself getting sick during exam time but all this is not the point I am trying to make here. What I am trying to say is that I am very stressed and I become a recluse during exam time.

Ordinarily I am not a social butterfly, in the real world I tend to be very reserved and I tend to stay quiet. It's me and my books against the world, after all. My nose is usually either crammed in a book or parked in front of a screen as I shoot, chop, beat up the baddies that want to destroy me and my 3 extra lives. Yeah, I'm not much of a socialite, but that is what brings me to this point. Humans are indeed social creatures. Humans crave social interaction. Even the most reserved person will have yearnings to speak or at least see other humans. Interaction is paramount to human development and is something the mind learns to want and deal with appropriately. I am human (gasp!) I crave social interaction despite my introverted nature. I still watch people, I take notice of things, I just seldom put myself into the scene. Here though, among friendly people who seem to share a common interest of mine and who all simply want to have fun and strive to become better writers, I can honestly say I feel welcomed and at home. I've only been here for a few months but I already have grown attached to US and it's community; from the staff to the other users. The atmosphere here is friendly and relaxed for the most part and it is perfect for me. This may not seem like a big epiphany to some, but it came to me during a conversation with someone from this site. During said conversation I had typed "US is pretty much my social life". Some of you may look at that statement as me being a pathetic person, but honestly with my choice of study, my current circumstances, I don't have much in the way of normal human interaction, at least not without feeling alienated, odd, and basically just overly uncomfortable for just simply being me. On US though, everyone here comes from different backgrounds, some similar to me, some different, but most here are tolerant and supportive (which is definitely not the case at my venue of education or even within my own family, but that's a story for another time).

So, after reading this someone might think "That's all well and good Kite, but what's your point? You're rambling worse than my Alzheimer stricken grandfather!" Well my friend, my point is that in this short time of being exposed to the community, I truly feel connected to it. I'd dare say that somewhere along my stay here some of these people have genuinely become near and dear to me and I can only hope that it either remains that way or gets even better. This place is great in my opinion and I just felt it needed to be said and explained from the perspective of a once lonely Kite.

So this blog entry is dedicated the US community for being awesome and for becoming like the family I never had. Thanks guys, you are awesome!

Age : 29 Posts : 796

Posts : 36

I know that feel bro.

Well, not for US, as I'm still pretty new here. But I've made some friends and I hope I get accepted into the community

Good luck with your exams Kite's Desk 287405

Age : 31 Posts : 8965

Waiting for the second entry. Aww yeah

Age : 29 Posts : 4301

Adam wrote:: Waiting for the second entry.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

Entry #2

Jun, 11, 2012

Part of Their World.

As I sit here in front of the computer screen, thinking of something to write for my next blog entry my mind keeps coming back to an issue that I feel needs to be said. Now in all honesty I didn't want to blog about this but the thought is intrusive and reoccurring. It is more relentless than a psycho ex who won't stop stalking you and calling you every other day to tell you how much they miss you and how they'll change. Now some of you may be wondering what this issue is and why I don't want to write about it. Basically the issue is the relationship between user base and staff and how I feel the staff catches a lot of undue flak from the community, or doesn't get their fare share of praise and appreciation. Now if you are a cynical soul who thinks that such an entry is nothing more than shameless ass kissing I would suggest that you leave this section of the forum until my next entry. By all means you are welcome to stay and read and even comment, good or bad (I don't care I won't take it personally) but I'm just giving you warning that you probably won't like what you are about to read. So here I go...

While it may or may not be news to some of you I think it is worth mentioning my connection to the staff. For a brief period during my second month on the site I was given a trial period to become a moderator for the site, placing my name up along the likes of Celene, Enzo, Brett, and all the other moderators (MODERATORS NOT ADMIN) of this fair site. Now then, why am I not there? Well to put it bluntly, I didn't want it back then. I was getting ready for exams, I was just starting off my RP career (I had only been RPing for 3 months at the time) and it all was quickly becoming an overwhelming and daunting task to take all this responsibility. In short, I turned it down after a week on the job with a less than stellar performance. A lot of feelings were (arguably) hurt and there was a fair share of disappointment on both sides but I had to do what I had to do to keep myself afloat. This leads me to my next point...

Staff are people too. I know many of you know this already but there are a few out there who either seem to forget this or at the very least disregard this, pushing their own expectations on the staff of US. Now I'm no saint, I have done this too and I will probably continue to do this at times, it is a very easy thing to do, unfortunately. The staff are a group of people who, on a voluntary basis, take up the responsibilities to keep this site rolling as smoothly as possible. There is a lot of deliberation that takes place on a wide variety of issues. Everything to weapon kits and items to bloodlines and events. Nothing gets over looked or swept under the rug. These issues do take plenty of time to sort out though so it may create the illusion that the staff is not dealing with things.

Now you may be asking "Well Kite, how the hell do you know all this? Aren't you just a normal hum-drum-run-of-the-mill-average-joe-blow user like me?" Well yes and no. I am very much average as we all know, but you are very very special and unique and we love you. But me, being average, have sat in a few discussions with staff. I have watched them work. I have offered my input on things from a user perspective, or at the very least, my perspective. Now most of my ideas are turned down, but every once in a blue moon I can offer a rare nugget of gold that the staff genuinely likes and seriously considers. This is the process though and nothing gets done in a day. The staff here take good care to make sure their work doesn't infringe on already established architecture and if it does, they take even more care in carefully deconstructing the old architecture rather than throwing something on top of an old system. They want things simple, fair, and fun (as long as the fun doesn't destroy the first two descriptives). The process is a good one but it does take time.

Aside from the staff discussing all these issues there is unfortunately the reoccuring issues of REAL LIFE (OooOoOoOOoH spooky). Yeah, the staff have lives outside of US too and we have seen the effects it has on both Staff and the US community. Some things can't be helped and some things can't be planned. What may have initially been planned as a week absence may turn into a month or two. This obviously isn't good but it can't really be helped, shit happens man. Everyone here should be able to identify with this. Sometimes the dice roll your way, you're on top of the world and other times things get hard and your priorities need to be re-examined. As such when something like this happens the process understandably slows down.

Now with all that said there is one other thing I want to say: The staff isn't here for themselves. Well not completely. The staff enjoys writing and RPing and they enjoy having a community of awesome people like yourselves but honestly the staff works to make this site better for everyone. When they make choices it isn't to satisfy their ego. It isn't to cause drama. It isn't to keep you down and it isn't limit you (not directly). They want things simple, fair, and fun and they are constantly working toward that end so that US can be an enjoyable place where writers and RPers of all levels of skill can come in and feel welcomed and are free to improve their skillz (yes I use a "z" for skillz, whatcha goin' ta do?).

So where am I going with this? It's not hard to see what I'm trying to say. Staff are people and running this site takes a great deal of time. Now are they perfect? Hell no. Is there room for improvement? Yes, most definitely. Do I have an opinion on what can be done? Sure I do, but I also am aware of why some of my suggestions wouldn't work or be ideal. Perhaps in the future I will go more into detail about these things but for now I just wanted to drive home the point: STAFF ARE PEOPLE. People have lives and problems and thoughts and egos and stuff like that that makes people hard to understand. So really if there's an issue rather than possibly cry about how bad the staff is, maybe try to understand that the staff is here for you guys and possibly throw them a thank you and show them some appreciation. From what I've seen, being a staffer is a rather stressful position and it never helps to have others attack them. A little praise goes a long way.

With all that in mind: US Staff, consider this my small way of thanking you guys for your hard work. It is very much appreciated and you guys are pretty cool people and I'd go out drinking with you guys any time (Even though I don't drink o.o).

P.S.

As I said, if you find this to be an ass kissing post I apologize for wasting your time. You didn't have to read it and you were warned. Go ahead and leave your hate comments if you got em, I won't mind.

As I said earlier, I will at some point get into what I perceive to be the user's side of things (or at the very least my side of things with "complaints" against the staff) but for now I just wanted to offer a pat on the back to the staff and wish them all well with their endeavors and let them know how cool they all are as people, not just the US staff that tries to run things (though I do think they do an awesome job at that too).

So till next time take care everyone. I'll try not to hurt myself as I climb down from my desk.

Also I know this isn't one of my better works in terms of writing. It was a hard topic to write about and I'm still relatively high in sleep debt due to exams. I do apologize.

Posts : 1216

ASS KISSING PIECE OF SHIT! Kite's Desk 287405

Nah. I agree. I've been up there and even owned a site at one point. Shit gets difficult mayne. I like reading these little entrees. They like are delicious! But these entries do let me sit back and read something while trying to relieve boredom or stay awake. Keep it up bro. :thumpsup:

Age : 29 Posts : 4301

Kiseki wrote:: ASS KISSING PIECE OF SHIT!

It brought a tear to my penis...
Sad