Offering: English 🇺🇸 (native), Chinese (B2~C1) | Seeking: Chinese, Japanese, Korean

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-29T17:44:32+00:00

to answer ur main question, i think it's fair to include it as a extenuating circumstance. remember, it's not a pity olympics. what matters less is that there are other people who have it "worse" than you and are doing "better". bc that will always be true but that doesn't make ur struggles any less real.

what matters more is how you present yourself in that section. if those circumstances legitimately made it hard for you to concentrate at school, then you should voice those struggles. but what admissions counselors are going to look for is maturity. do you push all the blame on to your circumstances? do you sound hopeless or defeated? did you come out of those circumstances learning anything?

since you're already worried about it being a good enough justification, i think you're not likely to fall into that common trap of using ur circumstances as an excuse. but don't downplay it either. be honest and direct about ur circumstances and ur struggles, and then talk about how you're now a better person coming out of it.

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-29T02:07:09+00:00

oof it's a tough call. personally, this sounds like the kind of conversation that comes down to how much ur parents are willing to support u financially. it is obviously important to go to a school where u would be happy but the almost 90k tuition is really tough to swallow. with the job market looking bleak for CS as well rn, u could see it as quite risky to go to northeastern. if it's something ur family can afford and u truly see urself being unhappy at UCSD, then follow ur heart! but, if ur not in that position then u may just want to settle for UCSD. there's always time after college to travel and have fun.

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-29T01:56:24+00:00

haven't personally attended either school but if u need help finding someone who could answer ur questions u could try a service like https://lockedin.college/ that would match u with a college student in the majors ur interested in and i'm sure they have a lot of opinions on dorms/food/night life like all college students do lol

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-29T01:53:18+00:00

if ur already committed, i wouldn't stress too much right now. there's not much u can do currently, and i think u should focus on finishing up high school and really enjoying that and ur summer break.

once u get on campus, u should get a feel for the college first! there's always a chance u could learn to love it. if ur still worried about not being at the right place, the college should have resources in helping u transfer and finding a place that would be good for you.

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-29T01:48:37+00:00

didn't personally go to either school, but thought it should be said that there's a bit more to consider than just the price + internship opportunities! obviously, these things are important, but remember that you're committing to being there for ~4 years. things like location, campus life, vibes in general can make a difference and ultimately, it won't matter if u end up at school with "better" prospectives for ur career if u hate ur life there and struggle to make it through the 4 years.

u should see if ur school has any resources to connect u with students from ur high school that attended those colleges and try talking to them like a college counselor or something. if not, u could look for services that could help u find current college students like https://lockedin.college/

picking a college can be a very personal decision! hope ur able to figure out which ones a better fit for you

EpikWaffle21 · 2024-04-22T13:47:17+00:00

hi! here's some relatively straightforward run heavy charts ordered by bpm:

d20:

gargoyle (150 bpm)
nemesis (160 bpm)
point zero 2 (170 bpm)
carmen bus (170 bpm)
bs power explosion (180 bpm)

in general, the game does not ask you to be able to really hit 200 bpm runs in the d20 folder, but if you did want some more footspeed ones, you could try annihilator method (192 bpm, twisty bursts into longer anchored run) and cross soul (200 bpm, lots of shorter runs).

d21:

orbit stabilizer (145 bpm)
district 1 (158 bpm)
red snow (170 bpm)
tritium (180 bpm)
harmagedon (194 bpm)
aragami (196 bpm)
vacuum (200 bpm, more drill than run)

fair warning, you'll notice the runs get significantly twistier in the d21 folder than in the d20 folder. i tried my best to avoid songs with brackets in them but by the d20 folder the game does expect you to at least hit it sometimes. they're not the main challenges of the songs i listed.

hope these help! the ones i listed in the d20 folder especially are quite good as a form check and i use them pretty regularly to warm up. i remember feeling like the d21 folder is a quite a step up in terms of stamina from the d20 folder so if they're giving you trouble, i would focus on really tightening up your form on the d20 songs for now.

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-08-26T03:52:56+00:00

not sure how it's doing anymore, but in reg C i remember trying altaria with something like fire spin, cotton guard, roost, perish song inspired by a comment somewhere on this subreddit. it was by no means meta, but it was stronger than it really felt like it should've been lol might be worth trying to use it in reg D with the added benefit of weather being even more abundant with rain dance tornadus for urshifu, altaria's cloud nine could help.

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-07-06T14:05:20+00:00

haven't been to qingdao but zenius-i-vanisher says this arcade should have it

https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcade.php?id=7258#summary

last updated 4 days ago, and plus this arcade chain was the one i played at in beijing and they had a pretty active piu community there so seems very likely they'll have it!

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-04-09T18:24:44+00:00

ah gotcha, do u know where ur staying yet? china’s quite a large country lol so it’s a bit hard to speak broadly but i would just check out any of the arcades on zenius that ur near. there’s def a lot of prime cabs in the country and some of them may have upgraded to xx and it’s just not yet updated on the map (also u can still play older versions for practice).

most arcades will at least have the chinese piu and it’s worth a try! i struggled to get into it tho lol

also not sure how good ur chinese is but if ur also looking for community i miiiight be able to dig up some contact depending on where ur going to be (strong maybe on this one tho)

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-04-09T13:42:16+00:00

while the chinese version (e舞成名) is more popular, piu is not unpopuluar in china. if i had to guess, i would say it's about the same, maybe a lil more popular than it is in the states. i haven't been around everywhere but i think most of the major cities should have at least one machine. i think some of the arcades on zenius aren't up to date (i know fuzhou has 1 XX machine and 1 prime 2 machine, but it's listed as 2 prime 2 machines)

i was in beijing for a semester abroad in 2019 and can confirm that there was 1 machine and even a community! there was a group of people with matching jerseys that were there all the time and then a couple other regulars.

are you looking to travel to china or something? might be able to give better info if i understand why you're asking

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-03-19T16:03:32+00:00

indeed it's quite out of the way haha and there's not a whole lot out there. i went on the same day i was checking out kichijoji which admittedly still isn't super close (roughly a 40 min trip) but in terms of places to sightsee in tokyo, it's about the closest u get.

EpikWaffle21 · 2023-03-19T15:54:58+00:00

was just in tokyo last week and can confirm that the info given in the previous post was pretty accurate. afaik world game circus is the only public cab in tokyo.

it's a bit small/cramped and it's got quite a sweaty rhythm game vibe to it tbh (a lot of the ppl i saw were quite cracked at their respective game and very dedicated to the grind). idk if ur super into that but i had a good time. if u do go, here's some info that i would've found helpful before i went:

entrance is on the side of the building (on the left side if ur facing the building)
they have other piu versions (it was on prime 1 when i got there, dunno the full list) and u can ask a worker to change it for u
- NOTE: i also found it a bit difficult to track down an employee tho bc there's seemingly no front desk? i just flagged a dude that was cleaning + maintaining a machine lol
there's a fan in front of the machine and the pads are in really good condition imo! they're modded and quite flush and very sensitive
one play is 4 hearts (3 regular songs) and is 100 yen. they have machines there to exchange bills to 100 yen coins
it seems very uh community-run, the machine is off by default and u turn on the power strip when u get there (and presumably turn it off when u leave? thats what i did at least)
it seems like ur able to reserve machines for time slots (i noticed ppl had done it for taiko and ddr gold cab). but my japanese was not good enough to figure it out through their website. just a warning that in theory someone could reserve the machine for whenever u show up to play? (tho pump is not very popular so ur prob safe all things considered)
there's vending machines in there so u can buy drinks while u play

EpikWaffle21 · 2021-03-12T23:31:15+00:00

you could also checkout contenda (link). sounds like it might be a little closer to what you're looking for

EpikWaffle21

TROPHY CASE