Author: Ajay Peter Manuel

Aspiring writer and comic book artist lost in his imagination and stories.

5-Minute Dungeon & Kittens in a Blender – Crowd Pleasers – Board Games Review

I have been an avid board games fan since childhood. My father introduced me to the classic collection of board games including Chess, Snakes & Ladders, Checkers, Ludo etc. These board game sessions would often involve all the members of my family. Thus, it comes as no surprise that my favorite genre of board games would be those that were easy-to-play crowd pleasers.

In that category, I have to give a shout out to a good friend and colleague of mine who introduced me to 5-Minute Dungeon & Kittens in a Blender, two spectacularly fun board games that I intend to review today!

5-Minute Dungeon

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5-Minute Dungeon is a co-op, real-time card game, and a chaotic one at that where players are provided five minutes to defeat the monsters and boss of a randomized dungeon and escape.

While this may sound like any other “beat the monster” game, what makes 5-Minute Dungeon fun is that communication and teamwork are critical to the survival of the party especially when there’s no actual time to form a plan or predict the dangers that may lie ahead. The randomized dungeon monsters prove a strong obstacle where one may even completely fail to reach the boss level. The game involves a lot of thinking on your feet.

If I were to put the two scenarios that are usually provided for those interested in playing the game:

(1) The smaller your party, the less randomized your obstacles become, the easier it is to strategize on your feet under a time limit, with the caveat that crossing certain obstacles eventually become an impossibility (without a strong hand in luck).

(2) The larger your party, the more randomized your obstacles become, the more difficult it is to strategize on your feet under a time limit, with the caveat that it is easier to succeed in the obstacles, even though failure is a persistent presence at every turn.

Two of the ten character slots that can be assumed by players,  and each with their special skills. 

The gameplay is quite simple. Players generally assume the role of one of ten heroes, each holding special abilities and cards. Once the timer (5 min. limit) starts, you and your motley crew of wizards, thieves, and warriors etc. race to defeat all the monsters inside the dungeon.

Defeating a monster involves matching symbols from the hand with ones on the monster’s card. If you are successful in clearing the monsters in the dungeon, the game is by no means over, as a powerful dungeon boss awaits in the end. The players must then use their remaining hands to defeat the dungeon boss. If your hands fall short of the conditions to beat the boss, you restart the dungeon. Thus, you have to think and communicate with the other members of your party to have a balanced hand leading into the final battle. After the first boss is defeated, your adventures continue onward in the next dungeon and so on to the second boss. The timer is reset at each cycle, and every subsequent dungeon gets harder (there are a total of five dungeons to clear).

The game is pure fun, and very entertaining. Repetitive failures at clearing a dungeon do not lower the entertainment factor thanks to the randomized nature of the obstacles (via the shuffling of the cards). Finding balance within your party is mighty important. While taking inspiration from expansive RPG board games like Dungeons & Dragons, 5-Minute Dungeon provides its own twist in a faster, and chaotic gaming environment. Just beware that the game can turn into a shout-fest the longer it lasts and the larger your party, so make sure to have a warm drink nearby for a game that may inevitably result in a sore throat from all the laughter and shouting.

Kittens in a Blender

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This is a twisted game especially if one considers themselves a kitten lover. Another fast-paced card game, Kittens in a Blender, is pretty much exactly how it sounds and has players working to save all their own kittens from a gruesome ending. Victory is defined by saving one’s precious litter of kittens but can also come with the caveat of losing a few to the blender! The objective is to save one’s own kittens while sending your opponents’ kittens to the blender.

The game-play is very simple with players taking turns to move, switch, and discard their kittens, as well as their opponents’ either to the doom they await in The Blender, the temporary neutral-zone that is The Counter, or the safe hamlet of The Box. What makes it interesting is that players can just as easily transfer their opponents’ kittens from The Box to either The Counter or The Blender while simultaneously saving their own. This is pretty much the aggravation factor in the game.

Blend cards can be used to destroy the kittens in The Blender, saving the kittens in The Box, and moving the kittens on The Counter into The Blender (which can be countered by another player’s Blend “Pulse” card). All in all, you get to direct your hatred toward the opponent of choice or just go all out and wreak havoc on just about everyone including your own kittens.

Alongside a variety of other cards including “Kittens in the Blender”, “The Box to the Blender” and many more there is a compendium of actions that make the game a hoot. The game ends when all 16 of the Blend cards have been played. Players count the number of saved kittens (+2 points) and blended kittens (-1 point), with the highest score being the winner.

Best of all, the box states, “A portion of the proceeds will be donated to a no kill cat shelter.”

For those board game fans among my readers, I would highly suggest these two games for an entertaining night at home or at your nearest board-game cafe.

 

Book Review: The Dark Lord Trilogy

My first experience of a Star Wars movie was Return of the Jedi. I was quite young, and with little to zero knowledge of the English language. Nevertheless, George Lucas’ creativity, and the seemingly expansive world of Star Wars with its magnificent Star Destroyers, exotic planets and alien species, the imposing Darth Vader, and the pure awesomeness of lightsabers got me hooked. I have remained a fan of the franchise ever since.

Star Wars The Dark Lord Trilogy was an engrossing experience that revisited events surrounding my favorite movie of the prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith. The book is in fact a combination of three novels: Labyrinth of Evil, Revenge of the Sith, and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader.

While the book is not necessarily considered to be fully canon (excluding the novelization of Revenge of the Sith) in the present state of the franchise, the volume as a whole offers a unique perspective for the reader into the struggles of the “hero with no fear” Anakin Skywalker, his fall, and subsequent evolution into the dark lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.

Having watched the animated Clone Wars series (2003 and 2008 versions) I initially didn’t expect to be surprised (in terms of content) by the book. Having now completed the volume, I  can say I was sorely mistaken.

Knowing what is to come in Revenge of the Sith adds a sense of emergency throughout James Luceno’s Labyrinth of Evil. The Labyrinth of Evil provides an in-depth perspective of the epic chain of events leading into the last days of the Republic and the inevitable fall of the Jedi Order. Luceno takes the audience deeper into the pysche of the prominent players of the stage including fan-favorites Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Master Yoda, Padme Amidala, and many more as they walk towards their irrevocable fates in Revenge of the Sith. The events play out through the thoughts of the characters rather than as standalone observations adding greater depth and personality to the encounter.

“The circle is now complete” in Stover’s Revenge of the Sith where our heroes meet their  inenvitable downfall. As readers, we are left to wonder what could have been had certain plot threads met their rightful end but these thoughts are drowned amid the torrent of emotions that surround Anakin Skywalker: fear, guilt, betrayal, trust, friendship, and love, and leaving him the burned and mutilated husk of a man eventually reborn as Darth Vader. 

“You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself…and now your self is all you will ever have.”

“The hero with no fear” is an ironic moniker for Anakin Skywalker as throughout the events of his life leading up to his fall, he lives very much in fear, and rightfully so. Anakin’s childhood as a slave, his love for his lost mother, and wife Padme Amidala, alongside an uncertain future where he perceives the loss of his loved ones, are the instruments of his fall and the crux of his fears. Yet, it is those very same fears that make him who he is, a human.

Master Yoda’s perception and neglect of this basic fact, and the Jedi Council’s twisted interpretation of human emotion run contradictory to their own attachments to the Republic. Consequently, the fall of the Jedi becomes a foregone conclusion and to the readers, a deserving end to an order that had become stale, ignorant, and self-absorbed in its own search and control of power.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Anakin is reborn in the fires of Mustafar as the newly christened Darth Vader. Despite the various “machinations” that he now dons as the impregnable Dark Lord of the Sith, the final story of the volume, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, covers Anakin’s misconceptions, enduring guilt, self-doubt, and his true rise as “the hero with no fear.” With his rise, the Jedi endure a humbling transition under the hand of the galaxy’s ruthless new Emperor and his dreaded right hand, Darth Vader.

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The Dark Lord Trilogy is a must-read for all Star Wars fans alike. A tale of epic proportions, the stories add even more perspective to the classic space opera that is Star Wars.  While I would not suggest the novella for the newly initiated, the rich literature of the Star Wars universe beckons you forth to a galaxy far, far, away.

You can get started with this guide on the now defunct expanded universe which remains the source of Disney’s inspirations for current Star Wars products.

Trinkets from the ’90s

We all have a To-Do List, and every time we make one, there is always something that we inevitably push off to the end. In my case, it was cleaning up the storage room in my apartment.

After months of “surface” organization, I got off my lazy ass this week and put in some real time. Having accumulated an array of materials from when I had first begun my undergraduate studies (and prior), what was expected to be a painful process turned out to be very enjoyable.

Among the mislabeled cardboard and storage boxes, I found an assortment of items that served as references to various trinkets from the ’90s and early 2000s (my childhood and teenage years) in what now seems to be a lost time.

I was hard-pressed to choose my top 10 favorites (in no particular order) in what I found. For those readers among my audience who were born in the ’90s (and possibly earlier) I hope we share common grounds in relating to these memories.

(1) Dial-Up Internet & MSN Messenger

The iconic screeching sounds of connecting (and re-connecting) to the World Wide Web so that I could chat with my friends via MSN Messenger after school is an enduring memory. I used MSN Messenger up till 2011 (when I was in the second year of my undergraduate studies at university) by which point it was done and dusted and Facebook had taken over.

(2) Trackballs/Boxed Computers/Floppy Disks

My family had one shared PC system hosting Windows XP and man was it the hoot to get some game time on it. The trackballs would get broken often and replacements were a frequent necessity. Floppy disks were the fashion while I was in elementary school, and it wasn’t until middle school (around 2006) that I got my hands on CDs (700 MB were certainly big storage back then), but it wouldn’t be long till  the USBs (and the GIGA-bytes) came into fashion.

(3) Cassette Players/Discman

On that vein, I would carry cassette players and discman all the way up to my early high-school years. These were the bomb, and unlike my first I-pod which seemed so fragile, these looked like they could withstand anything (and on many occasions, did).

(4) Boxed Television

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Not much different from the boxed computers. Boxed TVs were the fashion in my family until only very recently. In fact, the basement I lived in a few years ago, had a boxed TV that was compatible with my PS3. The graphics, on the other hand, were certainly not.

(5) 240p/360p

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Kids these days make too much of a fuss for videos that lack 1080p resolution. Back in my days, 144p was the king. Our eyes never really necessitated the measurement of focusing on resolution until the culture of pixel diversity kicked in.

(6)  Siruvar Malar

A callback to my childhood in India, I grew up reading the Tamil counterpart of what were children’s newspapers/comics. These magazines were my weekly entertainment and would be delivered with the Friday newspapers. The magazines would be peppered with folktales, crossword puzzles, brain twisters, and just about everything that made a kid happy. My grandfather collected over thousands of these magazines in what was a treasure trove of memories that I shared with him in my childhood. I can certainly attribute the origin of my aspirations to become a writer and comic-book artist to these magazines.

(7) Spinning Tops /Beyblade

In my hometown of Madurai, India, you weren’t a cool kid if you didn’t know how to spin a top. I would spend many hours learning the art, much of which initially involved slamming the top on the ground, before eventually becoming a street master. Dueling tops in my childhood in the ’90s would later transform into my love for Beyblade in the early 2000s.

(8) Slap Bracelets + Tazos

While I didn’t get to wear a watch frequently, I did get to wear these slap bracelets  along with a few of my “bracelet buddies” throughout my middle school days in the early 2000s. I would also host a gigantic collection of tazos during the Nintendo Pokemon craze of that time period. My family lived in Egypt back then, and unfortunately, my mother would throw the tazos away prior to our departure from the country. Despite their loss, I will always remember the memorable fights I had with my younger sister bargaining between Pokemon tazos as we became Lays chips (through which they were promoted) junkies.

(9) Multicolored Pens

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As a kid, I felt a certain amount of authority after buying a multicolored pen, especially when I had been frequently told that red/green/blue colored pens could only be utilized by teachers! These pens were just that cool. Even now, I would love to buy one just for the sake of it.

(10) Simpler Pleasures

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In conclusion, I got my storage sorted out, and in return inherited a flood of nostalgia on the simple pleasures that is my experience of the ’90s and early 2000s.

Living in the Past, ’96: A Movie Review

This post is a first for me as it is a review of a 2018 Tamil film which made waves in my home state of Tamil Nadu, India upon its release. Having watched the movie only recently, and being a Tamil movie enthusiast, I was left wondering how I had missed it at all.

’96 is a romantic drama starring prominent Kollywood actors Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles of Ram and Jaanu, two high school sweethearts from the 1996 batch meeting again at a reunion, 22 years after their initial parting.

The plot progresses periodically between episodes of Ram and Jaanu’s past in 1996 when they were classmates in high school and fell in love, to their present state 22 years later. Their reunion, and subsequent interactions in coming to terms with their present lives form the crux of the film in an excellent eulogy capturing the nostalgia of first-love, the inevitability of time, and the power of memories.

A movie succeeds when it is able to make its audience part of its story.  Unlike most movies where I have played the classic part of the audience as a third-party individual looking in at the protagonists’ journey from a removed space, ’96 offered a refreshing and unique experience where I felt drawn into the world of Ram and Jaanu as though I were one of their close friends relating with their journey.

This is achieved largely through the original background score  of ’96. The music is evocative, providing  a unique dialogue that embraces the subtle emotions and silence reflected in the company of the protagonists, while simultaneously transcending the story by drawing the audience into their journey.

Indeed, Ram and Jaanu’s experiences reminded me of my very own efforts in writing Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir as well as A Little Bit of Everything. Both books were motivated by my desires to capture and immortalize cherished memories from high school and the last few years of my life. The fundamental themes of love, memories, the inexorable passage of time, and the very act of remembering and living in the past as evidenced by the characters in the movie touched me deeply and served as an additional reminder of my personal life resolution to “cherish the memories of the past, live the present, and happily anticipate the future.”

I learned this lesson in the company of a tragic event in my life. It has helped me since to become stronger as an individual in making my future by remembering the past that builds my present and appreciating the subtle and simple things that I often tend to take for granted in my day to day adventures. 

Ram and Jaanu face those very same questions and find their answers in ’96. I leave it to you, my readers, to find out their journey’s end and be inspired to engage in your own drive down memory lane. ’96 joins the prestigious group of a select set of movies that have come from the Tamil film industry that I believe transcend its culture and language. I highly recommend the film for all my readers as it is readily available on Youtube, Google Play, or Einthusan.

2019: The year in review

2019 was a roller-coaster ride, and it is now time to turn the page toward a new year. The ups and downs of 2019 have served to motivate my goals and aspirations, both of which share a common origin in the personal progress my life has witnessed thus far. The ride as a whole stabilized around November, providing me a chance to catch my breath, and get set for what I hope will be a much smoother 2020.

2019 arrived at a crossroads in various facets of my life involving my family, friends, and my career aspirations. Moving into 2020, I have about 1.5 years to go in completing my doctoral degree. 2020 also marks the continuation of a personal and introspective dialogue that has helped me come to terms with who I am as an individual, and who I wish to become in the future. 

Looking back, 2019 taught me an important lesson in being careful to not spread myself too thin in my efforts.  I had to set aside my “pen” and give myself time to contemplate in solitude. For so long, I had perceived said course of action to be foolish and of no use. 2019 and Yoda proved me wrong.

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I needed to be patient enough to first settle my doubts and misgivings before jumping on the irresistible bandwagon that included my lofty dreams and aspirations. I needed to ground myself in reality, and be a little more practical in my approach lest I go crazy with stress. More so, I had to learn to avoid being overly critical of myself which on many occasions led to frustrating results in my writing, and just about everything else, along with a veritable lack of confidence.

The last few months have served as personal rehabilitation. I took a step back, and relaxed. Occasional road-trips helped as well. Altogether, I let life sink in, and every now and then, pondered over the nagging doubts, slowly overcoming my insecurities while solidifying my personal vision for my future. With 2020 at my doorstep, I spent much of December gradually organizing the blue-print for a committed, productive, and practical schedule in my full-time pursuit of a career in writing.

I find writing to be a dynamic activity, and one that is heavily influenced by the writer’s state of mind and day-to-day experiences. What I needed to find was balance in my personal life (as well as share and help my family understand the ensuing changes, the toughest part of it all)  and 2019 has been a resounding success in that measure. So, having accomplished this, what exactly do I have in mind for 2020?

I love writing but I’m also too stubborn to give up my love for science. My efforts will thus take me toward a serious pursuit of a career “sun-lighting” as a science writer, and “moon-lighting” as  an aspiring author/comic-book artist. The Pensive Reverie  has provided me the chance to share my thoughts and opinions with my friends and followers around the world on a variety of topics. I hope to expand that empire of mine while focusing The Pensive Reverie as a hub where I can discuss my interests as an aspiring author/comic-book artist: comic books, book reviews, writing, poetry, anime, art and animation.

Meanwhile, I intend to gradually build a separate audience for The Procrastinating Scientist which will cover my interests as a science writer. While it doesn’t seem like much in the outset, there is a lot involved on both these fronts and I will do my best to post regular updates while fencing with my doctoral studies. With that being said, I wish everyone and all a very…

Retro Gaming: NES Classic Edition Review

My first experience of a video-game involved assisting a prince, hailing from Persia, on his mission to defeat his enemies and reunite with his beloved princess (third-wheeling taken to the next level). I achieved this while sitting on a plastic chair in a makeshift computer room built out of the lobby of our rental home in India. Not too shabby for a kid.

In retrospect, I count myself lucky that my parents were able to afford a computer, albeit secondhand, with such technology being a luxurious commodity in the neighborhood we lived in (this was around the early ’90s). A few years later, my parents would purchase their own home, and following my eighth birthday my father would gift me a SEGA Genesis Console. The console came with several game cartridges detailed with vibrant pictures and game titles.

Each cartridge supposedly held 1000000 titles. For a kid who loved video games, this was jackpot. I was awestruck. I realized that even if I were to play all day long, I could never finish all the games. Instead, I decided to finish them one at a time. Sadly enough, the console itself wouldn’t last the challenge, crapping out a few months down the road. A decade later, I realized that this console was a bootleg version of the original. I should have known better especially since the 1000000 titles in 1 cartridge was pure hogwash, but 1000000 repetitions of the same 30 games (I have to give props to the varying permutations they used to make it seem that there were actually 1000000 games).

A perfect April Fool’s gift for your kid…I wonder if my father had been planning the same. 

None of the games even belonged to the SEGA platform but instead originated from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console, otherwise known as the Family Computer or Famicom. Fast-forward to 2019, I would go on to purchase the small bundle that is the NES Classic Edition. Sold at a very reasonable price, the miniature version of the original Famicom, comes loaded with 30 classic Nintendo games (I made sure) in what is a retro blast from the past.

The original NES as launched in 1985 (Left), and the NES Classic Edition (Right) released in 2016.

My father once stated that I would eventually grow out of video games. He was partly correct. My current half-life playing a game on a console/PC is about 30-45 minutes before my brain switches off. It wasn’t the same with these classics though.

In modern gaming, one has the option to selectively spawn at particular levels and save their progress through a game. Things weren’t the same in the ’90s, where failure in a game literally meant you start again from square one. I’m guessing those countless failures contributed to my inherently stubborn nature to successfully finish any job that I’ve started be it household cleaning to actual experiments in the lab.

In that sense, the NES Classic Edition, provides a bout of nostalgia for all the 80’s and early 90’s kids who wish to re-indulge in the fantasy worlds that made our childhood. An added bonus is offered in tempering our unchecked anger when our character fails a jump and falls under the screen only to resurface back at Level 1.

Yeah…not gonna make that one alright. 

The NES Classic Edition remains available largely through Amazon for 100 USD (make sure to purchase the ones distributed by Nintendo and not by other third-party distributors) which offers the lowest price rates compared to other retail outlets such as BestBuy, GameStop, or Walmart.

Along with the classic NES controller (extension cords have to be bought in addition), the NES Classic Edition does offer a few updates. One can now save the game using suspend points with four slots allotted for each game, thus allowing one to save a perfect run for as long as it lasts with no danger of losing your progress. My personal favorite feature of the NES Classic Edition console is the option to switch between three different display filters:

  • CRT Filter: makes your display similar to that of an old TV, with its characteristic scan lines.
  • 4:3 Filter: the original NES game look
  • Pixel Perfect: each pixel is displayed as a perfect square providing a vision of the game exactly as it was to be visualized.

So, for those “old-time” gamers in my audience, and for those who are just as much interested in having a peek at the ’80s and early ’90s gaming landscape, give the NES Classic Edition a try.  It is no E.T. (the game) so I can guarantee you will enjoy it! For those who swing with SEGA or PlayStation, the classic variants for these consoles have also been released with preloaded representative games of their genre.

All in all, my review of the NES Classic Edition console is 5/5 in what is a fun ride through the past, and perfect for passing time during that lazy afternoon over the weekend.

Movie Review: Joker

First of all, I would like to state that this will be a SPOILER-FREE review. With audiences still pouring in, and only a week since its initial release on October 4, 2019, I felt it best to be tight-lipped about the details and instead provide a general outlook on how my movie experience turned out to be.

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As you all know by now, I’m a huge comic-book fan. My loyalties lean toward DC though I also enjoy several titles from Marvel and the MCU. Among the pantheon of DC and Marvel superheroes and villains, Batman and Joker rank as my favorites.

The Joker has been brought to life on the big-screen via the acting chops of several actors including Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill (voice-acting), Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and now in Joker, Joaquin Phoenix. Being a huge fan of Ledger’s work in The Dark Knight and after the promising trailer for Todd Phillip’s Joker, I had some pretty high expectations walking into the theater.

Joker met my expectations and even more. In short, Joaquin Phoenix hit it out of the park. Two hours later, as the credits swung over the screen, I couldn’t help but feel elated about revisiting some of the best titles in the Joker compendium, many of which served as subtle inspirations for various elements in the movie.

Joker does not match the present stereotype of popular action-oriented comic book movies and is vastly different in the portrayal of its pivotal character compared to The Dark Knight. Phoenix’s performance serves more as a character study of a super-villain, whose psyche has thus far been explored at least in the context of movie adaptations, from the perspective of his rival, the Batman. This trope is overturned in the Joker where we get a tour-de-force of his psyche in what can only be described, as Batman himself put it in The World’s Finest, “With the Joker, expect the unexpected.”

Joker presents a world in limbo largely framed within the closets of Arthur Fleck’s unhinged mind. It is a world where truth and falsity, reality and illusion all coexist making the audience’s perception of the character vary wildly from pity, remorse, fear, and a certain sense of justice. These emotions are further amplified by Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker as a reflection of the society in what serves to be a glorious “killing joke” of Arthur Fleck’s descent into insanity.

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While it still remains up in the air if this particular rendition of the Joker will carry over into the DCEU, its a promising run of the major titles that DC have released with Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Joker is a must-watch for all comic book and neutral fans alike. In my humble opinion, Joker ranks on par with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (though in very different ways) and is an enthralling, curious, transcending, and riveting journey and study of one of the most iconic super-villains ever created in popular culture.

My Rating: 4.5/5

To be Continued…

“Saying is one thing; doing is another.”

I spent the last few months in what amounted to a roller-coaster ride “parallel processing” all the variables that regulate my present life, and those I must now consider for my future.

I’m a guy who likes to live in the moment and not have to think too far ahead so, obviously, this was a problem. The floodgates opened with a series of conversations at work after I had successfully completed my candidacy examination.

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I was perfectly poised at the halfway point of my PhD degree, and on a near-constant basis, caught up in various conversations revolving around a necessity to plan ahead and begin setting the foundations for my career aspirations.

While much of the advice I received was in good spirit, it was quite overwhelming to take in all at once. It also served as a bitter pill that I hadn’t fully pushed myself to ask the important questions and seek the necessary answers for my future.

Thankfully, with this post, I can confidently say that I’m now on the road to getting my shit together and fully committing to my career aspirations.

Passions vs. Priorities

The world revolves around money, and I would be stupid to fool myself otherwise. I needed a good plan, and a backup to that plan, on top of another backup to my backup.

With that said, I spent the last few months heavily researching, not so much in science, but in life. I identified my passions as well as the priorities that come naturally as you grow older. As usual, it will ultimately be a balancing act, and one that I’m eager to dive into.

The goal: find a secure day-time job that fits my academic and scientific interests (ideally, a science writer), and serve as somewhat of a financial coverage, while simultaneously moonlight as a writer/artist….

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Who will take over the world!

Teaching at the university… 

My outlook on such a future was further strengthened in a recent opportunity as a guest lecturer for a higher-level undergraduate course at the university. As a teenager, I was a huge fan of the works of Carl Sagan. I was captivated by his ability to communicate complicated concepts in such concise and measured language.

Preparing for the lecture, I would try to emulate Sagan in my own way.  Unlike the usual recipe of wrestling with the concepts in my own privacy, I would wrestle with ideas on how to communicate my research to these undergraduate students.

The lecture itself would go “smoothly,”

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From what I gathered talking to a few of the students, they seemed to have understood the points I had tried to get across. It was also clear I had a long way to go until I could reach the level of Dr. Sagan. Set against the backdrop of inner monologues on my career aspirations, the guest lecture experience was beneficial and altogether, a lot of fun.  

Looking ahead

With that being said, I am now in full-time pursuit of setting the foundations of my career in writing and art. Moving forward, there are two major changes I wished to share with my readers:

(1) A science blog, established independently from The Pensive Reverie, that I will publish this coming week on WordPress. It will serve as my primary platform towards my efforts to becoming a science writer.

(2) The continuation and refocusing of The Pensive Reverie as more of a personal outlet (along the lines of this post’s content) to share my daily adventures and thoughts in my efforts to moonlight as an author/artist.

That covers most of the fun surprises I have in store for all of you. I will see you all again very soon with a new post, and a new blog to boot on top of it!

Turning 3, and 28

On June 28, 2019, I turned 28 years of age, and The Pensive Reverie completed its online journey of three years with 83 posts, and a sum total of 105 followers. A lot has happened over the last three years, but first I would like to give a big shout-out to my followers and fellow bloggers who have been supportive to the blog’s growth. Thank you very much!

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Looking back to the night of June 27, 2016 when I published my first post in “Introducing Me, and the Pensive Reverie!” I had made a humble goal to reach at least 100 followers on the blog. Three years have flown since then, and having achieved this goal, I’m now even more motivated to further expand and build this blog, not to mention update my personal profile and status! That first blog post began with the question, “Who am I?” Three years down the road, I can now confidently ask myself a different question (one that builds on its predecessor), “Who do I intend to become?”

My name is Ajay Peter Manuel. I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, my home. I hail from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. As a teenager, I traveled around the world with my family. I would complete my elementary education at Cairo, Egypt, followed by my secondary studies at Khartoum, Sudan. I was around 19 years old when I first set foot in Edmonton to begin my higher studies at the University of Alberta. Following the completion of my undergraduate studies in Astrophysics, I would self-publish my autobiography, Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir, in the summer of 2013. With the book’s publication I would acknowledge an annoyingly persistent identity crisis, and in the years that followed, with the help of my loved ones and friends, overcome the greatest obstacle in my life: myself.

Having learned the price of freedom and individuality, I embraced the mistakes and regrets of my past, learned to live my present, and to happily look towards the future without fear and hesitation.  caption

This journey would culminate in the publication of a second book in A Little Bit of Everything, a treasure trove of memories involving the friends and family who had helped me along my journey, and most importantly my partner and soulmate. Back then, I wished to become an individual who “integrated his various passions in education, innovation, writing, art, music, science, critical thinking, accompanied with an endless appetite for life” and I continue to work hard on that front.

I’m happy to say that I have found my true-calling in becoming a writer and an artist. As I currently pursue a doctoral degree, I intend to further hone my skills on both these fronts, so that I may one day reach my penultimate goal of “sun-lighting” as a prominent science writer, and “moon-lighting” as a writer/comic book artist and animator. My dreams remain as far-fetched as they usually have been, but I can’t deny that as an individual my journey with The Pensive Reverie has motivated me to meet these challenges head-on, and with confidence.

Settling into the fourth year of this blog, I intend to stick to its original message in sharing my life’s adventures, hobbies, and interests. For all incoming and future visitors, I welcome you to read and engage with me on the posts I have written thus far, and hope that you enjoy them. For my current friends and followers, thank you very much once again for your support!

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Writing with a brick in my head

Writing with a brick in my head or taking a long walk down Stumped avenue, call it what you may, writer’s block is ultimately a frustrating experience. Supplement it with a dash of stubbornness, a pinch of OCD, and you have the annoyingly difficult jigsaw puzzle that was my writing process over the last week and a half.

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July will mark a year since I began writing the first draft of a script for my comic book and currently active writing project. There still remains a mountain of obstacles to climb considering the drawing portions that I have yet to begin. For the most part, I was thankful that compared to my earlier autobiographical efforts in Our Last Summer and A Little Bit of Everything, my pacing and writing were hitting the right chord.

At first, I attributed this to a different writing approach, revolving around heavy sessions of brainstorming and research, followed by focused writing.

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This was the complete opposite to the free writing that propelled my earlier projects.

I felt the change was all the more necessary and obvious as this comic book script was my initiation in writing a third-person narrative. On the outset, there were promising signs that I would scrape through this project without a detour down Block canyon, and that’s where I jinxed it. Dark clouds loomed along the horizon, and soon enough I was tumbling downwards in what seemed to be an endless spiral of frustration in my existential struggle to piece together the crux and climactic portion of the story.

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It cannot be…How could I have let this happen? 

As usual, I fell prey to something that I had repeatedly advised myself to avoid: to let my ideas and thoughts, and not my research, shape the story. As integral as it had been for me to do extensive research on the fantasy elements I wished to include in my story, I had failed to keep up with my resolution in only allowing my creativity to guide my writing, and be inspired from what I learned from external references. Writing in the fantasy genre is an amazing experience, especially when there is so much material out there that just captivates one’s imagination. Somewhere along the way, I had lost the plot, and had allowed my research to limit rather than enhance my writing.

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A stern beat down from my in-house editor and partner woke me up and made me realize the solution was staring me right in the face. 

What did I learn? Writer’s block is not fun. But, stressing about it ain’t going to help either. What matters is that one is willing to take a step back, to gain perspective, before stepping forward again. While this may be counter-intuitive, and for my fellow stubborn writers out there who like me (initially) may believe it an ostensible wasting of one’s time, it is very important to take a step back and approach your writing as though you were an impartial audience member. 

Just as in science, where complicated problems often exercise a simple and elegant solution, the same could be said of writing. This is a familiar piece of advice for those entrenched in figure drawing where instructors often grill the student to take a step back and look at their work in progress to gain perspective and incentive in proceeding forward. The same applies for the mind as well, all I had to do was step back, take it easy, and, as Major Armstrong would likely agree,

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 Revel in the the truth and justice that is your sparkling freedom in writing.