Here's a little back story: The sky outside my window was dark. It was dark, but it was the kind of dark that seemed destined for sunlight - almost as if it was aching to fade away and to turn itself over to a beautiful autumn afternoon. Most of the miniscule square footage of my apartment was shrouded in night time and sleepiness: The exceptions were the dining room, which was littered in papers written about the theory of computer programming, and the office, which was being highlighted by the skeleton glow of my 21" flatscreen monitor. The clocks all agreed: It was within three minutes of 5:15 am and my body was weary with the realization that the semester, however brief it's been thus far, was really back into full swing.
It was my first all-nighter (of what will presumably be many more) this semester. In retrospect, I'm fairly certain that if I hadn't gorged myself on frozen pizzas and energy drinks, I'd have nodded off on any of a dozen different instances throughout the stretch between dusk and dawn. I alleviated my boredom (yes, friends: high-level Computer Science is boring, no matter what you read to the contrary) by surrounding myself by the only thing that maintains my interest.
I'm sure you can guess what that is. 
Despite my love for it, Chess is a mistress that inflicts pain as frequently as it brings pleasure: It fills the mind every second with regret and second guessing and makes you, at least half the time, really regret playing on. It's no surprise, then, that my recent bouts have been rocky at best. I've been studying hard, playing strong...I've been analyzing positions seven, eight moves deep and I've been putting myself in situations where winning seems to be right around the corner.
Lately, it all seems a mirage.
I've been losing games that I have no excuse for losing. I've been making rookie mistakes that really have no business in my repetoir whatsoever. My rating's been fluctuating more than insert something that fluctuates a lot. It's really been a rough couple of weeks.
Out of the darkness have come but a few bright lights. I've decided to annotate a couple tournament games I'm feeling pretty proud of (by and large, anyway) just to keep my mind active. Maybe you guys will find something helpful in all the jibberish I append onto mediocre logic and tactics.
The first of my two games (both against essie, who's a fantastic player) has me playing the white pieces: It was a very open game - one that was strewn with a barrage of possibilities for poor play that can only be navigated with patience and studiousness. I'll admit that, as white, I was a bit more audacious than I would be otherwise, and I think that shows through in my play. You'll notice an obvious difference between that and my second game (below) - the game in which I had the black pieces and which was filled with passiveness from every angle imaginable. I was able to chalk Ws in both games, but not without significant battles in each.
In other news: I've been prepping myself for a chess battle that's brewing outside the confines of this glorious site. A personal friend, Jason, is a bit of a chess mystery and is absorbing all of my attention, by and large. He's unstudied; he's unilateral in both the opening and ending parts of the game; by and large, he has no understanding of formal chess ideas and theories. What he does have is a savant's ability in the middle game. He can see ten, twelve moves ahead, making the position he lost in the opening moot and leaving any endgame in his favor despite having only minimal skills in that area. His middle game prowess has led to his beating me nearly twice as often as I've beaten him, and so I've taken on the burden of training myself until I can have a bit more consistency in the win department. I'll keep you guys posted.
Anyway, it's the end of a long day. Cheers, and enjoy!