I am drawing Clematis I am. It just needs to be inked and coloured and uploaded now, and I'll do that tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, and so on, and so forth.
Anyway. A quick pop in before I go to bed to say that this is the best image I have seen all day. Do you think it counts as satire?
I thought I'd tell you a bit more about my course. But then I realised that I don't actually have that much to say. The people on the course are all very friendly, the work is so far non-existant, and the site plan of the university was clearly designed to confuse anyone who hasn't worked there for at least 10 years.
Our last event on Friday was to go on a tour of this library. The archivist who showed us round was very cheerful and friendly, and HE REALLY REMINDED ME OF SOMEONE. I couldn't get it out of my head during the talk, but I couldn't work out who he reminded me of (someone on TV maybe?). Then this morning, after I thought I had completely forgotten about it, I was just in the process of waking up, when the answer just popped, unbidden, into my mind. MONTY DON! He looked like Monty Don off Gardeners' World! Well I never.
Today I have been filling in forms to try and get more money off stuff, because that is very important. I, somehow, haven't found the time to draw any more Clematis recently, but I will, at some point, just you wait and see. Although, Clematis does now have it's own wiki, whatever good that will do. I almost got quite excited about it. I'll probably give it some more content later, including character profiles, because I've been meaning to redo the character profiles on the main Clematis site for a while now.
So, since I promised it, here are some thoughts on some fannish things.
Toward the Terra (spoiler free)
I really enjoyed this. It looked like it was going to be a little wishy-washy at some point in the middle, but it was actually very good. I really enjoyed that it had a very good take on the concept. It was very adult in a way; everything was a little gray, and you can't really class anyone as being either good or bad. I like that in a story. The most interesting character was Keith, by far, but I also had a soft spot for Shiroe (because he was far too pretty, and no, I am not a shota fan no, but...)
Tsubasa Chapter 167 (click for spoilers)
Hiiiiiiiiiii. Sorry I've been a little absent recently. Starting at uni again is quite busy it seems. I'm spending my days in inductions, then getting home and trying to file all the paperwork I've been given/collapsing.
I haven't been sleeping well (which, as you should know, is not what I am trying to do at the moment) because I've been a little nervous. But everything is fine and everyone is lovely, and it is my bedtime so I don't have much time, but I thought I'd drop in and let you know how it's going.
Also, I wanted to say that I went to the freshers' fair this afternoon and scored loads of free stuff, including a really nice canvas bag and some organic marmalade. GETTING FREE STUFF IS AWESOME, even if I don't actually want most of it (hello Gideons Bible).
And I bought my first textbook. I think I might be a right keano and read some of it before I go to bed.
Details about my kitchen, Tsubasa chapter 167, and the end of Toward the Terra should be forthcoming shortly.
Haha. So I did that reading in the end. It turns out that there wasn't much of it, and it was pretty interesting too. Oh well. It's good to fret for no reason.
And then I got to draw Lelouch after all. Yup, I'm in a Code Geass mood at the moment, and I've just realised that there's only a few weeks until the second season starts. Woooooooooooooo. (Click for big)
Golly, I'm going to have drawn more Lelouch than Fay if I keep going at this rate.
Right, I have to go to bed now. I've got to go enrol at uni tomorrow don't you know. (I'm a little nervous about it to tell the truth, because I'm useless like that.)
I'm meant to be reading up on starting uni tomorrow. But I really really want to be drawing. I haven't drawn enough recently; how am I supposed to improve if I don't practise? In any case, I'm not actually doing either. I'm just procrastinating and moping about it.
HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I haven't had this feeling for a year. Long time no see!
;__;
Oh Jesus I am still so freaking itchy! Those annoying bitey flies! I didn't think they'd do me in for three weeks straight. And everyone's like 'get some anti-histamines, get some anti-histamines', and I don't know, but I'm pretty stupidly stubborn when it comes to medication. It's kind of cheating to take anti-histamines. I should be able to see it out. I mean, surely, my immune system will work better if I leave it alone right? It's only a bit of swelling; that means my body's busy fighting off whatever it needs to fight off.
Unless, of course, my immune system is really over-reacting, in which case, I'll wait until it gets really bad, then go see a doctor. IF I DON'T DIE FIRST.
Anyway, itching aside (even if it's very difficult for me to think of anything else at the moment), I did some proper good tidying up today. Not like the kind of tidying up where things look more tidy afterwards, but the kind of tidying up where you dump all your paperwork onto the bed, then sort it into folders. You don't know how happy sorting everything into the correct folder makes me. I even got that Windows Live Hotmail and sorted all my emails into folders too.
It did take me a lot of procrastinating to get all this organising done though (I'm practising procrastinating for when I'm a student again). I think I've checked my emails and facebook about a million times today. Also, I'm onto episode 5 of Heroes now.
Here's some news, which is probably really old now, but still. So I found out that the new Gundam anime is interesting, because one of its character designers is Yun Kouga! I don't know what's going on this year, but it seems that artists I like are determined to force me to watch mecha by doing the character designs. I don't like mecha; I can tell you that for nothing. I can't think of anything more boring than watching big robots fighting (although if the robots come with electro music a la Daft Punk, then I don't mind so much). Also, I haven't watched any Gundam, ever. Am I going to have to watch this one? I watched Code Geass earlier this year, and liked it a lot, despite myself. Because, if you look past the giant robots, Mecha does tend to come with pretty characters and lots of fanservice.
Hmm, maybe I'll see how much I've got on my plate come October, and then decide if I'm going to watch it or not. The animation might be awful for one, and I can't see any characters that look like Soubi either.
So I watched the first two episodes of Heroes. They were actually quite exciting, but I was quite glad of the parts with Hiro in, because I'm really not used to watching programmes without subtitles any more. The thing that has enamoured me though, was seeing a tribute to the Chinese Backstreet Boys in the first episode. That was kind of awesome, and it tells you a lot about the target audience for the show.
In other news: no, not the news about those insect bites that I have, which are itching like hell at the moment, in fact, they're itching so much that bathing in hedgehogs sounds like a pretty nice prospect, no, the news about what I was telling you about yesterday, which was Flight of the Conchords. It turns out that you can find the songs that I saw the other day on YouTube, so here they are:
Jenny
Issues
Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenoceros
Business Time
Albi the Racist Dragon
She's So Hot...Boom!
Well I'm back from a long weekend at home with my parents. I took my laptop back with me and managed to successfully watch the whole backlog of anime that I had still to watch. I think I watched about 7 hours of screen the other day. But, what was good about it, was that I was able to hook my laptop up to our big widescreen tv and watch everything through there. Yeah!
I really must try not to watch so much next season though. I'll have studying to do. Even though I did just steal the whole first season of Heroes from my Dad, which I've got to fit in somewhere.
So, um, not much has happened. I went to see a medieval bridge, and I got some new boots, and I had a dream which would have made a very interesting period drama (with Julian Rhind-Tutt playing the bad guy, and very well I might add). I went to a talk this lunchtime about 18th century men's clothing, which was absolutely fascinating. Did you know that waistcoats used to have sleeves? And that English gentlemen were known for their informal dress? And that partway through the 18th century men started carrying canes because they'd stopped carrying swords? And that the skirts of their coats used to be stiffened with horse hair so they'd flare out more? I was engrossed. I love old-school men's clothing. I tried to store all the information for future use: I need to draw more period clothes.
I have to go draw now in-fact, because I haven't drawn for days and I'm itching.
Edit: So I forgot to mention the most important part. Which was that I turned on the TV to see Figwit on it! Can you believe it? I can't believe it. So his aler ego Bret McKenzie is in the Flight of the Conchords, which is being shown on BBC4. And it turns out that the other member of Flight of the Conchords is only the guy from Eagle vs Shark (which is a very nice film, and you should watch it). I watched the special last night; it was funnier than I thought it would be. Lets hope that the series will be just as funny. Because I'd almost forgotten all about the Figwit saga, until I saw him on my tv. Maybe I'll have to go back and watch FOTR (and ROTK) again.
Haha, I was just looking at the FAQs on the Figwit site and there were even official trading cards with Figwit on them. Brilliant! My inner Tolkien fan is disgusted, but my inner internet fan is jumping for joy.
So. Tomorrow is my last day at work. It's been a year already. Can you believe it? I spent half of the day being pretty zen about it, and the other half moping around and being sad.
I then have 1 (one) week off, in which I will go see my parents. Then I go to uni. Again. For the second time. I have mixed feelings about being a student again. I've just spent hours reading all about enrolling and everything. I'm partly excited, and partly really missing the last time I was a student. I've suddenly realised that I have a horrendous loyalty to my old uni, and feel like I'll be somehow doing it an injustice by enjoying my time at a new university. Which is complete nonsense, of course.
But, I had sooooooo much fun when I was a student before, and met sooooooooo many nice people. And how on Earth can I ever hope to repeat that? (But seeing as I'm going to be a postgrad this time, I'm assuming that it'll be less fun by default anyway.)
And I just checked my timetable for our induction week. I thought it was going to be plain sailing in the first week, with very little to do. But I find out that busy timetable is BUSY. Seriously, I'm not going to have a chance to sit down. And I thought being a student was all about having lots of free time, and jaffing on the internet all day (at least, that's what I remember doing). Oh well, I'D BETTER MAKE THE MOST OF MY WEEK OFF THEN.
I've got lots of cartoons to watch next week. I've just downloaded a load of Loveless to read too. Mostly this week I've been watching nothing but Toward the Terra.
Toward the Terra is great (if it was a little dull in the middle). Surprisingly, I think my favourite character might be Keith, despite him being a complete bastard. I'm just. I'm really hoping that he's going to atone for everything at the end, and come to see that he's been wrong all along. And his relationship with Matsuka is interesting because it's just so contradictory. Personally, I think that the fact that Matsuka reminds him of Shiroe is no small factor in this. Also, Matsuka has pretty eyes.
Tsubasa chapter 166 is completely ridiculous! Completely! I'm betting that Ohkawa was off her tits on champagne when she wrote this one.
I'm not distraught like some people seem to be. I'm just utterly dumbfounded. How on Earth did Kurogane's stunt work? And how on Earth did he know it was going to work? Because, I don't know about you, but it's not something that I'd automatically think of. I don't think I'd ever find myself in a tricky situation and then suddenly go, 'Oh I know. That'll be a good idea!'.
The whole thing reeks of CLAMP trying to insert a bit more excitement and angst into the story.
Oh, well, maybe they'll explain everything perfectly, but at the moment I'm just sitting here going 'Wait...what?'.
It's just a bit OTT is all I'm saying!
(Just you wait, I'll be saying the same thing all over again over some new chapter - probably when Mokona tries to save the day by overdosing on painkillers or something)
I've been trying to catch up on everything that I've missed on the whole of the internets while I was away. It's taking a while. Here's where I'm at:
- I watched CLAMP on Top Runner. How cool was it to see them talking? And I loved watching Mokona draw (even if it was just for a few seconds). I really enjoy finding out anything about the way CLAMP work. I proper look up to them. And when they mentioned that they started out all sharing a 2-bed flat, and practically living on top of their desks: HOW AWESOME IS THAT. That's some proper dedication right there. How bohemian <3 (Is it wrong that I would love to be more bohemian, even though it means living in a freezing garret and being poor and miserable?)
Ahhh, I'm so jealous. I would love to do what they do for a living. I don't care that they work super hard; it must be well fun and rewarding and stuff. Seriously. I want to do eet.
- Well, both Tsubasa and xxxHolic have been pretty darn exciting recently, haven't they? I'm quite glad that I got to binge on a few chapters in one go. Although, I have to say, xxxHolic has been FAR more interesting. Sure, Tsubasa has the plot, but xxxHolic is the one that messes with my brain. Just WHAT IS GOING ON? I really want to know. And everyone has been asking this from the beginning, but JUST WHO IS WATANUKI? Ahhhhhhhh, I want to know!
- And I've started watching a series called Mononoke. I'm quite taken with it. It's a kind of trippy ghost story. Everything about this show is good, even the crazy accordion music in the opening titles. It has a brilliant atmosphere. Brilliant.
Well, look. I've overrun my bedtime by nigh-on 15 minutes now, I'd better go. I'm still getting on well with a ridiculously early bedtime. Rather than thinking 'aw, do I have to go to bed?' I actually look forward to sleeping. It's kind of super.
So I just spent the last 45 minutes deleting a backlog of spam, and now I have no time to read all this Tsubasa/xxxHolic that I've just downloaded (because it is now my bedtime).
But I did manage to upload that Clematis page.
In other news, have something that's already old hat despite being less that a week old (I love the internet). Background: the Tube drivers have been on strike in London over the past three days so travelling anywhere has been sort of epic. Luckily I walk to work so it hardly affected me at all, but this song is funny anyways (beware if you're delicate or at work, it's a bit sweary):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKRMQmVczts
Also I want to tell you about the funny dream I had last night. It was funny to me anyway:
I was in a corner shop and the shopkeeper (who had a generic comedy foreign accent) offered us some sweets because he liked us. He said
I have the sweeties here; it's good for de children. De children like ze sweeties, and so they come in ze shop, and it's good, you know.
And then when he was giving us the sweets, some kid came in and tried to get one too, only to be beaten back by the shopkeeper.
No no no! Children aren't allowed to eat ze sweeties! Get away! No!
Woo! So I've got the internets back!
The problem is that our landlord's set us up with 'AOHell' and it is HELLA slow.
Any joy I had at having the internet back has been negated by it taking 15 minutes to download 3MB. Seriously. Maybe good if you're checking your emails. Not good if you've got weeks of jaffing to catch up on.
Oh well. At least it's back. I'll give it a couple of weeks to see if I can last. And then I'll switch to cable internet. (ps Hey Steve, how do you get your internets so cheap? Please point out to me which package you've got)
Alright, I've got spam to delete and a new page of Clematis to post. But first I have to sleep (it's been a long month).
I'm not actually back yet. I thought I should just pop in and let you know what's going down.
You might remember that I mentioned that my internet was going to go down so we could switch ISPs. Well that's about it. We're still waiting for our new broadband connection; it's taking AGES! I'm starting to go quite crazy. Thank God I can at least check facebook at work. I am getting Tsubasa withdrawal symptoms like mental though. I have no idea what's going on anymore.
So, I'm in Bristol again for the weekend and have taken over Steve's internet connection for my nefarious ways.
Hopefully I'll have an internet connection of my own on Monday, or next week, or I don't know... sometime in my life.
Arrrgh *break down and sob*
Well, here is the first Clematis update in ages. And after it being so long, the page isn't even that good. Oh well; here's to hoping that I'll get into the swing of things soon.
By the way. Did anyone mention Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations? Because it looks like my dreams may just come true, and it may just be awesome. Not that I'm letting my hopes run away with me or anything, but did you take a look at the character designs? Oh man oh man.
Also, my mind is like I broken record at the moment. I want to draw Lelouch again. Note to brain: just leave it and go eat some pie.
I'm off to see Steve tomorrow for a few days. See ya.