Good evening, and welcome to Tonight’s program. “The Life and Times of Andiyar.” It’s been a while since our last show, with many new and exciting things occurring that the subject of our documentary would like to share. There were, of course, lots of things that won’t be shared too, due to time, space, legality, obscurity, and to laws against the promulgation of obscenity.

That said, on with the show!

First off, I’ll do the educational thing. I’ve just finished my fourth year at Uni. Now, whilst most peoples fourth years probably include a graduation ceremony, mine does not. Mine included a partial third year/first year fusion that we shall call “temporary insanity.”

Most fun year I’ve had at Uni ever, I must say.

The change to Creative Arts/Biology as a double was very beneficial. I’ve met a lot of new people, and I’ve done some pretty enjoyable things, especially with my writing. I’ve done some really cool sciency things (being actual, honest to God genetic engineering and some cool ethics) and I’ve written some fun poetry and prose. And I’ve enjoyed Uni. Seriously enjoyed it. My first year was boredom and depression, my second year was somewhat resolved, my third year was mildly fun. And my fourth year was enjoyable. It was essentially a first year at Uni again (well, with third year mixed in), but unlike first year, I was supremely comfortable with it. I didn’t have any of the first year stress that I had, or that many of my writing classmates had. I knew what I was doing, and where I was going. And that was a luxury that my first year denied me.

So yeah. At the end of this session, picked up my marks. HD in Theory of Writing… I love you John. Give me my essay back, so I know how to do it again! D in Philosophy… what happened Baby John? Was my final essay that bad? Need to talk with you about it. C in Prose… thanks Chrissy, about what I expected. ^_^

So yeah. Not a bad result really. Do need to talk with John about my philosophy marks, as I think there might be a stuff up there somewhere - going from a 90 average to 79 is a bit of a leap, especially as I don’t think my final essay was a credit essay. The only thing I can think of is that (well, apart from a sucky essay) he lost my presentation hand in. Which, being John, he quite possibly did. So if he did, that’s 10% of the course hiding somewhere. So I’ll email him soon and ask about it. And I’ll email John as well, so I can arrange to pick up both courses worth of work.

As for the next year (well, two, but we’re talking next year) I’m looking to finish my Biology component first session - if I do both Cell/Molecular and I do Ecology. Otherwise, I’ll do Cell/Molecular (that’s non negotiable) and I’ll do Immunology second session. I might do Immunology anyway, even if I do Ecology, just to make sure I’ve got all the pieces together. For writing, I’ll continue down the prose & poetry path, will do my theory - and for the other two, probably editing, and extended prose. If not extended prose, then journalism - but I really want to do extended. Hope that all the timetables are meshy-like… will find out on Monday when I enroll in things.

In other news somewhat related to education, I’ve been working my regular days at Thirroul PS - which is basically, I turn up every two weeks, when I feel like it, play Network Guy for two hours or so, and go home. Network Guy does lots of things, from playing with networks (duh!) to explaining to teachers exactly what plugging the USB cable of their printer into the computer will do. Well, not quite that bad. But sometimes I worry about some people ^_^. Anyway, being Network Guy pays for somethings, not much really, but it’s nice to have the extra monies to spend. Well, sometimes.

Ah, spending. That brings me into another disjointed point… Christmas is approaching. And I need to buy presents for people. MASH 7 for Dad, some random liqeuer for Mum, something for Fernne (ideas?) and some GameCube games for Andrew. Which are kinda for me too. Yay. :) But yes, the point of this point which is not pointful, is to complain about Christmas. As Christmas eve is going to be a Saturday. Which means I work till, oh, twelvish. And therefore so is New Years Eve. Which means I work till, oh, elevenish. See, at times, I hate being a responsible, trusted and valued employee, as we’re the ones given the jobs involving thousands of dollars of stock and keys and alarms, but also involve being at work beyond reasonable hours on occasions of public jollification.

Or something. I’ve just finished a nine (ten? forget) hour shift at work, so maybe I’m bitter.

The last time I actually posted a life account here was what, September? Since then a few things have happened. I have attended my first ever geek-fest convention thing in October, which was a blast. I have finished Uni, I’ve started D&D again, and I’ve read a lot of manga and books that I highly enjoyed and will be separately reviewing, probably with major spoilage here, in the near future.

First, Supanova. Well. Supanova was a blast. It was a relatively expensive blast, but it was fun nonetheless. Basically a day spent wandering around a couple of halls in Sydney, window shopping, actual shopping, watching some stuff in theatre, talking, attended a few talks, and absorbing geek atmosphere. Went up with Miles, Erin & Ben, unaware of exactly what we’d be in for. (Yes Miles, the Cloud cosplayer was really awesome) Walked into the first hall and received a rather amused shock at the huge amount of stuff for sale. Went wandering - two DVD places counting Madman, a good dozen smaller vendors selling everything from shirts to figurines, a couple of book and comic vendors. Off to one side was the two halls and the ‘celeb gallery’ where Erin, and later I, got autographs from Baal (Goa’uld System Lord in SG-1) and watched a few presentations - with Bal, and with Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor about King Kong. The other side of the shopping megaplex was artists alleys, some cool display groups (The 501st Vader’s Fist were there, and they were awesome!) and the Anime Theatre - where Miles and I watched two episodes of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu and decided it was worth fun and shits.

Anyway, I ended up spending a chunk of money - Baal’s autograph, a figurine of Mitsumi from Love Hina, the first volume of Maburaho with its box as an impulse buy, after seeing the trailer in the Anime Theatre, and a chunk of manga. Tsubasa Chronicle Vol 1 (test read), and Magister Negi Magi (Negima!) Volumes 3 to 7, the Chuang Yi version, which I’d given up on getting and had aquired the Del Ray (US) version. Which sucked. So that was happies. Added to tickets for trains and door, and lunch, I think I sunk a good $250+ into the day. And I do wish to go again next year - this time though I’ll save up for a bit before hand and get some CDs, and a chunk more manga. Maybe even some more figurines - there were some mighty cool ones there. But overall, my first impression of an Anime/Pop culture convention was enjoyable. So yes, it’s on next years to-do list.

Other fun with amigós recently has been D&D. Not just any D&D - we’re playing Epitheisterra. Which, if you’ve been reading this from the start or are simply cool, you will know how much that means to me. That Epitheisterra does still exist, and that it is being played as an RPG. And the world works. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but it is slowly coming to life. And it makes me ecstatic to see it happening, after so much time and thought was poured into Epi to see it more or less die.. and it’s alive again. I have capered with joy when writing the campaigns (being DM), in all honesty. Capered. It was as bad as it sounds - but it hammers the point home yes?

After finishing Uni, I’ve also done one more ‘social’ thing that involved friends from Uni - Alida, Maddi and I went up to Sydney to a performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art - it was called ‘Dissident Voices’ and was a sound experiment, in poetry and music. It was… highly interesting. Very cool. At times a touch too literati for me (well, one of the four performers, the synth guy) but otherwise awesome. Afterwards we wandered around to the Opera House and sat on the stairs of the kinda-wharf thing there (for those who know, at the very point, past the ‘do not cross’ bar. ^_^. And we ate gelato.‘Twas fun. :)

Otherwise, I’ve been catching up on my reading. Knife of Dreams, Feast for Crows, Going Postal, Thud, Negima!. And my anime - keeping up with my weekly Shuffle! fix. Now that I have broadband. Finally, the gods are listening. Also have to watch Da Capo, and have started watching To Heart. All romance shows, or similar. Hrm. I was wondering about this, and I thought… eh. I’m probably a hopeless romantic here. All good!

I was actually thinking the other day about all the anime I have yet to watch that I have and wondered… why do I do this? Where did this fascination come from? Who did this to me?

I figured it out. Miles and Ben (S). It’s your fault. Amusingly enough, it’s more Ben’s fault than Miles’.

My path to anime went through the gateway of Megatokyo. At a LAN at Miles, Ben dumped the archive of some webcomic onto my HDD and said “Hey, you’ll like this.” We got together two weeks later, and he updated it and told me to read it. So I did. I read the archive in several hours (all three hundred & fifty odd) and then went looking for more. I found Ben was about two weeks out of date, so I started catching up. And ever since then I have been a regular reader of Megatokyo, three days a week or whenever released without fail. I have bought the books - I bought Megatokyo Vol 1. (original print run) within two weeks of first reading the archive (preorder). My fascination was set there.

Megatokyo often referred to Japanese manga, anime and other pop culture references I didn’t get. I kind of knew that anime existed - I’d seen a few bits and pieces during D&D at Miles’ but never really got into it. Most of my friends who were into it (Ben isn’t one) started watching it when Evangelion was on SBS, when we were in Year 11 at Smiths’ Hill. Myself, I worked every night until 9, so I was getting home at 9.30 ish - just in time to see the closing credits of the second episode (doubles).

At any rate, after about six months, I finally took a copy of Hellsing home from Miles’ - it was something I’d seen the first episode of and thought looked cool. I painfully watched it on my old iMac, and thought, yeah, kinda cool. Might see some more some time. But it wasn’t until I read Megatokyo later in September that I did. In his rant under a strip, Piro mentioned an anime called Haibane Renmei, and joking suggested that all of the ‘faithful’ of Megatokyo must buy it as it came out. I thought it sounded kinda interesting with what he mentioned, so I went and downloaded and watched the first episode. And then I sat there, obsessively downloading and watching the next twelve episodes over the shortest time my dialup could pump the data down - using KDX, amusingly enough, which is a kinda cool network.

I decided to see if I could buy it, as I loved the show. I found an online DVD store (never really shopped online before this) and preordered Volume 1 with it’s box - and when it came, inside the box was a pamphlet. From a company named ‘Madman’ that released anime in Australia. I found their website, perused their upcoming releases, decided to find a bit more about some of them that sounded cool. A good friend also named Ben supplied me with a dozen series, including Evangelion, which immediately watched during a holiday from Uni, and managed to convince Mum & Dad to buy me for Christmas. I went looking and found a few Anime DVD review sites, and then previewed a few fansubs. And then… well. The rest is somewhat history.

But ultimately, if Ben had never given me Megatokyo, I might never have found it (more than likely) and I might never have seen Haibane Renmei. If Miles hadn’t shown Hellsing, I might never have gained appreciation for the animated medium, to the extent that I do now. So if it weren’t for two seemingly random acts, I might be rather different now.

Funny old world, ain’t it?

Anyway - this has wound out. Some more anime/manga stuff soon, as well as reviews of Knife of Dreams and Feast for Crows. Stay tuned~

Alcata’riel.

-Andiyar