Well, quarter past one, actually. But close enough. It’d be a lot easier to name these entries if I didn’t insist, in a feverish burst of creativity, to make them… ah… original? Different? Before I begin the Entry Proper™, I’ll list the titles that I’ve had in this journal, and decide. Prepare for backwards-through-time-travel-ish-something-or-other-ness. Anyway, it looks like jumping to lightspeed in StarWars® so yeah. Here we go. ^_^

Titles of Yoré:

Psalm of Darkness (13/1/2004)rnThe Passage of Time (19/1/2004)rnI’m a DVD Freak (5/2/2004)rnInto the Swing (26/2/2004)rnUnwinding (8/3/2004)rnDefending the Faith (11/3/2004)rnJust to see if I can… (21/3/2004)rnThe Many Faces (5/4/2004)rnA Brief Update (12/5/2004)rnAll The Small Things (13/5/2004)rnSomeday Dreaming (29/5/2004)rnTime (26/6/2004)rnVague Hints (1/7/2004)

rnSo, what can we gather from those titles? Well, firstly, that I’ve posted 13 times this year (14 counting this entry) which averages out, (when we count this entry) at two posts per month. And, if you go back and look at my calenday, amazingly enough, it is almost two posts per month - there are two threes and two ones, so we average out. What does this say? That I’m far too attached to my theme. I do pay for it, after all, being, what, $5 US per two months or some such. So I’ve spend a little over a dollar, US, per entry here. Man, I should really use this thing a lot more. Or, at any rate, I should pay more in advance and therefore have the nice little “oh, it’s only a dollar a month or so” feeling going. Eh. Now, back to the titles… I seem to do ‘creative titles some of the time. When I can be bothered. And sometimes the titles are relevant. Well, OK, they’re always relevant to me, but then, the Mind of Ben™ is a maze of interconnected neurons that don’t follow precise biochemical pathways in the way that they are intended to, leading anyone studying my brainwave patterns to find that they have been following, say, a charged particle’s course around the brain for a week only to discover it was making a final voyage, shaking hands with all it’s mates before heading to the Graveyardé of Neuronés where it says the final farewell, has a rather nice ceremony performed by grieving electrons before a splendid meal with wonderful cake, when all of the other brainwave particles in the region get together to toast the old one on it’s way, and remember the many strokes of genius (or mediocrity, depending) that it had in it’s brief lifecycle.

So, from this, we can determine that my brain is in fact a massive long baby shower/wake location, with millions of ceremonies going on at once, causing rather large clusters of neurons to build up in unexpected places, and therefore creating strange influences in various parts of the brain. Usually the right hand side, I think, as I’m a creative time. But yes. Brains. Neurons. Ice cream and cake.

… Oh dear.

Well, anyway, now that that’s done, I might talk about something. Something, something, something. Hrm. Well. The most interesting thing to happen recently is that, yesterday, because I finally felt like it, I bought a TV. I then stole (well, appropriated) a DVD player from one of the televisions in the house, took it and the TV (only a 34cm, but that’s sufficient for nighttime in bed TV watching - I tested subtitle readability extensively ;) ) up to my room, plugged the video of the DVD player into my TV, and the twin audio into the until now unused ports on the back of my stereo. So I now have a TV/DVD player combination in my room that pumps sound through my (rather nifty) stereo speakers… in effect, I have the second best entertainment system in the house, defeated only by the 34cm TV with the awesomely cool ONKYO™ 5.1 sound system. Yeah, sure, there’s bigger TVs in the house… a 68cm one, two 64cm ones… but the sound is half the experience. Of course, the Onkyo™ equipped system will shortly be graced by a Pioneer Plasma TV… which will be nice. I’m planning to see all of NOIR again, as it’s done in 5.1 sound with 16x9 anamorphic enhancement… which is cool, yes?

Now, other stuff.

Uni kicked back off again last week, and was, as far as it went, not too bad. Have a rather… nice/nasty timetable this session. The nice part is that it’s only three days a week, which means I have a weekend stretching from Saturday through to Tuesday (inclusive). The nasty part is that two of the days at uni are from 9.30 - 5.30. On the Wednesday, I have precisely one hour off during that time - which is OK, better than none, really. Thursday I have two hours off - which is more like it. Being as they’re consecutive. The real bugger about Wednesday though, is it looks (work included) something like this:

9.30 - 12.30 - Genetics Lecture (BIO215)rn1.30 - 5.30 - Biochemistry Tutorial/Practical (BIOL214)rn6.30 - 10.30 - Woolworths (Smokeshoppé™)

rnWhich means that I effectively have a 13 hour day of activity - not counting my lunch from 12.30 - 1.30 and my ‘race home to get changed and shower if possible’ time from 5.30 - 6.30. But then, it won’t always be quite that bad - the practical for Biochemistry (the bit from 2.30 - 5.30) only goes for as long as it takes you, so if I can get stuck into the work, for at least some of the pracs I could finish a bit earlier and then cruise home, and also eat something before going to work. Which is important - food is needed for the brain. Or something.

Friday, the only other day of class, is, as they same, both a joy and a pain. Only three hours - 9.30 - 12.30 - and then my weekend. Well, I work that night, but not until six, so, yeah. Whatever. But, and this is the pain, those three hours are my poetry class.

Now, I’m sure a few people here are going, ‘Hang on Ben, you were all happy and stuff about this before. What’s the problem?’ - well, the problem is that this is the class in which I am both enjoying myself the most, and am feeling the most pressure. Largely because my provisional acceptance into the creative arts degree I want (BCA/BSc.) is dependent on my interview process later this year - and I’ve been informed that my chances are better (already good now, but they will be better) if my performance in this course is strong. So we’re looking at the pressure for another Distinction, or at the least, a high credit. Figure 70% plus. And the only problem here is writing poetry for assessment - I’ve only ever done it once. Granted, it was a factor for a mark of 78 and will form a part of my interview folio, when I’ve touched up on it a bit (see Someday Dreaming, a bit further down for the poems). So I basically have both the enjoyment of more creative arts (although there’s the nice little ‘argh! Creative arts students! Alienated!’ feeling) but also the pressure of performance. And, since this course is focusing on something I enjoy doing… well, you get the idea.

Also, in relation to the poetry course, I needs to start reading poetry. Like, on a major scale, every day or so read a new poem. So I need to start looking for poets to read… but I think I can manage. Google is Your Friend™ after all. I’ll find a poet or two on the net and hunt down some books. Uni library should work, also Angus and Robertson no doubt sell poetry - I’ve bought some there before. Eh. Just having a bitch, really.

In the vein of that course, however, I’ll mention that for this coming Friday we’ve been asked to write a poem of 10 words or less. I’m currently playing with the following (I’ll probably try a few, but this just tickles my fancy - it was a 2am kind of thing :) )

Page turnsrnBlack I’s intornRead

If you’re reading it aloud, ‘read’ as in ‘red’. Any thoughts on the evilness? The sheer fiendish creativity? Or the fact that every single word there (except for into), when you read it aloud or when you read it silently, has a different meaning?

I like it. ^_^

On other notes, just for summary’s sake, and because I’m starting to get hungry, I’d like to say hello to Helen, who just signed up for a LiveJournal… I think she was with somewhere else before. Xanga, or summat? Anyway, I’ll add her to my friends list shortly, when I get around to finding her user name again - Bittorrent is currently downloading the Madlax ED/IN OST Single, so bandwidth is at a premium right now. ;)

One last thing. The Curse of Blood, my Harry Potter fanfiction-ish-thingy, has a new home on the ‘net. I’ll probably keep it on FF.net as well, if only for exposure, but it’s currently complete over on NoireSensus. I don’t think it’s currently linked from the main directories - you can reach the revised Prologue here, and Part One, Chapter One here. A warning, for those who feel like browsing the site - NoireSensus is primarily a yaoi/slash archive, with some yuri thrown in for good measure. Not exactly the kind of site I’d originally imagine my story at, but I’m a mate of one of the site maintainers, and he said it’d be nice to have there - he was quite enthusiastic, and I do rather like the site design. Very pretty. So, it’ll be hosted on NoireSensus, mirrored on FF.net (when I can be bothered getting around to it) and, eventually, when I finish my updates, hosted on andiyar.com as well - which incidentally has moved hosts (Thanks again to Braken!) and is currently being downloaded from Sourcecod and, after editing, will be uploaded at Surpass Web Hosting - or rather, at one of their servers. The actual domain points there now, but there’s not much there. Unfortunately, the move has broken the old webforum for andiyar.com, but I have a manual update of the database, so, yeah, when I can be bothered, I’ll redo it all. At some point. ^_^

Until then, I suppose. It’ll happen.

rnAlcata’riel.

-Andiyar