With a wonderful flash of inspiration, I have decided to break this post up into more easily digestible sections, each one given a title taken from either an online conversation or a feverish imagining of what the subject material entails. That way you, dear reader, can best access the fragments of this post that you are most interested in, and enjoy them in their entirety whilst safely ignoring such areas of my life that are at best distasteful, at worst anathema to you.

And of course, to those who want to read anything, I advise starting from the beginning segment, as I am writing this primarily in order, and thus it will perhaps be easier to follow my conscious stream of consciousness, without becoming too lost. :)

On with the show!

rnChoose:

anime

Since there must always be an obligatory anime related missive in my LJ, at least in long posts, I shall go into some detail about some things I am watching, have been watching, am considering watching, am wasting money on, am considering wasting money on, have wasted money on, and potentially find cute. Confused? Read on!

Currently, we’re in the middle of the ‘spring’ cour for anime - being the Japanese spring season. For the unlearned, IE, pretty much everyone reading this, a cour is the term used to refer to a single season of anime - being around 13 episodes long (no less than 12, no more than 14). There are four cours to a year, and most anime I watch nowadays tend to the single cour in length - although two-cour shows are also quite common, especially in genres I’m not as attached to.

Anyway, the list of current shows I’m watching details as follows - Lucky Star, sola, Hayate no Gotoko!, Les Misérables. I am also collecting Romeo x Juliet, and have not quite finished Kono Minikukumo Utsukushii Sekai (or, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World). What do all these mean? What do they involve? Well..

Lucky Star is based off a manga, the author of whom escapes me - it’s basically a four panel comic strip, that has become rather immensely popular, and is being animated by KyoAni, the Gods of animation (they did Air, and Kanon ‘06, and Haruhi). It consists of a series of ‘random’ incidents surrounding a theme, with some rather entertaining characters and some good fun humour. It’s cute, stylising, and entertaining :)

sola is, on the other hand, somewhat mystical, highly romantic and very engaging. The main character, Matsuri (whom I mentioned earlier I would buy a figurine of if a good one appears, she is awesome enough ^^) is a ‘Yaka’ - some kind of nocturnal spirit that disintegrates in sunlight. She’s being hunted for no apparent reason (I say this just as episode 6 downloads, so it might be forthcoming…) and dreams of seeing the sunlit sky. The male protagonist is Yorito, a dreamer whose passion is photography, particularly of sunrises, sunsets and beautiful cloud formations. Add in a couple more characters, some sweet music and such, and we have a very pretty love story.

Hayate no Gotoko! translates as ‘Hayate the Combat Butler’. It’s a show that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, is over the top, semi-random, and enjoys the hell out of itself. As it should! It is, naturally, about a guy named Hayate, whose parents tried to sell him to the Yakuza, but who escaped and has been hired as the butler to a wealthy young girl - his duties include cleaning, service, and protection from giant robots and kidnap. As you do.

If you don’t know what Les Mis is, you don’t deserve to be here. Get out. Oh, that said, this story focusses more on Cosette so far, than on Valjean (well, both at once). It’s interesting :)

The other collecting and catching up on will be mentioned at another time. ^^

Other anime related news does not include a realistic omgwtfbbq moment, as Jon so aptly put it. Apart from the news that I will be going to Supanova again this year, on the 13th of October (most likely) and will be going in costume… probably as Archer from Fate/stay night. Miles and Tegan are definitely coming, as Zack (FFVII) and Misuzu/Minagi (Air) respectively. Kirky has also expressed a desire to come, though he may not be dressing up. Erin/Ben might not be making it this year, due to getting married the next weekend… wait and see I guess. Oh, and Brendan & Rhiannon will almost certainly be coming, though costuming may or may not be done. :)

Otherwise, I’m slowly obtaining R1 DVD titles - Utawarerumono, Fate/stay night and Shana are the series under purchase right now. Haruhi joins them at the end of May, and Air in August. Nothing else at the moment (heh, nothing else!) but at least the purchases are relatively ordered and easy to plan around. Haruhi will have to be bought as it is issued, as I really want the LE versions due to proper show arrangement, and Air, well, it’s Air. It will be bought, no reasons for doubt or angst at all.

Otherwise… I might go watch sola ep 6. Very soon. :)

sex

This particular segment is sadly not that interesting, as my sex life is pretty much as irrelevant as it has been for a while now. Admittedly, I seduced a nun during a game of Star Wars trivial pursuit and solved one of life’s greatest mysteries (they do wear underwear!) but other than that, the sex here in the country has been pretty not much there at all lately.

Yep.

uni

I’m in my next to last semester of undergrad at the moment… going quite well. Four assignments to finish before the end of session, that’s all. Admittedly, rather long ones - a 2500 word prose piece, a folio of ten poems (I think), a 1000 word essay for prose, and a 3000 word essay for theory. Not huge individually, but together looking at over 7000 words - a fair amount, I think. The theory one, I think, will be done on one of the questions involving Kafka’s book * The Trial*, probably the politically focussed question. The prose, I have a rather severe blank over, and the poems I haven’t really started - though I have various fragments around that are useable.

Otherwise, I’m still waiting on my results for the gamsat - due soon, actually, my nerves are winding very very tightly now, and I’m starting to jump at every email I get. Fingers are massively crossed, and stomach is roiling. Future, here we hope.

music

Just a brief note here that Lia is releasing some kind of awesomely cool box set of doom and exposition. Which I must buy. Buy buy buy buy. Yes.

Also need to get an X CD before it’s out of print again, and the new Tori Amos disk (American Doll Posse). Yay money!

life

So what’s been going on for me recently? Well, nothing incredibly severe or exciting. I say that having looked back on it, but I suppose there are a few things to share. Here we go.

Firstly, I’m now working at another primary school doing IT - Fairy Meadow Demonstration School, for the curious. Seems a nice enough place, good coordinator and such. Bloody staircases though… I found staircases that seem to go places that don’t exist at one point! Well, okay, hyperbole… but goddamn, it took me ages to figure out where the hell I was and where I was going. I’ve been there five times now, and only today (fifth time) did I actually not have to think about where I needed to go and which staircase I needed. Keep in mind too - this is in just one building. Yes. The school covers multiple buildings, but it’s taken me a fortnight to figure out just one. :S

Epitheisterra is once again hammering along nicely, with the plot for Fallen Angels keeping the players entertained - I think. Roleplaying has been excellent of late (Teggsie!) and difficult as well (sorry Teggsie!). Oh yes - I managed to buy epitheisterra.com back, which is good. Currently it is actually hosting something too - the new homepage for the Epitheisterra Project. Moonlit-Studios.net actually exists now, though more as a brief feeder for epitheisterra.com than anything else. Oh, and we’re making an Epitheisterra-based film later this year, based on the current Cthulhu campaign. Hopefully, anyway - still need to speak with some parties who have an interest but there shouldn’t be any obstacles really. So yes, I get to write and direct another picture… though this one will be just a tad better, I’m thinking. ^^

Relationship stuff (not tied into sex, necessarily)… is argh, a bit irritating at the moment. If you are really intended to know more about this, I’ve spoken to you about it, and if not, well, it’s possible I just haven’t spoken to you in a while and haven’t gotten to it. Suffice to say that certain things are irritating me, namely that of people being persistent, and that I am actually quite comfortable being single right now and so find certain things… irritating. Yes, I think I’ve just repeated myself. Cry for me, please.

Oh, and I of course still have several hangups over various things. If you know, you know. Suffice to say that every now and then certain people still come to mind, and have some residual impacts upon me - and the fact that I am still in proximity to one of them at times doesn’t exactly help matters. Nor did running into Carla the other day help matters, although it was just a brief hi and such, it can still hammer things home - and that’s been three… yes, I think three years. Maybe four.

Gotta ride that pendulum back up the other side, I guess. Not chasing, though - what happens, happens.

Other stuff. Hrm. Well, Fernne is engaged and getting married, you all knew that. I’m a groomsman, you all knew that. It’s her 21st in two weeks, you probably knew that. There may be a party, there may not, who knows… and if you know Fernne, you could probably have guessed that! I went to another party on Saturday past (the day after Cats!); Madeleine’s in fact. Was fun, charades, dress-ups, conversation, etc. Nice to just relax - well, primarily relax, apart from… eh, less public I think, due to audience involvement here. If you want to know, ask - unless you already know!

I seem to be using that a lot right now… ;)

Other than that, there isn’t all that much to tell. Just ticking along on autopilot, hoping for the right results (gamsat), cruising towards the end of session, and working/playing much as I have for the past while. Only thing I’m not really doing right now is gaming… but that’s because Grace stole my TV. And Mum took hers back afterwards.

Anything else anyone wants to know? I’ll take requests, and will answer almost anything I deem prudent. Probably. :)

Hope that everyone here is well… and I need to catch up with way too many of you, very soon. Lil, Bef, you in particular. As soon as this school stuff winds down (I’m spending almost all my non-uni non-woolies time at schools, it sucks!), we must do something. Yes. Well. Take care, everyone.

Alcata’riel.

-Andiyar