It’s been a little while since I posted here. Thought I might as well have a go at it, include some interesting tidbits, gloat over anime girls, post a story/thing I’m working on… yep, just another day in the office. ^_^

Well, now that I’m back at Uni my free time has, once again, shrunk down to approximately… oh… zero. Not necessarily because I’m at Uni all the time… but because of having almost all of my non-Uni time at home, where Mum rules supreme. As such, due to the ruling supreme stuff, I tend to spend a fair bit of time doing various housework/whatever. Which, although I’ve been brainwashed from an early age into doing, I kind of resent after a while. Ah well. It happens.

Free time, however, at Uni, is at a fairly high level… at least, you’d think so by the amount of time I’ve spent playing the Chairman’s Game - which involves cards, for the ignorant. Someday I’ve got to get everyone who reads this together (heh, going to happen) and show them a thing or two about irritating, evil card games. If I can get an old friend, Matthew Verdon involved, I might have to send some people home with anti-stress medication. :)

As I believe I’ve mentioned in the past, Uni is still cruising, what with me being… about thinks.. two thirds of a year behind all my friends. Well, most of them. So, I’m currently doing the other half of my second year/first semester, and WRIT101, which is a writing course. Which is really, really fun.

I’ve never actually studied writing before, not as a focus of a subject as opposed to something years ago in high school. It’s refreshingly awesome. The lecturer is insanely amusing, quite attractive, and almost hyperactive. I love her, I really do. She’s fabulous… almost, if anyone who’s met me can relate to this, like me, but constantly hyperactive and probably a little bouncier and a little… more? less? sane. Yeah. And, a fun tidbit - her name is ‘Shady.’ Interesting, wot? Anyway, I’ve done some writing (for writing, no less!) etc. and so far all good. Most of the learning stuff so far has been on technique etc. - nothing to jump up and down about, although the workshopping has been really fun. My first piece of work was ‘shopped’ today - I knocked off a kind of ‘diary’ extract after the first lecture, fiddled with it a bit, and then gave out copies. Went down well, I think - main problems being that it’s a bit ‘more of the same’ in terms of genre, as it’s war fiction set in a trench in WWI. And, of course, as such, it’s a little common to a lot of people. As was summed up - ‘what makes this story so special?’ - although that had a fair bit to do with me writing a nice little header/footer that announced that it was an extract from an upcoming biography written by the granddaughter of the soldier involved. Here, have a linkie and tell me what you think.

Other classes… Biochemistry and Chemistry. Chemistry is bleh. It always is… not too bad, but then, kinda boring as normal. Mind you though, it’s nice to be doing practical chemistry again… fun. Biochemistry… now, I find the subject material relatively interesting, but then I still walked out of a double lecture today half way through… I just couldn’t stand the lecturer. She’s doing lipids and membranes with us, and she had the evil habit of repeating everything she said at least three or four times. Every five slides. I couldn’t take any more of it - kinda impressed with myself. It took me more than two weeks to procrastinate enough to skip a class. ;)

Into other interesting parts of life… work. Yeah. Whatever. Remains more or less the same… several managers left (YES! GOODBYE, NORM, YOU BASTARD!) and easter chocolate has been on display for several weeks… causing my chocolate consumption to rise rather rapidly. Ah well. I’m actually paying for most of it this year. We have a new Store Manager too - name’s Don, Don Targett. Nice guy. Yeah.

I’m waiting incredibly impatiently for some books to come out… I need ‘Elegy for the Lost Star’ desperately. Yes. Need. I wish that Elizabeth Haydon would hurry up and finish it. Or that it would come out in Australia. Or whatever. I’m also looking forward (and forward and forward) to ‘A Feast for Crows’ by George R. R. Martin - previously I was looking forward to ‘A Dance of Dragons’ but then he changed the title. Sigh. What can you do? ^_^

Anime… yes, no entry is complete without a State of the Collection address, and a slaver list. Let me see… I’ve finished watching all of my NOIR DVDs… man. I almost cried in one of the last episodes, it was that affecting… seeing Kirika break down and beg Mireille to kill her really got to me. Watched my Haibane Renmei #3 disk - beautiful. I love this show. I’ve also watched a few episodes of Final Fantasy Unlimited - 2/4 on the DVD, and, so far… am unimpressed. I’ve seen worse… somewhere. It’s just… pointless. There seems to be little real plot to the show so far. Just some a repeated (albeit cool) gun animation, the FF battle music, and childish bad guys. I’ll watch the rest of the disk, but I highly doubt I’ll be wanting any more of the series. Highly doubt. Last Exile… have yet to watch the final two episodes (also out of four) on the disk - will be watching them later this evening, say around ten, or something. It’s really beautiful… lovely show. I’m highly enjoying it… and it’s on my ‘buy if money is available’ list.

This is, of course, in contrast to my ‘you don’t need petrol and food, buy this dvd!’ list… which currently includes NOIR #7, Haibane Renmei #4, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Resurrection and Witch Hunter Robin #2-6. But then, you can’t have everything. :)

And, for the final anime news break - Love Hina. Started watching it (see below) and decided to see the TV series, as it comes before the Spring Special. Watched one episode so far… nice. Very cute girls, amusing comedy, nice storyline. I think I like it. If I end up liking the rest of it as much, I might get the Perfect Collection. We’ll see. Oh yes. One last thing - the NOIR box came with a t-shirt. I love it. Kawaii! And comfy!

Ahem.

I’m currently also starting a new budget style of existence out of my ‘working’ moneys - basically, I get $100 put aside for me to play with each week - petrol, food, whatever - and the rest (more than that) goes into Ye Olde Savings Accounté™. However, I have the bad habit of spending savings money on Anime and books and stuff, and spending all of the $100 a week on random crap. So, I’ve worked out the following:

Petrol (weekly) - $30rnUni (food etc) - $25rnWork (food etc) - $15

Leaving me an excess of $30 a week in my ‘working’ account. Thus, I put aside $30 a week, which I use for things such as

Internet bills - ISP, hosting, etc. Presents - birthdays and whatnotrn’I Want It Money’ - Anime DVDs, books, music etc.

That way, although I do spend the $100 in total, I still can afford (within limits) to get things I want, things I need, and stop spending my savings money - which is necessary for new car insurance/registration, for the eventual eMac purchase, although I’m starting to lean heavily in favour of a 12 inch iBook instead - at a cost of around $1900 (extra RAM + HDD) it’s $700 more than the eMac would cost me (without RAM upgrades, admittedly) but I’ve always loved the iBooks, and the portability is a plus… Anyway, the money is, of course, also necessary for other vital components of Life, the Universe and Everything (®Douglas Adams)

Another thing… in response to a comment… I love real girls Jon. Even more than anime girls, if it were possible. I’d prove this by uploading my porn collection but… ah… looks around twitching… I kinda… don’t have enough space on the server… ahem. Yeah. But still, Naru is pretty damn cute/hot/whatever. Here. Don’t believe me? Cover. She’s the one in the centre. ^_^

Let me think… to sum up… Life is cruisy. Pretty cruisy, in fact. Quite enjoying myself, doing OK at Uni, etc. Budget seems to be working out, anime is still attractively gorgeous, and all is well with the world of Ben. Well, mostly.

More later, I suppose. The next time my iMac decides to work on the Net. Take care, all.

-Andiyar