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Archive for October 2009

Oh hai guys. I haven’t blogged in forever.

The exhibition was pretty cool! Many pretty things. I love Aztec Mexica writing so much. This was probably my favourite thing, but I can't find a proper picture of it online. I'm amused that the guy on the left is named "leg". Friday at 3pm was the wrong time to go, though; it was massively crowded. And people kept. Standing. Right in front of me. While I was reading something. щ(≖益≖щ) *murders*

I finished reading the Third God as well, and the ending was surprisingly good! (almost everyone I was really attached to survived! :O) In the last few chapters everything sort of comes together and you see the huge cycle of history that the characters only occupy a small, final part of, and it shifts the way in which you look at the story in a really interesting way and FFF I LOVE IT, OK. I can't really say more without spoiling, which I won't because I need you all to read it so I have someone to talk about it to. It's main selling point is the setting, I think, which I'll probably talk about more later. The author also has a huge amount of world building notes up on his website, which makes him my favourite.

I think I'll probably end up reading it all over again soon from this new perspective and to look for foreshadowing. :3

The book I'm reading now is one my mum brought me from Germany a little while ago; Die Praktikantin by Yannik Mahr. It's a sort of satire romance intrigue, I think, about a Journalist who gets put in charge of a small rural newspaper, not the big metropolitan one he had his eyes on, and hires a pretty intern, and then according to the blurb something mysterious happens, idk. It's really amusingly written, so far.

I had my second German lesson last Monday, and it went really well. :D I ran out of time before I ran out of things to do, and everything. Spent the first half an hour or so talking about the Middle Ages, because the kids didn't know anything. They hadn't even heard of the reformation, apparently. I'm probably going to give them a short history lecture every week, starting with the Völkerwanderung next Monday, since it's relevant to the Nibelungen. I'm making a ~powepoint presentation~. 8D

I also have about two thirds of a blog post written about Nick Griffins hilarious "indigenous British who've been living here for 17000 years!" comment on BBC Question Time, which was about a million years ago in internet time but who needs temporal relevance amirite? I might finish it tomorrow, I've been wandering around London a lot today shopping with Tim and I'm not in the mood to concentrate on properly structured writing. God, I missed writing properly structured things about archaeology/history, though. So much.

Oh yeah, I also started filling out my MA application! My personal statement is another thing I will probably write tomorrow.

PS: I say I was shopping with Tim, it was mostly Tim shopping, really. I only bought one thing. A pretty cool thing:




BFFs!

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30. 10. 2009 10:35 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comment

FLEXING MY CAPSLOCK MUSCLES.

So I was honestly halfway through writing a real entry. But then I got distracted. And now it's too late to scan the pictures I was going to put in it anyway without waking up my mum. So I will just leave you with the Gundam fanfaggotry and post the rest tomorrow.

Feel free to ignore this if you've already been subjected to my capslockspam on Tumblr. I am utterly incapable of discussing 00 sans capslock.



OMG GUNDAM. OMG EVERYONE. OMG BUM AND CROTCH-SHOTS. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥


CRACKTASTICAL MECH DESIGNS OH HOW I LOVE YOU~. <3



OH HEY I THINK I'VE READ THIS FANFIC.

<3

PS: I have given up speculating on what is in Innovators' pants, or if they ever underwent puberty. It is never going to make any sense.
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29. 10. 2009 12:43 am | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , | Comment

What ho.

The British museum sent me an email reminding me that I have tickets to the Moctezuma exhibition on Friday, titled "Your visit to Moctezuma", and while it was loading up on my phone, a part of me was imagining it was going to continue "... will have to be cancelled because the exhibits have mysteriously come to life/vanished."

Because I am secretly 10 years old.


To-day has been pretty useless. I had to go to the job centre in Weybridge at half past noon, and because the trains are lame, that meant I was out from 11 to 3pm. And after that I had a headache, so I laid down for a nap, and after that I've been too groggy to do much except read webcomics and stuff. I was going to do so much to-day, as well. D:


Oh, by the way, I don't think I ever posted it on here, but I made that photo blog for pictures I take on my phone! pseudocarp.tumblr.com. Check it out!


PS: Admit it, you totally want to see this, too. Yeah, I'm using tumblr a bit more lately. I sort of like to pretend my LJ is for longer, more thought-out posts. But then sometimes I post things like that trailer on there that I want to share with people on LJ, too. To expand my online presence over several different kinds of blog, or to contract it all into one? I am conflicted.

I am also going to bed now, definitely.
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19. 10. 2009 11:36 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: | Comment

Looks like I’m a teacher now.

I went to the European Bookshop yesterday, with my mum and a colleague of hers from school who were textbook shopping, and I got some books to read with my German class. :D

I can't decide which to do (or which to do first, since they're pretty short), though. One is Level 4: Stadt der Kinder, which I read when I was little and is about a bunch of kids mysteriously becoming characters in a videogame. The other one is the Nibelungen written in easy words, which is also awesome because a) mythology is always awesome, and b) the book comes with little info sections about medieval history, and quizzes about the content, and all sort of other stuff that makes my life easier. So maybe I'll do that one first.

I am still a little terrified by this surprise teaching gig. XD I'm glad it's half term next week so I have time to figure out what's going on. Also I'm getting another group of really tiny 1st grade German children, who I get to teach how to read and write and stuff like that. :O HOW AWESOME IS THAT GOING TO BE? I've always sort of wanted to teach someone to read and write.



Also, the European Bookshop is the best thing in the world. I want to go back there when I have money and buy everything.


PS: Probably going to the London Expo next weekend. :D I'm trying to find something useful like a schedule of events on their website, but no luck so far. >_>
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17. 10. 2009 12:59 am | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , | Comment

From last night’s twitterings:


If anyone tries to tell you that I was actively looking forward to the day I could attempt to translate "The Spice must flow" into Japanese, they would be lying.

I actively look forward to the day I can translate "The Spice must flow" into Arabic.


I was going to go to this to-day, but it turns out it's one of those exhibitions you have to order tickets in advance for, and they're fully booked until later this week. Maybe I can drag someone along on the weekend.

I still want to go out somewhere, though... guess I should save my train money. :<
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13. 10. 2009 10:22 am | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , | Comment

Hnnnnnnnrgh

A little while ago, I made a resolution, to be more confident, to not put myself down by assuming I couldn't do things, and to throw myself in at the deep end more.

Granted, I made this resolution in the context of deciding on what difficulty level I should play BioShock on (which ended up being academic, since my computer overheats and freezes as soon as I get out of the elevator capsule thing and start enjoying the creepy atmosphere), but I think I can transfer it to teaching German classes to a handful of 13-year-old native speakers after school with absolutely no previous experience at all.

And next week, I'll have more than half a day's warning, so I'll have more of an idea what the fuck to do.



In other news, I've finally thought of something fun to do with tumblr. I often take pictures on my phone and then don't really have any idea of what to do with them. I cold spam twitter with them, but I'm not convinced pictures and twitter work that well together. I keep meaning to do an LJ picspam post with all of them, but I've not gotten around to it. So I had the idea yesterday that I could email them to tumblr straight from my phone whenever I take one. (Unless I find another/better site for mobile photo blogging.)

All that I have to do now is figure out a title.
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12. 10. 2009 6:24 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , , | Comment

Oh, you mean THOSE pineapples? 2009-10-12 13:41:55

I drew a diary-type comic that was going to basically be half of this entry yesterday, but I just noticed my new drawing pad is bigger than my scanner, so that's not going to happen right now. It's ok, it wasn't that well-drawn anyway.

I went to London with Tim on Friday, mainly to get some revision material for the JLPT, since the revision course I'd signed up for was cancelled due to lack of interest. >_<



Read Real Japanese is a little bit above my level still, actually - lots of grammatical structures I've not come across before - but in a few months I can probably handle it.


I also watched a ridiculous documentary about Easter Island this weekend, with a full complement of stupid, notably: "'primitive' cultures are too dumb to invent stuff themselves", "aliens did it", and "Egypt is the source of all monumental architecture".

Before they mentioned aliens and I stopped paying as much serious attention, I got really irritated with some archaeologist they interviewed who was talking as if it's really weird and unusual and probably ~*mysterious*~ that people would want to build these huge apparently useless statues*. I know it was a documentary and they were trying to make it interesting, but that sort of attitude irritates me for so many reasons. Trying to smother genuinely interesting and intriguing things in pointless obfuscating mysticism, for one thing, and the suggestion that only "sophisticated" cultures are good enough to build monuments. And on a more basic level: Come on. Have you not ever looked around? Building big awesome impressive things is pretty much what we, humans, do here! I mean, by all means, be impressed that we manage it, I am constantly impressed and amazed by the crazy stuff we manage to do, but being surprised by the simple fact that we try is practically insulting.

... I may care too much about this sort of thing.



OH HEY, AND NOW I MUST BE OFF TO TEACH A SURPRISE GERMAN CLASS. Be back to explain later, if the 13-year olds don't eat me. O_O
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12. 10. 2009 1:41 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , , , , | Comment

A clever title is not coming to me right now.

I watched the first episode of Season 6 of House just now. I only saw bits and pieces of S5, but this season looks interesting. I think I'll follow it. Following a TV series on actual TV, guys. :O Craziness or what.

The trial at Costa went pretty well, I think. I mainly collected dirty dishes, and washed dishes, and carried clean dishes back downstairs. Also made some coffee, which was actually pretty fun and easy. I'll find out by Friday whether they'll hire me. *crosses fingers*

That's all, really. Everything is covered in dust from the new stairs and floor being put in. It's a really nice staircase, though. I enjoy walking on it. (What? I can enjoy a staircase.)


PS: You guys should totally read Hanjuku Joshi. The beginning is so-so, but it gets better and better as it goes on. Fffff, it's so adorable, it makes me grin like a stupid person.

I have to do that post about the gory, dark (but wonderful ♥) book I'm reading soon now, to balance out the fluffy yuri rec. XD
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7. 10. 2009 11:26 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , , , , | Comment

HI GUYS.

When I was finishing my new website design the other day (have I blogged about that, actually? MY NEW WEBSITE IS UP. 8D) I saw my Hourly Comic Day comic, and it made me want to do more. So I did yesterday! Except I didn't do much except have a cold yesterday, so it's not very exciting. >_>





AND THEN I GAVE UP.


It was meant to be a sort of practice for drawing quickly, but I think I might just give up on drawing quickly, tbh. XD But hey, it looks nicer than my last hourly comic.

ALSO. I had a job interview at Costa on Saturday, and I have a trial on Wednesday. EXCITING STUFF. I just really want my account to be in credit again, srsly. ;_;

Going back to blowing my nose every 10 seconds now. See ya.


PS: [info]giving_ground & [info]firescribble, I was working on sketches for you earlier (probably email you what I've got tomorrow), and look what I found while looking for reference pictures. HOW'S THAT FOR MANLY POSING.
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5. 10. 2009 8:59 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , , , | Comment

I like drawing trees.

Sooooo, I was about to do a bunch of scanning for an art post, and then I noticed that most of the stuff I'd drawn recently was in pencil, and then I gave up.

Even with the extensive high-tech array of settings available to me when scanning (there are three: brightness, contrast, and dpi), I have never managed to make it play nice with pencil drawings. And while I am not at "do nothing but lie in bed watching Kyou Kara Maoh!"* levels of sick, I am in no way healthy enough to bother with staring at a screen fucking with levels for a few hours.

So here is a thing I drew in pen. I'm quite proud of it, especially since I made it up as I went along.

Abandoned Outpost


*Which is actually the best thing in the world do to when you're brain-dead from flu or similar. No, seriously. Scientific studies have shown this to be true. (And by scientific studies I mean me.) Though I think Star Trek TOS might be just as good.
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2. 10. 2009 6:14 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , | Comment