Dinosaurs with Laser-Guns

I went to visit lullula in the North this week! It was a lovely time. Here's some things we did:

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Tomorrow I have a job interview for a part-time tutoring job and then THE DAY AFTER Tim & I are going to Amsterdam for a week SO MANY THINGS PLEASE STOP THE RIDE I NEED A BREATH.

Amsterdam should be a lot of fun though.

While travelling I've been amusing myself with a pixel art app on my phone. I think I've been improving! These are my two faves I've done so far.

( pixels )

And now, to bed!

What has happened to the year? I’m not really sure what I’ve done in the last three months. I did NaNoWriMo, and although I didn’t win, writing turns out to be a huge amount of fun and I’m going to keep doing it. Maybe my ~creative energies~ have recharged, or maybe I’m just getting my act together, but I’ve got a lot of ideas lately and I’m drawing again, and getting a start on some other things I’ve been meaning to do in my copious free time.

Endless leisure is still not my favourite situation to be in, though, and so far there’s been no success in the jobsearch. I am doing some German > English (and the other way as soon as my test gets approved) translation on MyGengo, and as usual it’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately the jobs aren’t really pouring in so far; in the last week I’ve done two, one of which was only a sentence long. Made almost $30 on the other one, though, and requested a payout (to make sure it actually works). I hear the experience from the customer side is pretty good, so if you need a translation you should consider them. And consider doing it via this banner, because then I get referral money. ;P

Something that has raised my unemployed spirits is that the library they’ve been building near our flat since before we moved in has finally opened. I still think it looks kind of like an ominous looming spaceship.

The non-fiction section is a little lacking, but the fiction selection is good — they fit a lot more books into that building than it looks like there’s room for — and they have a nicely sized graphic novel section, too, so I’m finally getting around to reading all of those comics people have recommended to me.

The first time I visited last week I took out volumes 1 to 3 of Fables. It’s fairly good so far. The writing seemed a bit stiff to me at first, but I think I’ve gotten more used to it now. They get points for having their ladies drive the plot a lot, but I haven’t been able to really get into any of the characters, and I’m not sure why. They just seem a little obvious to me; it’s like they’ve taken fairy tale characters and turned them into the cast of a soap opera. Or maybe it’s because most of them are rich and US American that I get that vibe. The premise interests me enough to get the next few volumes, though, and maybe when more of the back-story is revealed I’ll become more invested in the characters.

I also got out a few volumes of Hellblazer, which is always fun in a creepy way. (Although the hippies in The Fear Machine annoyed me a lot, for various reasons.) I have no idea of what order they are meant to go in so I just got out two at random. That Wikipedia article probably has the publication order in it, doesn’t it. Maybe I’ll go with that from now on.

What other comics should I check out? I have a long list somewhere from various Eastercon panels, but I am always happy for more, since I know you guys have good taste.

Mirrored from The Random Planet.

 

The pig is there for luck. Apparently pigs don't symbolise good luck in England, as I learned yesterday when Tim asked me why it was there. This is weird and interesting and makes me want to do a survey! I’m pretty sure four-leaved clovers, chimney sweepers, and possibly horseshoes (with the legs pointing up so they look like a bull’s horns, according to my grandmother) are shared, as well as all the unlucky stuff like walking under ladders and breaking mirrors and so on. (I suspect those were popularised by films and cartoons.) My mum brought me bread, salt, and a penny when I moved into the flat -- for plentiful food, wealth, and good luck, respectively, though we had to look that up -- and when you find a penny on the street you’re meant to (pretend) spit on it three times and keep it in your pocket for luck. That’s all the folkloric traditions and superstitions I can think of off the top of my head. Do you have any?

I think pigs are pretty cool animals, regardless.

So, in the time since I last blogged I’ve been having really nice Christmas and birthday/New Years times. Hung out with my family, baked cookies, ate delicious food, and played card and board games (everyone seems to be coming around to my point of view that board games are for cool kids. My dad even enjoyed Settlers of Catan, after initial scepticism – “You can’t kill anyone?”). Everyone seemed to like the presents I got them, too.  :D (Paintings for my parents & brother, and a pair of Hello Kitty headphones for Tim.) My parents got me a new keyboard and screen, which I asked for intending to attach to my laptop, but then Tim got me the parts of a computer to go with them. :O! I am coming to you at this very moment from my super sexy new desktop PC. ( I got some other really great stuff, too )

On New Year’s Eve, Tim and I went out to see the London fireworks. The travel guidelines said the viewing areas start filling up around 8, so we went out for dinner and ended up on Westminster Bridge around 7. And then we sat and read books for five hours while Radio 1 played really lame music. It was totally worth it, though: the fireworks were spectacular. I adore fireworks. Pretty bright colours and loud noises are just viscerally satisfying. Fuck yeah, watch us light up the sky! I didn’t want to waste any of that feeling on trying to take photos, because photos of fireworks are never as good anyway, but I did tear myself away for a couple of seconds because the sea of cameras and phones that went up in front of me when it started was too amusing not to document.

Everyone on the internet already knows what fireworks look like, guys.

I was thinking yesterday about whether I should make a resolution this year. I usually don’t, because I think about my goals and how to achieve them pretty frequently anyway, so I don’t feel the need to do it at new year’s specifically. My life has been going really well in the last few months. Everything feels like it’s rolling in the right direction. I like where I live, my relationship is really good, I’ve been making some cool friends at uni and being social, and I got my first essay back before the holiday and got the best grade of my academic career so far holy shit. Of course this is a dangerous moment and I can’t rest on my laurels and stop pushing to keep rolling in that direction, so I’ve decided that my resolution for 2011 is: “Take all necessary steps to ensure the continuation of awesome good times”.

First things first; my new number one game I am looking forward to:

Level 5/Capcom OTP FOREVER.

Change of topic: UCL continues to be the best place in the world. Next week Shahina Farid, the site director of Çatalhöyük, is coming to our "Issues in the Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East" seminar. Yeah you know you're jealous. I don't actually know that much detailed info about Çatalhöyük, though, so I'm going to have to do some reading up.

Last week I went to the first of a series of Seminars at the Institute of Classical Studies on the theme of "Religion and Cross-cultural Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East". ♥__♥ I'd been looking forward to it all week, and it did not disappoint; it was really interesting and exciting. That sounds sycophantic, because my professor gave it, but it genuinely was. It's the kind of topic I want to study. I've always liked the intersections of different cultures and how they work, which I'm sure I can at least partly blame on my international/third culture kid* adolescence.

I've been hanging out with the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Soc and techSoc, and I'm thoroughly enjoying not being a recluse anymore. Social interaction: it's pretty great. Social interaction with geeks is even better. I may end up joining the Japan Society, as well. They have language lessons, you see, and I desperately need some speaking practice. I was talking to a girl at the last SFF Soc movie night, and it came up in conversation that I was learning Japanese, so she started talking to me in it. I could understand what she was saying pretty well, but I immediately forgot all words and my mouth wouldn't open. ぜんぜんできなかった。;＿;　もっと練習しなくちゃいけない。

Apart from that I've spent most of my time reading and slowly getting into a working routine. I'm going to start writing my first essay, soon, too. I get to cram the uses of the concept of 'objectivity' by processualists and post-processualists into a meagre 2000 words. I bet you all envy me for that, too. :| I've squeezed in a little bit of drawing (and I have a fair amount of art from the last few months that I haven't posted online yet), but scanning and editing is time consuming and frustrating, and I just can't be bothered. ¬__¬ I am plotting ways to get access to high-quality scanners, though (none of the UCl libraries/computer rooms have any, as far as I've been able to find out, but I do have access to a range of other London universities...), so it may yet happen.


*I feel slightly weird calling myself a third culture kid, even though I do identify with at least some of the things in that article, because after all I only grew up in three counties, as opposed to six or seven. (I get the feeling that very thought is an indicator of my third-culture-kid-itude.)

It also seems to be associated more with US-Americans of the previous generation, and all I know about it I learned from that wikipedia article, so there's that, too.

I fell asleep just as the children's programming was starting on Radio 7, which is around... 5 am? Wow, later than I thought. And I still woke up at 8:30, feeling perfectly awake. Idek.

I'm trying out a self-motivating tactic where you stop doing something when you're having fun and are still really motivated to keep going, so you'll be quicker to start the next day. It's working so far, but it's really hard! XD I can't stop in the middle of a math problem, it's just not right.

News bulletins:

The Evolution of Palaeolithic and Neolithic Societies in the Near East option at UCL isn't cancelled after all! ♥ You guys can't even believe how thrilled I am about this. It's the perfect module.

Oh, speaking of Archaeology stuff, look, an entire free volume of Human Biology! Which is not what it sounds like but actually (in this case) material form a Center for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity conference on demographics and dispersal and cultural evolution and incredibly sexy things like that. I've only read one article so far, though — I don't really like reading long PDFs on screens where I can't underline stuff and take notes in the margins, but whenever I've been at ACS to make use of their abundance in printer ink and paper the computers have been uncooperative.

I went to see Agora with my parents and Tim last week. It was good! Even better than I expected it to be! A lot deeper than your average period drama, with its depictions of religious conflict and doubt vs. certainty and so on. I really want to see it again to form a more detailed opinion (and because I just want to see it again), but it's only showing in the small cinema at Leicester Square, and the tickets are crazy expensive. Maybe I'll rent the DVD when it comes out.

I think the moral of the story was "science is totally hawt", but that might just have been me.

(You will also notice I am using an APPROPRIATE ASTRONOMY ICON.)

We put in an offer on a flat, but then we decided we couldn't really afford it after all so we had to take the offer back. Still lookin'.

Lastly, there's only 3 episodes of Durarara!! left now, and while I don't want it to end, I am so excited for the last few episodes. There is some kind of epic climax building. Seriously, you guys. Watch it. It's free! Legitimately!