Dinosaurs with Laser-Guns

I went to the health centre today to get a new pill prescription, and I took a short-cut (or at least a nicer route) through Russia Dock Woodland. And I found this awesome thing, which made my geeky heart sing:


[Image description: a large metal compass rose is embedded into a concrete square in the middle of a path. It is divided into 16 sections labelled with the cardinal directions (N, NNE, NE, ENE, and so on). In the centre is an engraving of a bird, possibly a sparrow, but I don't know anything about birds. Overlaying the rest are a number of lines radiating out from the centre, each labelled with a location, the distance to it, and a list of commodities. The subsequent images show smaller sections of the compass.]

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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!