Brand new year, again.

Some quick updates for a new year.

School’s starting next week. I’m attempting to do Asian International Cinema, some Renaissance literature, science fiction, and a multimedia subject. I do have a back-up plan in case I don’t get any one of those, and that’s a post-structuralist psychoanalysis subject.

I have been working on a few photos (from Korea) and will be putting them up as soon as I can bring myself to. Probably tomorrow.

I’ve been dreaming of a charity book sale of some sort, though it’s all quite vague for now. I suppose I’m leaving it for after the term starts, which is all rather illogical since that leaves me with very little time to work on it. But that’s the way it goes.

My textbooks are taking a while to arrive. The Christmas-New Year intermission always messes up the mail.

Speaking of books, I tidied up my shelves recently and was meaning to put up photos of the thing, but that never materialised because I got busy with writing, then school administrative business, then Christmas. Excuses, I know, but excuses are sometimes better than nothing.

I watched the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock recently, and I can only say that it was so action-y, they could have replaced Sherlock with any other action hero and it would still have been fine. That said, it was a rather enjoyable show.

Oh and happy Twelfth Night Day.

d

Public Health Advisory: You should always do your exercise, because if you come back to it after an extended period of… not exercising, you tend to be hit by aches everywhere.

Boredom

Yesterday, I finished up a few assorted tasks. Then I watched a few things I was supposed to watch. With all that done, it suddenly hit me. It’s a feeling I haven’t known for a while. Boredom.

I still have chores (packing my music library, for instance). I still have things I need to do before the year is up (lots of planning for my studies and so on). But I have to admit that I don’t feel an urgent need to get to any of them, and there’s nothing but the lull in the meantime.

I’m not sure I should be complaining. I’m not even sure I am complaining. It’s just that I was enormously surprised when it attacked last night.

I went to sleep just past midnight. I haven’t gone to bed before two in a long time.

I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out how to combat it by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, all my school work has come back, and the results should be out closer to Christmas. The work that I’ve managed to get back so far has been encouraging, so I am at least glad for that bit. I have to admit I wasn’t quite expecting that. In fact, in the middle of the semester, I was convinced I wouldn’t do very well.

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December.

My word, it’ll be December in a couple of days. End of the year and all that, onwards to Armageddon.

This year, I’m interested in trying to put a number of things into motion so that I can get 2012 on the right track even before it starts. At the risk of sounding like gullible optimism, there is admittedly a sense of importance to the year ahead, a feeling that I’ve got to make a couple of things happen and that I want to make a couple of others happen too. Basically, I’ve got in mind five or six big things, and I want to make sure they can be put in place before New Year’s Day.

So much for looking forwards. In the past few years, I’ve generally resisted trying to reflect upon the year and to make some tidy conclusion and the like. It’s just never seemed particularly fruitful or accurate. Nevertheless, I do think about the year that’s gone by sometimes. It’s been such an unusual year for me, with things generally going in unexpected directions, with surprises and all, and changes of all shapes and sizes. I don’t think I want to dwell too much on this, in any case.

Well, here we go. Let’s get ready for Christmas, and a brand new year. Assuming the world doesn’t end, of course.

d

I know, I know.

My last post was almost two months ago. My fault entirely.

What happened?

Well, the semester was busy doing its thing, but I can now honestly declare it over.

I also had to take care of some personal issues, and fight off a couple of bouts of illness.

I’ve been writing and feeling not very good about it.

I’ve been considering my future.

I’ve been fixing a printer (still at it), packing a library (more on that later), and starting projects left and right.

I’ve been trying to meet friends. Lots of friends. As many as I’ve been able to schedule. Working so far.

I’ve been tied down by some daily chores.

I’ve been thinking back to a semester that went by really quickly, which, as far as semesters go, is probably saying a lot.

I’ve been… Well, that’s enough of that.

So, just dropping a note to say that I’ll be posting a bit more frequently in the next couple of months at least. I’ll probably be saying a bit more about how the semester has gone, what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been thinking about, and what I’ve been enjoying of late. I’ll also get back to putting things up over at my flickr account, which has not seen action for about the same amount of time.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ve been well.

d

Space Oddity

Strange things are happening on my side of the universe. I can’t exactly explain what they are, but let’s just say that there are maybe two or three things that have had me thinking, Well, this never happened before. It’s nothing too terrible. I am losing sleep, but that has to do with something else. And I know how vague all of this sounds, but I guess I don’t really have a choice about that. Suffice to say, it’s an odd time for me and I don’t think it will let up any time soon.

Now for an assortment of things:

I’ve been writing again. Or at least, I began to get back to it last night. I’m not sure if there will be any sustained effort forthcoming but I certainly hope so. I have about a fifth of the manuscript left to do and I hope to be able to complete that as soon as possible.

My cat says hi.

It’s Nobel season and in case you haven’t been guessing, I named a few hopefuls in my blog post over here: [via Who Killed Lemmy Caution?]

Plenty of movies to watch, plenty of things to read. School work is… let’s say, unfriendly. I think I’m doing okay, as far as surviving goes. I’d certainly like to be saying that I have all my homework done and dusted three weeks ahead of time but you know, that stuff is theoretically possible but practically impossible. Like a car appearing on the other side of a mountain because of quantum mechanics.

I’m watching Paris Is Burning today, and I’ll soon have to rewatch Mulholland Drive. The latter is for my essay, which I’m… still thinking about. It’s starting to make sense (the essay, I mean) but there are a couple of kinks I’m going to have to iron out.

I got a haircut yesterday. I now have less hair than the day before.

It’s strange to think it’s October already because it makes me feel like the end of the year is already about.

d

New Technology

As I write this, I’m firing up my new phone for the first time. It’s an HTC Sensation, marking my first foray into smartphone territory. I suppose, better late than never and all that.

Screen lighting up! Glorious!

Before this I was on a Nokia E66.

And I would like to say that the phone is a bit ironic, because it starts out by saying “HTC: quietly brilliant” together with a really loud chime.

But yes, I’m rather excited about this. I hope I’ll be able to have a uhhhh let’s say constructive relationship with my new phone, given all it’s fancy new capabilities and all.

Meanwhile, I am having a constructive relationship with my notebook, which I believe I’ve told you about. It’s a small and cheap ASUS (coming in at about six hundred bucks) that I’ve found really useful for doing work around the house, taking notes in school, screening videos in class, and the like.

Okay, the phone is working.

Except I know I’ll have a lot of trouble importing everything from my old phone over to the new one.

Anyway, just a note to say hi. I’ve been preoccupied with school work, but it’s going pretty okay. I had a chat with my lecturer about the philosophy of “pretty-okay”. It was rather interesting, going into trains on collision courses and Zen Buddhism. I realise I use “pretty okay” a lot more than i used to. And it has a lot to do with how everyone has a different idea of “pretty okay”. I just like to see how differently they react to it.

Forgive me as I abandon this post now to go to work on a proposal and tranferring things from my old Nokia over to the new HTC. You were my very best buddy for the better part of a good four years, Nokia.

Off I go then. I hope you’re doing pretty okay too.

d

New reads.

Oh dear. What has happened? Has the owner of this nefarious page slipped into a time warp and failed to show up for a week? Has he been fired from his job? (Hint: he did not have one.) Has he broken up with his girlfriend? (Hint: he did not have one.) Has he been fighting crime and aliens from outer space?

Well, not exactly.

Here is, however, something to distract you. My very brilliant friends got me a book voucher, which I promptly went out to spend. Here is what I got:

I’ve never read Andreas Maier before, but Klausen sure sounds good!

While I was at the bookstore yesterday, the security guards were busy apprehending someone I can only presume to be a shoplifter. He went, NOOO, PLEASE, NOOO, PLEASE, PLEASE, as his face was planted on the ground. One of the security guards seemed to say that the guy had smacked him earlier.

For me though, it was really super-exciting. Not that I would want to see more of this all the time. But it just goes to show you how really mundane my life is.

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Gloomsday.

I’ve known for a long time that I share my birthday with Buddy Holly, but today I learnt that I also have Sonny Rollins and Jennifer Egan for company. That’s some mighty fine company. Happy Gloomsday, everyone!

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Gloomsday Week.

Hello, and welcome to Gloomsday Week.

I was intending to update things over the weekend, but I didn’t get tot it because I was beset by what I presume to be some form of a stomach bug. I have something against stomach bugs because they were responsible for the two worst bouts of illness I’ve ever had. This one wasn’t as bad, but with deadlines looming and work beckoning, I was always going to be a little behind things.

I intend to replace the Featured post about Gloomsday soon because events will take place this week and the next, and it will all be quite meaningless to have that on the front page much longer. I’ll replace it with a report on how it all goes. Well, I hope.

I bought a new computer and I really ought to be blogging on that just for the sake of it, but I’m a little lazy to power it on. I got it at Comex. It’s a cheap and small Asus that I figured would serve me well for at least the next three years. It’s a little less powerful than the netbook I was initially eyeing (go figure) in terms of video performance, and has a little less hard disk space, and it has no USB 3.0, but I traded those for what I think is a nicer build quality, a preferred keyboard and touchpad, and more processing power. I’ll probably just be browsing, writing, and researching on it anyway. With the occasional Alpha Centauri.

Right. Gloomsday Week beckons. I have readings, presentations, essays, and a novel to complete. Off we go then.

d

P.S. I am treating myself to a dose of Enrique Vila-Matas this week.

And then, updates.

Hello.

Just dropping by to say that Gloomsday arrangements are not going all that well, but I think they will work out in some way.

I’m back at writing in the long form, i.e. the novel, and it’s great to be back. I think I’ve learnt some things about it in the past few months that will hopefully prove beneficial as well.

Speaking of learning things, some strange personal issues have cropped up. I would like to declare them resolved, though I’m not entirely sure. When asked yesterday if I was happy, I said that I didn’t know. I feel like I have a stronger sense of my beliefs, but not stronger beliefs per se. I feel closer to my heroes, but further from my friends. A lot of things seem clearer to me but some things also seem murkier. It’s a strange time, I guess.

School is good, and busy. Been making friends, in a sense. Been also realising how busy I will be getting very soon, and have been trying to get the old engine started. I feel really stupid going into every class but I don’t think that will be a major problem because I’m probably going to get used to it.

I managed to borrow a copy of Kenneth Branagh’s 1988 production of Twelfth Night, and certainly find it more to my tastes than the production of Midsummer I watched prior to this. I don’t think it helped that I’ve had a shift in opinion on these two plays. It’s sometimes weird to note how much one changes. I remember being quite taken with Midsummer before, and also (naively) dismissing Twelfth Night as being something of a lightweight play. I now feel that Midsummer seems to show too much of Shakespeare trying to find his feet and trying to wrestle his craft under control, not helped by how it does appear a little like a jigsaw with pieces that don’t quite fit together. On the other hand, I think Twelfth Night shows better execution on his part.

Well, I suppose I’m just getting old and all complain-y.

d