My mum must have thought I got off the wrong side of bed this morning (which, in all seriousness, is very undesirable as I would fall out the 17th-storey window, and that -would- indeed be very wrong), for I was positively curt and laconic towards her every attempt of conversation, and she didn't get much of my eye-contact treatment when I finally deigned to mutter something. Which is what you'll get if I'm dragged to the outside world against my inertia to stay put in the house.

I got a haircut. For my first outside haircut (i.e. not done by mum) I had since year 199X, I must say I was pretty okay with the result -- though either the back was too long or the front was too short, which means the back was too long since the front can never be too short for my liking. *cue loopy grin*
With my mum I can state all the anime-style hairstyle I hope for (which does not come through in the end anyway), but with a hairdresser you don't know, and vice versa, you can only hope for the best for the fate of your hair that lies in his hands.

Luckily it came out fine.
...the hairdresser I had was so gay! XD No, of course not... ^__^ He had a rooste... no, a mohawk style hair with the gold-strip-down-the-middle, which of course raise some hope in me that he might just give me a good hip hairstyle. But oohhh, you should see how his hands flip and swirl. That was to change the instrument on his hand, I presume, but most of the time he did that with for apparent reason. Now -that- looks totally gay. I was trying to look indifferent throughout the whole haircut but I was laughing silently.
He then asked, with hints of amusement, why one side of my hair is longer than the other (this is not apparent if you didn't look for it, so no, my original hairstyle wasn't bad at all). Mum will KILL him if she heard it! XD My mum is moderately proud of her haircutting technique; I think she's good too.
He sang along to the songs played over the PA too. That was cool, because he sang the songs that I myself like to rock to. But my mum thought he was talking to himself the whole time, and commented how he looked at and flipped his wrist frequently and just seemed very bizarre.

Apparently my mum thought he was gayer than I did.

Ha, no malice meant of course. I just like to observe different people's idiosycrasies. It makes for very interesting drawing inspirations.

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Speaking of gay behaviour. I realised I forgot to comment about the recent Gunlock episodes.
Oh dear, Hazel is so so stalking Sanzo. He makes those boyband-chasing groupies/insurance companies look normal (no, wait, that honour belongs to Dougan of Saiyuki Requiem...) So far anime!Hazel is portrayed more groupie-ish than manga!Hazel. Manga Hazel looks to be more evil and more intent to destroy? the Sanzo-ikkou. But then again, like most mentally-unbalanced fans rejected time and time again by their idols, anime Hazel finally snapped in the latest episode ^__^ and shot Sanzo... ::Sanzo abuse! =D::

Zakuro (that Against the Stream villian) is just plain comical. He is just like Kami-sama with all that laughing and... laughing (...and his toy gun. Um.) Geez, no Saiyuki villian is sane at all.

Operation Un-GP-fying: write with personal worst conveyal of language possible as of now.

My written prose flowed nicely for a change today. Yet. My cognitive reasoning went haywired instead. Dun't that mean it made no difference at all??!! ...my GP essay, methinks, went off point and into orbit. So did the Application Question.

...and we will not see lightning on a sunny day.

That was how my essay ended. What the @&#^%???? Where did -that- come from?! What did that mean? I hope it sounded as thought-provocative as it were spontaneous(i.e. the craziest-iest scrawl on the foolscap, with the deep dent of a fullstop that marks the closure of DIE ESSAY!! Grrrr&$%#%!!).
Same goes for the AQ... but that is already unsavable.

Well. It's only Prelims. (I didn't say that.)

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Watched Gensoumaden Saiyuuki today on TV Mobile for the first time (first time on the TV Mobile, that is). I must say that Sanzo's and Hakkai's dubbed voices sound very good indeed! Though it is rather difficult to tell various voices apart...
Heard whiffs of Open Up Your Mind thus (for it was the end of the Chin Iisou arc), which reminds me of how much I love that song, and how much I missed listening to it (have not powered up my Winamp for eons). I even tuned in to 89.3FM to catch the ending song after I alighted the bus.

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One thing I've acertain after watching Samurai Champloo:

I fall for men with specs.

... ...

Well, 2D men, anyway. Anyway.

*ticks off* Nii, Sanzo (remember he -does- wear specs? Remember?), Midou Ban (even though I've only watched 11 episodes of him. *hintstormyhint*), Tezuka Kunimitsu, and now Jin (oh gush he's so kakkoii). The moment he appeared in the anime, I -knew-. I KNEW.
... ...
But of course if a guy wears glasses in a manga/anime (Hellsing exception. Everybody wears glasses in there.), it only serves as another stereotypic portrayal that so-and-so is so darn stoic/looks-in-charge he becomes cool. So -that's- what I go for huh. *pleased with self analysis*

I even drew a sketch/sketched a drawing of him this morning. That really says something. (I've only done it to Sanzo and L so far. Drawing a sketch, I mean.)

Operation Un-GP-fying: Did.

Ah. I thought I find it familiar... something like Cowboy Bebop. Turns out it's the same director.

Samurai Champloo is brilliant. You have to watch it.

Nothing. Just to remind myse... ourselves... of their sexy existence. Gawd can you just lookit Gojyo?? *swoons*
By the way, #4 is coming out next month in Japan.

Bought the Death Note tankoubons. I must say the covers are already quite captivating, nevermind the content.
One thing I have to mention, is that when I had been reading the Jap version and came across the little inconspicuous message that one character left for another (as in there were these lines of normal-looking sentences, but there's actually a message if you read the 1st letter of every sentence and blah), I thought: Ha, if this is perfectly translated into chinese when the tankoubon comes out, I will bow down to them. Well, no, they'll probably just retain the jap words and put down loads of side notes.

"Them", being the Chuangyi translator(s). Because I've yet to come across instances of well-translated jap-words puzzles (of which are pervasive in Detective Conan), and I just have an impression that CY translators are not too good.

Er, well. *grovels* Not only is the meaning of the normal sentences well-preserved, the hidden message sounds even better than the jap version. *chuckles*
Though, the translator has a name similar to Michael Hui (of HK's Hui Brothers... y'know, the 70s/80s/90s era and everything?)... ...
A sketch done during the early stages of L-loving, pasted here so you can see how adorable he is, though there certainly are some wrong details.
And please ignore those amines and amides.

A little summary of my activities in the past few days: anime (and boy do I -have- animes), loitering (in the library. Has started on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, which will probably be the topic of another recommendation by me in weeks to come), cards ('cause my mum saw me making a card a few days ago and now she wants me to do some for her friends... er... what??), miscellaneous (I was practising cycling no-hands just now) and of course, mangas.

And you think, whatever happened to "books" in the "hit the books" context?
Because, well, it is now That Period With Clouds Looming Over You and stuff?

I could just slap myself for saying this, because it means I very well know the reason why, but am not moving to change anything.
I don't know how to start. Studying, I mean. I have, in all my ?? years of life spent under school roofs, not really understood the usefulness of revising and studying, much less engaged in the process. No, no, I mean, I -did- flip through topics before tests and exams and such, but I've never truly "studied", which, incidentally, is an essential element in these past 2 years that I've chosen to forgo and... regret? Perhaps. I'm just not the one to sit down and read things that are not going to be future recommendations by me. I'm not that sort. I'm really not. It requires a self discipline I do not possess; I'll wander off and do something like read a real book when I do try to study. Or sleep. I've recently slept an incredible amount of hours because of the incredible amount of nodding off I've ended up with after staring at some 3rd page of notes. (Yeah, that's why I can sleep from 5pm to 5am. Now you know.)

I call for thee, providential Deus Ex Machina!!!

Stupider than stupid.

I started reading Sleepers in Anderson; I finished it this week. 2 years seems like a pretty darn long time taken to read a book, but I can assure you it has more to do with running around libraries to find the book than it has to do with a boring plot. No, I mean, the book's not even remotely boring -- it's brilliant.
I recommend it, which I know is a funny thing to say, given the utter lack of introduction I provided. Um, well, read it anyway. A fine true story retold in a fashion of fiction by the author, Lorenzo Carcaterra, who narrates through years of summer and winter of the tale as a young boy kept under abusive incarceration together with his 3 friends. Given that the word "sleeper" is an underground slang term very loosely meaning juvenile delinquent, it should explain much of the plot.

Had planned to write more but currently unable to... may continue tomorrow.

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[EDIT:]
Um, okay. I didn't know Sleepers was made into a movie. With actors like Brad Pitt and Kevin Bacon and Robert De Niro. So perhaps you've heard of it. I didn't know such a film existed, much less watched it, so I still say: go read the book, because I doubt some adapted film can be better than that.
And oh, to give a better idea of the story, the full title is Sleepers: A true story - When friendship runs deeper than blood
That's pretty telling.

If I'm not careful, my EJ will serve the purpose of an LJ cut for this site.

Yes!! My boring exploits of the explorer.exe adventure. Cut.

libraries are scary. you merely stroll by then you get sucked in and you won't know when you will be coming out. it had been light; suddenly it is dark.

cycling is lovely. you put one foot on the pedal, and the other foot forward, then forward, and forward, and forwardandforward and suddenly you are doing 30 miles per hour on the sidewalk. (at least that's what you think.)

night is lovely. they pave sidewalks for you. deserted sidewalks. and you grin in glee as you whiz under glowing street lamps after street lamps through dimly-lit breeze trying to pull away from its incessantly tugging on your loose shirt tailtrytryingbutyoucantevenwhenyouare doing   100mph     down       the         straight. (at least that's what you think.)

TIME is scary. time magazine. the company. They send you renewal letters. you ignore. They send another. you refuse. They send again. you dismiss. They are still sending ("with better and better discount rates! mysterious Gift awaits you!") to this day.

(This was what I was typing on Friday when I accidentally fell asleep.)

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I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower flap to flap within the whole of yesterday. Very frankly, I started reading this book -- by Stephen Chbosky -- because I read somewhere, sometime ago, its extract of one poem:

I brought a piece of magnesium strip home from the chem lab. If my house were to break out in flames (which, by any chance, extinguish with a "pop" sound,) you know what it is.

I still envision my house having a bad case of "pop"s whenever I see the Mg strip. Thanks for the joke.

Whenever I watch Chelsea, I still think I see a Zola playing amongst them. That's how much I'm in awe of that man.

And now that anime Roy Mustang has met anime Maria Ross, I gather that
*FMA manga SPOILER alert!*

By the way, there was no such thing as a "long weekend". It was still the same short 2-day weekend but with many more days for procrastination.There -is- a difference.

Referring to yesterday's entry, I forgot to mention Detective Conan as being one of those manga. ^__^ Was in a state of delirium when I wrote those couple of paragraphs (can't tell, can you?), because I found that I can have so much fun with Photoshop CS features not seen in version 6.0 (whose blending options remain corrupted). I was literally hee-hee-ing away at the way my experiments came out to be. Hee hee. Onwards with the layout! *points up upup* And all my new fonts! *grins gleefully* oh the fonts!
(Typography and graphics handling weirds me; it's a strange kind of high.)

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the current Reload manga arc would not follow the plot of its Gunlock anime counterpart Hazel!the arc. Just bringing Kougaiji and all that stuff in would be a pain (not to mention a loooong time to serialise), ...and now there's even the internal conflict within the anime-ikkou. As delicious as that may unfold, I doubt Minekura sensei would tread that route, and it is quite possible as we'd seen with the verydeviant anime-FMA plot, and the PoT "slightly deviant but we'll eventually end up with the same ending" crushRikkaiDai! arc.
But both the Saiyuki anime and manga arc are interesting enough to keep a fangurl happy. ("Ooh! Angst!")

I've been wanting to rant (rant, not rave) about PoT for quite some while now, but until I read similar sentiments from others recently, I had not been dedicated/annoyed enough to raise teh hand of Doom to type out the supposed-essay-but-arguments-are-better-articulated-in-the-head-after-all.
Thus I'll keep it short and pinpoint the very one existance in PoT that made me annoyed at all. Echizen Ryoma. Prick he is. And while I had hoped to hell that Echizen would mature -- attitude-wise, not the tennis-super-evolution he went through -- somewhere, somehow, in the series, well... no do. I've yet to be annoyed by an -anime- character and he's the first. Congratulations.
The manga arc of Ryoma v.s. Sanada has yet to finish, but it should be a 99% given he'll win. (And lookit those omg Ryoma pulled back n! games I'm so touched I could cry fanboys in the manga itself. o_O) Glorification of the genius protagonist. It's so wrong. And the way Ryoma won Sanada in the anime is doublewrong. So easy *sniff*. Heck, the very fact that he should win this face-off is illegal; it would be tantamount to him demolishing Tezuka in their first "faceoff". But not only did he accomplish the former, it was all so unbelievable. Unbelievable=s.C. getting more irritated. The whole series will be so much better without him. But hey, we wouldn't have a story then would we?

It is strange to say I am emotional, but that is certainly what I feel I am getting to become in the last few months.
In the June holidays, I watched the whole 72 episodes of Hikaru no Go and cried at 2 episodes when Sai went away. Then, I thought it was only because I had dry dry eyes from the numerous Euro 2004 nights. But within the span of then till now, I have cried at 1 manga, another manga, /1/ more manga (I am counting in my head now you see), and 1/2 more anime episodes. That is a far cry of my usual stoic-ness towards tear-inducing scenes, and heck, 2 of those mangas were -sports- manga for goodness sake. Those contents I am not going to elaborate on, but the other manga is the strip when Hughes of FMA... he had this bittersweet fear on his face when he faced his fake wife Envy morphed into whom he couldn't raise a hand to kill. And the photograph that drifted off into the cold and silent street. And the way the telephone booth looked so dark and lonely under a single illumination of street lamp which lit dimly the dark smears that bespoke the tragedy. Manga has a way of such presentation that anime at times cannot emulate. ...I did cry at the anime version, but that was afterwards when Elysia was screaming why they are burying daddy? Stop them, stop them; and when Roy sketched as a lonesome figure on the plain.

I was going to put this in the EJ, but heck, it's okay to let people know. (PMS??! *runs around in circles*) Though, I have yet to cry at -real life- TV dramas and movies. How strange. Hee.

! HughesXRoy smeX!
I go to school a happy girl tomorrow.

I've noted down in the EJ an interesting phenomenon seen around my region this year. Are yours any different?

And also, I've done the translation. *happy smile fer the festive period*
But drat, Spymac's finally gone and put ads on every page. I thought they were being nice and wouldn't ever do that. So now on top of being rather slow, it's got banners. Oh, did I say that in too cutting a manner? No, I didn't mean it nastily. *happy smile fer the festive period*

Hm. I kinda love that new real time counter on deviantart.
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Curses! I nearly walked into the edge of another wall. Is nothing safe in my house no more? Luckily, my survival instincts stopped me just short of colliding with the door frame. The door frame. Y'know, with the metal parts and all? Maybe I should never walk in the dark ever again.

And another thing. My photoshop's layer blending options has simply refused to work. Right when I was in the best of moods for making the layout. Grr. I suspect I'm out of memory, because the brush thumbnails look bizarre and crooked and everything. But my other applications still run very smoothly. Why??

P.S. This blog has ceased to be a proper blog the day I decided that writing opinions is too tiring and decided to rant on the most minute of everyday glitches instead.
The tragedy.

September issue scans up at usual place.

Was catching up on books for the past few days because I am suddenly -- under unexpected circumstances -- faced with 3 half-read books, alternately borrowed/thrusted-in-face  from/by  friends/library.

And, just in case you forget, remember to lend me "The Elegant Universe" sometime! ^o^/

In this issue of Zero Sum: Hakkai is trying out for a place in Hollywood! ...What with all the dodging and crashing-through-window stuff... Ha
(I hadn't scanned the pics yet, but the cover is sure spiffy.)

Something Big is Blowing Up.
I had my windows wide open as usual, then there was this sudden shower of drizzle.
So I banged my windows shut, then there were wolves blowing outside. Er, I meant wind howling.
Then I inched one window open because there didn't seem to be rain anymore, and right now, there're gusts of icy gales whistling right through that 1 inch gap and straight onto my back.

And to think I didn't try the haunted house at the carnival.
It's kinda cold in here.

s.C. -- who is still coughing her lungs out (almost literally, perhaps, since the chest area hurts), but has suddenly stronger abs in that process. Really, it works.

My mum, she just told me that, when she was learning to drive, she worked hard to the extent that our circular clothes hanger was attached to some door and used as a practice steering wheel.

What the @_@? How did she get such a lazy daughter like me?

I never knew that such a place exists in this country. One where you can look in a direction can see /no/ buildings or indeed any sign of urbanisation. You feel like you're in the countryside (now whatever -that- is...)

The catch is, of course, it's only one certain direction. *loopy grin* But in that view, you will see trees, grass, small knolls/slopes, trees, gliding birds (that's one insignificant detail that makes it look all the more rural-like), misty skies, rusty old white fences -- generally a hue of greenery with a wash of the rain-imminent blue-grey sky. Not that if you turn 180 degrees around, the scenery will become disastrously different. But you will nevertheless see the tiny peaks of 2 high-rise probably some miles away, and one very big building(s) nearby.

This is Turf City. At least, if you walk a hell of a distance into the premise, you will eventual come to this (baseball) field with the paranomic view.
Today is is great breezy day. I walked the 25 minutes ('cause I walked really slow) journey home on part of the way back.

-----------

Homecoming Carnival tomorrow at school. Or something.

Looks like I'm not the only one who, when first introduced to the "Institution" part of our new school name, envisaged a mental hospital running full of mad students.

I am also not going to comment on the current truthfulness of that last statement.

I had a strange thought last night.
What will happen if I step onto the window sill, and jump right off the ledge?

This is not some suicidal comtemplation, as you will note that I didn't say jump down, but jump off. The thought is admittedly bizarre, yet sweetly fascinating. Why not? The night wind was blowing, the windows were as wide open as they could be pushed; it was nothing short of an open invitation for one to view the wide expense of an unfiltered night on an unobstructed ledge. Then you jump off, and go places with the wind.

It is a beautiful vision. My room, overlooking a beautiful yellow stain of glittering urban lights on the far side of the strait, allows just that. But the vision stops there, quite naturally. For your prudent logic will insist on informing you of some unromantic element called gravity...

And everything comes crashing down.

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How a test scan looks like (hued blue). Very dotty and scratchy, but I'm in no place to complain ;)

I see a scanner in school.
I see a scanner in school.

I suspect it works.

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[EDIT:]
Yes it -does- work! Albeit a little low in quality... But hey a scanner is a scanner is a scanner is always a good thing to have within reach.
Now I can abuse the scanner and try out more CGs!! \^o^/

Ohohoho. I'm finally done translating that DNAngel? piece ^clover^ you gave me some... some time ago. Ohohoho.
Now if only I'd go on msn...

To be perfectly honest, I'm kinda banned from the computer. ¬_¬
In the meantime, I think I missed -someone-'s birthday. *twiddles fingers* ^^;; Remember what I said that time (points) about a certain propensity to forget dates? Erm, yeah. It's good to be consistent. XD *gets pelted with tomatoes*

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And oh, the things I do...
This is my current wallpaper. Which is a photoshopic-disfiguration of this, because I happened to like the picture.
I doubt I'll leave it that way for long; the colour combination... dazzles the eye. *dies*

Here I am searching for The Catcher in the Rye. And what happens?
I find -5- copies of it in the /school/ library. (Hey no, wait, that's a 6...)
The general advice now would be that older books are better found in school libraries. (And I'm not implying anything, am I? Hm. *whistles*)

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A rather outdated article on Heading soccer balls may risk neck damage.
Go on and tell me that. I've been heading them with increasing frequency these days, and they're those lousy hard ones. I 'll sooner get immediate concussion than some long term neck damage. *sticks tongue out*

No two ways about it. My internet connection is on crack.

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Am reading Sherlock Holmes.
That might have explained that curious pig flying past your window a week ago, give or take.

Truth is, I had sworn never to flip a Sherlock Holmes book again, after several early instances of failed attempts to 1)comprehend the language used 2)comprehend the plot, but then again, that was because I couldn't 3)get past the 1st page.
I have an entirely horrible history with Mr Holmes that speaks of our complicated acquaintance, ...which is the lack thereof, despite the fact that The Puffin Classic copy of The Mysterious Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Complete and Unabridged!gasp is easily within a swirl of my swivelchair's radius away.

This tragedy of a segregation began in what might have been a bright and sunny day a couple of years ago. And then my father came home with 2 paperbacks: The Mysterious... of Sherlock Holmes and Oliver Twist.
Sad to say, Oliver Twist went the way of my now-erstwhile opinion of a Holmes novel; I went as far as the 1st chapter, and it shall remain that way. (I blame it on the fact that this copy of Oliver Twist is -abridged-, whose contents gave me a suitably bad impression that I shall chance not to come upon again. Then again, the English had been too tough for me, I think...)

That was some years ago.
And some months after this some-years-ago, I tried again. ...isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence...
...the book immediately repelled from my hand and found its place back on the shelf. (I was extremely lousy in English then.)
And -then- I tried again after yet another few months of sequestration. (Because I can't bear to see any book on my bookshelf unread; it's illegal. Yet I possess many of such books, courtesy of dad. Oh oh oh, but I finally did finish Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and six more a few months ago. And kinda liked it. /Roald Dahl/. You go and figure out that ancient year my dad bought the book...)
...roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptititudes...

Back on the shelf it went.
Bless Conan Doyle, that was still the 1st page...

But now that my grasp of the language has made a particularly miraculous leap lately, fate then decided to entwine human and book in a tapestry of circumstantiated threads...
I squatted, and my gaze -- quite naturally -- fell upon one Doyle-authored book sitting inconspicuously in the bottom library shelf.

And the rest is the proverbial history.
Perhaps, you -do- have to read A Study of Scarlet first to be able to appreciate the other trials of Sherlock Holmes. (It is worthy to note that I would have given up on a 1st page again, but for the I will KONKA j00! mindset that I had... instilled... in myself before the battle read. After the 3rd page, things pick up. ^___^)

Now I ensconce myself in bed, reading in interest (not "savouring"; not yet.) The Sign of Four, which should be very interesting, if (Boy Detective) Conan's opinion is anything to go by. *chuckles*

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The softballers gave me a "necklace" present the other day, as well as for Chimmy. 'have them to thank. *grinz*

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I can do a twist serve. It's not very fast, but that's compensated for in the increased deflection angle off the ground. Slower ball, less momentum, more willing to change directi--- *is gagged*
And... I discovered (how to do) top spin! I discovered (how to do) backhand! Ha!Ha!Ha!

And there I was some years ago fearing I might never cross path with a tennis racket...

I'm glad I am able to learn techniques by looking at how others (that includes those on TV yo.) do them. It makes learning a sport that much easier. (And yes, we think softballers are terrific all-rounders~~ X3 *gets bashed for making arrogant remark*)