At the Heart of Winter: A Violent Flurry of News
Well, it has been another while since i have posted, probably something to the effect of half a year. Lot's has happened in that half a year...including my hair far exceeding my display pic's in length lol.
MUSIC
First of all, I would like to note, as usual for my own ends, my top bands and albums of this past year.
I like to do this because music is very important to me, as I have expressed before. While one should not identify oneself to the exclusion of other parts, music is the greatest source of vitality, resiliance, and inspiration I have had in my life for a long time and it is now, more than ever serving in that pivitol role.
My music, ever diversifying, has expanded even further into the cold, brutal, and dark depths of black, death, and doom metal as well as into the soaring and uplifting harmonies of symphonic metal and the slow-to-charter rhealm of ambient music. These are just some of the musical pillars, but strong and growing one's.
For 2007 I would like to acknowledge the following for their contributions to my life.
Behemoth: Demigod and The Apostasy
Epica: The Divine Conspiracy
Draconian: Arcane Rain
Katatonia: The Great Cold Distance
Within Temptation: The Heart of Everything
QNTAL: The Silver Swan
Immolation: Shadows in the Light
Gorgoroth: Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam
Autumn: My New Time
'MY MUSIC'
On a personal note of music, I'm continuing to improve at singing, however slowly and with inconsistant bouts of effort. I still hope one day in the not too too distant future to be able to record something I feel worth while putting on a myspace, not for professional, but for sharing purposes. We'll see. Part of getting there is creating some background music, which I know may have the tool to do. I was lucky enough the receive a beautiful keyboard for Christmass and hope to become proficient enough to ply my limited skill at creating some ambient melodies that I can layer as a background to vocals.
INDIGO
As some of you may know, I wrote a short story entitled Indigo for my Children's Literature Class. It ended up being for an older audience, but that turned out to be alright and more to my liking. It's a moralistic fantasy story that follows 4 different characters who each have a unique - and in some cases opposing - vantage point of the unfolding story. In essence it's about learning to question why we think what we do and critically evaluating our lives and the people and forces that shape it. The story takes place in a fictional land that is ruled by an empire that tightly restrains that thoughts, actions and beliefs of it's people. Indigo tells the tale of two individuals who perilously fight for their lives and for their love for each other as prophecy unfolds, temples burn, and the twilight of the empire is at hand. *dun dun dun*
There were a lot of sources of inspiration for this book ranging from the music of Epica and Behemoth, to my own personal experiences, values and beleifs, to philosophy (courtesy of my history of psychology course mostly) and psychology (i.e. humanistic, abnormal, and interpersonal) and also very importantly the ground breaking and inspiring epic's of Terry Goodkind.
More is to come, such as:
-the deadly dealings with the untamed 'hethens' of the empire,
-the city's sweeping turmoil and pandemonium after the loss of the seat of power and their way of life along with the desperate attempts of different factions to bring a new order to the city,
-and the emergence of the fallen gods, thought long stripped of their powers.
WINTER SEMESTER NEWS:
So Far I only have two grades:
Children's Literature: A
Statistics: B
Pleased so far. Remaining grades may not be posted until NEXT week! I spoke to the old psychology secretary, Marry Gautheir (who now works in the main arts admin office who was the sectretary for both those courses, so she knows what's going on with them).
I was able to talk to the financial office and get the tuition amount updated / corrected :).
As far as courses went they have all been interesting. unfortunatly they were also all today. I don't know why but the psychooogy department scheduled ALL upper level psychology courses for Tuesdays and Thursdays. It also seems unavodiable that I will be taking another 8:30am class, but it can't seem to be helped and it looks interesting at least (Cognitive Development).
I also managed to get into 'learning to write fiction' which looks fantastic, I'm really excited for it. It was also nice to work out again tonight (where I just came from - the gym is open late as seems to be the new trend for gyms trying to squash fitnes into ppl's lives)
The other courses I'm taking are Cognitive Development (hurah Leah) Interpersonal Relations (horah Rachel and Leah) and Human Motivation (horah Josie). Both of these are also 400 lvl courses, so I should have my hands full this semester again, despite my concentrated class blocks.
I enjoyed playing on my new - safely arrived - keyboard last night (and to my relief it didn't both Ben in the adjoining room)
Well, that should have made up for at least some of the months of journal inactivity.
MUSIC
First of all, I would like to note, as usual for my own ends, my top bands and albums of this past year.
I like to do this because music is very important to me, as I have expressed before. While one should not identify oneself to the exclusion of other parts, music is the greatest source of vitality, resiliance, and inspiration I have had in my life for a long time and it is now, more than ever serving in that pivitol role.
My music, ever diversifying, has expanded even further into the cold, brutal, and dark depths of black, death, and doom metal as well as into the soaring and uplifting harmonies of symphonic metal and the slow-to-charter rhealm of ambient music. These are just some of the musical pillars, but strong and growing one's.
For 2007 I would like to acknowledge the following for their contributions to my life.
Behemoth: Demigod and The Apostasy
Epica: The Divine Conspiracy
Draconian: Arcane Rain
Katatonia: The Great Cold Distance
Within Temptation: The Heart of Everything
QNTAL: The Silver Swan
Immolation: Shadows in the Light
Gorgoroth: Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam
Autumn: My New Time
'MY MUSIC'
On a personal note of music, I'm continuing to improve at singing, however slowly and with inconsistant bouts of effort. I still hope one day in the not too too distant future to be able to record something I feel worth while putting on a myspace, not for professional, but for sharing purposes. We'll see. Part of getting there is creating some background music, which I know may have the tool to do. I was lucky enough the receive a beautiful keyboard for Christmass and hope to become proficient enough to ply my limited skill at creating some ambient melodies that I can layer as a background to vocals.
INDIGO
As some of you may know, I wrote a short story entitled Indigo for my Children's Literature Class. It ended up being for an older audience, but that turned out to be alright and more to my liking. It's a moralistic fantasy story that follows 4 different characters who each have a unique - and in some cases opposing - vantage point of the unfolding story. In essence it's about learning to question why we think what we do and critically evaluating our lives and the people and forces that shape it. The story takes place in a fictional land that is ruled by an empire that tightly restrains that thoughts, actions and beliefs of it's people. Indigo tells the tale of two individuals who perilously fight for their lives and for their love for each other as prophecy unfolds, temples burn, and the twilight of the empire is at hand. *dun dun dun*
There were a lot of sources of inspiration for this book ranging from the music of Epica and Behemoth, to my own personal experiences, values and beleifs, to philosophy (courtesy of my history of psychology course mostly) and psychology (i.e. humanistic, abnormal, and interpersonal) and also very importantly the ground breaking and inspiring epic's of Terry Goodkind.
More is to come, such as:
-the deadly dealings with the untamed 'hethens' of the empire,
-the city's sweeping turmoil and pandemonium after the loss of the seat of power and their way of life along with the desperate attempts of different factions to bring a new order to the city,
-and the emergence of the fallen gods, thought long stripped of their powers.
WINTER SEMESTER NEWS:
So Far I only have two grades:
Children's Literature: A
Statistics: B
Pleased so far. Remaining grades may not be posted until NEXT week! I spoke to the old psychology secretary, Marry Gautheir (who now works in the main arts admin office who was the sectretary for both those courses, so she knows what's going on with them).
I was able to talk to the financial office and get the tuition amount updated / corrected :).
As far as courses went they have all been interesting. unfortunatly they were also all today. I don't know why but the psychooogy department scheduled ALL upper level psychology courses for Tuesdays and Thursdays. It also seems unavodiable that I will be taking another 8:30am class, but it can't seem to be helped and it looks interesting at least (Cognitive Development).
I also managed to get into 'learning to write fiction' which looks fantastic, I'm really excited for it. It was also nice to work out again tonight (where I just came from - the gym is open late as seems to be the new trend for gyms trying to squash fitnes into ppl's lives)
The other courses I'm taking are Cognitive Development (hurah Leah) Interpersonal Relations (horah Rachel and Leah) and Human Motivation (horah Josie). Both of these are also 400 lvl courses, so I should have my hands full this semester again, despite my concentrated class blocks.
I enjoyed playing on my new - safely arrived - keyboard last night (and to my relief it didn't both Ben in the adjoining room)
Well, that should have made up for at least some of the months of journal inactivity.