First post for an age and a half
Hm. Seems like I'm never going to tell you all about Berlin, am I? Oh well- you can make up something scandalous and tell it to each other in progressively shriller and more outraged voices.
Life has been quiet and busy at the same time. Since coming back from possibly my best summer holidays ever, I've spent four weeks at college, then two weeks at work, then a week "revising" at home and the past week back at college again. The current lot of exams for which I am revising (the Advanced stage) are ridiculous- the last load were probably "harder", in the sense of having to learn reams and reams of complicated concepts, but these are just... weird. Sitting them is like nailing down fog- the challenge is in trying to work out what the examiner is getting at, and wondering whether you've missed any complicated deferred tax implications (or whatever). A lot of the questions seem to be angled more toward testing my judgement in making reasonable estimates and assumptions rather than my knowledge of anything in particular. Not what I'm used to!
Time between college has been spent avoiding work. The week that I booked as leave to stay at home and revise was an absolutely monstrous waste of time. I made bolognese- that's about it, and whilst it has been very helpful to have dinner in the freezer for the past week and a half (and it's still not finished), it's not exactly the head start I was hoping for. I've been to a pub quiz in Hampstead regularly as well, and we've managed to get a decent grab-bag of London and former G&S friends along. Andy was there (plus one) last week, and Pete before that. It's been nice- we came second last week as well.
I went to see Up last weekend. Really, really, really good. Whimsical to the point of completely defying not only rudimentary physics and biology but also common sense, and yet somehow disbelief was kept suspended throughout, as if on a thousand helium balloons. I'm not really sure where it fits into the Pixar pantheon- I haven't rethought the difficult "What's your favourite Pixar?" question since going to see The Incredibles, so I suppose Up is squeezed in with that, Ratatouille and Wall-E in the overcrowded Number One spot.
Hm, what else? I've been reading the latest Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, and it's not great, I'm sad to say. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm about 80% of the way through and I couldn't really tell you what the plot is. The characters are all good, there are still a lot of funny jokes and interesting takes on fantasy tropes, but there's just no narrative drive to the thing.
And speaking of narrative drive, my Dollhouse season 1 DVD arrived today. Nice. I've seen the first two episodes, borrowed from someone who torrented them, and enjoyed them enough to purchase the real thing shock-horror-legitimately. I'm sure Al Qaeda will survive without my funding them. Haven't got around to watching the thing yet, but I'm sure it'll complement the Firefly episodes I've been re-watching latterly on a kind of Joss Whedon kick.
Toodle pip for now, anyway. I'm off to spend what remains of the evening relaxing with the Guardian crossword before getting a moderately early night before going to college tomorrow.
Life has been quiet and busy at the same time. Since coming back from possibly my best summer holidays ever, I've spent four weeks at college, then two weeks at work, then a week "revising" at home and the past week back at college again. The current lot of exams for which I am revising (the Advanced stage) are ridiculous- the last load were probably "harder", in the sense of having to learn reams and reams of complicated concepts, but these are just... weird. Sitting them is like nailing down fog- the challenge is in trying to work out what the examiner is getting at, and wondering whether you've missed any complicated deferred tax implications (or whatever). A lot of the questions seem to be angled more toward testing my judgement in making reasonable estimates and assumptions rather than my knowledge of anything in particular. Not what I'm used to!
Time between college has been spent avoiding work. The week that I booked as leave to stay at home and revise was an absolutely monstrous waste of time. I made bolognese- that's about it, and whilst it has been very helpful to have dinner in the freezer for the past week and a half (and it's still not finished), it's not exactly the head start I was hoping for. I've been to a pub quiz in Hampstead regularly as well, and we've managed to get a decent grab-bag of London and former G&S friends along. Andy was there (plus one) last week, and Pete before that. It's been nice- we came second last week as well.
I went to see Up last weekend. Really, really, really good. Whimsical to the point of completely defying not only rudimentary physics and biology but also common sense, and yet somehow disbelief was kept suspended throughout, as if on a thousand helium balloons. I'm not really sure where it fits into the Pixar pantheon- I haven't rethought the difficult "What's your favourite Pixar?" question since going to see The Incredibles, so I suppose Up is squeezed in with that, Ratatouille and Wall-E in the overcrowded Number One spot.
Hm, what else? I've been reading the latest Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, and it's not great, I'm sad to say. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm about 80% of the way through and I couldn't really tell you what the plot is. The characters are all good, there are still a lot of funny jokes and interesting takes on fantasy tropes, but there's just no narrative drive to the thing.
And speaking of narrative drive, my Dollhouse season 1 DVD arrived today. Nice. I've seen the first two episodes, borrowed from someone who torrented them, and enjoyed them enough to purchase the real thing shock-horror-legitimately. I'm sure Al Qaeda will survive without my funding them. Haven't got around to watching the thing yet, but I'm sure it'll complement the Firefly episodes I've been re-watching latterly on a kind of Joss Whedon kick.
Toodle pip for now, anyway. I'm off to spend what remains of the evening relaxing with the Guardian crossword before getting a moderately early night before going to college tomorrow.