The Way It Used to Be

As if life wasn't exciting enough, the end of Prison Break was a cliffhanger. I know I'm a bit late, but I started watching after it finished here. And it wasn't bad after all. I didn't enjoy the first episode that much, but it was pretty good by the end.

I wasn't expecting a Season 2. Anyway, that's what I'm promised. So when the end of Summer comes, I'm going to be treated to new episodes of Lost, 24, Prison Break, all sorts. It'll all be added to my download rosta.

Who would have thought that the raid on ThePirateBay would have backfired so badly? I personally have had problems connecting to it since it went back up, but with all the controversy that it's stirred up, it hardly seemed worth it. Another uprising in the digital world, I can't help but feel proud when people are willing to stand up and say that we will continue downloading stuff.

That's topical enough for my blog, I'm now going to talk about what happened today:

For the first time in 11 months, I spoke, vocally, to Yukina. We've been chatting online since she left to return to Japan, and we've always promised to Skype, but we just haven't. Anyway, now we have, and we chatted for nearly an hour. It was so nice to catch up in a way you just can't over text. We spoke about how this time last year we were going to Asda every morning for a McDonalds and staying up three days in a row, and we both agreed that it was one of the best Summers. So much has happened we couldn't begin to cover it, but I don't think (and am hoping) that it will be the last call. There was a 2 second delay in talking, but the sound quality was amazing, and we had a lot of catching up to do. I'm going to start getting into Skype again, I remember how great it was. I also Skyped my dad briefly as well.

I have been working on a Photoshop project for a while. It's difficult, because it's not the kind of project I'm used to. This isn't a marketing thing where I'm trying to get attention and convey an idea, this is trying to convey an image without selling it, making it purely aesthetic. I know that aesthetics are the most important part of images, but never has it had such power: all my images have had an agenda, this one does not. I want to balance this image, I want to make it so that you don't mind looking at it and you are proud of other people seeing it. It's an amazing complement to see people using my marketing images to decorate their space, but this is different. For the first time, I'm being truly limited by my artictic ability, rather than my Photoshop ability. Perhaps that's a complement to my Photoshop skills, but I feel that this is far more of a challenge than designing film posters. I'm not sure if I'm happy with it, but I don't feel like I should start again, because what I've done is rather cool, and would probably be great. I might look up some techniques to help improve the image.

I also spoke to Shun on the phone for a short time the other day, which was cool. I'm feeling so last year that I felt I should update my blog, as I would have done at this point in 2005.

I have an exam on Tuesday, which won't be fun but they never are. It's DBMS, my least favourite module and the hardest. I hope it goes well, I'll do more revision for this than I would most things.

Kiana is also moving her stuff in here tomorrow, the first step in the half way transition between Kaori and Kiana, and the half way point of living in this house. I love this house, it's the best place I've lived. I was discussing with Emma earlier about how almost everyone who has lived off campus in their second year has gone on to live in Halls again in their third year. Why do I want to continue living with Emma and Mizuki? I've had a really good time, and it's sad to think of others not having such a great time.

Apparently Carlos and Stacey and Mandy and Sam have found a house finally, but it is in Kingston. Subsequently, Sam has chosen not to live there. I won't comment, as I do not know the details, but I will advise most strongly against this. Kingston is too far away for convenience, and it will just add troubles. I think one of the main reasons that EmmaHouse has been so happy for myself and Emma is that it has been so close to University. That and a foundation of strong friendship and compromise. Had we lived at one of our other chosen houses, the one near Asda or in the estate, I doubt we would be renewing our contract for a second year.

Really, I do not recommend living at that distance. I have learnt this from Dan's troubles and I doubt he'd like to spend another year in Wimbledon. In fact he doesn't, he's living on campus next year. Avoid.

Speaking of listening to advice, I really should listen to Kiana and start revision. I have only one more exam. Hooray!