ULTIMATE WIN!!
Jul. 6th, 2009 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiyaSo okay. Last semester was pretty strange for me. I was already behind from the get-go because I was a week and a half late coming back from Japan, I was already stressed and wanting holidays from a combination of that and going straight from my exams/research essay overseas into first semester here, and I missed more classes than I ever usually do from a combo of a clash and plain old apathy. By the end my main goal was just to survive it; I even failed my (thankfully redeemable) midterm take-home exam in property law. So my exam study was a bizarre mixture of "MAKE IT END" and "shit, I really would like not to fail now, kthx".
The resulting study practices were what one would definitely not call conventional. I think I played about 70 hours of video games in the study period-- I finished Suikoden Tierkreis from close to the beginning and started on FFXII International. I also watched a lot of TV, read a lot of fic, and surfed the internet a lot. There were bizarre sleeping patterns. When I did study I did it in the family room with headphones on to block out the TV, either in the armchair or rolling around on the heated carpet. One might wonder where I even found TIME to study with all the procrastinating going on; it basically fell into the pattern of force self to go through all the reading for week 1 for this subject, play video games, force self to go through reading for week 2, watch tv, do reading for week 3, play video games, eventually crawl off to bed....
Except I must have been doing SOMETHING right, because I got 83 for Property. To put this in context, this is the second HD I have ever received in law, because law is hard and only 10% get above 70 (D) let alone above 80 (HD)-- I think it's like 2% or something. To put it more in context, that's the subject where I FAILED THE TAKEHOME. I cannot even comprehend how I managed to get from fail to HD. zomg.
Also, my other marks were good enough to make me feel happy with myself too. Japanese Law & SOciety, the other law course, was 76. Advanced Readings in Japanese Law (the translation course) was 78 (unsurprising, I got 78 for both my translations during term and I suspected I'd get it for my final too). Teaching Japanese Content was 83. So I didn't blitz Japanese the way I usually do, but to be fair it's gotten a lot harder since I came back from Year In Japan. They expect me to read and write academic linguistic papers/presentations and translate highly technical and specialised things like legislation now, so.
In conclusion: HOORAY!
And now back to your regular scheduled programming of me being a geeky idiot! I haven't really been updating LJ much at all, so here's an overview of what I've been up to:
* Finished Suikoden Tierkreis. It's a DS game and I spent a good 70+ hours on it-- I wasn't expecting it to suck me in that hardcore. I even got the character guide and the official complete guidebook for it and started writing fic. However I fail at finishing anything right now so along with a Merlin fic, a STXI fic and BBX, it is currently in stasis.
* Started playing FFXII. Well, I'm actually nearing the end now, so I'm beginning to branch off on sidequests. In some ways the Zodiac Job version is easier (Quickenings don't take up MP anymore) but in some ways it's a TOTAL BITCH because you have a limited skill set and so I've only got one character with a full set of white magic and she can't use powerful weapons. Also some of the optional bosses and random encounter enemies make me want to punch Squeenix in the FACE.
* Saw the Star Trek movie on Tuesday on a total whim. I'd been sucked into the fandom and it was still playing at the cinemas and I was like, you know what, I'm going to go out tonight and watch it! And I did. Man, I love having a car. The movie itself was super fun. On a side note, that's the first time I've watched something on a big screen since about August last year when I saw HanaDan Final at the movies in Japan.
* Speaking of loving having a car: for someone who practically hasn't been to Belconnen at all since early highschool except for football matches, didn't go there much more even then and still had trouble remember which one was Belconnen and which one was Tuggeranong until recently, I seem to be spending half my life there since I got a car. About five of my friends live in the area (three in the same suburb), so I've been there for one friend's 21st, another friend's uni get together after exams, and over to Mari's several times to just generally socialise. I've also been that way to pick up my dog from the groomer and to put my car in for a service, and I'll be back next week to see an osteopath. Apparently all roads lead to Belconnen now? At least I am gradually starting to not get lost there. I've spent a fair amount of time getting LOST in Belconnen, too.
* In future I will be spending more time in Sydney too, it seems. Was going to go up this holidays to see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_leareth but as I'm likely to be going up next month, when choffman and ariseishirou are staying with _leareth, and again in October to see the Mikado and possibly Wicked in my next holidays, I thought that enough was enough. XD
* I got Ruddbucks! Really my dad should probably keep them because he's the one who paid the tax on my trust fund and also I owe him a nebulously large amount of money from when I was in Japan, but he is graciously giving it to me to pay off the remainder of my debt to my brother and my credit card.
* Need to get an external HDD so I can backup my netbook and send it back on warranty. Hm.
* I think that's everything? Aside from getting my hair cut tomorrow. After some dilemma and facebook polling, I've decided to leave it long for winter and cut it short in summer instead of cutting it short right now.
* Things I need to do: Send emails to people in Japan. CLEAN, because my computer desk and room look like they've been hit by a typhoon and they've been that way since I got back from Japan-- seriously, I've still got a suitcase on my bedroom floor. The main problem is that I have too much stuff and not enough places to put it so it's going to take a major overhaul and some genius tetris skills, but it's driving me CRAZY so it needs to happen while I'm on holidays. Where was I...? Oh yeah. And I need to do some laundry and upload my photos of Japan. Some writing would also not go amiss.
On that note, have some excerpts from the various fics which I am sort of working on at the moment. Sort of.
“ARTHUR!” Merlin hollered, slamming his way into Arthur’s chambers, and Arthur looked up without much surprise.
“I suppose someone finally told you, then,” he remarked. “Well, who was it? Tell me so I can have them flogged.”
“You wouldn’t dare flog Morgana,” Merlin said, with absolute certainty.
“I might,” Arthur insisted sullenly. “I’m the king, I’m not afraid of her. It’s just that she’d be totally intolerable about the whole thing.”
Merlin gave him a dubious look.
“Alright, maybe I wouldn’t,” Arthur conceded. “I might’ve known she’d squeal, anyway.”
“Arthur,” Merlin snapped— and it wasn’t whining, because he didn’t whine, no matter what Gaius said. “Stop trying to blame this all on Morgana, you’re missing the entire point.”
“What point?” Arthur said, with feigned ignorance, and Merlin scowled at him.
“You know exactly what point, you arse!” he exclaimed. “The point where you made me your pretend queen without even telling me, let alone asking!”
“Oh, is that all you’re upset about,” Arthur said, like this was no big deal. “Alright, I’ll ask you. Will you be my not-at-all-pretend queen, Merlin? It’s quite an honour, you know.”
Asad swallowed hard.
“Meruvis?” he said, voice high with uneasiness.
Ignoring the confusion in that unspoken question, Meruvis caught Asad’s wrists in his free hand, pinning them roughly above his head against the cold hard stone as he pressed the flat of his blade to Asad’s throat.
“Do you yield?” he demanded in a low voice, and something primal inside of Asad sent a shiver through him, something like fear and perhaps a hint of something else he couldn’t quite identify.
“I,” he stammered, faculty of language deserting him in a roar of confused white noise. “I don’t…”
I don’t understand, he’d intended to say, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth there was a critical failure that had the protest sizzling out on his lips, and he was too unbalanced to realise it sounded like defiance.
Meruvis leaned closer, fierce challenge in his normally unreadable dark eyes, and Asad could feel the heat of Meruvis’s breath on his cheeks, hear the beat of his own pulse thundering in his ears as his heart instinctively sped up with terror and adrenalin. What is he doing? Asad thought frantically. What is he… He wouldn’t really hurt me, right? He wouldn’t, would he?
Meruvis pressed his weight down, sending a dull ache through Asad’s wrists and the sharp warning sting of the sword-edge pricking against his skin, and Asad couldn’t help a reflective whimper in response.
“Do. You. Yield,” Meruvis hissed, and every instinct Asad had was screaming that the other man was deadly serious.
“Yes!” he yelped, desperation overcoming the paralysis of fear and any pretence at dignity. “I yield, I yield!”
For a moment they stayed locked in a frozen tableau, Asad trembling faintly beneath Meruvis’s heated glare like captured prey, and then Meruvis was withdrawing, sheathing his sword as he rose to his feet, impenetrable mask of distant calm sliding back into place.
“You need to work on your upper-arm strength,” he said mildly, as if nothing had happened, and turned and walked out of the room, heedless of Asad’s shocked stare on his back.
“Furthermore,” she continues, “over-sexualised body language should be avoided as it can create a hostile working environment.”
Everyone looks at Jim, who’s sprawled in his chair like always with his hips low and his thighs spread wide open. The woman giving the lecture is frowning again. “What?” he demands.
“Jim can’t help who he is,” Bones says, shaking his head.
“It would be illogical to expect the captain to change his nature in such a way,” Spock agrees.
“Your face is illogical,” Jim retorts, then, “Wait, did you just call me a slut?”
Spock simply gives an enigmatic almost-smile, which probably means yes. Goddammit.
The resulting study practices were what one would definitely not call conventional. I think I played about 70 hours of video games in the study period-- I finished Suikoden Tierkreis from close to the beginning and started on FFXII International. I also watched a lot of TV, read a lot of fic, and surfed the internet a lot. There were bizarre sleeping patterns. When I did study I did it in the family room with headphones on to block out the TV, either in the armchair or rolling around on the heated carpet. One might wonder where I even found TIME to study with all the procrastinating going on; it basically fell into the pattern of force self to go through all the reading for week 1 for this subject, play video games, force self to go through reading for week 2, watch tv, do reading for week 3, play video games, eventually crawl off to bed....
Except I must have been doing SOMETHING right, because I got 83 for Property. To put this in context, this is the second HD I have ever received in law, because law is hard and only 10% get above 70 (D) let alone above 80 (HD)-- I think it's like 2% or something. To put it more in context, that's the subject where I FAILED THE TAKEHOME. I cannot even comprehend how I managed to get from fail to HD. zomg.
Also, my other marks were good enough to make me feel happy with myself too. Japanese Law & SOciety, the other law course, was 76. Advanced Readings in Japanese Law (the translation course) was 78 (unsurprising, I got 78 for both my translations during term and I suspected I'd get it for my final too). Teaching Japanese Content was 83. So I didn't blitz Japanese the way I usually do, but to be fair it's gotten a lot harder since I came back from Year In Japan. They expect me to read and write academic linguistic papers/presentations and translate highly technical and specialised things like legislation now, so.
In conclusion: HOORAY!
And now back to your regular scheduled programming of me being a geeky idiot! I haven't really been updating LJ much at all, so here's an overview of what I've been up to:
* Finished Suikoden Tierkreis. It's a DS game and I spent a good 70+ hours on it-- I wasn't expecting it to suck me in that hardcore. I even got the character guide and the official complete guidebook for it and started writing fic. However I fail at finishing anything right now so along with a Merlin fic, a STXI fic and BBX, it is currently in stasis.
* Started playing FFXII. Well, I'm actually nearing the end now, so I'm beginning to branch off on sidequests. In some ways the Zodiac Job version is easier (Quickenings don't take up MP anymore) but in some ways it's a TOTAL BITCH because you have a limited skill set and so I've only got one character with a full set of white magic and she can't use powerful weapons. Also some of the optional bosses and random encounter enemies make me want to punch Squeenix in the FACE.
* Saw the Star Trek movie on Tuesday on a total whim. I'd been sucked into the fandom and it was still playing at the cinemas and I was like, you know what, I'm going to go out tonight and watch it! And I did. Man, I love having a car. The movie itself was super fun. On a side note, that's the first time I've watched something on a big screen since about August last year when I saw HanaDan Final at the movies in Japan.
* Speaking of loving having a car: for someone who practically hasn't been to Belconnen at all since early highschool except for football matches, didn't go there much more even then and still had trouble remember which one was Belconnen and which one was Tuggeranong until recently, I seem to be spending half my life there since I got a car. About five of my friends live in the area (three in the same suburb), so I've been there for one friend's 21st, another friend's uni get together after exams, and over to Mari's several times to just generally socialise. I've also been that way to pick up my dog from the groomer and to put my car in for a service, and I'll be back next week to see an osteopath. Apparently all roads lead to Belconnen now? At least I am gradually starting to not get lost there. I've spent a fair amount of time getting LOST in Belconnen, too.
* In future I will be spending more time in Sydney too, it seems. Was going to go up this holidays to see
_leareth but as I'm likely to be going up next month, when choffman and ariseishirou are staying with _leareth, and again in October to see the Mikado and possibly Wicked in my next holidays, I thought that enough was enough. XD* I got Ruddbucks! Really my dad should probably keep them because he's the one who paid the tax on my trust fund and also I owe him a nebulously large amount of money from when I was in Japan, but he is graciously giving it to me to pay off the remainder of my debt to my brother and my credit card.
* Need to get an external HDD so I can backup my netbook and send it back on warranty. Hm.
* I think that's everything? Aside from getting my hair cut tomorrow. After some dilemma and facebook polling, I've decided to leave it long for winter and cut it short in summer instead of cutting it short right now.
* Things I need to do: Send emails to people in Japan. CLEAN, because my computer desk and room look like they've been hit by a typhoon and they've been that way since I got back from Japan-- seriously, I've still got a suitcase on my bedroom floor. The main problem is that I have too much stuff and not enough places to put it so it's going to take a major overhaul and some genius tetris skills, but it's driving me CRAZY so it needs to happen while I'm on holidays. Where was I...? Oh yeah. And I need to do some laundry and upload my photos of Japan. Some writing would also not go amiss.
On that note, have some excerpts from the various fics which I am sort of working on at the moment. Sort of.
“ARTHUR!” Merlin hollered, slamming his way into Arthur’s chambers, and Arthur looked up without much surprise.
“I suppose someone finally told you, then,” he remarked. “Well, who was it? Tell me so I can have them flogged.”
“You wouldn’t dare flog Morgana,” Merlin said, with absolute certainty.
“I might,” Arthur insisted sullenly. “I’m the king, I’m not afraid of her. It’s just that she’d be totally intolerable about the whole thing.”
Merlin gave him a dubious look.
“Alright, maybe I wouldn’t,” Arthur conceded. “I might’ve known she’d squeal, anyway.”
“Arthur,” Merlin snapped— and it wasn’t whining, because he didn’t whine, no matter what Gaius said. “Stop trying to blame this all on Morgana, you’re missing the entire point.”
“What point?” Arthur said, with feigned ignorance, and Merlin scowled at him.
“You know exactly what point, you arse!” he exclaimed. “The point where you made me your pretend queen without even telling me, let alone asking!”
“Oh, is that all you’re upset about,” Arthur said, like this was no big deal. “Alright, I’ll ask you. Will you be my not-at-all-pretend queen, Merlin? It’s quite an honour, you know.”
Asad swallowed hard.
“Meruvis?” he said, voice high with uneasiness.
Ignoring the confusion in that unspoken question, Meruvis caught Asad’s wrists in his free hand, pinning them roughly above his head against the cold hard stone as he pressed the flat of his blade to Asad’s throat.
“Do you yield?” he demanded in a low voice, and something primal inside of Asad sent a shiver through him, something like fear and perhaps a hint of something else he couldn’t quite identify.
“I,” he stammered, faculty of language deserting him in a roar of confused white noise. “I don’t…”
I don’t understand, he’d intended to say, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth there was a critical failure that had the protest sizzling out on his lips, and he was too unbalanced to realise it sounded like defiance.
Meruvis leaned closer, fierce challenge in his normally unreadable dark eyes, and Asad could feel the heat of Meruvis’s breath on his cheeks, hear the beat of his own pulse thundering in his ears as his heart instinctively sped up with terror and adrenalin. What is he doing? Asad thought frantically. What is he… He wouldn’t really hurt me, right? He wouldn’t, would he?
Meruvis pressed his weight down, sending a dull ache through Asad’s wrists and the sharp warning sting of the sword-edge pricking against his skin, and Asad couldn’t help a reflective whimper in response.
“Do. You. Yield,” Meruvis hissed, and every instinct Asad had was screaming that the other man was deadly serious.
“Yes!” he yelped, desperation overcoming the paralysis of fear and any pretence at dignity. “I yield, I yield!”
For a moment they stayed locked in a frozen tableau, Asad trembling faintly beneath Meruvis’s heated glare like captured prey, and then Meruvis was withdrawing, sheathing his sword as he rose to his feet, impenetrable mask of distant calm sliding back into place.
“You need to work on your upper-arm strength,” he said mildly, as if nothing had happened, and turned and walked out of the room, heedless of Asad’s shocked stare on his back.
“Furthermore,” she continues, “over-sexualised body language should be avoided as it can create a hostile working environment.”
Everyone looks at Jim, who’s sprawled in his chair like always with his hips low and his thighs spread wide open. The woman giving the lecture is frowning again. “What?” he demands.
“Jim can’t help who he is,” Bones says, shaking his head.
“It would be illogical to expect the captain to change his nature in such a way,” Spock agrees.
“Your face is illogical,” Jim retorts, then, “Wait, did you just call me a slut?”
Spock simply gives an enigmatic almost-smile, which probably means yes. Goddammit.
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Date: 2009-07-06 09:43 am (UTC)........................................
I ..... have no words for this.
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