it's baaaaack~

Ohoho, I see it's nearly five o'clock.

Is it weird of me to say that I really wish Ciel would stay dead after death (as in, getting his soul eaten by his demon after exacting revenge on the people who destroyed Phantomhive)? The first season was fine, he died just as he ought, but the stupid second season completely decimates that. I know it hasn't even aired fully yet, and already we have Sebastian tripping on his own feet (I'm sure that violates some essential law of nature: how could Sebastian ever trip, and on his own feet??) and a not-so-dead Ciel.

What. The. Fuck.

I demand that Ciel, wonderful character that he is, be killed and LEFT IN PEACE. Toboso had better kill him off well and truly in the manga or I'll be traumatised for life. Ya wanna kill someone, make sure they stay dead. Put more lead in their head or chop them into finer pieces, just keep them dead, damn it. It really spoils the pathos of death (and subsequently the entire storyline) to bring them back.

It's not like he suddenly died at the end and next season shows people trying to bring him back, he was meant to die even before the series started! Ciel was all primed and ready to die! Just because some screaming fangirls (shotacon, much?) who don't understand the importance of his death want to see more of him, you producers rushed to milk the cash cow and brought him back just so you wouldn't risk your fanbase.

To quote Luca: You piss me off.

Random picture, haha.

donmai, donmai

The first week isn't over yet and already I'm thinking of the August break. My timetable this semester is a more comfortable but lonelier one.

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Technically the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

And yet it does work. This has annoyed a number of people who feel, somehow, that it should not, and who want a monarch instead, thus replacing a man who has achieved his position by cunning, a deep understanding of the realities of the human psyche, breathtaking diplomacy, a certain prowess with the stiletto dagger, and, all agree, a mind like a finely balanced circular saw, with a man who has got there by being born.†

† A third proposition, that the city be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.

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Ah, I love this guy.

makeover

In spirit of the new semester (yeah, right), I did a tiny bit of re-shelving. It took forever, especially since I tried my best to shelve my books according to author, publisher and general reading pleasure all at once. And yeah, once again I'm in need of more space. A few of the 'kiddie' books have been moved into Shawn's room permanently, but my Garth Nix books are still homeless. There isn't any shelf-room left for my DVDs and CDs, either. Meh.

Upshot is: the Twilight books have all been moved to the lowest shelf (The Host hasn't been moved, I thought I'd give it credit for managing to make me cry), Terry Pratchett still fills more than one whole level and a few special volumes of manga have been promoted three shelves up. I'm satisfied with the arrangement, for now.

Oh, and: I also cleared out my desktop, uncluttered though it already was (I love the dock). Now there's absolutely nothing on it (no ugly, annoying shortcuts to obscure the wonderful background) and it looks simply awesome! I'm dying to show someone, but my family doesn't seem interested. Heh. I do wish the slideshow timing was less rigid though, because a ten-second minimum is a tad too long - but I guess you can't have everything in life. Gotta be content, yes?

Tonari no Totoro jigsaw puzzle!

It's been years since I've done a jigsaw puzzle, so it took me a little longer than expected to finish this minuscule 150-piece one - but hey, there were so many white pieces! You can see how tiny the pieces are if you compare it to the background (a book called The Good Neighbours, misused through my lack of a readily available work surface).

Me heart Sutajio Jiburi, or however else they pronounce their own name.

QFT

"You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

- C.S. Lewis

about the people around you

Longish post! I'm on a mission here, after all.

I want to talk (or rather, type) about the people I miss. Mostly because the holidays have been filled with too little of them, but partly also because I feel that I don't communicate enough with them outside of face-to-face chats and messages about businesslike things. It's not for lack of motivation, it's because I'm just that socially awkward. Yes, even to people who mean the world to me. So... yeah.

First up, I miss Grace. A lot. I haven't seen or spoken to her in ages, and I don't think she even drops by here anymore (heck, no one drops by here anymore, zzz). I wonder if she remembers the time in Form Two when she wanted to call me a totem pole but somehow called me a toomba relic instead. You owe us an outing! And I owe you a story, haha.

It hasn't been as long since I last saw Serene, but it's still been too long. And the last time I saw her wasn't the best of days for either of us, what with our sure-fail Trauma Management test... :( I want a BMT! And you know what, ten years from now I'm gonna go to your hospital and point at the nasal prongs and say that. Heh.

Guatchoo won't ever see this, but I wanna give you a virtual hug anyway. Deep down, Mr Low liked us, I'm sure of it. xD Lol.

My nakama, Zhiyung, will also never see this, but oh well. Ex-aibou, but not ex-nakama eh?

Okay, Pei-hime waltzes in here last because a) she is fashionably late, and b) I was toying with the idea of not including her in this sappy mulch altogether. Don't get me wrong, I do miss you, but somehow I get the feeling that stating it publicly isn't worth the scorn I'll get from you. That, or I might be accused of homosexuality again. Geez.

I guess these're the immediate ones that come to mind. There are others, but I don't think I can quite write about them yet.

As an aside...

I saw a rough draft of a story on an old (think seventeen years of acquaintance) friend's computer recently and it got me thinking about writing shorts again. Seriously, why did I stop? Because it's no longer possible to completely blot out the teacher from my consciousness and write while I'm in class? Or because I am, like I was bound to, finally outgrowing my alternate universe and imaginary friends? Well, I say friends, but I have a feeling my OCs would not like me. Eheh. So I might start again. Might.

You just gotta love Havelock Vetinari.

I am an atheist.

Long post! I'm on a mission to recover my lost ability to write like a human being. Go, me!

Recently, a deviant by the name of yuumei (Wenqing Yan in most other senses of the word), an amazing artist whose dA profile states "Proud to be an atheist", was sent a message that stated

"I love your work and I was hoping we could become friends, but then I saw that you're an atheist and I'm scared of atheists..."

This is, frankly, the stupidest piece of trash I've ever heard on the topic. Scared of atheists? Why? We're not the ones who started witch-hunts. We're not the ones who insist that you'll burn for eternity after you die. We're not going to put you in a bare cell, take away your sacred texts and shove science at you. We're not going to label you as uncivilised and jahil. We're not going to round all the theists up and gas them.

You're afraid of the wrong people, hon. In fact, we atheists are the ones who should be scared - of fanatics like you, who'll do who knows what to us because we aren't proper people like you are.

It's not just a western thing to be so anti-atheist. Two years ago, a certain classmate declared, with absolute certainty, that atheists (like myself, though I'm guessing he didn't know) were disgusting and would burn in hell when they died. Lovely. Look, I know it's never too late to repent and I can be brought to see the light, and I appreciate your concern for my soul, but I just don't see how it is that I can be brought to fear a fire that, to me, does not exist.

This country requires me to state my religion whenever I apply for anything, regardless of how useless this little procedure may be in any other process than that of discrimination. My parents expect me to show my Buddhism whenever the need arises because they don't know about my non-belief, and would not condone it if they knew. It really isn't nice, the feeling of kneeling at the altar and pretending to pray to deities I don't know, all the while thinking "Shit, this incense smoke is killing me and the environment."

I have nothing at all against religion. I just don't want to be forced into it, because I've realised that religion and I simply do not fit. Neither do I like how so many have used it as an excuse for so many things, although that is of course entirely the fault of the individuals concerned. I'm totally fine with religion, as long as it isn't forced on me. Have I made that clear enough? I'd hate to receive all sorts of senseless responses on how I don't respect religion, because I do. The world would be messed up without religion, that's for sure. I know that.

But STOP TELLING ME I'M WRONG, DAMN IT. There is no right and wrong about this, alright? Thank you.

____________________________________________________

P.s.: Yes, I know I use a lot of Oh-my-God, What-the-Hell and suchlike in my speech, but that, as we very well know, is slang.

baby steps, infant wings

If only Raggs' Requiem, the requiem for a kingdom destroyed by war, had been sung by a less childish-sounding singer, I'd like it a lot more. But it makes me sad enough as it is, anyway. Never fails to put me in some kind of melancholy for a good while.

I'm begging you, Shio Yee, do a cover of it! You'd do so much better than the original. ;_;

Mmm... Have I mentioned that I've gone all Wabisabi? My new Chrome and blog themes, anyway. And, now that I think about it, my desktop background fits into this quite nicely! Heh.

wrong side of the island

I didn't get enough sleep on Friday night, but somehow I found myself waking up on Saturday at dawn. What else was there for me to do but take this highly unusual occurrence as a signal to go for a walk along the beach? Ah, I want our old camera back, mum. This one's so blurry!

bah.

Weeeeell. The template designer thing is pretty cool, but I can't be bothered to do anything other than pick a ready-made template off the shelf and apply it. :/ I'm too tired to customise.

Penang was... okay. Being away from the Internet for three days... wasn't.

:D :D :D

I is happy. I's sentence have been reducted.

Also, Blogger has only just informed me of its new Template Designer function, which I am itching to try out. No wonder everyone's blog looks so good while mine is still stuck on Minima. ;__; I'll get on it as soon as I'm DONE WORKING.

Tee-hee. I is happy.