Pin Pete's dripping severed head on the zombie.

Those Shadow Druids never really stood a chance. Sure, it took attacking them head on and regretting it to get it right, but Cernd is a flipping werewolf. It'll take more than bonding your spirit to a magical troll-infested grove to do in a werewolf, that's for sure.

So, my party. Realise it's a bit of a late explanation, and many of you will have figured it out from Facebook (heck, many of you probably attended), but it deserves a retelling. So I emerge bleary-eyed from my room to find Connor, dressed in his bathrobe and a massive grey beard, with an owl under one arm and a magical pimp cane under the other, telling me my magical test has begun and I was needed in the living room. On following I find, to not that much surprise, Natasha dead on the floor. Neither was I surprised when she raised herself off the floor and started attacking me. Connor quickly handed me a plastic short sword (previously seen in a speech on shame culture) and told me to get hacking, so I gave Natasha a few VERY LIGHT blows to the head with the side of the blade. This time I actually WAS surprised to find that this didn't do anything to deter her, and I figured maybe she was just over-exciting and didn't realise zombies die from headshots. However, I was then IMMENSELY surprised and quite deeply afraid to see Connor yell for me to watch myself, and when I turn around a good two social circles' worth of acquaintances were there, zombified as best as a few minutes hasty preparation would allow (it was dark in the hall so to me a simple lurch would have sufficed), coming slowly at me. I'd like to point out at this stage that I hadn't the faintest idea anyone beside my two flatmates were around, I'd spent the past hour or so locked in my room with the music turned up, so this came as a massive surprise. Panicking, I threw my sword at zombie Laura (which she continually reminds me was a bad move survival-wise) and clumsily pulled the doorstop from the door, slamming it shut and putting my weight against it. I'd even have barricaded it with the sofa (which none of the others were expecting at all, thus regaining my honour as a zombie survivalist) had Connor not urgently pulled me away from the door amidst my cries of protest. At the other end of the room we watched the host enter, me with more than a small sense of betrayal, and I made the best barricade I could with the nearby coffee table. At this point Connor reminds me that, having turned 22 (technically I hadn't but I wasn't about to complain) I was capable of magical powers, and thrust the staff into my hands. I made some appropriate spell noises at Natasha, who fell over dead. Now confident I chanted the first spell that came to mind (Expelliarmus, of all things) and watched as the others fell to the ground. Then I got applause, a treasure hunt for my presents, and 36 consecutive shots of Strongbow for not finding them fast enough.

My legs didn't stop shaking the whole time.

It was a truly superb party, one that will not be forgotten. My thanks to all who took part.

Nothing else has really happened this week. ICE reached its conclusion on Wednesday, and then we had more to drink (seriously had too much this week, way too much) and today I got up stupidly early to hand in my translation and flipping clean. The party was great, but cleaning up the debris after? Not so much.

My number of reviews on SquareGo have doubled now, so check them out and get that website counter up! Off home tomorrow, flight's at 9-something, where I plan to bask in the joy of not having to do anything. Oh, and sleeping off this accursed cold I seem to have landed myself with. I drink so much juice, how can my immune system be so bad?!

Oh, and I have a new phone, courtesy of the parents, which is working out pretty well so far. Far more advanced than any other phone I've had before, still a lot of things I don't understand. I'll get there, though, and stop missing calls even though the volume is supposedly turned up to 11.

That's it.

Thanks for reading.

When Life leaves us Blind, Love keeps us Kind

Need to start of with this, and might I preface by saying I don't normally get excited about music at all, but the new Linkin Park album is simply superb. Those guys really, really know how to put heart into a song. Extraordinarily stirring stuff.

Syntax went off without a hitch. I had everything planned out in my head, so actually getting in there, remembering and writing it was really not a problem. But I couldn't help but second-guess everything I was writing. I'd have a sentence down, an example of a structure misused to create something ungrammatical, but when I look at it on paper again I see it as actually being very much grammatical, and I'd been wrong this whole time. Issues like this arose a whole bunch of times, and the solution I came to in the end was to trust the me that spent a whole week preparing my answers, and not the me swung my a mere instant of indecision. Fingers crossed, but right now I'm perfectly willing to accept a lower mark.

I've been instructed to stay in my room. Feels a bit like that Silent Hill game, except rather than creepy chains keeping me in its the threat of my flat mates punishing me for ruining.... whatever it is they're doing out there. Got my music on a bit louder today (can you guess what I'm listening to) to try and give them a bit of cover.

Last night was Christmas Dinner at Team Argyle's, which went down a treat. The amount of food available was seriously staggering, I was honestly surprised we finished everything. After dinner was extended drinking and games, followed by a trip to the Big Cheese, first in a long while. It was good; maybe not quite as good as some of the nights in my memory, but it was still a great night out.

The ScotMid across the street from us started selling Cadbury's Cream Eggs yesterday. I'm thrilled to bits.

One last assignment, I'll start work on that tomorrow. A bit of a hefty-looking translation, but I'm confident I can get it done within the week. Well, excluding Wednesday. Wouldn't want to work on Wednesday. And then I'll be done, and I can go home. It's not been the longest of terms, but it sure has left me feeling absolutely exhausted to the core. I slept all through today, and that's only partly due to last night. Oh, but I did go to church, you can trust me on that. Tonight's carol service, though, probably gonna miss it. Something tells me whatever's getting set up outside my front door is gonna keep me in the flat for quite a bit. Suits me fine.

Thanks for reading.

Tribute Band

And thus the JLPT is over. Reactions: I was a little surprised at the absence of a picture listening section but everything else met expectations. The kanji sections were easier than usual, the reading sections longer than I remember, to the point that I was actually pressed for time right at the last question. Results in March, so a long time to wait.

And now I am exhausted. Like, to the fullest extent of the word without simply collapsing on the floor like some Sim. And there's not rest for the wicked, as Friday is the day of my one and only Edinburgh exam this semester, the dreaded Syntax. Did some hard study today, liking the look of my chances, for the first section at least. Still, got a week to polish up the others, so I'm not worried. But right now all I want is for it to be over, so I can properly rest for a change.

Right, so, Baldur's Gate.

Much to my surprise the resulting party (a party of six, it was voted) was not as uniform as I had expected. Our protagonist is self-styled Swanner, an Ivoker for those who care. I even gave him a picture of me as his portrait, and last night finished up a sound scheme for him using my commonly uttered phrases. He's only level 9, but he's a work of art. Backing him up is dwarven cleric T-Bagz. Yeah, can you start to detect the tone of this campaign? T-Bagz is hard as nails, and as the only true healer of the team he's also one of the most useful. Balthazar is next, an Inquisitor, and the party tank. He's the one who gets the best armour and weapons, and has the first say over buff spells. He's assisted by male bard Gertrude, very much a support character. Lastly we have Fe... Fel... Felididhhidhb? I can't remember. Apparently it's a "perfectly normal name". She's a bounty hunter, so is first into shifty-looking rooms. Support for her is the late HairyToes, a dwarven, uh, meat shield. Unfortunately, due to his meatiness, the party voted him as the first to be eaten to make space for Yoshimo, and then Ceridh. Imoen, if you're familiar with her and are interested, died ages ago, but still hangs on with her mile-thick plot-armour. We're just out of the prison (after 6 long days) and have taken our first mission at Trademeet, getting rid of what we suspect to be a good-for-nothing druid. The slavers are dropping like flies, let me tell you.

More study on the cards for hopefully all of tomorrow, this time for a second and third question. Other than that we'll have to see. No Baldur's, I think, not when I'm like this.

Thanks for reading.

Baldur's Receding Hairline

Ding dong, the crazy AI is dead. And with the restoration of the Rickenbacker comes the end of our time in System Shock 2, and the start of a new round of game selection. And the winner may be obvious to some.

Yes it's Baldur's Gate 2, that BioWare classic, another game I should have played but never got around to. But now it's my chance, as the three of us set off for the Forgotten Realms to... to do something... maybe to gate?

Plot aside I'm very much looking forward to this. Not sure what the AD&D2 character creation stuff is like, but I'm guessing it'll be pretty epically in-depth. The plan is for the three of us to roll up characters in secret, irrespective of what would be a 'balanced' team, and see what we come up with. May make the game harder initially, but I'm very excited to see what we come up with. Though I do think, knowing the three of us, a party of three magic-users is not out of the question.

AND, you lucky people, this time you may even get to see how we get on. That's right, I'm going to be attempting a highly entertaining Let's Play video to go along with the game itself. May not come out great, there's only so many screen capture programs that will work with Baby's baby graphics card, but I'm expecting it to be at least a bit fun. Good for my personal collection, and for those of our friends and classmates, if nothing else.

In other news, I fly to London tomorrow for the JLPT N2. Pretty nervous, it has to be said, but preparations have been decent and I don't think I'll let myself down. Wishes of good luck also need to go to Steph, who will be taking the test some 10 hours after me over in Hawai'i. One other exam to worry about too, but that one, Syntax, isn't until Friday, and this weeks' preparation lessons have left me feeling pretty confident.

Now all I have to do is wait until this lovely snow comes and ruins my best-made plans.

Thanks for reading.

Dream Tree

Snow is great, but it sure makes for some sleepy afternoons.

*yawn*

The pressure's rising up fast these days, with a couple of big assignments to be fretting over and a couple more exams on top of that. Thankfully the academic essay is all finished now, allowing for a bit more concentration on things like the translation assignment and imminent JLPT. Still not massively confident about that, potential revision time has been achingly low of late, but at least it's Japanese which I effectively do some work on every single day.

Today, for example, I wrote my jikou PR, a 2-minute self-sale speech used at the start of interviews. Pretty sweet stuff, I think, the sort of stuff that would get me lots of lovely fictitious jobs and, more importantly, a good, high score on the speaking exam on Thursday.

Church dinner last night was ace, especially walking home in the snow afterwards. Knew a fair few people who attended, and those I didn't know were all ace. Food was top-notch, and all, so a pretty perfect night. Someone even set something on fire.

Anyone know any good LAN games, Co-op-y ones if possible? Only the adventures of the Three Ss in Shodanland are coming to a close fairly soon (or things look like they're running swiftly in that direction) and we need something to replace it. Something low-spec, please, for Baby's sake.

Uploading a Pokemon takes a long time, did you know. But what better time to pray then whilst your Pokemon goes off to sleep? Something quite poetic about Riolu taking my prayer over the unprotected wifi connection near Snax and sending it off into the ether, I think. It's also better than just standing around like a lemon in the snow.

Japanese-size photos for the JLPT certificate, are you kidding, SOAS? You know how hard those things are to get? What do you even need a photo for, anyway?

Sleepy now. Thanks for reading.

As the world is spherical, we shall meet again.

So I finally got around to trying the Pokemon Global Link. Only took a free flipping Arceus to tempt me there. Though I'm not all that impressed, Nintendo, that you claim Arceus is the most popular Pokemon in the games, when you make it obvious that whoever you vote for gets available in the Dream World. That's like saying, I dunno, you'll give me a free holiday to my favourite place, and I'll say, like, Fiji, just 'cos it's gonna be really expensive and I want to get my money's worth. This is aside from the fact, obviously, that my favourite place is Japan and also would be worth a lot of money...

But yeah, Global Link. Really fun little system, though took a while to get my head around it. You send a Pokemon to sleep on your Game Sync part of the C-LINK, and off he goes. You then have, I think, 24 hours to play around with that Pokemon on the PGL website, and do stuff like the Dream World, where you can pick up more Pokemon and Berries and have a laugh. Metas was my choice, and he looks really cute as a Dream-Pokemon. The main focus of my trip to Dreamland was to have a go at catching Arceus, which is also very complicated. Take a trip over the Dream Bridge, the big rainbow one (what does it mean?) and you'll end up in a forest. Search around and click the shaking bushes and things to find Pokemon, of pretty much all sorts. If you want it to follow you, you have to impress it with a game of its choice, which tend to be pretty easy and not as boring as you may expect. I enjoy blasting Pelipper through the clouds in the race game. Then it's off again. After ten steps you reach the Dream Tree, in which you can get one of the Pokemon on your gathered team to make a wish. The wish will invariably be "let us meet in the real world", and lo and behold you'll find the little guy sitting around outside the High Link (my next destination) once you wake your Pokemon up. I couldn't find Arceus (still have until Jan 31st) but instead got myself another Nidoran Female, one of my favourites.

Next time, though, I won't do the whole thing whilst sitting in the cold at a bus-stop. Think my fingers nearly fell off. Next time I'll use the internet near Snax to get a Pokemon online, then go home and Dream World there, and just get my Pokemon back the next day.

Nothing more to report. Thanks for reading.

Impressive for an Insect.

Gespenst, I am sorry I ever doubted you. Your Double Jet Magnum set my heart ablaze.

As for something more interesting to read, I saw the next Harry Potter film today. Generally impressed with it, though there were a couple of character deaths that really didn't get the showcasing they deserved, whilst others were perhaps dwelt on for too long. And also, Mr. Director, just what is the applied convention for saying the name of a spell as you cast it? Is it just randomly chosen, for some kind of flare? Because it seemed to me that the spells that were spoken were a darn sight more accurate than those that were just flicked. Acting's gotten better, too, which was good to see, and the... thing that Ron has to fight was pretty impressive as well. Looking forward to the next one.

And in related news, my first SquareGo game review is off to the editors! Pretty exciting, getting something you wrote on a bone-fide website ('cos of course Two Swords Wiki doesn't count), I'm hoping you'll all read it when I link it. And then not buy the game I was reviewing, that way I can be sure you learnt something.

JET is nearing completion, but this last hurdle is going to be a bit more of a struggle. Neither of my two references are ready, with a mere week to go before the deadline, and now I learn that I have to wait until Monday before I can get my statement of physician signed. AND pay £30 for the trouble. The cheek of it... I don't want to say things I'll regret, but I'd better get this position, because I've sure spent a lot of money on the application for it.

Setting myself up for an evening of Minecraft and rest. Translations are done, and everything else can wait until tomorrow. I wonder if someone will be up for System Shock tonight?

Thanks for reading.

Death Watch.

Today I bid farewell to my Korean Converse. For a long time now I've been putting up with their gaping holes, leakages, unsecured soles, torn ankles, soggy laces and generally insufficient quality. I don't want to say that Korean products are inferior, but I sure did wear through the shoes suspiciously quickly. Now ushers in the age of some more practical Shoe Zone shoes, bought for a mere tenner, and I'm looking forward to using them on tomorrow's Roslyn trip.

Now, recently there was a tiny bit in Pokemon that was really great. Going over the bridge from the electric city towards the nasty trainers of the east, I met a man standing alone and marvelling at the sight. On flying back to the city in order to heal up, and then making tracks again, I saw that he was not alone anymore but in fact joined by a young woman. When I went over to talk to her, she flickered and then, suddenly, disappeared. The man looks to me and, quite understandably, flips out a bit. On reaching the other side of the bridge I am awarded with some item, I haven't had a look at it yet. I just thought that was a great addition, a fun little side-story that may well keep going for a while longer. Maybe the girl's the ghost of the daughter of a construction worker, who inhabits the bridge that her father spilt his heart into. Just a theory.

Went out for a walk to get rid of a minor hangover when I stumbled into Game on Princes Street and found MadWorld for £3. £3! That's nothing at all! It's still cheaper than, say, Heatseeker or the old Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, which is really odd. Yes, the game can be annoying, and short, and hurt your eyes, but I really enjoyed the experience of playing it, and I'm thrilled to be able to start again.

And in related news, I finally got my hands on a copy of Minecraft. This downloadable Java game has you put into a randomly generated world and has you build a shelter for yourself to defend against the attacks of the living dead, as well as spiders and walking bombs. Anything you can destroy can be reassembled in the form of blocks of resources, or crafted and smelted into new forms, such as weapons and armour. The game is a lot of fun, and a superb outlet for some creative juice, but Baby sure does struggle with running it. Here's hoping Beta will make it a bit less intense for the poor girl; even on lowest settings a night stroll for the woods is almost unsurvivable.

I forgot just how much I like Schutzwalds. Those are the big, yellow guys with shoulder cannons you get in Super Robot Wars OG. Yes, I know they get replaced, made obsolete by things like the R Series and the Huckebeins pretty soon, but there's just something unbeatable cool about giant shoulder laser cannons. Gespensts come a close second, it's the Schutzwald that takes the best robot award.

It's getting cold.

Thanks for reading.

Tri Optimum

Slow days in Isshu recently. Need a second DS to transfer stuff across and Connor, bless his heart, isn't always in or available. Not that that really matters, as there's nothing much to do anymore 'cept fight trainers until I get strong enough to beat Cynthia. Although it did change to Autumn on the first, that was pretty exciting.

Such a slow week this week! No homework, 'cept a sheet detailing stuff about Doshisha for Friday, so there's been a lot of free time kicking about.

So why on earth am I so tired?! Last night notwithstanding, I haven't exactly been late night partying much, especially on nights when there's something like Anime on. Feels like I have so little to do, I end up using too much brainpower on the stuff I have left! Makes it very difficult to find the energy to do stuff I don't have to, like JLPT revision (which is ironically going pretty well). Maybe I should start taking regular naps, but those things leave me more tired than when I started.

Okay, so, as the more geekery-centric of you will have no doubt realised already, I have now started playing System Shock 2. Normally I'd have not enough interest to make me want to play it, I did enjoy BioShock a lot but not enough to hunt down its 'superior' spiritual precedent (is that the right word?). But when Connor shows up with a copy of it, and says that new patches allow us to play it co-op over a LAN, how am I to resist? I am thickheaded marine Swanner, good with guns and little else. Connor, or Scorpio, is a psychic, and Natasha rounds off the party with SookSouli (who no doubt got beaten up as a child for having such a funky name), a technician. We do alright together, except that Natasha, the only one of us who can't fight, keeps TRYING to and dying, and then blaming us. Fortunately you don't get a penalty for dying, so we are effectively invincible. Going to play it a lot tonight (a LOT) after I'm finished with this, as a matter of fact.

On a final note, Marsha, Steph passed on your request, but I'm afraid I can't comply for the sakes of my huge diabetic fanbase. They wouldn't appreciate it.

Thanks for reading.

Self Worth.

Since when did you decide that you could only transfer Pokemon from JAPANESE games to BW, Nintendo? When were you planning on letting me know, huh? Better be thankful I can still trade from Diamond to Gold first, but it's a real hassle. Cheers, guys...

Did manage to get a team of six across, though. Now's the time to shine for Venusaur, Togekiss, Froslass and Nidoking. Added to this batch was Celebi and Shiny Raikou, the former of which netted me a cute little Zoroa (now a Zoroark). Really is coming in handy, thanks to the computer playing easily into the hands of Illusion.

Seemed like everyone was out to get me today. Be it in Tesco, the Bargain Shop, or just on the street, people seemed very keen to get in my way and make trouble for me. Maybe it's just because I'm tired, this long weekend has been pretty sleep-centric, but getting what I wanted to do done has been a tricky business this afternoon.

And JET! How many dates am I supposed to cough up for your application form, huh? Like I can remember when Breakthrough Japanese finished... Can't even remember if they gave me a certificate or not! At least they give you all kinds of lee-way with choosing where you want to go. Hokkaido Outskirts (makes it sound more like a video game area) comes top of the list, the rest will be based on how the rest of us feel...

Connor and Natasha are back tonight. Though it wasn't exactly lonely (not with the Grudge in the cupboard to keep me company) I do think I'd have gone a bit nuts if I'd been left alone for a great deal longer. Starting to feel the circuits fray at the edges as it was. Here's the thing, though, both of them have Halloween costumes. *sigh* Another year of being a lone Shirt Ninja for me.

And, finally, Avatar the Last Airbender (the series, not the movie) is really good. See you soon, second season.

Thanks for reading.

Cross Thunder

That's it. It's all over. Elite Four went down, so did N, so did that horrible Dad of his.

It's all over.

That was

AWESOME!!!

That has to have been one of the best endings I've EVER seen!! The music!! The visuals!! The dialogue!!

Wow!!

I'm shaking!!

Credits have just finished, better take a look at what comes next...

Thanks for reading.

Churchward

Plan to set off in about 45 minutes for Ps and Gs, so thought I'd stop by here and talk for a bit.

Just finished my JET Personal Statement. You other applicants better beware, it's solid gold. For now that's all I can do, will need to wait until they release the form proper before I can continue, and for now I'm happy to sit back and relax a bit.

Well, I would, except this week's J-E Translation homework is a real nasty piece of work. All those place names, all those fancy metaphors and over-complicated descriptions... Not looking forward to that. Rest of the week is looking pretty sweet, though, so really can't complain all that much.

Last night saw collaborative fantasy story Two Swords rise from the cold mortuary table, just in time to prevent a terminal diagnosis being given, and the story continues. Laura, Steph and I really did ourselves proud, the climax grows ever closer and the conclusion is going to be one to seriously watch. Not that we're quite 100% sure what it's going to be yet, but we have a rough idea, and WOW is it going to rock. In the meantime a personal project under the name of Bonds of Urus has been keeping me a little busy, and is easily the longest I've gone writing something without losing interest. Three whole chapters, now, with the next two well planned. Maybe some day, if you ask really nicely, I'll let you read it.

But you're not here to hear about that, are you?

So it turns out Champion Road is divided in two, with the easy bit before the awesome ticket gate and the nasty bit following on. So that's where I am now. For the purposes of Strength I had to let Miruhog back on the team, the poor, weak little critter, and on seeing one, gushing and subsequently catching it I replaced Iko with a metal ant Pokemon I called Fang.

A metal. Flipping. Ant! So cool!

It's essentially just a slower Scizor, same weaknesses and everything, but I prefer my little guy over the red scissor Pokemon. I mean, it is an ant. Now if only she wasn't such a low level...

That's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Oh yeah, and Courage Wolf is really funny.

Fantastic Four.

Well, wasn't Iris a let-down. The poor girl; she has such high expectations to live up to on account of being not only an eighth Gym Leader, but a Dragon-user at that. Last Dragoon we encountered was the charming Lance, who took so long to beat I may have chewed my own arms off up to the pre-set maximum of twice.

My way of saying I'm ready to fight the Elite Four. Had to get past Cheren, who needed more proof that I was better than him than simply beating him in every single fight from the very start. Thinking about it it's a wonder he kept going on his Pokemon adventure and Belle gave up, considering how she is currently the ONLY person to EVER beat me in this game, and that was the very start.

Still no sign of Zekrom. Starting to look like I'll need to prove myself to his foxy twin brother at the Champion's Hall before he'll deign me with his thundery presence. But! There is another surprise that I was not expecting. Had my first glimpse of something called Volteros today, this Generation's chase-him-around-the-world-map Pokemon. Nicely done, Nintendo. Volteros' presence on a Route is signified by a typhoon, very cool, but unlike Entei and co. he's not going be scared away by some puny trainer with a few less-than-Legendaries. Here's the cool thing: Volteros turns up in Isshu once a week, starting at the south of the region and slowly making his way north, ending up on Champion's Road as the day ends. That means it's a lot easier to chase him around, not having to dart on and off the world map each time you change locations. Going to concentrate on the plot for now, though, and then we'll pay Volteros a visit.

Final team is the same as the last Gym team: Lazarro at 50, Patty at 47, Afro at 46 (when will he evolve?!), Iko at 46, Wanita at 44, Golgoth (new entry, a Dragon called Kibago) at 43. Wanted to get Metas in there, but with a perfectly good Cross Scissor on Lazarro I don't think I'll be in need to any more Bug.

JET stuff coming together, going to try my hand at a Personal Statement tomorrow. And then it's clear sailing for another weekend. Looks like things are starting to settle down a bit, which is good 'cos the stress was bubbling up without my knowing it. Making mountains out of molehills all the time last couple of weeks, hasn't been good for my heart. Though apparently my teeth are excellent.

Gradius time. That thing is going DOWN!

Thanks for reading.

Endless Eight.

I had a bone-chilling thought today.

To explain, let me go over my Gym victories to date. First was the Tri Badge, with its Fire/Water/Grass combination. Next was Normal, followed by Bug, Electric, Ground, Flying, Ice and finally the as-of-yet unattempted Dragon. Next up will be the Elite Four, and the final four types followed by the diversity-type Champion. What four types are left?

Rock won't be a problem, and Fighting only minimal. Steel may be a bit of a pain, but I'll tell you what really will be.

Psychic, Ghost, Dark.

Those stupid three sneaky types and I haven't beat any of them yet! I can just imagine waltzing through the Pokemon League, happy as can be, only to have to fight all three one after another! Dark-type, how I hate you!

The one good thing that comes out of this is that Bug is good against both Dark and Psychic, and Electric isn't bad against Rock or Steel, so Metas the Denchula will be getting some serious fight-time.

As it stands Lazarro is still way in the lead, a whopping level 48, 10 levels higher than any wilds I'm training against. Iko the... ice-cream isn't doing too bad, either, won't mind seeing his final form alongside Afro's when they finally evolve. Kibago has a long way to go, but he's not too shabby as he is now!

In other news, I have a mock JLPT tomorrow. Wish me luck, and thanks for reading.

Rediscover.

Sick again. Stupid Natasha. It's the flu this time, though not a very nasty strain by the feels of it. Well, not when compared to food poisoning. That stuff is pretty rubbish.

But that's not the real reason for this post. Today, at long, long last, I saw The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

And it was incredible.

Though the character animation was still very much mired in the bog of K-ON, the rest of, well, everything looked truly immense. The buildings, the backgrounds. There's a stunning moment where we see Yuki silhouetted against different stellar backgrounds which really took my breath away. The music is top-notch, a lot of it seemingly taken from that Suzumiya Orchestra CD I heard about. So not a lot of variation, but wow is it used effectively. There are several moments around the climax that brought me close to tears, they were that moving. The whole thing cam together seamlessly into a stunning visual spectacle.

And the plot! Wow! Edge of my seat, let me tell you! The loneliness of the opening scenes plays masterfully against the joy of the climax, the overall uncertainty of the conclusion. It was just the right length, and the pacing was perfect.

And this is without even mentioning the fact that emotional Yuki is a-flipping-dorable. <3

So yeah, highly successful film, and I recommend, nay insist that anybody who has seen the show watch the film.

In other news, the final badge is ready for the taking. But first I need to catch myself this pesky steel antelope. For a benevolent guardian who protects the innocent, he's sure giving me a run for my money. Plenty of new Dragon Pokemon in the roster now, though, which is great.

Going to start on some mince now, wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

Sickie.

There goes omerice off the top of the Japanese Food Charts.

Never mind, I'm all better now and that's all that really matters. I also have a place (or 5) in the JLPT in December, which was a bit touch and go for a second there.

Off through Neji Mountain at the mountain, which is a bit tricky. Glad to see there's another chance to pick up that mole Pokemon, though, I thought he'd gone for good. Metas the Bacchula evolved yesterday, to great squeals of joy, as Denchula looks absolutely staggering. Almost as staggering as Lazarro's final form, which is so cool I could have fainted on the spot. Iko's... well... the less said about his the better. Just nice to have an Ice type on the team, even if he does look like a flipping ICE CREAM!!

Tch...

So tired today. I think I'm just coming off food poisoning but everything is such a hassle. Only had two lessons today, an hour each, but it still felt like a real nuisance. Hoping that'll clear up by tomorrow, when team Shame Panthers (yes, that's our name) meets officially for the first time to discuss our J2 Presentation. I have honestly forgotten everything I was ever taught about Japanese shame society, so it's gonna be a long meeting...

Bought Dissidia the other day, which is really great. It's fast and exciting, like being in an anime. But also like being in an anime, the English voices are horrendous. Squall, my beloved Squall, will never be the same again. Though he was originally gonna be my main character of use, Zidane is ace, and Onion Knight is really cool as well. Cecil was pretty cool, though that twenty-loss-streak to Marionette Sephiroth really pushed my patience. I like Warrior of Light's style, but haven't played him yet. He's so cheesy, in a really cool way.

J3 Portfolio is done, ready for submission. I just hope Fumiko-tachi enjoy reading about why I think Kamille Bidan would beat Kira Yamato in a fight.

I want to play Pokemon, so I think I shall.

Thanks for reading.

Following on

That's five gym badges now. Making slow and steady progress, I like to think, though I feel I may be being overtaken by the entire eastern Asian subcontinent. Hoping I'll get plenty of time in the coming weeks to get some serious work done on it.

And not on a dissertation.

So now let's talk about classes. This semester I've got five classes... well, more like four and a half. Monday mornings in 'Japanese to English Translation', which is dead simple. Not that it's easy, it's just a very predictable format of get a Japanese text, turn it into English. We've been looking at the same sort of things that we have in our second class, 'English to Japanese Translation' which is on Tuesday mornings. This one's looking a lot more at the theories behind translation, a good example being today which looked at loan words that have different meanings to when they were in the language they were loaned from. 'Advanced Japanese Writing' follows on from that, though we only have two classes in that this semester. The rest of our time goes into writing a long-ish Japanese essay on whatever we like, due in start of next semester (interestingly AFTER the dissertation due date). Finally it's 'Advanced Japanese Speaking', which is preparation for a couple of tasks. Last couple of weeks we've been looking at half of our assessment which is a presentation in Japanese for the second-years on an aspect of Japanese culture. Natasha, Connor, Alison and myself have nabbed ourselves 'Shame culture', which we'll be starting work on in the weeks to come.

That was a long paragraph, let's start a new one.

Linguistics is assessed through a single course this semester: 'Syntactic Systems and English Grammar'. It's as thrilling as it sounds. In all fairness the lecturer's pretty cool, certainly very passionate about his work, but you just can't quite make grammar interesting that easily. There's a short essay due in next week which I'll need to start some time soon. Next semester will see the start of 'Second Language Acquisition' and 'Psycholinguistics', which look far more interesting. Syntax is on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons.

On top of that there's volunteer admin work at the church on Monday, the J2 class on Tuesday with anime in the evening, NOTHING (yes, nothing at all) on Wednesdays save roleplaying in the evening and the church student group on Thursday nights. And that's my week.

'Scotland Loves Anime' starts in a couple of weeks. Films on include Eva 2.0 (still my all-time favourite animated film), the Haruhi movie (at long, long last), Professor Layton and Trigun (the director of whom is hopefully going to be shown around Edinburgh by yours truly). I'm only gonna see Haruhi, don't really want to be spending massive amounts of money right now.

And I still stand that Summer Wars ripped off Digimon 2.

Might ply a bit of Pokemon now, actually. Connor's not back from work yet, he said he might be up for some gaming this evening, so I've got a little time to kill. Currently facing off against the Plasmas (who seem to have ninjas in their employ) at the bottom of a big, electric cavern with some adorable fluffy, yellow spider Pokemon. Wanita the Meguroko is doing superbly, as is Guru the Munna, with Lazarro, Patty, Afro and Iko completing the squad. The shape of the hole where my next badge goes is decidedly feather-shaped, so I'm thinking it'll be fliers. Gotta get Afro's rocky goodness on top-form for that.

Thanks for reading.

Five Minutes

That's the amount of time until I have to head off to Anime Soc, but I just had to write something so I'll make it quick!

So, first things first.

Residence for the year is Roseneath Street, a flat with some of Edinburgh's impossibly high ceilings, specifically in the biggest room with the biggest bed. Flatmates are Connor and Natasha (the latter is... 'following' me...) who are ace. Previous flatmates are even living just around the corner, which is an excellent added bonus. The flat is around fifteen minutes walk to class away, though when class lies at the top of David Hume Tower's staircase it's actually a bit longer. There's a Scotmid thirty seconds away, and a chip shop twenty seconds away. Can't really go wrong.

Two PS2s and a Wii in the living room, Japanese language and culture reference books on the walls, five additional mattresses in the cupboards, a whiteboard, zero windows in the kitchen, a phone that has a very loud ring and often puts through utter silence. Winter is not so far away and snow may be falling fairly soon; when it does Silent Hill will get oh-so scarier.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get on to something more important.

I chose Mijumaru, named him Lazzaro. He's really cool; not 100% won over by the blue, shell-wielding otter yet but give him time. AM won over, however, by Patty the Hatoubou, who rocks hard. Beat my first three Gym leaders (that's trio, Normal, Bug) and am well on the way towards my fourth (Electric). Got a few choice players lined up for that one.

That's my time. Gotta run.

Thanks for reading.

Start as you mean to go on

First things first, do NOT expect me to update this as often as I did my other blog. Edinburgh is great and all, but there just isn't as much happening as there was in Kyoto, quite obviously.

Expect, rather, that from time to time I get on to this blog when I'm feeling like writing, when I'm feeling stressed or upset about something, or maybe when I'm feeling really good about something, and tell you all about it.

I shall say this right off: a lot of it may still have to do with Pokemon.

Still got a bit more work to do just now, so I'll get on with that, but when I feel up to it I'll go over the flat details and whatnot, stuff you need to know.

For now all you need to know is that I'm having fun here in Edinburgh, and nobody has even the slightest need to worry.

Thanks for reading. Keep doing so, 'k?