You must forgive me for my excursions into the world of ‘fansubbing (and subsequently trolling):’ the past weeks have been crammed with deadlines and requirements to be submitted that I didn’t want to even think about anime. I haven’t exactly turned my back on anime; I am still quite the avid fan of it, but it has had taken a back seat to my academic responsibilities. I’m not even killing myself studying: on the contrary, I just performed whatever was necessary of me so that I could be one step closer to graduation. Do not take it as laziness, however: I have had sleepless nights just to prepare for the examinations (I just had three). What I meant was that while I could have done a lot better with my studying, I did what I could in the time that remained. As could be expected, I (think I) didn’t perform well in two of those exams: I had to prioritize a subject, and I prioritized physics. Aside from being my forte, physics has also the most gravity as regards my weighted grade this semester. I’m hoping that I don’t get atrocious scores for the other two subjects, but I did study enough to avoid failure in the worst possible way.

Our supposed logo for Houseki, if only it didn’t offset the audio

I have a new theme, if that isn’t obvious yet. This is primarily because of mellow_bunny’s efforts: he designed my new theme from scratch based on what I wanted. Since I wanted a theme based on the color violet or permutations of it, he dutifully created my theme based on that sole desire, which is what I have currently. I love this theme a lot more than the vanilla Chocolate Candy theme I had for two years. It truly gives some sort of personality to this blog of mine, and I’m happy about that: thank you very much, Michael.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian author, has four major novels that are recognized (even until today) to be among the greatest in literature. To date, the most popular novel among these four is Crime and Punishment. One of his other novels, although lesser-known than C&P, is Demons.

Demons was partially inspired by Sergei Nechayev, one of the leaders of the Nihilist movement, who was so single-minded in his goal of revolution that he disregarded morality: he did not mind political violence and murder. He was so single-minded that he alienated even his friends and family. (more…)

Most of the time, I try to put my money where my mouth is: just a while ago, I finished “reading” Finnegans Wake. I didn’t read the novel just so I can brag about it to others (although that’s a plus); on the contrary, I’m even quite ashamed that I wasted time reading it. I have a personal sense of duty, however, (especially with regard to books) to finish what I’ve started. I may not finish perfectly; I may end with haste; but I will try to finish what I began. (more…)

I am really a fan of The Sound and the Fury. But I am also really a fan of Cowboy Bebop. I’m not angry with Daniel for responding to my ‘bait,’ but I really think that Cowboy Bebop has more parallels to The Sound and the Fury than is obvious and that it is more than ‘a well-written, yet cheap, airport thriller.‘ (more…)

Before I log on to my blog, I always try to put my thoughts in paper first. I’m sad to say that this week has been pretty hectic to the extent that I have only written some scribbles each day for four days. Since I vehemently refuse to do anything related to academic work today, I simply decided to integrate the scribbles. I’ll hopefully come up with a coherent post. (more…)

It has been quite some time since I have finished an anime series, but I (at last) finished Gundam 00 about a week ago. I absolutely loved it, despite the fact that many people think it’s too emotional or bathetic. I love heroic bloodshed movies, and this series just seemed to be exactly like it. In addition, despite the futuristic setting I thought the characters were convincing, especially Soran.

Lockon, Lockon, Lockon, Lockon bawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.

I really think that the time I’ve spent reading Tristram Shandy was a colossal waste. Laughing only three times from more than 700 pages is not a good batting average. I don’t blame anyone for it, especially because I could have dropped and stopped reading the novel anytime, but I didn’t.

This was actually my position when I was reading Tristram Shandy: a reading-cum-facepalm

I still dislike Ergo Proxy. The appearance of Disney characters was just too much for me, and it didn’t help that the allusions of the series did not really improve one’s understanding of the show. The series also had inconsistent animation. There were times, however, when the series stepped up to bat and retained some of the awesome quality that it had in its first two episodes: I loved the series’s portrayal of their wasteland, and I also loved the episode where Re-l for a moment represented Ophelia, a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

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Andrew wrote a well-thought and concise editorial here. He observes the spread of microblogging among more prominent members of the anime blog-sphere, and argues that these probably have come into existence because these prominent writers are often recognized with their styles and have been known to write such and such as conventions. This allows them to be unique with regard to other bloggers but also sacrifices their ability to be creative with their posts, as their readers often recognize them through their styles. While I cannot speak for Paul, I think I can speak for Daniel.

(Daniel has agreed with this impression of mine generally, but he adds that this seems to be the case only for English literature-cum-language courses in the UK, and does not include Creative Writing courses.) (more…)