I can't even remember the first half of the year, so it should be 'The Second half of the year in review'. Whatever.

I think the problem with University is that it's skewing my sense of time, with its short semesters, long holidays and, of course, the standard system of academic years ending in June/July. As such, all of what I did in my second year of Uni is forgotten, as third year takes priority. That of course means I can only remember summer and what's happened since then.

That, of course means, that anything good that happened in the first half of 2009 is forgotten, although I don't think there was anything memorable. Oh! My birthday was fun; what a good bunch of friends I have. That's not sarcasm; I love those guys.

However. The second half of 2009, by all accounts, sucked. And sucked hard. Time with friends in uni and spent with my better half have, as always, been a joy and a pleasure, and I can't take that away from them or myself. Socially, 2009 has been a good year.

It's with a sad face that I must admit, though, that my own personal problems, and physical ailments have shadowed; in fact, almost dwarfed those social gems beneath a depressing shroud. I have been worried, stressed, ill, ill again, continually ill, and stressed some more. At the time of writing this, in fact, I am also stressed. Not so ill anymore, but still not tip-top. I might be feeling fine just in time to go back to uni.

This latter half of 2009 has been wrought with personal struggle for me--not in any kind of heroic, Trotsky-ist way. Just a lot of worrying, and becoming upset over family members. Silly, sentimenal things. Don't let anybody ever tell you I'm stone-hearted. That's just an act.

However, my holiday has been a good time to relax (despite looming work), and Christmas with the family was a great time, better than I'd hoped. Hopefully, a good party awaits me tonight, and then I'll face 2010 with the coy, cautious optimism for which I'm known, or at least I want to be.

I hate to be depressing on New Years Eve. But as a year, 2009 hasn't been good to me. I am looking forward to 2010 (Twenty Ten! Take that, regressives!) and the possibility of goodness it may bring. I want to end on an optimistic note, to show that 2009 isn't leaving any kind of permanent scarring on me. 2010 is a new year; a new decade in fact. It feels kind of funky living in an early century. Especially after having done Romantic/Victorian studies in the previous semester. Feels like change, and progression is about.

Could just be the air freshner, though.

- Happy New Year, everybody!

Oh my God, he actually updated.

A short one today.

I posted up the next--rather significantly longer--part of A Path's Beginning. There is another, small part to go on the end. I originally posted it up, but then decided it wasn't ready after some advice. I'll be revising it tomorrow then getting it uploaded again.

I'll update when that's done. Do enjoy it in the meantime.

- May the Force be with you

Another dissapointing revelation.

Indeed. My last journal was entitled '80%' and foresaw me posting works in 'a couple of weeks'. Funny how easy it is to say those things. But, as always, life and work caught up with me, and so I missed those self-created deadlines and stalled. All the pieces have been worked on a little since my last journal, so I'm not in total stasis. But some aren't finished and some just aren't in a state I want them to be.

I started to write the next part of 'Visions of the Future' but, if the length of the last few are any indication, it might take me some time to finish up. 'Find Your Way' hasn't been touched, although it is still there, waiting to be improved upon. Finally, the next part of 'A Path's Beginning' has been rewritten, and revised, and redrafted, and recombombulated, and re-everything'd since last I spoke of it. More chronology issues have arisen, so I'm still not sure where I'm setting the damn thing at the minute, but it's leaning towards being back on Coruscant, because then I'll have another, rather large, plot device to work with. But I'm talking too much about that.

In my last journal I mentioned meeting Eddie Izzard on his run around the country. Since then, I have actually been to see him, live in Nottingham. Not quite as personal as meeting him up front, but who cares. He was fantastic, hilarious, racey, snazzy, and several other hyperbolic superlatives that are nevertheless true. An evening of wonder was had. Now I just need the DVD.

University is heating up. 3 weeks until the end of the semester. I have no deadlines but I'd like to have a full draft of my Dissertation before then, so I can show to my tutor and he can tell me how hideously abysmal it is. I'm currently 2100/5000 words, so it's steady progress. In the next week or so I should definitely be able to crank the rest of it out. It's hard work, and annoyingly complicated analysis. But if I can pull off the complicated stuff, I stand a better chance of getting a higher mark.

On top of that, I have a 5000 word project on my Special Subject module; Words and the World. I should be able to do that one quite easily (relatively, at least), because I can talk about words for a great deal of time, and the subject I've chosen to write on--videogames and movies--I can talk on for even longer, so I should be able to hurl 5000 pieces of verbal diarrhea down and call it a project.

To make matters just a little more unbearable, I've had sinusitis for about a month now, so most of the time, until recently, I have been in an uncomfortable amount of facial pain in my head and cheeks and teeth. Fun. Luckily, I'm now on a new regiment of antibiotics and intend to nuke the fucker into oblivion. More on this as it progresses. Or regresses, I suppose...

So yeah. To wrap up, I bought my boyfriend Assassin's Creed II, Black Edition, last week for his birthday, and I've probably played it more than him. It's SO. GOOD. If there's any reason I might fail University this year, it's because of that game. Mark my words.

Mark them well.

Arri,
- vaderchi

That is my deviantART position

Just need that little push to get it all done, I suppose.

I'm about 80% done with the third part of 'Visions of the Future', which details the life of my character in the distant future of the Matrix Universe. I'm enjoying writing that piece but I'm fairly sure I got carried away during the third part making it too depressing and morbid. When it's typed up from its written state we'll see how it looks, then I can tone it up or down. But nearly there.

Furthermore, I've nearly finished the second part of my Star Wars: The Old Republic character backstory, 'A Path's Beginning'. That, too, is all written up and nearly all typed, as well. Only problem is I don't believe it to be nearly long enough to be ready for submission yet. It doesn't tell enough of the tale to be any more than useless filler (which I despise).

And finally, on the writing front, the second part of 'Find Your Way' has been on the precepice of being finishe for quite some time now. Once again, I just need that tiny little incentive to push it forward and into completion. That said, however, I'm probably going to find it too short too. But we'll see. I'll just be glad to get the three pieces finished. I'm really enjoying writing them all.

The last note about actual work for deviantART is related to the late Matrix Online; I uploaded the piece 'The Endless Void' [link] several days ago and that's the final piece I've done for MxO, and the last in my '>Re: War' collection. Now that my grieving of sorts for MxO has subsided, my desire to continue making graphical work and tying up all my loose ends has subsided somewhat, so I'm in no rush to make anything new.

However, I am thinking about uploading all of my 'War' collection from MxO to deviantART. I'd like certain opinions from you, my followers, about that; both from those of you who have already seen the collection and those who have not. What do you think? Worth it?

Finally, how about me? Not much has been happening in my life during the Summer. Up until two days ago (Wednesday, that is). I had heard that Mr. Eddie Izzard was running a leg of his 1000 mile Marathon through Liverpool then, so a friend and I conspired to go see him and give him our support. We had originally planned to meet him at the ferry dock in town, where he was getting the ferry across from Birkenhead, but by the time we were aware and ready, he was running again.

So, we went to our backup plan; catch up with him. We hopped on our bikes and began our journey. We made very good progress and travelled the 10 miles he travelled in a third of the time he travelled it. By the time he got to Orskirk (about 9 miles from where we started), we were half a mile away from him.

Eventually, we overtook him somehow--we think he stopped for Lunch out of sight--and so waited for him at a pub. Eventually he showed up, shook all of our hands, took a picture with me (in the process of being obtained), signed my boxset (see here [link]) and then thanked us and moved on.

10 miles of riding for 5 minutes of meeting Eddie Izzard; it was more than worth it.

Of course, then we had to ride 10 miles back. So now my arse hurts from a bruised pelvis. But oh well. My Dad was very proud of me, having been an excellent cyclist in his day.

But anyway, I'm running out of things to say; not much has happened beyond me meeting Mr. Izzard, but I'd certainly say that was worthy of a large chunk of this journal. Until next I have something to report, watch this space; I should be uploading all of the new writings during the next two weeks.

Pleasantry,
- Signature

A little pun there.

Oops. I meant to update this journal like a fortnight ago, along with the update I posted, but guess what?

I forgot. Fancy that.

But anyway, yes. I'm not actually dead, and this is possibly my shortest recorded deviantART absence. At any rate, I'm still around, and for those of you who know me at the minute or have seen my gallery may know, I'm in a Star Wars mood.

What I've posted is the first part of my character's backstory. Not chronologically, but I was having trouble picking a starting point and, well, the beginning is boring. If my encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars serves me, the Treaty of Coruscant is 30 years before The Old Republic starts, so at this point we'd be on Tython. That was causing all kinds of nerdy trouble last week trying to figure it out.

That aside, life has been relaxing but, ultimately, dull. I'm getting a lot of reading and writing done, and a lot of hanging around with friends too. In more sad news, the Motherboard on the PC has died (I write this to you from my laptop) and won't be fixed until Tuesday at the latest. So probably Monday, but I'm not holding my breath. The PC hasn't been working properly for a while (2 weeks or so), so I haven't been using it much. But once you know it's going to be fixed you get impatient for its return.

Anyway. Not much more for me to say, to be honest. I'll be uploading the next part of 'A Path's Beginning' within the next week and, if I can find the drafts I have, I might even gets the next part of 'Find Your Way' uploaded. It's not that far from completion, I'm just inherently shit at updating things once I start.

But I digress. 'Till then.

Fluh
- Puh