Great. I've finished my undergraduate studies, technically. The ceremony itself won't be until June. Already, my parents have found a new way to aggravate me and my mental instability.
They want me to take a second degree. Why not? Suuure. Bring it on. They want me to study Multimedia Arts. Sounds really interesting, right? Except that the basis for that decision is poor drawings in my youth. Also, they haven't seen the works from the other artists that I have, which just proves that I am not talented enough for it. True, you learn a new skill, but most times, if you don't have a knack for it, it's just a total waste of time.
Blah.
...at least before I graduate! I finally managed to put guns to the heads of my thesis mates and made them stay overnight at my house last weekend. I tied them to the chairs with laptops in front of them so they would stay put and type away. :)
I suppose a normal group wouldn't take that long to finish a thesis (it took us all Saturday night and all of Sunday!), but then I guess it depends on how lazy everyone is feeling like. Once we were able to settle down, we began reading very slowly and adding stuff to our RRL (very slowly too!). It doesn't help that lots of scholars use deep words and run-on sentences to make themselves sound academic!
In the end, however, we persevered and managed to churn out the first draft by 6 PM of Sunday. My thesis mate passed it to our mentor this afternoon, and we're going to meet up with him on Wednesday morning. Hopefully we won't have to change too much, and that we can have our defense next week, because I'm leaving for the States on April 1...
It's a long story. My family wanted to go for several reasons. My mom and sister went first, my brother's going on the 28th, and my dad and I are leaving on April 1st. I didn't want to go because of schoolwork and finals, but my dad wouldn't go without me and so that meant I had to go too, or suffer his indirect whining for the rest of the year. Well, I do want to go too, just not at such a crucial point in my academic life! He's offered to sacrifice his vacation for me several times, but I know I'll never hear the end of it if I took that offer! So I had all my finals scheduled; good thing my other professors are understanding.
And besides that, Holy Week is really the only time (this early in the year) when we can take a vacation as a whole family. My eldest sister, who is working in Singapore, will be leaving on the 2nd of April.
Let's hope everything goes well! :)
Thesis, OJT, graduation preparations and scholarship matters all rolled into 3 hellish months!
What fun this will be!
x_x
I finished two books just recently; Eat Cake and How to Marry a Duke. The latter is a compilation of three semi-erotic short stories on romance, and the former is a novel. Frankly, I've always enjoyed novels like Eat Cake, where the mood is light but the philosophical reflections are more realistic but not as heavy.
And on to my brief rant on censorship. I wish Vox would automatically censor items of an adult nature. I hate clicking 'Explore Vox' then getting horribly surprised when I see uploads by other people of an adult nature. For example, I just got another surprise when I scrolled down and saw videos of a woman giving a blowjob. EW. I don't think these people would voluntary click the 'exclude from public explore pages' checkbox. I guess they don't think it's offensive. x_x
At this rate, I have probably read almost all of the books in my sister's shelf. The rest I do not find that interesting.
I find it more interesting reading about the love lives of other people, for lack of one. Maybe someday I will have a boyfriend, or even a husband and a family, but it will never be as glamorous as book romances. Because book romances aren't real, at least in my point of view. Marriage in real life is boring, and you get to hate each other once you've been together long enough. You also don't get to have as much sex as when you were newlyweds. Maybe that's why so many people are into pre-marital sex. By the time the children are old enough and leave home, you two are just old and don't have the energy to go at it. Besides, who'd want to look at each other's sagging, naked flesh?
How to be Good is a story about a married couple, and it's not at all an exciting story about them. In fact, they are tired of each other but soon realize that they would be worse off if they divorce, so they don't. Instead, the husband finds a renewed spiritual purpose in life, and the wife puts up with it. The ending is anti-climatic, but it is so very reminiscent of real life.
It's apparently going to be released on February of 2009.
Isla Fisher is going to play Rebecca Bloomwood and Hugh Dancy as Luke Brandon.
No offense to Hugh, but his looks weren't exactly what I thought of Luke (I thought he looked a bit gay, but then it might just be the angle of the picture; besides, the more I look at him, the more I'm getting used to it) as I read the books, though Isla Fisher fits the descriptions nicely. I've always imagined Luke, if he were a real person, to be very dominant and a bit rough-looking but hot.
Still, I am looking forward to seeing this, though you know what they say about books and movies being adapted to it.
Well, so for last weekend I read more books! That's right, I went sneaking into my eldest sister's bookshelf and found some books I haven't read yet, specifically the last two installments of the Shopaholic series (don't remember if I've already read Shopaholic & Sister, but who cares) , so I decided to read it, and after that, I decided to re-read the first three books in the series as well.
I honestly love the author's male lead character, which is Luke Brandon. Very masculine.
I also really much wanted to bash Venetia Carter's face on the wall after all her antics.
But of course, it all ended well, much to my relief and expectation.
And then I got a bit sad after, just because I always get that way after finishing a series of books or a very long book. By the time I'm finished, I'm already very much connected to the characters, and in a way, finishing reading them means that that is the extent of their life span between the covers.
So I re-read and read more books. The list is below, though not in any chronological order. Besides, it's nice to see the covers as well.
Yes, it's shaping up to be a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I've just finished reading the book I started last night. After some suspense and nail-biting, it was a nicely put-together novel. Of course, the fact that I've peeked at later chapters once in a while did help to ease the tension.
Yes, I've also changed my layout again. I might change it again soon. There are too many nice ones, and I can't be bothered to make a personalized banner. ;)
Yep, the new layout is Victorian Lace. It kind of reflects this mood I'm in lately, and that is a reading mood. I immediately go through my eldest sister's bookshelf and see if she has anything good and light (=shallow). I breezed through a couple just today. Wow, really productive! Considering my light schedule this term and that the term has just begun (meaning I'm not obligated yet to work on the next and last parts of my thesis), it means that I have time to read.
Okay, the copy my sister has has a different cover, but this was the only one on Amazon with a picture. So yeah. It shares a similar title with Who Moved My Cheese? (though I didn't read that one yet). Anyway, after reading this one, I will, for some time, be afraid of perky lecturers and "serious" life coaches. Not to mention all those corny jargon they use in power meetings (and yes, I do believe they use those words in real-life conventions and seminars).
Right now I have started on The Debutant Divorcee. I am not scared to admit that I am an ordinary person. *grin*
And yes, I enjoy chick-lit and some other forms of literature that "real" writers might shudder at.
It's been a while since I posted anything about music on here. I still enjoy Jrock, but not the new, young bands that come up from time to time. I'm a sucker for the oldies, like Lareine. Kamijo is HOT. I don't care how old he is. He's my shameful dream of a guy, which of course is stupid because he is an idea of someone's perfect man. So I'm not dwelling on that, though it does make for good conversational material with other people like me.
Anyway, my tastes have evolved to include British bands, just because some of their music evokes nostalgia in me (it's the tone of the song and the voice!). I love breathy voices. It's like really, really good food.
Case in point: Human by The Killers.

on The good stuff in life...and why doesn't vox automatically censor adult stuff?