Updates Since… The Last One.

Alright. It’s time to stop making excuses, blow the dust off this blog and get thing’s back up and running!

WARNING: This post has not gone through any editing or proofreading.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED

I guess I do owe my readers (of which I suppose less than 2 are left) an explanation. My last semester’s schedule was absolute hell. I don’t know if it’s because of the super-short winter break before that or if it was because of the classes that I was taking, but I felt that the previous semester was exceedingly tedious and tiresome. Don’t get me wrong, things still turned out well thanks to my uncanny ability to pull through at the last minute. However, that month of cramming for exams and struggling to meet deadlines and to finish up projects really screwed up my blogging and video making rhythm. The energy, motivation and, most importantly, sanity to put out a piece of coherent writing, to make a video or to reply to comments after endeavoring to complete a 5000 word paper (which I have just posted before this) over the span of a weekend just wasn’t there..

Even after the semester was over, the fatigue continued for quite some time. Not to mention, the damn illnesses always suffer during the holidays didn’t help much at all.

But I know that many of you will say that all the above things I mentioned are all just excuses. Yes. I admit it. They are all indeed excuses. I have no one to blame but myself for my laziness and lack of proper time management skills and I do deserve the drop in viewership and readers. Once again, I sincerely offer my humblest of apologies and thank those of you who stuck with me all this time.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE

So, what has happened during the past few months of non-communication and self seclusion from the outside world (by which I of course mean the internet). Well, let me recount the (non-real life related) events categorically.

– Anime

I caught up and finished up quite a bit of Anime, both past series and the latest Spring Anime, though not as much as I would have liked to. Dusk Maiden, Hyouka and Sankarea were some that really stood out to me personally and I did have a great time with them. Though, technically speaking, Hyouka is still on-going. Also went back and rewatched a couple of my favorite series that I’ve forgotten quite a bit of, Read or Die, Code Geass and Full Metal Panic being two of the series being among them. Really forgot how awesome these series were and why I loved them so much.

– Loot

…and boy, I haven’t done an Acquisition post in awhile. Surprisingly, I have actually been diligently taking pictures of most of the items that I have purchases since the last loot post that i did. Notice I said ‘most’, because (let’s not kid ourselves here) I’m not as diligent as I’d like to be. (^.^;) I might be posting them at a later date.

– Birthday

Yup. That’s right. I’m officially a year older. Yeah… that seems to happen over the course of a year. This time round, I had a pretty conservative celebration with my family and some of my University mates. The cake was a fondant cake featuring Konata.

Fun stuff. Interestingly enough, I didn’t get anything for my Birthday. Instead, I saved up all the extra birthday cash that I had to spend in the coming weeks ahead when I travel to the birthplace of Japanese animation, Thailand! No, wait… Japan!

WHAT IS TO HAPPEN

With that brilliantly created segue, let’s look ahead into the future! (^o^) …and the biggest piece of news now is undoubtedly the fact that I will be going to Japan later this month (more accurately, next week) and I’ll be actually attending the First Screening Event of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Moive 2nd A’s Movie. This is honestly a dream come true. While I did say that I had planned to attend this event in my Nanoha Movie 1st Blu-Ray Box review, I never did think it would become reality. For that, I can thank numerous fortunate circumstances that all stacked themselves in my favor, such as the event being held during my school holidays.

…but DAMN, let me tell you that getting a hold of the ticket was not an easy thing to do. While I am (not as) competent in the Japanese language (as I think I am), thanks to a couple of years of studiously studying, the Japanese ticketing system was mind bogglingly different from the one that we have here in Singapore. Not to mention, the fact that it was a highly popular event didn’t help either.

They first held two rounds of lottery about a week or so ago, giving 80% of the tickets away to a lucky few. Needless to say, I didn’t win on the account of my proxy not even entering the lottery on my behalf (miscommunication FTW!!!). Unfortunately, a Japanese family friend was also unable to secure tickets when the sales were opened to the public due to the insane demand. In the end, I had to resort to bidding for a ticket on Yahoo Auctions Japan, which was the worst case scenario for me due to the cost incurred. But, desperate times called for desperate measures. After all, when will any other movie premier fall so perfectly within the midst of my summer holidays?

…and as promised in the video, I will be chronicling every step of the journey.

In addition to all that, I’ll also be heading to Kyoto for a few days. Some of my planned stops on my Itinerary are the historical sights in Kyoto (Kinkakuji, Kiyomizu-dera, etc…) that you always see in Anime, Nara (to feed the deer), Kyoto Animation Studios (of course) and the K-On! High School, which was surprisingly nearer to Kyoto than I had thought.

P.S. I might be holding a giveaway after I return, so do stay tuned! (^.^)

———

Last but not least, we have the updates on the home front. I am churning out reviews again, as some of you might have already seen. However, because of motivation related issues, I have yet to work on any figma related reviews (despite keeping myself up-to-date with the releases). The Digimon Adventure 02 week is also on a temporary hold till I can sort everything out.

With the blog, there are a couple more articles I want to finish before the new semester begins, one on differing perspectives and another one on translations, again.

…and that’s pretty much it for the time being. More posts and updates to come as I post pics from my voyage to Japan on this blog in the days ahead. (^o^)