mewpre

You can find it here: mewpre.wordpress.com/

So, since I'm going to be out of the country until December, I decided a while back to start a blog to document my adventures. I'm only now mentioning it here because I...kind of forgot about my deviantART journal.

Anyway, my blog. Most of it has been about my summer internship in Taiwan, but there's some random stuff in there, too. I've been trying to update it every week or so, and have been pretty successful so far. Hopefully, it'll stay that way. *crosses fingers*

As for this journal...I don't know. Maybe I'll use it just for DA purposes, but judging from my lack of artwork production, that won't really happen.

So instead of doing work and studying, like I should, I'm going to rant about this amazing anime series, Time of Eve, instead. Links are on the bottom if you want to skip my babbling.

It's a pretty short series, consisting of only 6 episodes. It's produced by Studio Rikka and directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura. He also directed Pale Cocoon and Aquatic Language, which I also recommend (links on the bottom).

Anyway, back to Time of Eve. It takes place in the far future (probably Japan, as the opening sequence states), where robots and androids have long been in use. The main character, Rikuo, discovers that his house android has been going somewhere on her own. When he and his friend Masaki investigate, they find a cafe called Time of Eve. The rules of the cafe are simple: no discrimination between humans and robots. In this series, androids have a status ring hovering over their heads, identifying them as a robot. While in this cafe, one cannot tell whether the person they are talking to is human or a robot since the androids have to turn off their ring to observe the cafe's rule.

This series really investigates some pretty deep questions about humans and robots. Can robots have independent thoughts or emotions? Are they capable of love? Should a human treat their incredibly human-like android like a machine or like a human? Are relationships between humans and machines good or detrimental? And where should we draw the line?

But it's not all just philosophical technobabble that makes your brain hurt. It's also a really entertaining series. The characters have a great deal of depth, even though they only have 6 short episodes to develop, it's beautifully animated, and the storyline is incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. My only complaint is that it's too short. The last episode's open-ended, and they called these episodes the "first season," so hopefully there'll be a second one.

I remember starting this series towards the end of fall semester last year. I had a writing seminar exploring the idea of self/humanity through anime, and my professor recommended this to us. Instant love. There were month-long gaps between episodes, since the animation studio's fairly small, but it was worth the wait. You won't have to go through that, at least until you finish this series and want to wait for the second season to start.

You can watch all the Time of Eve episodes online here.

Pale Cocoon, another work by the same director, can be found here. It's a 23-minute OVA that I also highly recommend. It can be a bit depressing, depending on how you interpret the ending, but it's also amazing.

Aquatic Language can be seen here subbed and here dubbed. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with the English dubs, but I find the dub hilarious. It's only 9 minutes long, so it's worth a look.

I don't know if this whole "college" thing is going to work out. I mean, it's fun and all, but I don't know if I want to continue dealing with all this "schoolwork" stuff and "learning." I think I'll just join the circus with two of my friends here, Andrew and Molly. I won't actually perform in it (I'll leave that up to them). Instead, I'll just be their hair/makeup artist. Well, mainly hair. It'll be sweet.

Okay, I'm not really considering giving up higher education. Not even an option. But it was still fun coming up with this.

I probably should be doing work right now, but I'd rather rant about my super-awesome weekend. So I will.

On Saturday, when I left my room to go to work at noon, I saw that my lovely RA had put up birthday streamers around my door. My roommate was like, "Oh, it's your birthday. Happy birthday!" It was kind of funny. After work (and a surprise birthday present from Andrew, balloon, card, and all ), I went with a group of friends to Ichiban, this really awesome Japanese restaurant downtown. The meal was kind of pricey, but it was so good.

Afterwards, we went to see Cirque du Soleil. We had gotten pretty cheap tickets back in December, and we thought our seats would pretty far back. No. Not at all. Our seats turned out to be really, REALLY good. It was so exciting. And the show...words could not describe how amazing it was. It was so spectacular. After the show, we started talking about how one of my friends has been looking at Cirque du Soleil job openings (obsessed much?) and how we should go to circus camp over the summer. And this is what made us want to join the circus. All in all, BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.

Okay, so Andrew's been wanting to get a haircut for ages. But he saw that the barber shops around here have gotten pretty bad reviews. One person even said that he got the worst haircut of his life at one of them. So...his sister suggests that he get one of his friends here to cut his hair for him. Guess who that friend ended up being. That's right. Armed with a pair of scissors and a comb, and converting my bathroom into a mini-barbershop, I spent a good portion of last night cutting his hair. It was kind of nerve-racking at first, since I had never cut hair in my life before and I was afraid of completely screwing up, but it was really fun. And it turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. Now I have a backup plan in case I decide against continuing college.

So that was my weekend. More stuff happened, but I need to get work done. Stupid homework...

*looks at previous journal entry* How ironic. Anyway, I realized that I had only posted one piece of artwork from Art II senior. This was kind of a pity, since I did some of my best work in that class. Anyway, I put up what art I had on my computer and that was that. So I'm not completely dA dead yet...

It felt so good to draw again. Words could not describe. It was just so relaxing. All the stress from the impeding doom known as finals just washed away. I had forgotten how cathartic drawing was. I should do it more often.

I've been procrastinating, since Thanksgiving break, actually, on this essay I have to do for my anime writing seminar. I really should be working on it, since it's due on Monday and I'm only 1/10th of the way through, but I cannot seem to get started on the rest. So here I am, on deviantART trying to ignore the impending doom that is the due date. I'm suffering from the most frustrating form of writer's block, in fact the only kind I seem to suffer from. I know what I want to say in my essay, but I don't exactly know how. This always happens. *sigh*

On the bright side, I'll be done with my first semester of college in two weeks! That's right, kids. One essay and three finals later, I'll be home free. The problem will be getting through all that without dying...

I recently started drawing again. Before that, the last time I drew was...the end of senior year, maybe? I've just been doing some random doodles and stuff, mainly because I was sick of trying to put words on paper for this essay. There's one that has the potential of actually being something; I'll have to see if I feel like finishing it after I'm done with finals and stuff.

I just realized that I haven't seen certain friends from home in a long time (I'm looking at you, and ) Must hang out sometime over Christmas break, alright?

Until next time.