I've had a long summer holiday, and Year 3 of Uni is almost upon me. But along the way there's been highlights. One of them was a trip to the Lake District for one week with family. I've never seen a place look so foreign in Britain, especially since the weather was unusually hot. There were 2 long walks during the week, and the first one was overgrown with bracken. (shortly followed by jokes about swimming in the sea of bracken) The second one was much more stunning and I took some pictures with my camera.

Another highlight was the canoeing down a creek between Hullbridge and Battlesbridge with one of my long-time friends. It was one of those crazy ideas, and I managed to tip myself over once. After drying off we managed the rest of the journey, with aches and pains all over. It was much better on the way back with the tide behind us.

Finally, I found some new music. After Ray (solarconquest) gave me some Sabaton music, I found more Scandinavian rock/metal bands. One of them is Turisas (Viking metal), which is a new take on epic music. I'm still not bored of the songs even after 30 times listening. The other one is a bit darker and is called Amon Amarth. Still pretty epic.

Despite not updating or checking DA for ages, I'm still here. Quite a lot has happened since the last journal, including lots of problems with the Internet. After finally getting it fixed, I'm back at my old home for Easter.

I managed to pass Year 2 Semester 1 of my course, with about 60% average. Funnily enough, that's almost exactly what I expected to get. Provided it carries on like this I'll get a reasonably good degree (everything counts towards the final mark now). I've got a nasty couple of projects coming up soon, so I'll be very busy. Not to mention the difficulty of the maths and physics is going through the roof.

On the gaming front, I've been going through a hell of a lot of RPGs as I've grasped the general trend and find them much easier now. The one I'm currently on is Xenogears, and it's gotta be up there with the best. There's so much more than the basic battle system, and there's no annoying characters.

Artwork from me is going to be very rare while I go through Semester 2. There's going to be very little free time. But I've uploaded what I've done over the last few months (which isn't much anyway). If you're interested in a commission I might do one, every pound helps.

Before I left to go back to Southampton, I went round to Dawn's house (a cabin with a good few acres of field) and it was there a crazy sport was born. It involved tying a rope to the back of a quad bike, and towing someone on a skateboard. I was the one on the skateboard, having not done so for a year. There was a small tarmac road going into the field, with some small speed bumps. My friend Greg was on the quad, driving on the road. It took a few attempts to find a good speed but once we got going it was awesome. If only I had a video camera.

Anyway, I'm in a new home in Southampton at the moment, ready to start the first semester of year 2. It's a much better room size than last time, but the bathroom is shared. At least I have gas cookers this time.

I'll be going back to Southampton in a months time, to carry on my Electronic Engineering course. This is going to be a tough year, but as soon as this year finishes most of the theory will be done. I can't wait for the project years.
I now have some money saved up from work. I'm going to miss some of the people there, it was great getting to know them. I'm planning on making a computer with one of my Southampton friends. I'm hoping for something that lasts a long time, but technology moves so fast. Soon it will be my 20th birthday as well.
I've finished Death Note, and loved the last episode. It's such a killer ending, one final plot twist. So I moved onto Claymore, which is unbelievable. Every episode is good, it's unreal. Maybe it's because the main character is constantly at war with the demon inside her, a human mind overpowering a demon mind. I can relate to that so well, my wild imagination constantly on dragons. I've seen so many get lost forever in a world of fantasy, it affects their reality.

I haven't been active at all on DA recently, but work has really changed me. 6 weeks of working on an old landfill site, and I've learnt a lot. It's not just the job, it's life in general. Something I don't really get on the Internet. It's been a valuable 6 weeks.
Anyway, off the serious stuff. I'm back onto playing old SNES RPGs, after I reduced online gaming to once a week. There's a lot of hidden gems out there. I'm almost up to date with the Death Note anime, which seems to get better with every episode (well almost). I'm also reading the last Harry Potter book, but it hasnt picked up the pace yet.

Artwork's on the back bench, I've hardly done anything in the last few months. That ID at the front has gotta be updated at some point.