There are bunnies outside my window.

No really.

UVic has bunnies on their lawn.

---
After some 15 hours sitting in planes, three flights, and two stopovers I'm finally here, sitting in my dorm at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. And yannow, it's not half as cold as I thought it would be ... okay it's pretty cold, something like 5C outside, but I managed to wander around completely lost for some ten minutes outside in nothing but a hoodie and trenchcoat and I'm still alive!

Thankfully there weren't too many delays in the flights, although the long passport and baggage check lineups were a pain (and damn near killed my back, having to carry around my laptop for that long). I managed to make it to the university before dorm closing time so that's all fine and dandy, and look! Internets: I haz it.

Talk about anxiety, though. I was so nervous the night before flying off that all those stomach aches I was complaining about? Yeah, that was my stomach not digesting my dinner. At 4:30 or so in the morning, while I was trying to check my baggage at the airport in Singapore, I suddenly got very, very dizzy. I thought it was because I'd had all of one hour's sleep, but then my face felt so hot it was cold and I was reeling - my dad felt my forehead and said he could feel my temperature plummet, too.

And then I puked.

Threw up all over the damn carpet at Changi airport. Was a lovely sight my mom and sister walked in to when "surprising" me by seeing me off at the airport (I had a feeling they would come along; my mom didn't cry nearly enough crocodile tears when we said goodbye the night before for it to have been the last goodbye).

Thankfully that was the last real hiccup in my entire trip, and with minimal pukeage I am finally here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to check what our shared showers look like.


--Sak, out
EDIT: Scratch that happy entry; within the last half hour I've realized I don't have a thick blanket for winter, no mobile phone connection, and no towel for the showers. I've also managed to lock myself out of my dorm and had to borrow someone's phone to call campus security. I feel cold, smelly, and more'n a little miserable, and my first day is tomorrow. Shit.

THEN CLICK THIS LINK: [link]







Aaaaahahaha, made ya look! Since we were at Boracay for Christmas my family and I decided to do a Christmas/New Year crossover and open our gifts and have turkey on the 31st of December. So I FINALLY got to see the poster my sister made for me (from scratch, the silly girl!) and I love it, nevermind am also slightly embarassed by it. ">> She also did an AMAZEABLE cover of a song I LOOOOOOOVE for Christmas:

[link] <-- WATCH IT! Especially if you love Voltaire!

Also look out for the bloopers to that song, found on her Youtube account. They is much funny, but I can't link it her because DeviantArt is turning it into about a dozen smilies.



Hope 2010 treats you all well, next time I write I'll be in Canada!

--Sak, out

NEVER.

BUY.

AN ASUS.


After about a month my laptop finally has a name: Mr. Ed, after the talking horse in a Tv show back way back when, because it only craps up around me. This morning, after just having backed up my laptop last night (thank god!) my laptop decided it didn't want to start. Rather, it did start, but it'd only get as far as starting to load the bios before shutting itself off again, and the lights on it don't even stay on as they're supposed to when it's plugged into the AC. Instead it went completely dead, then half a second later would turn itself on by itself, then crash, turn itself on, crash, turn itself on, crash, etc. etc. Finally it stopped altogether, so my dad and I packed it up and ran back to the Asus help center, hoping to dear god they'd have a solution, because I only have two more days here.

So we get there, wait an hour for our turn in the queue, and when we finally show the guy the problem ...

It starts fine.

We turn it off, try again, and it still boots fine. Before simply passing our hands over the keyboard seemed to spark up some static electricity that caused it to turn on again, but this time that didn't happen either! We finally managed to convince the guy that it was some kind of power hardware problem, and NOT because Windows 7 was installed instead of Vista, which isn't supposed to be supported. The only thing he could do was give me a new AC, since I was still using the one from the old Asus G2SG, and give us his good luck wishes.


Damn I'm unlucky with technology.


--Sak, out

Hello my steaming little minions,

I am BACK from Boracay! Thassright, in case some of you were curious as to where the drawings went for the past week (you can't gripe, I drew you and colored for you a partially-naked Jaris, so you should be happy, ungrateful little munchkins) I've been burning myself in the sunny Philippines. My family and I spent Christmas there, so the presents under the tree are all wrapped up still and will remain so until the 31st of December, when we'll be having our Christmas-New Years mixover family dinner or somesuch (however that works with two divorcing parents). And for those of you curious as to what I've been doing ... well, that's what this journal is for.

We arrived on the first day at 8pm so we didn't get much done then, aside from checking into our room (which was a bungalow-type thing made from wood with a thatched roof made from banana leaves - freaking SWEET!) and flop onto the beds and fall alseep. We had to sleep under mosquito nets and trust me, did we ever need them! I must have more than 10 bites from the buggers on my right leg alone, and on my big motorcycle bruise no less, the b*stards, and they're itching like crazy 'round about now.

The restaurants and hotels and shops are located only a few meters from the beach on Boracay. A bit of a pity, as you're starting to see increased sand erosion as a result, and in a few years the beach may well almost entirely disappear, but it's damn beautiful. The second and third day were quite literally spent entirely diving, for my sister, dad, and I. We were lured into completing a PADI Certified Advanced Diver's Course by the thought of swimming to a wreck that was (purposefully) sunk off the coast of the island, and spent the first day doing underwater navigation exercises for an hour, then a depth dive off the coast of "Crocodile" Island. Don't worry, there were no crocs, and it's only called as such because of the shape of the island's profile, but the water was so choppy that day my sister got seasick and threw up all over the side of the little motorboat after the dive, and I swallowed my weight in seawater trying to climb back onto the damn thing. I also had trouble equalizing my ears on the way down so that dive went kind of pear shaped ...

The second day was ALL SORTS of PURE, UNDULATING AWESOME. We began with a drift dive around some very pretty chunks of coral and saw so many fish swimming around the reefs and in shoals, including a lionfish and clownfish. We would have seen some manta rays, but the current was too strong that morning, and for reltively inexperienced divers like my sister and I our instructor thought it best we avoid it for the time being. This was followed a few hours later by the WRECK DIVE. HELL YEAH. That alone was worth doing difficult math underwater and drinking salt water just to see that wreck. We didn't get to go inside it (you need another, more advanced course for wreck penetration) but even though it was a tiny, Japanese fishing boat, there was SO MUCH to see. There were schools of fish darting around near the surface, and even *shudders* jellyfish ... and we saw batfish, more lionfish, trumpetfish, pufferfish, nudiebranchs, ghost pipefish, angelfish, starfish, groupers ... and even a SCORPIONFISH and a TITAN TRIGGERFISH. F**k I loved that dive so much!

This was followed by a "Christmas Eve" Night Dive! We saw quite a few shrimp and hermit crabs, more lionfish, one of which I almost sat on ... that was more than scary .... and while photographing a snake eel that was peering out of the sand (that I thought was a spotted morey eel, because it looked like one) my dad and I got separated from my sister and the instructor underwater. That was a memorable experience ... looking around and seeing only black. We turned off our lamps and managed to see a faint glow in the distance, and followed it to find (not an anglerfish) but our lost group, which saved me some oxygen, since I didn't have to hyperventilate underwater anymore, WHEE!!

Oh yeah, and even though I was in a wetsuit I managed to get sunburned, ahahaha.

Christmas day was ... uneventful. I slept through it and felt sick, the day after my sister and I spent some time in the beach without oxygen tanks strapped to our backs, and later got henna done. I think we looks rather spiffeh, and I'll be uploading photos when time allows. I'll also be uploading the few sketches I did draw - weird creatures inspired by scuba diving, and a short story inspired by the wreck dive - whenever I can get around to it.

My floor is covered in sand now.

SO YES! That was Boracay in a nutshell. Oh, and I gots me some beach shorts, like the dork I am. OH OH OH!! And I ate tahooooooo again, this awesome Filipino breakfast-snack thing consisting of silken tofu, syrup of some sort, and tapioca balls mixed up in a glass that you SSSLLLLURP up (damn it's good, I want more now) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND ... I GOT TIPSY!!

Thassraight, I've roleplayed Jaris drinking cocktails, then I went and tried some myself. Lemme just say alcohol is damn foul, but give me vodka mixed with lemonade, or dark rum with mixed-fruit syrup on an empty stomach, and the world starts spinning.

That was fun.

ANYWAY.

So, I'm back now, although I'll be running off for university soon. I hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year! As always thanks for your support guys, and - HOLY MOTHER SH*T! 71,000 pageviews? You guys don't skimp, before I know it I'll have 100,000 and will have to think of something really special for you all!


Until then!


--Sak, out

PS: CHECK THIS OUT!! [link] <-- made me some GREAT fanart that makes me sh*t myself laughing every time I see it!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

[link]

'Nuff said!


--Sak