Day 4 - Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I'll Miss Now I'm Finished With My PhD
1). Brilliant Internet Connection - need I say more?
2). My friend Rachel - I started my PhD at the same time as her; she's already left for a job in Canada, and I miss her terribly already.
3). My office - it's noisy at times, cold in the summer, boiling in the winter, but it's been where I've worked every workday for four years.
4). Having the time to sit down, take an idea and just run with it.
5). Conferences - "What's that? You want to pay for me to go to the south of France for two weeks? Oh, OK, I suppose. That week in Newcastle when I went to the bar with the dancing cowgirls almost finished me off, but I suppose, if you insist..."
6). An abundance of people willing to explore interesting ideas at the drop of a hat.
7). My desk - it's in my office, but it's great to have a workspace, right next to the window, well lit, big space... I look up and there's the wall with my posters and postcards... I've already had to take them down to make things easier for going.
8). Teabreak at 11am - I can always make myself a cuppa, but it's not the same if it's not made by Joan, the department's tealady...
9). An abundance of people willing to talk rubbish at the drop of a hat.
10). Teabreak at 11am redux - four years of sitting down for half an hour to chat about all kinds of things; a necessary break from research.
11). Two words: stationery cupboard.
12). Eleven minute walk to the comic shop!
13). Memories associated with the department... Too many to list.

All good things come to an end, and that's not a bad thing... New beginnings are always around the corner.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Pieces Of Software I'm Installing On My New Laptop

1). OpenOffice - because Microsoft Office doesn't cut it anymore.
2). Adobe Acrobat Reader - the version it came with was quite out of date.
3). DivX - a codec, but an important one!
4). Adobe Premiere Elements 2 - how can I be an auteur without video editing software?
5). Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 - because the camera never lies...
6). Darwinia - because everyone needs a fun game to play.
7). Civilization IV - well, a game or two...
8). Firefox - once you've tried Firefox, you never want to go back to Internet Explorer.
9). Inform 7 - I'm planning my first interactive novella!
10). SNES Emulator - OK, so maybe I need more than one or two games...
11). AVG Internet Security 8.0 - better safe than sorry.
12). A TeX editor - looking around for one at the moment; important for me to be able to keep writing maths professionally.
13). AudibleManager - so I can finally take the original Ricky Gervais podcasts home with me!

More soon.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I Look Forward To Doing In My 101/1001 Challenge

1). Edit/rewrite my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel.
2). Attend a live opera.
3). Visit the US.
4). Write 101 pieces of flash fiction.
5). Buy a laptop (working on it...).
6). Make a short animated film.
7). Learn ten card and coin tricks.
8). Re-read all of Calvin & Hobbes.
9). Write another three NaNoWriMo novels.
10). Replay and complete Resident Evil 4.
11). Watch 25 classic films I should have seen but haven't.
12). Buy a Wii.
13). Learn to cook ten meals well.

The full list is on Racing Entropy here!

More soon.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things That You (Probably) Don't Know About Me
1). I'm the eldest of three siblings.

2). Despite the intriguing facets to the arc story of the first season of Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex, I prefer the second season.

3). I don't have a driver's licence, have never had a lesson, and have no intention of learning any time in the near future.

4). For a brief period in my teenage years I considered a career as a pyrotechnician.

5). I have several scars on and around my left knee, and I can't account for them all.

6). It is local elections day in the UK, and I voted this morning.

7). My current best play at Scrabble is the single word "ENGINEER" which scored me 80 points. (you may already know this if you've been following Racing Entropy)

8). As a high school student I had a poem published in a local schools anthology. (actually, there is a much longer story to this, that I will try to remember to tell you soon)

9). The reading I gave at my father's funeral was Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

10). I'm quite ticked off about an email that I got from someone this morning, but have no idea how to tell them how it made me feel because I'm certain that it would cause a rift between us.

11). One time in primary school I technically stole noisms lunchbox: I thought I was doing him a favour in taking it home as I thought he had left it behind, but then couldn't remember which house he lived at. I then remembered that as it was Friday he would be at his class's swimming lesson. Upon returning to the school about a quarter of an hour later I couldn't get back up to the room where lunchboxes were kept, and so I just left it on a windowsill in the main stairwell and hoped for the best. I have no idea if he got it back.

12). I have known the date of my viva since last Tuesday.

13). I applied for a job yesterday, and will know quite soon whether I am being considered for interview.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Movies I Would Love To Watch Again For The First Time

This just came to me out of the blue yesterday; I was thinking about conversations I had had with noisms in the past about not being able to see films with fresh eyes once you've seen them once. Sure, you can not see a film or read a book for a long time, and you can always get something new when you re-watch a film or re-read a book, but you can never see it for the first time.

So, in no particular order, thirteen films that I would really, really like to see again for the first time.

1. Annie Hall
I've seen a handful of Woody Allen's films, but this is by far my favourite; I love both the humour and the relationship between him and Annie and how they lose the something special that they have between them. I'd like to see it for the first time because then there would be so many amazing lines that I would hear and see being played out, and they wouldn't be familiar to me.

2. The Matrix
"Unfortunately no-one can be told what the Matrix is..." Is it a twist that the world is not the world as Neo knows it? It was clear from the trailer that something was different in this world, but still it would be good to see it and not know it back to front.

3. On The Waterfront
The only film on this list that I have actually only ever seen once, and I'm just so thankful that I have seen it because Brando's performance is up there as one of the best ever in a film. Had I not seen it already, I would have that to look forward to.

4. Chasing Amy
Because then I would have hope that everything might just work out alright...

5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
For similar reasons to Chasing Amy; and for seeing those beautiful landscapes to that haunting music for the first time.

6. Amélie
The magic, pure and simple.

7. Se7en
Bilbo got me thinking about this a lot a few days ago, and if I hadn't been so busy with my thesis in the evenings I would have watched it again. Still, can you imagine that sucker punch to the gut from the finale for the first time? Or seeing everything unfold before your very eyes and not knowing where it was leading?

8. Four Weddings And A Funeral
Because I've seen it so many times... I really love this film a lot, but it would be great to see it again and not be anticipating the dialogue so much.

9. Dawn Of The Dead
The original, not the fast zombie remake from a few years ago. I think because it would be good to watch it and not know who was going to survive and who wasn't.

10. Terminator 2
I watched this recently actually, for the first time in a long time, and was thinking, "If you knew nothing about it, the opening is hugely suspenseful - simply because there are these two guys and you don't know which one is good and which one is bad."

11. The Empire Strikes Back
"I am your father."

12. E.T.
"I'll be right here."

13. The Phantom Menace
There have been films since that I have really looked forward to, really been excited about, but I was just so excited about The Phantom Menace that I couldn't think straight. And it would be nice to have that and not have the knowledge that it didn't live up to the hype.

And that's my Thursday Thirteen for this week. Hopefully a blog post tomorrow afternoon: I just finished my sixth chapter (of seven) today, and I'm feeling pretty good.

More soon.

Thursday Thirteen

Amanda has been doing "Thursday Thirteens" for a couple of weeks now. I don't normally partake of memes, but today's "13 Wants I Can't Classify As Needs (Yet)" was just too good a meme not to spread! (especially since some of those wants spookily mirrored some of my own)

13 Wants I Can't Classify As Needs (Yet)

1). A new mp3 player. I keep chugging along with the old one, even though the battery life is getting shorter and shorter and it cuts out always when I need some music to help me get through the afternoon.

2). A laptop. Work would be a bit easier, and a laptop would be much more conducive to me actually getting work done at home... But do I really need one? Probably not at the moment.

3). A Nintendo Wii. Several friends at uni have them and rave about them, and having had a quick go of my sister's friend's son's Wii I really, really want one... This is almost a need, but I'm dampening down my need until after my thesis is done.

4). My thesis to be written. I could keep writing for months and months to come, the final deadline is not until the autumn, but I just want it to be over now.

5). To go back to Edinburgh for a holiday. It's such a beautiful city!

6). To go back to Japan. So much still to see and do.

7). To visit the US. New horizons...

8). To read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket. All thirteen books. It's in my books section of my 101 things in 1001 days list... Here's a need: I need to finish that damn list...

9). To see The Police in concert again. Because once just wasn't enough.

10). To act again. I used to do a lot of amateur dramatics type stuff when I was younger, and then in my mid-teens I just seemed to stop. I wrote little skits and scripts for a while, but then that stopped too. I'd love to do some Shakespeare actually...

11). To take a day off. But I can't.

12). To start a webcomic. And I will.

13). To go out for cake with my friend Helena this afternoon. Oh wait, I am!

More soon. Thanks again to Amanda for inspiration!