It’s summer time, which means I have more time on my hands both to work on my research and to have a little fun. The weather hasn’t been the best in the Northeast US of A as we had a more than usual share of thunderstorms and rain, but I managed to go out a few times when I had the chance. I did some hiking at some nearby trails, and also went to Cape Cod for two nights.
It’s late May, which means another semester and also school year is in the history books. This was my third school year and sixth academic semester (not counting summer sessions) as a grad student. I think I fulfilled the course credit requirements for my degree, which means I don’t have to take any more courses in the coming fall, and I’m pretty happy about that. I’ve been a PhD student for almost three years and it’s getting to the point where I have to really start working on my dissertation so I don’t take too long to graduate, and not having to take courses during the academic semesters will give me more time to work on research. I’m not ruling out taking one course in a semester, but I have the choice of taking only courses that I like. My course load over the previous semester wasn’t heavy, but the courses I took left some things to be desired. Anyways, I’m glad the semester is over. Hopefully I’ll make good progress on research in the summer. I’ll also try to travel around a bit. I don’t plan on going far, but there are some nice natural scenery and parks not too far from my university and I plan on enjoying the great outdoors a bit more.
Recently I watched the anime movie King of Thorn, a science fiction/fantasy movie with mystery and survival horror elements. I remember seeing a trailer of the film some time ago and it looked pretty interesting. I finally watched the movie and here are my thoughts on the film.
Some not-so-final thoughts on the first season of Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, which happened to be the only anime series I followed during the winter 2013 season.
I went to the 2013 New York International Auto Show with some friends. I like cars and read car magazines from time to time, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to go to a big auto show.
It’s the middle of March already and winter is finally showing some signs of ending. Because of the winter and because of school work, I haven’t done much traveling since my last post. However, over the last few weeks I did go skiing a couple of times, and took some beginner’s lessons with some friends. Here in the Northeast there isn’t much else to do in winter other than skiing or snowboarding. I got my first taste of skiing a year ago, and I wanted to get better at it instead of falling all over the place. There were plenty of skiing hills not far away from my location, and some of them were very reasonable in terms of pricing. I also joined the school ski club which offered much lower rates on equipment rentals. We had three lessons, and they definitely helped. I was able to ski down from the top of a mountain (a small one) through a blue trail and not fall in the process. Of course, I was skiing quite slowly, but it was a significant improvement compared to before the lessons.
At this point, I think I’m fine on green trails, but I might still take a tumble on the steeper sections of blue trails. Skiing is all about making the turns and using that to control speed, and I still need to improve in my turns in order to handle the more difficult trails with more consistency. Falling does hurt, and I got pretty sore, but overall I think skiing is a very fun activity. It’s very late in the ski season and I don’t know if I’ll go again this season, but I’ll be sure to head back to the hills next winter.
Since I’m only following one show this anime season, I have some time to watch other stuff and I just finished Blood-C: The Last Dark. The Last Dark is the sequel movie to the summer 2011 series Blood-C, a collaboration between the studio Production I.G. and manga group CLAMP. The series featured a school girl named Saya using her katana to kill man-eating monsters known as furukimono. Blood-C was a memorable series; it wasn’t that good, but it was memorable because how the story unfolded and the bloody violence. I wanted to what sort of ending The Last Dark would put on the story, and here are a few thoughts I had for the film.
Warning: contains major spoilers to the film and also Blood-C the series.
I’m a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist franchise, and therefore of course I watched the The Sacred Star of Milos movie. It’s another one of those things that I watched a while ago but never got around to posting about. The Sacred Star of Milos is an anime-original side story for the FMA:Brotherhood anime, and here is what I thought of the movie. Post contains minor spoilers.
My four weeks at home have gone very quickly, and last week I took the flight back to the smallish city/town in the US where I’ll start another semester of graduate studies. Just like last winter vacation and the year before that, I spent most of my time at home, relaxing and doing a little bit of research work. I had wanted to go skiing, but I am not really good enough to go on anything other than a bunny hill and I can’t find people to go with me. Plus, skiing near Vancouver is expensive, so I’ll probably do it back in the states where it is less costly. Unlike the previous years, my grandparents were around this winter, and this meant that we ate out more than usual. I had quite a few big meals in Chinese restaurants while I was back home. The food was of course delicious, and I probably ate too much. The food was probably the highlight of this winter break and here is a photo collage of some of the dishes I’ve tasted.
Needless to say, I probably gained around 5 lbs over the break, but I’m confident I can work it off at school. I’m unlikely to eat so much so often back in the states, and I’ll exercise a lot more when compared to my time at home. That’s pretty much everything worth mentioning, and it’s time for me to get back to the mood for school.
Since I’m not following that many new anime series this season, I thought I’d go and watch some older series that have received a lot of praise: the so-called “classics”. Samurai Champloo is one such series, but to be honest I finished the series more than a year ago, but just never got around to writing about it. I thought Samurai Champloo was excellent with its mix of action and comedy, and here are my thoughts about the series.
