Exhibition

I was at the opening of an art exhibition yesterday, and the painting I did for art class was on display there :D

Also found out the last preliminary results for my finals today. I'm satisfied with all of them - now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my points won't be reduced in the official results that will be published at the end of May!

As for my novel, I finished the revision of it today :). It ended up 4 pages shorter than before the revision, and I hope that those removed pages will make the book a smoother read. I actually really like the last 100 pages, but still kinda dubious about the first 250 :P. I probably will be doing a second revision soon to see if I can rewrite any of the scenes that still bother me.
After that I'll have to make the big decision of whether to send it to a publisher or not. Eek!

Spiders

My biggest fear: spiders.

So you can imagine my loud cry of surprise when a huge, black one suddenly surprised me while I was showering. After a short battle, I came out victorious (though quite a bit shaken!)

Haha, I'll never be able to take a shower again without having paranoid thoughts.

Had a fun, slightly improvised movie night with friends yesterday. I was intending to leave at midnight, but it dragged out until 2.30, whoops :D. And I had to get up early to go to Bodypump this morning. Might go see a movie with a friend later tonight.

Mudcake :D

I celebrated my newly acquired freedom by making a mudcake :D Yum!

I also borrowed a whole stack of movies from my brother, in case I happen to grow bored. Looking forward to some chillax-evenings in front of the TV!

I did revisions to one more chapter of my novel, but I kind of have mixed feelings about whether to try to publish it or not. I like the plot I created, but I feel I could have implemented it less cliché-y. I don't really want to rewrite the entire thing either - I'd rather just write a new novel with an even better plot and more interesting and consistent characters. But on the other hand, I'm not ready to depart from my two years long project quite yet...

Freedom!

Finals are over :D! French went well, German not so much (but thankfully that one didn't matter as greatly).

Now I'm free until September, with the exception of studying for entrance exams and potentially working if I manage to get a summer job. I have a feeling that I'm going to get really bored at all this free time pretty soon :P

Worked a bit on my Mononoke picture. I don't know if I will be finishing it or not, because when I tried coloring it I just couldn't make it look right, and it looks too lame in black-and-white to be left this way :(. Such a shame, I kind of liked how the face turned out.

Carrots r evil

Yesterday, I learned the hard way that I'm allergic to raw carrots.

We were having dinner, with a salad containing carrots, which I had ignorantly taken plenty of. At some point, when I was almost finished with my meal, my throat started to feel really odd and swallowing became really painful, and I got really odd, sharp pains in my middle. I couldn't swallow properly until around the time when I went to bed, which was 6 hours later!

I have eaten carrots before - actually, plenty of them - but I always cook them before eating, and cooked carrots haven't affected me in any way. I think it's safe to say that I will be avoiding raw carrots from now on.

Anyways, I'm currently revising the last of the French grammar by doing finals from previous years. Doing pretty well so far, but I don't know if it will be enough for an L (the highest grade, which would be pretty awesome to get :P). Guess I should have started earlier if I was going to aim for that.

My practice set-up: the exam questions on one half of the screen, and my answers on the other half.

And, even better: I'm going to see The Hunger Games today! So excited :D! *fangirl squee*

Français, je t'aime (pas)

Had plenty of fun yesterday evening :). Today, a relative is coming over so we're going to spend the evening playin quizzes (Buzz!) and stuff. Tomorrow, I'll (hopefully!) be going to watch The Hunger Games with two friends of mine :D. Been waiting ages for the movie to come out, and the original plan was to go on the first show, but since all of us had math exams yesterday, we couldn't go on the midnight release, and the party yesterday evening took away the option of an evening showing.

I really hope the movie will be as good as the book. I haven't dared read any reviews, because I kind of want to create my own opinion of the movie instead of reading the opinions of others beforehand :).

Next up on the finals: French and German. I've decided to prioritize French, because I've actually already done the German exam last October. I'm just doing it again kind of "for fun" to see if I could raise it from the grade I got (E, which is the second best grade) to L (the best grade).

Haven't had the energy to bring myself to start studying yet, though I really should D:
I usually love learning languages, but when it becomes a duty (like when I have to study for an exam) instead of a hobby, I'm not nearly as motivated.

Phew!

So, I survived the math finals.
And I even have a feeling that I did decently in them :D!
And what's even better is that I found out that I most likely will be getting the highest grade for my English finals, yay!

Going to a pre-party at a friend's this evening, but because I'm planning to go to the gym early tomorrow morning, I most likely will not join them to the bar afterwards. Still, looking forward to a chillax-evening with my friends, to celebrate that I only have 2 finals left! (French and German on monday. I'm a bit nervous about writing two subjects in one session!)

Trying to decide what to wear tonight. Probably going with a nicer black top + pink pants.

A few more days, then FREEDOM!
...well, actually I still have university entrance exams to study for.

Stress D:

150 pages of my novel are now revised :D (220 to go!). Still not entirely happy with some of the chapters, so I fear I will go through the beginning one more time after finishing the revisions of the full novel. It is moving in the right direction though :) And only 1 more week to go before I can devote all of my free time to this project!

Now, off to do some more math! The exam isn't until Friday, but we'll have to turn in our calculators and the book with all the formulas already on Thursday, meaning I can basically do math exercises only today and tomorrow morning. Eek!

Oh, and also, I've finally sent in my university applications :)! Unfortunately, the points I get from my Swedish and math exams are doubled when calculating the points for getting into my first choice university, and my Swedish exam didn't exactly go great, so I'm a bit worried that I might not get in after all. Of course, most of the points will be gained from the entrance exam, but the exam can't be prepared for, so I'm really afraid of failing it!

My math corner.

Mononoke

I recently watched the movie Princess Mononoke for the first time, and I have to say that I now definitely understand why it has gained so much popularity!

I was actually so blown away by the movie that I felt really inspired to make a painting of San. I sketched this right after seeing the movie, but I haven't had the chance to start working on it until now.

And as for school-related news, I'm still freaking out about Friday's math exam.

Witch painting

I kinda liked the sketch that can be found in this blog post, and decided to make it a full painting :)

Finnish exam tomorrow. I don't really know how to prepare for it, so I'm just going to relax and study some Math instead (which is on Friday, and I'm completely freaking out, because I thought I was kinda good at math but doing old final exams has made me realize how much I've forgotten of the things we learned!)

GW2

I really can't wait until April, because that's when Guild Wars 2 pre-purchases start (and buying it means that I will get access to all GW2 betas and a head-start when it comes to playing the actual game!)
Four/five years of waiting (can't remember when Arenanet first announced GW2, heh) is finally starting to pay off :D. Once I get my hands on that game, I fear I won't be leaving my computer for several days in a row.

I've also signed up for the March beta tests, but I have a feeling I won't get chosen since I'm competing against 1 million other people.

Revising my novel is steadily progressing - I'm currently at page 100 out of 375. I'm noticing that my writing style at the beginning of the book is more focused on descriptions and details, while the later half is more dialogue-oriented, so I'm actually getting to remove a lot of paragraphs from the beginning to make it more balanced. It feels nice to go back and edit the first parts of the story, because I never really was entirely satisfied with the first 70-100 pages, and because I still hadn't completely developed the characters' personalities by then, so now I get to make them less like generic dolls and more like themselves.

A picture of me in November, when I'd recently finished the novel and got it printed in paperback format:

Now I'm hoping that I'll one day be able to take a similar picture, but with a published version of the book :)

School, writing and sketches!

Had my English exam today. Two down, four to go.

I couldn't wait to start the revisions of my novel, so I've actually already began doing them (even though I planned to wait until the end of my exams). Now that I've had a break from writing/reading/proofreading that story for the past 3-4 months, I'm seeing it with new eyes again and noticing a lot of passages that have to be shortened or changed. I'll probably even have to completely rewrite some chapters toward the beginning. I usually hate having to go back and re-read my texts, as I'm dreading all the mistakes that I know I'll find there, but this time I'm actually looking forward to it because I really want this novel to be at its best when I send it off to agents/publishers.

I've also got another batch of sketches from a few days ago. I only had the energy to do two, because I was suffering from a terrible migraine that day.

Heh, the face sketch completely unintentionally ended up resembling Rihanna.

Sketches #6, exercise and pastries

It always feels really satisfying to be able to add more weights in Bodypump :D. Makes me notice that I am making some progress after all. Also, I finally came up with a good training plan for me! I bought a one-month card to the gym I go to, so now I have room for more workouts there. Current plan is:
Mondays: Indoor Cycling
Tuesdays: Bodypump
Wednesdays: Pause
Thursdays: Bodypump
Fridays: Pause
Saturdays: Bodypump
Sundays: Pause
Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until after final exams before I can take that plan into effect. Until then, I'm doing Bodypump those three days, but since I'm having final exams every Monday I'll most likely take some aerobic class on Wednesdays instead. And when the snow outside melts, I'll probably take up jogging on some of my pause days.

I ended up watching the movie Untraceable yesterday. I quite liked it even though it was pretty predictable and held a very dark atmosphere. Because of the movie, I completely forgot to post another batch of sketches:

And, glutton as I am, I just had to make some muffins yesterday!

This time I didn't leave them in the oven as long as I usually do, which caused them to still be a bit soft/gooey on the inside. I have to admit that I like them a lot better this way.

And, if that wasn't enough, I tried another recipe for the fastlagsbulle (a Swedish/Finnish pastry that is eaten during Shrove Tuesday), which turned out unexpectedly well - I had no idea you could put dough in a microwave and still get good results quickly!

Art class, intending to publish and cinnamon rolls!

You might or might not remember that I had this huge final project for art class a while ago. The finished work can be found in this blog post.
Today we finally got our grades for our works - and I was delighted to find out that I got the highest grade for mine (meaning 5/5)!
The artworks done during this class will be displayed at our school until the end of the month, and then all of the works that got the highest grade will be displayed in an art exhibition in May :D!

Also, I've decided to start sending my finished novel to publishers soon. After the final exams are over, I'm going to do one last proofread of the story and then start looking into how getting published works. It feels nice to finally be able to move on after having the novel just laying around on my hard drive for the past six months. I'm pretty excited for this, since I've been dreaming about this ever since I first started writing novel-length stories back in 7th grade. My hopes for getting published on my first try aren't exactly high, but I know that this experience will teach me a lot. If nothing else, it will motivate me to keep writing better.

Yesterday I made low-carb cinnamon rolls. Mom didn't really like them, but I'm completely in love with them! Even brought one with me as lunch for the final exam today.

Speaking of the final exam, I think it went so-so. I'm mostly worried that I might have wandered a bit off-topic.

Gonna stop writing now before this migraine kills me.

Sketches part 5

A few days ago, I got this crazy idea to make a comic. Too bad it failed after 2 pages, when I noticed that I don't have the skills to draw the main character from three different angles without making it look like three completely different people.

Anyways, here are the pages.

Final exams are starting tomorrow, and I still haven't properly started studying. Not that there's much that I can do concerning the Swedish, English and Finnish exams, but I feel like I should have put more effort when it comes to French, German and Math. Thankfully those three are the last ones, so I've still got two weeks to make up for it.

Tired

Migraine, go away. Three days has been long enough.

Sketches part 4

Some pretty random sketches, done without reference.

Sketches again

Some more sketches, this time painted without any references. (click on the picture to see it bigger)

I'm currently following one of the live coverages of Apple's iPad3 reveal event. So far I haven't seen anything that would make me want to upgrade from my iPad2, except the retina display, so I'll most likely wait until iPad4 before switching up.

Edit: Seriously? They're going to call it "the new iPad"? I'm usually one of those apple-can-do-no-wrong persons, but this seems a bit silly.

Relief

Sometimes the most obvious solution is right in front of you.

University

Applications for university opened today. So from today on, I have one month to decide which universities to apply to.

Good news is, today I finally managed to find the perfect subject for me to study (after four years of feeling like I'll never find something I like) - information systems. It's kind of a combination of studies of IT and economics, which is perfect, since I want to work with computers but I don't really want to become just an ordinary programmer. I guess I'll apply there as my first choice, to French studies as second choice, German as third, economics as fourth and computer science as fifth. All of these can be done in the Swedish university in my home town - Åbo Akademi - so I won't even have to move to another city, yay!

Also, I did some more practice sketches, on clothes this time: (reference used for all of these)

Muffins :D

I ended up making some muffins again for a change. Yum!

I wanted to try adding small bits of chocolate into the dough, but I didn't realize that it would melt in the oven, so my try at chocolate chip muffins kind of failed :(.

Practice

Googled some random photos that I used as reference for a quick shading practice. Spent around 10-15 minutes per sketch.

I have no idea if I actually learned anything or not, but at least this was a lot of fun! Will probably start doing this more often. This one focused on faces, but I guess I ought to do more practices on the rest of the body, clothes and hair.

Chuck season 5

I finished watching season 5 of Chuck (my favorite TV-show) today.

Warning for spoilers of the last episode!!
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I don't really know what to think about the ending. In a way, I'm glad the writers didn't pull off the overused happy ending where everyone ends up right where they're supposed to be. On the other hand, I was kind of looking forward to see Sarah and Chuck ending up in that white picket-fence house, starting a family of their own. I kept hoping all the way to the end that they would show Sarah getting her memories back, and I felt very disappointed when it didn't happen, but I guess that just makes the ending of this show more memorable. The characters really start growing on you as time passes, so it was really hard to see Sarah and Chuck going back to basically being strangers to each other, but at the same time seeing the flashbacks from the earlier seasons really felt nostalgic and reminded me of why I've been an avid fan of this series since the first season aired.


All in all, it definitely was an unexpected ending, and left me wanting to know whether Chuck and Sarah will manage to become as close to each other as they once were.


As for the fifth season in general - I really liked how they upped Jeff's IQ by quite a lot. I must admit to not liking Jeff and Lester very much earlier on, but this definitely made me enjoy Jeff's screen time a lot more.