This semester is coming to an end after I finished all my exam. Even though I enjoy roughly two weeks of holidays, freedom is not yet ready for me. Instead, I think my life will be fully scheduled until next year probably near April, where I might be busy again for school work.

Some of you might be curious what I have been up to and why I prefer to be busy and choose not to rest. The reason is that I have jobs offered by teachers and I am willing to take the chance. They will pay me for my services and I believe the salary isn't that low, but these are pretty temporal jobs.

The first one is translation for the drama department. I have to face a lot of exam papers and translate the candidates' answers in written report. It's very tedious when you are actually translating something which is not what you are majoring. But thanks to Google and dictionaries, they helped me a lot in dealing with strange terms. They allowed me to leave out the terms which I really can't translate, so my work here is pretty simple and the payment is pretty nice too.

The second job, oh boy, is one killer, but the payment is promising with good salary and, if necessary, hostel and transportation is provided free (I have to go by train, but they'll pay for the transportation fees) IF I have to stay in another college for the work. This job is a big projects among universities and I am doing the statistic, collecting and very tiring jobs, like download 1GB of early 20th century newspaper and record the information needed. I'll be going through a lot of books that people wouldn't read nowadays and doing a lot of reading...

The salary will be enough for me to buy a Chinese zither, which I wanted for so long. I estimated that there will be sufficient money for me to buy a drawing tablet, which I had wanted for some time. Why? I haven't been drawing for a long time and my enthusiasm for such creation is fading. There's nothing I really want to draw and I think having such a tool wouldn't help me much on creating good art. Sometimes I think I am a bit too old, living in a very unsuitable surroundings and too timid for art. It really depends, I believe...so probably there won't be any drawing or art from me within these months, I am sorry...

I have been trying to earn some money for so long, and these are the chance. I know that it will be harmful for my artistic mind since these jobs are very 'dead' and 'lifeless' (except for the translation part), but in such a world where finding a job is so hard and money just can't support you much, I consider these jobs as 'commission', even though they are not drawing or whatever, but they have more knowledge for me than I could learn on drawings in such a skill.

Also, I don't know why I need a new skin for my journal. As long as my message is clear, this is what I care most. My mind is currently dead for aesthetic thinking, but I still enjoy good arts submitted in this website.

This is one busy semester when you have to concentrate on performances and studies, reports and presentations.

Performances are basically that Performing Art Lesson (which I seriously regret to take it; I should've choose Astronomy instead.) It took most of my night to discuss what the script about and how we are going to present it. Usually when it comes to group discussion, people would either wasting their time staring like a dummy, chit-chatting or talk a bit of the script. It's not very useful...and I have a feeling that we are preparing in the last minute, exhausted and even frustrated. Before the 5th presentation, there's a drama happened in which a group (there's only 2 groups in this lesson, with a total of nine people)...don't really know what's wrong, but at least we got something for the teacher. He's pretty much a critique, can't speak Chinese and always telling us the same thing over and over again on how we can't lie to him because he lives in theater and such. It's a pretty challenging course, but then again, under such stressful weeks and tight schedule, you'll surely learn something through self-reflection...it's pretty hard to describe.

The other performances are Choir and CO (Chinese Orchestra). Choir are pretty fine, just that the mics and such are terrible...but this time I get to be the cellist in the CO (yay!) instead of a percussionist. They are the activities which make me happy to work in a group where you are important for certain part. Even though both choir and CO don't consist much members, but we are contended with our performances.

About presentation and reports...I think I'll just spare it. Nobody would want to listen to these things anyway. So as a conclusion, I blame these for my not-submitting-anything-here problem. :3 Sue me.

Things have been pilling up during this semester, with bulks of homework waiting to be done and lots of people for you to remember. I feel the need to rest, probably going for a vacation or something like that, which might probably refresh my mind and my body for new challenge.

I have been pretty productive lately, but not in dA, sadly. No inspiration for stamp shows out in my mind nor any interesting for me to draw in recent time. Sadly, I am pretty ashame of myself looking at the scanner, which I've longed use to scan my works, but nevertheless, maybe it's not the time for my inspiration or motivation to come for me to draw, so that's alright, I guess.

About my studies, I took Religion and Society, Performing arts as my common compulsories, which make me pretty busy. The first one was very nice when it comes to the assignment. Got 13/15 for paper work (it's a group work and I did everything by myself days before we have to present it), the title is The Conservation and Transformation of Christianity...a pretty interesting title to do. It's very interesting to read so many materials about something that you thought to be so but not, and because of some help given by my dA friends such as ~SilverWyvern360 and *DTRD, it went pretty well and the presentation was the best I've ever given. Thanks again. Performing arts was horrible; the first performance was the worst thing I've ever did and the setting and whatever you can name, it terrible...except for the setting and the way of presenting it is creative, and that's the only good comment we've received. Seriously, I have a feeling of regret for choosing this subject, but nevertheless, I get to not choose South-east Asia Politics because of this (not interesting in politics).

There will be more quizzes and readings to be done for presentation in another subjects, but I guess that's what you get for later years in your studies. Fortunately that almost all the subjects I took are interesting. Most of the time we have laughter in the class or something interesting to learn, which might not related to the subject but is important somehow. So I am pretty happy...as long as everything went smoothly and handed out before the deadline so I can check for mistakes.

So how are you people? Doing well?

This week sucks...

Another semester with somehow interesting subjects and a lot more activities like choir performance, which we have been waiting to do so since last year. Everything was good, and I don't seem to have a tight schedule this semester, except for some subjects that demands theses; my fear...then out of nowhere, I was sick...fever, yeah, a bad one. Makes you weak, headache, no mood for food and waste your money for medicine fees. I believe I was infected in the train, either return to school or since the visit to ~marwan...at first I was going to recover, and the worst thing come; my laptop is down again; need reformatting and such. Thank goodness I didn't lost much, but all the chatlog were lost because of this...

Fancy Umbrella Costs Kale.

Now at least I get better now...just hope I get to finish the given homework as soon as possible...or at least hope I have some inspirations to upload something here...

Also, I don't know what's wrong with dA...just because they can't solve the "=" sign problem after the subcription ended, they use those kind of provoking tone and offered me 7 days of free subscription instead just because I "sooo like that fancy symbol". Honestly, I do prefer "=" than the tile, but seriously; I like eating watermelon more than having the "=" sign next to my name, thank you. That fella was a guy I want to punch when I am having heavy stress when I see him appearing on technical error. And it's about time they fix this problem too...

I just noticed that in a box that tells whether we are a subscribed member or not, it has changed from "Not subscribed" to "Needs Premium Membership", and for those who are given subscription will have their name on it ("Given by _________").

At first I thought "Premium Membership" was a bit too long for the bar to sustain, then I realized it's has better definition than "subscription" itself...these are what I've found:

subscribe
verb [I or T]
1 to pay money to an organization in order to receive a product, use a service regularly or support the organization.

2 SPECIALIZED to offer to buy something or pay an amount for something as part of your business activities:

subscription /səbˈskrɪ p.ʃən/
noun [C] (INFORMAL sub)
an amount of money that you pay regularly to receive a product or service or to be a member of an organization. (Cambridge Advance Learner Dictionary)

a sum of money given or pledged as a contribution, payment, investment, etc. (Dictionary.com)

At least it's better to change "subscription" to premium membership somehow...but there are two things I don't think it's good to be there, which is the word "needs" next to it and the name of the membership donor:

Seriously, what is dA to say everyone here "need" subscription? I am not trying to say that getting a premium membership is a bad thing or a waste of money, but saying someone "needs" something is like as if you understand him so well that you have the power to decide their need and such? What's wrong with a "member" written on there? Besides for the reason it looks 'bland' and that's it. Most people know that it's your gallery that matters, not how colourful or shiny you decorate your page (I don't know if there are exceptions), so even though with "___ of Premium Membership" and "Member" won't look strange at all...

About the name of the donor, I don't know if people would like to have their name on it as if they should be thanked and grateful for donating PM(premium membership)...there are people who'd like to keep their name anonymous, but in the end, this one is not a really bad problem compared to the "need" PM thingy mentioned above.

Well in the end, saying someone "needs" something is pretty rude (Unless under some circumstances, it's needed for your studies or whatever, like textbook which your teacher might as you to purchase), especially on business (Try imagining going to a bazaar and all those sellers rushed to you with their goods saying "Hey, you need these!" while you never think of buying anything. I don't know if there are such tactic that saying someone needs something would arouse their curiosity and get a PM, but for those who are sure they don't need one, "need" used in that place is indeed rude...unless we could remove it.) and *coughcoughcoughpreacherscoughcoughcough*...uhm...excuse me. Anyway, that's all I'd have to say about something I notice. I could be wrong in some facts but all of these are my personal thoughts.

Also, exam was ended, so I could finally rest for about two weeks, if I am indeed resting than working on something else.