Aqua Regia

That I only have three weeks until finals. Eep. @_@ It feels like I'm still trying to recover from midterms, and suddenly finals are just around the corner. I've been incredibly tired as of late, and find it really hard to concentrate on my work (or anything else - I've got a drawing that's been languishing to be finished for a couple of weeks now too). So maybe I'll try to get more sleep or drink more coffee (or both), because I really need to do well on these finals.

Last week, the external hard drive containing all of my cartoons decided to go on the fritz after a weird power surge in our house. At first, I thought I had lost everything, and almost had a little aneurysm. I mean, it's several years worth of collecting suddenly gone. And for the most part its stuff that is a.) unavailable on DVD, or b.) out of print/incredibly expensive for a poor college student to get on DVD. So I wrangled with it for awhile, and with dad's help was finally able to access it, only to discover that some of the stuff, while retrievable, contains a few episodes per series that are unable to be copied off of the hard drive. T_T Nick took some of the stuff off with him to school, so I know I can get those few series back, and a few of the series are undamaged, but I'm definitely going to have to engage in some serious re-getting. -_- Suffice to say I am not amused (and have learned my lesson about backing things up on a hard copy!).

Almost two weeks ago (on October 27) I had the opportunity to perform with my church choir for the first time in over three years. Now, for those of you who don't know, I was a member of a choir from Kindergarten though my senior year of high school. For some of those years, I was a member of our school's Chamber Singers ensemble, concert band, and church choir at the same time. Suffice to say that I love music - it's one of those great passions of my life that isn't indulged as often as I would like. So in a sense, coming together with many of the same faces (and some wonderful new ones to boot!) after a lengthy absence gives me a sense of...coming home. Of finding a place that I love and enjoying it fully. So I was very excited when our director decided to keep us together for at least one more performance for the Sabbath before Thanksgiving. And wonder of all wonders, we're also singing my most hated song: Harvest Canticle...XD It seriously brings up images of satyrs with pan pipes dancing around a cornucopia or some such thing. :3

Also, I finally finished Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" quartet! I started them back in August/September, so you can see that my reading time has been significantly reduced from over the summer. They're probably my favorite Pierce series now (surpassing Song of the Lioness, though in truth that deserves a reread) because the characters are just so darn likeable and real. The author really understands human nature. And yes, the drawing (mentioned above) languishing in Photoshop is of Kel and friends. If you've never read a Tamora Pierce series you've been living under a rock you really ought to give her books a try. There's sometimes a little feminist bent, but she's not one of the most well-loved YA fantasy authors for nothing!

And a shout out to tanz_fanatika: I got the package! Thank you for the awesome pin! I'm still working on your package, but it should go out within the next week.
Cheers!