Well, another long pause in the blogging routine as Trin neglects her blog again. ._. Even while life isn’t too busy, I can certainly find many things to occupy myself with. I spent practically the entire day trying to download the school organization’s old website in which I’m in charge of. It’s been painful. the image galleries were just as big as I predicted, and every single picture is at least 600kb (ever heard of downsizing, Previous Webmaster? n_n) so it’s a complete bitch to download on my dial up. I’ve already spent 5 hours downloading half of it, and I’ve run out of patience. My internet time is limited, so I can’t waste too much time just letting it download. I’m going to try to download somewhere else (with faster connection) and burn it onto a CD or something.

During the tedious downloading process, I managed to finish reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I had borrowed from the library only 2 days prior. Although this is probably all old news to rabid fans, the latest installment has the most action packed ending fight than all of the other books. I think I rushed through the ending fight too quickly though, as I have a habit of doing when a part gets really exciting and I want to find out what happens next. ^^; I really fell in love with Sirius in this book, but I think I might be much more fond of Lupin. I was disappointed not to find Bellatrix dead by the end of this book. ~_~ It would have been odd though, if Harry had defeated her while Lupin and Sirius couldn’t. I hope she dies a painful death later. Harry’s attitude towards friends and fellow classmates was seriously getting on my nerves after pages and pages of relentless and childish snap-backs. I found that really irritable despite trying to see his current position and state of mind. The tantrum at the end was perfectly understandable though. I would have probably done the same thing. And Umbridge, goodness. I wanted to cause that woman deep deep pain, more than what happened to her in the end in with the centaurs. I seriously believed she was a Death Eater herself. Wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. I loved how Professor McGonagall treated her. Otherwise I seriously would have beat the book to a pulp out of anger. I also loved the bit where Harry saw Snape’s worst memory. James sounded cuter than ever, arrogant, trying to impress Lily but failing each time. I couldn’t really understand why he kept calling Lily “Evans” though. O_o; Did I miss something? My fondness of Cho Chang went up in smokes after this book. At first, I was egging her and Harry on. But by the end of the book, I thought she was a pathetic childish crybaby. >< I'm eager to see who will play her in the upcoming movies. I'm guessing it'll be hard to find a talented Chinese child actress with an English accent. o.o; My dislike of Snape greatly lessened in this book though. I'm actually starting to like him, and I have a feeling his attitude towards Harry and Griffindor in general might really come in handy in defeating Voldermort in the end. I just hope no one else dies in the future books. I'm half hoping that Sirius would make a surprise come-back-from-the-dead in later books. Overall, good impression of the book. We finally get some answers and in depth background information.

I think I’m going to pull out time to read The DaVinci Code next. I’ve just begun reading it today and gotten past the Prologue. So, I don’t really have a clue what the story is about yet. ^^ From what I’ve heard, it’s a thrilling book, and my aunt’s even reading the Chinese translated version. It really sucks that I won’t be able to read any books once school starts up again. All the same, I don’t think I have any more recommended books to borrow, unless people have suggestions? ^.^

In other (rather old) news, I have Gmail! My address is “gravitation [at] gmail [dot] com.” ^_^;;; The swapping didn’t turn out as bad as I thought it would be. The girl accepted my 1st version of the design and gave me the invite. Unfortunately Ryuichi, Hokuto, Subaru, Trinity/Trin and a bunch of others were already taken. :/ Oh well. I haven’t been using it too much, but I check it here and there. I’ve heard the spam filter works awesome. So, I’ll be mostly storing non-personal information there, just in case Google decides mind other people’s private business.

I think I’ve found a new approach to character shrines, one that I will start exercising. Nowadays shrines have the standard Info/Media/Site approach (and I do it too). It may just be my being anal and all, but I’m starting to dislike that approach for my shrines. Perhaps it’s too typical, or too overused. I don’t want to keep the same standard for all of my shrines, because after a while they lose their significance and value to me. It’s kind of like sweets. Once you have too many, it starts getting annoying. I’m half-set on scrapping some of my shrines since I’ve become somewhat detached to a few of them. Yet I can’t bring myself to throw any away. My resolution is to be pickier on who/what I shrine, since I don’t find a lot of characters or anime I truely like and have an obsession for nowadays. I want to keep each shrine unique and have a different style, not only in terms of layout and organization, but also in the content I produce. Because each character is different. Because I enjoy analyzing them and speculating. However 2D they are, they still have many characteristics that reflect our own. I refuse to do a shrine unless I feel I have much to say about a particular character and I am willing to analyze and speculate and enjoy it while doing so.

I’ve come to this resolution for a while already. I guess the reason why I’m bringing this up now is, I see a lot of shrines now, boasting that they are “the first English shrine to so-and-so,” and they all have the ridiculous notion that the fact is incredibly impressive. When the Info section loads up, I’m nearly always disappointed to see a only a few sections, such as Stats, Deeper, Name Meaning, etc. etc. I suppose I’d rather analyze characters from a more complex anime such as Evangelion or Utena, than from anime such as Inuyasha. Forgive me, and I hope no offense is taken, but some characters are simply not as realistic nor as interesting to speculate as others. That’s why there are all of these wonderful, diverse shrines and fan sites out on the web. I can’t say though, that everyone makes fan sites for pure enjoyment of analyzing a character or series. The result, a good majority of them are half-assed attempts that eventually end up forgotten, like 80’s clothes.

I’m glad that I can truthfully say, for almost every shrine/site I’ve made so far, I truely adore the character or the series. There was a time when I wanted to shrine every character that was remotely interesting. I’m glad I got through that phase quickly and didn’t do anything too devastating. Though I don’t plan to update most of my shrines anymore, I’m in no hurry to toss them out or forget them. They did more than show and share to the world my interests. They shared how I think, how I perceive at people, events, and life, even improved my writing skills. XD

I suppose through all this rambling, the point I’m trying to make is: you may not see shrines spewing left and right at aiNET in the future. You may not see many updates on my shrines. But at the same time, there won’t be big long hiatuses. Sure, school and work might get in the way, but it always has, hasn’t it? I’m always cooking up something, looking for new or unique approaches to do things. After all, this is also a part of my life.