Day 74 - Eirtakon 2009 Day 1

Today, I was proven very wrong about the anime culture here. The numbers are VERY small, but finally, I've met people who actually watch anime as much as they breath air. Of course, most of them are the big-wigs of their respective anime clubs.

Anyway, the night started off with anime screenings. And more anime screenings... And more anime screenings... Azumanga Daioh, xxxHolic, Disgaea and Black Cat.

Okay, it was all anime screenings tonight and an anime pub quiz.

It turns out pub quizzes are team games, so entering alone is a big disadvantage unless you're a walking encyclopedia of anime trivia. Good thing somebody offered me a place in their team since they only had 3 members. Still, we were at a huge disadvantage. After all, the Cork Anime Society brought a whole bunch of members (about 10+) since there was no limit to the number of members. The other groups also had similar numbers ranging from 7 to 12. My group was the second smallest. Another group had 3 members.

The pub quiz consisted of 11 rounds, with 10 questions per round. Due to time constraints, I only stayed till Round 9. But from there, I learned that the anime culture isn't so dead after all. They threw out all sorts of anime I've never even heard off, claiming they were good titles of the past. And some of the present (most of which I knew).

Round 1 to 3 were deadly trivia quizzes, constantly spamming anime titles I just happen to miss watching. Gurren Lagann, Hayate no Gotoku, Seto no Hanayome, Genshiken, One Piece etc. Round 4 was a guess-the-anime-from-the-picture quiz. And they were careless/stupid enough to use posters, wallpapers, character art etc that have the titles written in Japanese.

Round 5 was a guess-the-anime-from-the-song quiz. I knew only 1 of them. Round 6 was a guess-the-parody quiz. I got 4 for that one, seeing as how they used Lucky Star and Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. Round 7 was another round of trivia.

Round 8 was an "I-can't-believe-I-watched-this" quiz that featured all sorts of titles that you'd likely can't and will never watch, except Disgaea. Seriously, why was Disgaea even in there? The epic moment was when they threw out a Bible Black question. BIBLE BLACK!! WHAT THE HELL!? For those who don't know, Bible Black is perhaps the most famous erotic anime ever and it isn't softcore porn.

Round 9 was another guess-the-anime-from-the-song quiz. I got 3 for that one. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was the first one! Then there was Soul Eater. I left after that. So, all I know was that I was placed 10th out of some 15 teams before I left.

No references to Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon, Inuyasha, Digimon were even mentioned in this quiz. Unless of course, the final 2 rounds were about popular anime/manga.

Now, for the cosplayers. I'd have to say... disappointing except for 2. Winger should be pleased to know that the 2 best ones I saw tonight were the Franziska von Karma and Godot cosplayers. The rest were so-so. A lot of them had their costumes or wigs ruined by the rain. One of the Kurosaki Ichigo's came down flat onto his head. I have a picture of him :)

Alright! My turn to cosplay tomorrow. Shit, I can't find Ragnarok's mouth. Did I sweep them away by accident last week?

Day 73 - MedBall Blues

We finally submitted our group project today, at exactly 3pm, the final deadline. You know what? I don't think the Irish are such good timekeepers after all. Right, moving my hopes onto the Japanese.

Well, Daniel gave me hope that I could attend MedBall. But my hopes were shattered some 3 hours ago when he told me that there was only 1 ticket left. Darn!

So, I'm here watching anime, cartoons and TV soap operas with the Sci-Fi geeks...

...I know none of those soap operas.

You know what? I'm gonna go steal their anime collection.

Let's see....

2 titles I don't have...

Wow...

Oh, one of them only has half the episodes.

...

...

...

Eirtakon better be good!

Day 68, 69 - Late Night Reports

I swear in the name of Larry the leprechaun that I thought of a cooler name for the topic title. But I forgot it the next second. Screw them MIBs!

Anyway, I have nothing much to report except that I stayed home all day for the weekends. Since I spent little energy that night, I stayed up till 4am on both days...

Typing reports. Patient report, site report, health care system reports and slide reports.

I've got lots of reports, don't I? Well, you can call them this week's "test".

Yawn... I'm sleeping early tonight.

Day 67 - Why Am I Not Surprised?

Well, I got my results for all my mid-terms. I got an A for Biochem, B for Musculoskeletal Biology and a C- for Cell-cell. Hah! Exactly as I thought. But even so, cell-cell is just way too low!

But screw my Cell-cell lecturer for not letting us know our marks. The other two at least gave us an idea of how many we got wrong, but this guy didn't. Screw this! So I am to just assume I got about 55%!? ARGH!! 30 questions wrong!

Guess I have to buck up even more for the finals for this one.

Day 65 - Chiang no Go!

The title was a parody of "Hikaru no Go".

I received news from the Irish Go Association that there's a Go meet held every week in Dublin. After confirming the location, I found that it was pretty close to my university and the no. 10 bus stops directly in front of it, although the only way back is by the no. 46A bus.

At the bar (Almost everything is done in a bar in Ireland), I saw some 8 people gathered. 4 of them were playing. I was so thrilled even though ALL of them looked older than me. An old gentleman by the name of Arthur challenged me to a match. Since he was of a much higher level than I was, he gave me a 9-stone advantage. And I still lost due to a mistake.

Then, we had a second match on a smaller board with a 6-stone handicap. I won, but I think 6 stones was a little too much. 4 may have been enough.

During the games, we also had some idle chit-chat, something the other clubs and societies I've joined rarely did with me besides on Halloween night. I learned that the old guy I played against was a lecturer in the UCD School of Computer Sciences and he had been wanting to form a Go Society in UCD for some time. Another guy who was a postgraduate student in UCD opted to help if it was actually formed. I am, of course, interested too!

After the 2nd match, it was already nearing 11pm, so I bade them farewell caught the next bus home. I am SO going there every Monday and/or Wednesday from now on!

Day 64 - End of Midterms.

Why oh why did the Cell-cell Communication test have to be held today at 7pm!? I had to skip Japanese class because of that!

I did fairly well. Definitely not as good as Biochem but not as bad as Musculoskeletal Biology. I should pass. Should.

......

Hmm... Guess I'll say something about last night's Halloween party. The GameSoc could not book a room earlier so they only got to celebrate their Halloween last night. Ah well, seeing as how I skipped the MedSoc party, I might as well show up for GameSoc's.

The party was okay. As usual, no food, just chips and alcohol. They brought out their XBox360 and played Rock Band (again). Nattanael and Lorik definitely had a fun time singing... even though they failed a lot. Oh, it wasn't their voices, it's just the game asking for too much accuracy.

I went as Chrona (obviously). There weren't any cosplayers that night, save for a Vincent Valentine cosplayer who won the Fancy Dress Contest. FYI, not very good. If that's the best they've got, they have A LOT to learn.

Oh, but there was this latecomer who came as the Joker from the Dark Knight movie. Now he was AWESOME. Should have taken a close up shot of his face! It was very well done. But his clothes kinda sucked. Still, awesome hair, awesome face.

Rest In Peace

James Wan Khai Khor, a sad and unexpected tragedy befell upon you. I didn't like how you always teased me on the school bus, but I guess that was your way of making friends. And just so you know, I treasure it even though I still don't really know you.

After you graduated from Form 5 in 2006, we saw very little of each other even though you went to Form 6. But I always believed that we would meet again. But it seems I was wrong.

News of your early departure from this world certainly came as a shock to me. The time we spent on the school bus was enough to tell me that you had a bright future ahead of you and your passing is certainly a loss to many.

I offer my condolences to your family and pray that your soul find peace forever. I am sorry I cannot attend your memorial. Should an afterlife exist, I hope that we will meet again then and become closer friends.

永别了，元凯学哥。祝你登上极乐世界。阿弥陀佛。