Cool Air.

(For some reason, I'm getting a kick out of titling my entries after literary works and movies. Today's title is from H.P. Lovecraft, and is about this guy who uses cold air to keep his body from decomposing, since he already died 18 years ago. Mind-over-matter story.)

Well, despite the heater being broken and the landlady being away for another week, I'm still soldiering on. A little less now, though, because I have the misfortune of catching the common cold, even though I've been taking Vitamin C tabs every single day. I take 'em like candy; they're nice.

My room's a bit crazy. I mean, it's not consistently cold, ya know. Sometimes you can feel the cold letting up for a while, and then coming back again. I swear, I think my room's letting in air from outside, even though I haven't been able to find a crack up till now.

Sigh. I really hope the landlady comes back soon.

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George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

So, I just finished it today. I borrowed it last week. Took me long enough, though. Hahaha. Back in high school, I could finish a 300-page book within school hours, provided I read it non-stop, during recess, and throughout lessons.

Anyway, to the, um, book(?) discussion. For me, it's a bit like V For Vendetta, since the timeline's supposed to be futuristic (the book's written in 1949, so I guess it's supposed to be predictive of what it'll be like in 1984) except you don't have this dude in a Guy Fawkes mask going around doing kung-fu and kicking people's asses. And the protagonist of 1984 went through a fate worse than death (I feel) in the end. But there are parallels. For instance, Big Brother runs the country, similar to V For Vendetta, where their totalitarian ruler is the Chancellor (ironically, John Hurt, who was the Chancellor in V For Vendetta, played Winston in the 1984 movie version of 1984.). 1984's set in London (although they call it Oceania in general), and so's V.

Without wanting to spoil too much of the book (I'm kinda lazy to write out the whole story now), I found it very intriguing, although I'd say my personal favourite of George Orwell's would be Animal Farm. Fantastic book about actual animals on a farm, instead of allegories or metaphors about animals. However, the book's pretty political, and it's not thick, so when I read it like, 6 years back, I didn't get sick of it. I did get sick of The Lord Of The Rings, though. That series was dull... but the third movie was great.

Speaking of books I haven't finished, I'm only a third-way through Clive Barker's The Great And Secret Show. Not that it's boring; I just haven't been reading lately.

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Hot, hot, hot...

(Next time it rains, I'm gonna make a post called 'Wet, wet, wet...').

I can't believe I'm complaining about the weather. I mean, the second day I was here, I was practically freezing my butt off, and wearing like, five layers to bed every night. Now, I'm literally sweating my butt off. Stupid weather. It's supposed to be the end of summer already. Currently, the thermostat downstairs says that it's 32˚C. My friends have mentioned that it went up to 40˚C the other time.

I think I'm getting sick. I feel a bit heavy-headed, and whenever I wake up, one side of my nose's stuck up. It'd be really ironic if I get a cold in this weather, it being hot and all.

On another note, YouTube took down the Sweeney Todd vids. I am now officially sad.

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Mood: Depressed.

I lost my thumb-drive today. I tried back-tracking all over the place (four times, in fact), but to no avail. I just can't find it anywhere. Sigh.

It was a Kingston 1GB pen-drive, and it was brown. Even though I had you for not even over a year, you really helped me a lot, especially when I was running out of space on my laptop and I used you to transfer movies and/or games to the other lappy. I am so gonna miss you =(

Good night, sweet prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Wherever you might be.

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In Dreams. Again.

(I'm bored, so sue me.)

Yesterday's sleep brought on this morning's dream (obviously!). I was dreaming that I had some potatoes in the oven (I know! Hard to believe!), and when I took them out, they were rather burnt. Then I (gingerly!) tried one, and whaddaya know, it was pretty good!

And then my alarm rang.

Sigh. I can't even have a good food dream.

Like, two hours ago, I was trying to sleep (which was kinda difficult, 'cuz even though I was tired, I was restless at the same time. Funny.). And I kinda dreamt that I dragged myself out of bed to go to one of the empty bathrooms, and my leg fell asleep halfway and it got caught in the door when I was trying to go into the bathroom... (Actually, when I went to class on Wednesday, my foot got caught in the door as it closed because I wasn't fast enough and my sneaker was huge.). Anyway, luckily my Mom called me then, so after I talked to her, I went to the bathroom before my bladder could implode.

Then I had my egg-and-bacon sandwich.

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YouTube.

For me, YouTube has got to be one of the best things on the Internet (right up with Google and email).

Over the past week, I've been watching Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (almost typed The Demon of Barber Street there. Haha.) on YouTube. The whole movie. Sure, it's chopped up into unorganized singing bits, but the nice person who uploaded the clips also put in the bits where important people died, so I guess you don't really miss much. Even the ending was uploaded, which is fantastic, since Watching The Ending is definitely better than Reading The Ending Description On Wikipedia. And I also watched the Stage Version and the Concert Version on YouTube, which is great.

Just yesterday, I found this extremely old movie way back from 1945 called The Picture Of Dorian Gray (based on Oscar Wilde's novel of the same name), which had a VERY young Angela Lansbury (that's Mrs. Potts, to you!) in a bit part. Anyway, watching the movie (that's how I spent my afternoon) sure as heck beats reading the book (even though I'd already read it already, some time after The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out), since they left out all the 'descriptive passages' and fillers that even literary enthusiasts would find tedious after a while. I liked it when they occasionally showed the portrait in colour (it's 1945; everything's black-and-white), but I thought it'd be cooler if the portrait was always in colour and everything else was B&W. But anyways, technology didn't really exist then yet (how Neanderthal of me to say this), and it was a pretty good movie. I felt that Dorian didn't look as young as I imagined him to be, but he definitely was delicate and effeminat-ish enough. One thing that didn't bode so well for me is the ending. Maybe I misinterpreted this part, but it seemed that Dorian was rather repentant, choosing to leave the girl before she could be corrupted before the pivotal end-event. Book Dorian was defiant to the end(!), and well... read the book and skip the long passages (and just scan over some of the dialogue). Love the way the book's ending was written.

After watching Dorian Gray, I proceeded to watch 21 (out of 26) episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. Now, anime isn't my cup of tea, but since each episode's about 8 minutes at a maximum, and I've nothing to do (not that I don't have assignments up my sleeve or anything, I do, just that I'm not in the mood to start work on them yet). Funniest things I've ever seen, with so many pop culture references that I actually know of, and love. Couldn't stop laughing at Episode 19. The pop culture reference for that one is so obvious that it doesn't even have to slap you on the face to get your attention.

I think the only minor gripe I have with YouTube is the sound. Some of the videos (especially Dorian Gray's) were quite soft, even though I'd turned up the volume the whole way. I had to wear my earphones yesterday, which I'm not a big fan of, because it gives me a headache after a while.

Come to think of it, ALL things give me a headache after a while! Man...

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No more music...

Apparently, the University couldn't find anybody to take over for the Music Club, so they're not having it this year. Nuts. Now I'm gonna get all rusty because I don't got no access to no piano, yo.

Unless....

I draw out piano keys on my study table! Naw, I can't do that, the table's not mine. Wait a minute, I could use Paper! I brought a whole bunch of them from back home. I could draw piano keys out and pretend-plonk on them whenever I want. I need a ruler! I need measurements! I need an... actual... piano... to measure it from, and I... don't have access... to that... now.

*sigh*

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Major accomplishment today!

Why? Because I did my laundry ALL BY MYSELF. Yes, you read right; I kinda figured out how to work the washing machine and the dryer. Well, pretty much anyways. Right now I'm drying my things by the window, since it's really hot now, and I don't want to wait too long for the dryer (to be honest, I don't even KNOW how long I should wait for the dryer).

I wonder whether people can see my clothes when they walk by my window and happen to look up.

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