ria_oaks

...I think my brain just exploded. This show is trying to kill me, I know it is. O.O Seriously, it has the most evil cliffhangers ever. Evil, utterly evil. This show is evil.

Though I mean that in the most complimentary way, of course.

Only 2 episodes and the PK Wars miniseries left... I'm not sure how long I'll be able to go before I need to see what happens after this episode, but since I have an exam on Tuesday that I really need to study for, I guess it'll have to wait.

Anyway, on the update front...

So, I had to go out to Langara today to meet up with the Italy group. The professors gave us a ton of information on flights, accomodations, what to bring, what not to bring, what our assignment will be, our itinerary, etc. We have to do a journal assignment based on the works we see, the artists we study, etc. I didn't really get a chance to talk to any of the other students (there are 24 of us), but several of them go to UBC as well... I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone - we're gonna have to, seeing as we're all stuck together for 6 weeks. XD I'm definitely getting excited, though it all still feels so unreal... I can't quite believe it's happening. And less than a month away! Eek. It's going to be great to see Italy again, though, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Scotland for the first time (and with

bronzejarith. ^_^). My only regret is that I won't be able to make it to France, but oh well. There's always next time.. I know my dad's always hankering to get back over there, so I imagine the three of us will go over there again one summer soon.

I've been doing a lot of preparation work. Went shopping with Mom last week for summer clothing. The bonus of me hating clothes shopping and rarely doing it voluntarily is that Mom gets so fed up with my clothing that she forces me to come shopping then pays for it all. XD I know, I know, my mother shouldn't be paying for my clothes at my age, but hell, she offerred. Anyway, she figures it was a present for going away or something. She's contributing a good deal of money to this trip as it is, so I guess this was just part of it. I was very grateful, though. ^^ Got some new, light, pants, some tops, a light jacket, and *gasp* a skirt. I'm going to have to go for either skirts or pants over there since the cathedrals won't let me in if I'm wearing shorts ('cause evidently my naked legs offend God). Also have a light shirt to wear over any tank tops in order to get into cathedrals ('cause God doesn't like my naked shoulders, either...). Still need new shoes and sandels, possibly a new bathing suit, prob another skirt or two since I have a feeling I'll be wearing them quite a bit (pants will just be too hot), maybe a light shawl to cover my shoulders with if I don't want to wear the other shirt, and probably other stuff... non-clothing wise, I at least need to pick up a nice journal for the assignment.

Lesse, other prep stuff... I applied for a Visa the other day, so I'm finally joining the legions of credit card users racking up debts. ^^ It's just for emergencies, though, so I'll try not to use it much. Still need to sort out exactly which bags I'm taking; my grandparents offered a small day pack they have, so I'll see what that's like. Also need a money belt, which I think Mom has. And probably need a lot of other stuff that I can't think of right now. Anyway, I'm going shopping downtown with Mom after my exam on Tuesday (really should be studying... ehehe), so I'll make sure I've worked out everything else that I need before then.

Yesterday was the last day of classes, yay! Of course, last day of classes at UBC means one thing for a great deal of campus... Arts County Fair. Didn't go this year (wasn't partically impressed with it last year, and anyway I don't drink much), but had the amusement (and occasional annoyance) of watching the rest of campus go insane. Okay, it wasn't really too bad. A fair amount of drunken yelling at Gage (a girl I know who's in Fairview, which is v. close to ACF at T-bird stadium, said that she just fled across campus to get away from it cause it was nuts over there), some leftover vomit on the ground the morning after (gag), and a friend of my roomate's crashing on our couch... at 9:30 pm. -_- I was still making dinner when she came in, lay down, and went to sleep. My roomate had already passed out in her room, and she couldn't wake her up to get into her room, so she took it upon herself to use the couch instead. Sigh. Oh well... other than that, it was okay. I popped over to Pie R Squared ~9 out of morbid curiousity, and damn I'm glad I wasn't working last night. I worked Wed and Thurs nights, and both nights we were prepping for the ACF rush. After all, us and McDonalds are pretty much the only things open on campus that late. I remember going to McD's last year on ACF, which was a stupid move because my god it was insane in there. Seriously scary.

I was actually kinda sad to say goodbye to a couple of my classes - I really loved my Soci class, and I also loved my Shakespeare class (esp the prof). Gave both profs ridiculously glowing reviews. ^^ My Soci exam is the one on Tuesday, though, and I have a lot of reading left to do for it. Dunno how much I'm going to miss it after that. XD But seriously, it was amazing. The atmosphere in the classroom was so open and friendly, and we all had a great time discussing the issues. The Porn Debate we had a few weeks ago was just a riot. And a couple of weeks ago, we had 2 sex workers come in as guest speakers to talk about their experiences with sex work and the battle to legalize prostitution. Definitely a special experience; I know a lot of us in the classroom felt very affected by what they had to say. Everything we learned in this class just really taught us to think harder about the things that society doesn't want to think about, and to question all the assumptions about sex that we've internalized for centuries. And really, it was a hell of a lot of fun. :)

Last shift tomorrow! Yaay. That's one thing that I won't be sad to say goodbye to, although I must admit that I am going to miss the people there. It became more enjoyable this term, I found, as I got to know the people there a bit better. The job itself was pretty sucky, but we had some fun times - lots of dancing around and singing karaoke and stuff like that (since we usually have music on). Certainly didn't make me much money, though.

So, I re-watched the Farscape premiere on Tuesday, with

rainbowpegacorn watching it for the first time (and no offense whatsoever is meant by Newbie,

rainbowpegacorn! Just using it as an identifier...). It was an interesting experience re-watching it for the first time, being now so close to the end of the series. I've watched a few reruns over the last few monthes (since UPN is still showing seasons 2 and 3 at 11pm/12am on Sundays), but watching the first episode really rammed in how much everyone and everything has changed. I always enjoy watching the first episode of a show after seeing it all through for the first time - it's always a shock how different things are! I remember feeling the same when I first watched the Babylon 5 pilot episode (not the movie, the episode) after seeing the show through - I couldn't believe how different everyone was (not least their appearences... I think I spent several full minutes giggling over seeing Garibaldi with hair again).

Reading a review of the Farscape premiere after, I have to agree with something the reviewer said - the episode gets better when you watch it in retrospect. In fact, I imagine that would be the same for most of the first season. I wasn't particularly impressed with the first 2/3 or so of season 1 when I first saw it. It was reasonably entertaining, but I didn't feel overly interested in or conncted to the characters (other than John and Aeryn). I think this was largely due to the filler/standalone nature of most of season 1 - once we got to the meaty plot episodes at the end of the season, it picked up considerably. I think that if I were to rewatch those episodes now, knowing and loving the characters as I have come to, then I would enjoy them more. Though still, season 1 really isn't nearly as good as the later seasons no matter how you cut it. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed re-watching Premiere. I'd forgotten some of the details about how it all began, so it was nice to refresh how all the characters were introduced and how the show's premise was set up. I agree with the aforementioned reviewer, though, that the episode was quite rushed. They had a lot of information to pack into 48 minutes (though at least the DVD version is a bit longer than the broadcast 43 min one), and I have to give them credit for doing a reasonably good job of it. Still, watching

rainbowpegacorn's reactions, thinking back to when I first watched it, and trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who knows nothing about the show, the episode was somewhat confusing. When I'm watching, I take a lot of knowlegde for granted - who all the characters are, why they're there, who the Peacekeepers are, which race is which, etc. It was interesting for me to try to try to imagine that I didn't know any of that, and how I would interpret things. It's a pretty fast-paced episode - you have to really pay attention and watch carefully to keep track of everything. Though really that's no different than most pilot episodes - I find that it always takes a few episodes to get a hold on who everyone is. It took me about halfway through season 1 before I was sure what Zhaan's name was, and I went for about 2 seasons spelling Sebacean wrong in my head. Heh.

It really is remarkable, though, to watch the progression of the characters. When you're watching it straight through, you don't notice these changes quite as much (at least if they're organic and natural). It's only on going back to the start that you realize how far everyone's come. Especially Aeryn - I loved her scene with John where he's telling her about compassion and she flatly says that she hates it. That, possibly more than any other scene, highlighted for me her character's arc. Ditto especially with John, D'Argo and Crais - not to mention D'Argo's makeup, heh. That's definitely shifted over the seasons... for that matter, so has Rygel - he looked somewhat different; I think it was his eyebrows. ^^ Obviously they've adjusted him a bit over the course of the series. According to one of the commentaries, he cost more than all the actors... millions of dollars. Meep. Wonder how much Pilot cost in comparison? He's a lot bigger, but I think Rygel has more advanced movement and expressions. Anyway, either way they're both amazing - I'm constantly fascinated by hearing how the puppeters controlled them during scenes. Evidently they needed 4-5 people to operate Rygel - it's amazing how they can shoot his scenes so you can't tell! Aside from that, I really got a kick out of watching Crais when he first appears. Really gotta give credit to this show for fleshing out its characters - cause really, season 1 Crais is pretty 2-dimensional. And rather annoying, come to think of it. I wanted to smack his head in for a good deal of season 1. On a totally random note, I also noticed the lack of made-up curse words in this episode... I've become so accustomed to hearing 'frell' and 'dren' and whatnot that it was strange not hearing any. I guess they wanted to ease the audience in a bit before hitting them with a ton of new vocab (there was a definite lack of general vocab, too, such as arn [hour] and microd [either second or minute.. I always get it and microt mixed up]... noticed cycle [year] used at least once, though). It's funny how accustomed I've grown to those, especially seeing how they keep adding to the vocab list every season. I think frell has officially entered my own vocab, right next to gorram from Firefly. XD

Heh, that went on a bit. I've been mulling over this since Tuesday, and have been wanting to write it down. Yeah, dunno if anyone read that, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Also feel the need to talk about the last episode I watched (see my reaction above, heh. Wrote that I few hours before the rest of the post, since I had a nap in between...). May or may not post about it. May just wait until I've finished the series. Come to think of it, I may also consider writing a proper review of the whole series once I've seen it. In order to entice ya'll to watch it, of course. XD I can lend it to anyone interested while I'm away...

Okay, um, should really go study. Shit, when did it get to be 6:30? Where did the last 5 hours since I got home go??