Just checking in...

This is just a quick entry to let my loyal readers (as if I have any) know I'm still alive :) I'm back from Phillip Island - I had an OK time down there, took the chance to get myself hooked on some of my older games. Sicen I got back, I haven't been doing much. I went into the city to get my enrolment sorted out - it's sort of done, but I need to get forms to someone else - RMIT's typical administration structure means the person I have to see isn't the same person I had to see last time :/

I haven't spoken much with the rest of the Seven lately. I did speak with Rhiannon (Wolf) and took the opportunity to come out to her, with a fairly neutral response. I also got invited to a couple of events - a birthday party thrown by one of my ex-classmates from high school, which I don't think I'll go to (I really do need to get out of the house, but I don't think I'd mix too well with her social group), some anime festival in Melbourne some of the Seven are going to (I might go... anime isn't my thing, but it isn't so much for the rest of the Seven either), and a potential invite to a D&D session with the Seven. I've spoken with Ari once, no invites there yet, but I expect there may be soon.

Any readers familiar with my MSN space may have noticed the list of Stargate episodes didn't get put on here. This is because I feel it would wreck the appearance of the site - it's not really geared towards big lists. I have been putting the list into a PDF document (with screenshots, and better descriptions) which when completed I will put up on this site. Eventually I may also include character, technology, ship lists, and whatever else I can think of... might turn into a miniature version of the Stargate Omnipedia.

Holidays!

Holidays are here! :D Well, for me, anyway. The exam period for my university ends on the 24th of June or something, but I had all three of my exams in the first two days - very stressful beforehand and during, but a huge relief afterwards. Exams basically went more or less as I predicted. Maths was a horrendous nightmare, and I'm not even sure whether I passed it or not. Web3D and Computing Fundamentals were both fairly easy, though both had questions that I feel will trip up a lot of other people. For Web3D the first question on the exam read "What does VRML stand for?". My first thought - "Bet there's not many people who will know that". For Computing Fundamentals, we had to write a function to determine whether or not a number was a prime, and another to find the factors if it wasn't. Tim was furious over that - he seemed to feel it tested his maths abilities more than his programming abilities :P Either way, the exams are over, there's nothing left to do but sit and wait for results. Also, I got back the marks for the Games Studio assignment - the one where I thought we'd made a bad impression on our lecturer. We got a High Distinction - apparently the use of story in our map was a rare, but pleasing touch. When I need to feel better about myself, I go and look at that e-mail :)

In less happy news, I'm being dragged down to Phillip Island again this weekend, against my will - my mum has decided she wants to have 6 or 7 of her knitting friends over, and there'll be nowhere for me to sleep - one of them even has to sleep in my bed -shudders- . The good news is I get to take my computer down there, so I won't be completely bored out of my skull, but I'll have no Net access (my primary reason for disliking that place is not having the Net). When I get back, there still won't be any rest - RMIT have screwed up my enrolment in maths (again!) so I'll need to zip into the city and get that sorted out. Once that's done, though, I'll have all the remaining time to enjoy. It's possible I'll spend it writing a resume, getting a job, learning to drive and getting my Ps, but it's much more likely I'll spend it on various computer games, and possibly the odd going-out with some of my newfound friends - if they'll have me along. I met up with a couple of Seven the night of the Computing Fundamentals exam, but for most of the time I felt like a fifth wheel - no reason to be there. Years of being the victim of joke friendships by idiots has made it difficult for me to accept friendship easily. As part of the Seven, most of the time I feel in-tune with them, but 'most of the time' consists of games in Sutherland. When it comes to conversation, I just have trouble blending in, contributing, participating. Probably, I just need more experience, and a greater capacity for trust.

*sigh*

I never expected this blog to turn into a number of rants about politics and declarations about what I believe. But it seems to have gone that way anyway. I considered today starting up another blog, and holding that one for politics, and this one for my personal life - but at the moment I feel if I did that the politics one is the only one that would get any posts :/ Maybe sometime in the future..

So, anyway, today I was reading over MechG's Debate Board, and I saw an interesting thread about something called the Silver Ring Thing. As it turns out, this is a Christian (I'm getting to hate religion more and more by the day here) program designed to keep people from having sex until they're married. The idea sickens me. Though it is not related to homosexuality, I am still infuriated by this idea. Our biological instincts are to reproduce as widely as possible (even if those instincts have gone a little awry in some of us). Sex is a natural expression of love. These people seem to suggest that love cannot exist between a boyfriend and girlfriend, only between a husband and a wife. Total BS, in my opinion. From what I've known, marriages more often cause relationships to fall apart than to seal them tighter. This seems to me to simply be another example of Christians who are steadily losing power in the world (thank God - no pun intended), and will do anything to gain back the power they once had. In any case, SRT's website have gone onto my blacklist along with VoteMarriage and Straight Pride. Sickening

As for real life, I'm a little concerned in multiple ways. A number of my friends seem to be struggling with depression for one reason or another. We all have our problems - my early posts on my MSN Space are proof of that - but I just wish I knew a way to help them. Another source of concern exists in my exams - my first is on Monday, it's Friday night (technically, Saturday morning), and I still haven't even started studying. I sincerely hope that overconfidence isn't my downfall - for the most part, I've done quite well up to now.

Finally, another point of anger - but not politics related this time. As most of you probably don't know or care about, Richard Dean Anderson is leaving Stargate as a leading role in the new season. I don't have much of a problem with that. I know a number of fans do, and would love to see him brought back as they brought back Daniel Jackson (www.savedanieljackson.com). It just slightly irks me though that some total idiot would register the domain name www.savejackoneill.com solely to prevent the fans from trying to bring him back. Sure, he deserves a chance to spend more time with his daughter - but that's no reason to stop the fans from telling him how much they adored his character, and no reason to stop them from trying to bring him back. It's not like they have any true power over him. Pure idiocy...

My life

Well, this is my new blog, replacing or at least working alongside my MSN Space. Honestly, I think all MSN Spaces have done is more entice people into Blogger - they find out how good blogs are, and then they hate all of MSN's limitations. Ironic :P

There are so many things I hate in this world. Most prominent among them is homophobia. When I look at sites like planetout.com and see in their news articles homophobic groups like AFA calmly defaming us, I feel angry inside. When I look at sites like http://members.optusnet.com.au/~austbua/gay.htm, at first glance they seem normal. But as I read further and further through them, I find more and more comments that disguise homophobia under the guise of facts. And, surprise surprise, this site is primarily religious. Finally, I look at blatantly homophobic sites like www.votemarriage.org and www.straightpride.com and my anger becomes so strong it verges on physical illness. If those people made the same sort of comments about other races (for example, blacks and whites shouldn't marry) they would be labelled as racists, and shunned. But because they're talking about homosexuals, it's accepted. It infuriates me. If I knew how to hack, I'd bring those sites crashing down, hit them time and time again, and ensure they never arose again to contaminate the Internet. Maybe it's better I don't know how to hack :) Those sites anger me so much I only ever look at them when I need to feel angry, or I need a reminder why I want to fight for gay rights.

As for the real world, well semester one of university is over. There are only the exams coming up on Monday, and I think only Maths has even a chance of giving me any trouble. After that, there's holidays - something like seven or eight weeks. With any luck, I'll find time to learn how to drive and get my Ps, maybe get a job, and possibly even get out of the house a little, look around, and find a boyfriend.

My assignments for university didn't go all that smoothly. Web3D was a total screwup from start to finish - it didn't work properly, my tutor didn't do much to make me confortable from the beginning, and when he finally got it halfway working he made some comment that completely demoralised me and wound up my presentation as barely a pass. Games Studio was a little rushed, and our lack of preperation made I believe a very bad impression on our marker - but he's the sort of guy who won't hold that against you. Hopefully we'll do OK in that. Finally, Maths and Computing Fundamentals - the only two that went well.

Social life - well, that's pretty much died for the moment, since my social life existed only at university. Ari has implied he and his friends are going to drag me out my shell over the holidays - I'm not sure if I'm up for that or not, but I'll probably go out a couple of times. Right at the end of the holidays, there's my birthday. I know plenty of people I'd love to invite, but I don't know what I'm actually going to do for it. At the moment I was thinking a meal at La Porchetta like a friend of mine did some years back - it's kind of boring, but the only thing I can think of that would work at the moment.