Writings of an Illusionist

Prologue!

2010-07-19T18:13:00.001+01:00

How exciting :D

Finally started the first chapter of my new novel. Also done the prologue, which you can now read, hurray!

http://utopiaguardianship.blogspot.com/2010/07/prologue.html

Genre, I would say, is gonna be sort of science fiction/fantasy kind of thing. I’d appreciate any comments and stuff, after all, that’s how writing improves, right? :)

So the first chapter is under development, and hopefully should be a good one. Haven’t written for aaages, so if my writing’s a bit rusty, don’t kill me.

On other news, Royal Society work was amazing, met so many inspiring brilliant scientists (and others including the astronaut crew from the Atlantis shuttle and had lunch with Ranulph Fiennes ;P). Worked with great people too. :)

Ahhh, bugger about the World Cup. Damnit, I had Holland. :/

But yay Wimbledon :D Omfg love Nadal so damn much.

Now there is nothing to tweet about. :/

Ohyeah; and I had a great birthday last week :) thanks again to all the birthday wishes. Going to see Inception next Sunday, heard it’s amazing.

That’s all for now, but watch that space in the link above ;) Ofcourse I shall post the new chapter’s link up here too when it’s done.

Music time!

Addicted ;P

Aaand

Yay :D

~Illusionist

Smartening Up: we all need to do it, sooner rather than later

2010-06-19T17:50:00.001+01:00

Forgive me if this blog entry doesn’t look right or something- I’m still learning how to mess around with Windows Writer; it’s a very cool program, I have to say.

Omai, I got a new laptop :D It is fantastic- fantastically gorgeous. Dark, stylish red on the cover, bordered at the top and bottom with strips of matt black; 15.8” screen, lovely quiet keyboard for good, silent lecture typing. Volume buttons that glow a soft white glow when pressed, a glossy power button and an extremely satisfying soft click when the lid is closed.

I think I’m in love. :D

Considering my last laptop was XP, jumping to Windows 7 seems like a pretty big leap, both in technology and ease of use. Gosh, it makes you feel sorry for the people thousands of years ago who only had Windows 98. (Actually, I was one of those people, but I’m a little younger than a thousand years old)

For people who are interested in spec and so on… It’s a new Dell, Inspiron, 17, 350Gm; I could write a lot more stuff but I doubt there are too many people interested in minute spec details :D

I must say, I am loving Windows 7. The graphics are just as gorgeous as Vista, and the snappy window things are useful, as I usually have more than a hundred windows open (jk). Task bar is cool, nice themes, all rather floaty but nice. And I know you could get Writer on Vista, but I still love it, as this is the first time I’ve used it.

Actually, and I know this might sound odd, but I would much prefer I didn’t have this laptop- even though I’m in love with it. But that’s another story.

Anyway, that’s enough of laptop/love talk, moving on :D

Had a lovely long holiday in Cornwall the other week, surprisingly good weather but surprisingly bad surf. Hardly got any surfing done- and I seem to have lost whatever kind of touch I had with my surfboard. Let’s see if I can behave like the world cup players and blame my board. I might have to take lessons; shock horror.

Right now, I’m on holiday again. Well, I wouldn’t call it a holiday- a two day break? Anyway, typing from the hotel room in Marriot hotel in Norfolk. Today, been on a very windy beach (85mph, at a guess) and been to a brewery for fathers day (Yes, I know it’s not today). Tonight, the reason we came to Norfolk, we’re going to an excavation on a beach. Looking for half a million year old human remains; well exciting :D

Blogging news- I’ve made a photography blog; hurrah and all that jazz. Not giving you the link yet- haven’t put anything on it to date. Will do soon, but it is taking a while to search through the million or so photos from my camera/s :( Only putting on the best of the best (SIR *MIB reference*) on the site, of course. If you could call them the best.

Apologies for the lack of pictures on this entry, don’t have many on my new laptop.

World cup, now. Sorry for non-football-fans, you losers can move on if you like :) First things first: ENGLAND, SMARTEN UP, THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

I would say I cannot believe this is happening, but I really can. We usually fail on the first match or so, right? In every WC it’s the same. Then we get good enough that you think we have a chance- then, at the top of our game, we fall back down again, never to be heard from again.

This time, however, I cannot see us surfacing from the deep pit of despair/doom/death/destruction/cataclysmicfailure that we now reside within. I hope I am wrong- and this phenomenon often occurs, so don’t toss your England flag away just yet.

It’s my birthday in a few weeks :D Yay

You must all know what’s coming up now. Yes, music.

Stunning, beautiful song by the Villagers, my repeat-this-for-hours song at the moment.

Hope you are all well,

~Illusionist xx

p.s. this page might have a new blog layout soon- keep watching ;)

Mr Brightside, May Ball and Venice

2010-05-09T15:55:00.000+01:00

Oh god.

As I write this, we are not sure whether our country will go down in flames or, er, the other option which I'm not entirely sure is good either.

Yes, I am talking about the election.

As I write this, representatives from the Tories and Lib Dems are probably sitting in an office together with tea, discussing the fate of our country.

I have a number of issues with this, as I'm sure we all do.

Tories and Lib Dems together. In the same office. This is not right/good/morally just. This is my first issue, if you can call it an issue.

Secondly, if Nick Clegg thinks he will achieve much more by making a deal with the Conservatives rather than Labour, I think he is mistaken (but I don't want to be bigoted {rofl, *cough*GB*cough*}, because I don't really know loads about it).

Thirdly, I just like Labour better and don't really like the Conservatives. So does everyone else, by the looks of things, but this assumption is made only by using Twitter, Facebook and our school. (I believe this to be satisfactory, but others might not) Except Timmy, but he can be excused.

I should probably explain the title of this blog now. Yesterday my mother came up with a great analogy for this hung parliament situation of ours; I'm sure you are all familiar with the great song Mr. Brightside by the Killers? If not-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrkeWsQZNyU

(hurrah for early music links)

This is going to be a bit strange, but bare with me. Here goes.

Gordon Brown is Mr Brightside.

First things first- no, I don't think Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown kissed; that brings disturbing images

to mind so might as well just get rid of that. Instead, Nick Clegg, or rather, the one that Gordon Brown

wants, (no, not like that) has ran off to meet David Cameron to meet with him instead.

And Gordon can't bear to look. 'And I just can't look its killing me'? Yess, now you see why it works.

Or you might not and I just look stupid.

ANYWAY thats with all the election stuff over-

ONE MORE THING. Pissed off greatly about the science funding cuts looking to be set in stone. Hopefully, even though Nick Clegg is siding with the Tories at the moment, he can quietly not cut the funding, without Airbrush Man noticing.

Note: I was planning on doing plenty more blog entries during the election, but I decided that there were far too many things to comment on and that would take forever, and y'all would get pretty bored.

Okay, thats enough election stuff, you're probably bored by now. Moving on.

On Friday I went to Robin Ince's School For Gifted Children May Ball at the Bloomsbury Theatre at UCL. It was absolutely fantastic, loved every minute of it; there were quite a number of acts, and I couldn't name them all, but amongst them were Robin Ince, of course, Marcus Brigstocke, Andrew Collins and Gavin Osborn; but the person who I'd primarily gone there to see was Professor Brian Cox. I admire him greatly for the work he's done for science and physics and all sorts of things; I thought that his series, Wonders of the Solar System, was really inspiring and amazing to watch.

His talk on Friday at the May Ball was great, wish it had been longer. I met him in the interval (honored :D) and we had a chat about the election, his series and his book. He was in a bad mood, thanks to the Tories being up top and the Liberals further down than everyone would have liked, so told him not to be too disheartened and all that, the LibDems still had chances to change things, especially with all the physics funding. Wish we could have chatted for longer; but the next act was about to start so he ran off to go and watch it from the side of the stage.

So that was fun :D

Doctor Who was fortunately back to the goodness of the first episode; we should all cast aside the previous episode with the Weeping Angels as a blip to never exist again. I thought the plot of this week's episode was pretty good, less plot-hole-filled than the others.

Liked the teeth, the vampire girls were pretty cool :D Haha, fish from space. Some great quotes and moments in there, like 'glad I brought this along' and 'we can all swim'. The only issue with the episode is that the girl was called Isabella. Have the Doctor Who team actually read Twilight? On one hand lets hope not.

I might be going to Venice next year anyway, so I'll bring a massive UV light with me, just in case.

This coming week is going to be pretty busy for me. Monday: Centenary Lecture at the Science Museum with Prof Simon Schaffer, should be good. Tuesday: got tickets to a Radio Four recording: The Reith Lectures: The Scientific Citizen, with the Chairman of the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow.

Side note: doing two weeks work experience with him in the Royal Society in July x3

Friday: Possible going-to-museums-at-night thing with people, like the Grant Museum and the British Museum, in the Egyptian bit. o.o

And got a few exams coming up, eh.

You should know what's coming up by now. Music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=461DTk1C5_Y

Fave from Plastic Beach at the moment.

Aaand another greatly amusing cat video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fErbxtKMOWM&feature=fvw

Hope you all are well :)

~Illusionist xx

Short little bit of prose and updates

2010-05-02T13:30:00.001+01:00

Ello,

Wow, it's nearly been a month since my last entry; I really should do more exciting things so I have more to blog about more often. I always seem to end up waiting for other stuff to add to my posts so end up waiting a long time.

Anyway, I'm only writing this entry now so I don't have to wait until next Saturday. See, then I could update loads on election stuff (yeah, election fever, sorry) and about Prof Brian Cox's lecture on Friday. But no matter, I'll write a quick one now. But the main purpose of this entry is to post a preview of some of my latest writings; no promise it'll be at all good.

Well, I started writing a story that I actually think I might finish for once; and I haven't written anything prehistoric for a long time, so decided to give it a shot. This is just an extract from about halfway through. Basically, an expedition, led by a guy called Harold from the NHM, went back to study Velociraptors and stuff. Sounds stupid, I know, but I was rushed to think of any ideas. :/ The narrator is Canzan, one of the members of the team.

Day 46, early morning

Went out early this morning, before the sun was up. I know we’re not supposed to leave the camp before sunrise, ‘it’s too dangerous’, but I didn’t really care. I can look after myself, I think.

Before I continue, I must note down an exciting development! Because I think that words like ‘N22’ are not names suitable enough for Velociraptors, I’ll be naming them myself from now on. I don’t care if the others think it’s stupid, they don’t really care about my ideas anyway. And because I am obsessed with physics and it’s about time some kind of physics came into this expedition, I’m naming them after Jupiter and Saturn’s moons.

So first new record coming up of the raptor I saw this morning. (‘saw’ is a very loose term)

Name: Europa

Gender: Female

Predicted age: Quite young, possibly only two years old

Length- possibly about four metres from snout tip to tail tip

Appearance distinctablities (just invented a new word): Smaller than average, three black rings on the end of tail. Distinctive three inch wide black band on left ankle. One claw missing on her right foot, but this doesn’t seem to inhibit her movement. No other distinguishing marks.

Other: Extremely inquisitive for her age, also extremely fast. (Note: never watch her feeding on a kill, she’ll chase you)

Alright, well, if I see her again I’ll note it down here.

Other news? Nothing much is happening, to be honest. Just the usual. Grey being a bit miserable, but then again, when is he not? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile at anything except when Victoria is being her usual bitchy self. I still don’t know for the life of me why she actually wanted to come on this trip- she probably thought she was going to miss something if she stayed at home.

Well there’s not much to miss. I’m getting really very frustrated- as nice as Harold is, and as grateful as I am to him for bringing me along, he isn’t being very proactive. He just sits there all day counting his insect collection.

But what am I saying? I’m perfectly happy where I am. More than perfectly happy- ecstatic? This is the Cretaceous period, for christs sake! I don’t think I’ve ever felt more at home- and that’s counting the time when I went to the LHC.

Actually, the only thing that’s really bothering me at the moment is that somehow, everyone else in the team, save for maybe Victoria, seem to know each other, really well. And from what I can gather, none of them have been on any other missions together. They all pretty much ignore me, save for Harold.

Anyway, I hope we leave camp soon and get some real research done. But for now I’m happy where I am.

I finished writing, and chewed the end of my pen thoughtfully. I had mentioned the group thing was bothering me- but was it really? Did I really want to be ‘great mates’ with Phoebe?

I jotted one more thing down.

Oh yeah, and I thought the other day- is Grey his actual name? Or is it something else? Because Grey is a really interesting name, if it is. But Phoebe sometimes looks kinda awkward calling him Grey. Hmm.

I scowled slightly at the paper, then looked around my tent again, sighing. From inside here, it didn’t look like I was 70 million years ago in the past from my present. It just looked like I was on a humble camping trip in the English countryside somewhere.

What am I doing? I sighed again, and lifelessly tossed my book and pen back onto my piles of stuff. Why am I even here?

I mentally slapped myself. Aw come on! Where’s that enthusiasm gone? So what if you’re not doing exactly what you came here to do? Do you know what you are? You’re bloody lucky, that’s what! Make the most of it!

Yeah, I talk to myself quite a bit. It works mostly.

When talking to myself didn’t work, I’d do some photography.

So suppressing another sigh, I gently unwrapped my D5000 from its case, put the wrap around my neck and crawled back out my tent.

The landscape’s song was in full swing this morning as I emerged. Pinky red streaks lit up the skyline where the dark sun was just beginning to rise majestically above the mountain crags in the distance, on the opposite shore of the massive gleaming lake. It looked out of this worldly- prehistoric, use what you will.

Bad weather’s on its way, I thought glumly. The clouds above the camp were flaming with red at the edges. It was much like the raptor- beautiful, but spelt major danger.

The light that the shoreline and camp was bathed in was stunningly bronze and copper coloured, and for a moment a smile twitched the corners of my mouth, a small surge of joy at the gorgeousness of the scene before my eyes. Home seemed so far away- yet at the same time it was right here, close.

Instinctively, I lifted my camera up to my eyes, and clicked the shutter after the autofocus bleep had kicked in. I smiled as Phoebe gave a little annoyed hiss, and her fingers tightened around her gun.

“It’s only a photo, Phoebe,” I grinned and lowered my camera again.

“Shouldn’t you be cataloguing or something, space boy?” she scoffed, snorting. Her dark eyes glinted maliciously, and if she wasn’t holding her gun close to her, I bet she’d toss her long black hair over her shoulder with a little bit of attitude. A lot of attitude. Phoebe liked attitude.

I ignored the ‘space boy’ comment, and trudged past her, and then past a solemn-looking Grey, still hunched at his laptop with a frown on his face.

“I’m just going to go and take some photos-“ I started to call over my shoulder, momentarily wondering where Victoria and Harold were. Phoebe interrupted me, predictably. “Yeah, whatever. Go get eaten or whatever.”

I was too content to scowl, so I simply continued to stride out of the camp’s boundaries, as the ground began to grow thick with ferns and bracken. I reached the edge of the monkey puzzle tree forest, taking a large gulp of fresh, crisp natural air, and the scent of moist leaves and forest-ness filled my head. Raven-like calls rained down from above, and I flicked my gaze upward to see another flock of smaller pterodactyls glide overhead, over the tops of the towering tree forest.

Perhaps I’ll see if I can find Europa again? Although she might not appreciate the sight of me so soon after our last encounter. I sighed as I recalled the deafening tones of the bicycle horn I’d had to blow. It must have hurt her ears slightly, hopefully not too much at all.

However, I hadn’t even passed into the beginning of the thicker undergrowth when a piercing scream split the morning air like a knife slashing through glass, shards of terror stabbing through my chest. Whirling round, I numbly realised that the scream had been human, so I frantically stumbled forward and raced back on the way to camp. Images of ripped tents, bodies strewn across the clearing and blood splattered all over the earth streaked through my mind at fast speed. What happened?!

I staggered back into camp, glancing around wildly, expecting to see some kind of macabre scene with lots of crimson. I prepared myself for the worst, drawing my breath in sharply.

However, everything was still in the same place. Grey was still sat quite placidly at his laptop outside his tent; Phoebe had only sat up a little straighter and held her gun a little higher with narrowed eyes. Her gaze flicked back to me as I entered the camp again.

For a few moments I was confused. Who screamed? What happened?

Then the reason became clear.

Blond curls spilled out from the tent a few metres away from my own, and Victoria emerged, her eyes wide in frantic panic and her mouth wide in a silent, choking scream.

“What is it?” Phoebe hissed, standing.

Grey looked up somewhat absently from his work.

Victoria didn’t seem to be able to speak for a few moments, her lips moving soundlessly, gesturing toward her tent.

“It’s- it’s-“ she stuttered breathlessly, “It’s a little thing-“

I sighed extremely heavily through my nose, narrowing my eyes and gritting my teeth. Everything was so perfect a minute ago, and then Victoria had to go and spoil it. There wasn’t even any blood or anything: it was probably only a spider. How exciting. Not.

Ignoring Victoria’s panicked glare for a few moments, I looked down to check that my camera hadn’t sustained any damage in my frantic scramble back to camp. Thankfully, only the lens cap had fallen off, and thankfully again, that was still attached on a string. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned again to Victoria, who was still pointing and sobbing dry tears as she gestured madly toward her tent. She was still in her bright, neon pink sleeping clothes and slippers. I wondered briefly what had scared her so much inside her tent that she had to appear so undignified in front of the team.

“What is it, Victoria? What did it look like?” Grey sighed, sounding rather bored. Then again, Grey was never very interested in anything. I suspected he was getting rather bored here, seen as though he had been hired to track things and so far we’d done no tracking whatsoever.

“It was green, and- and- it ran fast-“ she wailed.

Phoebe scowled, and promptly headed over to Victoria’s tent and without hesitation, opened the tent flap. Almost instantly, a tiny creature gave a little shriek of alarm, almost like Victoria’s but not as loud and piercing, and leaped out of the tent. For a few heartbeats of shock I thought it was a tiny little Velociraptor- it possessed the same shape, the same build; it had short, flexible arms and strong legs with the same little talon-like claw on each foot, and the same kind of neck shape and snout. But the only difference was this creature was only about five inches tall and bright green.

Well, it wasn’t a spider- but it wasn’t much worse than the scorpions you could find out here.

Victoria screamed again as the creature emerged and bared its short white teeth at her, giving a small hiss. As Grey raised his eyebrows and stepped toward it, the small dinosaur gave a snarl and raced off without a look back across the plains toward the forest and disappeared, a dust trail limply following it.

“I think that’s enough excitement for one morning,” Grey said dryly, giving Victoria a glance before ambling back to sit at his laptop again. Phoebe gave Victoria a death stare on half-killing-power, just to let her know she was annoyed for a minute but not irritated enough to kill her. Phoebe was like that.

Now that it was clear Victoria was not physically hurt in any way, the situation became hilarious to me. She was still stood there in her bright pink clothes and slippers, looking extremely shocked and terrified, and just the smallest hint of red was beginning to creep into her cheeks.

“Victoria?” I managed to croak, in between my suppressed laughter. “Are you alright?”

Her head whipped round to face me, and I couldn’t help but wince. The expression on Victoria’s face when she got angry was almost as worse as Phoebe’s, except her expression was closer to loftiness than fury. Her eyes lit up like flaming coals of emerald embers.

“What are you staring at...” she hissed, then delicately paused in a way only Victoria could without looking stupid, as if she was trying to think of an inventive nickname for me. Then she grinned. “Cancan?”

I raised my eyebrow.

Cancan?

Is that really the best she can come up with? Even ‘space boy’ is more inventive than that.

“Er,” I blurted, “Well I wondering if you were alright.”

That was an alright comeback.

Wait, no it wasn’t. Damn it.

“I’m perfectly fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” she gave a light, confident laugh. Then with another one of her sad ‘you’re going to die, sorry’ smiles, she disappeared within her tent again.

I sighed.

As I've nearly finished this story of about 20,000 words, I've already started planning my next story, which is quite different. With that story, I'll post each chapter up here for you guys to read and keep up with week by week. Should be good.

As usual, some music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTe0yJdi6qg

Fave recently, shown to me by Frenchi.

Aaand something random that I really, really want. (bd hints)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsVWG8hUTDo

~Illusionist xx

Quite A Lot Of Art And Science

2010-04-05T16:14:00.000+01:00

Hello again.

I have a lot to update on, and have been waiting a while to write this blog entry, so I forgive you if you’re not going to read it all. Feel free to skip bits :P

These past few days have been extremely excellent (alliteration, hah), and I have fallen in love with far too many things too quickly, this I am sure is not healthy. However, I do not care one little bit, as the things I have fallen in love with are fantastic. So just ignore my little OMFGILOVEIT attacks here and there.

First off, I hope you all had a great Easter, plentiful in little fluffy bunnies and large helpings of chocolate. As it was the end of Lent on Sunday, I ate more biscuits than chocolate, as that was the food I gave up for the 40 silly days I had definitely begun to hate by the end of it. As I’ve said before, I think, I admire people greatly that have given up chocolate, (*cough* Celeste *cough*) and I shall try and repeat their amazing feat of determination next year. But for now (Jamie Cullem lyrics seem to weave their way into everything) I will be content with chocolate.

Now, Easter wouldn’t be Easter without Doctor Who, right? (Wait, no, that’s not right, should be Christmas. Ah well.) So what follows is a short little review of my opinion on that episode, The Eleventh Hour, on Saturday. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten much. Spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it yet.

Let’s go in chronological order to avoid confusion (mainly in my own head)- beginning with the title sequence. Instantly disapproved the music, sounds much too...Electronic? not the right word. Anywho, however, I then much approved the fonts. Still not so sure about the logo, the ‘W’ still looks like a radiator to me. But overall, title sequence was quite different and therefore quite good.

THE DOOR FREAKED ME OUT.

Ahem.

The plot, especially at the beginning, was a little predictable, what with the ‘Promise you’ll be back in five minutes?’, and it reminded me a little of the whole Rose thing when she was dropped back, like, 4 months later or whatever it was, and Jackie got pissed. But ahwell. Otherwise the plot was great, looks like Moffat is going to be brilliant. I’ve always loved his episodes so am looking forward, as I’m sure everyone else is, to a whole series of him. I thought the crack idea was really good, especially seen as though I’ve got one almost identical to that just outside my room, and I wish that they’d stuck with the crackinthewall idea more.

The door freaked me out. When it opened after she’d moved or whatever. :0

The big eye thing seemed a bit random though. :/ Loved the eelsnake thing, fantastic teeth, twas cool when those little girls got the teeth. The dog guy was scary too. :D

But, of course, how can you not love Matt Smith? (first of my loves) He is simply brilliant. :D Although, I mustn’t be too quick to judge, so I’m going to wait a few episodes before I announce that I either approve or disapprove of this new Doctor. Of course, David Tennant is missed greatly, and I still like him better, and not sure that Matt Paint will overall be better than him. So we’ll have to wait and see. But I do love his boyish enthusiasm and his matter-of-fact sort of manner. He’s also got a more light-hearted tone than Tennant. (He’s also gorgeous when he smiles.)

Urgh, I suppose I’m just jealous, but I’m not sure about this Amy Pond yet. She had a cool name in the beginning, but ‘Amy’? Hmm. Again, trying not to be quick judging on her. At first I would call her plain, but she’s really not, she’s different, and I can see why the Doctor might like her. I just hope to god it doesn’t turn out the sort of ‘I love you’ and ‘Omg I love you too’ thing like Rose did. Donna was brilliant in that respect. (Martha was just useless)

I have, however, got a serious problem with something else.

The sonic screwdriver.

They are supposed to be BLUE.

Not GREEN. It’s not supposed to be BLOODY GREEN. Urgh. Well, I shall have to live with it.

Other than that, the new colours of everything (including his outfit and the TARDIS) are definitely agreeable, love the new kind of fantasy fairytale theme. I must say, the new interior of the TARDIS is fantastic, I love the shinyness and bright colours, nicely disorientating. His outfit, not so keen on, but the bowtie is cool. Very cool.

Overall, the whole episode was rather mind-blowing, and I am certainly pleased to see Doctor Who at its best :D Looking forward to next Saturday’s episode!

~~~

Then there was F1 on Sunday. I woke up bright and early at 8am to watch the start of the race, as I knew I wouldn’t be there for the end of it. After the pretty messy start, with Hamilton picking off his ‘victims’ (as the BBC called it) rather more frequently than usual, and Button doing his usual ‘right let’s get ‘em, lads’ thing, the race went quite smoothly for a while. Sad to see Glock spin off or whatever he did, didn’t quite catch the whole thing.

But then, legasp.

Schumacher ;_;

I CRIED. Jk. I didn’t quite cry. But I was dismayed and horrified and traumatised (nah not the last one) when I saw him slowing down, and radioing through to say there was a problem. It was like Apollo 13 all over again. A wheel nut or something had come off, I’m not quite sure what had happened.

But DAMN he looked awesome on a motorbike :’D

Ahem, anyway, yeah, it was so sad he was out. I am seriously beginning to doubt my prediction that he’d do relatively well ): He can still get it back, though, c’mon.

Congrats to Vettel, some great driving there. Where on earth had the Ferrari lot gotten to? Ahwell. Hamilton died or something amusing.

~~~

Okay, next love comin’ up.

I got a new camera last week. :D

ITISSOSHINY.

Okay, technically it’s not mine. Technically it’s the ‘family camera’. But my dad hardly ever uses cameras, and my mum never does. So it’s all mine. ALLMINE, I TELL YOU.

For people who know about cameras- it’s a DSLR, Nikon D5000. 18-22 lens, hopefully getting a telephoto next year. I luff it soo much o3o Hoping to get into more professional photography, with more lenses and the like. (prints might be available :D) Went out to Clivdon Gardens to test it out, put through its paces. Pleased to report it was excellent, after I’d figured how to do the manual focus (yeah, shuttup :/ ) and all the different scene settings. (It has a setting for blossom, which came in handy)

YAY FOR PREVIEWS.

~~~

Okay, last thing I promise.

Yesterday was a very sad but momentous day. For it was the day that the last episode of Wonders of the Solar System was on. ): It is a brilliant programme presented by the brilliant Professor Brian Cox, whom I’ve met and gone to one of his lectures on the LHC, where he works on the ATLAS detector there. I think he’s very inspiring, and is great at passing on his obvious passion for physics and astronomy.

Anywho, the series had been excellent so far, so the last episode was bound to be great. And it was. Really very inspiring and exceedingly interesting. An epic tribute to our Solar System and the wonders within it. I also thought it was great that at the end, after he’d introduced the idea that our civilisation is the greatest Wonder in the Solar System, he didn’t waffle on about how we need to ‘get our acts together and save our Earth from the death that is heading its way’. Because most people do that.

He has much rekindled my love for physics and desire to be a physicist again. I remember the days when I would dream of working at CERN, and I might quite possibly want to work there again :’D Let’s see if they have a department in Berlin. I could design cars in my spare time.

~~~

As usual, lets end with some music.

Fave Gorillaz song at the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SxlD74hvRk

And a video of a cat. (My own. Not my own cat, my own video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pOLjt4q32s

Hope you enjoyed this very long blog entry. :P Talk to you all soon.

~Illusionist x

Bit late, but lets see how bad my writing's gotten

2010-03-21T16:11:00.000Z

:/ Bit late, but lets see how bad my writing's gotten. I started writing this a few weeks ago, but then deleted the whole thing and started again- so don't expect it to be great. But I think it's alright ^^' Again, you might recognise the black haired boy, he's one of my favorite characters from my Nano. The other boy is a character under development, this helped a lot.

Fishing

At the bottom of the village, past the willow tree and through the apple orchard, there sat two boys on the dry riverbank, under the dappled shade of the canopy of rich emerald above them. The deep azure river lay still and silent, a small sandy cloud of mayflies swarming over the water. One of the boys had a fishing pole in one hand, his neatly cropped hair framing his sharp features, a stony but relaxed expression on his face as he adjusted the pole, tugging it back slightly as ripples pulsated across the glassy surface of the water. The other boy was startlingly different, with longer black flyaway hair nearly covering his bright silver eyes and a mischievous grin seemingly permanently etched onto his casually handsome face, a cigarette held indifferently in slender fingers.

The two boys were universes apart, but in the same world.

They enjoyed the atmosphere of early spring, with the forests echoing with nightingale ad lark calls, the light cooling breeze whispering in the trees. A flash of blue and gold- a kingfisher darting across the river. The boy with the fishing pole glanced over at the other boy, who was sprawled out on the grass next to him.

“Sorry, I forgot.” the dark haired boy said in German, flashed him a grin and took one last puff of his cigarette before lightly dropping it and patting it out with his boot. He then folded his hands and put them behind his head, gazing up into the huge clear dome of eggshell blue sky.

Grey knew full well that Stoermer had not forgotten that he hated it when he smoked. He scowled and irritably twitched his fishing rod with a flick of his wrist, the line making a cut through the smooth water as he pulled it slightly closer to the bank.

“You know your father wanted you in the stables earlier, I forgot to tell you,” yawned Grey, his moss green eyes focused firmly on the river.

“Yeah, and I got a ‘gram this morning from the British, saying the Wall’s come down.” Stoermer answered promptly, casting a dark but somehow wistful look over to the opposite bank.

Grey made a sceptical snort, following Stoermer’s gaze to the dark cement structure looming over the water on the other side of the river.

Philippsthal was a small town in West Germany, just north from the Fulda Gap. The Berlin Wall, or Berliner Mauer, ran straight through the village, splitting it in two, laced with barbed wire and studded with watch towers along its length until it snaked out of the village and into Berlin beyond the hills.

The residents of the village had learned to live with it. They compared it with the evil in the world- you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, nor can you get rid of it completely, so you must learn to live with it. And that was exactly what they did.

Grey scowled again, deeper this time, glaring at the foreboding, dismal wall of concrete opposite them across the water. It cast a giant shadow on the forest beyond it; or at least on the tips of the trees that were visible. Suddenly the bird calls sounded less vibrant, the river less beautiful, the sunlight darker. Gritting his teeth, Grey had a sudden urge to hurl something across the river- a stone, his shoe, his fishing pole; anything that would make a mark on the barrier between him and the rest of the world.

“Stoermer, what do you want to do with your life?” Grey hissed, unable to keep the fury from his voice.

His friend propped himself up on his elbows, looking at him warily, his silver eyes glinting in the sunlight. “Live fast, die old?” he suggested with a casual shrug.

“Seriously,” Grey tutted, fingers tightening on the fishing pole in his hand, his eyes still frowning at the Wall.

There was a few heartbeats of silence. “I don’t know. Something useful,” Stoermer murmured eventually. He was oddly solemn; his silver eyes were slightly confused but thoughtful. Another pause. “What about you?”

“I am going to be the first over that Wall,” Grey spat.

The hint of a smile was back on Stoermer’s features. “Bit late, mate. You mean the first one over the Wall alive?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Stoermer picked a blade of grass from the earth and twirled it between his fingers.

There was another minute of silence, in which Grey twitched his wrist, drawing the fishing line a little closer to their bank, as if he didn’t want it any closer to the Wall.

“D’you miss her?” he enquired.

“Miss who?” Stoermer looked up.

“Arianna.”

For a moment Grey wondered if he’d gone a little too far in mentioning her name, even though they had both known who he was talking about before he’d said it. But Stoermer’s handsome features lit up with a grin.

“Of course. But she can look after herself, she doesn’t need me.” he gave a bark-like laugh.

“When was the last time you spoke to her?” Grey enquired quietly.

“The last time she could cross. Before they closed the borders.” Stoermer answered vaguely. Grey knew he wouldn’t go into it any more.

Another silence.

Stoermer folded one leg over the other and put his head back again.

“Do you think we’ll get out of here one day?” Grey mused thoughtfully, his anger slowly dissipating. He still gazed darkly at the Wall opposite them.

Stoermer rolled his eyes, and Grey breathed a sigh of relief. “You’ve always been a dreamer, Turin, but do you honestly think we’ll stay in this dump forever?”

Grey scowled- hardly anyone called him by his first name.

“But do you want to leave?” he shrugged, gripping the fishing pole between his knees and putting the fly catch in between his teeth.

“Duh.” Stoermer laughed again. “There’s not really much here for me anymore.”

“Where would you go?” Grey frowned down at the fishing pole, concentrating. “Not to Berlin?”

“Out of Germany, if I could.” his friend answered vaguely. He glanced over to Grey, his bright silver eyes laughing. “But of course, you’d already be in America, wouldn’t you?”

Grey couldn’t help but snort with laughter. If he ignored the concrete Wall on the opposite bank, the scene was still beautiful. A light spring breeze rippled the crisp air and the kingfisher streaked along the glassy water with another blaze of fiery ochre and sapphire.

“I’ll go and see what the my father wanted from me, then.” Stoermer ran a hand through his handsome black hair, rolling his mischievous eyes and grinning his usual grin. “And I’ll go and get that ‘gram from the British. Then you won’t have to die.”

With that, Stoermer stood and ambled back up the bank into the apple orchard, leaving Grey alone with his fishing rod.

Within a few minutes of silence he had caught his third fish of the morning- a small gleaming salmon, the pinkish tinge to its belly reflecting the sun, silver scales acting like a mirror.

Grey sighed, laying the dead fish aside after he’d removed the hook from its jaw. He liked fishing. But like his friend had said, there wasn’t really much here for him anymore.

He sent another dark glare at the Berlin Wall on the opposite bank, casting its great shadow on the glassy waters of the river. He hated it. Hated it with every fibre of his bones.

Would he indeed get over it someday? Alive?

He would have to wait and see, he thought, sighing again.

There, not too bad? (: Should we have some music again before I go?

Recent fave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwGgaBjoL3E

And some more Einaudi! Quite a different one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScC9K1A8mAQ

~Illusionist

Aston Martin Need to Get In There

2010-03-15T18:17:00.000Z

Well well well; the new season of Formula One started on Friday with practice on the Bahrain circuit in Sakhir. Last season in 2009 was epic, although it petered out slightly towards the end- JB lost a bit of his game and seems to have not claimed it back yet. Yet. And of course there was the whole Hamilton facade, and then Ferrari Man's injury. :P So it was exciting, lets put it that way.

Now I can't decide whether this past weekend of racing has been similar.

In the practice you couldn't really tell if it was going to be very close/exciting or not. But in qualifying, it was starting to shape up as a very interesting race on Sunday, with Button just squeezing in to eighth from the qualifying, Schumacher next to him in seventh, Vettel and Massa at the top.

So when I got back from my delightful mother day's lunch at the British Museum, I was expecting something like Button and perhaps Rosberg near the top, perhaps a Ferrari guy too. But certainly not BOTH Ferraris on the podium; I then decided that I needed to watch the whole thing on iPlayer. (side note- BBC iPlayer FTW.)

However, half way through the race, I decided that they need to change the goddamn rules.

See, the new regulations on fuel tank stuff means that racers now can't refuel during the race, even though they still have pitstops to change tyres etc. But this, in my opinion, makes the race much less exciting, not just because they don't pitstop as often, but because there's now less risk involved. So fewer drivers are overtaking etc.

Ughh, please change those rules on fueling.

Although, I hafta say, Alonso certainly showed off his driving skill in that race and was a deserved winner, and that made the race less dull. And of course Schumie, as always, made the race less dull with his swift overtaking moves. o: Still luff him, although I haven't yet decided the racer I'm going to support fully in this season. Gonna have to decide before the Australian race.

WHERE IS ASTON MARTIN?!

Ahem.

They had better hurry up and develop a Grand Prix car, otherwise I shall have to stab one of them. T___T

But anywho, back to the point, I hope this season will be as exciting as the last one. I'd like to make some little predictions before I go, but don't quote me on these. I don't think Button's gonna get back in the game, certainly not win the championship again. Schumacher...Not sure. I think he'll do quite well. Hamilton should do well too, if he can get his breaking in gear (so to speak). Not sure 'bout the Ferrari lot either, too soon to judge after the first podium wins.

Should we all have some little music before the end? :D

Latest favorites of Ludovico's, thought it would keep y'all entertained for the next week or so. (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8zT9ran8Ps

Aaand lets have some lovely John Mayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2mJpQSkae8

So this is goodbye for now x

Ludovico Einaudi

2010-03-07T10:29:00.000Z

Hello again.

Last week on Tuesday I went to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall; my final Christmas present. As I sat a mere two seats away from my favorite classical composer, I thought 'this would make a good blog entry.' So here we are.

Strangely, Ludovico Einaudi (how dare blogger say his name is spelt wrong?) seems to be featuring certainly in my writing recently, although not to my knowledge at the time. He was born in Turin, Italy, which in turn is the name of one of my new characters with which I'm writing with at the moment (Turin, not Italy). Another one of my characters popped up in his new album, a shape shifter called Phoebe Labyrinth, in the second track of the album, Lady Labyrinth.

First off, he's very different. His music and style has been described as 'minimalist' and I think the term both fits very well and doesn't fit at all. On one hand, his music is so different and so pure that 'minimalist' seems to describe it very well. However, Einaudi's music doesn't belong in the minimalist category, I don't think, it's more... subtle than that.

"In general I don't like definitions, but 'Minimalist' is a term that means elegance and openness, so I would prefer to be called a Minimalist than something else."

Ludovico Einaudi

I suppose you should listen to some before I continue. xD Here's one of my favorite tracks, anywho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQMKh8p_Zdw

{Indaco, Ludovico Einaudi. Album- Nightbook}

Every single track of his is absolutely amazing in it's own right. The track above, Indaco, is one of the beautiful ones. I don't think any other music compares, although Philip Glass would be the closest I've found so far, but even his music isn't as thought-provoking as Einaudi's.

His concert was fantastic. ^^' As we were only sat two seats away from him, I sometimes had to look back just to check the rest of the audience was actually there. He started with Lady Labyrinth, (see below) some more from Nightbook and went on to be joined by strings, and performed some of I Giorni and Primavera from Divenire. Then some more from Nightbook. Loved every minute of it. At the end he threw out flowers into the crowd, and he smiled at me and threw me one but the woman in front caught it ¬¬ Rawr.

Some of his compositions are quite different too. o_o Here's my second favorite of his songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCNXp6LRP7E

{Lady Labyrinth, Ludovico Einaudi. Nightbook}

Aaand this is my favorite, which is the first I ever heard of him, and then the first album of his I'd bought-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhuGfmoIv_M

{I Giorni, Ludovico Einaudi. I Giorni}

Beautiful.

I hope y'all have a listen to him, I recommend it. ^^'

The Joys of Writing

2010-02-27T14:09:00.000Z

I had, unforgivably and astoundingly, temporarily forgotten the joys of writing. In the good old days when we didn't have coursework, housework and every other type of work, we could frolic in the fields of 'Omfg-just-thought-of-a-new-story-plot-I'm-gonna-write-it-right-now' and plonk ourselves right in front of our computers and simply start to write this magical-one-of-a-kind story that would proceed to bore us by the seventeenth page but would have at least provided us with a few day/weeks worth of entertainment and practice.

However with the current circumstances (multitudes of mock exams and aliens to fend off with Nerf guns. gotta buy the Nerf guns first though) I haven't actually opened a brand new White Blank Page (The Sons, luff them <3)> again. I'm not admitting that failed- it didn't fail, it just...petered out? However I managed to get a few interesting characters and plotlines out of Dustland Fairytale, so that was worth while- Lady Labyrinth for one and Grey for another.

But yesterday, as my friend mentioned a dialog line he'd had in his mind for a while and wrote a little extract, I reminded myself that I was probably far too out of practice with creative writing and decided to have another shot.
It wasn't exactly one of those omfg-new-amazing-plot ideas that I knew would sustain me for a few dozen pages then I would undoubtedly give up, but it was something. I'd had a few general vague ideas floating around my mind for a while but never tried to put them down onto paper; but here was my chance! However, in this moment of staring at the newly opened White Blank Page in front of me, I conveniently forgot all of those vague ideas and started anew. Not completely anew- it's based on a character you might know pretty well by now if I've frequently irritated you with extracts of him from my NaNo and other adventurous little plotlines, and a new character whose personality I continue to be fascinated by and excited to add small details to him here and there. (:

So I started to write and was pleased to see I had retained at least a fraction of my addiction to writing- by the tenth line I couldn't stop, which I usually take as a good sign. However, as the dialog began to weave it's way into the document I slowly hit The Wall- my writing had slowly began to collapse into itself and would implode any minute if I didn't save it. Ironically, saving it meant deleting the last page or two- but I shrugged it off and continued to write.

However the Winter Olympics was calling- the snowboarding double giant slalom final was on and it was Russia against Austria so I obviously had to watch it. So I saved my no longer White Blank Page and went to watch the tense final that awaited me, knowing in satisfaction that I had temporarily forgotten the joys of writing.

~Illusionist xx

p.s. Expect an extract of this future-novel-writing-material-thing soon.

2010-02-25T18:54:00.000Z

Ahah! Hello again thar. It seems I took an unplanned and unpredicted break from blogging, for no other reason than I was starting to become very busy on the computer with editing and the many, many application emails.

But now I shall make my best efforts turn into something hopefully somewhat joyful/entertaining/painfully boring if you are half-empty/interesting blog. :D Hurrah *fireworks*

And a new layout has arrived on the red carpet! I took three hours out of my time that would not have been spent doing something useful otherwise to create my own layout with little sticky notes and notebook-like tables etc, and a pretty little Berlin background. However, my own layout was not half as good as this one I found, which looks much more professional and rather more exciting. So three hours down the drain, but I've still got that one and all the HTML code in reserve. ^^ I might mess around a bit with the background of it, but of course still keep the credits on etc.

So just a quick entry to say that I'm back and watch this space. ^^'

End of a Road

2009-11-30T20:12:00.001Z

Well.

Yes, I've finished Nano.

Passed the 50,000 word mark on Saturday.

Still can't quite believe it.

And my novel is still not finished. I estimate it will be well over 70,000 words when I eventually finish it. (: And I shall enjoy every minute of it.

I can't say I've enjoyed every minute of this month of NaNoWriMo, but most of it. Most, not all. There have been difficult times, but the awesome times well make up for them.

Now for editing!

Hurrah. =___=

I shan't post the whole story anywhere yet, I'm not sure I'm ready to share it with anyone yet. Anywho, I shall have to finish it first and edit the whole thing. Probably will take me quite a while.

Hurrah, random happiness rocks :D

Back to the usual routine... Although I hardly know what to do on the computer anymore. o.o I haven't set any targets for my days anymore, even though I'm still writing it, but I just feel lost without them. Maybe I'll give myself a smaller target of words a day, like Frenchi suggested.

Maybe.

Although I must say, I am relatively enjoying my newfound freedom (:

Anywho, looking forward to December, which fortunately starts tomorrow! *waves Christmas tree branches madly* Hurrah! Can't wait for the 25th. It shall be awesome. Although I don't think I'm doing massively loads for the festive month, perhaps going to Camilla's party, as per usual every year, need something to wear. :/ Must go Christmas shopping.

As this November draws to a close, I wish everyone a Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas (I'm sure it's one of those.) and hope everyone is well. And I give myself a little clap for finishing my first NaNoWriMo.

~Illusionist

Home Stretch... Oh and Snow Patrol

2009-11-26T16:54:00.000Z

Yes, now on the home stretch of NaNoWriMo. Only 9k left. Can't quite believe it yet. The last 30k has been a massive struggle at times, but a brilliant experience at others, mostly brilliant experience. Sure it's hard when you reach huge plot gaps, or recognise you have numerous holes in your previously thought of full-proof plot, but those times pass when you slave over the keyboard for a few hours or so. (: Then it's back to the good times again, when your writing flows more easily. My inner editor is causing me hell, however. It will go mad next month, perhaps self combust.

Yesterday was a very, very good night.

Went to the Royal Albert Hall to see Snow Patrol. Not only was I with two of my closest friends (although one was missing, wish you'd come, although I don't think you love SP ;3) but we went to see one of my favorite bands at the moment.

The RAH was an amazing venue, too, and a new experience for me- I'd only ever been to concerts like the Killers at outside venues like Hyde Park.

We'd got standing tickets right at the top; best view, in my opinion. 'Twas rather high (had to hug someone even tighter because of this, didn't mind though). I have a feeling my mother wouldn't have liked it.

They started with The Finish Line and finished with one I didn't know, if I can remember correctly. Feel free to correct me, either of you xD Favorites among all of the songs they played were You Could Be Happy, Chasing Cars, You're All I Have and Run (of course). Also we were lucky, Martha Wrainwright had turned up on the last night of SnowPatrol at the RAH, the night we were there, to sing alongside SP for Set The Fire To The Third Bar.

They also sang One Day Like This by Elbow. (:

I'd like to say thanks to you both for tagging along with me and enduring my occasionally pointless babblings. Although I tried to keep it to a minimum. You're my new concert buddies; maybe I'll try and get tickets for us all for Elbow or Coldplay next year.

Right, so, yes, NaNo.

Home stretch, as I've said before.

So I think it's time for another preview. Sit down on the carpet, children, and hope yha enjoy it! (: Remember again that this is completely unedited. Its a whole chapter this time, I forgive you if you don't read all of it xD

Here goes.

Stoermer was beginning to be rather startled by the two children, which was extremely unusual for an SS agent like himself.

He had already been relatively surprised as he had followed Lorelie and her friend almost half way across the city of Berlin in a single day, before it even got dark. Where on earth were they going? Were they just walking randomly, trying to confuse the SS perhaps? Did they think Stoermer was following them?

Still far too many questions and few little answers.

Stoermer would just have to listen.

He could remember his lessons well.

He had been temporarily transferred to New York, America.

Stoermer had never had much experience with the Americas; nor the people who lived there. After three days in the city of New York, he decided that he didn’t like Americans.

SS agents were taught to judge quickly but rationally.

Saved a lot of time in the field.

Of course, the Americans didn’t know he was from SS; neither did they know he was even from Germany. They didn’t know he was here in New York for a rather special training course.

He was here on the MN Ausbildung, S7.

An assassin’s course.

Of course, being an agent in the SS didn’t mean you could choose what you wanted to be. You couldn’t just be an assassin; couldn’t just be an officer. You had a duty to be all these things; and more.

But because Stoermer had been specially commended, he came to New York with only one course in mind.

Stoermer was not surprised that the multitude of the training was to be spent sat in a lecture theatre, watching one of the SS Generals instructed at the front, writing with white chalk on a black board.

The instructor was not a typical SS General, however. Stoermer found him more engaging than any other instructor he’d ever had before, which was certainly saying something, knowing the SS’s reputation for teaching. He found him easier to listen to, easier to learn from; and certainly fascinating to watch him deal with certain aspects of the class.

The class was very small; which was usually good news for an assassin’s training course. Less people to deal with, less people to get in your way. But their instructor, Kosov, had narrowed his dark blue eyes and gazed at us criticisingly as they’d filed for the first time into his lecture theatre, tapping his pen seemingly absently on the side of the front desk.

The first question he asked was an odd one. And not just because it was in English.

“How do you listen?”

Stoermer’s class of five was instantly silent. They were seated on the front row of the theatre, looking straight ahead. Stoermer narrowed his eyes, mirroring his new instructor, and evaluated his appearance. After a few quick heartbeats he decided to wait before making any assumptions.

Stoermer could speak perfect fluent English- it had been one of his requirements for himself once he had joined the SS Youth, the Jugend. The Commanders hadn’t put it down on his form that he had to speak English; but he found it extremely beneficial.

He could also speak fluent Russian, French, Icelandic and could just about understand Czechoslovakian.

He was sat at the end of the row of five students. Stoermer glanced quickly down the aisle, assessing each of the other SS agents swiftly. None of them looked very dangerous; but once again, he decided to wait before making any kind of assumptions.

He did, however, evaluate their facial expressions and body language as Kosov asked this first fundamental question.

The three students next to him didn’t look very confused- one frowned ever so slightly, another tightened their jaw, and the other drew their lips together into a tight line.

However, the student on the other end of the row looked bemused.

“Sprechen Sie Englisch?” Kosov said kindly, focusing his gentle gaze on the end row student.

They shook their head very, very slowly.

“Then you do not belong here. You have no future in the SS unless you can listen.” Kosov continued coldly, his eyes abruptly turning icy, knowing this student couldn’t understand a word he was saying. “You are lucky that I do not shoot you with the pistol I sure have in my pocket. You are very lucky to be alive.”

The student continued to stare at Kosov with a terrified but still confused expression. Stoermer drew in his breath sharply, but only watched the student at the end of the row out of the corner of his silver eyes. The other students didn’t dare turn their heads either.

“The simplicity of it is that you cannot understand what I am saying. And therefore fail to listen.” Kosov spoke with a dark kind of finality.

There was a tense moment of silence, and the student opened his mouth to speak. Stoermer willed him to shut up, but of course he didn’t.

“Ich lernen kann.” he pleaded desperately. Stoermer did not feel any kind of sympathy for him- why should he? This student had no idea that Kosov had just saved him a very messy death. He had no idea that Kosov had dismissed him in the first minute of the first class.

I can learn.

“No, you cannot learn.” their instructor continued icily. “You cannot learn to listen. You either can listen or you cannot listen. You cannot listen. Therefore you are dismissed.”

There was another moment of tense silence. Stoermer could see the student’s hands gripping the side of his seat, knuckles turning white. Stoermer wondered whether the student had gotten the message yet.

“Bitte, ich verstehe das nicht.” he pleaded.

Obviously not. What a shame.

Please, I don’t understand.

Stoermer saw Kosov sigh deeply through his nostrils. It was a heavy, resigned sigh.

“You brought this upon yourself.” he said, sounding bored. “I did not want to do this to you.” he paused, looking with his head slightly tilted at the single student, who sat trembling in his seat, having now idea of what was going on. Stoermer swallowed.

“You could have been useful. It’s always the good ones.” Kosov sighed.

In a swift movement, before any of the students had time to react, their instructor drew a dark black pistol and a single shot was fired, echoing off the walls of the large lecture theatre.

Stoermer still did not look to the left, but he felt a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his face.

“Look, now I’ll have to call the cleanup crew.” Kosov said, almost exasperatedly.

The situation was humorous for half a heartbeat. Then it wasn’t, all of a sudden.

Stoermer had no doubt that the student who couldn’t speak English was dead. Shot in cold blood.

That gave him some idea of what the course was going to be like.

None of the other three students moved their heads to look at the slumped body of the student who had been shot.

Kosov had already put his pistol back into his SS issue trench coat pocket with another small sigh through his nose. “How do you listen?” he repeated, as if nothing had happened.

Stoermer was beginning to like him.

There was one of those moments of silence. A new air of respect had entered the room.

One of the other students hesitantly raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“You listen by learning other languages so you can hear everyone.” the student said nervously.

Another tense silence.

Stoermer could see the student’s hands tense anxiously.

“Good answer.” Kosov replied mildly. The whole class seemed to hold its breath, hardly daring to believe it.

“But definitely wrong.” he added.

The student’s eyes widened slightly.

“Dismissed.” Kosov said coldly.

This time the student understood him. He swiftly stood and left the room.

Stoermer didn’t watch him leave. His eyes were locked with Kosov’s. He didn’t shrink under the hawk-like gaze.

“How do you listen?” Kosov asked casually once again.

Stoermer didn’t hesitate in replying. “You listen once you have watched and waited. You listen by knowing. You listen by asking. You listen by trusting yourself. If you can listen you can know yourself.”

There was the longest tense silence yet, and Stoermer kept his calm silver gaze on Kosov’s cold dark blue eyes.

“What is your name?” Kosov asked suddenly.

“Vonich. Stoermer Vonich, sir.” Stoermer replied evenly.

The two students who were left turned their heads simultaneously to look at Stoermer.

Kosov looked at him thoughtfully. “Have you done an assassin’s course before?”

“No, sir.”

“Hm.” Kosov scrutinised him. “I think you will do well.”

Stoermer didn’t reply to the praise, just kept his gaze steady. The two other students, a male and a female, were staring at him.

Stoermer sighed through his nose. He could tell this was going to be a long course.

Halfway There!

2009-11-17T17:06:00.000Z

Yes, I am halfway through my NaNoWriMo Novel.

And yes I realise I am two days behind on the wordcount. I shall catch up :D

So I think it's time I gave everyone a preview of what I'm writing. Not a lot, and hopefully not revealing too much about it, but a little extract to give you a flavor of the novel. Please keep in mind that this is completely unedited o.o Here goes.

“We’re lost.”

“No, we are not lost, Freund.”

Lorelie and Kobel were stood on a platform as a train whooshed past them, blowing Lorelie’s hair across her face. She shivered and tucked it behind her ear. Then the underground platform was left empty, save for a man sat halfway down on a seat, bent over a newspaper. Grime and dust carpeted the curvature of the tunnel walls, and the dim lights overhead flickered constantly.

The two friends had left their home only an hour ago, and Lorelie was already deeply regretting the action. It was unlikely that a whole division of the SS would arrive in Berlin just to find her and her mother. And wasn’t secrecy their style? Shouldn’t they have burst in in the middle of the night and took them then?

Berlin’s underground system of trains was nothing less than totally confusing. Lorelie had only travelled on it a few times in her life, and now regretted their decision to travel by train. If only they’d had her mother with them; Madalena had been born in Berlin and lived there all her life, knew the city like the back of her hand.

“Look, we can’t be far from Potsdamer Platz.” Kobel said, frowning and peering closely at the little map he held in his hands.

“Sollen wir einfach jemanden fragen?” Lorelie gritted her teeth as she asked the question for the second time that day. Shouldn’t we just ask someone?

“Nein, Lorelie, können wir nicht.” Kobel replied seriously, not looking up from his map. No, Lorelie, we can’t. “Es ist noch zu großes Risiko.” It is too much of a risk.

He was right. Ask the wrong person and they could end up in the Gestapo’s possession. And that was at the bottom of Lorelie’s to-do list for now. They couldn’t know who to trust; if the rumours were to believed about Himmler’s Secret Police, they had spies everywhere to catch unwanted criminals out.

Suddenly Kobel sighed with frustration. “Where are we going anyway?”

“We need to find a place to sleep for tonight.” Lorelie swallowed, trying to think ahead. She hoisted her pack further up her shoulder as she spoke. “Then go from there.”

“We should go where they won’t expect us to be.” Kobel murmured, looking at the map again.

“Brandenburger Tor?” Lorelie suggested, hardly noticing the words coming out of her mouth.

Kobel looked up from the map again, and stared at her with wide and calculating dark blue eyes. He looked like he was thinking hard.

“That could be an idea.” he said slowly.

“They wouldn’t look there.” Lorelie pointed out. “And anyway, they will be too busy searching our homes tonight.”

She suddenly realised that the Gestapo would be inside her house. Tonight. Shoving her hands deeper into her pockets, she felt the reassuring shape of the diary in her inside pocket.

“Is there anywhere else?” Kobel sighed, scanning the map quickly.

“Underneath the S-line?”

The S-line was Berlin’s overground train transport system.

“Too risky,” Kobel shook his head. “They could look there. And it will be too wet.” he thought for a moment. Then he looked like he had an idea. “How about Arianna’s?”

Lorelie’s heart skipped a beat. If they found their way to Arianna’s house, they could actually be in warm beds tonight...

But as soon as she thought this she dismissed it instantly. “No, we can’t risk her being caught.”

Kobel sighed. “You are right. And anyway, that is too close to our own homes.”

Lorelie hesitated. “We still need to find someone who can read Russian.”

“She can, you said?”

She nodded. “At least, I think she can. Her father was born there.”

Kobel met her gaze. “Should we find her then?”

Lorelie hesitated again. “I don’t know. It could be too dangerous.”

“Let’s focus on finding somewhere to sleep tonight.” Kobel murmured, dropping his voice as another pedestrian strode by.

“Alright. Brandenburger Tor then?” Lorelie muttered, lowering her voice too. Although it was unlikely that anyone could understand them speaking in English. They both knew they were very lucky to be able to speak that language.

Kobel nodded.

Doctor Who and Top Gear return!

2009-11-16T17:45:00.001Z

Yes, yes, I know Doctor Who isn't properly returning until next spring with that new guy, Matte Paint Smith or whatever his name is. That shall be his new nickname.

Actually, I was relatively surprised by how good last night's episode, Waters of Mars was :) At first I was thinking that it would be the usual 'The Doctor fails on his own' kind of thing. Well in the end the message was kind of the same. Anywho, I thought it was a very awesome concept and I'm surprised the Doctor Who team haven't done much on Mars before. Nor on water. Although I can understand the technical complications- water+electricity... = badness.

The water creatures were awesome, if a little disturbing, but hey, glad Doctor Who had livened up a bit. Thought they went a bit over the top on the whole 'water is coming out of my mouth like a jet hose' kind of thing, but otherwise did a very good job on the prosthetics and things. Interesting characters, too, although it's a shame most of them got killed off.

Shouldn't comment on the Doctor's powa crazeh ness.... Aw alright, HE WENT COMPLETELY CRAZY. He needs to calm down. Actually, he needs a companion, someone to stop him going to far. o.o'

Aww gonna miss Tennant. :3

Right, Top Gear! :D Hurrah, its back for another series! And I'm glad to see this week's starter episode was up to scratch again, after last series slight disappointment. Loved the Romania grand tour... Although I do happen to think that James, in this situation, picked the wrong car for a grand tour. :/

Don't get me wrong, I love the Gallardo, but I don't think it survived well on those dirt tracks xD Poor James, though, when his beloved Sandero got sorta crushed... Richard was all 'Aw and you could have drove it to work and everything...' I hated him for that. But love him for everything else.

Guest, whoever the Australian guy was, was relatively uninteresting. :/

Got a bit bored in the Merc V BMW saloon review, although suppose there was something in it for everyone.

Sure I've forgotten something.

Aww they missed out the series preview thing they usually do at the beginning of the first episode. D:

Otherwise great episode, can't wait for next Sunday!

Oh and Nano is not going as planned. T_T x

~Illusionist

Why hallo (:

2009-11-15T12:45:00.000Z

Wow, I actually made a blog.

How interesting- although maybe not so interesting for you. Be prepared, I ramble a lot. And I mean a lot. I add in random sentences here and there whenever I feel like it; you can choose to ignore them or not.

Anyway, I think its time for a welcome, don't you? So welcome to my exciting new blog. Never had a proper go at blogging before, should be interesting. I have Twitter, {username Fironza if anyone wants to stalk me (:} of course, but never made a proper blog. So here begins my journey of blog fame. Or not.

I'm a fairly ordinary resident of London, England, Britain, the World, the Solar System, the Milky Way, our Universe. *waves* I spend most of my days either on my laptop or outside in this awesome city. And of course on the phone, talking to my lovely friends. :D So you could say I was fairly ordinary.

However, I like to go against the grain, and I suppose you could be slightly surprised by some of my interests, considering I'm a girl. {Yes, I know, that might be sexist. Just ignore me. o.o} I have a passion for anything automotive {Although namely supercars, not very interested in vans and the like}, I have every single book on dinosaurs you could imagine, love jets and hate Twilight. Although thankfully that isn't too uncommon these days. (:

I also love Berlin. I went there last August, and think it is simply the most amazing city in the world. If anyone reading this lives in Germany's capital city, please thank your lucky stars that you live there, and also that I'm not going to kidnap you and swap our identities. The architecture there is fantastic, and so is the whole atmosphere and history about the place. I want to live there one day, and at least go back and take a certain someone with me for a while.

Anywho, this is a blog, so I should be updating on what I'm doing, correct? My thoughts etc. Right, here goes. Might not be interesting, but bear with me. xD

Today is a momentous day in my NaNoWriMo writings. For those of you who haven't heard of National Novel Writing Month, participants are invited to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of November. Start on the 1st and finish on the...Wait, 30th or 31st? o.o Nevermind.

Either way, today is a very substantial marker point.

For today, on the 15th November, I should reach the half-way mark. Yes, 25,000 words.

Not too worried about reaching the target, already at 22,000. Actually, I should be doing it right now, instead of writing this blog. But all good writers deserve a break, right? And yes, I suppose I consider myself a good writer, although the only people who can truly judge that are my readers. If I get any. xD

So at the end of today, or maybe halfway through my target, I'll post a preview of part of my novel for y'all to read. (:

Er, what else for today? Gotta clean my fish tank out. Not all the way, just replace some of the fishy water. :/ I don't like doing it, but in the end it only takes quarter of an hour, so might as well.

Have a bath, although I doubt you'll want to know about my personal hygiene. o.o

Put a massive Turner poster up in my room.

At this point I should probably mention my addiction to Turner's art. ^^ Not the Turner Prize, although they're very good as well, but his own actual art. Luff it.

Anyway, yes, I should probably start on my Nanowriting. This has been a rather long first blog entry. Hopefully many more to come. (:

~Illusionist