I figured I'd move to Berlin in October, and suddenly I find myself signing up for a course starting in August, and I'm scared as fuck of everything but I'm going to be fine, probably. They've got a proper campus with dorms (unlike Leiden) and if all goes well I'll only have to write two essays in total at the end of the whole track. But oh god I'm going to have to learn how to cook in the next six weeks.

I got a Dingoo Pocket Retro Game Emulator as a random going-away gift. It is the best thing. It even connects to any random TV set and works as a radio and movie player and displays e-books.

Last semester I took a uni course about Meister Eckhart, and somehow I ended up with a 9 for a makeshift essay on the guy. I got an 8 for an oral exam about a 350-page textbook during which the professor didn't ask a single question about the textbook. I won't even try to understand how this happened.


ETA: Amanda Palmer is tweeting about a mojito party with Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Jill Tracy, Gerard Way, Lyn-Z, David J. Haskins and - some other people. That's... pretty awesome.


Also some films I saw:

The Machinist
Basically a deconstruction of Fight Club (it explicitly references and quotes the film a few times over) that asks the question: what if Fight Club wasn't social commentary on consumerism and office work, but instead focused on the destruction of its main character entirely? The result has a very Russian aesthetic that looks like Stalker and Solaris at times and like Nightwatch in its more futuristic moments, and it's one of the most gorgeously directed films I've ever seen. Every line is meaningful and every twist is a puzzle - a puzzle that can easily be solved, but it's never explicitly spelled out for the audience. And Christian Bale is ridiculously good.

Lars And The Real Girl
Adorable film about a delusional man who falls in love with a Real Doll. The casting is really nice and the script is full of warmth and sweetness, but the author sort of forgot to include a plot. Still a very entertaining movie to watch. Plus, it's got Patricia Clarkson, which adds wonderfully to its occasional slight Dogville vibe.