Well, well, it seems that the impossible has happened: I actually managed to get a job. I'm positively surprised.

This is good news. Steady income, along with my stingy way of living, should earn me quite a penny for my University student years - assuming I'll ever get that far, that is. Speaking of which, I'll get to know next Tuesday whether I got into Medical University or not. Fingers crossed, I suppose.

I hope this'll mark the beginning of a prosperous summer and fall for me.

Nearly a month went past me so that I didn't write anything - but, really, when the conditions were such, it wasn't really all that much of a miracle. Last Tuesday, I attended my entrance exam to the medical university, the most important exam of my life so far (I dare not to estimate how I managed to do). After that, the next five days were spent in preparation of the celebration of my higher school examination - out of my generation, I was the first to graduate from my family, so it was a rather big feast. And for the last two days, I've been in preparation for the next entrance exam - English philology - which is supposed to take place Wednesday.

And after that, it is summer, and I can relax. But there lies a problem.

The last five months have consisted of more intense work than ever before. Before that time, I was rather carefree, and thought that everything will pretty much handle itself and problems will be solved on their own. Now, well, you could say my eyes have opened, and I see the numerous challenges, problems, and threats that are just waiting the opportunity to lunge at me and that I have to work hard and tirelessly to overcome them. I've begun to see just what the adult world is about, and I can safely conclude it's nothing short of intimidating.

How can I possibly enjoy my summer when I know all of this now?!

...

Well, fortunately I'm very skilled in ignoring things that aren't in my immediate vicinity. As in such, I dare to guess that within two weeks, I've once become happily ignorant of the dreadful things awaiting me at the end of the summer.

But, apart from that fear of the future, I'm very content that I've managed to put the five months behind me. I came out different, as I estimated, but not very much so, unfortunately.

I've been preparing myself for the University entrance exams for the past six weeks or so. Yesterday, I took the final exam of my preparation course, and got some insight on how useful my studying so far has been.

According to it, I still have quite a load of work to do. True, I've been able to learn more things I ever thought I'd learn. True, I've gotten an idea of how to use my time in the actual exam; what kind of problems I should solve first, what last, and what I even shouldn't attempt. True, I've gotten used to handling the pressure and the stress of handling the most important exam in my life so far.

Yet still, it doesn't seem to be enough. How could it be, when I still have two weeks to prepare myself? If I had perfect trust in my abilities and knowledge now, something ought to be terribly wrong. No, I haven't gotten out of this just yet. Despite the exam, my final preparations are yet to begin.

Nevertheless, this is a milestone of sorts. I have been able to keep up a decent rhythm to studying, and now I'll only need to increase it a notch. If I can do that, the possibility of me passing the final exam and getting into University is significantly higher.

*sigh* I feel that my thoughts are becoming more depressing with every passing day, though. I will be glad when the exam - and all of this - is past me, no matter what the outcome. Then I can start getting back to normal life.

PS. I found a gorgeous fanart of Seiken Densetsu 3, starring the amazone princess Lise (or Riesz, as she is also called) and a rabitte. I was so deeply impressed that I just had to make it an icon.

I haven't been able to write anything here for quite some time, main reason being the studies. Still, I'm yet far from abandoning this place.

I realized that my rats are quite old already. They aren't nearly as vigorous, agile, or lively as they used to be, and they spend most of the days lying in their cage, sleeping. In addition, the second rats is apparently blind and its arms are weakened, for it only tumbles slowly onwards and can't climb anymore. It has to be fed, for it can't find to its food cup, much less hold food in its arms anymore.

The most I can give it is company - and that I can give shamefully little nowadays. Every time I look at the old rat sit still in one corner of its cage, I regret that I didn't let it run free more often, that I didn't play with it more - perhaps its life would've been richer for a longer time if I had.

The similarities between it and old humans are almost amusing. You're old, weak, you have to be fed and taken care of, and all you care for is company which is scarce at best.

It's an unwelcome reminder of what all of us are eventually going to face.

Work. The root of all that is evil. Thankfully I haven't had to worry about it very much in my life - up until now.

Since I can't begin my studies next autumn but will have to wait 'til the next year, I've been looking for a job that would keep me occupied for the summer and autumn, and possibly would give me a nest egg I could rely on during my university years.

The problem is, seeking a job is a draining errand in itself, and it takes a lot of my time and thought to press myself into finding one. So much, in fact, that it's jeopardizing my preparation for the entrance exams. Studying in itself is easy - just spend nine hours of your day reading, practising calculations and formulas, and you're good to go. Get a good night's rest and a sufficient dinner a few times, have a few hours during which you can relax - and that's it, really. However, when you're worrying about getting a job, it undermines your efficient reading time by quite a bit.

And, really, we can't have any of that, now can we?

I think I'll allow myself to dwell on the subject of work for a few more days, and if I can't get it solved by then, I'm trashing the whole idea. Money is nice, yes, but being able to study in the medical university is a lot more appealing.

---

About my new profile pictures (advertising ahead):

I don't chance my profile pictures or avatars very often. However, lately I've taken a liking in the icons of Growth by Enkida. Growth is a Final Fantasy VII doujinshi that was written by Enkida a few years back, and she is currently drawing it into a web comic. I've had the joy and privilege to follow the doujinshi since its beginning and witness the growth (intentional pun) and development of Enkida's drawing skills - and to be honest, it has been a nice experience.

Growth can be found here. If you are a Yuffie, Vincent, YuffiexVincent, or a Nanaki fan, you're going to love it. Remember to vote for the comic via the comic listing button, or even leave some words of encouragement to the artist.

Okay, when I first decided to enter the preparation course for the university, I was well aware that I'd be reading more than ever in my life.

But still, I was surprised at how much time I would spend doing it. From Monday to Thursday, ten hours out of twenty-four consist of studying. Nine, eight hours will be consumed sleeping, and the rest five hours are dinners, short breaks, and walks I do in order to keep my mind fresh and my thoughts less jumbled.

It's quite a change to my normal day rhythm, to put bluntly.

Because of it, I have no time to even think anything else, much less write. So, all of my works will have to be composed at weekends, and it's undoubtedly going to hinder their progress.

But, if I want to really invest for my future, I'll just have to endure this. Studying in the medical university will definitely be worth two month's worth of hardships.

Well, out of all my exams, only French is left - and I couldn't really care less how it turns up. Starting next Monday, I'll attend to a preparation course for university entrance exams. The next two months are going to consist mostly of studying. I'm slightly doubtful about how much (or how little, actually) my projects are going to progress, mainly The Unwilling Kunoichi. But, at the state it is now, I don't have so many people waiting for updates, so I'm not going to let that occupy my thoughts too much. I will, of course, try to put some thoughts down to paper whenever I have the chance, and save them to my computer at weekends.

The changes are going to be numerous, I can tell. I can start on a clean table, build a whole new reputation, and set my life to wholly different tracks than it is now. Of course some things will never change, such as certain characteristics, interests, and ideals - but it's an exciting opportunity nonetheless.

I wonder how it's going to turn up. I wonder how my life is going to evolve. I wonder what I am going to become.

Well, so much for the Easter holiday, tomorrow I'm facing the return to my normal daily routines - which, to be honest, aren't very different from the holiday routines now that I have no school anymore, nyah nyah. I almost feel sorry for my parents and brothers who have to wake up early every morning and hurry to school and work - almost.

In any case, I feel that I took the most of my vacation - I didn't worry, I wrote, read, slept much, ate garbage, spent time with my friends, and dwelt deeper in the Naruto-verse and its aspects. It was, all in all, a vacation well spent, and the only regret I have is that it didn't last any longer.

Next Wednesday I have my biology exam, but I'm confident in my skills and have no fear that I'll fail.

That sounded lame.

Tired. Very very tired. I attended the chemistry exam last Monday, and it went miserably - mostly due to the fact that they made this year's exam to be a complete and utter bitch, thus shooting themselves in the leg. Last I heard, they were negotiating on how to rate the "slightly hard" exam so that they still get a certain percentage of Laudaturs, Eximias, and so on... Heh, good luck with that.

Today was the written exam of Swedish, which faired considerably better - even despite the fact that I stayed up until two AM, and had to mentally slap myself several times during the exam so that I wouldn't fall asleep. But, overall, I made do - I think.

Which gets me to the actual reason I've been somewhat sleepy this week. After I completed the second chapter of The Unwilling Kunoichi, I allowed myself some rest and relaxation for a few days before I'd start moulding the third chapter. Combining that with the desire to improve my writing, I soon found myself hooked to two epic-length fics, The Lazy Uchiha and Bloodlines, which simply refused to let me have my beauty sleep and made me read through the both of them.

Yup, totally their fault.

In any case, while reading those two works, I took my time to analyse the authors and compare their writing to their reputation. While I do admit that both of them were very skilled (much better than me, of course), I still was somewhat disappointed to see that instead of two monster authors they seemed to be described as, they were instead just two simple fanfic authors, clearly better than average, but still with their own quirks and flaws.

I won't go into detail about what do I think of their writing skills - that's to be saved for the reviews - but instead I would like to ponder the word 'best' and how easily it's thrown around. Several member of the forum I managed to pick the URLs of those two stories from praised both authors to be 'the best author on ff.net' . And like I've said, I admit that they are undoubtedly good and skilled, but why with the word 'best'? It's such a strong word to be used on a matter such as this - you might've experienced the feeling of 'the best author' just in one of his stories, or, possibly, just in one exceptional chapter of that story. Best? How come, best? Was their writing 'the best'? Their use of characters? The length? Were they 'the best' writing about a specific pairing? Was it the atmosphere that caused you to promote them? Or were they simply 'the best' because they were had an approach, a point of view, a concept that had never been used before?

I've called several authors 'the best'. I've named dozens of stories to be 'the best'. And now, when I think back to it all, I realize the silliness of it. Sure, it's a nice ego boost and a tremendous aid to one's writing, but I have no doubt that none of those authors thought themselves or their stories to be 'the best'. It's such an absurd, subjective, short-lived title that it practically doesn't exist.

And, of course, this doesn't apply to just fanfiction, even though that's where the thought originated from. Book authors, journalists, artists, composers, anyone who has ever done something original has albeit been considered 'the best' - or at least very close to it - at some point. Yet it all passes away. Van Gogh was a genius painter, J.R.R. Tolkien whipped up a gigantic world never seen before (although he based most of it on already existing basis, but that's what every author more or less does), J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven were and still are among the legends of European music - all of these men (note that there are no women. Tsk tsk, chauvinistic little Europe) were without a doubt considered 'the best', and there definitely are people who consider them to be just that even to this day.

Yet, in the end, new people popped up, stealing the spotlight and making the old masters lose their title, and eventually those who considered them to be 'the best' will die or change their minds too. Like I said, it's a short-lived title.

I haven't told anyone that they're the best for quite a while now, and I intend to keep it just like that. As feedback, I consider praising the author for their strengths and pointing out their weaknesses, possibly posing alterations and suggestions if they're needed to be much more efficient than naming the author or the story 'the best'.

Although, the day I will be called that way will probably be the day my ego bursts through the roof, no matter what I say now.

Just a piece of my mind. I think I'll reposition myself to a horizontal pose, put on some music, and start forming the third chapter. I still have quite a lot of work to do.

Well, The Unwilling Kunoichi is on chapter two. I'm starting to realize just how much work I've got ahead of me. Producing that newest chapter took me nearly three weeks, and it's only around 10,000 words - and so far, I've only covered barely a fragment of the planned length of the story. I shudder at the thought of how much time I will end up putting to the interaction of Team Gai, if the original part - the Academy years and before it - already takes around 30,000 words. At the worst case scenario, I won't manage to finish the story before next Christmas, and will have to put it to hiatus. Not to also mention the two months I will have to spend most of my week without my computer...

Ah, but that's to be worried for later. At the moment, I'm just happy I've found enough courage and motivation to continue working on the story.

---

EDIT: Note to self: Get a beta.

I did nothing today. Well, actually, I went swimming, talked with my friends, fretted over my exams, and read two lengthy fanfics. But, now that I think about it, it seems like equal to nothing. I didn't do anything useful: I didn't read for my exams, I didn't practice playing instruments, I didn't even write even though it seemed like a good day to do it.

The problem is that when I look things with a broad perspective, everything seems like waste of time: Education, hobbies, goals, dreams - it's just different kind of waste.

It's a miserable thought. I think I'll try to avoid in the future.

---

EDIT: I spoke too soon, it seems. I managed to write a one full page of The Unwilling Kunoichi after all - which is, regrettably, only a drop in the ocean, but progress is progress nonetheless. Thank you for your aid, alcohol and soda, it was much appreciated.

Ah, now I feel like speaking about the fic, but I think I'll leave it for tomorrow.

Finally, after toying with all those settings, I've managed to attain a combination I'm content with. So, it is time to make the first entry.

I don't know what to expect from this blog, honestly. Perhaps I'll end up getting some sort of satisfaction or feeling more complete by keeping it up and running, or perhaps I'll eventually grow frustrated with it. Nonetheless, I suppose I'll end up with wiser after at least trying it out.

I'm in the midst of my written examinations for higher certificate at the moment, but for some reason, I'm not very stressed about them. No, for the past few weeks, I've been more occupied with my old SNES emulator, playing games that take me several years back, and marvelling at how great they are. I've also been writing my fanfics, which seem to progress at a snail's pace, to my embarrassment. It's strange how twisted my priorities are.

In addition, I need to find a job for summer, and start preparing for the entrance exams to the university. This is going to be a busy spring, I can tell.