Another first day of Summer: The eve of a graduate defense and a personal reflection

“Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.” —Regina Brett

Today marks the first day of summer in 2016; this year, the summer solstice coincides with a full moon, the first time this has aligned over the past fourty-nine years, and the next time there will be such an event, it will be 2062. The weather today was quite pleasant, reaching a high of 24°C, and apart from a short bit of cloud cover during the afternoon, the weather remained sunny the entire day. Summer is my absolute favourite time of year, when days are long and the sun rises before even I do. It’s a time for taking in the warm air, and for sipping a cool beverage after mowing the grass. In any previous summer, solstice is merely another day on the calendar, but this year, there’s but a single week left before I’m set to defend. I’ve been rehearsing every day for the last two weeks, and I cannot help but be nervous, despite knowing that this is a project I have been working on for the past two-and-a-half years (and as such, should know the inner machinations of quite intimately). However, at the same time, I’m feeling reasonably ready for the defense presentation and following question period/discussion. I’ve not felt this nervous about an exam since my MCAT of summer 2012, but this time, it’s somewhat reassuring to know that unlike last time, I’ve got home field advantage. All that’s left to do now is to deliver a good rehearsal presentation and be confident in giving a good fifteen minute talk during the defense itself.

• With all of the things happening in the near future, with the thesis defense and conference in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the next few weeks will be remarkably busy. After I return in July, I’ll begin working full time, but I’ll still try to make the most of the excellent summer weather and be outside more often on weekends, now that I’ve no longer papers to write or assignments to grade. I also resolve to continue on the Adam Richman food challenges (i.e. exploring my city to try interesting food places).

• The images for this post were chosen for capturing what summer feels like: timeless and beautiful. It’s been quite some time since I’ve done a double-feature in one day: this was rather more common during 2012 and 2013 when posts were shorter and easier to write. With that being said, I’ve gradually moved towards longer posts because they provide more opportunity to interact with the readers and have good discussion. I’ll take this opportunity to thank all of you, whether you’ve reached this site from Google, Reddit, Facebook, WordPress: your support have given me the inspiration to continue writing.

As I am wont to do in these personal reflection posts, I will also outline the future of this blog rather briefly. I’ve stated on numerous occasions that my blogging frequency would decline as graduate school progressed, and inexplicably, I’ve somehow managed to continue writing about the anime and games I’ve experienced thus far. There’s a definitive pull about blogging that’s resulted in my returning to showcase these experiences even in the face of conference paper and deliverable deadlines; this is probably what’s kept the blog going even as things change on my end. So, looking ahead into a post-Master’s world, while I cannot guarantee that I’ll continue to blog to quite the same extent that I have up until now, I will continue to keep this blog so as long as there are things to write about. In the immediate future, after Hai-Furi is done, I will also push out talks for Flying Witch and Kuromukuro. The final Tamayura: Graduation Photo movie review will also come out before the month is out, while the review for the final Aria The Avvenire OVA will be written somewhere in July. Finally, the Makoto Shinkai film, Kimi no na wa, is also on my radar. Beyond this, I’ll take things one step at a time.