Final exams have finished here recently, in the land beneath sea level. Thursday the results got in, and after seven years of high school, Latin, mathematics and the most depressing art class imaginable, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that I am forever free of these things. It closely resembles the ending of an especially annoying feel-good teen drama movie, where the protagonist (me), his girlfriend (the Girl), and several people he tolerates (Extras) have a happy end, this illusion further solidified by the fact that several people I didn't quite like (blatant euphemism) failed miserably. Ha.

I am currently buried in the paperwork that is the Dutch student registration system, which is roughly the equivalent of piloting a U-Boat through a vast ocean of solidified elephant manure with a Cyber-converted Wampa distracting you from the periscope. But all that doesn't influence the fact that come September the first, I'll start my first college year as an Animation Student at Rotterdam Art School. Which is freaking awesome, if you'll excuse the terminology.

Anyway, I can concentrate on pumping out some art now. I've just bought myself a Wacom tablet, so I'll fool about with that a bit. I'm also toying with the idea to try some action figure customization. Reason for this is rediscovering my old Matchbox Thunderbirds figures, and wanting to try and make a short fan film for a while now. I've recently ordered some of the missing pieces in my collection, but this will result in getting me quite a few doubles, which could prove quite a good training ground. I can't use the Hood sneaking around as an industrial spy wearing Malaysian regal armor now, can I?

Admission Exams are over, and I will be an Animation student at the Rotterdam Art School from September the 1st forward. I was refused in Utrecht, and have been provided with the answer 'there shall be no correspondence over the decisions' after asking why. Oh well. They seemed more pretentious there anyway, and the building was uglier than in Rotterdam. I hope they'll be sorry.

Meanwhile, I can now finally draw stuff that I want without feeling guilty. The question only remains what. One gets so many ideas when one is not supposed to have them. I must pay tribute to so many things: the Gerry Anderson shows, the Brotherhood of Dada, the incomparable Jeeves and Wooster, Harry P and his angsty magical misadventures. On the other hand, I have so many ideas of my own. What is to become of Camera-Man, Pequod the Hunter and their nutty pals? Shall Quin the Swordsman ever find rest, now locked off from the Material Plane of Existence? What do the 4th Doctor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and anachronistic surgery have in common?

I hope you didn't get all that. Now you can remain curious and visit my page over and over again until my pageview number is so high the website can't cope and the entire internet shall catastrophically implode.

Or maybe not. Anyway, updates are sneaking into view. Sneakily.

Right, currently I am fully prepared to believe in omens of the future. Why does this author, who is usually of the kind-of-epistemological persuasion, decide to do so? I was doing my admission exam at the Rotterdam Art College last Monday , and I experienced it as frightfully bad. There was no response, none at all, and it left a metaphoric bad taste in my mouth. What was even worse was the fact that the admission exam for my only alternative for an Animation in course in this country was due exactly a week later. There was no possible way I'd get any decent work done in the space of a week, not with my finals looming into view.

Today I found out that I am a complete idiot that doesn't take the time to properly read everything in front of him. The exam's two weeks from now. I'm saved. On top of that, I heard that someone whom I utterly loathe, and who was planning on doing the same Animation course, has pulled out. Abandoned ship. Evacuated the ward. Is it a sign?

I do wish that my exams were past already, I can't really work on the drawings I want to right now. As soon as March the twentieth has passed, I'll reinvent my style, and then God knows what else. And stuff.

Signing off.

Right, my first journal entry. This will probably function as a log for myself, I doubt many people will read this. Right now I am in the middle of a mad scramble to finish seven projects all at once, because I have to present myself in front of a selection comittee of the art college I want to attend next year. This means that while typing this message I am simultaneously editing a one-minute stop-motion film called 'Suffer for your Art', and also finishing up five other drawings involving bacteria, space-suited monkeys and elderly hot-air balloon pilots. I shall report back here if I make it. Otherwise, I may not do anything at all...