{ any time I hear this tune I just start drifting away }

[delga]

As was inevitable, I can't be bothered to revise for lang. just yet. GS exam this morning was the bore I expected it to be. You choose two questions from four and answer with essays. I forced myself to go slowly today and plan and stuff so that I wouldn't be bored. It's actually quite difficult to change the pace at which you work. I've sort of trained myself, over the years, to write essays quickly and efficiently, not to mention within time boundaries.

Anyway, I answered one question on whether the government would be justified in intervention into foreign jurisdictions if human rights were being abused (a question which was essentially asking whether or not USA/UK was justified in its intervention into the situation in Iraq but I deliberately chose not to answer it that way because the question was open ended enough not to) and a question on whether or not university education is worth shit anymore. Both questions were quite good to write once I got into them, I suppose. It was like an eljay rant except more coherent, properly paragraphed and with no spelling errors.

The lang. exam tomorrow will be one unseen analysis and then a choice of one out of two questions which will ask for a discourse on accent and dialect, history of the language, or "language change and variation". That shouldn't be so bad. I know all my basic facts on neologisms (I'm an etymological nerd; I love word roots and linguistic formation &c.); I just need to learn the appropriate stats (I think we form 900 neologisms a year but only minority of them are brand new. Most tend to be old words that are altered/given new meaning or old words put together. Occasionally, they're old words that are shortened. Anyway, I know that stuff). Accent and dialect is fun. I just need to look over my notes on accent variation. Things like the glottal stop and l-localisation. I should probably look over the history of the dictionary for the unseen analysis... whatever. Tomorrow's exam should be good.

Last night's CSI was good. When I first heard the plot, I was interested but then I was worried that the acting wouldn't play out right. Then I saw some icons of it (damned spoilers!) and was even more worried that the acting wouldn't play out. I thought it would be over dramatised. However, so saying that, the actual attack scene played out quite nicely well. The guy who played Adam was really good at raising the tension and Jorja Fox didn't overplay the fear factor. I also like that the aftermath of it was quiet; it didn't become the focus for everything else. Hearing about pika, the Jocasta Complex and schizoaffective disorders made me realise that the psychology I've learned isn't just stuff in a textbook. It's real. I didn't realise that pika was an obsessive-compulsive related disorder, though. It amused me that Gil said 'OCD disorder' because he's repeated 'disorder'. Heh.

Sara characterisation episodes are always tricky for me because I love the character so much. I always want to know more but I don't want her to lose her mystery. There's also the fear that the character will be ruined (the alcoholism storyline made me so angry because it wasn't as cohesive as it could have been). I can never tell if I like the episodes because of the Sara content or because of te story and I worry that I'm too subjective about the episodes. I'm a big advocate of procedural dramas staying that way (i.e. procedural) but when it comes to Sara's character (and possibly Warrick's, although I have about twenty times more issues with his personal storylines) I just blank that. I just like that Committed wasn't overly overt. Does that make sense? What I mean is, it could have become a serious Sara-fest and that's not what CSI is supposed to be about.

It's always strange to have Sara/Gil episodes. The last one they had together had just the two of them and I remember really liking it - however, at this moment, its content escapes my...oh, no. Wait. It was the one when a taxi driver gets pummeled to death by a group of thugs who think he killed this white boy who actually just stumbled in front of his cab and bleed out from the gaping STAB WOUND in his chest. Administered by his little brother, of course. Loved that episode. But it's still surreal not to have the others in there. I remember in S3 we had loads of episodes where single characters wouldn't turn up; this season they change focus on the shifts. I quite like it; I still preferred it when the gang was together but that's because I'm a sucker for the science-heavy group episodes when all the various threads come together (see Chaos Theory) but I can deal with this as long as the story quality stays tight.

Oh! I finally got around to watching Murphy's Law from last Thursday. I get bored during the middle of the episode sometimes but that's no different to when I watch CI (I tend to prefer the ending of episodes, or the exposition. Also, when I was recounting CI's best episodes? I totally missed my favourite! I love the one when they bring in that accountant to help them and he turns out to be the perp. The Asperger's guy? What was that episode called?! Oh yeh, Probabilities? *checks tvtome.com* Probability. And I liked Tomorrow with the two sisters who were both nannies). Where was I? Oh, Murphy's Law. Yeh.

What happened in that?

Oh, that's right! Murphy starts to lose it cos he's even deeper undercover. there was that black woman who was 'very thorough'...and Murphy slept with that Ellie woman. And that rich guy's camp son with the scarf. It was quite tense once I got into it but the problem is, you really have to persevere with it otherwise you just can't be bothered. I think it's very high quality but there isn't a lot to distinguish it from other shows. It's not the type of thing I'd usually watch but because I caught the (very different) first two seasons, I'm watching the third. The conclusion is in a fortnight and I'm a little excited because the plot arc has been really strong. The writing is good, the acting is fantastic and the odd length of the story is enough to keep you tense all the way through. If we're feeling like this, how does the character feel? I know the final episode will be awesome. I just have to force myself to watch the penultimate one!

House is on tonight, too. It should be good :D