So, 2008 has come to an end and yet another new year begins. Since i don't currently have anything better to do, i figured i might as well make some sort of summary of the past year. So, without any further ado, here is my incredibly boring summary of 2008;

School, more school and lack of creativeness.
Due to my seldom seen lack of long-term memory and a rather hectic school-schedual, I had no time or inspiration whatsoever to actually do anything in like the first half of the year. Hence, I can't actually recall anything from the first five/six months or so that is even worth mentioning. After these months our well-needed summer break came and unfortunately, it did not help especially much since i pretty much wasted the first few weeks on just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing. After that, I was off to work for the rest of the summer, which of course did not exactly spark any creative mood either. But there was good parts of the summer-break aswell. The best one must have been at the end of June, when me and a couple of friends went to the Metaltown festival in Gothenburg and saw some great bands (and a couple of worthless bands aswell).

After the summer-break, I started my second year at the upper secondary school (gymnasium) where I study IT (with courses focusing mainly on graphic design and similar). This second year is known to be the most stressfull one, and so it has been. Despite the still very empty gallery of mine, I've been trying to get as much "work" as possible done and tried learning more in Cinema4d and also studying some web-design.

Actually, I have been a little more productive than what can be seen here. Mostly, i've been doing some different web-pages in HTML and CSS which has not yet been uploaded anywhere. Also, I made my first 3d car. This one I chose right away not to upload, since the outcome was depending heavily on a guide, and uploading that would feel somewhat as a theft unless clear credits were given, but i just didn't feel like it. After that, i've been playing around a little more with volumetric light and similar in Cinema4D, even though I have not uploaded any of those works either. They will probably be uploaded sometime in a hopefully near future, when i've developed just a tiny bit more.

Even more recently, I bought my very first tablet, even though I am horrible at drawing. It is not one of those expensive and fancy Wacom tablets, it's just a cheap brand which will easily suffice for me right now. For a while, I'm probably just going to go through as many different guides as possible to get some inspiration and maybe upload some of the outcomes if I feel like any image is good enough to deserve it.


General events this year
Apart from the things which have already been mentioned, not much has happened this year. Like last year, i'm working my way to top grades in the courses I actually care about in school, which I would always expect of myself. And ah yes, I forgot to mention that in september, me and my 19 year old sister went to London, England together for a couple of days, which was really great. Since we were only there for a few days, it was easy to keep ourselves busy with exploring new areas and never be bored.

As dull as it may seem to many, that trip to London shares place with the one to Metaltown as the two only "big" highlights in 2008 for me. As a 17-year-old, I don't exactly have the economy to do much more than that. It is possible that I will go back to London once again, this year. A friend and I have decided to go there if we both find enough money and time to do so. Also, it probably depends on the fact that we are most likely going to visit some music-festival this year too. So right now, the starting point of this year does not seem that different from last year, but hopefully, i will be a bit more sufficient with things outside of school this year. I won't speculate anymore about the time ahead of me and just in case anyone actually reads this at all, I will probably be a bit more keen on updating my journal this year. To begin with, I'll have to rid myself of my current "addiction" to playing the game Left 4 Dead.

Music
I also feel a little compelled to mention that I think this year has been a great one when it comes to music. Bloodbath, who has previously been like a tribute-band to all swedish old-school death metal, diversified a bit and released the ep "Unblessing the purity" aswell as the new full-length "The fathomless mastery", both of them awesome records. Amon Amarth, another of my favourite bands from my home country released the mighty "Twilight of the thunder god" and it is in my view a really impressive record, even though it somehow alarms me a little about the future of this great band. I see it as quite possible that they will be pushed by the record-company to go for a more mainstream and non-unique sound, given the success of this new album which is quite different. An album that I find to be terrific is Satyricon's new album "The age of Nero". I know that many people reject Satyricon these days without even listening to them, because they have gone outside the restrictions of being "true black metal" but that is not in any concern of mine with Satyricon as long as they keep making awesome music. There are tons of bands and records that i could keep rambling about, but since I don't intend to make this journal some sort of musical review-spot, the previous wil be enough.

Conclusion
Have you fallen asleep yet? no? Great, then I'm just going to round it up with a quick conclusion of this journal update. The first half of the year was a pretty hectic one, with no creativeness whatsoever, which somewhat continued over the summerbreak aswell. It did, however, contain a great visit to Metaltown. After that, I began to miss working with graphics and I had to get started again, even though it can't really be seen here on DeviantART. Right after the summer break, I went to London and had a great time. That was not exactly the smartest way to start the new school-year which has been a bit demanding, but still a little fun as well.

I won't ramble any more now and all there's left to do is say thanks to the probably low number of people who have actually read this and a happy new year to those who deserve it. So, bye everyone.