I really am.

And I am fine, too. Thrown out of schedule in some areas, busy in others. I have not been painting much -- in fact, I have hardly painted at all in 2007.

As to where I've been, and what I've been up to: not the easiest thing to sum up, but I'll give it a go:

December 2006: Edinburgh, Scotland, visiting my brother. He moved there last summer. I want to move there, too: Edinburgh is a wonderful place.

January-February 2007: worked on my research project at AKTO. Subject: The Fantastic Landscape. The presentation had an audience of *cough* 5 people apart from the examiners, but I got a 9,5 out of 10 for it (book + presentation). Click here to see the book cover and read an English summary.
Was supposed to be an exam period at uni, as well, but there had been strikes all through the winter semester, so these were lost.
5th Kup at Tae Kwon Do, but stopped soon afterwards. I had a knee injury half a year back, and it's been bugging me to this day.

March 2007: applied for a post-grad at the School of Informatics (University of Edinburgh) for the Cognitive Science and Natural Language programme. Fingers crossed. Flew to Venice to join my father in a business trip; 1000km on the road in 4 days, all over north and central Italy. A hasty glimpse of Siena at night, and some really bad photos of it: I really want to visit again.

April 2007: Begun some feeble attempts for my final project at AKTO, with a mixed media approach -- photomanipulation as well as digital painting. I am adamant when it comes to the digital medium, because I feel that in the art circles it is generally looked down on. I was not so certain when it came to the subjects, though. It made for a good deal of confusion.

May 2007: The strikes at uni were over, after having practically lost the winter semester and chewed off half of the spring one. Getting ready for the exams. Loads of angst: I was running out of time. Transferred my AKTO final project for the following year.

June 2007: A reply from the School of Informatics, expressing interest in my application, but reluctant because of my lack of a technical background.

July 2007: Exams at uni. Bad, bad performance. got three 5's. Failed two papers. I said goodbye to the idea of graduating in September, and posponed my post-grad application for next year. Loads, loads of angst. Started work at my father's by the end of the month.

August 2007: Off to Lemnos. Invited some friends this time. Four days exploring the island: 5 people in a 4-seat jeep. Greeks will fully understand the expression "to kloubi me tis treles" (tous trelous, en th prokeimenh). For the rest, the term "madness" is somewhat close to it. I spent another ten days there, getting to swim as often as possible. Truly hated to go back to Athens.

September-October 2007: Double exam period (courtesy of the lost one in February). Did better this time. Two subjects (plus my grad thesis) remaining till graduation.

November - December 2007: Working at my father's. Preparing a product catalog, but also doing random office work, as well as random work in general. Becoming acquainted with the Greek small business model of minimal (to non-existent) organisation.

January 2008: Mostly procrastinating... ik. :}