And so now do I begin, that which was once started

Given that it has been two and a half months since my last journal entry, and not much less since my last deviation, I figured I sort of owed something.
Not that I believe I entirely warrant an explanation of my laziness to all you lovely people, but it will help give me closure on a week of tying so many loose ends, and an official end to my academic year.

You see, University for me finished on May 30th, 2012. For this year, at least. I can claim it 'officially' ended this afternoon, as not even five hours ago, I left my Halls of Residence for the last time. Emptied my room, and handed in my keys.
The place was a dump, an utter shit tip. But it was my shit tip, a place I could call my own, the lone surviving inch of Valerie. And there, this inch of me remains, the rest having left.
I will always remember Halls fondly. The mess, the drama, the people, the place. It amazes me how I can have grown so fond over a handful of people I shared my floor with, and how much I surprised myself by enjoying living in close quarters with a couple hundred others. But I did, and I may be almost sad to scale down my life to just four housemates next year, whilst my former floor largely lump together in some huge 8-bed student house.

But still. The year has ended, and I am free. For now. In the next two or three weeks, I'm supposed to begin a work placement for a nuclear company. For a first-year undergrad who's not actually been taught anything about the nuclear industry, I reckon I've not done badly there. This'll probably soak up a whole six weeks of my four-month Summer.
But this Summer, I intend to do work of another sort. Around whatever job I manage to scrounge to help fund Year Two of undergraduate study, I will continue my Deviance.
I need to finish the Mod 3 Pitbull, and I'm already planning to ICly scrap it (from Export at least) in favour of a modified variant, the Mod 4. Based more upon the stupidly cool ARX-160 instead of a blend of SG556 and G36, it's gonna be sweet. The Doberman Mod 3 also wants a few more details, to finally replace that lulzy 30" HBAR with a more sensible 25.5" HBAR, based upon actual HBAR dimensions. I'm also considering hollowing out that 25.5" barrel to accept 12-gauge 2.75" shotshells, which a FAL receiver, what this technically is, could theoretically do. In addition, perhaps a shortened version of the Doberman, a 'Doberman 2' (yet another Mod 4 weapon for the Export market?), which would have an action based upon a much shorter system, such as maybe the RFB or a .308 Saiga system. The AR-3 wants a minor touch up, with an action devised, and I've decided to go straight for the SAW-3 Kodkod GPMG, rather than a re-hash of the SR-4 Wraith SRS in Mod 2 glory. It'll end as a bastardised blend of PKM/P and M240 action.

Also coming up, one day, will be the HAV-2 King David battle tank and variants. At the moment I'm working on the technicals behind it, which I may decide to post here. Then eventually to follow will be the art. I aim for it to be just as diverse as ~SixthCircle's HT9A7 battle tank in variant and combat ability, yet be of a distinct flavour.

One day, 'twill all be ready.