The May/June 2012 issue of Muse focused mainly on places that have never existed or don’t exist yet: the conjectured lost continent of Lemuria, maps of “bookscapes” (such as Guilder, Oz, and the Desolation of Smaug), and designs for future cities. Also what Neandertals were like and where astronauts go on Earth to simulate missions on Mars. Not an oldie, but a goodie for sure!
I hope everyone’s Halloweens were spooky and great!
I was dressed as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz all day (and tomorrow evening I’m wearing my green man mask I wore last night because I’m in college and that means Halloween is a three-day event, at least), and a lot of people liked it, which is always a good feeling. Then I went contra dancing, and a lot of people were dressed up, so I wished I’d stayed in costume, but oh well. I wore my black skirt and my orange shoes, so it was a little festive at least.
How busy? What are you guys doing to tide you over?
Just curious, I like learning about what other people are doing, I’m just creepy that way.
Oh, you know: work. The usual boring grownup stuff.
Why is being a “grownup” thought of as monotonous, boring, usual, and tedious/stuff-filled? Do you feel like your life is boring? It seems to me that, while days can sort of get the same after awhile, a goal of many-a-Muser is to lead an exciting, stimulating life that doesn’t get lost in this drudgery. Don’t be misleading — people should look forward to coming adventures, right?
Oh, definitely! Among other things, we adults tend to have more money and control over our lives. That makes it possible to have loads of fun when we’re so minded, and many of us do.
Of course, one’s ideas of fun change over time. For example, by the time I realized that there was nobody to stop me from eating a gallon of ice cream if I wanted to, I also realized that I didn’t want to anymore. There are a lot of things like that.
(Which doesn’t mean there aren’t other adults who would happily eat a gallon of ice cream.)
Darn it, now I suddenly have a craving for ice cream…..
Now, because of this comment, I have a craving for shrimp…
Why shrimp?
I don’t know. I guess because I like the sauce my dad makes with it, and it’s the same texture as melted ice cream.
I don’t know, I’m just odd
Oh yes, I understand completely!
Personally, I prefer routine – I hate it when my schedule changes every week and I have to keep thinking “okay was i supposed to leave for a different city half an hour ago or am I fine”
adventures are stressful. Perfecting the predictable is quietly fulfilling.
Na, that’s pretty normal. I’m mostly studying; I have an exam on Tuesday, and then some more every other week or so until Christmas, plus a full load of coursework and an extra seminar that’s technically for grad students (tough but fun). It’s also a sort of crash course in time management; I’ve already completed the courses for most of the exams I’m taking, so I have to set my own study schedule for them and stick to it (which unfortunately involves getting up early on weekends).
Aside from that, I’m learning what I’ll tentatively label “adulting”: I’m living alone for the next month, so I’m learning to do laundry, clean, cook for myself (food intolerances = not a lot of eating out possibilities), fix various things that tend to clog/break and actually buy food in time so that I don’t run out, which has been harder than it sounds, considering all the weekend holidays lately and my long class/study group hours.
I also have a part-time job, which is basically running some vacation rentals, leading to more “adulting” (doing the extra laundry, changing various lightbulbs, figuring out how *tenant1* managed to shut off everyone’s power, changing the laundry machine filters…). Not terribly exciting, but it’s nice to feel capable.
Then there’s friends. I have to admit I’m neglecting most of my old, high-school era friendships, but I met up with my best friend recently and we still just “get” each other perfectly. And on the university side of things, this guy I’m really good friends with and I ended up cuddling in a this-probably-doesn’t-count-as-platonic-anymore way the other night, which I am totally on board with. I don’t really know where this is going (it’s a whole world of complicated), but I look forward to finding out.
So yeah, what’s going on with you?
Eleven days until my birthday!! I can’t believe I’m almost 17! It feels like just yesterday I was a crazy little 12-year-old ‘phyte running amok all over the ‘Blog. Wow. Time sure flies when you’ve got good friends to pass the time with, I suppose.
My, but it’s raining hard out there.
Now it’s gloomy here too
Things that will be happening to me this weekend:
1. A Girl Scouts campout, starting in two hours and stretching to Sunday, “early afternoon”.
2. Orchestra rehersal, Sunday 1:00-3:30.
3. A musical with my cousins in it, Sunday evening. In a city two hours away from here.
4. A story due online for Literature class, midnight on Sunday.
And, of course,
5. The first three days of NaNoWriMo.
Life never stops coming, does it?
Well, if it didn’t we’d all be nonexistent.
So….whilst browsing for a suitable image to attempt carving a starfleet science delta emblem thingy in my pumpkin (to join the rapidly wilting command one I did yesterday, and which by tomorrow will probably have deteriorated into just a giant circle with a no longer attached delta), I realized something I’d somehow never realized. In the promo poster for Into Darkness, which has Cumerbatch’s character standing amidst debris and wreckage, the outline of the gaping hole in the wreckage that frames him is shaped like the starfleet delta. What the cake. how did I only just notice this. How.
*looks up* Holy heck, you’re right.
It seems so obvious looking at it now, I don’t know how I could have missed it for so long. Craziness, lol.
The semester project for my human physiology class requires me to, among other things, dissect a whole chicken and clean and bleach its bones, with the eventual object of reassembling a chicken skeleton. So for Halloween- my first time staying home to hand out candy- I hung these bones from strings in front of the door and lurked behind the car with my witch’s hat and calc homework, pulling the strings (unseen) when children turned up to make the bones move. It was the most fun I’ve had in ages.
I also unblocked the kitchen sink, which required quite a lot of acrobatics and duct tape, and made enough bean soup to last for a week and a half’s worth of dinners. I feel like such an adult.
My recommendations for a week and a half of bean soup:
-vinegar
-sriracha
-a variety of good bread
-maybe don’t make so much bean soup next time?
Yoghurt and cilantro for variety. Sometimes I add greens (sliced into shreds) or serve it over rice or pasta.
Oh, no, I quite like bean soup. Sorry, I don’t think I wrote that post very coherently, but I’m happy about the dinners I’ll be having for the next several days.
Yeah, no, I understood. I love bean soup too. ‘Sjust a lot of soup.
Invite friends over for the bean soup (and/or starving college students of your choice). Well, wait till they’ve polished off their Halloween candy first, then you might get rid of everything in a night.
This evening, I’m going to a local band competition. It’s the biggest, last competition of our season, and we’re all super pumped for it.
We have three grand championships under our belt already, which tied our previous record of most grand championships in one season.
It’s been ten years since we won this competition. This is the strongest show we’ve had in years, and last year’s show lost by point five eight.
The show is called “Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up” and it’s based on Jim Valvano’s famous ESPY awards speech that he gave shortly before dying of cancer. If you’re not into sports and don’t know who he was, he was a basketball coach for NC State and gave many inspirational speeches and won a championship before dying of cancer. It’s mainly based around the quote “If you laugh, cry, and think, that’s a full day” and we have sections of the show for laughing, crying, and thinking. (The “cry” section is Fix You by Coldplay, which has great emotional significance for me.)
This is a very emotional show. We listened to a judge’s tape where we actually moved him to tears.
We’ve just recieved notification that Jimmy V’s daughters may be attending our show. They graduated our school. He had to be snuck into the back of our school gym to watch them play basketball because people would bombard him for autographs. My little sister went to preschool with one of his grandkids.
Basically I’m really, really excited and nervous for this, and this is huge for us, and the whole band has worked really hard.
Good luck!
We lost, of course. But it was a good season.
Oh my Kokopelli, I just realized I’ve been mentally mispronouncing “Mauritius” my whole life…
Okay. So I’m catching upon Sleepy Hollow because I’m several weeks behind. They’ve fond a young boy who speaks Middle English, find out he’s from Roanoke. Ichabod says he’s probably from the Lost Colony of Roanoke, rather than modern day Roanoke. Lieutenant Mills goes “What lost colony?” Seriously?!?! What? Who hasn’t heard of Roanoke????? :/
I haven’t seen the show, but Roanoke colonists didn’t speak Middle English; they spoke Elizabethan English.
I guess the writers neglected to do fact checking. They had Ichabod and the boy speaking to each other in what may or may not have been an accurate representation of Middle English, complete with subtitles for the viewers.
?! The Ichabod Crane from the Washington Irving story would have lived after the Revolutionary War. You certainly wouldn’t have needed subtitles to understand him.
“Sleepy Hollow” appears to be observing Robert’s First Law of Pop-Cultural History: “Everything that happened long ago happened at the same time.”
Oh, no, Ichabod speaks normal English. They have him coming from the time of the Revolutionary War, however, having fought alongside Washington. In the episode I was watching earlier tonight, when a young boy from the past turned up, the boy said something in what appeared to be a foreign language. Ichabod pointed out that it was in fact Middle English, which he had studied at Oxford. He then posed as a translator in any further communication with the boy (who was later revealed to come from the lost colony of Roanoke). Except for when he was conversing with the kid in Middle English, in that one episode, he speaks perfectly normal English with a british accent.
Oxford? Hm.
I also see from online plot synopses that (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER) Ichabod’s wife is revealed to have been burned as a witch in 1792. North American colonies stopped executing people for witchcraft after the Salem trials in 1692 (and never burned them; that happened in Europe). I’m not sure I could enjoy a show that takes such a casual attitude toward time and space, but to each ens own.
I’m afraid my grasp of when historical events happened isn’t good enough to notice that timing of events aren’t historically accurate. I’m extremely bad with knowing dates of when things happened.
(SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER). As for ichabod’s wife, I’d forgotten she was burned for witchcraft. Although without having just watched Criminal Minds the other day where a comment was made that no one was ever burned for witchcraft in America, I don’t know that I’d have realized the inaccuracy.
So, basically, you’ve learned history from TV shows about cops and demons? TV script writers have got to start taking their jobs more seriously.
I want to work a “you could tell (en) had learned (subject) from (actor or director of movie known for taking liberties with said subject)” line in my writing, i.e. “You could tell he had learned physics from Michael Bay”.
And politics. Ugh.
You could tell he had learned meteorology from Dennis Quaid.
You could tell he had learned geology from Aaron Eckhart.
You could tell he had learned oceanography from Richard Dreyfuss.
(I would say “paleontology from Sam Neill”, but most of the misconceptions people have based on the first Jurassic Park movie are just because we’ve learned things about dinosaurs since then.)
Actually, I don’t think we ever burned witches. That was for heretics. Witches were hanged.
Apparently it did happen in parts of now-Germany and Denmark during the Reformation.
On this side of the Atlantic, the Puritans hanged both heretics and witches, but the only people executed by burning seem to have been a handful of rebellious slaves who murdered their masters.
Even today, unfortunately, mobs still occasionally burn supposed witches in Africa and (I think) Papua New Guinea.
I stand corrected. Mind you, the Scandinavians always were a peculiar lot. Not British at all.
I’ve heard that witches were burned in Scotland.
One of the North Berwick witches was burned, but I think they strangled her first. There must have been many others. The Scots were very enthusiastic in those days.
I would have that same response, but experience has taught me that you can’t assume ANYTHING from history is universally known– I saw an article last year around the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic that had screenshots of social media posts by people who had thought the Titanic was something made up for a movie and not a real ship.
Yeah. There are some surprising things that people don’t know.
So….so much for my thought that maybe for the first time since starting college I’d be asleep when the clocks changed. guess I shouldn’t have slept for 14 hours last night and then catnapped a few hours this afternoon. But I went to bed at the obscenely early hour of 8:45 last night, and didn’t get up until about 10:30 this morning. Meaning I slept 7-8 hours longer than I get most school nights.
Oh well. At least we’re rolling the clocks back, so it’s an extra hour tonight. Although that kind of sucks for my classmates who are working nightshift in the ICU tonight–they have to work an extra hour…..
WOW HELLO ALL HI
I think the last update post I had was uh, me being unwell and getting on a train towards Vermont. Well, I am now back form Vermont! As of uh, almost a week ago. Unfortunately I picked up some disease from my sister when I visited (the doctors told her she had either bronchitus or a bacterial sinus infection, although I haven’t been to a doctor myself) so I am still unwell though in a different way. So now all the coughing/sore throat/cold. I’m hoping mine will go away faster than hers… she’s been having this for ~4 weeks, I’m around the week and a half mark, but I’m feeling a lot better than I was originally. So hopefully I’ll continue to get better instead of stagnating like she did and having to go on antibiotics : /
Anyway! Besides being ill, had a giant cell & molec test this week. Unfortuantely the sick thing made me not care as much as I probably should have re:studying but… we’ll see I guess.
Anyway! After thursday morning my week went pretty well! Wore my Toothless hoodie (and taped lil paper claws to my boots) all of halloween and a buncha people recognized it. Friday we had a “lab crawl” of the research labs in the science departments! So I sat in the bio lab with my labmates/prof and we talked (well, everyone else talked, I smiled along cause throat was too bad for speaking that day) to people interested in research, and tried to convince them that plants are great.
Friday was seeing friends/nice dinner out/contra dance/college circus performance! A former MBer was one of the leads in the circus so that was fun to watch. After that was Organ Pump, which is a thing the organ majors put on once or twice a semester where they play fun songs. This one was “spoooooky” themed and included a small sketch of “not really the plot of Dracula” and at the end we all lay on the stage to feel the organ vibrate everything, as usual.
Today was sleeping much more than anticipated (nighttime cough suppressant knocked me out for like 10 hours??? I only took half and it says 4 hours on it, but I guess this is what never taken meds other than ibuprofen will do to you….), and then the college aerialist showcae!! Two of my roommates were in it, and they both were great.
Anyway I should. Attempt more sleep since I took another half of that cough suppressant… we’ll see if I ever wake up x_x
yesterday we had a geology field trip (Jade let me tell you about the pencil shale we found, it was so fun. we went to a waterfall too)
and then the field trip let out an hour early (?)
so I decided to drive into New York City to go see They Might Be Giants
(a band who you may perhaps recall me having mentioned in the past)
which went perfectly until my car got a flat tire in New Jersey, necessitating an emergency call to the AAA and about an hour of delay while someone came and changed to my spare tire (which has a maximum speed of 50 mph, unfortunate when my drive home on the thruway had a maximum posted speed of 65 mph)
there was also a lot of traffic in New Jersey
the show itself was perfect though! what a great adventure.
Sounds like fun.
update went to get tire replaced, in the process looked at what had happened to the old tire. you know how normally, there’s the tire part that touches the ground, and it’s one continuous piece with the tire part that you can see when you look at a side view AKA the part that’s near the hubcap? those two pieces were kind of not connected at all. Mom took a picture of me with it, she says she’s going to put it in my baby book, “baby’s first flat tire.”
ROCKS ♥
Waffle House tastes really good at 2 AM! Especially when you’re exhausted. Band is fun.
Waffle House tastes best at 2:00 AM.
Two more midterms left and rehearsals all week for The Wizard of Oz. Note: walking like Miss Gultch is a lot harder than it looks.
In music news, I’m been listening to the Peter Hollens’ Pirates of the Caribbean Medley on loop, along with Hunter Hayes, “Everybody’s Got Somebody But Me”.
Oh, and while browsing my computer’s files I found edits of the original Bunny Apocalypse thread and got really nostalgic. And started editing again :).
And despite having lots of homework and midterms and play practice, I’m still finding time to watch Firefly for the first time.
Isn’t college bonkers?
Hold on. Miss Gultch? You’re the witch?
While I am playing the character who eventually becomes the witch, I am not actually playing the Wicked Witch of the West. A different girl is. We made the Kansas counterparts (Hickory, Hunk, Zeke, Miss Gultch) all different actresses. The only exception to this rule is Professor Marvel/The Wizard who is played by the same actress (we’re an all-girls college).
Now, just because I am not actually The Witch doesn’t mean that I don’t act totally nasty. Though it should be noted that acting nasty really does not come naturally, so the part has been interesting to get the hang of.
Are you doing a musical? Because I was in The Wizard of Oz in eighth grade and our drama teacher made the insane decision to do the original movie script. The musical ended up being three hours long. Ugh.
I was Auntie Em, by the way. I got to play an adult because I was tall! ~yay~ But I also had a solo in the Munchkinland song because I was a good singer so I was this one freakishly tall Munchkin.
Yup, we are doing the musical, and it appears to be even longer than the movie because of other lines that they cut out of the movie (for good reason, I say). It’s going to be a LONG play, but we’re having fun. I think our director has been shortening a few things to speed up the play a bit.
Ah yes, this was a good issue. A modern Muse classic.
So FOX is already screwing with my new scifi show. “Almost Human” with the super sexy Karl Urban? Was suppose to premiere tonight, I’ve been looking forward to it or at least a month. I was checking what time it aired, because I was thinking of catching it on TV tonight, as I’d been anticipating it all weekend
Imagine my disappointment and annoyance when I learn it’s been delayed two weeks. What the heck. Why. Just bloody why.
And this is after I just found out the new movie with Chris Pine that was due to come out Christmas was delayed until mid January. What is with delaying my fix of shows/movies with sexy Star Trek actors. And I was actually interested in Almost Human for its plot, too, not just cuz Karl Urban was in it
(And I’m extremely impatient and don’t like waiting, so it having suddenly become time for the show when just yesterday it was still middle of October? Yeah. Frustrating. Grrrrr)
DONE WITH THAT ESSAY YES. SUBMITTED AND PRINTED YES.
Okay, well, my aunt was finally caught for doing drugs with her friends. Her court trial was supposed to be tomorrow, where she would either get up to five years in jail, or five years on probation. But, her lawyer who was supposed to go there with her, had a heart-attack and died today.
Oh, the bittersweet irony…
Now my aunt has to find a new lawyer, otherwise she might go to jail for a few years until she can get someone to represent her.
So I played a non-union gig tonight and realized how much better it is being union – we went 7 minutes over and it felt so weird not to have anyone holler out “TIME”
When everything feels like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top.
Because thinking in platitudes is the most productive way to spend your time!
“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain.”
Agreed.
History Admissions Test tomorrow morning, two hours long, I haven’t done a single practice question so I’m really not at all sure how I’ll do, but let’s wing it.
Good luck! As a Quafflebird, winging it should work very well.
*tries at humor and hopes the pun did not just fall on its face.*
Thank you! I’ve just done it and it was fine, so fingers crossed about getting an interview. I very much appreciate the pun, by the way.
Today I was informed that I usually look uncomfortable and like I’m about to cry. I’m not sure what to make of this.
I always look ticked off and/or angry, apparently.
I always look sad, but that might be because I’m always tired.
I’ve been told I look like I’m extremely angry for the same reason.
That’s because you are, Dad.
It was that way online, too, back when you were John C. Calhoun.
(I’m always reminded of you when we learn about him in history class.)
My default face has been described both as “sad” and “like you’re about to kill someone”. I’ve tried to make more of an effort to smile. Smiling actually does feel nice.
I’d like my default face to be described as “like I’m going to kill someone”!
Mine is probably something like “thousands of light-years away.”
I got an invitation to a Doctor Who 50th viewing today that was worded in the past tense. Awesome!
I HAVE HAIR AGAIN!
Got a compliment on my TARDIS necklace today. Oncology resident I’d never met before who I was working with today, said “nice TARDIS”.
I like that there are so many cool people around here. I saw a folder in the office where clients check out that has a TARDIS drawn on a sheet of paper tucked in the outside pocket of the folder, with a whole bunch of lines/sayings from DW written on it. Life is good.
The girls’ bathroom at my high school recently got repainted, and one of the stall doors is a TARDIS. (the whole thing is space themed: there’s a swirly Space god tier symbol, stars on the walls, aliens, etc, and it’s called Station 42.)
…Your school gets designs painted on the bathroom stall doors? Awesome ones?
…I’m amazed.
Yeah, the art department came down and redid it last year. It was badly in need of repainting and so far, people have more or less refrained from Sharpie-ing this one, so that’s nice.
All but two people in my theater group have gotten sick recently. Of those, I was the only one not to be sick with a cold (I got food poisoning). The main actor, one of the actresses, and the director have lost or started to lose their voices (but luckily the main actor has gotten his back). Our first performance is in a week and two days.
Yikes…
Today I drew a Moa and corrected my oceanography class’s substitute professor about the Alvin submersible.
Here’s the Moa doodle:
The Appalachian Music Faculty Concert was tonight, and I went despite the fact that I really needed/need to study for an exam tomorrow.
It was great, except now I’m having the hardest time concentrating on studying because all I want to do is squeal about HOW ADORABLE MY PROFESSORS ARE, ESPECIALLY THE ENTIRE MUSIC DEPARTMENT. Seriously, I love those guys. They’re not only completely fantastic musicians, they’re funny and great and have such great respect for each other as friends and musicians and teachers and it’s just amazing and I love watching them interact.
Two of my particularly favorite professors (one of whom I’ve taken at least one class from ever semester I’ve been here) who have been best friends since THEY were in college, and who everyone ships platonically, introduced themselves for a brother duet with swapped last names and I could have died.
My god this school is full of the most adorable people I just want to hug them all, don’t mind me I’ll just be over here getting emotional and trying not to panic too much about the exam I’m going to fail tomorrow morning.
And I danced for the last tune that all of the department played together, and it was so much fun. I feel like I’m actually somewhat proficient at a few basic steps in flatfooting, which is a great feeling.
I just want to dance and play fiddle all the time and somehow morph into being really good at those things.
Agh.
So, decided to go watch “Ender’s Game” despite the fact that I (and I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this) have never read the book. I wasn’t much into scifi when I was a kid and read a lot, so that’s my excuse.
Anyway. Decided to go see the movie, which I’m not going to put any spoilers in this post, but wow 5 seconds in and it’s already depressing the hell out of me. We weren’t more than 5 minutes in before my heart is totally breaking for Ender (for the entire movie; I nearly cried quite a few times) and before I wanted to lock myself and Harrison Ford’s character (Graff?) in a room together so that I could show him just what the hell I think of all of his idea. And what I think would involve a fist to his nose. Repeatedly. And possibly worse.
Anyway, more spoilery post to follow on a different thread.
Also, what the heck is an “undomesticated quadruped wrangler” suppose to be? This was seriously listed in the credits of the movie. I mean, i know what each of those words mean, but put it all together and I’m just like….uh…..what the heck are you bloody talking about here?!?! I don’t even remember any quadrupeds in the darn movie.
Wild horse wrangler?
But there were no horses….Unless I forgot about them. Like when I watched Into Darkness I forgot there was a dog in it, because when at the end it had the “No animals were harmed in th emaking of this movie” the friend I went with and I were so totally confused until she finally remembered a dog, and I still couldn’t remember it until I rewatched, lol.
Does the film show Peter SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER torturing animals?
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ENDER’S GAME SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SUBPLOTS MOSTLY DON’T ACUTALLY THINK ANYTHING HERE WOULD RUIN ANYTHING BUT IF YOU CARE ABOUT IT MAYBE DON’T READ ANYWAY.
No. His subplot got entirely cut.
I was wondering if they might have used animals as the model for the aliens, in some way. Or… Better idea, maybe they had actaul mice to serve as animation reference during the mindgame sequence.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Nope. He had less than a minute screen time total, which was just him with his hands around Ender’s throat with Ender in a bug mask.
So….you know your life has taken a turn for the bizarre when your mother sends you a link to a torchwood fanfic…..how did she even come across that part of the Internet? How will she react when/if she follows more links and the next fanfic she comes across isnt rated “K”?
My life has become so weird. Seriously.
You must feel the same way I felt when my mom first used the word “memes”.
(It wasn’t nearly as bad as when I first accidentally explained shipping to her.)
“me-mes?”
Attempting to explain Kirk/Spock to my mum, because of something I said. When I was closeted and her response didn’t exactly make me want to decloak. (She was mainly just weirded out, I think, but…) And had started liking those non-K fics.
Oh, hi, MB. I totally haven’t been lurking and neglected to post on here for the last four or five months or anything. Heh.
To be fair, I have been a little busy with productions of Macbeth (I’m Malcolm and get to have an epic bromance with my sister Macduff, which is a little… hm) and college applications and such. I am developing a burning hatred for my main application essay.
Currently I am on my third discrete idea for this caking 650-word piece of writing, and what I have so far reads like this:
‘When you’re a 100% homeschooled, discipline-dabbling daughter of international Jewish Buddhist atheist married lesbians, who lives on a farm in rural Western Massachusetts for 10 months out of every year and in various countries around the world for the remaining 2 months, it’s a little difficult to pick one facet of your personality and life to single out as most important.’
That’s all I have. Really. Yup. I am really not too good at this talk-less-about-my-interesting-life-and-more-about-my-boring-self thing. *bashes head and computer against wall*
Hi, welcome back!
Hey! I can’t guarantee that I won’t disappear again, but I can guarantee that I will lurk sporadically at least. I miss you guys whenever I leave.
So BU apparently has a Professor Cakebread.
As in, that’s ens name, or that’s what en does?
It’s en’s name.
I’m impressed. And a bit sorry for en.
Probably completely bombed my exam this morning (which isn’t surprising as my studying for it consisted of going to a concert, looking over my notes, eating half a block of vegan cheese and some beverages and then going to bed), but the rest of my day was definitely the best in awhile.
I found money in my jeans pocket, playing music for the contra dance was pretty good (I messed up a few times, but nothing too serious), and when we weren’t playing (we switched on and off with the other band) I got to dance with people I liked/who were good dancers. The last waltz I danced with a guy who’s an absolutely phenomenal flatfooter, which was kind of intimidating, but I don’t think I made TOO much a fool of myself, and I had fun.
I’m gross and sweaty and, now that I’m coming down from performance/dance high, tired.
This weekend I’m going on a field trip with a bunch of other traditional music folk from my school, which should be fun.
Watched Thor tonight with the ex. I feel the need to reiterate that Chris Hemsworth is absolutely gorgeous. Even if everytime he was on the screen all I could see was George Kirk, rather than Thor…..
But yeah. Yum.
Slightly more to the point, perhaps, the movie was hilarious, like I didn’t remember the first thor movie having so many freaking hilarious moments, but this one every 5-10 minutes had you laughing your butt off. It was great. I really enjoyed it.
I’d like to go see Thor (perhaps on Sunday?) but I’d be watching it really for Loki, not for Thor. I’m rather obsessed with Loki, which is mixed up with total fan-girl-gushiness for Tom Hiddleston. I skipped my way through Thor 1 and The Avengers last night to just watch Loki’s scenes.
Now that the days are getting noticeably shorter and sunlight quite a bit more scarce, I’m considering investing in one of those therapy lamps for seasonal affective disorder. Does anyone have any experience with these? Anything to look for or avoid?
I’m not sure self-diagnosis is the way to go with mood disorders. Have you talked to someone about this, or are you just going to buy a lamp and hope?
No, I’m not saying I have SAD. I just know that the lack of sunlight gives me the blues and makes me feel tired during the winter and I think a nice lamp would help perk me up a bit.
If it’s serious enough that you’re considering a therapy lamp specifically, I think your course of action should perhaps involve a non-lamp therapist.
I just don’t know of a more concise term for lamps that try to put out those specific ranges of the UV spectrum and have helpful dimmers and stuff? I don’t mean the ones that are hundreds of dollars and you only use for 15 minutes at a time. I don’t have SAD, I just want a lamp.
Couldn’t you just take vitamin D supplements? It would probably be cheaper and less likely to cause cataracts.
I’m not getting a UV lamp and I don’t want to take supplements.
Look, forget I said anything. All I wanted was a stupid lamp but I guess that’s not okay so just forget it.
Ah, I said “UV spectrum” for some reason. Strike that, replace with “light” or something else less wrong and confusing.
Piggy, both the Mayo Clinic and Consumer Reports Health have posted information about SAD lamps, aka light boxes. Everyone seems to agree that you’re supposed to avoid UV light. Bright white light with as little UV as possible, first thing in the morning, is the recipe. Unfortunately, good lamps seem to run at least $200, but Christmas is coming. You can also rent them, apparently.
Yeah, I think I was thinking, “I want one of those UV-free lamps,” and so for some reason my brain latched onto “UV” as I typed that comment. I’ve found a few lamps for sixty or seventy bucks that seem to have good reviews from people in my position–i.e., not SAD but a little unenergetic during the winter.
I don’t have anything helpful to add, but if you think a lamp will help, I personally think it sounds like a great idea, diagnosis or no.
I don’t understand what your problem is. Seeing a therapist or taking supplements is a perfectly normal thing to do. I also never said a lamp wasn’t OK, I just think that if you’re having problems talking to someone about it is more likely to solve your problems than a $200 lamp.
“I don’t understand what your problem is.” Is likely an example of exactly what his “problem” is. You probably don’t mean to, but some of your recent comments come off rather abrasive, and I can’t speak for piggy, but they make me grouchy and defensive and irritable–and I’m not even the one being addressed. Like I said, you probably don’t mean to come across that way, but if piggy is at all like me, it’s comments like that that are his “problem”and I apologize if this comment is incoherent/ofnsive. The comment box is only ones tree wide and only about 6 letters tall so I can’t read or proof this for coherency or tone. :/
Luna isn’t wrong, but I think what’s irking me is the fact that I think you’re making a lot of assumptions and misunderstanding what my situation is and what my goals are, and that’s my fault as much as anyone’s, and I apologize for that. I have no qualms whatsoever with therapy or with medication or with any of that, and if I’m ever in a situation where that sort of thing could be helpful, I would do it in a heartbeat. But that’s not my situation at all and I know myself well enough to make that call. I only ask that you respect this and, if not trust, then at least permit me to make the decisions that are right for me.
I know that this sort of issue is something very important and personal for you, and so if I’ve said anything inaccurate or anything that upset, worried, annoyed, or bothered you, I want to apologize as sincerely as I can. I’m really grateful that you’re concerned about my health and I’m sorry this discussion turned into something unpleasant.
Apparently, in my theater group the favorite scenes of everyone playing one of the main characters in the play we’re doing are scenes in which something negative happens to ens character.
Case in point:
-Mine (I play the mother): I get conned and have my purse stolen.
-The guy playing the father: He spends a quarter of the scene getting yelled at (by me) for his backseat-driving habits.
-The guy playing the main character: Something negative to some degree happens to him in every scene.
-The girl playing the little sister: Her father goes into the house of the creepy old farmer in the forest and her brother tries to frighten her about it. And meanwhile we’re all roasting in an oven-like car.
This play is just so much FUN! (I’m not being sarcastic; it’s the kind of thing where you have to be there.)
So I still don’t have the round glasses I’d need for my ideal Katia Krafft cosplay, but I did get a red knit cap at the campus bookstore. Without the glasses I just look like a Calypso crewmember, but that’s not a bad thing.
Also, apparently the guy who wrote “The Terror” has a new novel about the 1924 Everest Expedition and probably the Yeti is somehow involved in the plot (given that the title is “The Abominable”), so the following occurred…
Twelve-Year-Old-Kai: *hysterical fangirl freakout* “Ohmykoko, just grab it and run to the register! Why are you not doing that?”
Twenty-Year-Old-Kai: “Because my to-read list is long enough as it is and I haven’t even gotten to Wade Davis’ nonfiction book about Mallory that I got almost two years ago, and once I get more books for Christmas the list will be even longer and it’ll be here for a long time ’cause they keep novels out on the shelves a lot longer than nonfiction and besides the library will have it because libraries always get all the new novels but not all the new nonfiction.”
Twelve-Year-Old-Kai: “Well, okay… We’ll wait?”
Twenty-Year-Old-Kai: “We’ll wait. Bet you five bucks he says Irvine got eaten by the Yeti and that’s why his body hasn’t been found.”
Twelve-Year-Old-Kai: “Or maybe he turned into a Yeti because of a curse!”
Twenty-Year-Old-Kai: “You’re thinking of wendigos…”
Ha, so apparently there’s an SCP article about a weird ghost thing killing people on Everest, wouldn’t it be funny if the monster in the book turned out to be something similar in a “great minds think alike” type of thing?
*KICKFLIPS IN WHILE BELTING THE SCORE TO SEVEN MUSICALS*
Hello, I like your enthusiasm!
WHAT’S UP KAI I’VE BEEN GONE FOR SO LONG
well thats like. two years. ive been gone for two years.
hello i am daekie-formerly-avalongirl and witchneko (who went through a gender identity crisis and figured something out along the way) but i missed you guys!!!
Ohhhh, I remember you now. Didn’t recognize you with the name change. (I’m terrible with names to begin with, so….yeah.)
Welcome back.
Hehehe, thanks, Luna! <3 Like I said: missed you guys. I remember you too, haha — I just had to sort of drop MB with school gettin' in the way, but I have it a TAD more under-control now, so I can return.
Two years? Surely it hasn’t been that long!
Maybe it hasn’t been two YEARS since I posted, but since I was an actual consistent user? Two years, easy (I’m in my junior year of high school, and I wasn’t on here at all last year, so it was at least two years).
Our records show that you were active as Thief and Thiefling until April 2012
(https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=11470#comment-451984),
then returned briefly as Daekie for a couple of days in late September 2012
(https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=12488#comment-464768).
Even in 2011 you often used to vanish for a few months and then reappear for a few days just to touch base. That’s not unusual here.
oH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO FORMAT I mean. Thanks! My sense of time is known to be…subpar. April 2012 seems more recent than I remember, but again — I don’t know when it is. What year is it.
…Oh, wow, I totally assumed you were Ducky using a different name. I mean, that’s kind of a wierd coincidence, that you returned simultaneously with names that basically just varied in the vowels.
Welcome back, anyway!
Nnnnope! That’s not me, haha. I am TOO COOL for waterfowl.
Hey, don’t diss the waterfowl. They’re pretty dangerous.
I’m trying to remember whether I ever saw you around with this name, but I don’t think I did. Probably your reappearence coincided with one of my (many) absenses.
Hi! I love musicals as well; what are some of your favorites?
Ohhhh man, don’t even ask me that, Biblio. That’s not fair. That’s not fair.
I like…Next to Normal, The Book of Mormon, Billy Elliot, Matilda…I’ve seen a TON, but those are my personal favorites.
I love Matilda as well; it’s hilarious and clever and touching, and the recorded cast is great, and “Quiet” is usually what I sing under my breath when I need to calm myself now. Next to Normal is really well-written, but I don’t like the message. I still haven’t gotten around to finishing listening to The Book of Mormon cast recording, but what I’ve heard is hilarious. Billy Elliot I’ll have to look up sometime.
As for myself, I haven’t actually seen a lot of musicals, but I’ve listened to tons of cast recordings and read a fair amount of librettos. There are a lot that I really love, but the vast majority that would really top my list right now are ones with scores composed by Stephen Sondheim. Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Follies, Passion, etc.
Welcome back, by the way! I remember you used to post hilarious stuff on The Embi Family thread.
Bless your soul, Biblio! I feel…APPRECIATED. I remember the Embi thread — whenever I have to make up a last name on the internet, I still go by Daekie Embi, upupupu.
Next to Normal is real close to my heart because it’s, well, essentially about my family! Sort of. It makes me cry, and I want to play Natalie, because I might as well be Natalie. Book of Mormon is HECKA AMAZING — ESPECIALLY if you have a previously-Mormon relative who gets the jokes. I’m not a big fan of classical musicals, but Into the Woods is pretty great!
Nice gravatar.
[HOPING INTENSIFIES]
For most of this week I have had an alarmingly strong desire to do nothing but play fiddle and dance. All the time. (Like I love those things very very much all the time, but it’s not usually this extreme.)
This afternoon/evening I’m going with a bunch of other folks in the traditional music program to the Carter Family Fold, where I’m guessing we’re seeing a performance (though I’m not sure who) and jamming and dancing and going to see the family graves, I think. I’m excited, even though I don’t actually know all that much about the trip, because all I’ve heard about it was that it was happening and my band might be going, and then that we were going. But I like most of the people that I know are going, and I like adventures.
But that’s later today, for now I really need to eat things and not throw them right back up.
I find it funny how, on modern-day television, you can talk about sex all you want, but you can’t swear.
What’s weird to me is how really awful violence is okay, but sex isn’t.
It’s practically inverted in some parts of Europe (well, here). For example, “The Mentalist” is rated for ages 16+ because they show murder scenes/other violence (goes for most crime dramas- this is the equivalent to an R-rating). On the other hand, films like “The Ugly Truth” have an “ages 12+” rating (as opposed to being rated R in the states).
However, it isn’t primarily a violence thing- the JMK has six bullet points on rating films, three of which are based on ethical/moral criteria (the films glorifies violence, promotes drugs/alcohol, contains sexist or racist material, promotes (religious) intolerance…). Nothing explicit about no-sex-for-the-kiddies, though romantic comedies tend to default to a 12+ rating (unless they infringe on the sexism or drinking front).
Which is definitely a good place to start, enough though they come down too hard on some films: Man on Wire got a 16+ rating (highest) for portraying a crime in a positive light, enough though I sincerely doubt that the film would seduce youngsters to a life of heinous tightrope-walking. Especially with people like Felix Baumgartner teaching us that it’s more fun to jump off things.
If they though “Man on Wire” portrayed crime in a positive light, I’d hate to see what rating they gave “Ocean’s 11”.
Yeah, that is weird in the US. I remember one summer hearing “Forget you” on the radio and then wondering why… oh, right. (Radio is always explicit here)
I see you driving
round town with the girl I love
and I’m like, haiku
So I was trying to do a bit of reading/research for one of the cases I’m assigned to this Monday. I’m a short way into a case study on the disease in question, when it comments that the animal the case study was about presented to the veterinary teaching hospital at my school. And then I scroll up, and recognized the names of the three of the four authors. And for whatever reason, this strikes me as totally hilarious. (I’m in a weird mood right now.)
Carter Family Fold was great. We listened and danced to an old-time band that was playing, but before that we went up the road to the family graves and sang “Will you miss me when I’m gone” in the moonlight and it was just a really beautiful moment, even though I actually don’t know the Carter family’s music as well as I should, it was just a really pretty thing to think about life and music and history and place and all these things converging in this one beautiful instant.
And this is silly, but I wore a dress I got yesterday at the thrift store and I really like it and I just felt pretty good about myself today, not just that I felt cute as all get out, but I just felt about as at-peace with myself as I have for awhile, which is really reassuring that it’s a possible feeling to have.
Greetings, friends. Hope your voyaging goes well.
Things have somewhat improved for me. My other sister, the one I haven’t met since I was old enough to remember, came to visit, and I expected awkwardness (oh yeah, she’s my biological mother…) and fear but she’s actually really nice. We have different views on certain family things, and I’m seriously questioning things I’ve been told. I wasn’t alone any more and I had someone to do the housework.
Then my dad came home on Thursday and is pretty much his normal self, which is also a relief.
Then my aunt and uncle, who I’ve seen a couple of times this year, came to visit. Er, we have to get up in 6 hours to see them off at the train station, actually…
I now get compliments most times I pull out my TARDIS wallet. I’m not complaining.
I dreamed that I was at a theme park where there was a ride called “The Lost Treasure of Captain Kidd”, and when you got to the pre-show area, there was this narrator who would be all like “Raawr, arr, blood and guts, he was a pirate”, and then another narrator bike it and was like “No, he was a victim and you made factual errors x, y, and z”, and it turned into an argument until they were both like “Ugh, well, why don’t we have our guests journey to the past with BOTH of us describing what happened and let them decide who they agree with?”
So…..Friday night I slept for 16 hours. Saturday night I slept for 8. I don’t even have chronic sleep deprivation as an excuse anymore, like I did before starting clinics. It would be nice if regular jobs existed where you didn’t have to stick to a sleep schedule, because I’m not good at that. Give me about three days off, and I’ve got my sleep schedule nearly reversed, give me a few more days and I”ll probably re-reverse it. I need a job where I can just work whenever I happen to be awake, and not be required to be awake and at a job at certain hours.
Alternatively, stick me back on late-shift (to 2 or 3 am) or night shift, like I worked the one summer I spent in this state getting residency, as that actually seemed to work for me fairly well.
I don’t know how people do the whole “be at work at 8am thing”. I really don’t.
Alternatively, somebody needs to invent a job where the job description is sleeping. Because I would totally ace that. and it would be great, sleeping for a living, lol. I am totally serious.
So. In regards to the Doctor Who 50th that omg I can’t believe it’s only a couple weeks away, I have reached several decisions/conclusions/some word that fits here.
1. I’m not going to watch the trailer. I don’t want to know anything about it. I want it to be a complete surprise. A surprise that is either going to be really good (I have my doubts) or really suck (I’m kind of expecting this to be honest) or just be meh and no strong feelings one way or the other (expecting this far more than “really good”, but a bit less than “really sucks”).
2. I’m going to watch it in 2D before seeing it on the 25th in 3D in theatres, because even if I were able to manage to avoid any and all websites that might possibly spoiler it for me between Saturday and Monday (which technically I could do), I don’t have any faith at all in the common courtesy of other people attending the 3D showing in theatres, and I have no doubt that at least one person within earshot in the 2 hours+ that I will be waiting for it to start, would be a big enough jerk bag to have watched it and feel the need to share and spoil it for others. People seem to be jerks like this ((and I have experience iwth people being jerks like this….like when I found out who died in the fifth Potter book thanks to someone who even when asked to please not share, was just that much more insistent on sharing. on purpose. to make everyone in earshot very not happy with him))
3. It’s probably really really really going to suck. I’m still furious with what went down in Name of the Doctor. I’m still less than thrilled with choices that have been made in who is or isn’t coming back in the 50th. I’m definitely nto thrilled AT ALL with the length. It’s the 50th anniversary, and the episode is only 75 minutes? Come on. Seriously.
4. Maybe if I have really low expectations it will actually pleasantly surprise me….right?
5. Not looking forward to trying to explain the whole episode to my mom. She’s still back on season 5, last episode she saw was the Crash of the Byzantium 2 parter with the Weeping Angels and River Song, just shy of midway through that season. She doesn’t know who River Song is, she hasn’t met Clara, she doesn’t know about everything that goes down with Rory, she certainly doesn’t know about John Hurt’s character, and…..Yeah. There’s just no way I can get her caught up, because to be honest she reallyw asn’t keen on watching after Tennant left, and I”m not so sure she wasn’t only watching because of Tennant. I mean, after all, pretty sure she only watched Torchwood for Captain jack–which would explain why she actually didn’t dislike Miracle Day.
6. I dont’ have a 6.
What the cakity caking cake is happening?!
Uh. Where did recent comments go?
Did the blog layout go all wonky on anybody else? Or is my iPod being weird….? I’ve double checked and it didn’t accidentally revert to mobile layout, so I nobody else is experiencing it, I dunno. :/
No…
Did Google+ corrupt Museblog too?!
Either that or WordPress made changes, because that powers FanFiction too, and FanFiction’s PMs have gotten renovated.
Our WordPress theme, Painter, begged me to update it, and I foolishly complied. When will I learn about so-called upgrades?
Any chance it can be *un*upgraded?
What’s worse than foolishly “upgrading”, is forced upgrades where you don’t even get a choice. My email account did that a few weeks ago–apparently a lucky few we’re getting a new layout tested on them, no way to opt out, no way to switch back. I hate it
My iTunes also got screwed over on my old laptop, because when it was at the Mac store getting upgraded from 10.6 to 10.8, they ever so kindly updated all of my apple based applications, leaving me with the new an very much UNimproved iTunes. I’m still annoyed about that…
Youtube as well.
Ah, yes. YouTube has been terrible ever since google got their hands on it, and going down hill fast
The funny thing is I can’t access all the features (including comments) on Google’s own Chrome browser. I have to open it in an IE tab.
It keeps pressuring me into using my real name on my account, which is annoying. I can’t imagine that’s something more than a few of their users want to do.
And then there’s IE, which is going through a weeaboo phase apparently…
As far as I can tell, iTunes is in a permanent state of cakewreck.
My only problem with iTunes is that every time I think I’ve mastered it, it changes.
I like iTunes 11…
I can’t organize my music the way I use to. It use to have suborganization when you were on the page with the cover thumbnails, now they just all run together and it’s ugh.
Plus side: website fields for everyone! …Not that you can tell the difference.
Is there any way to change it back?
I’ll give it the old college try tonight, time permitting. I know it’s annoying.
Ah, that’s what happened. At first I thought it was the fact that I was using Internet Explorer, since that’s all the school computers have.
I like the blue colors, but it’s very…arctic. The title font is also bothering me, or perhaps it’s the fact that it’s in all caps. Is there any way to change that (if such change were desirous)?
Recent Comments bar is back, for me.
I can see the recent comments bar, but I can’t read any of the comments in them without clicking, which is inconvenient for me as I generally find new posts by finding the comment I’ve read last and working my way up.
As for the website field, I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to use that, so it’s basically a useless feature.
Yeah, we aren’t allowed to use it on MA, and I don’t see why it’d be any different now.
I’ve been linking to the MB homepage for the sheer novelty of it, but yeah, I should probably stop. It’s not really visible, anyway, except in Recent Cooments.
Eating lunch in Earth Sciences department…
“Are you waiting to talk to somebody?”
“No, I just like to look at the pretty geodes in the display cases.”
Having elicited some envious comments on Facebook, I may just repeat my status on MuseBlog :
I’m slowly coming down from the natural high created by spending six evenings playing shawms, recorders, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy at delighted punters, and making them sing and dance. All in the PERFECT acoustic of Aston Hall, which is Jacobean mansion near Birmingham, and by the warm glow of candlelight.
Those of you with keen memories may recall that some time ago I was daydreaming about taking a trip to Japan next March. Well, this plan recently changed somewhat, and after a discussion with my parents this evening it is now semi-confirmed (the only potential obstacle: being too late and the trip being full already) that I will instead be going to Italy for ten days with the Newman Center (Catholic organization) of my university! My dad and I discussed financials and the potential payment proportions I proposed were permitted. My hopes of buying a motorcycle soon will have to be put on hold, but I’m okay with that.
Now I just have to hope and pray that there’s still room left in the tour–how excruciating it would be to learn that all the spots had been claimed!
In other news, I’m taking another break from Proust to read something a little more compact–my second attempt at The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve also been preparing for next semester–my last semester of college–and trying to find the easiest possible courses that will fulfill my remaining requirements. And tomorrow I’ll be mailing in the first few pieces of my seminary application. Wish me luck!
The new theme is a very interesting Birthday Surprise. For a moment when I got on I almost thought I’d missed half a year and it was April 1st and the GAPAs were springing something new on us, but then I checked the calendar and no, ’tis still the 12th of November and my birthday. Upon further perusal of recent conversation on this thread I now realize that the blog now looks like this to everyone and has since… yesterday? I do hope we can get our old layout back. It’s just not the same. It feels like moving to a new house, or coming home to find that everything’s been moved around and it’s as if nobody lives there anymore.
SFTDP, but: GAPAs, why isn’t my birthday on the Coming Soon list? Just wondering…
Fireh, I’m not sure you’ve ever been on our birthday calendar, but I’ll certainly add you. Am I safe in assuming the year is 1996?
Thank ye kindly, Sir Coontz! And yes, you assume rightly. I’ve no idea how you may have come to that conclusion…
In light of the new theme, the title of this Random Thread feels a bit too fitting.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
I’d rather serve in Heaven, although that may be because I dislike the burdens of responsibility that some with management.
Satan, who spoke the line in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” had a higher opinion of his own managerial capabilities.
I knew that, I was being silly.
On MuseBlog?! Heaven forbid!
Successfully, I might add (if the kitten will allow me to type).
I have to say that the new theme kind of bothers me (it really confused me the first time I came on here after it changed, I thought there was something wrong with my internet). I could probably get used to it eventually, but I really miss being able to see people’s actual recent comments, as well as having the comment box at the bottom of a thread. Is there any way to change just those things back, GAPAs?
I’m working on it, Armada. Unfortunately, I’ve been busy day and night this week, but I should have a couple of hours tomorrow night. With any luck, things will be back to normal by Thursday.
So. Apparently I suck at showing enthusiasm in seeing cases, but am excellent at exhibiting “a professional attitude and relationship with clients.”
The former not surprising that they think I’m unenthusiastic, I’m an introvert, I don’t do the whole jumping up and down me me me me thing. The latter? Yeah…..Surprised they think anything involving me and communication could be deemed excellent. That’s the only thing I got graded as “excellent” on, while I got two “below averages” and mostly average/good for other categories. So I guess they really thought I was good at htat or something.
High point of my day: On my way to lunch, a client I had seen back when I was on cardio saw me walking across the parking lot and recognized me (even though I was iwth a bunch of other students) and said hi and remembered I was from Alaska and remembered me from 2 weeks ago. And then apparently told the people currently on cardio that he’d seen me in the parking lot and I was from Alaska. It’s a good feeling, having clients recognize you and say hi.
*twitches at the new theme*
Re: Piggy on the last thread: That’s awesome! Let us know when you get into the trip for sure.
I am still stretched to the end of my wits by junior year, panicked about colleges, angry at journalism, over my head in Mock Trial- you know, the usual. However, this weekend I went to my cousin’s wedding, and it was a blast. Her family had been expecting her to get married much earlier and had saved up for the ten intervening years, so they went all-out and had a three-day, extremely traditional extravaganza. I’d never been somewhere so fancy. Sometimes, it’s nice to look around the blatant sexism of Indian culture and twirl around in sparkly clothing. Also, I got to meet my five-year-old cousin, who is also half-Indian and looks exactly like I did ten years ago. And I danced with a lot of little kids. Upon getting back to school today, I found a tremendous load of homework waiting for me and am consequently surfing the Internet and watching horror movies in the dark to distract from the even darker reality that lurks in my backpack.
Glad you had fun! Good luck with all the work!
Have you seen that NY Times article about how to crash an Indian wedding?
“many Indians are especially warm and welcoming to visitors and … relish the chance to show off their English”
I can’t find the article, but you could totally crash an Indian wedding. No one attending knows everyone else who’s attending (this includes the bride and groom), so you’d be perfectly safe.
Oh, it sounds like a lot of fun! But also the kind of thing that’s okay to spontaneously happen into, not to plan for. No R.S.V.P.? In Rajasthan, India, No Worries lists tour companies that will facilitate finding weddings for you to crash, which is icky, I guess because it’s a touristic commercialization of culture that perpetuates the idea of the “magical native.”
I’m so, so very uncomfortable that the comment box is at the top now. This is gonna drive me bonkers.
I’ve just come back from a French debating competition and out of sixteen teams from various schools in the region, we won the final round and so are through to the national finals in March! Apparently, I “speak like a machine-gun”. Who knew?
Four hours of sleep the night before (for silly reasons), very last-minute panicky preparing of speeches this morning, four successive debates with hardly any breaks…I’m frazzled. Off to bed.
You speak like a machine gun? Does this involve frequently shouting “YOU’VE GOT THAT WRONG!” at people?
(I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
I think the speed surprised everyone because the debate all had to be in French, a second language for everyone. I suppose people don’t tend to speak quickly in a second language, even if they speak quickly in their first.
Heh, apparently I do, too. Those of you who have met me in real life may be able to testify to this. That and my lisp are the only flaws in my public speaking.
KaiYves speaks somewhat faster than a machine gun, as I recall. Kokonventions must be very confusing to anyone listening in.
Sorry. *blushes*
There’s no need to be embarrassed about thinking five times as fast as most people do.
I thought you were perfectly understandable at the NC Kokon… But maybe I just have practice conversing at machine gun speeds. (You should have heard some of the fandom-related conversations I had with some of my high school friends.
)
Watching an NCIS episode from a couple weeks ago….And you know how usually TV episodes don’t use brand names or whatever of anything? And don’t have real TV channels, etc, or website? Like there’s no YouTube or *insert real social network site here*.
Ducky had been hearing this annoying beeping noise, and he finally located the source, and him or one of the other characters goes “a ThinkGeek Annoyatron?” And I had to pause the episode and lol and come post this, because that was kind of awesome. I mean, product placement and stuff is annoying, but this totaly worked, was hilarious, and most people probably didn’t even know it was product placement unless they were familiar with the existence of ThinkGeek in the first place.
Yay, my laptop connects to the Internet again!
Ugh. It’s a really horribly unpleasant feeling when you wanted to lose about 10 pounds, and you a) weigh yourself for the first time in a couple months and see that you have instead gained 10 pounds (
) and b) try on a pair of dress pants that about 3 years ago were almost too loose on you to wear and now you can barely get them snapped and zipped. And your favorite pair of jeans that you have been telling yourself most of college that you are actually going to wear again someday, and which at some point while you were dating your ex (thus narrowing the time frame down to sometime–oh wow I just realized it’s November, in the terms that our 3 year anniversary would ahve been November 5th, and I never even thought about it that day or week or anything, even in passing, that it would have been our anniversary, despite the fact we were texting quite a bit that week, depsite the fact that we went to a movie together on the 7th which was the first time we hung out since we broke up, not the first itme we’d seen each other–giving stuff back and chatting, blah blah blah–but the first time we actually did something together. Huh. I feel like I would have read mroe into/responded differently/whatever to him asking if I wanted company when I went to see Thor on the 7th if I had realized that two days earlier would have been our anniversary. Huh. Interesting.)
Anyway. That would mean I last fit in that pair of jeans sometime between 3 years ago and 8 months ago. closer to 3 years, and even then barely.
And I kind of lost the point of this post, except something about pants that use to be too big now being too small is extremely frustrating and annoying. Apparently when you want to lose 10 pounds, eating cheese fries and McDonalds and Taco Bell and pizza and mac and cheese and bean and cheese dip (mostly cheese, soome refried bean) on potato chips and grilled cheese sandwiches is not the way to go. Who’d’ve thunk. And no exercise, except walking to and from my car. Yeah. I mean, come on, logically that hsould have worked.
If all y’all Whovians have not seen it nor watched it yet, “Night of the Doctor”, 7 minute prequel to the upcoming 50th. It gives me hope for the anniversary special, as well as quite a bit of sadness that I don’t think waiting so that the first time I watch the episode is in theatres is a feasible possibility if I don’t want to get spoilered. I just don’t trust the others in the audience not to be talking about it before it starts.
But seriously. Watch the prequel. It makes me excited for the special in 9 days. Which I really haven’t been per se recently, so hopefully I don’t end up to excited and optimistic and then get let down.
Wow. Just realized November is half over and I still hadn’t flippped my 50th anniversary calendar over to November and the 11th, and was still stuck back on October. lol
I just recently noticed, that, a villain’s goal in a movie/book is to usually gain power, and eventually rule over the world/universe.
But… why?
I mean, when they’re all-powerful and everyone in the world is their slave, what do they do next? They have a huge army, but nobody to fight against. If you rule everything, then there is no more goals anymore.
What then?
Well, I guess it wouldn’t feel very supervillainly to aspire after baking the best cookies in the world, so they go for power instead.
How short-sighted of them. The world needs good cookies a lot more than it needs Evil Overlords.
Catwings, I assume you’re talking mostly about comic books and movies based on them. Their characters usually aren’t particularly deep, but they usually do try to explain villains’ mania for world conquest.
Some supervillains just seem to feel they deserve to rule the world. (Magneto in the X-men is like that — a strong feeling of mutant superiority, coupled with vengeance for what the Nazis did to his family.) Others are basically humanitarians who genuinely think the world will be better off with them in charge. Still others are compensating for feelings of inferiority or injustice, often directed at other members of their own families (such as Loki, who can’t get over his stepfather’s preference for golden-boy Thor).
Not all supervillains are like that. Most of Spider-Man’s would-be nemeses seem to be mid-grade criminals with a theatrical flair who mainly want to get rich.
(And, of course, outside comic books and kids’ books, it’s often hard to find villains at all.)
I was thinking mostly of… people like Saruman.
Oh, he definitely felt he deserved to rule. He was already immortal and very powerful, and he clearly didn’t relish the thought of working for Sauron for the rest of eternity. The only way out was for him to be the boss. So he decided to trick Sauron and the Elves into annihilating each other so that he could take over once they were gone. World Domination 101.
Clearly, you’re smarter than the average supervillain.
Well, we know how Alexander the Great reacted when he thought he’d conquered the whole known world…
…This is embarrassing, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t really read all that much about ancient rulers in my spare time, nor have I taken any classes in non-exclusively-American history in school yet at all ever–so I actually was not aware that he ever thought he’d conquered the entire known world. And I did look it up on Wikipedia, but it didn’t really help–it actually said that when he died, he had plans for invading Arabia, so I’m assuming it was earlier when he thought this? Anyway, if you could explain what you’re talking about, that would be great.
Bibliophile: Alexander the Great supposedly wept on contemplating the size of his empire because there were no more worlds to conquer. But Plutarch says the opposite: that when a Greek philosopher told him that there are an infinite number of worlds, he wept because he had not succeeded in conquering even one.
In any case, he certainly knew that he hadn’t conquered everything. He faced mutiny in India and had to return to Persia, though he wanted to keep going. Even so, there are cities named after him as far east as Afghanistan, and as far south as Egypt. Not bad for someone who partied himself to death at 33.
This… this is one reason why I came to Museblog. For amazing facts like this
So I’d thought I was making progress with my telephone phobia, what with the whole having to call clients and stuff and the number of phone calls I’ve had to make getting everything sorted out with my car (which is still in the shop, but they *are* fixing it, thank god), and the fact that int he last four weeks, I’ve actually *called* to order takeout food THREE TIMES, when in the last 5 1/2 years of ordering take out, I would only do it if they had an online order form–and if the order form was down? I’d decide I just wasn’t that interested in that particular food, no matter how much I’d been craving it.
But now I have to make a phone call, and between the fact that the place I’m calling is in Alaska and 3 hours earlier (it’s only 9:30 there now), and I didn’t want to call until at least 8 AK time…..I’ve been anticipating having to make thsi phone call, and I really need to do it, and I really don’t want to, and I’m starting to get that unpleasant yicky feeling in my stomach I get when i think about talking on the phone that I haven’t gotten for any of the phone calls I”ve made recently, and blech. I don’t think I’m making progress afterall.
Well that was fun. Nothing like having the receptionist? or whatever her job title is who answers the phone, and whose name you didnt’ catch because you have a horrible time understanding people on the phone, be the second person that you ask to speak to and have them be all “this is her”.
I just love sounding stupid. So now they probably think I’m really dumb, which is a really great way to begin a 2 week externship, yeah?
Anxiety over one specific telephone call doesn’t negate the progress you’ve made. Your reaction isn’t surprising, considering this particular call carried both higher stakes and a lot more unknowns to negotiate than a quick ring up for take-away food. Besides, progress seldom travels in a straight line. Since my enthusiasm for telephones is on a par with yours, I can attest that they do become easier to manage with practice. Which doesn’t mean the occasional call won’t knock you off balance.
Was there someone with the middle name Aurelius in Harry Potter? Because I was reading something that had the name Aurelius and it made me think HP, and then I was trying to remember, and at first I was like, Ron! But then, no, hang on, his is Bilius, after his weird Uncle. And then I”m like…let’s see, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, nope, no Aurelius there, was it Percy? What was Percy’s middle name? *googled because my knowledge is failing miserably* I wish I could remember school stuff half as well as I remember HP Trivia.
But thinking about it, I’m no longer convinced it was in HP? Because I think maybe at that one weird point when I was a teenager where I was naming future nonexistent children, one of my name choices for boys was “Lucas Aurelius” [hey, it’s better than the girl I wanted to name Ginevra something. alexandria, maybe? I dont’ remember.], and maybe that’s what I’m thinking of and it didn’t come from Harry Potter?
I’m losing my mind. I’m really relaly seriously losing my mind.
Percy’s middle name is Ignatius, right? I seem to recall it being mentioned in Phoenix… And actually, Aurelius sounds sort of familiar to me as well, though it might be from my Latin textbook.
Yup, it’s Ignatius. And yup, OotP, in Harry’s trial with the Wizengamot.
That sounds kind of familiar… I want to say Fudge, maybe.
Fudge’s middle name is Oswald.
Maybe you’re thinking that because his first name is Cornelius? Which sounds an awful lot like Aurelius….Hm, that could indeed be why it sounds familiar. Huh.
Yeah, I figured it probably wasn’t Fudge, because seriously, who on earth would name their kid Cornelius Aurelius? Too horrible. But I didn’t remember his middle name, either, so I thought I’d suggest it.
Can we just abolish telephones as a means of actually speaking to people? All communication with people you dont’ know must occur via email or text? Because that would make me so very happy.
yes, i’m spamming hte ‘blog, i apologize. this is what happens when i have freedom with NO STUDYING, no clinics, and should be doing stuff like packing. Because home tomorrow, so really need to pack, but….yeah…..packing…..blech…..
Telephones are actually really awkward, when you think about it. We communicate verbally through sight AND sound, and rely more than we think we do on reading a person’s lips. So when you take away the visual stimulus, it’s weird. I personally always say “What? Sorry, could you repeat that?” at least ten times per phone conversation and if it’s a situation where I can, I’ll put them on speaker. Phones are annoying.
Me too, minus the speaker hting. I actually find it harder to understand people on speaker phone, but that may just be my phone’s speaker.
I just want to say that you all are absolutely awesome and I love you all.
((Okay, I’m done spamming for a bit, because I have to run errands and then I *really* need to start hardcore packing. I’d be further if I hadn’t decided to actually get 8 hours of sleep last night instead of the planned nap….))
S’okay, Luna. Deep breaths. I feel a lot like you do right now.
Thanks for fixing the blog, GAPAs! But where is the search bar?
So I returned my rental car, and got a phone call when the driver was driving me back to my apartment. It was my generic ringtone, meaning not anyone important like my parents, so I just pulled it out of my pocket and pressed the button to make it stop ringing. My generic ringtone is the Star Trekkin song, and it got all the way through “Star Trekkin, across the universe, on the starship enterprise, under captain kirk”.
The driver? No laugh, no weird look, no anything. Totally totally lame. Totally.
So in retrospect its even sadder than initially realized that the ringtone got no reaction out of the driver. The rental company was Enterprise. (And somehow it was my sister of people when I was retelling this story who made the connection. I mean, I’d made the connection back when I first started renting the vehicle, but didn’t think about it once when returning g the car…..so that just makes the lack of reaction on the drivers part that much sadder……)
I have heard the song “Radha Likes to Party” twelve times in the past week what is happening to the world
The blog’s being back to normal brightened my day considerably, though. Thank you!
That awkward moment when you have an idea for a student character for the Demigod RPG 4 years late.
Whoa, that was four years ago? Really?
There is no way it’s been four years since the Demigod RPG. At the most it’s only two.
*refuses to believe, because that would make me feel old*
It started in 2009, but was active into 2011 and periodically revived after that. (And who knows, might yet come back.) The beginning was just where I tried to think of a student character and couldn’t, so I made a teacher.
(Of course now I have a cool idea for a creation of Hephaestus who was based on the appearance/genetics of a Krafft-expy couple who couldn’t have children and then raised by them as That Scientist’s Kid From National Geographic Kids Articles Who Went On Expeditions With En’s Parents You Were Always Super Jealous Of but consequently has never had friends his age or lived in one place very long and is thus really afraid to go away to school and try to make friends. Kind of like Henry Reed from Henry Reed Inc if he was French, a year or two younger, and a fireproof demigod. I’m just not sure how weird it would be for an Hephaestus creation to be a biological human and not a robot of some kind.)
So, let’s revive it! If I remember correctly, it was rather fun… *is well aware that this is probably a lost cause*
I’d totally give it a go for nostalgia. (Wait, it’s 2013 already? How did that happen?)
Dang, that was… seventh grade for me! I second a revival!
Not only that, there’s just over a month and a half left until 2014.
Would you want to reboot it from the beginning, or pick up where we left off, or some middle ground?
I was just re-reading the thread, and it seems like a lot of the plot when we left off was dependent on people who happen to not post anymore. I think a complete reboot would probably make the most sense, though I don’t know much about the middle.
I’d also vote for a total reboot; and it’d also let people who weren’t around then join in! Fur the good of efurryone, I say we should make a total reboot, hehe.
I third the reboot movement: It would allow us to all choose new characters and we wouldn’t have to stitch back together the old plot.
Have you noticed that I’ve created a thread?
The absence of the recent threads list in the sidebar is probably an issue.
Check.
Could we have a Currently Popular bar again, too, please?
Certainly. Step by step, we rebuild our blog.
I’m really glad this is up again.
Is it wrong that I kinda have a crush on Bruce Dickenson’s voice?
No. Crushing on voices is completely normal. Voices are so great.
I’m not familiar with who that is, but I kind of have a crush on Alan Rickman and Benedict cumberbatch’s voices, so……no. Perfectly normal.
“I do it, therefore it’s normal.” Non sequitur?
(Not that there’s anything wrong with having crushes on voices.)
If we keep claiming to be normal, maybe they’ll believe us at some point. (*insert bad math jokes about not wanting to all be equivalent in certain vector spaces*)
Today was my Year 12 Farewell Assembly. We had breakfast on the front lawn, were presented with gifts by our houses’ year 11’s and gave our PC leaders their gifts, wore academic gowns although our graduation is two weeks after exams, had our year 12 photo taken in front of a garden, practised for assembly — where to sit in front of the whole school plus the captains’ parents.
With impeccable timing, I was feeling irrationally…. I don’t know, bad… about not being able to name everyone in my year (I’ve been there 5 years, less than 200 people. I can differentiate between year 12’s and 11’s!… mostly.), about not feeling like one of them, thinking everyone was boring. Then once I felt more content with that, it felt like I’d missed some of the good of the day. I did zone out briefly – distracted by my rgrasping thoughts – during speeches and that annoyed me at the time. Bashir can be abrasive enough without me not trying to avoid conflict. I wanted to apologise to her but she was almost as bad (a rationalisation, maybe) and then it was awkward and then it was 9PM online and reading message replies is scary, so I just liked her new profile picture. I think it was bothering me on some level the rest of the day though.
Our principal gave a speech. Downside: it wasn’t that great. Upside: It was still nice, and also pretty religious, reminding me that they have something I don’t actually want but I don’t dislike them for it, not right then anyway. The captains’ musical speech was awesome. Our super cute future school captain gave a good speech although it sounded a little preachy for someone younger and less wise.
The year 11’s formed a guard of honour– holding their arms up in an arch extending out to the green grass, deep blue sky, and rustling trees. I looked at their faces and noticed both Kira and Lenara.
We hugged our friends, thanked and hugged our teachers, took photos, and eventually began to leave. I didn’t thank my math teacher Mrs R until she’d gone back to the staffroom, but I came by soon enough, and Mr D, other maths teacher, was there too. I used the term ‘fascinating’ several times today – for my chemistry teacher as well. I hugged pretty much every present female teacher I’ve known in the last 2 years- Mrs R, chemistry, biology, Mrs D, PC, other PC in house.
I’d asked if anyone wanted to come and do something with me because I didn’t want to go home and feel lonely like I have in the past. Cue regret for not going home and studying while my dad was probably napping. What the cake, brain? Someone I haven’t given a pseudonym to drove me to the mall and A came with us to get to the bus interchange. I was actually too busy feeling bittersweet to worry overmuch about awkwardness, and we had fun anyway.
We both had places to be at a certain time and she dropped me off. My dad picked me up later and was tired but still himself. I’ve being doing things other than study ever since.
Standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus wearing my black doctor who sweatshirt with white outline of the TARDIS. Girl walking toward (an past me). Wearing black sweatshirt with white outline of be TARDIS. Me: (I sound so intelligent, I know): we’re wearing the same sweatshirt
Anyway it was mildly awesome because I never see people wearing Who stuff
Me the other morning when I was walking the greyhounds I got a compliment on my doctor who police box hat. No inner in the fourth doctor scarf, just a “nice hat” thrown over the girls shoulder, but still
I AM SENDING THIS FROM AN AIRPLANE. YAY 30 MINUTES FREE WIFI
I will now update y’all on the episode of Star Trek TAS I watched while at the airport
“Why do you want, signs pointing the way!?”……”captain, look! Signs pointing the way!”
*time lapse*
Oh, my god. Make M’Ress stop purring. The sexual undercurrent to it is creeping me out. Big time
Also, they failed to animate spocks lips in one scene……
And this is the first time I’ve watched a Star Trek episode since AUGUST.
Would you be able to confine your Star Trek posts into one long post on one thread (the TV shows one perhaps) rather than many short ones spread between there and the random thread? Thanks!
fwiw, except for that comment, they were all posted on the TV shows thread. So while there were admittedly multiple posts, to say they were spread between this thread and the TV thread is not entirely accurate, as it implies there were a lot more posts on this thread than there actually were.
In the past you’ve posted quite a bit on the random thread about Star Trek. I’m not asking about this instance in particular, but in general for all future posts. I’d really appreciate it, since I use the recent comment sidebar a lot, and I feel that your comments drown out other people’s when you do this. Again, thanks.
So….Turns out the airport where my layover is has free wifi. Which I’m sure it didn’t last time, so….guess what? I have a 3 hour or so layover. And free wifi. Which means I can live post my Star Trek watching. I know y’all are excited.
((Actually, y’all are probably cussing out the airport for ahving free wifi, but hey. A girl can pretend. :razz:))
I might go back to watching TAS just to know what you’re talking about.
You should. The three best eps of the 12 I’ve watched are “yesteryear” with young Spock, the shoreleave planet revisited one (don’t remember the name), and the one with Mudd. “Mudd’s passion”, I think
Most of the first 8 episodes I barely remember–I watched them in August on a nighttime flight back to school, and could barely keep my eyes open
The only one of those you mentioned that I’ve seen so far is “Yesteryear.” I had too many issues with it. The whole ritual seems… not very logical, and it’s true that we haven’t seen that much of Vulcan and the little we did see indicated that it was really rooted in tradition and such, but this sort of thing, while common in traditional cultures, does not really seem to serve much of a purpose, and it feels like something that would have died out long ago. I also have a difficult time seeing Vulcans as polytheists (there was a throwaway line about their family’s gods), and I’m not terribly knowledgeable about time travel, but you don’t go back in time and cause a past event that you remember and also cause new stuff to happen that changes the timeline, in the same trip. That doesn’t make any sense at all. And this is what the Internet in general seems to think of as the best TAS episode, so I don’t have particularly high hopes for the others, especially as I do consider it a lot better than the other episodes I watched.
I… didn’t actually like “Shore Leave” all that much, so I don’t know how much I’ll like the sequel. And… I do intend to watch “Mudd’s Passion,” but I kind of hate the premise. If Chapel was actually that unethical, she should not be on the Enterprise. I don’t know how she was punished (She was, right? Giving someone, especially a Vulcan, a chemical or potion or whatever to make them attracted to you is awful.), but she’s in TMP.
Basically, since I’ve decided not to consider the episodes part of canon (Roddenberry didn’t, and Paramount didn’t until they took a poll and people apparently voted yes.), I don’t feel obligated to watch them anymore, and I’m not sure they’re good enough that I want to when I can find much better-thought-out stories about these characters through fanfiction and tie-in novels and such.
I just liked yesteryear because it wa Spock centric. My main issue was why, after what happened with Edith keeler, would you ever mess around with this time portal thing ever again. Ever.
I found Shore Leave hysterical and nearly died laughing (because I was eating and almost aspirated my lunch multiple times), so I enjoyed the shoreleave follow up, although not as much as te TOS ep
I consider them canon, and while they’re not as good as some f TOS, they’re not necessarily worse than others, and there hasn’t been anything that had truly upset me canonicity wise with them, unlike two eps of TOS (cloud minders, and then another ep close to that whose name I can’t recall, but where they’re on a planet with an old man and his young female ward)
I will admit I am miffed that I spent $45 on a potted bamboo plant (do all florists overcharge or just the ones I visit?) for our common room yesterday only for it to disappear today.
put up an angry/sad sign asking for its return! maybe someone thought it was being given away. I know people sometimes leave plant babies (esp. spider plants) out here for people to take if they want them. Maybe it’ll return and you can label it with “community plant friend” or something.
I told the RA, it is intended to be our Floor Community Plant Friend.
Y’know, it’s the fifth time today I was interrupted while listening to my favorite song! Every time I sit down to listen to it, something happens.
Just making sure nothing will stop me for the sixth time now, before I actually hit ‘play’ again
What’s your favorite song?
The one I was talking about was ‘Children of the Damned’ by Iron Maiden.
So, I guess I’ve kind of drifted away from the ‘blog and its inhabitants over the last couple of years.
I guess I’ve been okay. Nothing’s been hugely, horribly wrong, so I’m calling that “OK”. I’ve been depressed, I guess, but I’ve definitely been getting better over the last couple months.
How are you guys?
I’m sort of in the same boat, haha — I just sort of…drifted away too. What’s up? My last year has involved me finding out I have a chromosomal mutation, having surgery, and generally bein’ pretty grump.
Oh man, really? That’s rough. *squids ya*
It’s not a big deal, really! I just have a weak leg. And dup15q. And I might have a learning disability.
Wow, none of that actually worries me! That’s worrying!
DUCKY!!! DUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKYDUCKDUCKYDUCKYOMGYOUCAMEBACKYESYESYESYESYESYES!!! I missed you! I’m super sorry about the depression, but I’m glad you’ve been getting better.
DUCKY! I missed you! *glomps*
*hugs*
I hope we can brighten your days a little.
Ducky – DUCKY!
Good to see ya here again!
Daekie – *squids. lots of squids*
Today I remembered that in exactly a year I will be applying to colleges. I proceeded to curl up under my desk and cry while eating olives and listening to pledge drives on the radio for a solid hour.
Finally! Finally got to sit down and write the first sentence to my new chapterbook!
My life feels completed now….
I. Got. Headset.
I can now record some gaming videos for my Youtube channel…
NOW my life is complete…
Yay!
Hey, look, the recent posts list is back! And smaller than it was. I think I like it this way, though, it’s kind of cute. In a bizzare way.
Like Eddie…
It’s nice to go to the river on quiet Sunday mornings. Most of the trees have lost their leaves now, so you can see pretty far. The grass across the way on the Cambridge shore is brown and it sort of looks like the savannah. There wasn’t much wind this morning, so the surface was pretty still, just gently lapping at the rocks.
Three days until the play. Still working on costumes. I GET TO RIDE AN HONEST-TO-GOODNESS BIKE ACROSS THE STAGE!!!!!!! And one-handed as well, because it just takes too long to get the basket unbuckled from the bike.
I like being Ms. Gulch.
hello yes hi
so much work all the time x_x but I’ve learned I am capable of writing a 10 page research paper in 25 hours (inc. sleeping and one day of class) so there’s that. Admittedly, I did find the sources ahead of time. All 60 of them.
uh. life etc. it’s continuing to happen. Have my schedule for next semester sorted out I hope but. We’ll see.
I spend a lot of time obsessing over fictional dragon pets on an online game now. it’s vaguely like neopets (which I never played, but, basic concept) except you can breed your dragons and there’s specifics on what colors the children will be and also there’s some genetics-y stuff with specific genes and different breeds of dragons, and I signed up thinking “hey cool dragons I like dragons but I don’t care TOO much about the whole breeding thing” but it turns out I care so much.
60 sources? 60 sources? Dear Koko, what am I signing up for?
SCIENCE
at least they were annotated? so I could tell what they all were. On the other hand I did have to annotate them all in the first place. WOO BIO
Looked south-southeast but didn’t see any trace of MAVEN as they said I might. Still, it’s on its way! Good luck, buddy!
I was reflecting on a few things last night, one of which was this: it’s quite disheartening to think of the people who’ve been part of your life in one way or another – however small their role – whom you’ll probably never see again.
A few years ago, in a French class I went to back in Hong Kong, I had a teacher who was probably one of the best teachers by whom I’ve ever been taught. I haven’t seen him in years, and there’s no reason why I should have, but it never really crossed my mind that I probably wouldn’t again. Until recently, I discovered completely by chance that he moved back to France last year, and that sort of triggered all these thoughts.
To him I was probably only ever just another student out of many. I really liked him; he was incredibly inspiring. But for all the difference he’s made to me, our paths probably won’t cross again. I suppose it’s an inevitably of life, especially such a cosmopolitan one as mine, but it’s still a little weird to try and understand. And also quite sad. There’s nothing really to be done about it, though, is there.
As my 10 year blogiversary approaches in December (well, blog/Gaboomba iversary as I started out over there), I’ve become contemplative of where I’ve been in the past ten years.
In December 2003 I: was in the middle of 8th grade
had just started reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books
had finished The Return of the King book in September and was looking forward to the release of the movie.
had a favorite band: Evanescence
had taken a poetry writing class the previous summer but hadn’t really contemplated going anywhere else with writing.
In November 2013 I: am two months into my first full time job.
have been reading a variety of books, one of which is Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria (which I’d recommend!)
am looking forward to the release of the Hobbit movie
do not have a favorite band, but I’ve gotten into Moxy Fruvous songs lately and in general enjoy sea shanties and folk music.
have 12 poems published.
Thinking on these things makes me wonder where I’ll be in 2023. Will I be working for a museum? How will I be executing my goal of showing the world that math is inherently interesting/being Vi Hart when I grow up? Will I have built a science/math garden (like a sculpture garden, but for science and math). Will I have done work towards the public knowing what their local major research institution is doing so that they’re proud of the academics there in addition to the sports teams and can learn neat things too? Will I have any stories published in addition to the poems?
What were you doing ten years ago? Where do you hope to be in ten years?
Ten years ago I was probably watching the sunset through my office window, just as I’m doing now, and editing news stories on my computer, just as I’ve been doing all afternoon. I have a nicer computer now.
I was 5 years old, in kindergarten. I can’t remember whether I could read chapter books or anything at all (other than simple words like ‘cat’) in December, but my parents read to me a lot. I can’t really recall what I read/had read to me that year specifically as opposed to other early years, but I know that by then I loved the Junie B. Jones books and the Pippi Longstocking books and anything to do with fairies. I had quite a lot of stuffed animals and dolls and a best friend.
I remember I had a few barrettes with patterns; one was a star and one a spiral. I thought they were supposed to represent a starfish and a snail, respectively, and I liked them for that.
I haven’t really thought very much 10 years ahead yet; presumably, I’ll be working on my PhD.
/age difference
What were you doing five years ago? What might you be doing five years from now?
Five years ago I was a freshman in college. I enjoyed listening to the Decemberists. I’d just joined the science fiction fantasy club at my college. In May of my freshman year, I would submit my first poem. I wasn’t sure of what I would major in or what I’d do after college.
Five years from now I might be in grad school or just out of grad school. I hope I’ll be working in some kind of museum or science communication field. I hope I’ll have a story published.
Five years ago, I was 10, in 5th grade. School was divided into two blocks that year, each lasting half the day and having a different teacher, and the second block (reading, writing, and social studies) was pretty awesome, but in the first one (math, science, and spelling), I was not being challenged at all academically and was also bullied by peers. There was a GT program that met each week, though, and it was really fun; I’m pretty sure it was the last one in the district, and it’s probably been cut by now. I had two really close friends that year, but one of them–I think she couldn’t be picked up from school or something and was coming to my house every day before going home, and that was fun at first, but we didn’t really have all that much in common, and with all that time together, we started fighting. I didn’t have much in common with my other friend, either; it was harder to find things to do and talk about than it had been in the past because we didn’t want to play with dolls and stuffed animals as much anymore, but they were interested in boys and pop music and stuff, and I was interested in fantasy books and biology (and not much else). So while the other friend and I remained on good terms, we pretty much drifted apart. That was the year I found the Cricket Chatterbox, though, which definitely made my life a lot less lonely, and not just for that year. I’ve met some really amazing people through there and been introduced to really awesome things, the one that’s impacted me the most being of course MuseBlog.
In other positive stuff, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that year and absolutely loved them. I tried to read The Silmarillion as well, but it was too difficult for my reading level at the time. Also, that was around my Warriors phase. I think there was actually a point where I’d read all of the books that were out at the time, and I did quite a bit of online role-playing.
I think I was really into Houston toads and Attwater’s prairie chickens at that time as well.
Five years from now, I’ll be 20. If everything goes to plan, I’ll be in my first year of grad school in something related to ecology/zoology/etc–and I haven’t really thought more specifically that far ahead.
Ten years ago….Ten years ago I was 13. I don’t remember much of what I was doing at that time….No, wait, I think I would have very recently become a Harry Potter fanatic, because it was my strong dislike of harry’s attitude in the fifth book that prompted me to imagine how I would have behaved differently, and thus spawned my obsessive fanaticism.
Ten years from now? I’ll be 33. Hopefully have a solid job in a small animal practice somewhere, and potentially be on my way to co-owning a practice. Still undecided on that, I’m not certain if I want to deal with management decisions. But being ones own boss does have a certain amount of appeal to it. Also, I would rather like to have/be starting to have a couple kids of my own at that time, so….guess I hope to be married at that point, lol.
I dunno. My long term planning is pretty much “survive until May 2015 and don’t think about the scary real world life thing that happens after graduation”.
Also I’m braindead right now, spent about 11 hours shadowing today on my externship I’m doing, been up since 5:45 this morning, because rush hour commute was estimated to take about 1 1/2 hours (it only took about an hour), and anyway, I didn’t get home until 8pm. Missed the second night of the Almost Human premiere (will catch that up this weekend).
Going to be a long, but educational 2 weeks. I’m rather hoping we dont’ get anymore snow, because right now the highways are clear, and while the city roads are a bit slick, the highway is not, but if it snows…..that means slick roads everywhere, and my newly acquired fear of driving I got from my car accident that had mostly gone away after 3 weeks in a rental was renewed full force when I first got behind the wheel of our pickup to do a “practice run” by where I was doing my externship so I could find it today. Especially when I braked for a red light and the tires started skidding and I thought it wasn’t going to stop. That was fun.
But I learned osmething new about stoplights that had never occurred to me before, and I’m going to have to implement other places: If there’s a crosswalk light for pedestrians, if your light is green, but it’s got a flashing red hand (and if it’s got a countdown), you can be expecting the light to change from green to yellow about the itme the countdown finishes. Which si quite useful driving on icy roads where you can’t slam on the brakes and stop in time for a yellow, but you can start slowing down knowing it’s going to turn yellow and that you’ll not be able to safely make it thorugh.
Anyway. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m no longer even remotely sticking to one topic, which I think is my hint to sleep my laptop, disentangle myself from my kitty (I think he missed me, he’s been unusually snuggly–normally he jsut cuddles dad), and crawl underneath my blankets. 5:45 is going to come much too soon (6 hours from now)
Ten years ago I was doing pretty much what I’m doing now. There was more playing then, and less instrument making, but substatially the same precarious but delightful existence. Since then I’ve lost my father and a few aunts and uncles. I still have the same computer, and I REALLY need to replace it.
Oh, and I think I was writing, or about to write, some articles for MUSE.
December 2003: I was seven years old, probably in second grade (?)
had been playing the piano for a year
had finished all of the Harry Potter books that were out by then
had just started getting into the Redwall series by Brian Jacques
had just discovered Diana Wynne Jones’ books
did not even know that music existed outside of the classical music realm
was writing some short stories (some of which I still have somewhere)
November 2013: I just turned seventeen, and this is my junior year of high school. Trying to find a job.
Have turned my bedroom into a book cave, with books piled up in the closet and on my bed and on my desk and in my dresser and on the floor; basically everywhere.
Continue to write poetry, although I have not published anything yet
Have been playing piano for eleven years and clarinet for five. Have previously established myself as one of the top clarinet players in my county, district, and state.
Have developed an extremely eclectic taste in music, from Mumford and Sons to Coldplay to Brand New to The Scene Aesthetic.
Ten years from now… who knows? I’ll be twenty seven. What an odd thought.
What were you doing five years ago? What do you think you might be doing five years from now?
Five years ago? Wow. I was twelve, in seventh grade. I was still homeschooled, and I think I had either just joined MB or was about to discover it. I was so immature and hyperactive back then that it’s embarrassing to even think about. I was still taking dance classes; if I remember rightly I was a baker in the Mini Nutcracker that year. Bookwise, I had just started reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, had discovered the marvelous works of Tad Williams, and had started on the dreadful path that has now led to my addiction to Harry Potter fanfiction.
Five years from now, I will be 22. Hopefully getting ready to graduate from college and possibly applying to grad schools. Maybe some poetry published, if all goes well.
Let’s see… 10 years ago I was in 7th grade. I don’t think I was very happy because I was bored to death by school and hated everyone there. I think I had just started going out of town for violin lessons, loved my new teacher. Bookwise, I think that was my Isaac Asimov stage, and I was also trying to live up to the philosophy of Daniel Pinkwater.
Now: first year of grad school, love my new teacher. I’m a lot happier (well, when I’m not busy being stressed out of my mind): I like what I’m doing, I like and respect the people around me. The last thing that I read that wasn’t musicology was Neil Gaiman’s the ocean at the end of the lane, which I really want to reread sometime again to really get below its surface. I’m working three part-time jobs, two of which are performing in orchestra and one of which is teaching violin, and making enough to cover all my costs. My quartet is doing fantastically, and we’re being asked to do some prestigious performances.
Ten years from now: Either I’ll have a successful career or I’ll be dead. I’d like to have a cat and a significant other, also. One requires scientific advancements because of allergies and the other requires me to not be awful at human interaction.
Ten years ago I was nine years old and in the fourth grade, bored and unchallenged and unhappy at school. My fourth grade teacher didn’t allow us to read after we had finished our work; we were required to color instead. *shudder* It was probably around this time that my mother began making inquiries into letting me skip a grade. I remember taking an IQ test for this general purpose. Meanwhile I was playing the piano and trying to teach myself algebra. I don’t recall having any close friendships–most of my memories of the people in that group are from first or second grade. Unfortunately, when I did end up skipping fifth grade, going straight into middle school with a new group of people, all of whom were older than myself, that all didn’t exactly prime me for social success, and I didn’t really get my footing again until halfway through high school.
Now I’m in my third and final year of college, trying to get everything done before I graduate. The rate at which I’m changing as a person is astounding–I barely recognize the person I was when I graduated high school. In just a couple short years I’ve grown so much and my worldview and values have changed so drastically; it’s both intimidating and exciting. I’m anxious to see what I’ll be like in another two or three years.
Ten years from now I’ll be twenty-nine and, God willing, I’ll have been a priest for a little over two years, most likely stationed as an assistant pastor at an apostolate somewhere in the United States. Exactly what and where and how I’ll be doing, who knows. I’m looking forward to it.
Five years ago, I was twelve, in middle school (seventh grade) in Hong Kong. It feels like yesterday but also like it was a really long time ago, which is very weird. The whole three years of middle school seem like a blur. It really does feel like a different lifetime.
I remember being proud of getting full marks on a Social Studies test. I remember being, surprisingly, in the one Algebra class when everyone else took Pre-Algebra. I remember bonding with my best friend at the back of the classroom over making ‘modern art’ with spare staples. I remember looking forward to eighth grade so I would finally be concertmaster of the school orchestra. I remember the spot where our group of friends always sat for lunch. I remember a school trip biking in Hainan, and on the last night one of my friends sleeping in the bathtub so we could fit five people in one hotel room (so rebellious, I know). I remember going to Wanchai twice a week for French lessons (see post 93. Now I’m sad again..)
Five years ago I couldn’t have told you what my life would be like right now. In these five years, I discovered MuseBlog, went to high school and learned what real stress is, took AP French as a freshman, travelled to some truly amazing places (Jordan springs to mind), started going to boarding school in England, changed my mind several times about what I want to study at university, applied to unis and colleges, and above all met certain people and friends who really have changed my life and changed who I am. 12-year-old me probably wouldn’t recognise who I’ve become. In five years, I’ve had a hell of a lot of experiences that have really changed so much about the way I think, and the things I think about.
Five years from now? Who can predict? I’ll have finished my undergraduate degree – whether that will have been at music college depends on how successfully I audition this and next month. Maybe I’ll be doing a masters, or maybe I’ll have started a job. I really don’t even know what country I’ll be living in – strange thought, right? It could be London, it could be Hong Kong, it could be somewhere on the Continent. I’d like to have someone I can call my better half – maybe that sounds silly but it’s not, not to me.
In the next five years, though, I want to spend less time worrying about the future and more time enjoying the opportunities I have in the present. I’d like to travel more, spend more time with my family, see old friends who live in different countries again. Live life as it happens and enjoy it. That’s the most important thing.
Ten years ago… I was three, and I didn’t really have much of a mindset. I would just do what my parents asked – unless it was bedtime – and then probably go outside a lot.
I used to draw all the time at that age, and I would ‘play’ the harmonica. I didn’t really play it, all I really knew about a harmonica was that one side makes a higher-pitched sound than the other.
Ten years ago, I was seven. I don’t remember much about that year in particular, but I probably was spending most of my time with my neighbor/best friend, out on her swingset making up stories. I was probably reading a very limited set of books, which I mistakenly believed were the only ones I was allowed to read. Boxcar Children, and two I can’t remember how to spell, but were something like Elizabeth Enwright, Eleanor Estates. I wore dresses and spent a lot of time wandering around making up stories, but I couldn’t write well enough to put them on paper. I did spend a lot of time making scribbles and pretending it was cursive, and imagining what I would be writting if I could.
Five years ago, I was twelve. By then I was interested in fantasy, and I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Narnia and Harry Potter. I’d started writing down my stories about six months earlier, and I was probably a page or two into the story that would become the first novel I ever finished. I was also, about this time of year, just discovering Chatterbox, and I was three months or so out from moving up to MuseBlog. Probably I’d also just quit ballet. I was just starting to find a wonderful group of friends. If I had to chose a year to name as the best of my life so far, it would land around here.
Now, teenagerhood has set in and brought with it anxieties and insecurities and stress and depression and a lot of other cake which I’m slowly learning to work through. I drifted away from all my old friends at some point, but I’m beginning to make new ones. I’m doing quite a lot of music. And I’m writing. Slowly picking up the habit of doing so daily.
Ten years from now, I’ll probably be finished with school entirely. I hope I’ll make some time between now and then to wander the earth a bit, live some places that aren’t here. I definitely hope to have cats. I hope I don’t grow out of writing before then, or after it for that matter.
Ten years ago I was nine. I was in fourth grade, my first year in the AIG program my district offered, and I was loving being challenged in school for the first time in my life. I was looking forward to getting my ears pierced for my tenth birthday. I was reading a lot, had just read the 5th Harry Potter book by myself, and was doing a project on my favorite book, Trial by Journal. My family had just gotten a puppy the previous summer. I played violin. I was shy and got along with all the people in my class, but mostly had one best friend that I spent my time with.
Five years ago I was a freshman in high school. I had been on MuseBlog for about a month and a half. I had just finished my first season of marching band, which I liked all right and suspected (rightly) that I would grow to love. I was still taking violin lessons, but also had started saxophone lessons. My classes were mostly frustratingly bad and I was making a list with my friends of things I hated about high school. I suspected that I might be queer but I was doing a very good job of lying to myself about it. I had a boyfriend; we had been dating for two and a half months and hadn’t kissed yet. I was trying to figure out high school and how my life would look for the next few years. I was putting a ton of academic pressure on myself.
Now, I’m a sophomore in college. I’m at Brown, my first-choice school, and one I absolutely love. I’ve conquered homesickness to go to school hundreds of miles away from home and am generally very happy and much more confident than I think I used to be. I’m studying anthropology and toying with the idea of creating an independent second major in folklore, and I think I might want to go into publishing or museum work for a career. I’m stressing about Real Life and having to end up in a career that will pay me a livable salary, but also about whether to study abroad (I’m leaning towards not) and about housing for next year. I have a big group of friends who are all wonderful people. Although we see each other less this year than last year, we now all live in the same building. I play saxophone in the marching band and oboe/English horn in the wind symphony. I’ve effectively dropped violin. I’m still in touch with friends from home, but less than last year. I have been dating a female friend from high school for a little over a year and have been out for about the same amount of time. I worry about how long we’ll last, because I want to last a really long time. I’m bad at living in the moment.
Five years from now I will be 24 and two and a half years out of college. I will hopefully have a job, and will probably be applying to graduate programs for the following year. I’ll have taken the time in between to figure out what I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll be in my first year of graduate school. I’d like to be in a serious relationship, but this could go so many ways. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll be an editorial assistant at a publisher somewhere.
Ten years from now I’ll be 29. I’d like to be done with grad school and hopefully beyond an entry-level career position. I’d like to be married. Who knows, life is an adventure.
November 2003, I was eight. I’d just started third grade, and it was rather boring, so I elected to read instead. This had mixed repercussions on my grades. I was taking acting lessons (that I liked, but was really bad at) and dancing lessons (that I disliked, but was actually passable at) and did gymnastics (that I mostly felt rather ambivalent about, and was neither very good nor very bad at). Actually I think most of my time then was spent with my nose in a book, since I didn’t care to be in Vienna when I could be in Narnia or Märchenmond instead.
I missed my old friends, especially my puppy love/best friend. He wrote me almost every other week for the next two years, even though he loathed writing and struggled with it (especially in english- he was french). I didn’t write back half as much, but I started learning french.
November 2013, I’m eighteen and in two months, I’ll be half-way through college. Right now, I’m reading “The picture of Dorian Grey” and “catch-22”, though I’ve hardly had much time lately since I have three exams on top of my standard (insane) college workload and a seminar about Measure Theory that’s actually meant for grad students. And I’ve gotten into a sort of relationship with my study buddy, which has really distracted me from academics lately.
I keep listening to Amanda Palmer songs, though I’ve started to go back to some of the piano music/celtic music I used to listen to when I was younger. It’s really strange because my perspective on just about everything has changed- I remember when I was about eight I hated books without happy endings and couldn’t understand how people could enjoy them. I had a very different, unrealistic perspective on relationships too.
In 2023, I want to have my BA and an MA. Hopefully, I’ll have made good on my plans to travel the world- Africa and South America, aka my plans for 2015-2017 should have definitely happened. I have no idea what kind of career I’ll pursue, if I’ll try for a PHD, wether I’ll be in a relationship or not- I don’t really have any plans past the next three years. I just want to look back and say wow, that was cool.
AMANDA PALMER IS YES.
It’s fun to think about our pasts and futures.
Ten years ago I was in fifth grade, with the worst teacher I had ever had to that date. I don’t really remember many specifics, but she didn’t seem to put much effort into teaching. One thing that particularly stood out was that we only had a science lesson on two days of that entire year.
There was a new music instructor who kept getting sick and taking days off, so kids didn’t like him and spread a rumor that he and the PE teacher were in a gay relationship. WTF, kids. He picked me and two other girls to go to Boise to sing with a bunch of other elementary kids from the northwest, but he got sick again and didn’t show up without any warning. My grandma had to take care of all the registration and logistic stuff.
There was also this girl that was completely ostracized and her only friend was a guy that was not-so-completely-ostracized but still mostly ignored because had very bad eyesight and needed magnifying lenses to read. Elementary school was a terrible place.
Ten years from now, I hope to have a job working for a company in some sort of biology/ecology research. I don’t want to stay in academia because I know I would be (am) a terrible teacher. Hopefully I will have at least a Master’s degree. Um, and I also hope to have a good friend wherever I am.
Ten years ago I would have been in year 2. I loved reading fantasy books, doing maths problems. I played with Barbies and my growing collection of stuffed-toy monkeys. I had no friends, and was fine with just being around my parents and our cats.
Five years ago, I was 12. I still loved reading, maths, and cats, and now Doctor Who. I was scared of my mum for no good reason and was starting to need my dad’s help with maths. I longed for a best friend (but that is still true without the ‘best’), then realised that wasn’t why I was looking at her. I thought I’d end up straight and that I could still be normal if I was bi. I read Cat’s Meow’s Muserology in the 2008 November/December issue, located the URL, lurked while attempting to comment, and eventually made my first post.
I’ve almost graduated year 12 at the only high school I’ve ever been to. In February 2009 we visited on a cool morning before a hot day. I’d looked around at these strange happy girls, green grass, grey paths and metal benches, and wanted to get in so badly. I went from an awkward, fearful, lonely, bookworm maths nerd to admired, ambitious, lonely, secretly bitter, SF-fangirl physics nerd. I’ve lost friends and had 5 major unrequited crushes. Cake happened.
In 5 years I’ll have begun postgrad study, in some area of physics unless I decide I prefer math. I want to have had at least two successful romantic relationships, and to have kept my most important friendships and made some awesome new ones. I can see myself wanting another change of scenery after I get my BSc, but maybe not.
In ten years I’ll hopefully have finished my PhD, seen some world, and be working on something I care about, maybe something I’ve never even heard of. I might be married or otherwise in a committed relationship, probably not. I want kids eventually but not as much as success. As long as I’m satisfied.
Here’s a fun game: describe something truthful about yourself in a way that makes you sound older than you are.
Ex: I was in Pre-K when John Glenn launched… On STS-95.
I remember when Mount St. Helens erupted… In 2004.
Hearing “Dancing Queen” makes me nostalgic for Elementary School… When the A-Teens released their cover of it.
Elton John was one of the musicians at the first concert I attended… in 2002.
If I did that, you probably wouldn’t catch the references. Let’s see…
When I was in college, I wrote a fan letter to Lillian Gish. (She was 80 — and answered it!)
The silent film star?
Lillian Gish was magical! One of my favorites. My mother once drove Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., to the airport. He was in his 70s.
This doesn’t quite fit the pattern, but when I was 13 or 14, I mentioned to my history teacher that I played Mah Jongg. He said he didn’t know anyone under 40 who knew how to play.
I actually think of the 911 incident as ‘old news’ when it occurred just before I was born.
I think that makes me feel old more than it makes you sound old..
(it still feels incredibly recent to me)
My brothers, who are four years younger than me, have told me that they don’t remember the day itself, but remember first watching the Disney Channel movie “Tiger Cruise” about it.
I had much the same reaction. It weirds me out IMMENSELY to see it mentioned in textbooks.
I’m not sure why it would sound old, either–it seems to me that the younger you were when it happened (and so the younger you are now), the more it would seem like old news.
I was too young to remember it, and I remember being shocked when I first found out it had happened in my lifetime. Being rather little, I had just assumed it was from a very long time ago like most of the historical events I’d heard about. The fact that adults remembered it was weird to me.
I can remember visiting the World Trade Center about a month before 9/11 … yeah, it feels weird.
As my understanding of history deepens, I’m starting to regard the Iron Age as the start of what I think of as “modern”.
I still sometimes find it a little odd to encounter televisions that don’t have VCRs… I grew up with a television that had both a DVD player and a VCR because my mother never wanted to have to buy a new copy of movies she already owned unless they wouldn’t play properly. I’m still used to that.
I remember the Yugoslav Wars… but only very vaguely through news broadcasts my parents were watching while I did four-year-old things.
This belongs elsewhere. My problem is that it belongs on too many different threads to count, and most of them are dead. So, it’s getting dumped here.
Not sure why I want to talk about this, since it’s over, but I still kinda do.
I was doing a competition earlier this year, with a group of kids I’d never really met before. They were kind of cliqueish, but they seemed pretty cool overall.
And then one of them complained that he’d been surrounded by females during his debate competition, and another rolled his eyes and said “Women.” when I said I prefered the writing style of another girl in the group to his, and then I was drastically behind on something else, and the second guy posted a picture with the caption “never trust a women” as commentary on that, and there were a couple other similar instances.
It just surprised me, I guess, that there are still people who see the world as divided between men and women. And that such people could seem actually pretty nice, at first.
I never realized that sexism was still a problem, one I might run into. I guess, since it does still exist, I’m glad to know about it. So I’m sort of grateful to them in a wierd way.
They’re still forever gone from my list of possible friends. I was slightly disappointed about that, at first.
They’re just trolls. Some people seem to think that’s their role in life. Some outgrow it. With luck, yours will.
Maybe. I’m not actually certain they meant to be offensive, though. I mean, every single instance could be easily dismissed as a joke, except the first one I described, which was just confusing.
Perhaps I’m being swayed by my initial good impression, but I think they’re probably more misguided and clueless than trolling. Nevertheless, I do hope for their sake that they grow past it.
“To live is to war against the trolls in heart and soul.”
I realize now that although I’ve seen the first and third Jurassic Park movies numerous times, I’ve never seen the second one. I should get on that (as weird as the very thought of a JP movie without Grant in it seems…)
Maybe I should have a sequel day when I can catch up on all of the sequels I haven’t seen to movies I have seen– The Lost World, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Night at the Museum 2, etc.
Hey guys, it’s been a while.
I think I last posted on here in August. A few things have changed.
I am now applying to college, which is terrifying but also pretty cool. And I seem to have found myself with a girlfriend. This time, an actual healthy relationship. Also I am seeing a therapist and might be able to sort out some familial nastiness before I leave the house. All of these things are making me feel dangerously like an adult. Augh.
Anyway, hello again! I don’t know if I’m gonna post regularly for a while but I’ll try to be a bit more active.
shadowfire! It’s great to see you here again!
Ugh. There has never been a feeling of despair so great, to mach the feeling you get when you have ‘What is Love’ going through your head for half a day straight, and not being able to gain access to any other song that is good enough to erase it.
It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all…
You know you keep forgetting to sleep this week* when you look at the time and think ‘oh, it’s only 1:30 am, I could have an early night for a change!’
I’m such a night owl, it’s a miracle I’m still able to function during the day (to an extent).
*for no good reason
I’m a huge night owl too! If my dad didn’t make me go to bed at 3:00, I’d stay up all night!
Haha, I’m surprised at all the squids, it wasn’t meant to be a complaint at all. It’s just the way my life has become.
Robert, you might have told me my friend Maria Zuber from MIT was published in Science two weeks ago!
Does anyone else have this problem where their sweet tooth starts acting up and the next thing they know they’ve eaten about a double handful of dried fruit?
I really hope this isn’t just me. I really need to develop better self-control.
Yes, but with graham crackers.
It’s one in the morning, which means it’s time to dance silently to bhangra music and try to eat a whole jar of olives.
Google doodles are becoming significantly more awesome as time goes on. No more fancy pictures only for the most common holidays. Now we have entire minigames to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary.
Doctor who 50th! Being simulcast in alaska at 10:50 am! Mass theatre showing I found out about Thursday (seats 400). Got up at 6am. Planned to leave about 7am, but mom and I were closer to 7:30 getting out of the house. Arrived at 8:15 (dad scoffed at us, insists there’s not 400 lunatics who would brave the weather and get there almost 2 hours before doors even open)
There were already about 20 people in line. Another 10 behind mom and I now. Only 15 degrees above zero, which beats the heck out of he -15 it was t my house the last couple days, but stil cold. Especially since I’m wearing doctor who pj bottoms. Not the warmest
But this is gonna be great. I knew we should get here really early, because I knew it would be packed despite dads views otherwise
Super cold. But I’m having a blast
Couple Brits in line behind me.
Excited. Love time zones, don’t have to wait all day for the episode
It was pretty fun. I think I liked the episode. There was one thing that should have been a surprise by I’d accidentally gotten spoilered on Thursday. But oh well
I had a really good time. Totally worth standing in line in 15 degree weather for an hour and a half ad getting up at 6am on one of my two days to sleep in (I have to get up at 5:45 weekdays to commute to my externship). Still looking forward to watching the episode in theaters Monday in 3D. But today was free, and no time delay AT ALL and that’s fantastic, and I’m totally wiped now, because we went shopping after, an I’ve been up 10 hours. So getting ready to take a nap, and then try to catch mom up some more on doctor who. She only just finished season 5 last night. So the anniversary requires me to spoiler Clara and the 7th season finale a bit, but oh well. She still doesn’t know who River Song is. So there’s that surprise to look forward to
Anyway, super fun day so far. Nap time now then more doctor who
Did Dolphin Log/Cousteau Kids ever release a compilation book of those comics they used to print about Jacques Cousteau’s expeditions? Because I would buy that.
Just back from St Andrew’s Day ball at Eton (this is the Scottish reeling thing I think I’ve mentioned a few times on here.) Some dances were better than others, it really depends on your partner. Some people were significantly drunk, including the guy next to me at dinner, which was a bit annoying. But generally it was quite fun!
(Fun fact: one of the guys who was there is a grandson of Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister. Only at Eton.)
I have a pretty good idea for an Anime, but I don’t have the skill to draw it, or the programs to animate it…
Write the script, then.
Same.
As you may have guessed from my post earlier, I am now in a place where I have internet access. That place is Palo Verde National Park in Costa Rica, the last site on the long list of places I’ve visited over the duration of this course. This site is where I will do my final mini-research project and my final exams.
Both of which are coming up disturbingly quickly. How does time fly? At the moment, I am procrastinating on creating a powerpoint for my project proposal and on doing the research necessary to complete said powerpoint. I only came up with my research idea today, and only did a little bit of testing out the methodology, and the whole thing still feels shaky to me.
If anyone wants to know what I’m doing, I’m planning on researching the effects of deoxygenation from invasive water hyacinths on macroinvertabrate populations using dragonfly larvae as an indicator. What this means is that if this idea gets approved I will spend the next four days up to my waist in marsh waving a net under the water hoping to catch something. Indeed, that is how I spent a significant portion of the afternoon.
Being up to my waist in marsh is better than doing a research project in the forest here, though, because the mosquitoes are significantly worse there. Whodathunkit? Out of all the sites we’ve been to, the mosquitoes are the worst here. In the dry forest. Long sleeves and bug spray don’t work.
But that’s enough complaining. Now, I want to tell you about Endnote. Has anyone used it before? Basically, it’s a site that allows you to store citations for articles. I don’t mean that it makes your citations, but it stores them all as links so you don’t have to download 50 pdfs while researching your paper. And it does your citations, and you can organize them into groups. I only discovered it today, and have only been using it for the past uh–hour? Probably less given the procrastination. But I am generally pleased with it in the five minutes or so that I actually used it, despite a few error messages. One of my friends–who discovered Endnote earlier this day–was raving about it, so I decided to try it amidst proposal crunch time.
This is the most schooly post I’ve made in a while. Or possibly ever.
Uh. Yeah. Hey, at least I get to see cool waterbirds in the marsh.!
I don’t want to get into any religious discussions on this, I just want to point out something odd I find in the churches. To worship Jesus, they break bread, and drink wine. Well… that’s part of an ancient ceremony that the Druids did to summon the dark angels…
I wonder who thought that was a good idea?
I don’t wish to offend anyone with this, but you’ll find several parallels in Christianity to various pagan religions. For instance, Christmas was originally a winter solstice holiday which the church actually tried to outlaw for decades before finally assimilating it.
I believe it has its roots in the Bible, in Jesus’ suggestions during the Last Supper. *looks up exact quote* It’s in Mathew 26: “As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'”
*looks up more information* This was apparently already something Christians were doing when Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which is part of the Biblical canon. “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.'”
Where did you get your information about the Druids? I was under the impression, that angels, dark or otherwise, were a Christian concept.
They’re certainly pre-Christian. The Jewish Bible is full of angels.
I’m under the impression that angels and demons both predate monotheism. Didn’t many pagan religions have godlike beings and/or spirits that were seen as manifestations of concepts of good/evil, order/chaos or whatever dichotomy they focused on?
Of course, the term “demon” itself originally just referred to any godlike being, or so I understand.
Passover Seder involves blessed wine and broken bread.
I thought the Last Supper was a Passover Seder? Jesus was Jewish, after all.
really though most Jewish traditions as I was taught in Hebrew school involve saying the specific prayer for every food group before you eat it
Yeah, from what I’ve been able to gather the Last Supper was a Passover Seder that Jesus reworked, as he was wont to do. Whether the changes disqualify it from being officially the Seder I do not know.
I read it places. I get around a lot.
Angels appear in other religions, too. It’s just that maybe one religion calls them something else.
And one culture’s angels are its neighbors’ devils.
In the case of the Druids, though, I’m not sure we have reliable records of their beliefs or ceremonies. The Romans said they practiced human sacrifice and possibly ritual cannibalism, but some later writers (with no more firsthand information) have treated them more charitably. Some people just like the idea of Druids, I think.
When I think Druids I think two things: a) Merlin TV series b) a piece we did in Choral Ensemble last semester that included the lyrics, “Sing ye Druids divine Andantes praise”. The piece was really memorable because of how high we were singing.
christianity spread so quickly because it took traditions from the local religions and integrated them into itself, similar to what the romans had done before it
It may not be strictly relevant to this paper, but darned if I’m not going to put in “(the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century)†next to the mention of Mount Katmai/Novarupta 1912. Because I will probably never write another paper to which Mount Katmai is relevant again.
8,000! Weird.
I was gonna write about it but I have a giant cell & molec bio test tomorrow, and a take home test and 5page paper due the next day so maybe that retrospective will have to be delayed.
Happy 8K day!
Well I completed my first day of data collection. 2/8 transects down. Data concurs with hypothesis so far, to the tune of NO dragonfly larvae at all in the transect where I hypothesized I’d find fewer larvae.
Also, I got sunburned. Definitely putting on sunscreen tomorrow.
When I get home I want to just sit down in a pile of blankets and watch Legend of Korra and Doctor Who, and all the other things I haven’t seen.
Just got back from my first 4H meeting. I’m not sure how it’ll go, but I volinteered with some other kids to decorate Christmas trees next Friday, which is usually when Lisa picks me up now, so that’s one successful evasion
I hope it goes great! I was in 4H for a bit ages ago.
Today’s been pleasantly strange so far.
I was certain I was late for my first class, but it ended up being cancelled. Some classmates of mine were in the dorm building lobby talking, so they told me before I’d walked all the way there.
Then the theater director offered to give me a ride anywhere in town in case I needed anything because he knew I’m staying in the dorms over Thanksgiving break – including to a student movie night the local cinema is having. (Apparently he wanted to see Catching Fire too.)
Hello. It’s been a while. Sorry I haven’t dropped in earlier, some stuff happened and I kind of forgot about this fantastic place. But now I’m back-ish. How are things?
I have been doing NaNo this year; I’m up to about 45,000 now, which is awesome considering I lost my motivation on Sunday and only barely reached the word count for that day…oh, and I’m headed to Rome tomorrow. Which should be cool. So yeah, that’s a thing that is happening.
The new Demigod RP looks good. *scuttles off to plan character*
Great to see you again, LBK!
You’re headed to Rome?! *stews in envy*
Good to talk to you too R101!
Welcome back, LBK!
You know you’ve been writing an essay about the Minoans all weekend when you see “1450” as a date and automatically assume it’s BCE.
I don’t know why, but apparently some people, from somewhere, got the idea that I was a goth because I like Metal
A common misconception, but as people get older and develop more versatile tastes you’ll find it happens less. What sort of metal do you like? I listen to a lot.
Almost all metal. From really heavy metal, to plain rock metal.
I really like bismuth myself.
My advice is to try to find such misconceptions amusing. Unfortunately, there are people who make baseless assumptions like that, but hopefully you might find you are happier if you consider it an opportunity to laugh.
Ughhhhhhhhh. I have had miley cyrus singing that horrible wrecking ball song stuck in my head for HOURS. Because whatever station they have the radio tuned to where I’m doing my externship plays that song with disturbing frequency–it was played at least twice today. And days when I hear it, it usually had the annoying habit of ring plate again later. So now I have the 3-4 words of it that my brain recalls playing on repeat. And I want to smash my skull against a wall to make it stop. Please, make it stop
Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
*hums “it’s a small world”*
(Yes, the song title is officially written in lowercase.)
I think the repetition of really popular songs is the worst part about the radio.
Try listening to other music. That should keep your brain distracted, a little, especially if it’s a similar tempo.
So, they actually called it’ wrecking ball’? Did they get that from Machinima? Or did Machinima mention it after the fact?
The Wizard of Oz is over! I had quite a bit of fun at the two performances, but I am quite happy to have my
lifeevenings back.However, the really exciting news at the moment is that my sister Groundhog is Engaged!
*dances around the room squealing*
What? To a non-MBer?! How dare she?Congratulations, Groundhog!Heh, thanks. And while he’s not a MBer, he’s definitely the type to be one. I blame his parents for not getting him a subscription to Muse.
Congratulations!
Oh! Great for her! Congratulations, Groundhog.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Rome has been good so far. We went to see the Pantheon, which was amazing, then a bunch of shops. My father got purple socks from a clothing store that serves the pope, we got chocolate from a cute little store, and I got a magnet that says “Cave Canem” (“Beware of Dog”) because my Latin teacher has a poster with the same phrase on it. I didn’t sleep much on the plane coming over, so I was a bit tired, but it was overall enjoyable!
Happy Thanksgiving/Hanukkah!
Awesome! Rome is so cool!
Happy Hanukkah/Thanksgiving to those who celebrate either or both! I’m having a nice home day with my family.
I finally found the time to re-read the copy of the April 2004 National Geographic that I’d gotten on Amazon after I’d foolishly discarded my original copy, with its cover story on tornadoes and researcher Tim Samaras’ work deploying probes into their path and then this month’s Geographic with its cover story on Samaras’ death this past May in the course of his research.
Oh, the emotions…
I SAW “GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS” AFTER TEN YEARS OF WANTING TO SEE IT!
Awesome, awesome documentary, moving, visually incredible, funny in places, great music, really, really incredible.