email:

Optus about phone bill
Mark about job
2 papers to Warwick
dani about life

read:

...papers + books? list properly later

shopping:

buy sneakers (boots can't be repaired and it's late enough in the year I should get sneakers instead)
birthday present for Tom

posts:

Kathy coming here for weekend
avengers movie being awesome + going over 1K of Avengers fics (rec post of best ones?)
snoopy / dog walking

other:

reply to comments
Doodles with Numa to do clay stuff
packing
gift for Numa

email:

Optus about phone bill
Teri about Boulder
Mark about job
2 papers to Warwick
dani about life

shopping:

bread
milk
scones
FIX BOOTS BEFORE GOING BACK TO BIRMINGHAM VERY IMPORTANT

correct: (getting help from a friend who volunteered to do this)

kincaid paper
sula paper

read:

...papers + books? list properly later

posts:

Kathy coming here for weekend
avengers movie being awesome + going over 1K of Avengers fics (rec post of best ones?)
snoopy / dog walking

other:

facial at 3PM.
reply to comments
ask Kathy about going to see Avengers again?
Doodles with Numa to do clay stuff
don't die it's going to be okay you can do all of this

Current Mood: exhausted

So this fic. This fic, you guys, holy fuck.

I read it because, well, I'd gone through everything else that author had written and I love her stuff so much that I was willing to give even this a try despite it being a crossover between 1984 (which I like) and Hetalia (which makes me cringe).

It is fucking fantastic. Seriously. It's told from the viewpoint of the anthromorphic personnification of England that's being held in captivity by the personnification of Oceania. It hits so many of my favorite tropes dead on - imprisonment, defiant prisoners, people starting to lose their sense of self, people fighting back no matter what and it doesn't ignore the English colonies that aren't white and always in the press. Haiti pops up there. India is mother-fucking-terrifying and so damn cool. Canada and America get their mentions, sure, but India gets more screentime than both of them put together.

The entire world is fighting and it's a clash of ideologies because Oceania tries to erase the past, erase the countries that they were, so they're fighting for their survival.

Disclaimer: I don't read or follow Hetalia in any way so idk if it's any good at as a Hetalia fanfic but as a general fanfic, as a 1984 fanfic, it absolutely blew me out of the water. Seriously. Even if you're like me and dislike Hetalia, go read it. I am still all starry-eyed and stunned1

My father's going to have heart surgery on Thursday - he's got a blockage that needs removing, so they're going to do a bypass on him. He'll be in hospital for at least a week and unable to fly afterwards for who-knows-how-long.

I'm really worried about him. If you're any flavor of religious, please send him good thoughts -- he's a Buddhist so he believes that intent matters and that good will prayers will count no matter what religion they're from.

I don't know what else to say. Talking about this stuff is hard for me. I usually deflect with humor instead. Kathy and I talked on webcam after I found out and it was fantastic and funny and heartening but I'm still nervous.

And really, really awesome for making your RP chars?

( Lyosha, Ivan and Jay. )

( Daria, Ivan's sister. )

( Livia & Kiran. )

( And my favs are A&D! )

Current Mood: happy

Vagina bleaching! It's an easy wash you just use in the shower -- for Indian and South Asian girls everywhere who want to be fair and white everywhere.

Seriously.

I am so full of wtf.

Watch the first couple of minutes!

You can stop as soon as the credits start -- it's basically just two men who are friends, one of whom has night terrors and asked the other to sleep in the same bed with him to keep him safe from wandering off the balcony or something in his sleep and what happens when they actually share a bed.

Both the guys are supposedly heterosexual, btw.

Current Mood: amused

LINK: The Hen House (Season 2, episode 6).
THEME: Nazis, Holocaust, feminism
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: This time, the theme section covers it all!

SUMMARY: Lilly and the team tackle a 1945 case involving an ambitious reporter recently demoted to writing trivial advice columns after a heady period covering Eleanor Roosevelt and womens rights.

WHY I LOVE IT: The main character in this one breaks my heart. She's ambitious, she's brave, she's principled -- and all of this at a time where being a woman meant that nobody valued those qualities in her. I think that she's fantastic and she deserves better than she got. She's the kind of person that I aspire to be. There are some gorgeous lines and moments in this episode and the raw intensity of the emotion just absolutely hooks me every time.

FAVORITE LINE: "I am better than the worst thing I ever did."

Current Mood: accomplished

Word Count: 824
Characters: Livia, Kiran
Warnings: Death fic.
Summary: Livia's dying and Kiran's there. Experimental second-person. I'm ridiculously insecure about this so, uh, be gentle with any comments you leave, please.

( there are worse ways to die. )

Current Mood: accomplished

LINK: Stand Up And Holler (Season 4, episode 20).
THEME: Girl space / power structure between girls / high school / cliques
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: implied non-consensual sexual activity, abuse of authority, bullying, bullying, fat shaming.

SUMMARY: The 1997 murder of a 16-year-old girl is investigated after an anonymous confession is discovered in a modern-art exhibit. The probe leads the detectives into the cutthroat world of high-school cheer-leading.

WHY I LOVE IT: I love the main character, Rainey, and the outsider boy that gets through to her. This ep covers some of the same ground as The Sleepover and in a way, you could say that the popular kids from The Sleepover are the cheerleaders in this ep. Rainey's incredibly outspoken and I love the way that even from the start, you can see how there's spine in her that won't bend.

FAVORITE LINE: Vera : Who were you in high school, Lil?
Lilly : Definitely not the cheerleader.
Vera : Bad girl no one'd mess with?
Lilly : You could say that.

Current Mood: accomplished

LINK: The Sleepover (Season 2, episode 6).
THEME: Girl space / childhood power structure between girls
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: child abuse, schizophrenia, bullying, fat shaming.

SUMMARY: In 1990, a prep-school girl was found dead in a local swimming hole. The investigation reveals that the victim of the earlier crime was routinely tormented by a trio of classmates who invited her to a sleepover the night she was killed.

WHY I LOVE IT: Girls, especially teenagers and kids, can be incredibly cruel to each other. I love it when books and movies actually examine that. It's not just the bullying of outcast girls or the way that girls within the higher levels prey on each other, it's the way that girls can group together and protect each other -- or betray each other. The victim in this episode reminds me so much of myself and of a lot of my friends.

FAVORITE LINE: "Rita, listen to me. Everyone who's ever been anything in the history of time has been a loser in junior high. In 6 years from now, you're gonna be in college and you are gonna be the coolest girl around. Because you're smart and you're different and you're wacky. And that's what's important in this world. Not what those idiot girls think of you."

( depressing snippets of dialogue! )


// it's just dialogue I was toying with for a fic i'm writing. there's nowhere to fit it in and it doesn't really suit the characters but I like the alst part enough that I want to rescue it and stitch it back into the story.

I feel so ego-centric for writing about this like anyone actually fucking cares.

I'm going to list some of my favorite Cold Case eps and even set up links for you guys to watch them! Since a lot of cases, the trigger warnings would spoil the episode, they're going to be greyed out like the following: Hi, I'm a Spoiler. Insert Steph Brown jokes here!.

LINK: The Sleepover (Season 2, episode 6).
THEME: Girl space / childhood power structure between girls
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: child abuse, schizophrenia, bullying, fat shaming.
( Summary, Why I Love It, Favorite Line. )


LINK: Stand Up And Holler (Season 4, episode 20).
THEME: Girl space / power structure between girls / high school / cliques
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: implied non-consensual sexual activity, abuse of authority, bullying, bullying, fat shaming.
( Summary, Why I Love It, Favorite Line. )

LINK: The Hen House (Season 2, episode 6).
THEME: Nazis, Holocaust, feminism
TRIGGERS/SPOILERS: This time, the theme section covers it all!
SUMMARY: Lilly and the team tackle a 1945 case involving an ambitious reporter recently demoted to writing trivial advice columns after a heady period covering Eleanor Roosevelt and womens rights.
( Summary, Why I Love It, Favorite Line. )

Theme Song: Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant.

Theme Song: Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen.

Post if you want me to make up a soundtrack for you. Everything'll be linked to youtube.

The songs that I'll pick for you will be the following!

Theme Song: (whenever you enter a room)
Fight Song: (conflict time!)
Love Song: (romantic interest ahoy!)
Love Gone Wrong Song: (broken hearts suck)
Major Conflict: (movies are boring without conflict)
Resolution: (what happens to make it all better!)
Happy Ending: (because you're my friends so have to end up happy!)

COMMENT, guys. ♥ I love sharing music I like and besids, there

I am filled with so much fucking SNARL about my orientation is real after watching the latest ep of House. I was pretty much only watching it for the Dr. Parker (aka Asian chick doctor) and Dr. Chase (aka hot blond Australian) but I'm giving up on it now because seriously, I am just FULL OF SCREAMING RAGE.

Spoilery explanation:

Wilson treats a woman who comes into the clinic and IDs as asexual. His reaction is to go "I don't know what box to tick for that" at her and then later tell House about it, then make a bet on whether the woman and her husband are both actually asexual or there's something wrong with them. House drags the guy in for tests and finds out that he has a tumor near his pituitary gland and that's what's causing his asexuality. And then it turns out that the woman isn't actually asexual but has been faking it because she loves the guy and wanted to spend her life with him.

I am filled with so much hate. Seriously. They finally have asexual chars in a mainstream TV show, a fairly popular one at that, only to go "SURPRISE! They're not actually asexual! Sex is a basic human drive that everyone feels! You're either lying or medically sick if you don't want to have sex."

The way they treat it in-show is terrible. House basically says that Wilson wants to believe in asexuality but knows it's unrealistic, House is a jackass of course, Dr. Parker insists that sex is a basic need as well and at the end, everyone's all happy to have "disproved" asexuality.

Some days I just want to smack fictional people right in the face and then go hunt down the writers and rant at them about erasing people's sexuality.

Fuck you. I'm asexual, I'm not deluded and I'm not sick. This is a valid orientation and it's MINE.

Current Mood: pissed off

And to celebrate, I'm offering drabbles/comment fic!

Toss me a char or pairing, a prompt of any sort (song lyric, photo, icon, just a sentence and I'll knock something out). You're allowed to make multiple requests (preferably a separate comment for each).

RP characters are perfectly acceptable!

If you can't think of any fandoms I heart, try Animorphs, Archie Comics, Batman/DC*, Batman Beyond, Big Wolf on Campus, Boston Legal, Bruno and Boots, Chrestomanci, Cold Case, Discworld, Fables, Good Omens, Gravitation, Greek Mythology, Gundam Wing, Harry Potter, Hercules (Disney), Legally Blonde, Mighty Ducks, Mulan (Disney), Othello (the manga), Petshop of Horrors, Pokemon, Sailor Moon season R, Smallville, Spiderman, Stick It, Sweet Valley, The Authority, Utena Revolutionary Girl, Yu-Gi-Oh.

“ One day I’ll have a tiny baby girl
and when she’s born she’ll scream
and I’ll tell her never to stop.

i'll tell her about the power of water, the seduction of paper
the promise of gasoline, and the hope of blood.

i'll teach her to shave her eyebrows and mark her skin.
i'll teach her that her body is her greatest work of art.

I will kiss her before I lay her down at night
and will tell her a story so she knows
how it is and how it must be for her to survive.

I’ll tell her to set things on fire
and keep them burning.
I’ll teach her that fire will not consume her,
that she must use it.

i'll tell her to be tri-sexual, to try anything, to sleep with, fight with, pray with anyone,
just as long as she feels something.
i'll help her to do her best work when it rains.
i'll tell her to reinvent herself every 28 days.

i'll teach her to develop all her selves
the courageous ones, the smart ones, the dreaming ones, the fast ones
i'll teach her that she has an army inside her that can save her life.

i'll tell her to say FUCK like people say THE
and when people are shocked to ask them why they so fear
a small quartet of letters.

I’ll tell her that people must earn the right
to use her nickname,
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing.

I’ll help her to see that she will not find God
or salvation in a dark brick building
built by dead men.

I’ll make sure she always carries a pen
so she can take down the evidence.
If she has no paper, I’ll teach her to
write everything down with her tongue,
write it on her thighs.

I’ll make her keep reinventing herself and run fast.
I’ll teach her to write her manifestos
on cocktail napkins.
I’ll say she should make men lick her ambition.
I’ll make her understand that she is worth more
with her clothes on.
I’ll teach her to talk hard.
i'll tell her that her skin is the most beautiful dress
she will ever wear.

I’ll tell her that when the words come too fast
and she has no use for a pen
that she must quit her job
run out of the house in her bathrobe,
leave the door open.
I’ll teach her to follow the words.

i'll tell her to stand up and head for the door after she makes love.
when he asks her to stay she'll say she's got to go.

i'll tell her that when she first bleeds when she is a woman,
to go up to the roof at midnight, reach her hands up to the sky and scream.

They will try to make her stay,
comfort her, let her sleep, bathe her in a television glow.
I will cut her hair, tell her to light the house on fire,
kill the kittens,
when nothing is there
nothing will keep her
and she is not to be kept.

I’ll say that everything she has done seen spoken
has brought her to the here this now.
This is no time for tenderness,
no time to stand, waiting for them to find her.
There are nations within her skin.
Queendoms come without keys you can carry.

I’ll teach her that she has an army inside her
that can save her life.
I’ll teach her to be whole, to be holy.
I’ll teach her how to live,
to be so much that she doesn’t even
need me anymore.
I’ll tell her to go quickly and never come back.
Things get broken fast here.

I will make her stronger then I ever was.

Turned at twenty
she’ll break into bits of star
and throw herself against the sky.

I will not let them destroy her life
the way they destroyed mine.

Never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.

Never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.”
— Daughter by Nicole Blackman

I can't believe tomorrow's Christmas! I lost track of time so badly this year that I didn't even post my usual "IF YOU WANT AN XMAS CARD, POST YOUR ADDRESS HERE". However, I do have a fantastic set of 100 postcards of vintage DC comic covers -- a gift from Kathy's fiancee! -- so if you want me to receive a New Year's Postcard, drop me your address and I'll send you something.

If you have a liking for a specific hero, let me know. Comments are screened so don't worry about anyone else getting your address.

Current Mood: productive

Left on Monday, arrived back on Friday. My grand-aunt died and her funeral was on Wednesday, so we spent two days driving to get up there and then two days to drive back, with one day being devoted to the funeral. I'll have a proper post up later with photos of Sydney and talk about other aspects of the trip.

This entry's purely for grand-aunt Dawn, who was kind to me, loved dogs, spoiled her grandchildren in all the best ways and was a devoted gardener who grew the most fantastic mangoes. A lot of people cried at her funeral, including most of my cousins and all of her grandchildren. Her father was there; she was 62 and he was only in his eighties. She was five years younger than my father and two days before she died, my father had been making plans for us to visit her in Sydney. She's one of the few relatives I have on my father's side that liked me and approved of me, colorful hair and all.

When my mother told me she'd died, my first reaction was to protest "but she's nice" because she was. Nice might seem a weak word but it isn't -- she was kind, she was sweet, she was patient and I wish she'd lived longer.

Mother returns from Sri Lanka tomorrow at 7:40AM. I'm giving her an hour to get back from the airport so that means that I have 18 hours to get the house ready and cook her something.

Credit for the table's coding goes to vostok, who very sweetly let me borrow it to make a table to keep track of all the Dakens I have to download. XD

	Tu t'demande -- not housework, admittedly, but important which is why it's at the top of the list!
	Vacuum house.
	Scrub floors.
	Clean bathroom counters.
	Put crepe maker/mixer/ironing board away.
	Arrange tables.
	Grocery shopping.
	Bake cupcakes
	Clean stove.
	Clean kitchen counters.
	Clean sink.
	Laundry x a billion - my problem is that it's raining so I can't hang up stuff outside and I only have one drying rack inside, so I can wash more than I can dry and leaving clothes to get moldy in the washing machine does not sound like a good idea. grargh.
	Change sheets on mother's double bed?
	Sweep driveway.
	Garbage.

Current Mood: determined

Somehow, for some unknown reason, I started reading Little Women fanfic and that turned into reading Naruto fanfic and that turned into me going "hm, I really should start watching that anime again..." And so I am! Naruto is definitely one of those fandoms where I like the fanworks better than the canon but end up having to watch/read the canon just because otherwise I'm not going to really understand who the hell Rin and Obito and Madara are.

Anyway! One of the ways in which having Nova has changed me is that episodes with little dogs being hurt now kick me in the guts. Hell Girl has at least three eps wherein dogs are being tortured or abused and all three of the made me find Nova and cling to him tightly.

Case in point, I just finished watching the Little White Dog Ep. It's episode 120 of Naruto, the one where Kiba and Akamaru (a boy and his little white dog) face some bad guys from the Sound Ninja village. I love watching Kiba pet Akamaru even when he thinks that he's about to die, when he can't even move any longer and has to just wait to be killed. He just sits there and pets him, offering what little comfort he can for those last few moments.

I swear, that dog is just so cute. And Kiba is pretty damn awesome too. Kiba, Naruto, Kabuto (maybe only because his name reminds me of the Pokemon!), Hinata, Tsunade, Kurenai and Anko are my favorite chars this time around. I wish that I'd taken notes the first time that I saw the series and then maybe I'd know if they were the chars I'd liked back then too. I do remember that Sakura made me cringe at the start of the series, same as this time, and that I really wish she'd get over her crush on Sasuke or at least treat Naruto better despite it.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Nova got attacked by a Staffy, taken to a vet who pronounced him okay, then I noticed some blood on his side the next day and took him to our usual vet instead of the emergency one that was closest and found two deep puncture wounds in his back as well as a wound on his side. The vet buzzed his hair off, put antibiotics on the wound, gave him an injection and then gave me painkillers and antibiotics to give him daily. If his wounds get cellulitis or infected, then they're going to have to put him under anaesthesia and stick drainage tubes into him.

The dog just basically grabbed him by the side and held him down and when we tried to pry it off Nova, it let go for a second and then grabbed his stomach. Something pink flashed and I swear, I thought that it was his guts coming out. Win turned away because she thought Nova 'was a goner' to quote her words -- it was the owner, Stuart (Ruby's owner) and me who were fighting to get the dog off Nova. Everyone says that Nova's really lucky to not be dead and that if it had picked him up and shaken him, Nova would've snapped in two.

The dog had attacked another dog before but the other dog that had been attacked was a snarly one that also attacked other dogs, so we thought that it was because it was such an ill-tempered dog that the two of them got into a fight. But Nova's just a loving little fluffball who's never hurt anyone. There's no way that he could've provoked another dog into a fight. He just yelped and screamed while that dog was biting into him.

Win drove me to the vet so I bought her some blue-purple orchids, and I got Stuart a card and big box of chocolates as a thank you. I'm also going to bake her a thank you cake.

My hand got a little scratched prying the dog's jaws open but no bites. I took a photo of the puncture wounds in the dressing room and the vet said it was a good idea but then I had to stop taking photos because she needed me to hold Nova.

Nova's still shaking. I put him on a chair and the chair started shaking too. It' like he's vibrating. But he's eating treats now (raw chicken, smackaroos, home made honey oatmeal biscuits) and drinking water and he's walking about a little awkwardly but it's walking, so I think he should be okay.

Current Mood: enraged

SAVIOR BOUGHT ME DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS. HE GOT IT FOR ME AND I AM DOWNLOADING IT AND I AM GOING TO PLAY IT AND IT WILL BE THE FIRST EVER RPG THAT I HAVE EVER PLAYED AND IT WILL BE AWESOME. IT IS A BIRTHDAY PRESENT SO IT IS EXTRA EXTRA SPECIAL AND IT IS FROM SAVIOR SO IT IS SUPER TOTALLY SPECIAL AND CAPS LOCK DOES NOT DO MY EXCITEMENT JUSTICE!

Nothing can adequately describe my glee except the image below:

Current Mood: excited

Melbourne University just accepted me to do a Master of Education (Specific Learning Difficulties). I don't know what's happening next -- I'm too broke to pay for it, both my parents are against it, etc, but I'm going to apply to Centrelink because my course is one of the ones that the Australian Government supports. If they're willing to help me pay for it, then maybe I can manage to swing it.

I have to accept or decline by the 8th of July.

Given that I don't actually fulfill the prereqs, I am absolutely thrilled that I even got accepted. Seriously. Whether or not I manage to do the course, the fact that I got accepted when I have no real teaching experience or a teaching degree is AWESOME.

Current Mood: excited

2:30PM, 3 hour exam during which I have to write 3 essays. Seat G427, Caulfield Racecourse, Ground Floor.

I am experimenting with walking dogs! One of the old ladies who comes down to the park has a three-legged mutt called Joey, and is babysitting a Great Dane called Amber. Since she's old and the Dane's too big to fit in her car, she can't take the Great Dane out for walks, so one of the younger men at the park (and by younger, I mean forty) offered to walk the Great Dane for her.

Only problem is that he has a Labradoodle (Gryphon) and a Pom (Bushby) to walk himself, but he can't walk those and the Great Dane, so he showed up at her house, dropped off his two dogs to go down in the car with her, and then walked the Great Dane down.

FICKLE TO THE RESCUE.

First day, when he was at Aikido, I walked the Great Dane and Nova down on my own. Second day, I walked down the Labradoodle and the Pom while my mother walked Nova. Third day, I walked down Nova, the Labradoodle and the Pom. It involved a lot of jogging but hey, nobody got run over, nobody broke away and there was a minimum of leash tangling so yay, success!

Labradoodle, btw is a cross between a Labrador and a (giant) poodle. A King Charles Cavalier crossed with a poodle is a cavoodle. A cocker spaniel crossed with a poodle is a spoodle, which is sad because I personally would've favored calling it a cockadoodle. Then if it did a poop, you could say, "Hey, look, cockadoodle doo."

Cousin's wedding reception means that my mother is going nuts. She got my hair trimmed, is getting the dye freshened up, booked me for a mani-pedi -- I asked her if I can have a facial while she's at it, and she said yes, so yay for that. She also hired someone to dress us for the actual night of the reception, because there are a lot of different ways to drape a sari and apparently this lady's entire job is driving out to people and dressing them in saris. For decent pay, too. Talk about finding a niche and filling it.

And because, let's face it, there's no way that I can make a post without touching on This was going to be added onto a post but given that it got a bit long, it gets to be a post of its own. So! Let's talk about the DC Reboot: waurgh seriously AGAIN?! YOU JUST HAD ONE. DON'T YOU DARE MAKE JASON TODD A REDHEAD AGAIN.

That said, the reboot is such a mixed bag of "eee yay for my fav chars" and "you're doing WHAT now?!".

The Good:

Jason Todd is apparently back on the side of the angels, fighting with Roy and Starfire, both of whom I like. On the downside, THAT COSTUME, come on, get rid of that helmet please.

Kyle Rayner gets to lead his own team as well! IT IS A RAINBOW TEAM. The solicit says that you have to watch out for their volatility but hey, Kyle's back in the spotlight and of course a team that features all the different power rings and their emotions is going to be one that needs a little extra care.

The Bad:

Babs is going to walk again -- she's not one of my fav chars but seriously, turning Oracle back into Batgirl just reeks of ableism. She was better as Oracle; she represented a disabled char who was still a superhero and who actually lead a superhero team. Gail Simone's defense of the changes just made me facepalm so much. She wasn't removed from the action and the danger. She might not have been running around physically fighting but fights still came to her and she was the leader for Birds of Prey!

Catwoman's solo title means that Gotham City Sirens is probably over, which is too bad since it was one of my favs. There's not enough info out there about her reboot yet to really pass judgment on the characterization, but there's some discussion of if she's going to go back to being an ex-thief or an ex-prostitute. Given that they're supposedly trying to draw in a younger audience this time around, I'd probably think they're going back to thief (which, okay, is also my personal preference). On the plus side, she's being written by Judd Winick whom I heart.

The Confusing:

No news on Cass Cain, my favorite Batgirl. No news on Steph Brown, my second favorite Robin. I have no idea what to make of the new Wonder Woman except to go "oh man, they're going for the distrust angle again?" and wonder if I'm judging it too quickly. And it's a minor quibble but I liked Nightwing's costume better in blue. Tim Drake as a blogger-turned-superhero does sound interesting, even if he's not one of my favorite chars either. And since they mentioned Batman fighting crime with his son, Damian, I'm wondering if Damian's getting a different origin story, if Talia's still his mother, etc.

Current Mood: thoughtful

I only have ONE paper left for Monday. Thanks to Savior first promising me 1 word of fic for every 2 words I write within a two hour period, and then making me the same offer for another hour and a half to get me to finish it and finish editing it. AND a bonus where I get to pick two fics to add more words onto!

I am so very, very relieved. XD

31st May:

1,000 words due on Islam & the Internet.DONE!

2,000 words due on "How important was Osama bin Laden and what will his legacy be?"
2,000 words due on "What are the key reasons for arguing that Islam and democracy are, in fact, deeply compatible"?DONE!
500 words due on "What are the primary causes for the emergence of Jihadi terrorist activism in Pakistan over the pasty thirty five years?"DONE!
500 words due on "What has Islamism got to do with Islam and the lives of the majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims?"DONE!

2:30PM, 3 hour exam on who knows what. Seat G427, Caulfield Racecourse, Ground Floor.

Current Mood: excited

Or, technically, paper!

It basically went like this:

Fickle: *FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL* I CAN'T GET THIS PAPER DONE!
Savior: I will write you at least one word for fic for every two words of paper you write before this two-hour eggtimer runs out!
Fickle: ... *WRITES LIKE A MAD THING*
Savior: *updates journal with progress bar with hovertext!*
Fickle: *does 1411/2000 within two hours*
Savior: YOU GET INTEREST ON YOUR FIC.
Fickle: *expires of happiness and never finishes paper or gets to read fic* omgyay.

I still have another 500 words to go on this paper, and another 2000 words on a different paper but seriously, we got 3/4ths of that paper done in two hours and I am all amazed. XDDDD and thrilled. Clever, clever Savior!

Current Mood: accomplished

31st May:

1,000 words due on Islam & the Internet.DONE!

2,000 words due on "What are the key reasons for arguing that Islam and democracy are, in fact, deeply compatible"?
2,000 words due on "How important was Osama bin Laden and what will his legacy be?"
500 words due on "What are the primary causes for the emergence of Jihadi terrorist activism in Pakistan over the pasty thirty five years?"DONE!
500 words due on "What has Islamism got to do with Islam and the lives of the majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims?"

2:30PM, 3 hour exam on who knows what. Seat G427, Caulfield Racecourse, Ground Floor.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/09/chocolate-croissants-in-30-minutes-flat/ <- uses pre-made pastry.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2010/05/dark-chocolate-brownies/ <-- dark chocolate brownies look so good

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/05/hot-chocolate-popovers/#more-5165 <-- hot chocolate popovers. Never had them but they've been described as "puffy pancakes doughnuts". WANT.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2010/12/egg-salad-sandwiches/ <-- Egg salad sandwiches. We have two whole cases of eggs that we aren't using and I like egg sandwiches. EDIT: Farmers came by with another carton of eggs. OKAY. I'm going to make egg sandwiches now!

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/02/fancy-grilled-cheese-sandwiches/ <-- Actually, I just want any grilled cheese sandwiches right now. But I do love goat's cheese. First time I had it was as a kid, when my mother picked the cubes of goat cheese out of her salad and let me have them all after she'd given me one to sample and I fell in love with it.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2008/08/oh-my-god-doughnuts/ <-- I have never made doughnuts before. Really want to try.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2010/11/its-a-bloody-mary/ <-- hm. Never had a Bloody Mary with horseradish! Though I usually have them Virgin Mary-style.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/02/double-chocolate-devils-food-with-fresh-raspberries/ <-- devil's food cake is awesome.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2008/04/gooey-chocolate-cakes/ <-- oh god want. I love molten lava-style cakes.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2008/10/blood-and-bones/ <-- I am not going to wait for Halloween to make blood red hot chocolate and meringue bones.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-roast-garlic/ <- can you believe I've never roasted garlic to spread on toast?

My Dell laptop just died. It's refusing to boot and since the CD drive isn't working, I can't even install Linux on it to save it.

The GOOD news is that I have managed to revive my original laptop. It runs Feisty Fawn Ubuntu and is badly in need of an upgrade if I want anything fancier than basic chat and Word to work but its CD drive isn't working properly either, so I'll have to burn the ISO to a CD with my mother's laptop and then do a fresh install over here. The CD drive not working is also why I couldn't just use the factory settings Toshiba disk to reinstall Windows. Sigh.

I started that entry a couple of days and never had time to finish it. Above info is out of date, so here's a quick rundown of what's been happening.

1. Got Ubuntu 10.10 installed onto a USB, laptop refused to boot from USB.
   
2. Used mother's laptop to burn a live CD of U 10.10. installed that onto laptop.
   
3. Laptop first refused to install it (couldn't find a bootloader) but a little Internet research told me it was because I had a USB device plugged in.
   
4. Removed device, installed it, installed OVER all the data that I had before including some photos I'd been happy to find.
   
5. Realize laptop has no battery and needs to be constantly plugged in.
   
6. Laptop starts hanging and screen going grey.
   
7. Switch to using mother's laptop.
   
8. Mother buys Microsoft Office for her laptop despite me explaining my father has 340834038409 illegal copies on disc that I can just use.
   
9. I install Microsoft Office.
   
10. I take over mother's laptop temporarily.
    
11. Other two laptops go back to being 'The Brick' and 'The Doorstop' as I charmingly nicknamed them in fits of exasperation.

I don't remember how old I was when I read Ivanhoe for the first time but I know that I immediately decided that Rebecca was my absolute favorite character and that she should've ended up with Sir Wilfred instead of Rowena. Judging by the published, unofficial sequels and the author's note, I'm not the only one. Sir Walter Scott offered the the following explanation/apology:

"The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly formed or ill assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, verily Virtue has had its reward."

Current Mood: thoughtful

I've got a book called "The Dragon Book" which is full of short stories about dragons. I'm trying to read through them slowly instead of gulping them all down at once. So far, I've made it last four days.

A girl I met tried to give me the Twilight board game (I told her I don't like Twilight) but left it at the wrong house. I found it yesterday, fortunately. Now I just need to meet her again to give it back to her.

My henna expired in 2008 so it didn't leave any mark when I tried to apply it.

This has over 300 comments on capitalism and the free market and communism. And it's on one of the I Can Haz Cheezburger sites. The original commenter is a fucking asshole.

Kathy got me the Emilie Autumn deluxe CD. And a t-shirt of hers. She got to see EA in concert, which is awesome. Last year, I had a ticket to go to an EA concert, paid for it and everything, but then I couldn't go. Which sucked. Waste of money and also, I really wanted to see her live again. I haven't had a chance to listen to the CD yet because the CD player in my laptop doesn't work so I need to plug in a special external DVD reader thing if I want to watch DVDs or play CDs on my laptop. And I don't have a normal plain CD player anymore.

Savior says that I'm not tune deaf. We spent a morning with me attempting to sing on voice chat for him. I got to hear his singing voice. It's really nice. I like it.

Current Mood: exhausted

You know what really sucks? When people that should know better fucking refuse to leave you alone.

I mean, Pat's bad enough with the whole I WILL CONSTANTLY IM YOU AND E-MAIL YOU AND PHONE YOU AND TEXT YOU AND INVITE YOU TO EVENTS thing but the guy only knew me for a handful of months.

Someone who actually knows what my home life is like and the kind of stuff that I deal with on a daily basis subjecting me to the same sort of steady harassment? Fuck that noise.

I'm not allowed to turn off my phone or put it on silent in case I miss calls from my parents. My phone company will charge me extra to block numbers. My only recourse is refusing to pick up and that doesn't protect me from being woken up at all sorts of hours. I have enough trouble sleeping as it is, I don't need my precious resting time cut into.

And that's without bringing up the fact that I do get taken to formal dinners and luncheon where it is incredibly impolite and likely to get me into trouble if my phone rings. It's even worse if I'm the hostess and have to dash off to silence a ringing phone. Seriously, are you just trying to get me into trouble? If you want me killed, hire a fucking hitman. At least I'll die with some dignity and they won't have to etch "killed due to ringing phone" on my grave.

It's insane. If I block you on gchat, refuse to answer your e-mails, refuse to pick up on your calls, refuse to answer your texts, how the fuck can you think that you'll win by persevering?

I know I had a quotation up by Napoleon on my Twitter about how "Victory belongs to the most persevering" but the thing is, that's me. You're the one pouring energy into harassing me. All I have to do is ignore it. I have no idea what the hell you're hoping to accomplish by this; you can't simply wear someone down into being your friend again. Coercion doesn't get you friendship -- or at least, it doesn't with me.

I swear, this is almost as bad as dealing with Pat.

Snagged this meme from ix_tab on livejournal - it feels a bit weird having the first post of the New Year be a meme but hey, it'll help you all get closer to me.

...There is nobody on my insanejournal flist who hasn't already heard me over the phone or chatted with me on webcam. XD Oh well. Maybe this'll make the differences in my accent clear!

( Say these words! )

Listen/watch on YouTube! With bonus puppy action.

Current Mood: exanimate

Priest during the dharna said, almost word for word:

"It is inappropriate to be sad." Because if you're sad, you're harming your sister's, your daughter's, chance to move onto a better life. Maybe she has got through all the unfortunate karma that made her suffer.

And then he talked about how she had such a short life and how giving food to priests means you are giving long life, beauty, strength, clear-mindedness and something else. And about how it's wrong to be sad, it's selfish, because you are mourning the loss of a loved one while they have moved on happily and just.

Hate. HATE.

FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU.

He spoke in English too, just for me. And gave me a book on Buddhism and tied the pirith nula around my wrist.

Fuck you. My sister's been dead three years and I don't think there's a single day where I don't think of her, my sister's been in my life as long as I can remember, she still shows up in my dreams, don't fucking tell me that me being sad is hurting her, fuck her and fuck your platitudes and fuck your prayers.

After Happily Ever

This is the part no one talks about:
How the goddamn translator
fucked everything up.

If she'd only kept her name,
not been Americanized,
she'd still be Aschenputtel,
a name like a whisper
or a kiss.

If her pals still called her "Assypuss,"
not "Cindy" or "Cinder" or even "Ella,"
maybe she would have had a shot at a real
man, or maybe a plastic surgeon ass man
or a construction worker to jackhammer
into her for hours
or even just work her clit
now and then.

But no.
It had to be a prince
with a foot fetish-
the glossy stacks of Leg World,
Leg Show, Toe Girls,
under the bed,
Lloyd's of London's 12 billion dollar
insurance policy
on her feet.

And that fucking translator.
It was all his fault.
If he's known vair was fur and not
verre, glass, she'd have a closet
with silky, sumptuous shoes of mink,
fox, maribou, seal,
and her feet would sink into them
like butter.

Instead, her shoes are the unforgiving ice
of hand-blown Sisley glass.
sea-sanded coke bottle glass, mirrored disco ball glass,
crazy-quilt stained glass.

Every night the same thing.
The translator and her husband come
pouring sickly sweet champagne
for themselves, never her.
She doesn't care.
She sips at her whisky
and stares at the yellow ceiling
until it's over.

The prince sits nearby
as the translator slides the shoe
off her left foot, slowly,
slowly it caresses her left heel,
hushes slowly over the left arch,
and slithers away from her toes, slowly,
slowly.

Then the prince is slobbering at her foot like a puppy dog,
a big, drooly one, making her shoe ring like a crystal wine glass
as his tongue runs laps around the open toe.

Her foot
down
the prince's
throat,
as deep as he
can get it
until her foot
cramps
and his eyes
water
and the spot
shines
on the front of his
pants.

The translator waits nearby
with a towel, creams, polish,
pumice stone, oils,
emery boards, and a fucking closet
full of glass slippers:
platforms, mules, slingbacks,
oxfords, wingtips, stilettos,
pumps. What the hell
is she supposed to do
with fifty pairs of glass
running shoes ferchrist'ssake?

He forbids her
to run, even walk-
corns, calluses, plantar's warts,
bunions, ringworm,
athlete's foot-

Her sisters had it right
the first time around,
slicing off their toes, their heels.
Let them have him.

She sharpens the ax slowly,
slowly, with a lover's
caress.

There is $12 billion
in a Swiss bank account
and a wheelchair
waiting for her
in the Caymans.

No one will ever find her.
No one will be looking
for Assypuss.

She draws a red line
just above her ankles,
where the bones
are the thinnest.
She tears her wedding dress
into white satin
bandages.

Soon she will grow new skin
on the end of her shins,
tender as a baby
buttocks, translucent
as glass.

She can't wait.
She's ready. All she needs
is a little more sharpening
and a little more scotch.

by Daphne Gottlieb

Fifteen, She Learns

That summer I grew two inches and stood
taller than the other girls. The neighborhood
boys who gave me no chance to speak
rated me as ugly, took me to the creek
in the dusk, so they couldn't see my face.
A hole is a hole, they'd say. I took the place
of the cold beauties who stood too far away
to touch or have. I would do today.

As they'd get off me they'd say damn fine work
and for a minute I'd forget a jerk is a jerk
and for a minute my heart wouldn't hurt.

As they disappeared and left me in the dirt
I'd wonder why I did this and what it was worth.
A girl grows used to the smell of the earth.

A teacher expresses her "concern" and calls me
"dear." If there's one thing to learn, it's who falls. Me
I Her She. I don't have a name, I'm a throwaway,
I'm a stat, I'm a report. There's a girl who plays
around in every school, I'm just this year's model.
They advise, they admonish, they punish, they coddle,
but nothing changes the depth of the rut once
you're in it. There are good girls. There are cunts.

She said they only want me for one thing, well,
at least they want me for something, I tell
her and the guidance counselors just talk and talk
and when they're done cutting me up I walk
back to class and say it's cool, pretend I'm fine.
Children are chickens and kill the weak. The whine
that pleads is met with a boot, cemented with blood.
I know the name of the brute, confuse him with God.

The slut alwayas gets invited to the party the last minute
like extra ice or beer. There's a game and she's in it.
How long before she's out and easy?
It's a blood sport, makes you queasy
to think of it now doesn't it?
But every girl wants to be a hit.
As I slide down the kitchen wall
they watch to see how fast I fall.

Drunk in the basement, I'm dizzy and fading,
in a room full of boys standing there, waiting,
and someone begs tension that needs relieving
(show me a boy that's worth believing).
Together we make a cocktail of surprise
with my soft ears, his hard eyes.

So stupid, I think this one's brilliant from the rest,
that he'll kiss my mouth before touching my breast,
but the light in the bathroom is fluroescent, a girl could
go blind from examinatio. A doctor would
prop her up and pry inside where she is private, shy,
but here he's not even a doctor he's just a guy
who came to conquer, who came deranged, who
knows tomorrow's not what we arranged. True,
I know they'll only steal what they crave and
how sad that no one chose to save me, and
that my worth was so low I was marked "give away"
instead of "yours tomorrow" or "his today".

No valentines, no heart attack, I
must get out of this intact. I
know everything I hold dear gets shredded
and kings become captives, beauties are beheaded.

They want to see how much I can stand
even when I'm lying down. My hand
is held down by one who won't speak to me in school
won't give away the secret, it's all too uncool
to confess that he liked my story,
my dress, my joke. So I'm a whore. He
knows he writes the history. Denials pours fast
as beer. I've no safety in a house that's glassed,
with windows soaped up by my little brother.

The vain girls who wreathe onto each other
can smell the cum on me, but never ask
Are you okay? or Did you bring a flask?

You learn what makes you cry so
you can avoid it. Inside you die so
like a soldier but what tight battles makes
you perfect, strong? Cattle takes
off across the field. Girl takes off across sky
like a dandelion. What it costs, why
she goes, how long she's gone is
just a children's storybook song. Is
this a transformation, a survival, a way of flight?
How something ugly becomes so bright?

Reputations are like rocks you drag 'til you
bury them in a new town or they kill you.

At fifteen I had no choice and I found my
skill wasn't fucking, but flying to air from ground. I
practiced at night in the backyard
and when I fell on to the ground, hard,
I knissed the dirt and remembered the taste
of basement, the creek, the disgrace.
Choose sky or dirt, I said, choose sky or dirt.
and the next time I rose, I flew, and nothing hurt.
All girls are born with wings.
They never tell you these things.

Abandoned the wood, the tree house, the creek, the slaughter,
the science book, the experiments. Your daughter
knows that a boy is a cheat is a fraud is a liar
and the girls she was taught to admire
don't hold up, disappear like dust.
The things we love we must
abandon like dolls,
keep clean the halls
that keep us clean. Girl,
this is a dark deep dream world.
Don't open your heart or open your thighs.
Your fathers are stones but your mothers are spies
who ask Why is there dirt on the back of your head?
but never Did it hurt? or Do you wish you were dead?

Boys are snips and snails
and puppy dog tails.
A girl is made of burnt honey, of sour fear
(tell me what is costs to disappear).

When you tell the story
tell them it was me. Me.

Neglected like laundry, she was a slip of a girl
who took pride in passing through the world
and leaving no footprints behind her. Her
mother wouldn't miss her, wouldn't mind her
evaporation.(There are too many children already.)
I'll tell the next girl to keep her head straight, her sight steady.

You'll have to go in the daylight, a circle of enemies around,
like the boys who dragged you, the girls who knocked you down.
They'll all be watching you do your one trick, waiting to see
if it's real, if it's why you were picked, the girl to be
golden , the one to become a fairy when they become women.
You, the one to alight, the one to arise. Kim in
her denim jacket and pink dress, Rachel in her dark
coat and black shoes, you were selected in the park,
you were the one they'd choose, again and again. They
knew you were tougher, that you could play
back against whatever they threw at you and if
they gave you a lump of coal instead of a gift
thank them for the unkindness that gave you this command,
that made their blindness something sweeter than
you ever thought it could be. It brought you
out from daydreams and bloody strings, caught you
between bible and bra strap into a territory you never knew would bring
a way to escape your old world with your new wings.

When I turned 15, I learned to fly,
and finally learned how not to die.

Uncle Chandra's dead. Not baby cousin R&D's father, different uncle. Probably more along the lines of my mother's uncle and my granduncle? I'm not sure, Sri Lankan family ties are complicated. It's possible he isn't a blood relative at all. That's not how I remember him, anyway.

What I remember is that he lived in Sri Lanka and the first time I met him, I was very young, ten or under, and he was smoking a cigar so I went up to him and proselytized against smoking, explaining to him that it would give him lung cancer and kill him and it was bad for everyone around him. He was startled but laughed, took it with good grace and he liked me for it. He was an old man even then so everyone else treated him with respect and deference. You don't scold old male figures in Sri Lankan culture. My blood uncle, Devi-Monkey's cousin, smokes and nobody really does anything about that because he's a man. Uncle Chandra got the same treatment so even though my little lecture didn't stop him smoking, I think he was amused that I had the temerity to talk to him like that. He was always happy to see me after that, whenever I went to Sri Lanka, and I liked him too.

My mother didn't tell me how he died or of what. I woke up and got online. Ten minutes later, she came and bitched me out for sitting in the dark and interrogated me on it. Then she announced he's dead and recounted how happy she was that she'd visited him during her recent trip to Sri Lanka.

I was too stunned to ask for details or do anything except hug her because she was teary-eyed and had probably been crying, so needed some sort of comfort. Even if she's less than ideal, she's still my mother when push comes to shove over things like this, and I do believe that she genuinely loved him too.

Anyway. He's dead. I'm feeling quiet. I don't want to talk about this in chat or anything, so please don't bring it up with me outside this journal post. Thanks.

Hitler visits a lunatic asylum. The patients give the Hitler salute. As he passes down the line he comes across a man who isn’t saluting.

“Why aren’t you saluting like the others?” Hitler barks.

“Mein Führer, I’m the nurse,” comes the answer. “I’m not crazy!”

Current Mood: working

I'm paying court to Savior.

Just thought you should know. ♥

Current Mood: determined

Life is kind of emotionally fraught on certain fronts at the moment. Missed two classes in a row for a certain subject and have a presentation coming up next week that I still haven't picked a topic for, let alone researched/rehearsed.

Father is leaving at 2AM in the morning for the airport and then I get three blissful weeks to myself, just me and my puppy.

TV Tropes: Fanfic Recommendations is liable to get me sucked into new fandoms, given that I am perfectly happy reading fics like they're original fic and then going all, "Okay, I need to know more about these characters in order to properly appreciate how awesome this is, LET'S GO FIND SOURCE MATERIAL".

Gmail's offering free phone calls to the US from anywhere in the US and that's got me talking on the phone with Willow for hours and hours on end. Apparently I really miss phone conversations; I used to talk for hours on the phone in America, I remember, until my phone ran out of battery.

Strawberries + melted dark chocolate is my new comfort food. My puppy continues to be ridiculously adorable. I'm about to spam you all with my attempts to organize all the fic I've been writing recently (one per day, more or less).

Title: Masochism Tango
Characters: Aleksei Volkov, Ivan Lukyanov
Prompt: Violence
Word Count: 1, 064
Summary: Hearts need blood to beat and Aleks needs Lukyanov. Warnings for graphic violence/masochism tango-style relationship.

( Read more... )

DANI DANI DANI DANI DANI DANI!

LOOK. THERE IS A GIFT UNDER THE CUT FOR YOU FROM SAVIOR AND MYSELF. WE BOTH WORKED ON IT TOGETHER.

Love it and feel loved and appreciate it. ♥

( Joint gift from Savior and self! )

I'm posting it in my journal and on dA as well so you can fav it if you want, but just 'cause it's posted in my journal doesn't mean that I did more work on it than Savior. It's roughly half-half, just that you tend to reply to my posts faster than his, so I'm sticking up here.

FEEL LOVED BY BOTH OF US. ♥!

Current Mood: accomplished

( Wild Mass Guessing as to fandoms can ensue! )

You know what makes a great setting for an 80K+ plus fic about two guys getting it on?

Haiti, post-earthquake!

In the author's own words:

When I signed up for Big Bang back in January, I had a completely different story in mind. An SPN gen story, in fact. That idea languished inside my head for a few weeks until I finally gave up trying to force it and moved on. Then the idea of a different J2 AU fic popped into my head, but again, it didn't go anywhere. Then it occurred to me: Why not use current events as the setting? The Haiti earthquake was still in the news and the more I saw about it, the more I wanted to use it until it seemed like the best idea ever. (That, of course, is only my opinion.

help_haiti

glossing