![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Livejournal appears to be down- I suppose that I should not advertise my perfidy, but, honestly, I rely on lj for much of my entertainment. This is a dangerous thing to do, as I am leaving tomorrow to move into my new apartment and my apartment does not yet have internet access. Oh, well. At least it will have AC.
first p0st !!11!1
Aug. 10th, 2009 12:55 pmHello, there. I am kitewithfish, by which name I am known on lj, where I still find my main home online. I am a lurker and an avid reader, and I would be flattered if you disregarded my dw ignorance for just long enough for me to come to grips yet again with getting into this particular platform.
Random time to update
Aug. 9th, 2009 10:40 amMy sister is getting a corn snake shipped to her from a breeder in Texas- this is because, tho she fell in love with some itty bitty snakelets in a petstore, pet stores are generally evil and I was able to convince her that she should patronize a reputable snake breeder. And also make sure that she could deal with handling dead mice on a regular basis, because this is what baby snakes eat. And not to get those from a pet store either, because pet stores are kind of evil.
Have I mentioned that I used to have two corn snakes when I was a young girl, making this honestly a very unweird pet choice for her? Because once you've wrapped your mind around getting a snake (and how cool were my parents for letting me get one in the first place?), having one later in life is not that weird- there's a certain pattern to the whole thing. And corn snakes are honestly just wicked easy to take care of, as reptiles go. Tank, hot pad, hidey holes, nice place to chill, dead mice in the freezer and a few toys, and you have a cute little low maintenance pet.
(I am honestly kind of jazzed that my sister is getting a snake. It seems pretty damned cool of her. I just wish she were doing this before I freaking left for Chicago.)
Having a snake taught me some ridiculous things, actually. Like that snakes only have one lung. And how to get one off of you without hurting her if she bites you and doesn't want to let go (that only happened the one time. And, for the record, since this is information I think everyone should know, you get a bucket of warm water and hold your hand with attached snakes underwater until the snake lets go to breathe. No muss, no fuss, just trickery and a band-aid later you're fine.) And that snakes are generally adorable and the smelling-with-tongue thing tickles like crazy.
Have I mentioned that I used to have two corn snakes when I was a young girl, making this honestly a very unweird pet choice for her? Because once you've wrapped your mind around getting a snake (and how cool were my parents for letting me get one in the first place?), having one later in life is not that weird- there's a certain pattern to the whole thing. And corn snakes are honestly just wicked easy to take care of, as reptiles go. Tank, hot pad, hidey holes, nice place to chill, dead mice in the freezer and a few toys, and you have a cute little low maintenance pet.
(I am honestly kind of jazzed that my sister is getting a snake. It seems pretty damned cool of her. I just wish she were doing this before I freaking left for Chicago.)
Having a snake taught me some ridiculous things, actually. Like that snakes only have one lung. And how to get one off of you without hurting her if she bites you and doesn't want to let go (that only happened the one time. And, for the record, since this is information I think everyone should know, you get a bucket of warm water and hold your hand with attached snakes underwater until the snake lets go to breathe. No muss, no fuss, just trickery and a band-aid later you're fine.) And that snakes are generally adorable and the smelling-with-tongue thing tickles like crazy.
Hebrew Books needed
Aug. 4th, 2009 04:25 pmA Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew by jo hann hackett (cambridge ma 200)
biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (BHS)
brown-driver-briggs hebrew and english lexicon
Learn the alphabet (cursive)
http://www.stanford.edu/class/hebrew/letters/index.html
biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (BHS)
brown-driver-briggs hebrew and english lexicon
Learn the alphabet (cursive)
http://www.stanford.edu/class/hebrew/letters/index.html
I just had a really random thought about how to do a movie with Harvey Dent. For everyone else- have one version of the script. For the actor doing Harvey post-acid- have a script with two versions of each scene- one for if the coin lands good, and one for when the coin lands bad. Make him learn both, and then only when you start rehearsing with other actors do you tell him which is the 'real' version. Make him think about how both options are real and viable and how Two-Face encompasses both outcomes.
Obviously, the actor would hate you. But as a geek, it would be so damned cool.
Obviously, the actor would hate you. But as a geek, it would be so damned cool.
How I met my fandom(s)...
Jul. 25th, 2009 10:47 amI can pinpoint exactly how I got into reading fanfic. Exactly. It was sometime in 2000 or 2001 (back when the set up of the computers put them in the den on the main floor of the house- back when people in my family had to share two computers, well before it became common to see us all huddled in the living room illuminated by the glow of separate laptop screens).
I was bored, and of all the random stuff in the world, my sister told me to go to bored.com and find something there to do. There was a link to fanfiction.net. And thus my addiction began.
Now, mind you, I was a geek, but I was a superhero geek. I was delighted with BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, or whatever they were calling it that season, and I was fairly addicted to a number of other superhero offshoots. I was a Marvel comics reader with a guilty love of a few DC characters, but limited by my suburban surroundings and being several years from my driver's permit, I was shit out of luck finding a comic book shop.
But there was fanfiction. On the internet. For free. People were writing stories about characters I liked, and I could get them without ever having to spend money or leave the house! The valkyries had come in the night to take me to my geeky Valhalla. And for a long time, I was content.
For, you see, this was before fanfiction.net stopped hosting NC-17 material. And thus, much of my introduction to fandom was paired with my introduction to porn. And I was happy, happy girl.
I existed like this for a damned long time, actually. I read more Marvel comics fanfic than I read the comics, and I was able to glean canon events and changes from that. Ff.net was still my one and only pit stop on the internet for this sort of thing, however, but it opened my brain up to something completely mind bogglingly different about being a geek.
There were others. Not only were people writing fanfic (and this, for me, was still a shockingly novel concept- authors of books were ephemeral creatures who stepped down from the clouds with completed works in hand. I could love a series to death without having any interest in the author whatsoever- it honestly just did not occur to me at all to care, ) but people reading the same fanfic as me. And writing comments. And praise. And then the author would respond, and the story would go on, and the cycle would repeat.
[This was pretty shocking to me, actually. I was the weird kid in school who'd moved in late when everyone else was already friends, and my social activities were greatly limited. Either as a cause of this, or just as a result, I read a metric shitload of books at a time. And no one ever read the same thing as me. Never. The Library was a place I went to restock on books, about a half dozen at a time, and other people went to socialize at the little tables together. No one ever read the same stuff as me.
[At least, no one I ever wanted to talk to- certainly none of the other girls. (I have vague recollections of geeky boys at school avidly discussing the logistics involved in the Yeerk invasion of Earth in ANIMORPHS, but I never talked to them because I never spoke to anyone of my own free will during the school day.) I read HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE around the time it came out, not because it was recommended to me, but just because it was in the public library in the scifi/fantasy section, and carried it around with me at school and I was flabbergasted when another girl wanted to talk to me about it. Befuddled, bewildered and utterly taken aback. Weirdest thing that had ever happened to me, and honestly was probably the point at which I began viewing that series with suspicion. But I digress.]
So there was fanfiction.net, haven of geeks, freaks, and other assorted weirdoes who were better geeks than me, because they were spending more time and energy thinking about their characters and backgrounds. Seriously. Nowadays I hardly ever visit ff.net because the ratio of awesome to crap is sadly skewed, but I was young and foolish and I didn't judge stories on their bad grammar. I just went with the flow and liked the Mary Sue even if she was unrealistically perky.
But one thing that ff.net did have going for it, was it was multifandom. You could find fanfic on just about anything there, and while I was initially too faithful and too fearful to leave my comicbook bailiwick, eventually I began to explore. I ignored Harry Potter because I just didn't like their conception of magic compared to that depicted in the YOUNG WIZARDS series by Diane Duane, but I went out into the world and found Star Wars, and Jane Austen, and more than a few others things.
Which brings us to about 2002, the year when NC-17 material was banned from ff.net. I remember some of the outraged posts about this, but honestly, this was a good thing for me, because it forced me to decentralize my fannish attentions- there was no more smut to be found on ff.net, so I went further afield, and bumped accidentally into really good authors writing really good porn. And honestly, just other really good stories.
Clearly, this marked a turning point. Teland.com became my new favorite place on the internet, and introduced me to a concept that (had I any functional social network) would have occurred to me before: recommendations. People who wrote good stuff were usually reading good stuff too. My intake grew exponentially in my given fandoms, and it was all good. I didn't have to wade through crap anymore to find well-written stories. I didn't have to deal with horrific punctuation. There were good writers making interesting works, and all I had to do was follow one link to another to find what I wanted.
There were even sites where people did nothing but write recommendations for fic, and this was where I came across![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thefourthvine. While TFV and I do not interact hardly at all, her recommendations for fandoms I liked were great. She found really, really good stories. The only problem was, large fandoms tend to produce more authors, and when you get a bigger pool of authors, you get better chances of finding really good stories. And the stuff she was reccing? Not in my fandoms, generally. Some were! And they were great stuff, but many were not, and I was loathe to read fic stories where I did not know anything about the canon.
But going through her TFV's lj looking for my fandoms, I found an older post of hers, where she detailed this shocking truth: she often didn't know the fandoms either. She often read fic from fandoms where she only had the most basic information about the canon. In fact, she threw another shocking concept my way: she did not even feel guilty about this. She didn't seem to think that she really needed the canon. She read the fanfic because she liked the fanfic.
And in that moment, friends, I was set free.
I don't need to know the canon. I don't need to feel like I need to watch the first season of a series before I can read the fic authors I want. I don't have to care about spoilers. I can just read the fanfic because I like the fanfic, and forget about the canon entirely if I want to.
This attitude changed my interaction with fandom entirely. It opened doors into fandoms I never thought I would care about, with shows that had been off the air for years or things that were only available in languages I don't speak. I became a fan of fandom in and of itself, not merely as a means to worship of canon, but as a concept of shared creative endeavor without any hope of profit.
And here I stand.
I was bored, and of all the random stuff in the world, my sister told me to go to bored.com and find something there to do. There was a link to fanfiction.net. And thus my addiction began.
Now, mind you, I was a geek, but I was a superhero geek. I was delighted with BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, or whatever they were calling it that season, and I was fairly addicted to a number of other superhero offshoots. I was a Marvel comics reader with a guilty love of a few DC characters, but limited by my suburban surroundings and being several years from my driver's permit, I was shit out of luck finding a comic book shop.
But there was fanfiction. On the internet. For free. People were writing stories about characters I liked, and I could get them without ever having to spend money or leave the house! The valkyries had come in the night to take me to my geeky Valhalla. And for a long time, I was content.
For, you see, this was before fanfiction.net stopped hosting NC-17 material. And thus, much of my introduction to fandom was paired with my introduction to porn. And I was happy, happy girl.
I existed like this for a damned long time, actually. I read more Marvel comics fanfic than I read the comics, and I was able to glean canon events and changes from that. Ff.net was still my one and only pit stop on the internet for this sort of thing, however, but it opened my brain up to something completely mind bogglingly different about being a geek.
There were others. Not only were people writing fanfic (and this, for me, was still a shockingly novel concept- authors of books were ephemeral creatures who stepped down from the clouds with completed works in hand. I could love a series to death without having any interest in the author whatsoever- it honestly just did not occur to me at all to care, ) but people reading the same fanfic as me. And writing comments. And praise. And then the author would respond, and the story would go on, and the cycle would repeat.
[This was pretty shocking to me, actually. I was the weird kid in school who'd moved in late when everyone else was already friends, and my social activities were greatly limited. Either as a cause of this, or just as a result, I read a metric shitload of books at a time. And no one ever read the same thing as me. Never. The Library was a place I went to restock on books, about a half dozen at a time, and other people went to socialize at the little tables together. No one ever read the same stuff as me.
[At least, no one I ever wanted to talk to- certainly none of the other girls. (I have vague recollections of geeky boys at school avidly discussing the logistics involved in the Yeerk invasion of Earth in ANIMORPHS, but I never talked to them because I never spoke to anyone of my own free will during the school day.) I read HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE around the time it came out, not because it was recommended to me, but just because it was in the public library in the scifi/fantasy section, and carried it around with me at school and I was flabbergasted when another girl wanted to talk to me about it. Befuddled, bewildered and utterly taken aback. Weirdest thing that had ever happened to me, and honestly was probably the point at which I began viewing that series with suspicion. But I digress.]
So there was fanfiction.net, haven of geeks, freaks, and other assorted weirdoes who were better geeks than me, because they were spending more time and energy thinking about their characters and backgrounds. Seriously. Nowadays I hardly ever visit ff.net because the ratio of awesome to crap is sadly skewed, but I was young and foolish and I didn't judge stories on their bad grammar. I just went with the flow and liked the Mary Sue even if she was unrealistically perky.
But one thing that ff.net did have going for it, was it was multifandom. You could find fanfic on just about anything there, and while I was initially too faithful and too fearful to leave my comicbook bailiwick, eventually I began to explore. I ignored Harry Potter because I just didn't like their conception of magic compared to that depicted in the YOUNG WIZARDS series by Diane Duane, but I went out into the world and found Star Wars, and Jane Austen, and more than a few others things.
Which brings us to about 2002, the year when NC-17 material was banned from ff.net. I remember some of the outraged posts about this, but honestly, this was a good thing for me, because it forced me to decentralize my fannish attentions- there was no more smut to be found on ff.net, so I went further afield, and bumped accidentally into really good authors writing really good porn. And honestly, just other really good stories.
Clearly, this marked a turning point. Teland.com became my new favorite place on the internet, and introduced me to a concept that (had I any functional social network) would have occurred to me before: recommendations. People who wrote good stuff were usually reading good stuff too. My intake grew exponentially in my given fandoms, and it was all good. I didn't have to wade through crap anymore to find well-written stories. I didn't have to deal with horrific punctuation. There were good writers making interesting works, and all I had to do was follow one link to another to find what I wanted.
There were even sites where people did nothing but write recommendations for fic, and this was where I came across
thefourthvine. While TFV and I do not interact hardly at all, her recommendations for fandoms I liked were great. She found really, really good stories. The only problem was, large fandoms tend to produce more authors, and when you get a bigger pool of authors, you get better chances of finding really good stories. And the stuff she was reccing? Not in my fandoms, generally. Some were! And they were great stuff, but many were not, and I was loathe to read fic stories where I did not know anything about the canon.But going through her TFV's lj looking for my fandoms, I found an older post of hers, where she detailed this shocking truth: she often didn't know the fandoms either. She often read fic from fandoms where she only had the most basic information about the canon. In fact, she threw another shocking concept my way: she did not even feel guilty about this. She didn't seem to think that she really needed the canon. She read the fanfic because she liked the fanfic.
And in that moment, friends, I was set free.
I don't need to know the canon. I don't need to feel like I need to watch the first season of a series before I can read the fic authors I want. I don't have to care about spoilers. I can just read the fanfic because I like the fanfic, and forget about the canon entirely if I want to.
This attitude changed my interaction with fandom entirely. It opened doors into fandoms I never thought I would care about, with shows that had been off the air for years or things that were only available in languages I don't speak. I became a fan of fandom in and of itself, not merely as a means to worship of canon, but as a concept of shared creative endeavor without any hope of profit.
And here I stand.
There are days I just really love my job. Honestly and truly love the damned thing.
The Art Library has it's own little section of fragile and special books that don't circulate. Unlike the big Library, the Art Library's special collection is not climate-controled, and does not have a small army of archivists making sure that no one draws in the margins. The books are not as well tended, and they needed some love.
So, today, Awesome!Boss and her three minions, myself included, trundled over to the Art Library to see the damage. And, lo, friends, it was a fine, fine day.
I got to pull out a three hundred year old art book in German that covered design motifs from something like seventeen major world cultures. In color, which is mind boggling with something where each plate had to be done by hand. The expense must have been incredible. There was another book in Latin and Greek written during the time of one of Kings Charles of England, bound in vellum and printed with an insane attention to detail. The ligatures of the book were insane. * There was one for Qu where the tail of the Q swept under the entire length of the u and then joined it at the tail of the u. AND IT WAS IN LATIN AND GREEK. I was in happy book!geek heaven.
Naturally, the conservation facility that keeps the paperbacks of Swelles in decent shape is not equipped to the same standards of upkeep that some of these books need. They are going to be sent somewhere with experts in dealing with these kind of elder statesmen of the literary world. But I get to make boxes for a few of them.
There was another set of little books by Ruth Hayes, far more modern than most of the other really exciting ones, but nevertheless quite cool. They were flipbooks, the kind of thing that you get as a child where a ball rolls across the bottom edge of the page as you turn the pages, but this was gorgeous. "Walking Octopus" was far and away my favorite- the octopus just squirmed across the page- the motion was perfect. Ruth Hayes is apparently online at http://www.randommotion.com/html/flip.html, and has a number of other works online, tho not this one that I saw. I think "Running Octopus" is out of print, sadly. I could have watched that thing for hours.
*For the non-printing-savvy of the crowd, a ligature is a special character in a lead typeset where two or more letters that occur in a row in word are made up of a single piece of metal, rather than several smaller ones holding only one letters. This preserves the spacing of the text, as it allows the two letters to overlap as they normally would if you were just writing them out. Normal typesets in English have several standard ligatures: fi, fl, ffl, and almost any common combination of letters that might follow the letter f, zy and a few others. The ampersand & was originally a ligature of 'et', or the Roman word for 'and'.
The Art Library has it's own little section of fragile and special books that don't circulate. Unlike the big Library, the Art Library's special collection is not climate-controled, and does not have a small army of archivists making sure that no one draws in the margins. The books are not as well tended, and they needed some love.
So, today, Awesome!Boss and her three minions, myself included, trundled over to the Art Library to see the damage. And, lo, friends, it was a fine, fine day.
I got to pull out a three hundred year old art book in German that covered design motifs from something like seventeen major world cultures. In color, which is mind boggling with something where each plate had to be done by hand. The expense must have been incredible. There was another book in Latin and Greek written during the time of one of Kings Charles of England, bound in vellum and printed with an insane attention to detail. The ligatures of the book were insane. * There was one for Qu where the tail of the Q swept under the entire length of the u and then joined it at the tail of the u. AND IT WAS IN LATIN AND GREEK. I was in happy book!geek heaven.
Naturally, the conservation facility that keeps the paperbacks of Swelles in decent shape is not equipped to the same standards of upkeep that some of these books need. They are going to be sent somewhere with experts in dealing with these kind of elder statesmen of the literary world. But I get to make boxes for a few of them.
There was another set of little books by Ruth Hayes, far more modern than most of the other really exciting ones, but nevertheless quite cool. They were flipbooks, the kind of thing that you get as a child where a ball rolls across the bottom edge of the page as you turn the pages, but this was gorgeous. "Walking Octopus" was far and away my favorite- the octopus just squirmed across the page- the motion was perfect. Ruth Hayes is apparently online at http://www.randommotion.com/html/flip.html, and has a number of other works online, tho not this one that I saw. I think "Running Octopus" is out of print, sadly. I could have watched that thing for hours.
*For the non-printing-savvy of the crowd, a ligature is a special character in a lead typeset where two or more letters that occur in a row in word are made up of a single piece of metal, rather than several smaller ones holding only one letters. This preserves the spacing of the text, as it allows the two letters to overlap as they normally would if you were just writing them out. Normal typesets in English have several standard ligatures: fi, fl, ffl, and almost any common combination of letters that might follow the letter f, zy and a few others. The ampersand & was originally a ligature of 'et', or the Roman word for 'and'.
June has reached a critical mass for important life altering events. I call a halt to this. Nothing more major in my life is allowed to happen in June. Any event choosing to flaunt this declaration may find itself retroactively forcibly relocated to July.
Going to buy beer and an ax handle. That statement does not seem to strike as much fear into my heart as it should, given how close I am to Lizzy Borden's grave.
Going to buy beer and an ax handle. That statement does not seem to strike as much fear into my heart as it should, given how close I am to Lizzy Borden's grave.
Options examined
Jun. 26th, 2009 07:56 pmSpent the best part of the day looking for backup apartments in Chicago. Ended up wasting time touring several luxury high rises that are, shockingly, not outside our predetermined price range. The housing market in Chicago is blindingly cheap compared to Cambridge or D.C., so we really overshot our mark on the pricing. But it was determined that the Lutheran housing place was our best option and after that we settled down to rest.
My feet are hurty, and I clearly have given myself another case of sunburn. Need to carry sunscreen, I think. Burn too easily to go long without it, and it tends to come off with sweat. Also, bag clearly too heavy by far.
I just got sunburned a few weeks ago- how can I get another already? Where is my melanin?
Anyhoo, things seem like they are working well, roomie situation happily settled, and we can now begin to think about moving in. Yay moving in!
My feet are hurty, and I clearly have given myself another case of sunburn. Need to carry sunscreen, I think. Burn too easily to go long without it, and it tends to come off with sweat. Also, bag clearly too heavy by far.
I just got sunburned a few weeks ago- how can I get another already? Where is my melanin?
Anyhoo, things seem like they are working well, roomie situation happily settled, and we can now begin to think about moving in. Yay moving in!
A murder of crows, a confusion of cousins
Jun. 25th, 2009 11:30 amOne of the other things about moving to Chicago is the sudden increase of cousins.
My nuclear family is a lone outpost on the East Coast- my mother's sister lives in California still, her mother in New Mexico until the last four years, and my father's family all stayed in Illinois, if not Chicago proper.
As a result, the concept of cousins that you saw on a regular basis was generally linked to the Townies in the places where I was living, wherever that might be at the time. Most of the suburbs where I've lived have existed as towns for a long damned time, but grew much larger in the last thirty or forty years. There was a distinct subculture of people whose families had lived in the same town for generations, and they were the people whose cousins showed up in high school at the same time as them.
Whereas, most of the other people had family that lived really far away- sometimes as far as India or Taiwan. Cousins were seen at most yearly, and for my family often far less. My mother and her sister maintained contact, but often it was in the form of regular phone calls and sending one of my siblings to California to visit. I never went to California on my own- I'm not really sure why, though it may have had something to do with my dislike of Southern California's climate.
But moving to Chicago contains a distinct hint of moving back as opposed to moving to. Suddenly, my father's (much larger) family has taken up a far closer position to me than ever before, and there are lots of them. And they all have relationships with each other spanning years and years of being near neighbors and visiting at holidays and taking an interest in and care of each other's children. I have this sudden new identity of cousin/niece, with all the rights, responsibilities and privileges attached thereto, and it's kind of surprising. People who I have not seen in six years or more have offered to help me move in to my apartment. And help me shop for second hand furniture. Or just come and fetch me if I get lost in the city at night. It's both very welcoming- I was kind of afraid of moving away from Boston and my college and having to find a new set of friends- and a little weird (who are these people and why have they all instantly decided that they need to take care of me?)
My dad was the only one to move away from Chicago for any length of time. And here I am, coming back, possibly for just a short period, and possibly for a long stay, and possibly forever. And suddenly, I have a whole lot of backup.
My nuclear family is a lone outpost on the East Coast- my mother's sister lives in California still, her mother in New Mexico until the last four years, and my father's family all stayed in Illinois, if not Chicago proper.
As a result, the concept of cousins that you saw on a regular basis was generally linked to the Townies in the places where I was living, wherever that might be at the time. Most of the suburbs where I've lived have existed as towns for a long damned time, but grew much larger in the last thirty or forty years. There was a distinct subculture of people whose families had lived in the same town for generations, and they were the people whose cousins showed up in high school at the same time as them.
Whereas, most of the other people had family that lived really far away- sometimes as far as India or Taiwan. Cousins were seen at most yearly, and for my family often far less. My mother and her sister maintained contact, but often it was in the form of regular phone calls and sending one of my siblings to California to visit. I never went to California on my own- I'm not really sure why, though it may have had something to do with my dislike of Southern California's climate.
But moving to Chicago contains a distinct hint of moving back as opposed to moving to. Suddenly, my father's (much larger) family has taken up a far closer position to me than ever before, and there are lots of them. And they all have relationships with each other spanning years and years of being near neighbors and visiting at holidays and taking an interest in and care of each other's children. I have this sudden new identity of cousin/niece, with all the rights, responsibilities and privileges attached thereto, and it's kind of surprising. People who I have not seen in six years or more have offered to help me move in to my apartment. And help me shop for second hand furniture. Or just come and fetch me if I get lost in the city at night. It's both very welcoming- I was kind of afraid of moving away from Boston and my college and having to find a new set of friends- and a little weird (who are these people and why have they all instantly decided that they need to take care of me?)
My dad was the only one to move away from Chicago for any length of time. And here I am, coming back, possibly for just a short period, and possibly for a long stay, and possibly forever. And suddenly, I have a whole lot of backup.
(no subject)
Jun. 24th, 2009 04:40 pmCommon wisdom has it that if you want to receive a letter, you should write a letter. Take this under consideration as I write this: I do this for my own selfish entertainment.
For the past few days I've been in Chicago(land) searching for an apartment for when I move here and go to the University of Chicago. ( And how sad is it, that by the time I post this entry, the entry announcing my acceptance into that institution, from MARCH, will not have been pushed onto the Older Entries page? I have been neglecting you, my friends, and I feel it.)
I came with a list compiled by my future roomie and some appointments already, but there was a clear top candidate on the list, both in terms of price and location. Mostly, we both had our hopes pinned to that one, and were just checking on others to be safe and sure that it was worth it. Surprise, surprise- the apartment complex in question is lovely, incredibly close to the U of C, incredibly cheap, and the management is clearly not going to be out to bleed us dry- it's run through another local seminary, and they are generally not out to screw their renters over for fear of hurting the school's reputation in the denomination. And I get to have the justified feeling that I brought something to the process of apartment hunting after all, despite my Beanie-come-lately feeling, because it's the building that I found that we're going after, and it's only because I am a student at a local seminary that they are allowed to rent to me.
Of course, if something goes wrong, it's my ass in the fire, but I think that's probably ok. I hope nothing goes wrong, at least. Oh, well.
Anyhoo, having found and put money on the apartment means that I can now just sort of de-stress today and hang out.
more later...
EDIT FOR MORENESS.
I've just had a lovely dinner with Aunt and Uncle M and M, who have carefully ensconced me at the International House. Which I am now so deeply glad not to be living in, because living in a room *this* small after my last year at Swelles in my nice big sunny happy room would drive me round the bend. It's not unliveably small, but I would have to be utterly spartan and completely ruthless about my bookshelf's occupants in order to pull this off. All in all, glad that this did not pan out for me. At least I get my deposit back, too.
For the past few days I've been in Chicago(land) searching for an apartment for when I move here and go to the University of Chicago. ( And how sad is it, that by the time I post this entry, the entry announcing my acceptance into that institution, from MARCH, will not have been pushed onto the Older Entries page? I have been neglecting you, my friends, and I feel it.)
I came with a list compiled by my future roomie and some appointments already, but there was a clear top candidate on the list, both in terms of price and location. Mostly, we both had our hopes pinned to that one, and were just checking on others to be safe and sure that it was worth it. Surprise, surprise- the apartment complex in question is lovely, incredibly close to the U of C, incredibly cheap, and the management is clearly not going to be out to bleed us dry- it's run through another local seminary, and they are generally not out to screw their renters over for fear of hurting the school's reputation in the denomination. And I get to have the justified feeling that I brought something to the process of apartment hunting after all, despite my Beanie-come-lately feeling, because it's the building that I found that we're going after, and it's only because I am a student at a local seminary that they are allowed to rent to me.
Of course, if something goes wrong, it's my ass in the fire, but I think that's probably ok. I hope nothing goes wrong, at least. Oh, well.
Anyhoo, having found and put money on the apartment means that I can now just sort of de-stress today and hang out.
more later...
EDIT FOR MORENESS.
I've just had a lovely dinner with Aunt and Uncle M and M, who have carefully ensconced me at the International House. Which I am now so deeply glad not to be living in, because living in a room *this* small after my last year at Swelles in my nice big sunny happy room would drive me round the bend. It's not unliveably small, but I would have to be utterly spartan and completely ruthless about my bookshelf's occupants in order to pull this off. All in all, glad that this did not pan out for me. At least I get my deposit back, too.
(no subject)
Jun. 22nd, 2009 03:54 pmHA!
I have found myself an apartment in Chicago. I am a happy Bean.
This also means my work here is done, and I can, for the most part, spent the next few days goofing off in the South side and figuring out my life out.
I have found myself an apartment in Chicago. I am a happy Bean.
This also means my work here is done, and I can, for the most part, spent the next few days goofing off in the South side and figuring out my life out.
(no subject)
Jun. 17th, 2009 12:46 pmIt seems people are very slow to return calls, email, or any kind of communication at all when they have something you want to know.
I'm set up to look at one apartment on the list right now, and hopefully others will get back to me today or tomorrow. I am rather impatient with the whole silly business already, but that's primarily because I don't feel like I know what I'm doing.
In other news.
I'm listening to the Dresden Files on audiobooks to pass the time. Partially, this was motivated by my fangirlish interest in James Marsters, who does the reading for the books. But there is a problem. He's kind of bad at it, actually. They did not check the pronunciation of Marcone's name (Mar-CONE, not MAR-cone-ee), so it's jarring to hear it said wrong so often. His intonation is off sometimes, making the reading of the sentence confusing until you get to the end, when you can re-construct what the sentence looked like on the page and figure out what should have been emphasized where. And sometimes he just mispronounces words, reading "spellslinger" as "spells-linger" instead of "spell-slinger", like "gunslinger", one who slings guns or spells around.
The little errors are small and they don't really deeply detract from my understanding or enjoyment of the book, but it seems to display a lack of preparation and interest with the material that wounds my little fannish heart. I really, really like THE DRESDEN FILES. They are a lovely fun and snarky series of books with a great narrator and layered characters, and I wish my delight in the books were able to be better communicated to Marsters. Harry's voice, so clear and sharp in the books, is rendered rather flat. In short, I wish he cared more.
But hey, it's the first book and he has to read the whole series. Maybe he gets better at it. At least he does the voices- Monica Sells's voice is amusing.
Anyhoo. I am going on a walk. Later.
I'm set up to look at one apartment on the list right now, and hopefully others will get back to me today or tomorrow. I am rather impatient with the whole silly business already, but that's primarily because I don't feel like I know what I'm doing.
In other news.
I'm listening to the Dresden Files on audiobooks to pass the time. Partially, this was motivated by my fangirlish interest in James Marsters, who does the reading for the books. But there is a problem. He's kind of bad at it, actually. They did not check the pronunciation of Marcone's name (Mar-CONE, not MAR-cone-ee), so it's jarring to hear it said wrong so often. His intonation is off sometimes, making the reading of the sentence confusing until you get to the end, when you can re-construct what the sentence looked like on the page and figure out what should have been emphasized where. And sometimes he just mispronounces words, reading "spellslinger" as "spells-linger" instead of "spell-slinger", like "gunslinger", one who slings guns or spells around.
The little errors are small and they don't really deeply detract from my understanding or enjoyment of the book, but it seems to display a lack of preparation and interest with the material that wounds my little fannish heart. I really, really like THE DRESDEN FILES. They are a lovely fun and snarky series of books with a great narrator and layered characters, and I wish my delight in the books were able to be better communicated to Marsters. Harry's voice, so clear and sharp in the books, is rendered rather flat. In short, I wish he cared more.
But hey, it's the first book and he has to read the whole series. Maybe he gets better at it. At least he does the voices- Monica Sells's voice is amusing.
Anyhoo. I am going on a walk. Later.
Endings, Beginnings, and What I Wore.
Jun. 5th, 2009 08:42 pmI have graduated! Huzzah!
Wellesley Class of 2009 cordially invites you to drop down in exhaustion after schlepping heavy crates home.
I have a ridiculous hat! Mine to keep! And a robe to which I am just a little bit too attached. Pearls and my class ring comprised my ceremonial bling. (I've posted about the ring already- I have become slightly less gollom-ish about the whole thing in the past few days, but the sucker is still never going to come off.) Other than that, I had a very pretty slinky dress which I shall wear again.
I am now prepared to curl up into a ball and sleep the sleep of the righteously tired.
On the down side, I am once more in my parents' home. But there are plans to leave! Yay!
And....
Wow. I kind of have free time again. Not much. But a little.
Plans have been made to get to Chicago on the 19th thru 27th in order to hunt apartments and find me a place to live while I attempt to start off my masters degree with a modicum of grace and style. Hopefully, real moving-in to the windy city will begin to take place in late August. I will have to buy furniture.
Wellesley Class of 2009 cordially invites you to drop down in exhaustion after schlepping heavy crates home.
I have a ridiculous hat! Mine to keep! And a robe to which I am just a little bit too attached. Pearls and my class ring comprised my ceremonial bling. (I've posted about the ring already- I have become slightly less gollom-ish about the whole thing in the past few days, but the sucker is still never going to come off.) Other than that, I had a very pretty slinky dress which I shall wear again.
I am now prepared to curl up into a ball and sleep the sleep of the righteously tired.
On the down side, I am once more in my parents' home. But there are plans to leave! Yay!
And....
Wow. I kind of have free time again. Not much. But a little.
Plans have been made to get to Chicago on the 19th thru 27th in order to hunt apartments and find me a place to live while I attempt to start off my masters degree with a modicum of grace and style. Hopefully, real moving-in to the windy city will begin to take place in late August. I will have to buy furniture.
(no subject)
May. 27th, 2009 09:53 pmI am in need of a project.
Not that I actually am in need of something to do- there are a whole slew of things I should be doing, (laundry, packing, dealing with housing, getting plans together to hang out with my friends over this last week before graduation), but I currently don't have homework and that is a Problem.
Because when I don't have homework, my hobbies start to take over the space that I left for them, and that is just.... that way lies madness.
Because, of any character trait I have that is not immediately apparent but defines a great deal of my inner life, it's the drive to be better at something than other people. And when the only thing filling up my life now is fanfiction and other random ways I pass my time, it means that I begin to notice: I am not a very good fan. I need to watch more TV or something, perhaps, but I am not well versed in canon. I can let whole weeks go by without noticing that I have missed the last three episodes of the show that I am currently geeking out about.
When I need to memorize Greek verbs, this is not so much a problem (not that I really spent that much time memorizing Greek verbs, because I find it kind of boring and much more interesting to find them in context in the text and make educated guesses). But now, all I have to do it hang out with my friends (who are on radically different sleep schedules than me, meaning they do not get up at dawn on their vacations.), it means that I being to notice: I did not see most of Buffy. And I don't really care about the Whedonless Buffy!movie coming out. And I didn't see WOLVERINE yet or STAR TREK. And I might just be a fraud on the geeky front, when it comes right down to it.
Which could become something I feel a burning pulsating need to remedy.
Crap.
In other news, I graduate officially on the 5th of June, and I have a slew of silly fun things to do with my buddies before then. So here's hoping.
Not that I actually am in need of something to do- there are a whole slew of things I should be doing, (laundry, packing, dealing with housing, getting plans together to hang out with my friends over this last week before graduation), but I currently don't have homework and that is a Problem.
Because when I don't have homework, my hobbies start to take over the space that I left for them, and that is just.... that way lies madness.
Because, of any character trait I have that is not immediately apparent but defines a great deal of my inner life, it's the drive to be better at something than other people. And when the only thing filling up my life now is fanfiction and other random ways I pass my time, it means that I begin to notice: I am not a very good fan. I need to watch more TV or something, perhaps, but I am not well versed in canon. I can let whole weeks go by without noticing that I have missed the last three episodes of the show that I am currently geeking out about.
When I need to memorize Greek verbs, this is not so much a problem (not that I really spent that much time memorizing Greek verbs, because I find it kind of boring and much more interesting to find them in context in the text and make educated guesses). But now, all I have to do it hang out with my friends (who are on radically different sleep schedules than me, meaning they do not get up at dawn on their vacations.), it means that I being to notice: I did not see most of Buffy. And I don't really care about the Whedonless Buffy!movie coming out. And I didn't see WOLVERINE yet or STAR TREK. And I might just be a fraud on the geeky front, when it comes right down to it.
Which could become something I feel a burning pulsating need to remedy.
Crap.
In other news, I graduate officially on the 5th of June, and I have a slew of silly fun things to do with my buddies before then. So here's hoping.
GARY COLEMAN:
Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy
NICKY:
I'll say.
GARY COLEMAN:
And when I see how sad you are
It sort of makes me...
Happy!
NICKY:
Happy?!
GARY COLEMAN:
Sorry, Nicky, human nature-
Nothing I can do!
It's...
Schadenfreude!
Making me feel glad that I'm not you.
NICKY:
Well that's not very nice, Gary!
GARY COLEMAN:
I didn't say it was nice! But everybody does it!
D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?
NICKY:
Yeah...
GARY COLEMAN:
And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?
NICKY:
Sure!
GARY COLEMAN:
And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,
Watching people out in the rain!
NICKY:
You bet!
GARY COLEMAN:
That's...
GARY AND NICKY:
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
People taking pleasure in your pain!
NICKY:
Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?
What's that, some kinda Nazi word?
GARY COLEMAN:
Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"
NICKY:
"Happiness at the misfortune of others." That is German!
Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken
GARY COLEMAN:
Or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in!
NICKY:
Being on the elevator when somebody shouts "Hold the door!"
GARY AND NICKY:
"No!!!"
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
"Fuck you lady, that's what stairs are for!"
NICKY:
Ooh, how about...
Straight-A students getting Bs?
GARY COLEMAN:
Exes getting STDs!
NICKY:
Waking doormen from their naps!
GARY COLEMAN:
Watching tourists reading maps!
NICKY:
Football players getting tackled!
GARY COLEMAN:
CEOs getting shackled!
NICKY:
Watching actors never reach
GARY AND NICKY:
The ending of their oscar speech!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
The world needs people like you and me who've been knocked around by fate.
'Cause when people see us, they don't want to be us,
and that makes them feel great.
NICKY:
Sure!
We provide a vital service to society!
GARY AND NICKY:
You and me!
Schadenfreude!
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
To be!
GARY COLEMAN:
S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E!
Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy
NICKY:
I'll say.
GARY COLEMAN:
And when I see how sad you are
It sort of makes me...
Happy!
NICKY:
Happy?!
GARY COLEMAN:
Sorry, Nicky, human nature-
Nothing I can do!
It's...
Schadenfreude!
Making me feel glad that I'm not you.
NICKY:
Well that's not very nice, Gary!
GARY COLEMAN:
I didn't say it was nice! But everybody does it!
D'ja ever clap when a waitress falls and drops a tray of glasses?
NICKY:
Yeah...
GARY COLEMAN:
And ain't it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?
NICKY:
Sure!
GARY COLEMAN:
And don'tcha feel all warm and cozy,
Watching people out in the rain!
NICKY:
You bet!
GARY COLEMAN:
That's...
GARY AND NICKY:
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
People taking pleasure in your pain!
NICKY:
Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?
What's that, some kinda Nazi word?
GARY COLEMAN:
Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"
NICKY:
"Happiness at the misfortune of others." That is German!
Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken
GARY COLEMAN:
Or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in!
NICKY:
Being on the elevator when somebody shouts "Hold the door!"
GARY AND NICKY:
"No!!!"
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
"Fuck you lady, that's what stairs are for!"
NICKY:
Ooh, how about...
Straight-A students getting Bs?
GARY COLEMAN:
Exes getting STDs!
NICKY:
Waking doormen from their naps!
GARY COLEMAN:
Watching tourists reading maps!
NICKY:
Football players getting tackled!
GARY COLEMAN:
CEOs getting shackled!
NICKY:
Watching actors never reach
GARY AND NICKY:
The ending of their oscar speech!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude!
GARY COLEMAN:
The world needs people like you and me who've been knocked around by fate.
'Cause when people see us, they don't want to be us,
and that makes them feel great.
NICKY:
Sure!
We provide a vital service to society!
GARY AND NICKY:
You and me!
Schadenfreude!
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
Making the world a better place...
To be!
GARY COLEMAN:
S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E!
(no subject)
May. 21st, 2009 05:51 pmI have taken the beast that was my Greek final and slain it with the sword!
Now, to kill the grendelesque fiend that is my last German paper. Huzzah!
Now, to kill the grendelesque fiend that is my last German paper. Huzzah!
