LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): An estuary is a bay where the salt water of a
sea mixes with the fresh water of rivers. These days you remind me of
such a place. You are two-toned, Libra. You're dual-purpose and double-
tracked. You're a hybrid blend of the yes and the no, the give and the
take, the extravagant and the traditional. And somehow this has been
working out pretty well for you. You're not so much a dysfunctional
contradiction as an interesting juxtaposition. You're not being crushed by
a squeeze of opposites so much as you're getting massaged by the
oscillating throbs of complementary influences. Keep doing what you've
been doing, only more so.

Hello, my life?  Is this. Thank you free will astrology, once again.

( today in academia land )

I'm thankful for...

( lots and lots when you look at it in list form )

And now, my pretty pretty turkey day!  We went to the Long Beach Aquarium yesterday (and let me tell you, if you ever want to ditch crowds, GO ON A HOLIDAY.  It was FANTASTIC!  Even though there were some families, there was basically no one there, and we got to linger on exhibits, goof around with everything as long as we wanted, and didn't have to fight to watch any fish.  We took our cameras just in case, and even though it's through the glass, I think I got some decent pictures.  Afterwards we went to a spanish tapas restaurant and had nummy little plates of food until we were stuffed.  The massive plus? No dishes.  And we even had leftovers from dinner!  While they may not make the best turkey sandwiches, manchego cheese garlic mashed potatoes?  MMMMM.

[queue closed]

Ok, so I've just thought of a project and we'll see if it takes off.  I'd like to do some Buffy/Giles movie posters.  I'd love to do some Giles/Spike movie posters.  I'd love to work with any pairing, and in fandoms I'm not totally familiar with. And hmm, maybe some others.  In the past I've offered these to the authors -- now I'm offering them to ... non authors & authors.

Sound weird?  Let me clarify:

Comment with 1 of your favorite fics.  It can be one you've written or one that someone ELSE has written.  I'll make movie posters for them for the holidays (probably xmas holidays, but holidays nonetheless).  They don't have to be new.  They don't have to be old.  I'll definitely post them before xmas so if you want to consider it a comission for a friend whose fic you love, it can be a surprise present from both of us.

The only thing I do ask is that the fic be finished - because I pretty much read the entire work and I have lots of trouble reading WIPs.

( interested? respond with this info: )[queue closed]

so much for trying to post more often in the month of November. 

(  The weekend was a little busier than most - dog park with Neil and my absolutely adorable puppy (who is not a puppy, but whatever) on Saturday and the Derby Dolls of LA with Maija on Sunday.  )

One of the best parts of this week has been corrupting elizabuffy over to the dark side of American Idol!  Now I have someone to share the joy with, and she agrees that Adam is a pretty awesome sparkly unicorn prince.  I realized I'm definitely a fangirl now because I listened to his album last night and ... deep breath, I can admit this really I can... I liked some of the tracks.  Oh sparkly unicorn prince.  You glittered your way into my ears.

I can't tell if I'm working on a cold or having a severe allergy attack for a couple of days, but either way since Monday my head has been fuzzy, my eyes a little gravely/burning, my chest half-congested, and I've been moderately tired.  It makes gathering the mental energies a very difficult thing.  Except, apparently, for my new media class, where even if I'm not all there I will still manage to dominate the conversation like a loon -- I guess I feel that more is at stake there than in my other classes.  More fun too though.

On the work front I'm heading into the end, and not really quite finding the sense of urgency I need to take care of everything.  So I have this film that I need to watch for my film paper, and some research to do, and an entire new media paper to write, and .... yeah.  Japanese continues to be exactly as it has been - little difficult, mostly entertaining, and definitely no cake walk.  This week is a little annoying as we're doing 'how to order things in restaurants' and so the entire class we talk about food.  It's a good thing I generally have lunch right after.

I did more than just make icons for fall_for_sx.... what else? movie posters! I can't help these things, I adore them. I've noticed that there are movie poster comms out there now. And I love it! So, addiction, here you go again.  The other best part?  Reading fic I would have never read before (I tend to run screaming from angst or unhappy stuff, even when it's by good writers, because I am a shrinking violet.  And yet some of the most poetic, or haunting fic is written around the characters when they're not in a happy place).

( oh spike, and xander. you are too cute. even when there's angst )

Kaja Silverman was giving a talk introducing her new book yesterday and she reminded me of some of the essentials of scholarship (even though I'm not sure if she intended to):

• love the texts you're working on
• if you do what you do will have meaning
• don't forget the theory; and Freud may have gotten everything wrong but he's useful
  

I first read her Subject of Semiotics in Earl Jackson's Theory 101 class at Santa Cruz.  I'd failed the Theory 101 class I'd taken the quarter before and I thought I hated theory.  Then we read this book, along with Earl's warning that we weren't going to understand anything we read until at least a week after we read it -- but that we needed to do the reading anyway.  That, and the talking we did in the class that I often felt was over my head but ... just over it, so I could kind of reach that level sometimes, made me realize that I kind of love theory.  I love the idea that someone out there wants to talk about meaning, and that there are different ways to figure it out, different guides, different scaffolds.  And we're all operating under those scaffolds anyway, so we may as well know about 'em.

(ok, that's probably the subject of a much longer post, because it's a gut feeling and something I have a little trouble articulating, but the basic premise is that honestly? we all employ theory all the time to make most of our judgements, we just pretend we don't).

And today I am beginning to freak out for intellectual reasons.  The new school is a great environment, and I'm getting to work with someone whose work totally excites me, but on the other hand I'm feeling a little lost at this moment in time.  I have two 20-page papers due in a couple of weeks and I have absolutely NO idea what it is I want to write for either of them.  Some vague notion of new media in Japan, and some vague idea about post-war Japanese film and that's all I've got. 

On the way home I realized that part of my trouble is that I'm not speaking intellectually to anyone in my field right now.  Oh, the girls in my cohort are nice, but they're all in slightly different areas (hello classical Chinese linguistics, do you care about my stuff? do i care about yours? not for paper writing/discussion).  I've got to try tomorrow to meet with my advisor and figure out what direction I'm taking this semester.  It's overdue, and I think I let the fact that she and I are not getting along like houses on fire sort of distract me.  Just because we don't get each other doesn't mean I shouldn't talk with her about these things.

I know.  *hangs head* figuring out this whole business seems like it's long overdue.  I can't believe the semester is done in like two weeks.

teasers:
   

( oh dear, it's that american idol again - Adam, Kris & Kradam )

( all the s/x i could handle - icons and one wallpaper )

( some old merlin icons that I'd meant to post ages ago )

*peeks out from behind the rock of life* HI!  Wow.  I keep forgetting to actually use this think to check in.  Instead I'm lurking around the total meltdown over at ontd_ai (and wow, when they melt, they melt!), doing homework, avoiding dressing up for halloween and other ragingly entertaining things.

No, really.

Best parts about last week?
1) it ended.
2) our friend Ryan came to visit and was like a breath of fresh air. I miss living in the same city as that guy, because he rocks. Even when he's farting on my head and laughing bout it. It's just too bad that he only came to visit for one day, but I think both Neil & I remembered why we loved living with him in the first place.
3) Going to Maija's house for Halloween (official) and not bothering to do anything but show up and hang out for a couple of hours while she turned the lights off and tried to get kids to stop knocking at her door. It was good just hanging out with a bunch of friends.

Best parts about this week?
1) it's on the way to ending.
2) neither my computer or my car broke.
3) i managed to get my ass into school every day (because after the pile up last week I wasn't sure I was going to make it).
4) I am looking forward to staying at home in the quiet and getting back to my usual schedule tomorrow. And starting the research for my two term papers that are due at the end of the month.
5) I decided to sign up our house to get a vegetable-box from a service that puts together local organic produce.  I am SO excited about this - they don't deliver until next week, but I am really looking forward to the challenge of trying to cook with different veggies that I wouldn't ordinarily buy.  The best part is that the box is 2/3rds veggies and 1/3 fruit and I'm looking forward to the fruit even more than I am the veggies.  The only bad part is that both Neil and D. think that someone is going to steal the box when it gets dropped off.  We have an entryway with a door, but it doesn't lock.  However, I think it's going to be ok.  And I guess we'll just see... if no veggies show up when they're supposed to I'll know.

On the horizon? Even more quotidian stuff: housecleaning, lasagne cooking, and whittering about my research projects. Oh, and memorizing Japanese.

If anyone has ideas how I can combine Japanese fiction & New Media, or has an opinion on good post-WWII Japanese films, I'm looking for help/advice/comments!

from mishloran:
( five words meme )

Those were my words.  Now it's your turn.

I had this theory back in Austin that an MA was easier than a PhD, and that as an MA I had more goof around time than I would in the future.

Theory:  confirmed.

The short and skinny things I did well Sunday night & Monday day:

1. Created a project for the New Media Literacy class that is significantly longer than others (and hopefully instructive, we'll see when the grade rolls in) and at least partially interesting (so that's something) from scratch on Sunday.
   
2. Struggled with the damn interface for said project but DID NOT GIVE UP.  Kate = 1, Interface = 0
3. Finished the reading for the Intro class, and opted out of the paper (it's called conservation of energy)
4. Corrected my Japanese 'speech' (and yes, it did take me until 4 am to get 1-4 finished)
5. Got up for class today and even managed to study through the kanji quiz
6. Did not lose my shit when attempting to use the library printers (even though the first printer was out of service, the second printer went out of service while the guy in front of me was attempting to use it, and the third printer was actually the librarian office printer)
7. Had a conversation I was supposed to have last week (because EB & LG both spent hours last week pumping me up for it) and said some of what I needed to say. The really important stuff.
   
8. Proofread my damn NML project one more time to fix all the errors.
9. Am studying for the Japanese test tomorrow.
10. Set a deadline for myself (and emailed it to the professor) of two assignments that need to be done by end of semester
    

( Things I don't look forward to that are coming up: )

The work is mounting.

Once again this is me copying one of mireille719's good ideas (sorry Mir, you have good ideas, I can't help it!).  And since it's been a while since I've done a public post, I'm going for 10 to cover the last week or so.

1. It was my 15th anniversary with the most wonderful man in the world on Saturday.  15 years.  And the best part?  We decided we're going to hang around each other for another 15! :D
2. I got taken out for said 15th anniversary to a cute little bistro down the street and had a fantastic dinner with my boyfriend.
3. I started acupuncture on Monday and LOVE the needling.  It is helping me mitigate the effects of stopping smoking, along with the pharmacopoeia of chinese herbs my friend Maija gave me to help regulate, detox, and go with the flow.  Anyone needs treatment in the LA area, I have a fabu doctor for you.
4. Getting to see my friend Maija every night this week.  The acupuncture is an awesome excuse to enjoy her company
5. I got a B- on my Japanese midterm!  Which is happy-making for me since I made some rookie mistakes and was worried about getting a C.
6. My dog is getting cuddlier.  You ask how can that be?  Well, since she was adopted and a pound puppie we're pretty sure she was abused in her former life (she reacts really badly to a fly swatter... even if you put it on a table).  Anyway, she's always been a little stand-offish except for belly rubs.  But in the last three weeks or so she's hopped up onto the couch or the ottoman and stuck her head in my or Neil's lap.  It's awesome.
7. I ran for two blocks last night without keeling over after.  (I can only make it for two blocks because I ran with the dog, and she doesn't go for that 'jog' level but only for *full-out-run-as-fast-as-you-can-like-a-little-kid* kind of running.  Two blocks like that is a feat for me)
8. I dyed my fur!  Very dark purple red-brown.  I LOVE this color on me.
9. My roommate from college (and all around awesomesauce woman) is coming to stay with us this weekend for a visit.  I can't wait to see her.
10. There was absolutely no imploding today.  And there is the possibility that there will be no imploding tomorrow.  Yay!
    

Today we had guest speakers in our film class - half a dozen Iranian directors, writers and an actor.  I now live in a city where people from all around the world just appear because the film industry is actually, you know, um, here.

They were brought into the country by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (yeah, they're the Oscars people), for "Up Close & Personal: Iranian Filmmakers in Their Own Words"

( The talk started with the acknowledgment that some of the directors weren't there because they were not allowed out of their own country by the government )

( things I didn't know about Iranian film )

Really interesting day though

Since I know you many of you may be interested in this, here are two of our readings on fan culture for this week (neither of which I've read since I have three other docs that I have):

"Access and Affiliation:: The Literacy and Composition Practices of English Language Readers in an Online Fanfiction Community," https://webfiles.uci.edu/rwblack/rwblackjaal.pdf

"Let Everyone Play: An Educational Perspective on Why Fan Fiction is, or Should Be, Legal," http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ijlm.2009.0007

(both links are downloadable pdfs)

And our prof, Henry Jenkins, writes a chapter of his book Convergence Culture (found here as a google book - you can read most of the chapter "Media Literacy" -- use the 'content' menu drop down to choose) on Harry Potter fans.

I'll be blogging about the conversation tomorrow (in a locked academic post) should be interesting... I hope.

(for those not following along in my academic filter I'm taking a class that talks about how new media literacy should / can take place in education... or how education is changing via new media, etc)

[ETA:  if you want to do *all* the readings, check out this link (it's a pdf of a book) and read Chapters 6 & 7: Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction (Rebecca W. Black) &
Blurring and Breaking through the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction (Angela Thomas)]

Despite the grim warnings Friday night seemed to be throwing out I actually had a pretty fantastic birthday.  Not the usual sort of thing LA thing - no wild party with much drunkenness (which has pretty much been my modus operendi for years and years), but instead a series of events that were all together entertaining.

( Friday we saw Inglorious Bastards - possible spoilers ahoy )

( Saturday I had an ice cream social )

And I kind of got a ton of loot, the best of which is a book I have been slavering over for nearly a year now (don't ask me why I hadn't bought it before, but I hadn't, but I *have it now*!): Otaku; Japan's Database Animals by Hiroki Azuma.  Of course I'm going to be using it for class, because that's just how frigging geeky I am.

By the time we got home from ice cream I had called off our dinner out (too much ice cream to add a possibly-too-rich-dinner on top of it) and we settled for getting dinner brought to us from my favorite place in town.  And glutted ourselves on TV (something which I don't get to enjoy often enough now that my school schedule is overwhelming.

yeah, so, the spangles and stars may not have exploded in huge measure but for me?  it was a pretty damn fine day.  No angst.  No annoyances.  Everything I wanted to do and no drama about doing it.

(of course my present from school was that I had a Japanese test today -- and it continues tomorrow -- so I spent most of Sunday studying.  Bleh.  The life of a grad student is truly boring.  Although I think I did ok today, so hopefully I'll get a good grade as a bit of a retroactive present to myself).

It was just last week and I kept meaning to post something then, and now it's already the next week and here I am on Saturday again thinking .... oh, i'll just post later.

This is not conductive to actually filling a livejournal with content.

So here, a couple of the highlights of the last two weeks:

( you thought I was a new media kid? well no more computer for me )

( It was our friend Maija's birthday on Sat )

( apparently the federal government doesn't like people like me )

( I just read 200 pages of Chinese Art History and I'm not any more enlightened than when i started )

( However, tonight is another birthday celebration )

Happy Saturday night lovely ones.  I hope everyone else is having a beautiful weekend of some sort or another!

Ok, first off, if you missed the posts about LJ turning off media embedding for a while (it's back on now, but it was because of an attack), you may want to check your privacy settings on old posts and make sure they're correct.  Check news for more info [ here's a link to the direct post ]

wesleysgirl and janedavitt wrote an absolutely beautiful addition to their Act of Nature verse (Giles/Xander, Adult) called To Have and To Hold, and they asked me if I'd do a banner for it, so ... I did! check the entire thing out here (and leave feedback for the authoresses here)

If you haven't already seen it, cmk418 is asking prompts for the Giles/Xander Fabulous Fall Fest right here. The idea is that you prompt up to 10 things you'd like to see (from Gen to NC17, from art to icons to whatever) and then pick and choose from the prompts there and do some of them to make happy-fun-Giles/Xander time!

and i was gonna do more with some Merlin links, but ... it is bedtime!

My horoscope for this week (and for all you other libras):

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): This is an excellent time to celebrate the pleasures of emptiness . . . to extol the virtues of the blank slate . . . to be open to endless possibilities but committed to none . . . to bask in the freedom of not having to be anything, anyone, or anywhere. Are you smart enough to need no motto to live by? Are you resourceful enough to rely on nothing but the raw truth of the present moment? If so, you will thrive in the coming days.

From Corey Doctrow's Little Brother

More journalists asked questions. Some were sympathetic, some were hostile. When I got tired, I handed my keyboard to Ange and let her be M1k3y for a while. It didn't really feel like M1k3y and me were the same person anymore anyway. M1k3y was the kind of kid who talked to international journalists and inspired a movement. Marcus got suspended from school and fought with his dad and wondered if he was good enough for his kick-ass girlfriend.

Angry Teacher video (caught on a cell phone)

A vid made by one of the women in our class (from high school) drug free america

from Cory Doctorow's book, w1n5t0n's Instructables

ALA.org's list of 2009 Best Children's books (including Little Brother)

Did you know you can measure hope?  there are like a million ways to measure hope that have been academically agreed upon.  You can even google scholar them.

Ok, so, the point of this visit was to celebrate Neil's parent's 39th wedding annaversary.  And since they're foodies, his dad picked this american-french restaurant in Santa Monica called Melisse.  It's got a couple of Michelin stars.  It's a place where you have to dress for dinner.  They had small stools they put by our chairs so we didn't have to rest our purses on the ground.  They actually tried to serve the dishes simultaneously (there were little glitches here and there, but you can't fault them for trying).  Our waiter was brash and kind of adorable, our somellier had the loveliest deep voice, and it was .. without a doubt on of the loveliest dining experiences i've ever had.

( here's what we had in case you're curious )

Even though there are smaller portions with a tasting menu I'm amazed we were able to waddle out of there.  Oh, and that doesn't even include the champagne, then white wine, then red wine that we all put away.  Ooofta.  But amazing, nonetheless.

Other than that I haven't really been all that productive this weekend, so I've got to get to it.

And remember, if you have a Spander Story and you might want a fic banner, I still have spaces open so PLEASE PLEASE REQUEST ONE HERE!

to everyone who took my silly poll yesterday!  I managed to get laundry done, and get started on the first set of homework, and (as those of you who want to read it know) managed to get some notes for my lit reading done as well). 

And the house is clean!  Which is really quite good because Neil's parents are flying their way down here as we speak.  It's their annaversary, so they're coming to visit for a little vacation and to see our new digs.  Which, if I don't say myself, are looking pretty nice at the moment.  Two days of cleaning will do that to a house.

( and let the random nattering commence )

( I completely forgot to mention that my Mom's visit was a blast )

I've signed up for fall_for_sx and have an open call for movie posters (since I love doing them and they're not so bad right?)

Anyway, if any of you are interested in having me make a movie poster for your Spike/Xander fic, now's the time to drop your name in! I'll take the first 20 requests to start (and then we'll see). And you don't have to post or be signed up to fall_for_sx to ask for a movie poster, your fic doesn't have to be new, doesn't have to be finished, heck, doesn't have to be started even -- it just has to be Spike/Xander!

So,

I've totally lost motivation at the moment (not in a bad way, just in an indecisive one).  So, not that y'all care if I get homework done or clean the house or anything like that, but just in case there's someone out there who can offer guidance, what should I do today?

Poll #1458940 Ordering Kate Around
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

What should I do first?

What should I do second?

leave me comments if this did not provide adequate room for you to tell me what to do - trust me, i'm open to any direction at the moment!

i got my first comment on a paper written for a professor at New University!

Anyway, thanks for a smart, thoughtful response paper. I really enjoyed reading it.

*DOING THE HAPPY NERDY DANCE OF JOY*

After a bunch of days where I felt like I was on a roll - things were still progressing forward in that sense that you get - even though there are highs and lows everything was still mostly on track, and then.

this week.  housemate down with cold-type-thing.  The only really scary problem is that she hasn't gone into work for three days and even though she's talked with them about it and they're mostly cool, they're not going to be cool forever and WE CAN'T LIVE HERE IF SHE DOESN'T HAVE A JOB.

To top it all off my mom gets into town today for a visit.   Which I've been looking forward to.  But the house is a shambles.

Oh, and Tuesday?  I had a japanese test I'm pretty sure I didn't do that well on.  EGH.  I think I'm ready for this week to be over and to have some return of a little bit of our regularly scheduled program, you know?

Apparently I'm fandom hopping. I promised some graphics to people... and then actually delivered! So inside you'll find some Buffy stuff, and then... I did a couple more completely unsolicited for fantastic crack!fics (one steampunk AI and one star-warsy Merlin)

( so these are the big images - and they're already at a lj near you! )

working on an icon post to hopefully go up sometime soon!

I think I'm going to be attempting to write up my thoughts on articles for my classes on my LJ.  I'm thinking I may filter it just so that not everyone gets blasted with my occasional opinions and borderline incoherency.  Right now I'm going to keep this on LJ although I have been considering starting an academic blog for a long time to keep things separate.

ANYWAY, all this was a long thing to say - Anybody want to be on an academic filter?  Opt in here!

Poll #1452113 Kate's Academic Filter
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

Do you want to be on my academic filter?

possibly a needed one?

I know a 19-year-old woman who has been going through an especially vivid phase of living on the edge between yes and no. She told me that yesterday morning she woke up with the feeling that in the next 12 hours she could either commit suicide or else perform some epic deed in which she surpassed all of her previous limits. She chose the latter path, completing an 18-mile bike ride that tested her endurance and drove her into the heights of exhilaration. As she pedaled, she drove herself onward with the throbbing thought that this was a perfect way to silence the self-destructive voice within her. I offer her victory to you, Libra, as being worthy of imitation.

There are nights when i get home that i wish i was living alone.  I am truly tired of the roller-coaster-drama-rama that I have had a hand in creating.  Can it be over now? Please?

the bad is that she slipped her leash to do so. 

We're still working out the mechanics of this total-city dwelling existance, and the one thing that hasn't quite sorted itself out is how much activity the dog has to have.  She gets a morning stroll that last about 7 minutes (or as long as it takes), and an evening walk of about half an hour.  But I can verify, this is not enough.  Instead she's slightly more nervous than she was in Austin - twitchy almost - and even though there are more people around the apartment to bark at and she's always been territorial, it seems to me that now it's mixed with a slightly more hesitant and ... neurotic vibe. 

So tonight as I'm walking down our quiet street towards melrose, headphones in and music turned up loud, with the dog beside me, a runner came around the corner behind us.  Before I even knew what was happening, the dog had growled, freaked, slipped her leash and was OFF.  And of course, even though she sorta circled back towards me, since the runner was behind me coming closer to me, she didn't want to get close to him.  I feel bad - I think I yelled at the guy to quit running because he was freaking her out.  How many dogs get freaked by runners?  Ours, apparently.  She thought it was a GREAT GAME though, once she was off and he had gone past us. I tried running away from her so she'd chase me, and she did, but then she managed to turn it around into a game of chase-the-dog, for 10 terrifying minutes when i realized i had no cell phone and no one to help (because she's afraid of strangers she wouldn't even let them get close), and i wondered if there was any way i was going to get her home.  Luckily she found something interesting in a driveway that was pretty deep and had a gate at the end so I was able to box her in.  Luckily. 

Solution: find a way to run the dog.  Get her a collar that she can't slip out of, and if she can slip out of them all she's going to wear the harness whether she likes it or not.  Take her to the f-ing dog park (something I've wanted to do since we got to LA but I also don't want to do it alone - though now I'm thinking alone might not be so bad)

the up-shot confirmed something i've known for a while - the dog doesn't really want to get away, she just wants to have more fun.  The down-shot (is that even an expression?) is it was terrifying worrying not that she would run away, but that some idiot who doesn't care about stop signs and who guns their car like they do every night through these blocks was going to hit her because they weren't paying attention,and lung-killing (since we've got fires burning around the city and even walking is discouraged my full-tilt running after the dog, before the dog, around the dog is basically guaranteed to make me hack my lungs out).

at least we made it safely back home.

hello work!  I didn't miss you.  I spent most of the day alternating between getting my self in order (laundry, how I hate you), and reading all the wrong passages in Edward Said's Orientalism.  Which, really, if you do area studies of any kind or anything having to do with the West's fascination with and study of the 'East' you should read.

Then, after spending 3 hours reading the forward, the end, and the afterward, I discovered that I was supposed to only read chapter one.  Guess I've forgotten the simple instructions - read the syllabus.

I did, however, break to go to a department mixer thing, where I discovered that there are lots of MA students doing International Relations (which I find just about as interesting as watching rocks turn into sand), and one woman who is doing Art history who used to work at LACMA.  That is a cool job if I've ever heard of one.  Maybe I should do art history?  too late now.

That being said I'm pretty buried with things not yet done (hello Japanese, hello reading for New Media Literacies, hello response papers for all three classes), and it's Neil's birthday this weekend so we'll see how that all works out. 

So I guess this is the obligatory 'i think i will be buried under a  rock for the forseeable future' post (which is usually followed by a graphics post because I freak out about the overload and retreat into pretty pictures, but I haven't started yet, so that may be a week or so out, we'll see).  I love you guys.  Even if I'm not responding to your posts.

Japanese is great, don't get me wrong, but I love love love love being a frigging graduate student.  Learning grammar and kanji is a means to an end.

This afternoon was not that.  It was a class I'm hoping to get into, taught by the guy who does most of the fan-culture stuff in the US. And although the class is actually on new media in the classroom (which is a little off topic for the things I'd really like to talk bout, which is more new textual production, the spread of texts across platform, and fandom), we did actually get into really interesting stuff (of course none of it is stuff I can remember exactly at the moment - I really have to get better about that).

Basically he started us off with some vids produced by students, educators and places like PBS talking about new media (ie: technology from blogs to facebook to video cameras to legos) and asked us to respond/discuss what seemed to shape the discourse of each piece.

GAH SO MUCH FUN.  Give me a text and a conversation to analyze it in!

Bonus was that I sat next to a 3rd year phd psych student who was absolutely hilarously awesome (and who had taken the prof's classes before, so knew the drill and the discourse) and who befriended me as we stepped out of class.

Here's hoping tomorrow can measure up.  OH, and that I can actually get into that class - apparently my school limits the number of grad students per class to less than 18 (which I suppose makes sense, but ... i want to be there damnit!)

now however, i'm a little bit head clogged, so hopefully i'm not getting sick with something. gah.  i don't like this feeling ookie a couple of days every couple of days.  smog, is that you trying to tell me something?

teasers:
     

( Jack: What you do in private is none of our business. )

And because astolat decided to exercise her mind control superpowers for good, I have now officially joined the AI fandom in a manippy way. If my soul disappears, don't go looking, I'm having too much fun.

( I give you Steampunk Kradam and Steampunk Brad & Drake )

Hopefully after classes start (tomorrow!) I will still have time to indulge myself in all of the post-poll fandom playing. My plan is to tackle some Merlin, then TruBlood because they're both filled with wonderful crack and TV is pretty.

Since it's patently obvious to me that I didn't know some things about my flist (specifically that you guys are into more stuff than you talk about on your LJs), and since I realized my own commentaries don't often reflect my reading habits (particularly fannish ones, particularly now when I've gone far wider and further into other fandoms than I ever thought I would when I originally started reading Buffy-fic), I'm going to try my very best to actually link to some more things.  It's an interesting world we live in. 

And I ended up reading a little piece of meta about RPF (Real Person Fic) that I think comes pretty close to summarizing (near the end) why I feel more comfortable reading this stuff than I expected to.  Even if you're afraid of RPF you should check it out because the authoress is pretty damn entertaining (even if she says some things I don't agree with 100% either).  Mainly, though, I enjoyed the way she talks about the identities of 'real' celebrities as being constructed, and it's those constructions that end up in fic.

Of course, I ended up over there because I was reading her not half bad Adam/Kris/Katy fic Bingo (Adult, ADULT, read the warnings)

And if you want to keep on the fan fiction side of fiction and haven't read glimmergirl's Sense Memory (fandom: Merlin, Merlin/Arthur, FRM) READ, because it's beautiful and sweet and I just wanted to curl up next to it and pet both of the boys.

Also, for those of you playing in the Merlin fandom and who are part of the bbc_merlin_news comm, what's up with all the fic? is it all kink meme responses?

Poll #1447081 Fandom Friend Poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

What fandom sandboxes are you currently playing in (reading, writing, graphicing, etc)?

Kate, you forgot this fandom:

I, your poll responder, would love it if you'd make graphics for:

Kate, you forgot this fandom:

Monday was the grad orientation.  guess what?  They want us to graduate!  They also want us to have a great relationship with our advisor/mentors.  And even though we got to get trained on having that relationship, they don't do a training for professors who are advisors/mentors, because that would be, like, um, useless, right?  (obviously this wasn't mentioned in the session, but I spent time talking with the presenter just for the hell of it and discovered this amusing fact).

Tuesday was the day for me to take not one, but two oral exams in Japanese.  YIPPEE!  But at least it's over, and now my funding will come through and I'll actually be in a Japanese class. It's been almost two years since I was in the classroom, and a year or so since I was in Japan last, so my spoken Japanese was WORTHLESS.  But placement, I keep reminding myself, is not about proving how great I am but establishing a benchmark for where I will be jumping off from - it's the ground state.  So hey, my ground state was half forgotten stressed Japanese.  It happens.  I ended up taking a nap after I got home just because it'd been a while since I'd been that energetic about language.

OH, and I have an advisor!  And while she will never ever come close to matching up with my advisor in Texas (because that was a wonderful fluk of a meeting of the minds), she is pretty awesome so far.  And already had suggestions for me.  OH, and guess what? I get to take classes from UCLA!  (I don't know how many, but some, for free!)

well, i recovered.  I think it was actually the combo of smoking too much and being back in the land of smog.  we finally started to do the finishing touches on unpacking by getting the pictures hung and the knick-knacks out (and i actually restrained myself and packed some of them away).

This next week I actually get to return to academia!  for orientation.

But mostly, i'm writing to say:  KINK MEME!



Go! Request! Answer requests! Fic!

(thank you antennapedia and glimmergirl for encouraging the smut and perversion in the Btvs-verse and all other Whedon verses. You two are evil masterminds in all the best ways!)

i'm getting sick, sore throat, and my head hurts (i just tried to say 'my bread hurts' ... yeah).  and gray_ghost managed to encourage me into a facebook flame war of some conservative guy he went to highschool with.

but hey, i watched too much news today and i'm way too informed about the health care issues (and actually pretty disturbed about the state of political discourse -- such as it is -- in the US right now)

wish me luck!

stolen from elizabuffy

Leave me a comment and I will reply with why I like you. If I don't know you, I'll either make something up or tell you why I like your LiveJournal. You can pay for the privilege by posting a message like this one on your LiveJournal (but only if you want to).

There is not a single used bookstore in this town that will take my old LKH books (or any of the other fantasy books I've decided to part with).  Not that I think they're particularly valuable (hence why I am willing to get rid of them), but seriously?  Not a single store?  WTF LA, WTF?

our first week in LA has once again seemed to compress time or expand itself into some unrealized definition of too much packed into too few days.  Sure, Monday and Tuesday were quiet, on the whole, with only our little patch of things we'd carried with us across the border finally unpacked and set up and I felt like we were in a holding pattern, yearning for the stuff still packed into the POD that wouldn't be delivered until Wednesday.  Trying to establish routines of dog walking and meal taking and all of those little habits you do when you're living somewhere and you're mostly comfortable with it.  Sleeping on the mattress on the floor was beginning to lose its glamor and I yearned for our bed, and the office looked bare without any books I hadn't read and reread a hundred times, and we kept wanting to designate where everything would go even though we didn't have it yet.

( And then Wednesday came and the apartment turned into a sea of boxes. )

But it was Saturday when LA welcomed us back with ... that special way it has that makes you love it and kind of wonder what the hell is going on all at the same time. Our friends' little brother was having this gallery opening. Even though it was VIP only we thought (or imagined) it was going to be one of those little places you find out in Los Feliz where it's a bit of a coffee shop art gallery and a mix of hippies to hipsters all wandering around pontificating, with smoke breaks and possibly a little wine inside.  Instead we ended up in a HUGE space, dropping my poor little dirty toyota corolla off to the valet surrounded by sparkling clean bmws and suvs and sports cars, with the people in front of us in line in suits and party dresses, and finally for once in four years i wasn't actually overdressed for an event.  Not to say there weren't hippies and hipsters, but mixed in with them all were suits and investors and glitterati, and low and behold it was an actual ART SHOW. Jeremy was even featured as part of the LA Times' article about the anniversary of Sharon Tate's death yesterday morning.  And since it was kind of family, it was fun to wander through the crowds and then get to hug people I actually knew and hadn't seen in years, do a little of that thing you do where you introduce yourself because people are too lazy to do it for you, and oggle the art.  We all three decided we liked the smaller pieces best, though each of us had a slightly different one as favorite (but I won't try to describe because it doesn't work with art, I don't think).  Best part of the evening was after when we escaped with H & M and another couple of people to a little bar down the street and stole their back room for a drinks.  And just as they were yawning, so were we, so we didn't burn candle at both ends (which left us open for more unpacking Sunday - why, oh why, do we have so much crap?)

more soon, since i seem to be a writing yo yo

So this other day there was a photo editorial with a bunch of models in cravats and long-waisted suits.  So what do I do?  Turn them into the Btvs boys, of course!

teasers:
 

( “In his company, I am grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections.” )

1. Where do you live?

Exits to freeways twisted like knots on the fingers; jewels cleaving skin between breasts.
Your Cadillac breathes four hundred horses over blue lines you are going to Reseda to make love to a model from Ohio whose real name you don't know
You spin like the cadillac was overturning down a cliff on television and the radio is on - and the radioman is speaking - and the radioman says: women were a curse, so men built Paramount studios and men built Columbia studios and men built Los Angeles

it is 5 am and you are listening to Los Angeles

And the radioman says it is a beautiful night out there! And the radioman says Rock and Roll lives! And the radioman says it is a beautiful night out there in Los Angeles

You live in Los Angeles and you are going to Reseda; we are all in some way or another going to Reseda someday to die
And the radioman laughs because the radioman fucks a model too

Gone savage for teenagers with automatic weapons and boundless love
Gone savage for teenagers who are aesthetically pleasing in other words fly
Los Angeles beckons the teenagers to come to her on buses;
Los Angeles loves love

It is 5 am and the sun has charred the other side of the world and come back to us and painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet
it is 5 am and you are listening to Los Angeles.

( the rest of the meme )

I was supposed to tag people I think, but since Glim didn't do it, I'm not either.  Please though, consider yourself tagged!!

After three days of drive, drive, drive we arrived on a sunny afternoon in the wilds of LA.  Battered, bruised, dejected...

No, wait, happy, giggling, and taking pictures like tourists - that's the way we were! 

( Lessons learned: never, ever, try to drive 10 hours after you wake up to pack the rest of your stuff )

But, over the last two days my love for this city has been totally rekindled (well, I suppose it never left in the first place, but it's good to know it's still there).

( because California? really is kind of cool for lots of reasons )

I woke up today and realized that I didn't have that much to do, having unpacked what we could over the last couple of days.  This waiting game is annoying, but I keep telling myself that in two more days we're going to have more crap than we know what to deal with.  There are some admin things I could have taken care of, but I put it all off until tomorrow (because Neil and D are both returning to work tomorrow, and I'll have the place to myself).

So all in all, it's summer time, and the living, while having been hectic, is at this moment pretty damn easy.

How are all you?

It's our last full day in Austin!  We've managed (with the help of some very good friends -- LG & TF, you know who you are) to pack 90% of our house into a POD, we're sitting around with the TV on the ground and the computers on folding tables and clothes being put into garbage bags and Neil and I are running to pick up the Uhaul this morning so we can put everything that's left over in and drive into the wild blue yonder tomorrow.  The dog is having a grand time now that we have less furniture everywhere - she spreads her food, and has more places to chase the cat, and generally keeps looking at us like this is some amazing reorganization we did for her amusement.  It helps with perspective to have her grinning face looking up at us.

I'm not really looking forward to three days of driving, especially because I'm uncertain about how both dog and cat will do, but at least this time for part of it I'll get to have human-shaped company since D. is going to trade off from car to truck to car as she pleases.  BUT, we will do it.  Starting tomorrow morning, we drive from Austin to El Paso, then from there to Phoenix, then from there to LA!  Hopefully I won't have too much of an interruption in internet, but we shall see.  I don't really place any faith in Time Warner.

( For myself, the list of things to do )

Let me tell you about my fabulous fabulous fabulous last meal out in Austin with my advisor .... ( MMmmmmmmmmmmm )

We took the pictures off the walls today, and packed them up in bubble wrap, and we're waiting for the chinese delivery. 

I packed most of my closet, so the clothes in the dirty laundry will be my wardrobe for the next week or so.  I can't believe the contents of my closet (including shoes) fit into one large and one medium box (not that it's a bad thing).

There's still a ton to do (kitchen, anyone?) but we have this weekend to do it all, and it will get done (heck, it has to get done).  It's a strange thing that we're sending 2/3rds of our stuff off in a POD that gets picked up on Tuesday, but we wont' actually get it back until the week after.  The bed goes in there, the couch, and we're planning on sitting on the papa-san and pillows very soon.  Bohemian living at it's best!

My brain is fried.  I think my body is fried too.  No one is packing at our house yet but me, and it rained tonight so I couldn't put my master plan / plea 'well, just take a half an hour and get some boxes in the pod' into place.

So yeah, freaking out?  I think that's me.  The funny part is that I'm trying to remember what the time frames were for our last couple of moves (you know, how we started packing, when we started packing, how long it took us to get everything together) and I honestly ... don't remember.  I kind of wonder if my brain blocked the memories because I've always been the one who's more agro about this whole process and it was too traumatic ....

The sad part of it is that I went to go back and look up what I was writing around the time we moved out to Austin (because moving across a city is NOTHING compared to moving across a couple of states), and sadly I didn't have an LJ then.  And my backups for my online blogger journal?  somewhere else.  Not worth finding.  Bleh.  Don't mind me, I'll be quietly freaking out in the corner somewhere.

So, so, so, so weird.  But we are moving in 10 days. 

If I repeat it over and over do you think it'll sink in?  We have a ton of packing that we have kind of half started (because we were getting the house ready to sell...), but at least half the arrangements are done for stuff like water and power and the all important internets.  Oh, and hotel reservations for our three-day trek across the southern US.

We've all started getting excited about the new apartment - how we're going to arrange it, what we think we should get to be prepared, if things are going to fit.

But the sad part is trying to remember that it's not just the weekend, it's our second to last weekend living in Austin.  Not that we don't think we'll come back here, but it'll be different.

( So, of course, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie [spoilers!! for real] )

After some serious agonizing, and some serious nerves, and getting to spend some quality time with some of our LA friends, WE HAVE AN APARTMENT.  AND IT IS FRIGGING BEAUTIFUL.

Doubt me? 

( look here and be surprised - we certainly are )

no, you've always been able to do that if you were sneaky, get your minds out of the gutter!

You can now buy air-wireless for $10 or so. So Neil spent the flight searching for more apt listings, responding to work email, and goofing around just like he would at home (just a little). He just handed the computer over to me. It's crazy cool to have access to the web while sitting on a boring 2.5 hr plane ride, even if it does cost money to do it! Heck, we spent that much for lunch in the airport.

so, what are you all doing? what do i need to know about *right now* while i'm flying over ... Arizona?

we forgot to check that the plane was on time when we left this morning, so we arrived an hour early for the flight to find out the flight was delayed two hours.  This is NOT an appropriate airline response if we're to get all the things on our LA to do list done!  But at least Neil and I are agreed that we're going to get our hair cut first even if it's two hours later than we wanted it to be. 

so, um, yeah... i'm waiting on a jet plane, hoping the apartment hunting is plentiful in the great spaces of LA, and we land the big game (in this case, the prize would be a 3 br, 2 ba house with a small yard for under $2000 / mo, but that's more a unicorn... requires the sacrifice of virgins to get it...)