So, my life right now. I don't even know where my time is going. I haven't read my FList since the last time I posted. Which is not to say that I haven't been following the LJ. On the contrary, I seem to be around quite often. It's just that it's become a very specific following of very specific things. For example, the shit-ton of Janto fic I've been reading lately. And the fanmixes I've been downloading. And the communities and friends I can be bothered to check up on when I see them pop up on my Firefox alert for new FList posts.

So. I've been reading a shit-ton of a lot of things in the past month. Most of it is shoujo manga. Basically, any and every short shoujo manga that comes up in goosygirl_icons. That girl has fantastic taste. It has become a problem. A time- and bandwidth-consuming problem.

Also, I've been following Nodame Cantabile season 2, which, can I just say, ack. The picture quality in the second season has dropped off the charts. It still has great voice actors and a great story and its the quality and not the aesthetic that's changed, so it's bearable (not like, say, Antique Bakery, which I still haven't watched because the aesthetic quality of that anime is abhorrent to me), but still. It pains me in a the way that one might be pained to see their lover make a horrible faux pas. You love them, right? But you kind of don't want to be seen with them. Oh Nodame, you are not making it easy for me to spread this love I have for you.

What else, what else. Well, there was a lot of school stuff going on this October as well. I had midterms and an insane paper/presentation thing on Yeats whom, let me qualify, I have loved for years, but possibly never want to hear another word about ever again. I ended up dropping that Psych class and my life is a thousand times better off for it.

Over the past long weekend (Columbia closes up for Election Day weekend) I re-watched Torchwood, every episode of Doctor Who with Captain Jack, and also, incongruously, The Sarah Jane Adventures. Then Wednesday night I was cleaning out my gmail account and ran across arekuru's old rec of the Kimi Wa Petto drama, and randomly decided to start watching it. Such a wonderful mistake. I stayed up all night and ended up sleeping through my first class, but GOD, OH MY GOD, I LOVE KIMI WA PETTO. I've been rereading as much of the manga as I've been able to find online. God, no josei will ever be as great as this one. Love love love.

Oh and OBAMA GOT ELECTED. THAT WAS PRETTY COOL, EH?

This is me attempting not to make this into an insane tl;dr post, but I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their lives as much as I have been enjoying mine. If you haven't, I advise you to repeat the words "PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA" to yourself as many times as it takes for the awesomeness of that statement to sink in. :D

So I've kind of been ignoring the Intranets in favor of being with people in RL. How strange! How new! I've reached this strange plateau where I am consistently about 70 entries behind on my flist.

Well, behind on everything except thremedon and mistful. Speaking of, NEW COVERRRR. Speaking of, LASSST CHAPTTTTEEEEEERRRRRRRS.

( Some DDG fangirling and some fandom-related ranting. )

Moving on to other aspects of my geekery, I have finally seen the original Star Wars trilogy and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. My nerd cred has received a major boost!

As for other endings I've experienced lately, ( cut for some anime fangirling of Itazura Na Kiss and Natsume Yuujinchou, minimal spoilers for series/season finales. )

On the RL nerd front, I went to (1) Equus last Wednesday for a pre-season showing and only paid $30 because Columbia is very good to its students. I loved it. I loved it so much I didn't even pay attention to DanRad's exposed package. I also went to (2) NY Anime Fest on Saturday, which was a nice time. I got to hang out with some cool firsties and splintercat and her boy-thing. And then, (3) Neil Gaiman's tour stop for NY was at Columbia['s Teachers College]! I take inordinate pride in this. Yay for Columbia supporting the geeky side of book-learning! So I went and had a lovely time listening to Neil be funny and wise for two hours, and now I have a signed copy of The Graveyard Book to show for it, even if I don't know when I'll be able to read beyond the first chapter.

Which brings me to the actually real RL front, where school is sort of getting away from me. I have a paper due for Romantic Poetry on Monday, which happens to be the day of my Psych midterm, and I am not ready for either. Can I write five pages on the use of the word "minstrelsy" in Coleridge's poems? I like the idea because it allows me to explore interpretations we already touched on in class (automatically know I'm not doing it wrong!), but still, writing an entire paper on one word could present a challenge.

(Also, I really want to drop Psych? The readings are unbelievably boring, it really does nothing for my transcript, and I have discovered I have issues with being awake at 8:30 on a Monday morning, surprise surprise. However, I've already promised my friends in that class that I would do a share of the study guide, so I am forced to stay on until the midterm, which is the day before the drop deadline? Dilemma...)

Also, one of my friends--previously referred to on this journal as Paypay--is in the Sign Language Club and has been teaching me things. Today, I learned how to sign "L-U-K-E, I (AM) YOUR FATHER" and "NOOOOOOOO." Also, "What's up, zebra?" is our new unofficial catchsign. You heard it here first.

And thus, this tl;dr post to break all tl;dr posts has come full circle at 6 o'clock in the morning. It is time for me to put this and myself to bed.

I wish I was in a better mood when I finally got around to making a school post, but haha, we make due with what we've got.

My classes this semester are AMAZING. I'm taking this totally incomprehensible class on "Language and Culture" which is fascinating even as half of every lecture goes over my head. I've got Astronomy, which I'm taking to fill my lab requirement, but is turning out to be interesting and fun nonetheless. There's also Psychology of Learning which is only there to fill out my schedule, but is again, interesting, and the professor knows how to engage her audience. AND THEN THERE ARE MY 4000-LEVEL ENGLISH CLASSES.

I'm taking a class on Romantic Poetry with this man, I'm totally in heart. He's such a consummate poetry professor, half dork and half unbelievably melodic speaking voice. He's got a reputation for making poetry fun for people who do not consider it fun in the least. So obviously, he sends me into paroxysms of joy. So great. So awesome. So much love. I thought I was going to have to twiddle my thumbs until Byron and Shelley, BUT NO. HE EVEN MAKES ME LOVE BLAKE. BATSHIT INSANE, OVERLY CHRISTIAN/MYSTIC BLAKE.

THEN. OMG THEN. LITERATURE OF THE FIN-DE-SIÈCLE. It is a Victorian Literature class only on the 1890s. THE SYLLABUS, GUYS. It's got Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula, etc etc etc. If you haven't noticed, there is A LOT OF GAY in A LOT OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. I CAN'T DEAL. AND EVEN MORE, THE TEACHER IS AWESOME. I think I scared her with my little sophomore enthusiasm. I figure eventually I'll tell her I wrote my freshman research paper on Victorian homoeroticism in Heart of Darkness and then all will become clear, but for now I am just this silly little girl in this class half-full of graduate students and I DON'T CARE.

And even more than that, I continue to live in the pockets of all my friends here, which has given me so much joy. Even more so because this is the most I've let myself get close to people in such a long time and I'm not being hated! There's so much love in my life right now its sort of stupid and sappy.

( ETA: Of course, OF COURSE, I was PMSing. God. Ignore, ignore! I'm really happy! I am not one of those people who is still on LJ because she likes to verbally masturbate about how emo she is! Really! Blame it on my raging hormones! )

So, today was basically the best day ever.

Well, I had scary final to do and that kind of sucked, but then the thing itself went pretty well, even if it was sooo muuuch writing (three long hours of analysis in the form of short responses on Europe as an imagined space as presented in EVERY BOOK/ARTICLE WE EVER READ IN THAT COMPLIT CLASS, WHAT THE HELLLL). Afterward he gave me back the goddamn paper that I didn't proofread and wrote at the very last minute and practically had a nervous breakdown over and I got a B+ on it, which is more than I could have hoped, and then ( cut for gratuitous bragging )

WHY IS THIS GUY SO NICEEE?

Then we had a long socio/psychoanalytical discussion about why my Dad refuses to go back to France, which was awkward, but kind of cool because who doesn't like to psychoanalyze their parents. :?

So my brain was kind of fried, and I didn't know what to do with myself, so I started trying to pack and found a plate I'd borrowed from a friend who lives on loweryourwand's floor. I went to return it, but she'd taken down her name label from her door so I headed over to loweryourwand's room to ask the number. Luckily, when I opened to door I was not only greeted by loweryourwand herself, but also 1) the person I was looking for, and 2) the most delicious smelling brownies I have ever sniffed in my life. AND THEN I GOT TO EAT ONE. GOD. THEY HAD CHOCOLATE CHIPS, AND CRUSHED GRAHAM CRACKERS, AND GIANT, MELTY MARSHMALLOWS. ALSO, THEY WERE UNDERCOOKED AND STILL WARM FROM THE OVEN. GOD. I AM SO GLAD I AM ROOMING WITH THIS GIRL NEXT YEAR. SHE WILL BAKE AND I WILL HEAP PRAISES UPON HER AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE HAPPY FUNTIMES LAND OF BAKED GOODS. Also, we can never fight because I will never want to ever be cut off from such delicious things of great deliciousness. LEGENDARY BROWNIES, GUYS. OMNOMNOM.

Then roommate and rommate's friend from home staying with roommate wanted to go eat, so we all went to Le Monde. I got to have the cheese and fruit platter which is also a thing of legend. And slightly less legendary coq au vin, but nonetheless, yummy french food.

AND THEN, WHILE WE WERE EATING YUMMY FRENCH FOOD, SHOEBOX UPDATED.

Life is so good right now.

Tomorrow I am going to try to go on an adventure. The adventure will involve going to the new Kinokuniya store. I haven't decided what else yet, but it will be adventuresome. Hopefully.

Hopefully, the universe will not decide to make up for all the yay today by balancing my world with a mugging. You never know

The damned papers are damned, but also done.

I had been planning to do a post detailing the epic list of activities I engaged in during my weekend of obstinate procrastination, but I can't find any levity right now. I don't think I've ever put so little effort into a paper before. I've never been so wholly disappointed with myself. I've justified what I did eight ways to Sunday, but in the end, I just ran away from a responsibility.

I've learned a valuable lesson all over again: I am my own worst critic. No matter how much I wanted to avoid confronting this paper and the judgment of the teacher behind it, whatever he says to me will not be worse than what I'm saying to myself right now.

I am not allowed to do this again.

Signs that my priorities are not on straight.

3 1/2 pages of a 9 page paper due at midnight written.
None written of short response essay that I forgot about due at 4.
Realized it was Hikago day at 12:30AM.
Realized it was Cinco di Mayo at 12:30PM.*

But I got a paper back that was a solid A, which pretty much hasn't happened ever this semester. I'm gonna take that as a sign that I don't actually deserve a smiting from the Powers That Be and go back to work.

Back to work!

*My roommate is Latin-American, which makes this a slightly bigger offense than usual.

I've been playing a lot of tetris lately, and God's truth, it's gotten to the point where I see tetris scenarios every time I blink. And you know, I keep thinking that this is what it must be like to be a Go pro. To have tsumego, life and death problems, burned into the backs of your eyelids. It's insane! They go through their whole lives like this! I need to write fic!

Also, I'm finally reading Havemercy, and so far it is amazing. Haven't quite decided on a favorite character--the cast listing is atrociously long--but I've already got a ship, which satisfies me in my fangirlish heart.

Also the second, I've finished my paper on "leaving behind heteronormativity in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," which I've taken to affectionately calling "that piece of shit paper where I diss my own sex and shamelessly display my love for gay men." But I got an A on the first draft, so hopefully that will carry over. One more paper left, due over reading week, about nostalgia in émigrés for my European complit class and then I have three finals in two days and then I am OUT of this godforsaken place that I will miss horribly within an hour of arriving home for the summer. I hate that I already know how that will go.

1) New default icon! Everybody should read Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You). It's only on the third chapter or so, but it is lovely and hilarious. Sort of a mix of PGE/Wallflower's premise and Fruits Basket's good-heartedness.

2) It has come to pass that basically everyone I talk to about NYCC ends up deciding to go. Something about the call of the awesome. I am merely a messenger!

3) My birthday was sort of weird this year, mostly because I've been kind of down and nothing really spectacular happened to get me out of it. I will say that marathoning a bit of Oofuri with splintercat was awesome, because that is just how Oofuri and marathons are. My Domo wall calendar has Domo playing baseball for April, and I find this fitting and appropriate.

4) I played Katamari Damacy! I suck less than Akira Touya, but more than just about everyone in the real world! (This is kind of how video games and me are. I have trouble spatially coordinating myself in my own body with my own eyes. Asking me to spatially coordinate myself with little joysticks is perhaps too much to ask.) Someday I will get someone to play Kingdom Hearts I and II and the Phoenix Wright games for me, but I fear I have a long time to wait still.

5) Insert gratuitous and rather cryptic mention of Cthulhu here that really boils down to "Okay, I am totally obsessed with CUSFS."

6) My academic life still sucks. Every single class I'm taking this semester is leaving me dissatisfied for one reason or another, and yet I am still busting my butt to make B+ averages. This is new and rather unpleasant for me. :/

7) I am sort of in a yaoi/sho-ai phase right now and I think those who share this interest should run and not walk to Yamada Yugi's Darenimo Aisarenai and other works because they seriously make me incoherent with love. There's another one I know I meant to rec, but a lot of time has passed between that thought and this entry.

8) Damn you Diana! Just so everyone knows, The Big Bang Theory is awesome.

ETA: Why I shouldn't make journal entries on little sleep in the wee hours of the morning: vague descriptors ahoy! ('Kind of's and 'sort of's in this entry: 5, as well as 'basically,' 'rather,' 'something,' 'or so,' and 'for one reason or another.')

I did nothing this break. Not even the necessary things. I am going to rushedly pull together my homework tomorrow and then face the rest of the semester with all of the stoicism and grace of a chicken with its head cut off. I can see it already.

But you know what? I think I needed this. If I have learned anything in my 18.9672 years, it is that March is never a good month for me. I should just stop fighting it. Better to have taken the week off and pretended the March of my academic calendar didn't exist, than to have flirted with insanity like a desperate Regency debutante, which is what I've done every other year of my life.

That last sentence should make it clear what I've done with my break. I re-read Cotillion and got two books farther into the Bridgerton series (An Offer From A Gentleman and Romancing Mister Bridgerton). I think before I sleep tonight I will finish re-reading The Viscount Who Loved Me.

I should probably mention that I bought those two Bridgerton books on a shopping trip with my mother, who offered to buy my not-insubstantial stack as an early birthday present (convenient, really, as I most probably won't be home for the actual date). She flipped through them as I handed them to her, saw the two romance novels, and exclaimed, "Julia Quinn! My daughter is reading Julia Quinn!" Then she started making a big deal about it. Would not shut up about it all the way home! Once we got there, she pulled down some of her old favorites and insisted I take them back to college with me. SHE DID NOT GET THIS EXCITED WHEN I GOT MY FIRST PERIOD. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT MY FAMILY?

I also battled a sinus-whatsit. My trademarked Changing Of The Seasons Commemorative Cold. I'm so sick of these already and it's only been four years. I will tell you bitterly that I hate mucus more than I hate any other fluid in the world.

Bright spot was seeing The Pillows on Friday with splintercat, which was just, unaccountably awesome. Great first general admission experience, definitely. Although I have paid dearly for it with a relapse. I also have aches that have nothing to do with illness to add to the unending party that is my tissue-strewn dorm room. Yet I do believe it was worth it. I hate to say this, but does anyone know where to illicitly download their discography? I really need to catch up.

I'm going to go back to Viscount now, and avoid facing my responsibilities for a few more precious hours. Happy Easter/Spring to all, and to all a good night.

Okay, so I've been driving myself batty trying to come up with a research topic for Heart of Darkness that wasn't "COLONIALISM WAS BAD!!1!" because LAWD, wouldn't that bore me and my teacher to tears, it's THAT overdone. That is, I was driving myself batty until I hit upon the fact that I could finally put to good use all of the energy I expended in Fern's class last year being a smart-arse and harping on how homoerotically charged that book is. So now I sort of have a topic, except that I can't seem to reword it in a way that isn't, "Joseph Conrad was all about teh ghei in Victorian England! Le gasp!"

The words "repression of sexuality" sound kind of appropriate, but I fear that goes kind of broad. Then again, I don't know how receptive my passive-agressive teacher is to "teh ghei," so I suppose broad might be a good place to begin? Indecision!