Subject title in dedication to my two four-times-over loves right now, the Glee pilot and Star Trek. I've tried to write posts about them, but they've all come out garbled. I've seen them both four times in the space of a month! I love them lots! I follow twitters about them! I've allowed my brain to be infected by the virus known as ontd_startrek! Beyond that, my ability to express myself about them falls into incoherency and violent affection!

I don't know why I failed to post for so long, when I had plenty of stuff to talk about. Mostly I think it's because I feel guilty that I haven't been reading my flist. I love you all, so I feel bad when I don't check up on you regularly. :(

I sort of have a job lined up, if the paperwork ever goes through. I spent Memorial Day weekend in Atlantic City with saezutte and my future suitemates and we had lots of fun and one very heated game of Monopoly which I lost miserably. I am a sore loser, but also I was menstrual. It was a recipe for disaster.

I also saw Up. Such a cute, lovely movie. The love for Pixar in my household runs deep and true, so I'm going to see it again with the parents tomorrow and watch my mother freak out with love and my father get teary eyed, because I predict that is what they will do. I predict I will be the embarrassed, but entertained one in the middle.

What has finally driven me to fire up to ol' "Post an Entry" page is that I finished The Demon's Lexicon about 20 minutes ago and I wanted to tell any skeptics on my flist to give it a shot, because it is very, very good.

( Short review, no spoilers. )

On to The Demon's Covenant! I am pleased to say I look forward to it with high hopes and no reservations!

*Though she didn't use it in quite the same context, I did steal this joke subject from sparkly_stuff, who, incidentally, did a hilarious "I'm on a Boat" rewrite for Star Trek over here.

RL rant in the next few paragraphs, FList. Run while you can.

So, I found out last Tuesday that my oldest friend's mother had died, and instead of feeling grieved in any measurable, healthy way, I promptly stopped sleeping. This went on in a pretty intense and stubborn manner until the funeral this Monday, which I skipped classes for, during which I had a good cry and after which I hugged my parents and came back to school and slept for eight deep hours, and then had one blissful day of relative normalcy before Wednesday, when my body decided to expel all of its repressed confusion and grief in the form of a violent stomach virus, and then, after 24 hours of sickness and delirium (when I should have been in class, making up what I missed on Monday), I woke up feeling mostly better except that I was suddenly, once again, apparently unable to sleep.

I hate this. I hate this so much. I hate that death happens to good people, to people I love, and that my body is such a psychosomatic bitchface, and that I can't help but selfishly despair over the fact that this all happened a week before midterm season, and how I am in no way prepared to deal with all this except to loose my directionless fear and rage into the wilds of the Intranets in the early morning when I should be dead to the world and am instead far, far too alive to it.

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! )

HELLO EVERYONE.

I BROUGHT splintercat SOME AMAZING GIFTS (I.E. MATCHING L AND RAITO BOOKMARKS!) FROM OTAKON LIKE 4 HOURS AGO AND I ENDED UP JUST NEVER LEAVING HER SUITE. BECAUSE SHE (AND HER SUITEMATE PAY-PAY!) ARE JUST THAT CHARMING AND ADORABLE.

NOW WE ARE WATCHING LOTR WITH CAST COMMENTARY HAHAHA. AND NOW I'M SAYING HORRIBLE THINGS ABOUT LOTR DOUJINSHI TO POOR splintercat WHO IS CRYING FOR HER CHILDHOOD HERE, OMG LOTR SHOULD NOT HAVE DOUJINSHI JAPAN SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED NEAR LOTR.

OMG LOOK AT HOW CUTE MY MOOD THEME IS! HAHA, LOOK AT THIS ICON TOO, I'VE NEVER SEEN HERMYSELF USE THIS ONE.

So... Natsume Yuujinchou is pretty darn cool? I hate the fact that I have this HUGE HUGE WEAKNESS for characters like Natsume. Lost characters who are just aching for a kindred spirit. I hate that I identify with these kinds of people, but I can't help but love them despite myself. AND OH MY GOD, MADARA/NYANKO-SENSEI, WHAT THE SHIT, WHY ARE YOU SO AWESOME?

I'm so behind all my other shows, what is wrong with me.

Anyway, I recently finished the Librivox recording of Pride and Prejudice that's done by Karen Savage. HEARTILY RECOMMEND. She has a smart English accent and she "does the voices," but not in a hammy way, which is just how I like it. And then I went nuts and re-read all my favorite P&P fanfic and also maybe Mr Darcy Takes A Wife. Oh self. You so trashy. Although I found it funnier this time around? I'm mildly disturbed saying this, but I actually enjoyed it more having read P&P just before it. Does that make any sense at all?

I have been listening to a prodigious amount of ABBA and ELO. I bought their greatest hits CDs with the last of my iTunes gift card money. ABBA is rather self-explanatory, but oh my God, Electric Light Orchestra. When put up against my recent hardcore classical music immersion after Nodame, their classical touches just send thrills through me. Also, my Dad stole my CD backup of the ABBA and has been playing it non-stop. This included hijacking the mix I painstakingly created for my mother's party, and telling everybody how awesome they are and how they should listen to them, which, I can't even explain how unnecessary that was in my pop-oriented family.

Actually, regarding the party, we were rained out of our usual outdoor location, which rather literally put a damper on things, but we made due at the house, even if it was in no way prepared for visitors. It also put a strain on the theme, seeing as we were no longer in the park, but everyone took that better than my mother. Half of them didn't even get what the theme was, hahaha. It didn't stop us from making them wear (New Years, plastic) top hats!

I also reread How To Marry a Marquis and Sorcery and Cecilia, and in my fit of Regency love, I dragged my mother to two separate libraries one day when our true motive for going out was to acquire a Personal ID card for me from the DMV, since I've given up even the pretext of acquiring a driver's license in the near future. We went to one library before the DMV which required doubling back, and then after the DMV we stopped at the other library which was 20 minutes out of our way. My mother is a saint.

So I acquired To Catch An Heiress, the "prequel" to How To Marry A Marquis, as well as Darcy and Elizabeth: Days and Nights at Pemberly, the sequel to Mr Darcy Takes a Wife. To Catch An Heiress was AMAZING. The ending didn't quite live up to the beginning or middle, but SUCH a beginning and middle! I had to put the book down multiple times because I was laughing so hard I couldn't read for my shaking. Most of those times involved something with Blake's butler who was HILARIOUS. I made a start at Darcy and Elizabeth, but I got 60 pages in with no humor, intrigue, or truly, anything of interest sighted which was about the time I consulted the reviews on amazon and saw that even people who 100% enjoyed the first were thoroughly disappointed by the second and I put the book down like a hot potato. Sigh. I've also acquired Mr Darcy Presents His Wife, which I'm hoping is at least marginally more interesting. Also, These Three Remain (twice in as many months!) and have been rereading favorite passages. My love of Dy only grows upon reacquaintance. And to round out the numbers, I also took out two Heyer books, even though they are in large print, which annoys me. They're Heyer; that should count for everything.

I've made a (very) unofficial goal for myself to have finished 15 books by the end of the summer. Just for reference, I've read 9 books so far: Aidan's Darcy Trilogy, Victory of Eagles, Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy Takes A Wife, How To Marry a Marquis, Sorcery and Cecilia, To Catch An Heiress. Don't think I don't see the running theme, it will be broken by Breaking Dawn whenever I get around to that. Speaking of, I avoided the release frenzy on principle, but I'm chafing at all the spoilers on my flist. I swear, when Deathly Hallows came out I barely stumbled over spoilers even when I was looking for them. What the hell, Twilight fandom.

So uh, yes. My week. There you go. OTAKON THIS WEEKEND! I realize I never posted about it here, but I semi-solved the problem of companions. Two of my friends are coming along, even though neither of them is any kind of anime fan. One is intrigued by the novelty, and the other's boyfriend is going to be there. Plus, I'm deep discounting their fare in the hotel since I'd rather have them there than be alone, so it is a cheap weekend away for them. I figure they can ditch me for a few hours if the endless parade of panels and merchandise begins to bore them. They have assured me they are up for a laugh, which is all I really care about. I'm excited! :D

My life has been kind of crazy lately. I've been running around doing lots of summer things, such as going out to movies and staying in to movies and going to birthday parties and the like. I've also been working, which is getting shittier and shittier the longer I'm there. Oh well. Such is life.

I re-read Sailor Moon, which did not hold up as well as I hoped it would to my maturity level. God, when I was in sixth grade, Sailor Moon was my entire universe. How is this manga so mediocre?

After that though, I started watching Nodame Cantabile, which. I have no words. Wow. SO good. Amazing. Heart-warming, hilarious, pretty, thoughtful, educational. Finally got me to listen to my parents collection of classical music. Finally caused me to fall head over heels in love with Tomokazu Seki. To me, this series is on par with Hikaru no Go. It is that good, that epic, that wonderful. It also reminds me a lot of Nobuta, in that it is about a haughty guy who learns how to connect to life with the help of a strange girl. And also, the necessity of human relationships, their interconnectivity, and how love and friendship make the world go round. Superb. 5 million stars. I need an S-Oke shirt for Otakon.

Then I reread Cartograhper's Craft. Which is also superb and wonderful. I never get tired of how unrelentingly clever copperbadge's plots and style are. So much fangirlism. How the man does it, I will never know.

This of course led to a re-reading of Come Write Me Down (a prequel to Cartographer's Craft written by metallumai, not Sam), which, is heartbreakingly beautiful. Reading them both back to back, I actually like CWMD better, which is upsetting. But I love this Ellis and Sirius so, so much. Their feelings and their goals and their meaning to each other. God, so beautiful. And by stopping before the tear-your-heart-out ending, my love of it isn't tainted by the overbearing angst that puts me off so many Marauder-era fics. It handles the foreshadowing beautifully though.

And now I'm sort of hovering around thremedon waiting for people to start posting madly. I want mad posting!

Next books!

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

( The books! )

This one is sort of late, but oh well.

Reply to this post with the answers to these questions so that I can get to know you better. Then post it on your journal so you can get to know your flist.

( The questions )

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

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.

Sometimes I make this silent promise to myself that I will stop staying up until 6-ish every fucking day of the week, because I know it is bad for my health and my future and social life, but then nights like this happen and I know that while I may eventually cut down, I will never be able to give them up.

There is something so simple and gratifying about being awake in the middle of the night. Nobody expects you to be doing anything other than sleep. Whatever you choose to do with that time instead, it's all yours.

It just so happens that tonight (start time: 12:30) I watched Stranger Than Fiction with my roommate, A. This was only my second time seeing that movie, and while I enjoyed it that first time, seeing it again, with all the subtleness of its cinematography and graphic additions open to my notice, I realized for the first time that that movie is superb. Everything about it is superb. It deserves superlatives.

We had to break so that I could go do the radio show, and since Diana was off having her citizenship validated and suchlike, I brought A down with me and we had a lovely, lazy time cranking out tunes from 2-4.

Then we came back and finished the movie and I squeed some more about it, by which time A was heartily sick of me and went to bed which left me free to do a quick email check, where I learned that Drop Dead Gorgeous had updated with Chapter 10.

And then I read Chapter 10.

And then I lost my head. I went running down the hall the the study lounge--which was empty, thank God--and had a flailing FIT, in capital letters, complete with manic laughter and twitching and arm movements not seen in nature. AND IT WAS 5 IN THE MORNING SO I COULD DO IT AND KNOW THAT NO ONE WOULD WANDER IN AND SPOIL THE REVELRY IN MY MADNESS.

YES. And now I have a huge headache, but IT IS WORTH IT. YAY, 5AM.

It's days like today when it really hits home that I am going to an all girls school.

My roommate and I started talking about how sad and shocking and terrible Heath Ledger's death is, and as our conversation went on, my roomate pulled down her copy of 10 Things I Hate About You. She brought in a couple of friends from the hall, and we all started watching it.

This movie defined the beginning of our teens. I wasn't lying when I said he was my first idol crush. All of us love this movie and love Heath in it. The first time he came on screen we gasped a little and groaned and were so aware of his every movement, but then the movie took hold. Before long, we were laughing and groaning at everything, simply and plainly enjoying ourselves. It became less of a thing of mourning and more of a celebration of his life and his work.

As this went on, other girls stopped by, realized what we were doing and stayed to see the movie. At our largest, there were about sixteen of us in the room. About twenty filtered through for different portions. Twelve finished the movie with us. And throughout, we shared trivia and stories and thoughts about the movie and Heath Ledger. We all came to terms together.

I'm sure we weren't the only group of girls who did this, but I'm glad I was a part of it. Heath Ledger was one of our generation's greatest heartthrobs, and he was a wonderful actor besides. He will live on as Patrick and Cassanova, as Ennis del Mar and Gabriel Martin, as Sir William Thatcher, and the speculation surrounding his death can never taint those characters, or his stellar career. He figured prominently in my adolescence. For being that person in my life, I'm grateful to him.