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[21st September 2008|02:31 pm]
[Current Mood | calm]
[Current Music |Friska Viljor - On and on]

[info]jules1278 has nudged me, so I guess I should update... maybe?  And there are some fun memes to do, too, so I can tag them on the end of this entry.  Who says I'm impractical?

( Super short minor life stuff. )

( Memes and stuff. )

( Oh yeah... one last thing. )


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[28th April 2008|10:14 pm]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Philip Glass - Akhnaten]

Okay, so it's like I wished it... and it happened.  Paul Esswood's website has just been updated to include his gigs for the year (I'm calling them gigs because it feels weird calling them concerts or recitals, not being a music student, a yuppie in training, a pretentious panda or a Hooray Henry.)  The only thing is... he only seems to be doing one singing gig with The Musicke Companye.  It's on the 10th of May.  And it's in Hereford. 

I mean, I would totally travel down to Hereford (yes, I think I might be mental). I kind of need someone to go with, though, because the only two people I know for sure would love it will be out of the country and watching the last Rangers home game of the season respectively (the latter is a big football fan).  The gig is: 'A Venetian Carnival', a semi-staged performance of Venetian baroque music and letters/diaries of the time.  Music by Monteverdi, Strozzi, Marcello, Lotti, Stradella, Galuppi, Cavalli, Handel and Vivaldi.  Also includes funky masks.  Link: http://www.themusickecompanye.com/programmes.html

Any English f-listers up for a meet-up and a bit of culture? 

[ETA: I've just had loads of uni work sprung on me, and I forgot about my progress review - so that's that out.]

In other news, though, I have been assigned the letter L by [info]amamama as part of her "Things I Love Beginning With..." meme.

Who am I to refuse a challenge?


1. Liszt.  Franz Liszt, the massive show-off virtuoso pianist and composer.  He played better than me, you and anyone.

2. L Lawliet.  The eccentric genius, sweet-munching, insomniac detective from Death Note.  I almost shed a small tear when he was killed off.

3. Light Yagami.  The megalomaniac, preppy, black-hearted genius from Death Note. He got what was coming to him, but damn was it a good ride while it lasted.

4. Louis IX, Saint Louis of France.  I could go on and on all day about how much I love this guy.  The thing is, I don't even know why I took to him so much in the first place.  It was probably because Jean de Joinville's memoirs present him as very much a man - this opposed to a remote and unapproachable, plastercast saint.

5. 'Long Will'  otherwise known as William Langland: author of Piers Plowman, a medieval dream vision and a work of wonderful weirdness.  It's also a longcat is looooooooooooooong sort of text.  It may even be longer than longcat.

6. de Lassus, Orlando.  In the same school as Palestrina, in that he wrote a lot of pretty choral music back in the day. 

7. Lyres.  This is kind of specific, but I like the sound the really old ones make - a sort of hollow, twanging, buzzing sound.  The ones archaeologists discovered in ancient Egypt and Persia and reconstructed.

8. Lollipops.  Specifically drumsticks.  Oh man, do I love drumsticks, especially the king sized ones you can only get in Woolworths for some reason.

9. Languorous.  Nothing significant about this, I just love that word to pieces.  It's so lovely to say.  Actually, come to think about it, I am pretty languorous myself.  It sounds better than merely admitting I'm a lazy, daydreaming bum.

10. Leonard Cohen.  Because he rocks.  And also because he wrote 'Who By Fire?' which is one of my favourite songs ever - makes my spine tingle.  I think it was inspired by the liturgy from the Yom Kippur service?  I can't remember what Guy Garvey said on his show about it.

Damn.  That was more difficult than I thought it would be. XD
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[25th April 2008|01:04 am]
[Current Mood | geeky]
[Current Music |Anything by Paul Esswood (or James Bowman, he's good too).]

You know what? I just spent about an hour and a half trying to write this post down only to stupidly use the same window to open a link in my bookmarks.  What a moron.  And because LJ's auto-save system saves every thirty seconds (why so frequent?), naturally, it saved at the point when there was bugger all text on the screen.  Cue much thrashing and flailing and gnawing of teeth.

So this is my second attempt.  Maybe it's a good thing, because I know where I want to go now.  Beware, though, for what follows may contain impassioned rambling of a niche-market nature.

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[15th January 2008|08:30 pm]
[Current Mood | frustrated]
[Current Music |You Are My Friend - Long Shot Party]

First of all, everyone send all their available good vibes to

[info]jules1278 and [info]anyaxstrindberg who are both going through tough times just now.  You're both awesome, and you deserve chocolate cake and major hugz.

Second on the agenda: I'd like to welcome [info]lemon_sparrow to my f-list, also known as Insomniac Owl on ff.net. She's an amazing writer, and I'm rather glad of the happy accident that led me to her profile. 

The real reason I'm here, though, is because... well... I sort of need a good, hard kick up the arse.

 


 

 

A couple of other things, in bullet points:

  • I have become something of a hermit.  This is because postgrad life is not quite as involved (read: fun) as undergraduate life.  If I don't interact with people on a regular basis, I forget how to do it, and I get all nervous, distant, withdrawn and philosophical.  You wouldn't like me when I'm philosophical. :P
  • I'm still horrendously underweight (BMI 16.1) but then again, I always have been, so I suppose adding that to my list of niggling worries won't help if I can't do anything about it.  Though my irrational fear of eating in front of people I'm not used to eating in front of has come back (I thought I smashed it into submission - whyyyy???)
  • I am in possession of a kick ass pair of spangly jeans: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=13661509  They were on sale (£15 inc. p&p) and I just had to have them.  From a distance, they don't look spangly at all - they just look like ordinary dark grey, skinny jeans - but get them at the right angle, and they spangle! They're the perfect fit, too.
  • Someone bought me 'Tori Amos: Piece by Piece' for Christmas.  I couldn't read it for laughing. She talks so much bullcrap it's unreal.  I still like her early material, though, don't get me wrong.
  • I am SICK FED UP of TV programmes like this: "Superskinny Me: The Race to Size Doube Zero", "How to Cook Yourself Thin", "Diet Doctors".  If any of these people would like to trade the aches and pains and general fatigue of being underweight with me, be my guest.  If you're happy with yourself, what the hell does it matter if you're overweight, underweight or of a normal, healthy weight.  Seriously.  TV is fucking everyone up!
  • New Year was boring.  Christmas was good fun.  I have a love/hate relationship with New Year.  Hate, mainly because it reminds me of all the things I didn't do the year before, and about how much I generally failed at life (I never include the good things, because I'm a miserable git. :P) Love, because no matter how much you failed at life last year, come January, there's the proverbial clean slate.
  • Chopin used to scare the frigging bejeezus out of me - but no longer!  I'm learning what I would consider an 'entry-level Chopin' piece.  A nocturne.  Very pretty, very tranquil.  Suits my quiet, twinkly playing style down to the ground (I cannot play loud, fun Beethoven pieces because of this - yes, it pains me. :P) http://belenjesuit.org/events/news/hurtado/carlosvaldeslora/FatherAlbertoHurtado-CVL2_files/file0043.mp3 Nice streaming mp3 of what the piece sounds like, in case you're curious, though I don't like the way this guy plays it.  He's going far too quickly.  It's supposed to be languorous, you silly man!  Stop showing off just because you can.
  • Someone has nicked the beaters for my xylophone.  If they don't turn up soon, I'm going to have to go do some crimes.
Whew. I really needed to get that off my chest.  Sorry about the length, but it had to be done.  I should write in this thing more often...

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[27th August 2007|04:52 pm]
[Current Mood | relaxed]
[Current Music |Patrick Wolf - Pigeon Song]

*waves*

Haven't posted in a while, though I was nudged by [info]jules1278.  Sorry about that, but I've had the worst month.  Nothing incredibly stressful has happened, but sometimes I just seem to spook and get depressed over nothing very much.  When that happens, the food routine is the first thing to go and apathy sets in.  Normally, I can talk myself out of it and it goes away of its own accord, but I've been having a more difficult time than usual.  It really is getting out of hand, so I went to the doctor and I have been referred to a dietitian.  Getting a little bit of help and advice to wean me back onto my normal eating pattern should be nice (maybe I won't be horrendously underweight anymore! ^^)

Combined with the mystery event which caused me to spook and get all anxious and worried for no real reason was Proper Author's Burnout.  Big style.  I went on a writing binge and, over the course of two months, wrote about 79,000 words.  Now, I know some of you are into doing NaNoWriMo and that hitting the 70k mark in a month is old hat for you, but I normally write a snail's pace.  :-P  Also, when it becomes the centre of your waking existence and you end up putting aside maintenance tasks like eating and dressing in the morning, it's really not such a good thing. :-P  I will never let myself burn out again.  *solemn promise*  It's not a nice thing.

I have been keeping meself busy, though.  I'm learning to drive  and it's scaring the bejeezus out of me just now.  Everyone says that it's terrifying when you first start, though, and that when you get a few more lessons under your belt, it's not so bad.  I haven't hit any pedestrians yet, so it's all good. :-P  Skiiing is another item on the agenda - and that's only possible because we have a really cool place called the Xscape centre in Glasgow, where there's an indoor slope with REAL SNOW!! It's hella cool, and I'm getting lessons. Almost at recreational standard, but it was my first time going down the big slope yesterday and my legs got tired halfway down and I couldn't control my snowplough.  Cue me thundering down the slope thinking, "Shit... stopping might be a problem here."  Aha! I managed to stop in the end, though - having sprayed some innocent bystanders waiting for the poma lift with a nice flurry of ski snow! Whee!  I didn't injure myself, but neither did I pass my level four, so... :-P 

Also waiting for news as to whether I'll be getting funding for the masters.  Early September is the deadline, apparently.  Nervous times... *quiver*

On the bright side, the first ever Connect Festival is coming to Inveraray Castle in bonny Scotland - and I shall be there!  The Sunday line up is incredible, with Bjork, Regina Spektor, Patrick Wolf and Idlewild being high on the list of acts I really want to see badly.  

Sooooo... yup.  Feeling a little bit better and hopefully it'll continue that way until I get back to uni. :-)

Hope everyone's doing good!
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[26th July 2007|02:19 pm]
[Current Mood | calm]
[Current Music |Andrew Bird - 50 Pieces]

Yeah, I know.  I'm a bit late with the whole obligatory DH reaction post.  Couldn't help it.  Athens held me in it's hot, hot, sweltering grip (forty degrees yesterday - I was dying... dying, I say!)

Numbered points under the cut.


May post some picspam of Athens later.  Took a few pictures at the archeology museum (including some lovely shots of Linear B inscribed clay tablets and some Greek inscribed ones - what can I say?  I love ancient writing systems).

Now... to catch up on everything I've missed! I wonder how many pages long the Snape thread is...
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Liek OMG ROFLROLF POTTER!!!1 [17th July 2007|11:58 pm]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star]

I have absolutely nothing constructive to say, but I really wanted to do St Mags' meme, so I'm going to have to post it here.

I think I might have been spoiled, but I have no idea what's real and what's fake.  Saturday should do the trick in fixing that. :P

Going to Athens tomorrow.  Looking forward to it and have already found the Eleftheroudakis bookshop on Googlemap (huzzah for Googlemap!) so getting a hold of DH shouldn't be too much of a problem. 

For everyone waiting anxiously for DH: have fun getting your book!  I'm looking forward to getting back on the Thursday to see what everyone thinks of the new canon.  Love you all! ^_^


Now I need to go pack.

*groans*

I loathe packing... X l
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[10th June 2007|07:18 pm]
[Current Mood | good]
[Current Music |Patrick Wolf - The Pigeon Song]

O hai guyz.

Got my degree results.  I gots me Teh Prize a first.  w00t w00t! ^_^

...

So i can haz cheezburger plz?

Plz?

Thnx.
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[22nd April 2007|10:09 am]
[Current Location |Studying?]
[Current Mood | busy]
[Current Music |Apparat Organ Quartet - Global Capital]

Hi there.  Long time no post. ^_^

I was nudged to post something here a while back by Genesse (a month, two months ago?) but I just didn't have the time then.  Still don't actually.  If you don't know already, well, I'm smack bang in the middle of sitting my finals.  In Britain, 'finals' equates to OMG END OF DEGREE EXAMS *STRESS GNAW* and therefore my time has been, understandably, taken up by studying for the seven sodding exams I have to sit. (Why?  WHY??  What is the point of exams?  Since when are you going to be in a similar situation in the Big Bad World of Work where your boss will sit you down and say: "Right, you have three hours to answer three questions on varying things relating directly to the running of this company. Begin." ?) 

The situation is three down and four to go.  The first three went okay, though I can't let my guard down and relax because on Tuesday the TERRIBLE EXAM TRIAD OF DOOM will force itself upon me.  This consists of History of English I, with all its rather technical questions on phonological/grammar/writing system changes from c. 1400, and Old English and Old Icelandic.  I'm dreading the last two.  And they're both one day after the other.  Hard times. *sigh*

The exam situation has been softened somewhat by GOOD STUFF happening.  Not good stuff of stellar proportions, just a few little things here and there that makes the exam life situation more bearable. 

First: I am actually going abroad this year.  Haven't been since I went with my mates to Siges TWO YEARS AGO.  Athens is the place this time.  Never been, but the hotel rooftop garden has a good view of the Parthenon, apparently.  Nice one.

Second: I texted in to XFM (I am a typical student - obviously I will listen to XFM) and won an album that I was going to buy anyway.  Score.

Third: One of my premium bonds came up in the April draw and won a £100 prize.  Being a poor student, this was very much welcome.  Muchos smileage. ^_^

Fourth: Chapter ten of my Snape-fic is up.  Before now, it had been sitting on my hard-drive for months because I really, really didn't like how it turned out when I first wrote it.  I can't even tell you why now.  Luckily, I didn't scrub the whole thing and start again.  I just left it alone for a while and got on with other things, and when I came back to it about two weeks ago, I decided that it wasn't all that bad.  Now it is posted!  I would feel accomplished, but I don't have the time. :-P 

On that note: The EXAM TRIAD OF DOOM beckons with a calcareous finger, impelling me towards an untimely demise.  In other words, I really should go.  These fuckers aren't going to sit themselves, you know...
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Why write? Why, indeed... [11th February 2007|11:12 pm]
[Current Location |Grinding out a chapter of the WIP. Why do I torture myself?]
[Current Mood | irritated, yet inspired]
[Current Music |VNV Nation - Forsaken]

If I haven't commented recently, I'm sorry.  It's because I've been grinding out chapter ten of my WIP.  It's killing me dead.  Deader than dead.  I've never had to work this hard at a chapter before, and it's incredibly frustrating - like slogging through a book on Old English sound changes.  Usually, I know exactly where I'm going with a particular chapter and I swim through it with little or no resistance.  Sometimes things change, but it's never anything major.  This time, it feels like I'm bog snorkelling through the Dead Marshes - it is t3h sux0rz. 

This is such a pivotal chapter, too, for Things Are Explained.

*le sigh*

But the real reason why I'm here...

I've had an idea.  Oh yes.  An idea for ... (wait for it - cue drumroll, please) ... a Neville one-shot!  *gasp*  Wtf? I hear you say.  You never write Neville!  Oh yes I do.

The basic premise is that Neville doesn't like forests.  He has a fear of them, though it's definitely not irrational.  It was founded in his ill-fated holiday to the Black Forest with his family when he was a nipper, during which, he ran foul of the Erl King.  Not an Erkling of Fantastic Beasts fame: the Erl King of Germanic mythology.  An altogether more sinister and interesting character.  Here's the link to Goethe's poem, if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig

I'm going to captialise on the mistranslation of "Erlkonig" and make it  the "elf king", rather than the "king of the Alders", although either could work well, I suppose. It's not that important.  I'm also thinking about smooshing together everything I've read about the Erl-King that I like instead of sticking to one interpretation, for I am TEH AUTHOR and I have the creative license (which I have laminated and am now wearing round my neck as a badge of authorial honour).  I'm definitely going to twist the image of the Erl-King a bit to heighten the sinister factor, though.  He's going to be pretty, as well as being totally and utterly malevolent and evil. Nice.

Yes.  It will be scary.  But Neville will come out on top because he's brilliant. *waves Neville flag*

The thing is... I've only ever written Neville once, and it was such a long time ago that I've completely forgot how to.  Naturally, this is where the F-list comes in.  I definitely need a few tips on getting his voice, because my writing style... well, if you've ever read any of my stuff then you'll know what it's like and that I'll probably have to rein myself in a little to write Neville properly.  Maybe some of your thoughts on what his family are like would be handy, too (I know Dogstar hates Augusta, so I think I might have the beginnings of something there).  And just some general musings on Neville would be welcome, so I can regain my tenuous hold on his character.

Cheers very much!

ETA:  For the record, Dogstar does not hate Augusta.  She is actually one of her favourite characters to write.  I was talking a load of crap, there, so please disregard it. *rar!*
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[2nd February 2007|12:18 pm]
[Current Mood | contemplative]
[Current Music |Witches - There She Is!]

The entries in Dogstar's LJ always make me think...

That's never a good thing.

*grin*

Please forgive the lack of structure.

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Merry Christmas to all and sundry... [23rd December 2006|04:11 pm]
[Current Mood | Festive]
[Current Music |Muse - Showbiz]

After the whine-fest that my last impromptu entry became, I feel compelled to balance it out with some festive cheer. 

So, without further ado, I present to you two of the funniest Christmas parodies I have ever read; both by Frank Jacobs, a rather amusing man who holds the honour of being MAD magazine's longest tenured writer.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!




( The Night Before Christmas, 1999, or St. Nicholas Meets the Population Explosion - by Frank Jacobs. )

Seriously, though.  Have a great Christmas, everyone, if you celebrate it. ^__^
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[17th December 2006|12:11 am]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Muse - Falling Down]

Seeing as it's officially December 17th in my time zone, I thought I'd get this posted and out there in LJ-land.

Happy birthday [info]anyaxstrindberg !

Here follows your present, conveniently located under the cut.

( Detention )












Sorry for the length, Anya.  It got a little out of hand.  Sorry, too, for borrowing Lourdes, but Sweet refused point-blank to co-operate.

Hope it's not too blasphemous.

Once again, though, happy birthday. I hope your day is filled with Lush and delicious cake.
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Posting and You... [3rd December 2006|12:04 am]
[Current Mood | productive]
[Current Music |Leftfield - Original]

I've been studying English Language for a while now, and I've wanted to post something like this for ages. So here and now, for your pleasure...



I'm rather unnerved by the way my little ferret mood icon equates productivity with experiencing something that looks alarmingly like a fit...
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[29th November 2006|04:00 pm]
[Current Mood | calm]
[Current Music |Purcell... Just Purcell in general.]

Just a quick post to steal a meme from kit the brave. Nothing to see here. ^_^











The quiz lies! LIES, I TELL YOU!!

*ahem*

ETA: Do any of you clever people on my f-list know where I could buy a chocolate Sinterklaas letter? I'm participating in a Dutch-style Christmas on the 5th, organised by my Dutch friend, Joliene, and I CAN'T FIND THEM ANYWHERE! (Even on the net!) *tears at hair*

ETA (again): My dissertation went rather well. I managed to wrangle a first-class mark out of them, which is nice. In all honesty, I'd forgotten about it until the announcements were made that the Big Ds were ready to be collected from the office. My viva is tomorrow at 4pm. Hope I don't say anything stupid and have them mark me down...
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Spam, pimpage and other such nonsense... [24th October 2006|07:49 pm]
[Current Mood | cheerful]

The promised one-shot, Revelation I:II, has now been posted on the Quill.  If you were curious about it before - now is the time to sate that curiosity!

In other news, however, the Drabble Thread has been created in the 87 Rolls of Parchment thread at the Quill by Norwegian Blue and Honeybee.  To my mind, this is a brilliant addition, because if you're a bit stuck for inspiration, nothing beats writer's block like dashing off a quick drabble.  It's good practise too, and it covers all genres.  Cheers for that thread, guys.

In my day-to-day world, the report for The Project has been sent off, but I've had no word back from The Smith.  This worries me slightly, as I have six days until it should be with the Trust in time for their November meeting.  If it doesn't get to them, then there's no way in hell I'll be getting funding from them for any postgrad stuff - and they give the most money by a long shot.  *sigh*

Oh yes.  Old Icelandic is slowly taking over my life. 

So that this post doesn't consist solely of pimpage and spamming, I'll share with you a funny, little thing I was told in a lecture:


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Because Halloween is always fun... [21st October 2006|03:16 pm]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire - Ides of Swing]

I shamelessly stole this meme from [info]thebasi:

[info]ada_kensington's Halloween party:

angua9 dressed as Woodrow Wilson.
anyaxstrindberg dressed as the Duke of Morgraf.
ashavah dressed as a character from Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Miami.
author_by_night dressed as a 1970's disco child.
barbara_the_w dressed as the love child of Rush Limbaugh and Connie Chung.
bjtruong dressed as a disturbing self-made character called "Cheeseball Barfmouth".
bribitribbit dressed as a zombie.
briel1e dressed as a outfielder for the Expos.
coquillagement dressed as a bear.
delleve dressed as a elk.
divinemum dressed as a leather widow.
dogstar101 dressed as the President of Bahrain, though it looked more like a new superhero: Snow -wave.
dr_c dressed as Cameron Diaz riding a dog.
dweo dressed as Michael Jackson.
emma_sparky dressed as a Lyons-Gallaher UtilitiesInc. employee.
fdamps24 dressed as Optimus Prime.
frankieb_sq87 dressed as a fusion.
genesse forgot to put on clothes!
greatjellybean dressed as a rainbow fish.
gryfny dressed as Chekov from "Star Trek".
hollycomics dressed as a Level 11 fighter.
j_forias dressed as Heidi Klum.
katieowrites dressed as a drunk goblin, though it looked more like the Cardinal of Osbusdale.
kit_the_brave dressed as a bottle of Estrcit.
leapin_jot dressed as a character from "Almost Famous".
lvblheron dressed as a hockey.
mays_chick dressed as a fullback for the Broncos.
mrflyingfingers dressed as someone who just poked themselves in the eye.
nicolen dressed as Paris Hilton.
norwegianblue47 dressed as Adriana Lima.
petitecrivan dressed as your father.
phoenix_anca dressed as Elmer Fudd, though it looked more like the Lord of Blue Ridge.
shadowfeared dressed as Janet Reno.
shina_laris dressed as the Duke of Holt.
siftingseaspray dressed as Karl Rove.
sigune dressed as a new member of the Wu-Tang Clan, Vulgar Ambassador.
stmargarets dressed as a skeleton.
thebasi dressed as the Governor of Indiana.
zsenya dressed as Kirsten Dunst.

Throw your own party at the Hallomeme!
Created with phpNonsense

I love Halloween, me. It gives you a chance to dress up and have fun at the same time, which is always good in my book. This year, I have two Halloween parties to go to, one on the 27th and one on the 28th. The one on the 27th is just a normal Halloween party with no theme, so I'm going as my fail-safe: Marcel Marceau, the mime extraordinaire! I'm going to add a black wig this year to go under my beret to create the full, hardcore mime-effect, though. Should be good. *nods* On the 28th, the party has a cosmic theme: picture lots of stormtroopers, Han Solos, Darth Vaders and generic Halloween costumes with a space prefix (e.g. space-mexican, space-zombie, space-vampire, space-witch etc.) I'm going to go as a Knight of Cydonia along with a mate of mine. We're going to have silver sequin chain-mail, a bright blue tabard with our Cydonia blazonry plastered all over it, silver knee-high boots, lightsabers and holsters, shields, super futuristic silvery and blue make-up and I, personally, am going to have short, bright blue hair. It's going to be awesomely fun.

Again, I must repeat. I love Halloween. I also want to know about your experiences and the best costumes you've ever had or encountered, the best Halloween parties you've been to, or what you're doing this Halloween, that sort of thing.

If only I were Anya, Coquillage, LN Lisa or, indeed, most of my flist, and had a super amazing sewing talent. Then I could make a proper tabard sans tearing out my hair, for I am without sewing ability. *sigh*

Side note: The project is almost finished. All I have to do is write the report to the Trust, send it to The Smith (trans: Professor Smith, me adviser) and he'll "work his magic on it". Coolness. Huzzah for magic!

Another side note: The "J" key is sticking. It took me a few tries to get that last one. Grrr and such.
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[15th October 2006|02:08 pm]
[Current Location |In my bed, having been beaten by an angry common cold.]
[Current Mood | cold-ridden, but oddly happy]
[Current Music |OK Go - Return]

Why can I never take anything seriously? The mere thought of dashing out these fourteen, single little dedications to stupidity and throwing them all together made me giggle, so it had to be done.  I'm so tempted to post this at ff.net to see what sort of response it gets...


*smirks, coughs, then apologises profusely*

On the other hand, I have written something serious.  Honest.  For the past week or so, the cold that has been kicking about cornered me in the street one day when I was at uni.  We both did that thing where you try to politely let the other person past by side-stepping and the other person side-steps the same way as you*, then the cold got angry because it had a meeting to go to and it head-butted me, scalded me with coffee from Starbucks and beat me into submission with a rolled-up Daily Mail.  I've been suffering from the after-effects of the merciless beating I received for about a week and I was supposed to be going out last night and Friday night, but I didn't.  Having gone a bit stir-crazy by the early hours of Saturday night, I decided to excercise the old mental faculties and penned a companion piece to Revelation I:I. 

Once again, it's a bit different.  Quite different.  It's set in Saxon Sussex: pre-Hogwarts, pre-Ministry, round about the time of the creation of the Wizard's Council (which preceded the Ministry, according to the Lexicon).  The Wizengamot is already in place, among its elder members the Founding Four, but it has been given its West-Saxon form, the compound witenagemot (witena = wise men, genitive plural + gamot = meeting, assembly, council).  Godric Gryffindor's Sussex stronghold, built on the ruins of an old, Roman amphitheatre, will become the foundation of the DoM and the Ministry of Magic - and what should the first item be in the collection of what will eventually become the DoM?  Why, it's the veil, of course.  This little one-shot c. 2000 words deals with the discovery of the veil and is, essentially, an excercise in sinister.  Again, Death makes an appearance.  Don't be put off by all the history.  It's more often implied than explicitly stated - you have to be clever enough to figure things out on your own (which is why I'm not posting this one at ff.net.) ^_^  The ending is brief.  It was intentional, but it may very well be too brief.  It's been sent away to Birgit for betaing, but I think I might just risk letting you have a look at the pre-betaed version.  Perhaps any comments will help polish off the finished product.

Changed my mind.  I want it to be a surprise. If you're curious, you can always head over to the Quill when it's posted. ^_



ETA:  Oh yes, and I'm going to watch the latest adaption of Jane Eyre tonight, mainly to see how much they've butchered St. John Rivers.  Verdict forthcoming, though I can imagine it'll be pretty brutal...


(* There's got to be a fully lexicalised word for that in a language somewhere out there - English would be glad to borrow it, I'm sure - and if there isn't, a word has to be created for it.  Hmmm... difficult, though.  How can one possibly capture at once all the swirling emotions one experiences when two commuters are caught in that most polite and undignified of dances? Phonaesthesia does exist, after all.  Words often sound like that which they are assigned to, after all, no matter how arbitrary the concept seems.  If any of you can come up with a brilliant word for it, then I shall use it with reckless abandon at every opportunity. ^_^)
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Who likes short posts? [10th October 2006|07:32 pm]
[Current Mood | cheerful]
[Current Music |Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun]

For everyone who wants to know what happened to the Quill recently:


So that this post, while admittedly short, isn't too short, I shall resort to some spammish pimping of some videos of jaw-droppingly, musically talented individuals on YouTube:


Enjoy the mind-boggling talent! ^_^
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Well-meaning advice... [3rd October 2006|10:51 pm]
[Current Location |Drinking tea with shaking hand...]
[Current Mood | shocked]
[Current Music |Majesty - VNV Nation]

If you haven't backed up all your files - please, please do.  Right now.  Just drop whatever you're doing and save those precious files in a safe location where you're sure things won't go AWOL.  Why have I become a zealot of the school of Backing Up One's Precious File?  Well, a few hours ago, I almost lost everything I'd ever written - including my more recent HP stuff along with all the research I've done for my project.

I'm running low on memory, so I bought an external hard drive.  Needless to say, things didn't quite go as planned.  Tears did fall, I am embarrased to say, and I spent a truly terrible fifteen minutes frantically trying to recover my lost files through a haze of said tears, trying to block out the sound of my own sobbing.  Luckily, I managed to find them and get my documents back, but it was horrible... Seriously.  If you've ever been in that sort of situation, then you'll understand completely.  Imagine: everything you've ever written gone in an instant.  My academic work, my fanfiction, my original stuff...  Gone.  Just gone.  It was horrible.

*shiver*

After my ordeal, I actually had to go downstairs and make myself a cup to tea, I was so shaken - and the last time I had to do that was just after reading the Lightning-Struck Tower chapter in HBP...  ( What?  Snape? No, no, it can't be!  It just can't be!  Can it?  *hyperventilate*  I need tea... *sniff*)

I'm not going to bed until these files have copied to a writeable CD.  Needless to say, I have learned my lesson...
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