Imaginary Gardens

It feels like I haven't written a proper post in ages, that the last time I did, dinosaurs were fighting off hoards of ninjas whilst crashing into tiny little wooden cottages filled with scared French peasants. Which is a shame, because there's actually quite a bit I ought to recount. (It's also a shame about the peasants and their little yet charming huts.) I have yet, for example, to give an account of my Christmas swag or wax poetical about my Time for Something Biblical proof copy, but seeing as that requires photographs that, yes, have already been taken, to be downloaded and uploaded and all that, those particular topics will have to remain unexplored. For now.

Instead, let me tell you about my German class, for example. It's the usual mix of young and middle-aged people, of about nine girls and two boys and if anyone gives me any gripe about saying girls and boys then you're reading the wrong blog. One of the guys (there, happy?) has albinism, which is absolutely fascinating.

I guess the most surprising thing about his condition - can we call recessive genetic mutations "conditions"? - is how red his skin is, all over. Like he's permanently blushing a lot. His eyes are also really neat (a bit like this, blue with red streaks) and, apparently, really not so good. While I knew - especially from Threshold by greygirlbeast - that albino eyes are particularly sensitive to light, I wasn't as aware of the eyesight problems linked to the mutation. The guy in my class has some serious lenses for far-seeing and others for reading, which he amps up with an extra hand-held lens. He sits next to me in class, which means we've partnered a few times for the conversation practices and he seems nice, although we haven't really chatted. I keep being struck not by his albinism but by his glasses, which make his eyes look huge, and it's taking me a while to get used to the effect.

Curiously, there's also another girl my class with what must be a very high prescription because they give a strong magnifying effect to her eyes, which makes my brain itch in the "something's slightly different here and I can't stop noticing" sense.

On Monday, we had a substitute teacher - rumoured to be Brazilian, of all things - because our teacher was off wrangling unicorns or something, I don't know. It a bit sad that I much preferred the substitute to our regular teacher, isn't it? ( Read more... )

Let me also tell you about my dreams, because they're still being strangely nice to me. ( Read more... )

I've been getting through January's Haitus of Death weeks - including the "We're back! We're gone again!" horrors that various shows did - by listening to podcasts. Today I listened to MonsterTalk, which is MADE OF SCIENCE and therefore awesome (and geckos). I'm really looking forward to the current episode, though. It's about ninjas, guys. Ninjas. And they Ask a Ninja.

I've also been playing catch-up on all those movies I've been meaning to watch and have had staring at me with puppy eyes Sam Winchester would be proud of. My boss gave me - or rather, regifted, because his wife already had one, but hey, gift horse of awesome - an agenda, and since it's only got wee tiny lines and sticks in four days per page, I've been using it to be ridiculous obsessive and organized and listmaking, by which I mean jotting down every book, podcast, episode and movie I read, listen to or watch. Last week, for example, included the Podfic Beautiful Disaster by thenyxie, which was really good and long and used music breaks to glorious effect (and because damn, do you need breaks after a couple hours of listening). My only complaint is that there really was too much porn - hours and hours of it. Don't get me wrong, it was well-written, smutty, and full of characterization, but the characters went at it like rabbits on E.

My other literary foray included the audiobook of The Metamorphosis. Let me put it this way: if TV Tropes had a posterchild for It Got Worse, The Metamorphosis would be it. Ye gods! but things just kept on getting worse for poor Gregor.

At the moment, I'm listening to The Trial, on seschat's recommendation. Not much happens, really, although I guess that's the whole point. For the most part it's interesting in an absurd sort of way, although I think K. is a complete jerk. I have just gotten through a pretty dull patch involving Titorelli, the court painter, and what felt like hours and hours of a lecture on court process. Let me tell you, when you're scanning document after document and need something to distract you, that is not it.

I also went to the cinema twice - well, once was the French Institute - for Gainsbourg: Vie Heroique (WIN) and The King's Speech (WIN). Not in the cinema, I've watched The Girl Who Played With Fire(which was so rivetting - and I say with with all the sarcasm in the world - that I started knitting whilst watching it just to get through it). "Thriller" my half-finished wristwramer. Splice, which was decent enough although I kept wanting to shout at the screen all the ways that they were doing science and scientists wrong, and I was very much amused that it remembered in the last twenty minutes that it was supposed to be a horror movie and not a science fiction one meant to comment on scientific advantages.

Oh, and I finally watched Twilight. With RiffTrax, of course, which made it hilarious. ( Read more... )


* Elle DeGeneres

Random Points Along the Sickle Line:

• I'm currently reading House Rules by Jodi Piccoult (now with podcast!), and I've reached the point where I'm just devouring the thing. It's a really interesting story about a teenage with Asperger's syndrome who's accused of murder. Although I'm rarely into crime novels, this one has a large dash of forensic science as the main character is fascinated by the subject and that aspect of it is one I can really get into. Curiously, I'm also following the law aspect of it quite well and even enjoying it, even though I'm not usually into the intricacies of courts and lawyers and judges and prosecuters and so on. I keep trying to figure out the whodunnit of the novel, much like the other book of hers I've read, Plain Truth. I'm almost at the Big Reveal part of the novel \o/


• I've gotten all five of the fanmixes for Time We Saw a Miracle all set up except for the final file editing and posting. That was a lot of work, but I'm really happy with them.


• There's four people from whom I'm waiting to hear from, and have been waiting for going on a month now. ( Read more... )


• The week hasn't been fantastic. Nothing productive was actually achieved, drama was had, and German kicked my ass. However, on the plus side? There's people I can count on, and those people are my darlings. Except seschat. She's my squishy. ♥

In other news, I wrote a letter in German. I think I also broke the word order and a couple declinations. Help? Point and laugh?

( OMGWTFGERMAN )

Links of the Day:
Supernatural: ( Read more... )
Lost: ( Read more... )
Doctor Who: ( Read more... )
Sherlock: ( Read more... )
Other Fandom: ( Read more... )
Multifandom: ( Read more... )
Random: ( Read more... )


* Leroy Brownlow

A Day in the Life of the Sickle:

• I've been reading The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Actually, I've only gotten two sittings in, and both times I've been fighting tears the whole while I was reading it. It's not even that particularly sad or dramatic, just inciteful and beautiful and ow my heart. I knew I was going to love this book from the quotes on literaryquotes. I've been wanting to read it for years and years now.


• I went to the Goethe Institute today to register for a course which starts Monday. (Eeeeeep!) I told them I'd gotten my Zertifikat Deutsch in 2005, and that my last German class (in 2007) had been a B2.2. level. I took their placement test just in case, because it'd been a few years since my German saw the light of day and all. So the test is 99% grammar and 1% Short Text Comprehension. My resulting level? B1.1. FAAAAAIIIIIIL. I AM A FAILURE. That's basically what my mind went to at light speed. And while I get it, intellectually, that of course I lost some German, and of course it's rusty, and that if you don't use it you lose it, but OMG FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE. Anyway, I also got to talk to one of the teachers (who spoke extra-fast on purpose) and she said that my comprehension and speaking was fantastic, it's just my grammar, so I can take the B1.2 course and do extra work on the side to spruce up my grammer. Stupid grammar.


• What this means is that between the book and the test, I'm all a-wibble. The win, it is not here.

Castle, 3x12:

• Espositoooooo! Rawr.


• No, really. Sweet mother of pearl, rawr. Seriously.


• And I still can't decide between him and Ryan.


• (Can I take them both home? They're so perfect!)

Random Sickle Photographs: ( Read more... )

Video of the Day: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Jan. 10, 2011 - Jon talks about the shootings in Arizona in the opening and I love him for it but we all knew that already.


Song of the Day: "When the Body Speaks", Depeche Mode (live) - This is the year's first Song I Put On Repeat. It is made of love and awesome. And apparently sweat, because ye gods, Dave, you're dehydrating! ( Read more... )


* 11 Reasons Why You Will Never Suceed, Gary Vurnum

So there I am, scanning through Time We Saw a Miracle, looking for quotes to slip into the fanmix because I'm obsessive yes I know when I see a formatting error. A formatting error. After fighting with the damn thing for ages and churning out dozens of PDFs and reuploading the manuscript to CreateSpace and checking and rechecking and there's a bloody formatting error. It's just a few spaces missing, two empty lines that should separate a passage in italics from a passage in normal text, so it's not like Godzilla took a hatchet to it, but still, there's a formatting error being all ugly in my proof book.

One day, when I have money and patience (ha!) I will reupload these little bastards and damn the cost and get new proofs and all will be well with the world.

I was going to write more - talk about the day or post photos or show signs of life in general - but frankly writing this much is more than I can at the moment. Or today.

...fucking formatting error.

Word of the Day:

katzenjammer: the discomfort and illness experienced as the aftereffects of excessive drinking; hangover.

Links of the Day:
Supernatural: ( Read more... )
Doctor Who: ( Read more... )
True Blood: ( Read more... )
Human Target: ( Read more... )
Sherlock: ( Read more... )
Other Fandom: ( Read more... )
Multifandom: ( Read more... )
Random: ( Read more... )


* Annie Proulx

You're entitled to a night or two in bed*

It's 2:20 pm and I've been studying for approximately half an hour. Shit. I seriously tried to wake up round 10, or even 10:30, but doing so was like crawling out a grave. A very comfortable grave. That sucked back. Ugh. It felt like waking up a zombie (and I've contemplated that enough to write about it - scroll to Epilogue - so this isn't really a crack metaphor).

I'm currently learning irregular-in-the-past-tense verbs, although "irregular" usually just means "exactly like in German, biatch". (Does this make me feel better equipped for the exam? Hell no.)

I'm incredibly amused that raden means both to guess and to advise.

ETA: From yesterday's exercises: Ik mis mijn familie.***
ETA2: It's 3:20 pm. I have a summarized list of irregular verbs. I'm sorely tempted to throw my notes into the fireplace give up lie on the floor moping take a small break, make lunch and watch Lost. *sigh*

***
Yesterday whilst**** watching Lost, I really wanted to ruffle Ben's^ hair. And put him back into those striped PJ's. Oh, Ben, why do I like you? I mean, yeah, Manipulative Evil Bastard^^, but apart from that? The giant hamster joke? Not enough, really. And besides, he's eeevil manupilative, for no reason, whereas Sylar's manipulation have a very obvious, very sexy purpose. Self, stop liking Ben! He creaps us out!

Also, Locke (whom we no longer find cool, just disturbingly "Hear the higher calling" crazy). When he said, all puppy-eyed, "You said I was special," I thought, "Hmm, sounds so familiar..." Half an hour later I get up bug-eyed from my bed and realize he was channelling Sylar-cakes. And that's where the brain broke down, because the last thing we want it to find points of comparism between Sylar and Locke. Just no.


Links of the Day:
customers_suck brings us The Faubluous Duck Story, by abracadeborah
metaquotes brings us Cutlery and Utensils: A Brief Taxonomic Study of the Evolution of Eusociality in the Kitchen, by agenttrojie


* "Wake Up Dead"**, Veruca Salt
** Which is also, curiously, a song by Megadeth, a song by Arlo Gunthrie, a movie and a common phrase.
*** "I miss my family," which is true.
**** Is there a difference between while and whilst, or can they be used interchangeably?
^ Not, as my last few rereads of this would suggest, ursulav's Ben. Aw, now I can't take crazy Ben seriously! He shares a name with a cat! And jokes about hamsters! (Seriously, I'll never find that joke and it's delivery not funny.)
^^ He was also in the short glimpse I watched of Saw (probably the first one). Boy does Creepy Evil Manipulative Bastard damn well.

Yee-ha! I have a BSc! And I'll try not to think about how useless a thing that is. Here's the summary of the event:

Drove to MTL with parents Thursday morn', saw two white husky-type dogs sitting in driver's and shotgun seats in a truck on the way, and got there late afternoon. We walked about in the Old Port and went for an early diner at a French resto on Rachel. Have confirmed love of creme brule (sorry, totally not going to figure out how to put accents right now). Called K's parents' hotel room to try and set up a time we could all meet up but that didn't happen. Parents and I then went to House of Jazz and agreed that I wasn't insane to rave about the place so much. Didn't have brownie as was stuffed, but had Sex on the Beach (thanks, Jo). Friday morning was a bit nervous, despite walkabout with parents downtown and long chat with K and her beau A in hotel lobby. Scared K recounting the murder, poss. shooting, right on St. Cath. street, albeit in front of the Super Sexe. Saw actual crime scene when walking with parents, and cops who were CSI'ing and closed the whole block off from trafic.

Grad itself was exhausting. Really. Waited in line before procession to the tent for 1 and 1/2 hours (heels not helping comfort) but chatted with my old Org Chem lab partner and some people I recognized from classes. (Including the guy who had an uncanny similarity to DD from high school. Have confirmed that it's just a similarity.) Then procession, speech from chancellor (interesting), prizes to professors, honorary thingies, and another speech by an award receiver (boring). Then the long list of graduates. I was number 340 and that was one of the first ones, so imagine. By the end, could no longer clap or sit up or poss. think. Was melting in seat. Afterwards, took zillion fotos with parents, diploma, hat, etc. with statue, museum or tree as backdrop.

Then jumped into car and drove all the way back to TO, arriving at 12:30 am. Next day wrote ZD exam (10-1pm) despite exhaustion. Think went ok. Wednesday have the spoken part of exam.

In two weeks my TESL course starts, and mom leaves to Spain.

This afternoon hopefully watching SW: Ep 3. Even if it sucks as much as they say, it'll be funny. And I can cure any bad aftertaste with ENoel's BBE.

Am so far behind in the internet it's not even funny. Have so many of my fave sites totally abandoned. Sigh.

I love Today. I want to hug it to pieces. (Well, ok, maybe by others' standards* today wasn't Da Bomb but it rocked my little socks off.)

First off: Body Flow. Yes, it was the same lady (Lia) as last sememster and can I say I adore her? Abs. wonderful instructor. So I thoroughly enjoyed BF today and look forward to more. Mom liked it too but don't think she'll stick to it due to shoulder-problems. (Things with mom are going better; she's not going insane over my not working every second of the day, for one thing. It's nice.)

Then there was ze final completion of CV, cover letter, and applications. And I signed up for my German exam (and had to let go of a large wad of cash, not a good thing) and took out some exercise books.

And the best thing? I actually do get to graduate. Yes! (Well, maybe second to this afternoon's ice cream sunday...)

And I spoke for ages with K, which leaves me gidy with joy.

I think I love the world back.

(Also, everyone else in the house is in bed, so I can happily say "all your electronics are belong to us", except it's just me and I really don't know where that phrase started from...)

* Like when one part of the metro was closed and we all had to double back up and take another line so we could connect to the previous line after the part that was closed, only to have it open right when we got there. Also, the metro really sucks here, including signs, organization, seating arrangements, etc.

( PS )