Too much darkness?

Hey!

I hope everybody had a great new year so far!

It's so unbelievable that it's already 2008. Partying on New Year's Eve wasn't too bad, although we didn't get to see any of the beautiful fireworks because it was so foggy. I love the fireworks and I see them every year, I missed that. Still, an evening spent with three of the people I love most in this world, and that was awesome.

All in all, I am glad that the holiday season is finally over. As much as I secretly like Christmas, there are the same troubles over it every year, the same tensions, the same bickering, and it takes only hours to get more than enough of that.
Now the deadlines are looming closer, though, and that is not as awesome.
Ah well.

Did you make any resolutions?

My only resolutions this year involve doing more work for my courses (... as always) and learning more poetry by heart. Since I haven't done that much so far and haven't learnt a single poem by heart I think I see how that'll work out. What I did do is write some rather bad poems. Maybe that counts.

Off to levelling my wee druid writing my English Language essay.

It's the Dark Night in one of my favourite café/bar type things, which means there will be lots of kinky people and Goths about. Somehow I never managed to go before, I keep missing it as it's always the last Saturday of the month, and somehow I only ever realise that it was the last Saturday of the month the day later. Now that my fiancée isn't here I'm not really that thrilled about it anymore, but I'm still looking forward to it.

And I wish I had a corset.

There are always people in gorgeous corsets at the place, and I don't have one. I wonder if it's possible to make one myself. I've had instructions on how to make your own corset floating about on my harddrive for ages, but since I am really bad at sewing, I've never been daring enough to make a corset - me, whose greatest achievement in the sewing department was a Christmas stocking I made for my mum consisting of two bits of sock-shaped red felt I sewed together with a darning needle when I was six.

Hopefully the crafty girl who does her own will be there tonight, she might give me tips.

My brain feels like a sponge. Work was great today, the kids were nice, but with all the work on the paper yesterday, the preparation for the class today, and the organising for the paper due on Sunday yesterday, I somehow can't get this spongy mass in my head up to scratch and ready to work some more today. I'll have to, though, there are still two pages to go in that one paper I'm writing, and yet more in the other two due by the middle of October.

I'll never do group project papers again if I can avoid it, I swear. The waiting around for the group members and that is just SO annoying!

I despise the Oktoberfest and anything where large amounts of alcohol are imbibed in real life, but the WoW version rocks.
Has anyone else done the Wolpertinger quest?

I think the only thing quite as cute is the rat my brother has which can feign death.
I also loved the pink Elekks! Can't wait to do more fun quests and get enough tickets to buy my hunter a pink hat and a dress. Or that ram.
That'd be cool.

Snagged from fidrich. Ask me, ask me!

Name a character (or person) and I'll tell you three (or more) facts about them from my own personal pseudo-canon.

I can't wait to impart those pearls of wisdom. I have so much to share.

Meme time. Snagged this from puella_nerdii.

1. Pick the month of your birth.
2. Bold the 5-10 things that most apply to you
3. Strike out everything that doesn't apply to you.
4. Place the list of all the months under a cut
5. Tag 6 people from your friends list to do the same

Has a lot of ideas. Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique* and brilliant. Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance. Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted. If there is a will, there is a way. Determined. Never give up. Hardly becomes angry unless provoked. Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited. Well-built and tough. Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets. Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable.

* Unique! Again! I know it's très chique at the moment, but it has no content. Everyone is "unique". Why do people keep using it to describe themselves? It's great on all the RP forums I'm on. "Please describe your character." - "Oh, she's unique."


Tagging all who want to be tagged!

I feel superior. Two reasons.

Reason #1
Teaching went well this week, although one of the kids in a bout of frustration said that she "hates" me when she entered the room, completely demotivated. That's of course not really heartening, but I managed to cheer her up by allowing them to print their graphics at the end of the lesson.
The programme we are covering is fairly complex even for regular users, for a few six formers with learning disabilities, some of whom have never worked with computers before, it's close to being impossible and we have to take tiny baby steps. I explain most things more than four times, and even though discipline is not a problem (... anymore), it's often difficult to get all of them to listen when I do explain, and thus difficult to get the things I do explain across.
I notice that even though they are usually very happy with the results, especially those new to working with computers give up very easily and are very easily frustrated. Motivation is one of the main challenges, but at the same time I feel that of the classes I am teaching this one is probably the one that can make the most difference. These kids are all exceedingly vulnerable not only because of their socio-economic environment and very different backgrounds, but also because of their learning disabilities, reduced attention span and reading disabilities.
It is a challenge, but it is also a dream job that I'd continue even if I was not paid for it. These teenagers could do with the feeling that they have accomplished something, and I feel that creating pretty graphics is one of the things with which that goal is reached most easily. I have already told them to upload their results on Photobucket, now I only have to find a blog that the school's firewall does not block so they can have their gallery all of their own.

This way, they can showcase their results online, at least, and those who have internet at home (all but one) can show them to their parents at home, or to their friends on the computers in their classrooms. I was also thinking of talking to the site admin of the school's website about adding a gallery for future art projects of a similar nature, there are a lot of freeware galleries out there, it should not be a problem.

Reason #2
My Blood elf hunter has hit L20. I thought I'd never make it, but a little help from other, more experienced players and my brother have made it easier than it seemed at first. Not that that level is so spectacular, especially considering that most other people in my guild have are much, much advanced than me (the only exception being our guild leader), and yet I am exceedingly proud of myself.

No, dear fellow WoW players,

blood elves are not "gay because they just look so effeminate". Not all gays are effeminate and not all effeminate men are gay.

Also, you little teenage idiots, stop using "homo" as a swearword. Not funny. Don't be surprised at me flaring up at you the way I did if you keep being such idiots. I'm not going that kind of behaviour in my guild, full stop.

Regards,
Me.

Stolen from headgirl and lemon.


Hm, "favourite moments" were really hard to find.

What's your favourite season?

Mine is autumn. There is no season which I love as much, I think the only season which makes me feel as good and as alive is early spring.
Of course, according to the plants, it has been autumn over here since the middle of august, but now the leaves have started falling in earnest, and only yesterday my fiancée has been hit on the head by a chestnut. The squirrels have started raiding our hazel tree, and the oaks are also becoming dangerous when I head home form the bus stop every day.

The winds are becoming stronger, and soon the weather will become disgusting and it will become difficult for me to motivate myself to get up and traipse across the cold tiles towards the shower, but at least there will be mushrooms, and falling red wine leaves, and early frost on the webs of the spiders, and the air will smell of pretty decay, and I will start getting sentimental and read any poem by the romanticists on autumn I can find with both feet in warm, woolly socks.
Yes.

Stumbled upon this icon and sniggered.

Why is everything better in Canada? The landscape, language education, civil rights?

Of course, the Professor teaching language education would have an answer to that - it's the bilingualism. Being bilingual makes you bright, happy and open-minded, especially if it's on an administrative level. I have not found any fault with that, so far. I wish I could visit some day, but right now I have to save all my money for pretty furniture for decorating.

And I need to take back my DS9 DVDs. I remember why I love Odo so much.

My fiancée has left to visit her parents for the week, which leaves me in the unfortunate position that I have time enough to work and no excuse not to do as little as possible only. Those papers will be finished and handed in this week, whether they want it or not. I can't wait to be care- and paper-free again, although it probably will not help as the next semester is about to begin, too, and then, there will be more papers again.

My final semester. I am really not looking forward to that at all. The thought of revising all the things I learned over the years is not in the least appealing, especially since due to my year abroad I've forgotten some of the stuff I was supposed to learn. Since our university and the tertiary education system also do nothing to support the students during their final phase of their course, I'm once more at the mercy of my mostly lazy and uncaring fellow-students who went for literature because they like reading. Unfortunately, most of them do not even like reading literature. I really need more study buddies - most of the ones I do have are not studying my subject, unfortunately.

We've taken a break from re-decorating our new flat and I spent a quiet weekend at home with my fiancée. The flat is white now, and we're waiting for paint and varnish to dry before moving in my things and adding finishing touches by throwing out one of the floors and adding curtains.

We were going to go out this evening, but somehow I can't seem to drag myself from the couch to actually go and do so. I feel as though there were leaden weights attached to my limbs. I am glad I am not an interior designer, I am not cut out for painting and re-decorating every day of the week. Everything nice we could do seems like too much of an effort, and after the last week all I want is peace and quiet and time for myself, and preferably a book. I need to work on my course material, too, and that's difficult as it is with my fiancée around. When she is there, I want to spend whatever time I have with her rather than anything else, of course, and thus it becomes difficult to sit down at my desk in another room to work or concentrate.

Yesterday, I have told a very old friend of both of us that we are engaged. I meant to tell her much, much earlier, but somehow, I never got round to it. I did now, and it was great to hear how happy she was for us. I have awesome friends. Now for some awesome old DS9 episodes.

I grew up with Star Trek. I have seen every single episode of every single season of every single series at least twice, in most cases, more often. I only stopped watching when they released the new series because it was awful. And because I no longer can get past all the mind- and careless ethnocentricisms and the gender stereotyping and the terrible heteronormativity of it all. Still, you never betray the heroes of your childhood, and I stayed a trekkie, I had been one since before I knew that there was a term for it.

I loved and love the Star Trek universe. I loved the atmosphere, treknobabble, the characters, the complicated and dangerous situations the characters of those ships encountered. I loved the Starfleet culture, I loved that too smooth and too clean and too beautiful Utopia. Of course I knew that I would never have joined Starfleet if I was living in that world, but I would have loved to roam those stars as a biologist or a linguist, forever collecting data on those strange and wonderful planets. I would have been absolutely content if someone handed me a tricorder and sent me to walk among the countless new life-forms on those other planets. I would have loved to be a teacher, or, of course, a diplomat. I would have wanted to be more open to the customs of other peoples on other planets than the characters were, who amble blindly even through the various terrestrial cultures in unbelievable ignorance. I would have wanted to learn how to speak all those alien languages and compare their structure to the terrestrial varieties to find out if language is indeed universal. I would have loved to become an anthropologist and study all those different cultures on all those planets. I never doubted I would be happy in the Star Trek universe.

I only realised a while ago that in that perfect world, there is no room for the likes of me. In that perfect, smooth world of the twenty-fourth century, I apparently would not even exist. Lesbians do not belong into that utopia, apparently, they are something that will be extinct four hundred years from now. We do not belong there. Everyone else does, but we do not. This world is perfect, after all, and in a perfect world, everything has to adhere to the standard norms of perfection.
It was hard to find out that while I have never and will never betray the heroes of my childhood they have been betraying me all along.

Tweak is right.

After all - maybe he was able to seal the wounds with whatever he did with his wand, as he can only have died of blood loss as snakes of that size are never poisonous. Also, there was never a portrait of Snape in the Headmaster's office, and it usually appears right after the person has died - at least it did in Dumbledore's case. And nobody ever checked if Snape was really dead, Harry just went away and left the body lying there.

Maybe someone came in and found Snape.
Maybe they brought him to the hospital just in time.

Yeah. That makes so much sense.

I've just been called a "lezzy slut" by one of my brother's best friends whom I always really liked.

I guess he thought this kind of machismo is cool, especially in front of his teenage friends . Calling someone a "slut" is not cool, and although it is maybe not even worth it, I am furious. I can't wait to talk to him in person to ask him what he was thinking. He is going to be here tomorrow, and I'll make sure I run into him.

I was so enraged that I referred to him as "idiot het", even though it is the stupidest thing to do to retort to an idiot insult with an even more idiotic reply, but being referred to and identified as my sexuality in such an offensive way got to me more than I would have thought. Especially since it was a boy I like. Well, used to really like before he randomly insulted me. His sisters are lesbians, too, what was he thinking?

He also loudly wondered whether I was officially "out" in front of my brother and remarked that "his sisters are at least open about it". Well, yes, of course my brother knows? Of course? Not that it is any of his business? My brother was one of the first people I told, and I really don't get what I had I really don't get what went wrong in that brain.

I'm upset. What a waste of time, what an idiot!

Another boring WoW related entry, feel free to skip.

My experiment seems to be quite fruitful. I was going to test if I could get addicted to WoW, and it seems to be working, although it's still not much different from an initial infatuation with any other video game with pretty graphics and blue trees. I think I'll gladly walk around in anything that has blue and purple forests, just like I will watch any mindless horror movie with a blue cover.

My brother recommended a quest I should do - the only trouble being that it's somewhere on the Southern half of the Eastern Kingdom (I'm still on bloody Bloodmyst Isle), I think it was on the western shores of Dun Morogh. It's a mystery to me how I'm supposed to ever get there without being eaten, and it'll also take ages to even get there. Well, at least I can get back there via hearthstone.

I guess that's what a lot of the surprising amount of L14 gnomes and dwarves have done who quest on Bloodmyst isle. Apparently the pickings are very good. Huh. I also met two guilds who are into RPGing, but somehow, after reading something about the back story of my race, I'm not really interested anymore, as it's really... crap.

Anyway. Why can't L16 characters buy epic flying mounts? And why are the things g100?

All the walking really ticks me off. Not that I mind walking around in lush greenery, but all the walking around in the same patch of green over and over and over again is getting on my nerves.

Hero worship is the most effective way to display vast amounts of an insufferable stupidity that, in my eyes, should be punished.

I really, honestly, for the life of me, do not understand people who will worship a person or character because of something they did. I can understand how they can admire the act itself, but worshipping or admiring a person is just stupid. Especially if it is a flat, two-dimensional, empty hero character, the sort you get in every bloody Fantasy story. Being fooled by this standard catalogue of hero traits is stupid and gullible.

How can someone argue that standard type hero characters are better than other characters just because they had perfection constructed into them like all hero characters? They are helped by convenient friends who are much more powerful than they are, they fail without those. They are often ineffective in their strength and aggravating in their weakness.

Who would have thought that my brother, my little brother, the mightly Gnomish mage Elregon, Alliance FTW, elves-suck player is playing a L19 Blood elf paladin?

And he is the one who keeps going on about their crappiness, the crappiness of paladins, the crappiness of the race, the crappiness of the skills, and the crappiness of the Horde in general (except for the Undead, which he loves)? I must say that I was rather amused. Logged on to his account to have a look at her and talked to some of his friends who of course thought that it was him, not me. I was nice and told them it was me, though. Whenever we talk about the race he launches into this great big explanation of why Blood elves are just the worst, most despicable race EVER and no self-respecting person on the face of the earth would ever play them.

He is a great little brother.

EDIT: For one reason I really envy the Blood elf characters, they can have better pets. I mean, not that I mind our great blue moths, but these things are just so much cooler:



They look great when they move.

Man, this game really transforms me into an unusually girlish state. In any other game I'd be playing a male, and I am much better at RPGing men than I am at women - but in WoW, I am much more interested in the scenic purple scenery than in the other users. There are very nice users about, but none of the users really RPG, and I don't think there'll be any opportunity to RPG in the near future, especially not with a Draenei char. I created with my very fragmentary knowledge of the world which comes from my PvP, non-RPG oriented brother. Well. I daresay anyone who was even remotely interested in the back story of the world facepalmed considerably upon hearing about the new race and their back story. I know I would have.

EDIT II: Hm. Somehow, I don't really get Blizzards strategy. After all, waiting for The Burning Crusade seemed worthwhile. It was a long wait, and it offered not only Outland, but also two more races and various other benefits. What does the Wrath of the Lich King have to offer? New hairstyles! I mean, it's been about time, too, but I doubt that that addition was made after careful evaluation of their market research.

Hm. I've surprisingly been invited to a theme party, but after last week I think I have deserved a downtime more than anything.

I was looking forward to reading a non-work related book and plodding down my warrior's path a little more until I've reached the next level. A level a day is my current way to keep any impending WoW addiction in check, it means an hour of gaming per day max, and that's a good thing for a girl whose essays are due by the end of the holidays and who wants to impress with very good work. Who will, in fact, not be content with anything less.

So, a little downtime and some work or fretting what to wear?

Damn, and I was so looking forward to spending some more time with my pc. Still, I'll be meeting nice people, that's always good, too.