(f)anachronisms

copinggoggles @ 2012-03-14T22:22:00

2012-03-14T22:25:22Z

OKAY SO JUST IN CASE EVERYONE WASN'T ALREADY AWARE

THERE IS A REALLY FOR REALSIES RELEASE DATE FOR KORRA

AND IT IS SATURDAY 14TH APRIL, 11:00 AM

shaking & crying, etc.

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

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Powering through Fringe S3...

2012-03-05T14:06:05Z

...and I just felt the urge to let the world know that Anna Torv's Leonard Nimoy impression is causing me to lose it in possibly permanently damaging ways.

This show has gone completely bananas, and I love it.

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

Like Leslie Knope, I will not rest until this is a national holiday

2012-02-11T19:22:47Z

Happy Galentine's Day

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

copinggoggles @ 2012-02-10T11:26:00

2012-02-10T11:31:56Z

Happy Galentine's Day

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

this is a PSA

2012-01-27T20:28:46Z

Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope are my life now.

That is all.

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

DreamCatcher - a filtering tool for DW and LJ

2012-01-26T03:26:06Z

I did another thing! For Chrome and Firefox this time.

Good: Via a bit of URL wizardry, both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal allow you to filter entries by multiple tags, and - in communities - by poster. Awesome!

Bad: The only place these functions are noted on either site is in the FAQs, where you have to go and look up the formulae every time you want to use them. Boo!

Solution?(DreamCatcher)
Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

copinggoggles @ 2012-01-24T18:21:00

2012-01-24T18:27:50Z

In ~~non-geeky~~ slightly less geeky news, apologies to everyone I was chatting with last night when I vanished! My internets crapped out, and after several rather cross attempts to reconnect, I instead decided to take it as a sign and went to bed.

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

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LJ Hook for Chrome (sort of) - Dreamwidth compatible

2012-01-24T18:17:05Z

I did a thing!

So, Firefox has an excellent extension called LiveJournal Hook, which adds a right-click menu to the update/comment boxes on LJ, for easy insertion of HTML and site-specific tags. It's compatible with Dreamwidth, and includes the ability to save your own custom bits of text or code to add to the menu.

Chrome, alas, does not have LJ Hook, and there are at present no plans to port it. What Chrome does have is the Insert Text extension, which, similar to LJ Hook, allows you to save custom snippets to a right-click menu and drop them into any text area.

What it also does, is allow you to import pre-configured text snippets.

Take one free afternoon, a cup of common HTML tags, and a liberal dash of LJ & DW-specific markup, mix well, and let set.

(LJ Chook)
Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

my day in haiku

2012-01-04T02:27:14Z

unfucked the bathroom
(though cupboard can wait for now);
one load of laundry

Tumblr-drying thoughts
on 'The Woman' and last words —
still lots to go there

beef, noodles, cashews:
things that wilt symbolically
in the microwave

invited abroad
to reheat for a few weeks,
(wilt, melt, crisp, unwind)

but without wifi,
a room of one's own ( — The Woman),
I'd murder them all

no time for a nap,
laundry's done and so's this post
terpsichore beatnik

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

2012 so far

2012-01-02T18:40:33Z

The Good:

→ Finally finishing unpacking! Look, shut up, I am constitutionally incapable of throwing away useless crap in case I need it some day, so finding space for everything I brought home and chucking out as much as I did is a big achievement! Also, ALL MY BOOKS ARE NOW ON BOOKSHELVES ~~or satisfactory approximations thereof~~. THIS IS A STATE OF AFFAIRS THAT HAS NOT EXISTED FOR SOME YEARS.

→ Somewhat relatedly: packages! Specifically, ones from silveraspen and unravels. Thank you guys so much. I may or may not have gotten a little verklempt in a seasonally-appropriate manner; what is certain is that I am currently keeping my ears warm with a silly hat, and that Full Dark, No Stars has just jumped up to the next spot in my reading list.

→ T-minus 3 days until the premiere of Eternal Law. A genial Good Omens rip-off with Tobias Menzies, Sam West, silly wigs and shitty special effects? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART. I don't know why fandom isn't all over this show - as it is, the entire '#eternal law' tag on Tumblr is basically elb and I screaming joyfully at each other. Get on this, fandom!

The Bad:

→ Finally finishing unpacking. I'm just saying, there's a reason it took me so long. Depressing process, depressing symbolism, depressing drawers full of depressing relics, etc.

→ Family. Never change. Or... do. Yeah.

The Ugly:

→ I am still spitting mad over the Sherlock premiere. Without spoiling anything, it was made all the more bitter by the fact that it was actually amazing!... right up until it plowed head-on into the iceberg of Steven Moffat's misogyny and sank straight to the ocean floor of fail. It's like he and Julian Fellowes had a competition to see who could make the most egregiously offensive holiday special, and oust Ryan Murphy from his throne of prime-time insensitivity. I... I'm so angry, I am mixing metaphors!

I've already spent quite some time ranting about this over on Tumblr (as those of you who follow me are no doubt painfully aware /o\); if I can manage to assemble all my thoughts into a coherent whole, I may post about it here, but, uh. Since I keep devolving into keysmashing and capslock whenever I talk about it, I wouldn't necessarily hold out much hope.

(If you want to talk about it in the comments, though, that is another story altogether. Just saying.)

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

Comment wherever makes you happy!

copinggoggles @ 2011-12-24T05:13:00

2011-12-24T05:24:58Z

SO HEY, YEAH.

HI.

I'm still figuring out filters and shit over here on Dreamwidth, but this seems as good a time as any to resolve to try and post more often. Or at least, you know, attempt to figure out how to divide up my occasional word-vomit between here and Tumblr without making every single person of my acquaintance want to murder me.

ARE YOU ON DREAMWIDTH? TUMBLR?

sophistry
sophistory

Cross-posted from sophistry | comments

copinggoggles @ 2010-12-22T13:23:00

2010-12-22T13:24:03Z

Ninety percent of flights in and out of Dublin airport are cancelled or delayed due to snow. Unlike most of the rest of Europe, East Midlands airport was doing fine - until an unforecast fuckton of snow fell last night, which is still coming down. Ryanair flights are getting cancelled left, right and centre, including one that was supposed to go out to Dublin this morning. I am physically wearing nearly every single piece of clothing I am bringing home in order to be able to also bring (about half of) the books I need to study and people's Christmas presents, and to not get thereby charged £20 for every kilo over the 15kg limit for checked baggage. My cabin baggage weighs 10kg - all books, none leisure.

Scheduled take-off: 4 hours, 15 minutes.

Airport coach departure: 1 hour.

Taxi ETA: 25 minutes.

Let's do this thing.

P.S. I got a First on my Mod I essay. Top 5% of the class, bitches.

copinggoggles @ 2010-12-16T22:44:00

2010-12-16T22:44:52Z

Sooo. Updating fail, much?

Well, okay, not precisely. Those of you who have me friended on Facebook (and who check it with any regularity) will have noticed an uptick of approximately 34958304% in my updates since, oh, the end of September. What can I say; I may have had principles once, but Facebook is how pretty much everyone on the course communicates with each other, and... well, I suppose there are only so many banal updates about lectures and icy weather and the eternal battle for copies of library books that I can make in a given week. Go figure!

Anyway, I'm not even going to try and sum up. Tomorrow is the last day of term, and the past few weeks have been almost ridiculously intense (rants for another time: Collections Trust RAEG, and how very much I would love a consistent class schedule), so everyone is pretty much staggering blindly towards the finish line at this point. However! Good things:

- Today was a field trip to Cambridge with my fellow Digital Media & Curatorship special option-ers and my favouritest favourite professor, whom I am pretty certain subsists on pure enthusiasm and glee. I didn't get to go check out any of the gorgeous college architecture or the like, but that's just because - even though everything between noon and 4pm was optional, to allow us to go exploring - about 90% of us just ended up following Favourite Professor around from museum speaker to museum speaker like a line of adoring, starry-eyed ducklings. Also he handed out juice boxes on the bus ride back. JUICE BOXES. ♥________________♥ so absurdly charmed, I can't even. dsflkjasldkfjalsdf

- Tomorrow, we get to spend the entire afternoon in groups developing final pitches for digital media applications/projects for a local museum. There are three different groups with three different concepts - and since this is for Favourite Professor, everyone is super into it, but also super competitive. EXCITED. (Ours is totally the best. Totally. WE WILL WIN HIS APPROVAL.)

- I get to go home on Wednesday! My own bed! A tv! Christmas tree! Someone to cook my meals and do my laundry for a whole three weeks! Though I will totally attempt a butternut squash pie if I can locate the ingredients/remember how to work our oven. Plan for next year: adopt an American so we have an excuse to celebrate Thanksgiving and make pumpkin pie.

- It was so cold when we trickled off the bus this evening that when I inhaled, my teeth hurt. MY TEETH AREN'T EVEN THAT SENSITIVE. Fortunately, ginger wine exists for just such occasions. Mmmm, spicy warmth in my belly.

copinggoggles @ 2010-11-22T09:25:00

2010-11-22T09:25:51Z

Internet cut out for most of the night, and then a fire drill at 9am on a Monday morning? Seriously, Leicester? Seriously?

copinggoggles @ 2010-11-21T00:19:00

2010-11-21T00:19:43Z

oh my god, how do I even.

- essay got handed in. on time. YAY.

- full week of classes while still basically running on fumes. BOO.

- HP7 Part 1. IT WAS AWESOME. YAY.

- museum society day trip to oxford today, YAY^4509384.

- I spoke to the director of the pitt rivers museum and actually asked questions that didn't sound stupid, triple yay.

- we got off the bus home and tripped and accidentally a pub for five hours and oh my god I am dying

sure as there's carts to horses

2010-11-15T02:49:24Z

Safe and sound at home again,
Let the waters roar, Jack.
Safe and sound at home again,
Let the waters roar, Jack.
Long we've tossed on the rolling main,
Now we're safe ashore, Jack;
Don't forget your old shipmates,
Folly-rolly-rolly-rolly-rye-o!

Or: it's the seventh anniversary of the release of Master & Commander (in some timezones, anyway), I finished my Module 1 essay more than twelve hours before the deadline (quality notwithstanding), and I am slightly more-than-tipsy while watching the greatest (b)romance of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

And I may or may not have an SFF-geek tea-party tomorrow, and a Museum Studies/Archaeology/History Societies mixer on Wednesday.

Life could be worse. Life could definitely be worse.

♥

copinggoggles @ 2010-11-11T12:59:00

2010-11-11T13:00:06Z

HOLY SHIT, I just found out that SIR TERRY MOTHERFUCKING PRATCHETT has joined Trinity as an adjunct Professor of English sdlkfjs;lfja BRB FINDING AN EXCUSE TO RE-ENROL IN THE OLD ALMA MATER

FFFFFFFFUUUUUU-

2010-11-05T15:26:36Z

Queering the Museum: What happens when we stop thinking the world is straight?

Join artist Matt Smith for a guided tour of the exhibition and Richard Sandell, Head of Museum Studies at Leicester University for a talk about museums and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community on [THE SATURDAY JUST BEFORE YOUR MODULE 1 ESSAY DEADLINE, HA HA SUCKER].

>:|

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-31T01:23:00

2010-10-31T01:23:55Z

Things I have learned from my first few weeks flying solo:

1. Getting the skin off a whole chicken is hard. Trackers and videogame cowboys make skinning animals look easy, but that is a LIE. Though in my defense, they likely did not have to worry about trying to cut around all the string so the chicken doesn't just fall apart in their crock pot. Just saying.
2. Finding bits of remaining viscera while doing said skinning is gross.
3. I've now also rummaged around inside uncooked poultry, with spices and sauces and things. Okay, so that's not actually something I've learned, but it is, I feel, still a landmark moment. What can I say, I usually just buy breasts or thighs.
4. Butternut squash is completely ridiculous, and probably contains less calories than it makes you burn trying to slice it.
5. Leeks are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.

More things:

A] I made a Halloween costume! It was awesome. It was also more than a little annoying and uncomfortable to wear, but what can I say. I suffer for my art~. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any photos of it, so I shall just have to wait until someone else uploads some to Facebook.

B] Have I mentioned yet that I somehow managed to land myself on the committee of the Museum Society? It's the kind of thing that will look great on CVs, but sdkfksldfj horrifying. The entire society is run by Museum Studies MA students, of whom 100% are there on a one year program, meaning there is precisely zero administrative continuity, and each successive year is left fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what on earth last year's committee has left them. Why... Anyway, we somehow have actually managed to register 50+ paying members, are having a fund-raising bake sale on Wednesday at which we expect to register more, are finalising the details for a day trip and personalised tour+talk to a museum in Oxford, and are In Talks with at least two possible guest speakers. What is this I don't even.

C] I have thoughts on some things I've seen going around LJ/Facebook/Twitter, mainly concerning the mocking and maligning of All Those Girls who dress up as 'slutty nurse/witch/fairy/cat/mouse/etc.' for Halloween. I doubt I can really articulate them properly, since it's 2am AGAIN HOW DID THIS HAPPEN I AM GOING TO BE AWAKE FOREVERRRR, but mostly it boils down to: not cool. It's the whole social/marketing combo... thing (see what I mean about articulation?) that deserves derision and scorn, not the girls for whom, in the absence of mega budget and/or sewing skillz and/or the time and ability to MacGuyver together household supplies into a costume, 'slutty [noun]' has become more or less the only acceptable way to dress up within their particular age bracket or social group. So... yeah. That's been bothering me.

D] Also bothersome: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I genuinely hated both protagonists, and everything it seems like the movie was trying to sell me. I liked: Knives, Wallace, Stacey, videogame lulz, and Mae Whitman's well-deserved 'bi-furious'...ness? ...ity? whatever. Just, ugh. Nearly everyone in that movie deserved each other.

E] Also also bothersome: the way I have woken up late nearly every morning this week, with my phone clutched in my hand/under my pillow/jamming into my back and no memory whatsoever of getting up to turn off the alarm. Regular sleep schedule, please come back. I swear I'll treat you right this time. :((((

do my thighs look big in this?

2010-10-11T13:07:28Z

Yes.

Yes they do.

And that's okay.

Here's the thing: I'm fat. I didn't really know where to start this post (and I'm not sure yet where I'm going with it), but that seems as good a place as any. For now, at least, and for those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm not going to say how fat - partly due to shame (more on that later), but partly because I don't want to imply that whatever I have to say applies only to one body type or size bracket; that because I am bigger or smaller than you, that you don't understand my problems, or that I can 'get away' with things that you can't, or vice-versa.

At the same time, though, this post is entirely personal. It's not meant to be advice for life, it's not a Unified Theory of Everything (To Do With Being Fat), I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here] and decide to come here to spread the good word. This post is about me, me, me, and if you struggle heroically through the tl;dr all the way to the end, and then decide that I am crazy for thinking XYZ, then you are entitled to your opinion. I'll ask that you kindly refrain from announcing it to the class, but you're entitled to it nonetheless.

So. I'm fat. I've always been overweight; I've lost weight, gained it back, lost it again, wash, rinse, repeat. Recently, I've been exercising a little, and trying to eat better. Partially for health reasons; the uphill trek to class every day has made it very, very clear how hilariously unfit I am, and all that extra energy and alertness that people talk about sounds pretty sweet as well. But if I said that any concomitant weight loss wouldn't matter to me, or that I wouldn't be pleased, I'd be lying.

Also recently - or at least, within the last six to eight months or so - I've been finding myself shopping more than usual. Not just clothes, but make-up too, and accessories. Now, I've always hated shopping. The loud shops, the stuffy changing rooms, the sore feet, the judgmental looks (real or imagined) from sales assistants, the hot sense of shame as I realise once again that such-and-such shop doesn't carry my size/the things that are available in my size were clearly modeled after tents/I will never find anything that will make me look thin, the weary despair of coming home having accomplished precisely nothing except making myself depressed. It's like everything about shopping was invented specifically to torment me and crush my spirit beneath its strappy little kitten heels. But necessity is the great motivator, and suddenly I was visiting friends abroad again and getting ready to head off to grad school, and because I'd been working and because I hated shopping so goddamn much, I hadn't bought anything except a few business-casual office-y items and some replacement jeans in quite literally years. Everything was old and saggy, or no longer fit, or was embarrassingly out of fashion.

So, I did what any self-respecting geek in a time of crisis would do.

I turned to the internet for help.

Sick of the neverending cycle of demoralisation and futility that was trying to shop, I started googling things like 'plus size fashion' in the hopes of coming up with tips, tricks, favoured brands - anything to make the process a little more painless. I was expecting the usual, the same stuff we've all been hearing since forever. You know: fatties of the world, you must wear flared or bootcut jeans, wear vertical stripes but never horizontal, wear black but never white, nip in at the waist or under the bust, wherever is slimmest, avoid clingy fabrics, hide bellies with billowy shirts, hide flabby arms with cardigans or shrugs, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Hide your bumps and lumps. Pick your least shameful attributes, and play to them. Forget what is or isn't in fashion; the most you can hope to do is try to adapt whatever is trendy to these fat-girl commandments.

Instead, I found Young, Fat, & Fabulous. And then I found Pocket Rocket. And then I found Saks in the City (and developed a major girl-crush, but that's beside the point). My mind was blown. I'd been aware of the Fat Acceptance movement, and sort of vaguely considered myself one of their number, in principle if not in practice. Blah blah big is beautiful, blah blah I am more than my looks, blah blah. Easy to read; not so easy to apply to oneself. But holy shit. I mean, holy shit! Here were girls - big girls, fat girls - taking everything I thought I knew and blowing it to smithereens with the sheer, concentrated force of their fierceness. I read feverishly through their archives (and their blogrolls, and then the blogrolls on those blogs, and so on and so forth), and then I went shopping.

I didn't buy much, but it was more than I'd come home with in a very long time.

So that became my routine. Whenever there was shopping to be done, I would psych myself up by spending a few hours reading fatshionista blogs, or looking at Outfit Of The Day posts on fatshionista. Whenever I got dispirited or depressed, I would think to myself: self, what would Gabi Gregg do? would she give up and get the bus back home empty-handed? like hell she would!. And it helped. I still stuck to 'safe' clothing, to my cardigans and bootcut jeans, and the shops still didn't carry much in the way of my size. I wasn't magically cured of my self-loathing or embarrassment. Hell, even my feet still got sore. But it helped.

And somewhere along the way, I realised: I love fashion. I love pretty clothes. I spent most of my teenagerhood veering between goth-lite (everything in black!) and simply determinedly Not Caring What People Thought^TM, because that was by far easier and less painful than trying to dress like everybody else. But there you have it. It took 23 years and change to realise it, but I really, really like clothes. I like shoes (SHOES!). I like putting on make-up. The only problem was, I was still fat. These things were Not For Me. Sure, Gabi and Lauren and Sakina and all the other amazing women in the fashion circles of the fatosphere could do it, and they were all capable of looking chic and fashionable and put-together and all-around amazing and still fat, but that was them. They were them, and I was me, and I would never be able to carry anything off, because for me to look good, I would have to be thin. And clothes couldn't make me look thin.

And - okay, I know I said that I didn't wake up one morning with a revelation from [insert deity here], but I lied. I know this is deeper than that, and I know the unconscious processes leading up to this were long and complicated, and I know I've read hundreds of blog posts saying the exact same thing, but that's really what it felt like. Because one morning, I did wake up and realise: clothes can't make me look thin.

I am fat.

And clothes can't make me look thin.

And it was one of the most liberating moments I've had in a long, long time. All that advice, all those fat-girl 'rules' about colour and pattern and shape were bullshit, because clothes couldn't make me look thin. I can wear all the flared or bootcut jeans I want in an effort to balance out my thunder thighs, but they will still be thunder thighs. When I look at myself in the mirror in my bootcut jeans, I don't suddenly see a thin girl, or even one with slimmer thighs. All I see is a fat girl wearing unfashionable jeans, trying to hide that she is fat the way everything she's ever read or seen on TV has taught her to.

And I was tired of it.

When someone is pulling a con, or trying to blag their way in somewhere, the advice is always: walk in like you own the place. Behave like you belong there, and that's what people will see; someone who belongs there. It's like that, except in reverse. I was tired of dressing like I was ashamed of my body, and trying to hide it away - because then all I or anybody else could see was something shameful, and worthy of hiding.

So I said, "Fuck it," and I went out and bought some skinny jeans.

And a bunch of cute tops and t-shirts, and a leather jacket, and a gilet, and some new shoes, but you know. We're going for the symbolism thing, here.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that; for one thing, most shops still don't cater to my size, so it took a bit of hunting to find jeans that a) fit, b) fit properly, and c) were comfortable. And of course, every time I found a pair that were Just Right (Dorothy Perkins ♥), they turned out to be the last pair of that size in that range in the entire shop (Dorothy Perkins >:|). Argh! I wound up with four pairs, in the end, some of which I admit I settled on for lack of slightly better options (hey, I was about to leave for grad school, cut me some slack). And you know what? They look great. I look great. I (mostly) don't have to keep hiking them up, like my stupid bootcut jeans that never really fit me properly anyway. There's actually a point to owning and wearing cute ankle-boots now, because I can tuck the ends of my jeans in! I look at me and I see someone who is fat-but-fashionable, not fat-and-hiding-it. There's a Dorothy Perkins here in Leicester, so when the ones I have get too worn or saggy, I can go and buy more! Because shopping isn't quite as soul-destroying as it was before.

Because clothes can't make me look thin.

Is it a work-in-progress? Hell yes. Can I go out without a jacket, or wear short sleeves? Not on your life. Am I paranoid about camel-toe? You betcha. Does part of me still think I would be happier if I were thinner, if I could wear more straight sizes, if people saw me as 'normal'; do I still have moments when I catch sight of myself in the mirror and cringe, or whole days when I hate everything about the way I look? Well, yes. I'm only human. One day, I want to look at myself and see fat-and-fashionable, not fat-but-fashionable. And I'm not there yet.

But I'm tired of being ashamed. And that's a start.

A NOTE: I'm running off to class, but I'm going to come back later and edit this with links to more blogs, to Vogue Curvy, to fat-friendly designers I like, and so forth. But I won't be back for a while, and I am not screening comments, so be aware: the comments to this post are a safe space. I know the post itself is kind of rambly and incoherent and that this is an incredibly complex and layered subject, and I appreciate that difficult topics or disagreements may arise in discussion. But keep it respectful. Body policing and concern trolling will not be tolerated.

Or, you know. If you just want to squee about shoes with me, that's okay too. SHOES!

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-10T20:53:00

2010-10-10T19:54:41Z

I made cake! And jambalaya. And chicken pineapple teriyaki. And cola pot roast (om nom red meat, we needs the iron, precious). And people over here keep calling me/each other 'my love' (trufax exchange: "Table for two, please." / "Brilliant. Sit yourself down here, my love - the specials today are..."), and it is ADORABLE, and I am pretty sure I am overcome by an embarrassingly touristy *_* expression every time it happens. Also, I can already hear myself starting to ape the Midlands accent. I am in for a world of mockery when I go home.

My mum called me on Friday night at 2 am (don't ask), and then again at like 10am on Saturday morning (YOU CALLED ME AT 2AM, OF COURSE I AM STILL ASLEEP MUM), and then tonight when I was on the verge of collapse from exhaustion, she waited until half an hour past our designated Call Time to phone.

Our first all-day museum study trip is on Thursday; we give group presentations on said trip in front of the class on Friday; our first essay is due in on Monday.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

the end

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-06T20:08:00

2010-10-06T19:09:31Z

Tomorrow (for my 9am lecture), everyone in my tutorial group has to bring in an object which they feel tells a story about themselves. Since my room is full of SFF/Patrick O'Brian/zombie books and nerdy posters, and I don't want to be That Person, I have instead tentatively settled on my creepy red-stained rubber gloves - from when I spray-painted a pair of canvases to mount said nerdy posters on, last week. If nothing else, I can at least subtly highlight how I totally understand how the display and spatial context of a given object can make all the difference in the world to the audience. Or... something.

Oh well. At least I managed to make it all the way to postgrad level before having to do a Show And Tell.

ETA: The lecture is two hours on intangible culture, memory, and oral history, in case you were wondering. It is very srs bsns indeed.

¬_¬

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-05T00:01:00

2010-10-04T23:02:00Z

After:

- sweating all over the registration room, ew,
- some soup,
- a two-hour induction,
- a two-hour lecture-workshoppy-game-thing,
- and free departmental wine,

I wandered off with a few of the people I ended up sitting beside/workshopping with to find some precious solid food.

We ended up sitting in a bar-staurant for four and a half hours talking about AtLA, conventions, cosplay, Marvel vs. DC, comic book movie adaptations, Christopher Nolan, Disney princesses, Deadwood, Sherlock, Hayao Miyazaki, the 90s Batman cartoon, zombie movies, True Blood, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Day 1, Week 1: awesome.

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-04T02:32:00

2010-10-04T01:33:40Z

I did not take any photos of my culinary endeavours tonight (I actually went back to my room to grab my camera, and forgot that the battery was sitting in the charger; good job, self), BUT IT LOOKED DELICIOUS. Juicy stir-fried meat, colourful vegetables - so many vegetables - and yummy, toasty rice. Idk, my bff rice cooker? It also tasted delicious (the dinner, not the rice cooker), although unfortunately something did not quite sit right with my stomach. Nothing terrible, just a slight feeling of oog an hour or two later and some minor rumblings, but still. I suspect it may have been the basil, and because I intend to be scientific about this shit, I am going to replicate the meal tomorrow night without the basil to find out. I will be sad if it was, though. Basil. :((((

On the subject of food, some people were curious about these, which, translated from my nonsensical quasi-mathematical equations, are actually Oreo truffles. Extremely scientific recipe as follows:

3 x packet of Oreos
3 x 100g milk chocolate bar
1 x white chocolate bar
1 x 250g mascarpone (or cream cheese of your choice)

1] Reduce Oreos to tasty brown dust in blender. This gets messy.

2] Plop in about 2/3rds of the tub of cream cheese, and mix it with the Oreo dust until you have one big turd-like lump of brown goo. You'll try to do this with a fork or whatever, but trust me, it's easier with your hands. Also? Messy.

3] Get baking tray. Feel free to line it with parchment paper, but I just used one of those foil trays, so... whatever. Using a teaspoon, your hands, a melon baller, or whatever works best for you, turn your one big lump of brown goo into lots of little balls of brown goo. And yes, if anyone walks in, it will look even more like you are playing with poop. Them's the breaks.

4] Break your chocolate bars into a bowl, and pop it into the microwave. Heat in short bursts (like, 20 seconds or so), poking at it frequently with a wooden spoon to make sure it hasn't suddenly metamorphosed into some crusty, immovable, lava-like substance that will never, ever, ever come off your bowl. When this happens, it happens really quickly (and I speak from experience), so be careful.

5] When your chocolate is nice and gooey/runny, coat your Oreo-cheese poop balls in it while making embarrassing "hot! hot! hot!" noises, and pop them back on the tray. There should be juuuust enough chocolate to do them all, but if you'd rather just dunk all of them into a steamy hot chocolate bath, then... just get more chocolate.

6] Melt white chocolate as above, and using a fork, drizzle it over the nascent truffles. This is probably the most important step, as it makes them look actually edible - or even, gasp, appetising - instead of... well. What they look like before this step.

7] Refrigerate until hard (about 45 minutes).

NB: Make your truffles smaller than the ones in my picture, because they are very, very rich, and very, very heavy. Eat two of mine, and you're pretty much done. I mean, I don't know what else I was expecting, since they're made of pureed Oreos and a cheese that is like 40% fat, but there you go.

In other news, I have class tomorrow,¹ and can't sleep. Whoops. Instead, I am back to obsessively contemplating my dorm décor. I am very happy with it at the moment; as I believe I mentioned, it is in large part very froofy and girly, but currently on the walls are this, this (both mounted on cunningly-coordinated canvas panels, so I can switch the rest of the BSG set in and out at will and have them all still match), a framed Good Omens riff on the Keep Calm posters, and, er, a few years' worth of Dragon*Con badges. In reserve: my AtLA print, a bunch of mumblemumbleautographsmumble, and all the Imaginism Studios (+ others) free art cards from D*C, a full set of badass Rome promo postcards, the rest of those BSG propaganda posters, a huge-ass The Girl Who Leapt Through Time poster, etc. And I want to put them all up, but I just don't have roooooom. Or frames. Or time to find frames. *angsts*

¹Maybe. I have departmental registration, at least, which is when I assume I will finally get handed some kind of timetable along with my library card, etc. But I theoretically have class tomorrow, is the point.

copinggoggles @ 2010-10-02T22:51:00

2010-10-02T21:52:39Z

Pop quiz!

What did Sophie spend her Saturday doing?

A) Spending more time indulging her inner decorating/DIY freak and getting her dorm room ~just so~.

B) Taking advantage of one of the only crisp, sunny, non-pissing-rain days this week to further explore the city that will be her home for the next year.

C) Doing some reading for class, which starts on Monday.

D) Putting in a little more prep time in the kitchen so as not to have to worry her pretty little head about the coming (also hectic) week's dinners.

E) Grabbing some well-deserved down-time and catching up on leisure reading and/or tv shows.

F) Spending some quality bonding time with the flatmates.

If you picked G) Spending the entire day fighting the first computer virus she has picked up in years, with only partial success, you are correct! Unfortunately, there are no prizes for our lucky winners this week, because AGLKSKDFIVMCMREIOJFHSLSL;NHFSLKDJFLAS.

On the bright side, I have not yet gotten food poisoning from My Very First Slow-Cooked Whole Chicken, and the university's new second-hand textbook shop may or may not be opening tomorrow. I will have to see if I can make it down in between all the other shit I didn't get to do today, because insider information~ (a.k.a. the guy I talked to at the Student Services Fair) says there may be some relevant Museum Studies textbooks lurking on the shelves. Silver lining, inner peace, etc.