☾ → Let's be 1905 but not 1917

dr_ghost — Sat, 25 Jun 2016 13:13:21 GMT

I'm posting for record more than anything else these days, because the way I use journaling sites has altered drastically over the last five years or so, but I'm sort of returning to a point of reflection in a way I did several years back the morning after being kettled for the first time in White Hall during the 2011 student demos.

I've been anxious about this vote. Where I work, where I live, I wasn't scared: no-one I'd spoken to were voting Out. Not even my "liberal" conservative parents were voting Out (though I'm convinced the only reason they voted Remain was because of their property in Spain, which has been worth very little virtually since they invested in it almost 15 years ago.) I was definitely among friends--children of immigrants, partners of expats, people who felt European. But I'd said on several occasions, "I'm not worried about the London vote."

London was a clear Remain area to me. Sure, you'd get some foolish spatterings of disenfranchised workers who were being legitimately rammed by the state of the world and would rather blame it on the Polish workers than look closer to home for who was responsible, but I was secure in London and scared of the rest of the world.

I was scared of boroughs like the ones that house my hometown, who voted 63.16% Leave, that are far from urban spaces and multicultural communities. I was scared of the men and women who my dad drinks with down the pub, who are scared of Sharia law and have never met a muslim in their life, let alone a British-born muslim. I was nervous of the communities where the government target young men and women whose education and work prospects are forfeit and instead recruit them into the army with nationalist sentiments polished up to sound like protection.

I voted on the way to work. I got up, left the house around 7:45am, went to the local school, saw a pug, voted, and on the way out heard a couple chatting where one said "Let's just say my voice will... REMAIN a secret," and then I got my train. It was pouring rain all day. I knew people were finding it hard to get into work and to polling stations. I got the last train before the hour-long delays and cancellations hit. I saw a couple of Remain folks handing out stickers and I made literal grabby hands for one. I wore it all day at work. No-one commented on it.

I chatted to my boss, who was sad because his mother had disappointed him for the first time in nearly 30 years. My boss' family on his grand mother's side is Italian, his grandmother slaved over textiles when she moved to the UK over 50 years ago. His father still has an Italian passport. My manager's mother told him on the phone a few days before the referendum, that she didn't want to discuss politics and that they "should LEAVE it at that." My manager said he was convinced, like so many others, by the claim that money that would otherwise go to the EU would be ploughed back into the NHS, which is the service his mother works for. He believes she voted because she wanted to see the NHS restored to what it was 30 or 40 years ago.

I got a lift home with a coworker that night through the torrential rain, went food shopping in my work clothes still wearing my Remain sticker. No-one said a word and I kept thinking someone would because something in the air still felt very tense.

In the weeks building up, we'd have European students and parents asking what will happen if Britain leaves the EU. We said we didn't know, that the fees won't change immediately either way, and we would do our best to make sure that didn't happen.

I was confident in London, but in my bones I felt like we'd be leaving, because despite what people around me in the capital were saying, every media outsource was blaring LEAVE. I resigned myself to the thought this would happen, or that the outcome we got would be these numbers, but the other way around--a narrow margin for Remain, like Scotland. The final pollsters put Remain ahead 6 points. I was nervous, but I figured, by the skin of our teeth, it'd be okay.

I woke up at 4:30am yesterday morning--our dehumidifier was screaming because it was full. That was enough to make me check the results on my phone, and at 5am, after a lot of frantic scrolling and refreshing I said "52% Out. Jesus fuck." on plurk.

And as more results came in and closed the margin that Remain had to rush forward and block Leave, the worse it got. Skyler woke up at about 5:30am, rolled over, stretched, said good morning, then asked how it was going. When I told him, he just said "...fuck." We watched the value of the pound plummet. 10 years ago, I never dreamt I'd give a thundering fuck about the value of the pound, let alone watch its movement closely.

I put on the shirt we bought at Tokyo Pride a couple of years ago. I don't usually wear t-shirts to work, but it was the Friday before Pride, and went to work. I normally play pointless moe anime girl rhythm games on my phone on the train into work and make my arms rigid so the business man who invariably sits down beside me doesn't take up more space than he needs because I'm a smaller guy than he is--I keep my legs firm and my elbows out because he's got the aisle anyway and if he needs to air his nuts in his suit pants then he's got the whole gangway to do it and can damn well leave me to punch notes of high-pitched candy J-pop songs on my phone in peace, then feel like a momentary failure at life when I miss a note off the Full Combo.

I didn't play games on my phone during that commute--I was too busy reading the updates.

I posted on Facebook more times yesterday than I have in six months. I noted that a margin of difference between Leave and Remain was about 1 million votes and how I totally felt like punching about a million people. A coworker said "I'd better stay out of the Student Centre [where I work] today then" and then on his own timeline said he was pleased with the result, but wondered, as if he'd been asked a harmless riddle, how leaving the EU would effect European students who get Disabled Living Allowance. He works in our office that helps disabled students get to grips with equipment to help them access education to the fullest. A friend of his said "I am shocked that you are pleased with this result being in your educational role!" I Liked that comment, and didn't respond to any of his.

When I went into work my favourite co-worker, born in Canada, raised as much over there as here and is much British as she is Canadian, stepped around the corner of the office, saw me, and immediately run over to hug me as she burst into tears. I told her hugs would be on tap that day, that she could have as much time as she needed, whenever she needed, however she needed, to be sad. I decided I wasn't going to cry and instead be whatever him of support my coworkers, my friends, needed me to be.

I hugged my manager when he came in. We agreed not to talk about it, because he was clearly raw on so many levels. Of course, we talked about it all at length. And felt very raw about it.

I refreshed various media outlets while on the desk, saw the final count come in, saw Cameron announce he was stepping down as PM, and I began to feel the numbness become anger. I didn't want it to become despair. I juggled as many tasks as I could at work to keep my mind busy--dealt with two difficult students, chased two on-going voice queries, and answered e-mails in a kind of frenzy to leave no space in my brain.

I read about 16 and 17 year olds who were protesting the vote in Downing Street, saying they had never been given a voice. I believe strongly in giving votes at 16--you can join the army at 16, you should get a vote in the stakes of the country that's asking you to die for them at 16.

After work, I went to central. I wanted to feel the mood, to find the rage, to find a vibe that was energy and not numb defeat. I found tourists taking selfies and the Social Worker Party, the group that made protecting a rapist in their high ranks a more important mission than putting their party where their politics were supposed to be. I was offered a banner by a SWP member, I said "No, I want nothing to do with the SWP. Sorry." I shouldn't have apologised, even sarcastically.

I walked around White Hall and Parliament Square, then up Trafalgar Square to meet Skyler at Charing Cross. I didn't find the energy I wanted, but I didn't want to be at home.

Walking through Leicester Square, we saw two young men dressed all in black wearing masks--a gas mask and a white opera-style mask--down an alleyway to our right. They had metal baseball bats and were swinging and dragging them across the floor. I was really scared. When I'd see young folks on the streets in politically charged moments in the past, I felt safe--Black Block defend the people who they know can't or won't do it themselves and they'll fight off police with riot gear who make grabs for peaceful protesters.

But we couldn't tell what these young men were there for. Were they pro or anti-Brexit? Were they anti-gay?

I think the one closest to me realised that I was genuinely scared by his posturing, and maybe saw the shirt I was wearing, maybe put the pieces together that they'd been a massive attack on the LGBTQ community recently, and suddenly he took off his mask and with all smiles was like "No, no! It's for a YouTube video! It's for YouTube!!"

The guy in the gasmask didn't take his off. Skyler stared them down and told them "It's not funny, not today."

I was still really scared.

We went to Soho, to a burger place near the Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street. We picked that burger branch over the one in Covent Garden--I wanted to be around family. It seemed like the place to be. We ate our feelings, got bubble tea, Cinnabon, and eventually went home.

I said this was this view from the platform at Lewisham station by that finally broke me, and I stared to feel the sadness set in:

I cried for about three minutes several hours later when I first tried to sleep. I couldn't. I got up, paced around the kitchen with my hands in my hair and couldn't settle down. Eventually, after a 22 hour day, I slept.

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dr_ghost — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 09:52:42 GMT

So as par the course it's been a couple of months since I last posted and since then some stuff has happened.

I got my grades back for the MA and, by the skin of my teeth, I got that Distinction. I am pleased, but I'm more relived that pleased and even with some distance from the MA I'm still just glad to see the back of it. Once the graduation in January is done, I probably won't need to think about Sussex again.

Pretty much as soon as the thesis was in I started looking for jobs and was offered one at my undergrade college in student support. So I'm back on a salary and we moved out of Seaford and back to London. The move the London was a great choice, though we're in a state of post-moving upheaval and the place we're in is much smaller than before to try and make rent as reasonable as possible on London rates.

But I am enjoying the job very much. I know the place and the kind of students we get, the team is nice and I adjusted to the role really quickly. Though I did give up pre-booked holiday to start early, so I still have close to three weeks to take off so we can travel to the states again. We'll probably do that in the spring.

Otherwise life is fairly... Well, that. Job and London and much happier than where we were a few months ago.

Last year we went to visit Skyler's folks for the holidays, this year we're going to visit mine. And then in late January I get to wear silly robes again for a graduation and (hopefully) get sloshed on free bubbly. Seems only fair after this year.

Plans for PhD are still very much A Thing, but first a bit of a break from study with this job and hopefully some freelance writing, prep for the GRE, and general independent study.

Overall though, things are looking and feeling better :)

There hasn't been much room for written RP, but there's been a fair bit of gaming. It's Wintersday in GW2 and Skyler's first experience. If nothing else I really want to get the drinking achievement, but we'll see how that goes. I'm awful at the bells game and while I've gotten better at jumping puzzles over this year I'm still not great at the Winter Wonderland jumping puzzle; the first set of peppermints and then the exploding presents fuck my shit up. :T

That aside, we actually haven't done much of HoT yet--we were moving during the initial launch and Halloween happened, and now we're settled Wintersday is here, but I know Living World Season 3 is coming in the new year so we need to do more jungle running soon.

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dr_ghost — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:18:40 GMT

It occurs to me the last post I made was during our second day in Japan and that was back in mid-April and since then I've neglected to make any posts at all. Hm.

Well, partly I blame living on plurk because it's so quick and easy to update life things and chat on there, but I also I blame life, and I blame being mostly buried in the RP side of DW.

That doesn't mean stuff hasn't happened though, and I suppose the big one was actually being in Japan for a month. I've been pining wildly periodically since we got back, so in a bid to get some of this stuff out of my system I figure it's high time I did an update about it.

We flew out from Heathrow, landed at Narita airport, went from there to Asakasa, took a train from there to Hakone and to our first hotel. We stayed in a lovely little ryoukan in the mountains and spent our first few days touring the area, going on cable cars and a big boat across a lake, and visiting hot springs at Yunessun.

After a few days there, we went further north, via Tokyo, to Nikko and stayed in a beautiful converted cottage provided by Nikko Inn. We stayed in Sakura and it was so incredibly lovely, I want to go back. The area of Nikko is incredible and has some of the most famous shrines and stunning natural beauty. It also has the most delicious manju, I was in a constant state of wanting fifty of them constantly, they were so good.

After that, we spent eight days in Tokyo, Ueno specifically, and I've become incredibly fond of it as a city. We met with Skyler's friend Shiori from his MA cohort who was there renewing her visa while she's doing her PhD in the states and she's the most lovely person, I'm so glad we got to meet her. During that week we spent a fair bit of time in Ueno, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Akihabara, and Shibuya. We were also lucky enough to be in Tokyo while it was hosting Rainbow Pride and it was incredible to get to take part in the parade, it's quite a different animal to what we do for Pride in the West, I'm so glad we got to do it but next time we might want to watch itself. We had a lot of Mister Donut in Tokyo, Japan does donuts well.

I miss Tokyo a lot.

We then travelled to Shikoku and stayed in Matsuyama, which was utterly charming and we wished we could have gotten more time there, but we did accidentally stay in a love hotel (which was pretty interesting, actually) and visit Matsuyama castle and the views were breathtaking. There's also a very old bathhouse there, that the bathhouse in Spirited Away is based on. There are also several small, public footbaths dotted in the area and an amazing animated clock..

We then took the ferry from Matsuyama to Miyajima, where there are friendly residential deer everywhere, the floating tore, Itsukushima Shrine, incredible mountain views and Buddist shrines. We stayed in another amazing little ryoukan overlooking the sea and it was incredible. I miss it horribly and the grilled oysters.

After that, we went to Tottori and visited Iwami, the tiny town where the anime Free! is based, but the whole area is utterly stunning. Beautiful coastline, amazingly quaint, just utterly wonderful. It was one of our favourite spots and not just because of its relationship to the anime, it was amazing and the people were lovely--we got caught out in a storm and randomly rescued by a couple of old women in their car who took us back to the station. It was so kind of them. We took a whole lot of photos too because Iwami is the town that Iwatobi is based on in Free!, so some of the locations might be familiar to anyone who is into ridiculous swimming animes.

From Tottori, we went to Kyoto for a few days and it was again a very unique experience, but actually Kyoto wasn't our favourite place. It was nice and everyone raves about it, but overall we'd just seen so many amazing things that Kyoto felt lacklustre and like a real tourist spot--we saw more other foreigners there than anywhere else. We did, however, see a kabuki performance and it was the most striking, incredible thing. The actors and vocalists were stunning. We were the only Westerners in the whole place. We also went to the Manga Museum connected to Kyoto University, and to Kyoto Animate store.

Finally, we went back to Tokyo for a few more days, met up with Shiori again and her friend Miyuki, had dinner, drinks and karaoke. Miyuki is a speech therapist and said that my Japanese was beautiful. I have never felt so incredibly complimented in my life. She and Shiori also gave Skyler and I nicknames--since Skyler sounds a bit like skylark, he's Hibari-chan and since yurei is the Japanese for ghost, I'm Yu-chan. It's very cute. Miyuki and her friend Aiko recently stopped by London and we played tour guides to them for a day, which was both excellent and really exhausting. They've been sending us letters and gifts since and we're preparing to send something back.

Overall, I was very nervous about going to Japan. I was scared that after many years of wanting to go that I'd be disappointed, but it was amazing in ways I'd never expected. I'm glad I went at this point in my life and not when I was 18 full of Orientalist fantasies and expecting to find the world of animus, because while it was great to get to find that sort of stuff the really wonderful stuff was more ephemeral that that. I miss it terribly. I miss the food and the atmosphere, I miss that my language skills improved exponentially in such a short space of time, I miss a whole lot of things that I just can't very easily put into words but I know don't exist anywhere in the UK or America.

After that trip, I came back for my final week of work. I don't regret not running for a second year.

One of the more difficult things that happened during my last month was that I was assaulted while I was getting lunch in public. The actual event hasn't left any lasting marks on me, but I reported it to the police because the guy was still hanging around the area. The aftermath of that leading up to the court case and dealing with the police is one of the most stressful things I've ever done. I'm not going into tons of details here so much as I'm making this as a note for myself to look back on later, but I had my reservations about going to the police because they have a very poor history of handling LGBT cases appropriately.

The long and short is, while the police decided to charge the guy and take it to court, due to a mishandling on the part of the police and the Crime Prosecution Service over the nature of the charge, I was unable to testify as it would result in me giving up some of my personal rights and, ultimately, lying under oath to fit the charge. Unwilling to do that, the case was dropped after an incredible amount of unacceptable behaviour on the part of the DC handling the case. It was really horrible.

That aside, the leaving-do for work was one of the most awkward events I've ever attended, but it seemed a very fitting way to end a very difficult year, all in all.

In July, we moved out of London to Sussex since I'm doing my MA at Sussex we needed to be closer to the campus, so we're now living in a much cheaper place with a livingroom that has a direct view of the ocean and the horse stabled only a ten minute drive away. I love it, but I do miss London. It also means we're getting to bother annephoenix a lot more and that's excellent.

The other good news is while I don't have a job anymore, I applied for and was awarded a scholarship toward my MA tuition fees, which has cut the overall price nearly in half and taken a huge weight off my shoulders.

I'm now just starting my second term of the MA and it's been quite mixed. I submitted my first two papers a couple of weeks back and I'm anxious about the outcome, but now I only have two more pieces of coursework to do and then the thesis and I'll have completed my MA. So already, I'm starting to think of PhDs and where/who I'll study with. It feels very daunting. But it seems like my focus is heading in the direction of HIV/AIDS and Japanese popular culture.

We also went to America to visit Skyler's folks over Christmas and got to briefly see pseudorca, but it was such a short trip and so much of it was taken up with writing papers that it didn't feel like a real visit at all. I think I felt overall a bit ambivalent about America this trip whereas in the past I was more excited. We did go see a live basketball game though (Atlanta Hawks v. Milwaukee Bucks) and that was really quite fun.

In nerd land, still kind of stuck in Sports Hell in terms of anime, still enjoying Kuroko no Basuke, very disappointed with season 2 of Free!, we got into Haikyuu!! which is adorable, and we recently started watching Yowamushi Pedal. So all the sports. I also watched the first season of the Fate/Stay Night remake and I just don't find it as exciting or interesting as Fate/Zero, for so many reasons.

Otherwise, I've been playing way too much Guild Wars 2 and need to tone it down and get back to working properly... But I just sorta like my cute losers a whole bunch. It's been nice to think about OCs again a bit :') Plus, with the GW2 Heart of Thorns announcement coming today my hype feelings are high. Must have a healthier relationship to this game though, it's a thing that must happen.

So yeah, it's been a busy, mixed year with lots of travelling and work and studying.

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dr_ghost — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 13:55:04 GMT

We arrived safely in Japan yesterday after a solid day of travel. I'll do some long posts about this trip sometime later, but for now just saying we're alive and sharing my favourite photo from the first day:

Sorry I've not gotten back to any comments on my previous posts, life has been a bit hectic! But I do read and appreciate them :)!

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dr_ghost — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 23:56:53 GMT

Bi-monthly update is go, I suppose.

Since my last update I got all my results back for my undergraduate degree and my UG dissertation, after all my fretting and distress, got the highest grade of my entire degree, an 84 and the knowledge that one of markers felt that "[his] piece is terrific in my view. He's got to be one of the most compelling writers we've ever had and he's great on this combination-popular culture and gender construction." I have my graduation ceremony in mid-September where I get to wear silly robes and a hat and my mom will probably cry because I'll be graduating top two of my class (I don't know what the other guy got) with a First.

I'm pleased. Very pleased.

Also since the last update I started my year-long full time job at the Student Union. Since mid-June it's been a lot of getting up to speed with the inner workings of the institute, travelling across the country getting ~~irritating and pointless~~ training from the NUS, and planning for the swiftly-approaching new academic year. So far so good; we're getting along as a team, the work itself is enjoyable, but I'm already fairly convinced I won't re-run next year and I'll instead be going to do my MA somewhere.

We also decided to start swimming several mornings a week because I'm not very active and should be. We've had a lot of conflict of interest in finding physical activities that appeal because I don't like running or most sports and actively hate gyms. Swimming seems to be working well so far and I'm actually excited to go, so hopefully this will be an on-going thing (we'll see where we're at in a few weeks...)

In fandom life, we've been watching Attack on ~~Massive McHugeBro~~ Titan (great setting and plot, generally lackluster characters, which is sad), and Free! (aka the Gay Swimming Anime). laboratory came to visit in July and we had a spectacular nerdgasm over Pacific Rim which also included an impressive marathon of Evangelion because Fal hadn't seen it. I got to see big robots punching monsters for an entire weekend. I was thrilled. Also watched The Wolverine which was amazingly Orientalist in it's Japanese clichés, but I love me some Hugh Jackman as Wolverine so even though it wasn't an amazing movie it was enjoyable. HOW ABOUT THAT SCENE AT THE END THOUGH?? Seriously, best bit. I was clutching my face it utter joy.

So yeah. Life is busy. I don't get to sleep in anymore. Skyler is nearing the end of his PhD and I'm so awed by him. We're having non-fandom friends over soon for wine-drinking and Marvel movie watching, so I'm muchly looking forward to that... Life is good, though very busy.

Some photos?

My first day of work was also my birthday. My predecessor made me this awesome cake because she found out I liked stingrays. It was so tasty too.

To celebrate new job and birthday, we got super gay drinks. I don't remember what was in it except for the gin and the cherries and that it was super tasty.

The sunset on the heath was randomly gorgeous one night.

Went back home to the South West briefly and went with my dad with Brixham. Beautiful views.

It has the smallest lighthouse in the country because it's a ways above sea level.

The beach near my parents' place and where I grew up has a cliff-side railway that has been there since the 19th century and was used during WWII to transport troops and supplies to and from the beach. It's been re vamped since then...

The weather was so lovely that day...

The reason for this brief trip was to scatter Faith-dog's ashes, which we did in the cove shown in the last picture. We still miss her terribly because she was a good dawg, but she had an excellent life and we did right by her. We got to take her back to the beach one last time and we did our very best.

Unexpected trip past Stonehenge.

But I missed my city too much. London ♥

I randomly stumbled upon the UK premiere of The Wolverine in Leicester Square. There were giant Wolverine claws at the end of the red carpet for the stars to walk through but I couldn't get a photo of that.

And I took part in an anti-British National Party protest. Fascists with state-sanctioned fascists pictured :')

That's about it for now. Not a super exciting update, but that's what's been up.

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dr_ghost — Tue, 07 May 2013 17:16:05 GMT

We didn't put Faith-dog through surgery today. She was telling us she was done, so we let her be done.

We get her ashes back in about ten days and then we'll take her to the beach one last time.

dr_ghost — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:35:25 GMT

While that was rather exciting, alas, I think my laptop is at the end of it's GW2 career since it had to go into the shop recently, so I'm not going to be playing much (if at all) until around the end of May when all my work is in. I need this laptop to at least survive until then. After that I may start shopping for a more powerful machine as a reward for graduating/having a job for the year, but we'll see. If I do, that'll be fun :')

Also, the Molten Alliance Mining Pick is awesome. Really nice idea.

In the meantime, lots of work, as I say. I still have my dissertation to finish (though I'm enjoying it a lot so far), one exam, on take-home paper, and two more short papers. And then I'm done with my undergrad. That's kinda cool.

And tomorrow I get up at 5am to take a group of students to Manchester for NUS LGBT Conference... :) No rest. Nooooo rest.

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Ways Not to Spend Your Dec 24th...

dr_ghost — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:42:32 GMT

... Travelling to the other side of London on public transit with your very unwell dog because no taxi in London will take dogs and all the vets that are supposed to be 24hr emergency surgeries in your area are closed.

So, we've had to leave Faith-dog at the vet overnight for tests and x-rays after she was showing signs of an uncomfortable stomach and vomiting, but needless to say we are worried for her and just waiting for news.

In the meantime, we'll just distract ourselves with LotR movies and whatever else is distracting, I guess. Yeah. Feeling less than chipper right now, in all honesty.

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[GW2: Mad King's Tower]

dr_ghost — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:54:20 GMT

I feel another tl;dr update coming on sometime soon about uni, fandom and general UGH, but not right now.

No, right now is the topic of GW2 and me sucking at jumping puzzles at the best of times, let alone a timed, evil one.

Just about every group I've been with has been reduced to sobbing piles like this one:

I hate this so much... :'( I don't even care about the slippers at the top (though it would be nice), I just want the achievement but at the rate I'm improving I'll probably manage it around mid-July next year.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

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dr_ghost — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:17:16 GMT

OH YEAH, I TOTALLY FORGOT. SKYLER GOT HIS INDEFINITE LEAVE TO REMAIN IN THE UK A FEW WEEKS AGO! AHHHHHHHHHH! IT TOOK FOREVER BECAUSE THE HOME OFFICE IS SLOW AS FUCK, BUT IT'S ALL DONE AND YAAAAAAY!

He can apply for dual citizenship in October of this year, and that's super exciting, but the main thing is he has indefinite leave of remain and I get to keep him. That's a huge relief and a big, heavy weight off our shoulders. Phew... :')

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dr_ghost — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:48:22 GMT

This is a photo post from the last... Two? Three? Four weeks? Something like that. Needless to say perhaps this is a graphics heavy post. And warning for any expats who are pining for Torquay, this post might induce Missing England Feelings ;p

Additional warnings for Instagram filters.

There's stuff about Olympics, friends visiting and Skyler's folks' two week visit to the UK.

So I've not been a big on the whole Olympics thing, but dressage is Skyler's sport so we got tickets to some of the team dressage. We saw one day of the qualifier and then we saw the team championships, including Charlotte Dujardin taking gold for England. There was a fair bit of discomfort going on with blind nationalism going on, but being in a stadium when the home team wins gold? Well, that's its own experience.

...And then it rained. A lot.

I mean, I don't know dressage but Skyler got a lot of out of this and I spent almost £10 on really bad noodles. I don't like bad food...but I like expensive bad food even less. Boo. But yeah, it was all quite an experience.

The wonderful laboratory and the lovely annals came to visit us about a week before Skyler's folks came. There was a carnival on the heath as part of the Olympics. And there we saw:

A very handsome Cap...

And Iron Man. And Thor. And... Wolverine. And hidden Spidey :|

We also went into central.

Chaplin in Covent Garden.

Forbidden Planet provided me with my new favourite tea-drinking item. :')

And we found a place that sold marginally cheaper TimTams. This is so thrilling.

Skyler's folks being here was...a production. A lot of planning on Skyler's part to keep them interested and entertained and show them a lot of lovely parts of London and the South West. So we started with the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.

We also ambled into the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall just before closing.

For all the exhaustion of the parent-visit, we were definitely spoilt for food and drinks :')

We also took them to Kew Botanical Gardens, which was unfortunately rather anticlimactic for all it took to get there and cost. There were some lovely old trees and buildings dotted around, but really? Not that impressive. The food was also bad and expensive; as mentioned above, the only thing worse than bad food is expensive bad food :\

And then for a week we stayed in Torquay. Cockington, specifically.

This was the view from the room Skyler and I had. I actually didn't take any other photos of the inside :\

We had one day of rain and during this time we...watched all the MCU movies leading up to Avengers. Skyler's dad was a big fan of the first Iron Man so we watched that...about five times.

The little Rose Cafe in Cockington Village with the guy who plays piano outside. Which is great at a distance, can be hit and miss up close, and when you're with a classically trained pianist (Skyler's mom) that also something. But that said, it's a lovely little cafe :')

This was also an opportunity for both pairs of parents to meet, and luckily everything went wonderfully. Both sets of parents got along very well, really seemed to like one another and would like to get to know each other more. So one of the days we spent together as a group was on Babbacombe Downs.

And we had tea in Angels Tea Room.

And scones.

Lovely scones.

The day included a stroll (read: we used the Babbacombe Cliff Railway) down to Oddicombe beach...

And a walk around to Babbacombe beach.

And then we sat down at the Cary Arms for a drink, and the view was lovely.

We also took Skyler's folks around Torquay and up to where you can get a great view of the harbour.

It was also the Regatta so while we were out and getting dinner we saw the Red Arrows fly over the harbour, which was nicely timed. During dinner...

Which was tasty. The starter I had looked like dessert.

Later in the week, my parents rented a people carrier for the day and we all went to Dartmoor.

...With Faith-dog in the back on our laps.

And it was a great day for photos of the tors. We went to Hound Tor this time.

Fun fact for anyone who doesn't already know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set Hound of the Baskervilles on Dartmoor, not far from Princetown. So, yeah, punny food shacks :')

We were supposed to have dinner at a place on the moor, but when we got there the builders they had on site had somehow cut through the main gas supply so there were only about three options for dinner. Boo. But we did get tasty food elsewhere.

We also went to Totnes before we left Torquay. We took the steam train from Paignton through to Kingswear, a ferry across Kingswear to Dartmouth, then a boat along the River Dart to Totnes. Fun thing about people from outta town coming to visit a place you grew up in/live in: you get to do all the touristy things that you never need to do. The boat down the river? Was actually amazing. I didn't get any photos because I was too distracted looking at how beautiful everything was and listening to our amusing guide over the speaker.

But I did get a photo of the grumpiest cat in Totnes. :')

Aaaaand then we went back to London. Skyler's folks decided they wanted to spend the last three days staying at the Savoy(!!) in central and...yeah. Wow. Just. I don't know. It was pretty spectacular inside, but...wow. I don't know what else to say there. I didn't take many photos there either. Oops.

Anyways, we took them on more touristy things in London, including an open-top tour bus thing and a river cruise down the Thames.

And in the last three days I had the fanciest banoffee pie ever. It was tasty.

On the Tuesday morning of their last day here, Skyler and I went to see the Paralympic Freestyele Dressage Level IV. It was pretty awesome in terms of seeing what athletes missing entire limbs, in some cases, could do. Really cool stuff.

For the last half of the last day we went on a walking tour of London around Tower Gateway and then to a pub on Chancery Lane for dinner and drinks. I was reminded that I'm still really not a beer guy.

We said bye to them last night and then they went home this morning with Delta to Atlanta. All in all, it was a pretty successful visit and according to Skyler went about as well as he could possibly have hoped, which is good.

Maybe the next time we see them will be Christmas in Georgia, but we'll see.

In the meantime, the start of the new academic term is in the next few weeks. I have student union training on September 10th, Freshers' Week is a week after that, week after that I start work proper. I need to plan and finalise events for the year, and work my ass off in terms of making my face more known for the SU elections in the new year. And we have the NUS #demo2012 in November to prepare and mobilise students for. And of course I have my dissertation which I didn't do as much reading for over the holiday as I'd hoped. Actually, I've had several months of doing very little and I can't feel very guilty about that.

This year is going to be a doozy :')

This entry was originally posted at http://jesters.dreamwidth.org/5323.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

dr_ghost — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 22:30:24 GMT

I am exhausted.

Skyler's folks flew over from Georgia on Wednesday, so it's been a very stressful week or so preparing for their arrival, early start to meet them at Heathrow, and today and yesterday has been spent taking them around Blackheath and Greenwich, and Kew Gardens.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow, we're taking them to Torquay on the train (dog and all), staying there for a week in Cockington and...they will meet my parents. At some point. Nervous? Oh, hell yeah.

Certainly looking forward to this from a lot of angles, but I'm also very tired right now and a little worried about the parents all meeting. I'm sure my mom and Skyler's mom will get along, and my dad and Skyler's dad will bond over ales or whatever, but the intermixing after that? I'm less sure about.

Watch this space, I guess. I'm sure there will be a bunch of photos and whatnot, but right now my brain is so much mush.

With the Olympics-proper over life is starting to return to London. See, after all the OMG DON'T GO TO LONDON IT'S GOING TO BE CRAZY warnings, no-one came into central, people living in London cleared out/stayed home, and Blackheath was desolate. The security thing has been overkill and uncomfortable, but we did go and see two days of the dressage in the Greenwich stadium because dressage is Skyler's sport. I had very little clue what I was looking at, but it was an interesting experience despite all the very mixed and cynical feelings about the whole affair. A lot of messy politics, casual nationalism, same ol' and same ol', but as I say it's been an experience. We also have tickets to the Paralymic musical freestyle dressage, which should be interesting.

Yeahhh...I'm sure I was going to ramble about comics, irritation with people on Tumblr, and plans for the new academic year, but it's 11:30 after a long day and we need to be up early to pack.

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So you want to travel in London during the Olympics?

dr_ghost — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 19:43:39 GMT

I wouldn't recommend it.

This entry was originally posted at http://jesters.dreamwidth.org/4140.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

dr_ghost — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 19:12:06 GMT

Ah, almost three weeks after the fact, a birthday photo round-up. Also known as the visual proof that Ghost was very spoilt on his birthday. Basically, this is a food post.

When we got up Skyler made caramelised banana crepes with a cream cheese icing and it was really awesome and yummy.

He arranged his serving more nicely than mine :B

We later went out for sushi at my favourite sushi place in London. Miso soup was had.

And glorious passion fruit martinis with a champaign shot. They were so good.

And avacado maki and California rolls.

And tuna sashimi.

And salmon sashimi and tofu and miso skewers that I didn't get a shot of. The lighting was really bad for photos.

We then went to Leicester Square for dessert. I had a banana split.

Skyler had this strawberry yoghurt icecream...thing.

And then we went home and it was just the most wonderful day ;_;

And I got myself some presents with the money my folks had sent me. A little sad that the dustcover for the Iron Man 2 artbook was scuffed, but overall I feel this was money very well spent and I am pleased.

And big belated thank you for all the birthday wishes ♥

Also, I took Skyler out on a Spider-date last night to see The Amazing Spider-man! Some prefaces... I am fully aware that I am That Guy™ who cries at everything. Everything. I also had big dorky love for Spider-man as a kid and watched the cartoon religiously, so I will admit that emotional investment, plus nostalgia, mixed with a persisting Marvel high, my reactions are probably biased in a very particular way since there was a lot of excitement and emotional investment going into this thing for me.

The tl;dr is that I really loved it, bawed a lot and want to go again right now ;_;

Now, I remember going to see all three other Spider-man movies when they came out at the cinema and I seem to recall really loving it. I mean, as well as I can remember a movie releases over a ten year period. And I remember the music (Seriously, anyone who says they didn't get down to Sum 41 - What We're All About back then is a huge liar. And...Nickelback. Yeah, I went there.) but at the same time I don't think I went to see any of them more than once in the cinema and I didn't feel an immensely pressing need to ever go out and buy the DVDs or whatever. I can't remember if we even own individual copies of any of the movies.

So I'm trying to balance my current emotional bubbling in comparison with the 2002-2007 Spider-movies and trying to figure out if this one was better or if it's just a matter of technology in cinema upgrading because, again, Spidey origin stories, fairly straight-forward.

But I really felt more in this reboot. I gave more of a crap about Uncle Ben dying, liked that they gave Aunt May more grieving time and showed more of her emotional conflicts with Peter trying to come to terms with everything going on around him--I really did like that we got her as an anchor to remind us as viewer that while we see the context for Pete's bruises and cuts all she sees is her nephew withdrawing, leaving the house first thing and then coming back all bust up at ungodly hours of the night. I liked that we got to see more of the consequences the double-life thing has on the home-life side of things. I liked that Peter turned up with bruises and less clean, pretty, easy-to-hide cuts.

I liked Garfield. I did. I really did. Lots. He played awkward but likeable very well, the nerdy was there, I liked getting to see more of the geekery and the webshooter construction, enjoyed seeing him play out the issues Peter had going on in a very human way. And I will admit there was a fair bit of unf for me because his bodytype just works so well and the litheness and body mechanics in this movie were just so... hot. Not sure I really have another way to put it other than hot. The movements just flowed so nicely. Yes.

I didn't dislike Stone as Gwen and I didn't dislike Gwen as a character. I was excited to hear we were going to see Curt Connors/Lizard in the movie and that was all very awesome, enjoyed that very much. I liked seeing the versatility of webs this time around.

Yeah, it's nothing new per se, but I did really enjoy it, I did baw more than a few times throughout the movie and I think when you're sat there in the cinema with your hands over your mouth and bawing a bit and finding yourself thinking "Yes. Yes, this is a Spider-man movie. Yes." then something has gone very right.

Maybe I'll feel different and more critical after a few viewings or whatever, but right now I'm just so... yes. :')

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dr_ghost — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:29:20 GMT

Oh. Yes.

Things I should not be doing right now: letting myself play around on the Guild Wars 2 Open Beta.
Things I'm going to do despite knowing better: letting myself play around on the Guild Wars 2 Open Beta.

... :')

This entry was originally posted at http://jesters.dreamwidth.org/1891.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

[No To Hate Crime Vigil 2011 - October 28th, 7:30pm @ Trafalgar Square]

dr_ghost — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:15:25 GMT

[Visual-audio Inspriation]

dr_ghost — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:28:56 GMT

Basically, the year so far is really busy and a spent about a month in the states with Skyler over the summer, the result of which was an epic experience, getting to meet friends and see people I haven't seen in years, and getting to bring Skyler's dog Faith to the UK. This is a really short version of what happened because I am planning on doing a tl;dr post with photos and whatnot, but I haven't had the time or energy to resize and upload photos.

Instead, I want to do a visual-audio inspiration kind of post. When I use the word 'inspiration' I mean it in the sense that these visuals stir something in me every time I look at or listen to them. The sensation is not always comfortable, calming, reassuring or uplifting. Some of this topics are really difficult and personal ones--I teared up and got angry and hopeful and proud just from putting this thing together--but this post features just a few things that personally inspire me to keep going every day. So this is mostly a post for me, but maybe it'll stir something in someone else too.

So yeah. Maybe in a few months time I'll hobble back here and throw all my photos and rambles about the trip to America up ;p But today is not that day.

[ Spirit Day ]

dr_ghost — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:42:56 GMT

Are you wearing something purple today?

dr_ghost — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:25:15 GMT

"When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard"

- Martin Luther King

[ Slam Poetry - Taylor Mali: What Teachers Make || Support Our Teachers ]

dr_ghost — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:09:01 GMT

This never stops being amazing to me.

→ [J30Strike.org]
→ [Twitter@J30Strike]

[J30: CaptainSKA - Slipping Back in Time]

dr_ghost — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:15:06 GMT

→ [J30Strike.org]
→ [Twitter@J30Strike]

dr_ghost — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:58:42 GMT

dr_ghost — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:38:48 GMT

"Remember when teachers, nurses, youth workers, doctors and lollipop ladies crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither. Please copy and paste to your ~~status~~ unappreciated LJ for 24 hours to show your support for the strikes against the government. Join the picket lines on June 30th."

[June 30 Solidarity Call Out: Support the Strike! Stop the cuts!]

dr_ghost — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:59:49 GMT

[I'll Be Hangin' Round Here Howling: "Gimme All You Got"]

dr_ghost — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:20:40 GMT

There's always that moment where you remember not that you have a livejournal, but that you can actually use it to write in.

As I've said in the past, I feel like the purpose of LJ has changed, and not just for me. It's been almost four months since I last updated, but I don't feel like I've been inactive.

Skyler and I moved a few weeks ago from Poplar to Blackheath. I love our new place so much, but since we're in an older building now and not on the third floor the potential for spiders has grown greatly. I'd gotten so used to living in a place without big fuck-off garden spiders for two years that I'm now all kinds of twitchy. But I do love the place and can't wait to start stealing people over to see.

As ever, my social life fails something terrible during term time, so apologies for that much.

Since I last posted in March, I completed my first year of university, after three attempts to do so. It feels a bit surreal going into the second year in October, but I'm also really happy, really proud. I worked hard this year--with space to work harder still definitely--but I'm pretty pleased with all I've learnt so far and all the work I produced. Maybe not so pleased with the exams I did, but I have time to improve.

Next year is looking to be quite fabulous too, if I get to do all the classes I've signed up for: Body, Gender, Culture class, and the Sexuality class for Sociology, An(other) Japan politics class, Making of Modernity and the Media & Communications class Culture, Society and the Individual. I'm just really excited for this coming academic year.

Class stuff aside, I lost my job in March but at the time was feeling a bit too raw to talk about it. Not just me, mind, but our whole store and three or four others were shut down. It was really sad, and still is, because it was the best store I'd worked at with the best group of people. I know we're all still really feeling the loss of it, especially since some of us had been with the company close to ten years, but such is. It meant we had a kind of flail about grabbing games and consoles we'd all been putting off for a while, so now I finally have a PS3 and a Wii. I also got a Wii and Wii and WiiFit for my mom, who so far hasn't played it much.

This does mean I've been chewing through a few more games, especially now uni is out for the summer. I finished Persona 3 and at some point I should make a start on Persona 4, a million years after everyone else, but until then I've been nibbling my way through Eternal Sonata. It's pretty fun, but I guess when I saw it being played by others before I didn't realise how very straight it is. Not that I should be shocked exactly, but I guess it's been so long since I played something that shoved the hetero into every corner possible in a bid to block out any potential queer reading. But such is the mass media, and I'm not too invested in it so far and I can just roll my eyes at everyone crushing on everyone else. Perhaps it wouldn't make me :| so much if it felt like there was any chemistry between these pairings but I guess I find all the love interest kinds of stuff very forced and bland. Idk.

Series-wise there hasn't been a whole lot of time for watching stuff. We picked up the X-Files boxset and have been steadily gnawing our way through that. I have learnt that Maulder and Scully are amazingly dim sometimes for top-ranking FBI agents, but it's still pretty good to watch over breakfast or dinner. We very recently started watch Primeval too, which is utterly absurd but kind of fun and each series seems pretty short. House season 7 has been and gone, and I still miss the feel of the show from season 4. It's more about moments for me now than being invested in the show itself, but the finale was pretty fun.

Saw X-men: First Class not long ago too and it wasn't bad at all. Avoiding spoilers here as much as possible, but I will say that I'm not bricking myself over Charles and Erik's 'ghey' like most of the world seem to be. I do think Patrick Stewart!Charles and Ian McKellen!Magneto had far more chemistry between them :')

In animanga land, we also watched Madoka Magica, which is a truly fabulous and messed up series and should definitely be watched by all. D.Gray-man and DOGS are still chugging along, as they do. I am especially irritated by a corner of recent DGM fandom, but I'm saving that for a longer discussion which needs more care than me just ranting it out here.

I also watched Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son) after I saw it recommended by perfectdays and while I did enjoy it, I did like it, and it was nice to see a portrayal of trans issues in anime that wasn't along the lines of "IT'S A TRAP!!" there was also something that felt a little off to me that I can't easily put my finger on. I did very much enjoy it though and I did get fairly misty-eyed a few times. It was a beautiful show, whichever way you slice it, I just may need to watch it again to truly decide what I think of it.

I was also voted LGBTQ Officer of my uni next year. That's a bit terrifying, not for the position itself, per se, but because I want to do a really good job which means a lot of planning. It's also exciting though and I know you get out what you put in, so I'm aiming to put a lot in this year and already started scribbling ideas down generally, but I need to figure out some possible events for Freshers week. Hmm.

In May I went along to NUS's LGBT conference and that was...an experience. I want to say I went and had a great time, and in some ways I did, but in others ways I was incredibly frustrated and felt pretty upset and angry at some of the time that was spent quibbling over particular terms and phrases and ideas. It's not that I don't think the right words and ideas are important, I do, but I think what stuck with me was the degree to which 'direct action' now equates, to some people, as 'violence'. I'm not interested in getting into a discussion of what constitutes 'violence', but I will say I was shocked at how few people at conference were willing to acknowledge their own history as a community. I was quite sickened by the number of people who, effectively, wanted changed and progress but only if they didn't have to fight (metaphorically or otherwise) for it. I get very angry when I see prissy kids blissfully ignoring the people who were injured and killed in the fight for the rights we have as LGBTQ people today. We live in very fortunate times, but I am not content to uncritically accept that this is where we are today without questioning how we got here and respecting the people who thought it was important enough to potentially give their lives for. It makes me very angry and very disappointed, and if I took anything back with my from conference it is that LGBTQ history is something I really want to get out there at my university this year.

Sticking on the activist trail, the public sector cuts fightback is on-going and new strike dates are approaching.

Anti-cuts movement is still going with strike action planned by four unions on June 30th. As ever, support your teachers, lecturers and workers if they're going on strict next week. Over 750,000 workers are taking part in this and they need as much support as they can get, encourage them that they're doing the right thing--because they are--and check out what is going on in your area. In London a demo is being called in central in Lincoln Field (Holborn Station) at 11:30.

In addition to national strike action on June 30th, on June 22nd London Met University is going on strike.

Join London Met students and staff in our fight against massive job cuts
and course closures. There are currently plans to cut 70% of courses –
including Performing Arts, History, Caribbean Studies and Philosophy – and
we already have 200 proposed compulsory redundancies in motion.

What is happening at London Met is a sign of what is going on in all our
public services: mass privatisation.

And these cuts are the tip of the iceberg at London Met: if we accept
these we will see them coming back for more and more.

Say ‘no’ to job cuts, course cuts and massively reduced and restricted
provision of services to students.

Say ‘Yes’ to Education, work and widening participation.

This is a direct attack on the students, staff and the whole London Met
community, and furthermore an attack on the ethos and principles that we
hold dear: of widening participation and the value of educational
opportunities and the pursuit of critical thinking that universities
should provide for all.

We believe that arts and humanities subjects should be for all, not just
for those who can afford £18,000 a year at privatised. The fight to save
humanities starts at London Met and does not end at the elitist New
College of Humanities.

Assemble at 2-3pm in Highbury Fields, march to London Met Tower Building,
Holloway Road for a rally at 4pm-6pm (nearest tube Holloway Road)

[The Guardian: School walkouts planned to coincide with public sector strikes]