What ho, all.

Wrote my essay on the emergence of the public sphere in 18th century England (or whatever the hell it was on) today...Short of the word limit (what do you mean footnotes don't count?) and it was just bad all over. I guess that's what I get for leaving it too late and not really giving a shit. Nice attitude, what?

I've got my Phonology assignment and midterm this week which is just going to be hectic. I'm deeply grateful that the exam is open book, lol, but even that's not going to help me if I can't work out the problems with the data sets. You know, this stuff seems easy in tutorials, and I can do it then, too, but outside of that with my own work, it's not so easy. I'm hoping a friend of mine can give me a hand with it tomorrow...Solving the problem in my assignment will help with my exam, so it should all work out well. Provided she doesn't pike out on me, of course.

Nothing much is going on right now, unfortunately...But I guess I can't really complain, lol. Could be worse...I could be having to leave my home and stock up on supplies and hunker down in preparation for one hell of a storm like some of you guys have to. That sucks. Mother nature's a real bitch sometimes, eh?

I hope everything goes well for you guys. I hope your homes and families are safe and sound, and that the storm doesn't do too much damage and that no one gets badly hurt. I can't imagine how scary (and kind of cool) it would be. Good luck!!!!

And, for you all (and others of you who are going through a tough time -- you know who you are xox), here's a picture of Hugh Laurie in his undies. It made me laugh and I hope it makes you laugh too.

 So, boys and girls (and everyone in between or outside the bounds of the gender spectrum), I am back. Actually, I tried to be back earlier today but LJ was having a little spasm of awfulness and wouldn't work for me. I felt OK about it, though, because LJ wasn't working for roguemyth either...Happy it wasn't just me.

Anyway, there endeth week two of the new semester and I have to tell you that I'm not as excited to be back as I thought I was going to be. It doesn't even feel like I had a holiday, lol. It's not really being back at university that's the problem, it's having to go and do actual work instead of just sitting quietly and listening to lectures that I think sucks butt. I hate having to be assessed, lol. But I guess that's kind of the whole point of the dashed thing. Whatever. I have the world's longest list of things to be done and I really haven't done much work at all...You know, what with all the procrastinating and everything there's not much time for any actual work. Hell, I even cleaned and organised my room (mostly) and finally organised my shelves. I shall post a photo or two anon.

Moving on...For my two linguistics courses (Syntax and Phonology) I have a lecturer who looks a lot like my father's father (God rest his complicated and stubborn soul). I was briefly thinking of dropping Phonology but then I thought about the lecturer (Jason) and couldn't bring myself to do it because he looks so much like my grandfather. Weird. I'm thinking that I'll get over this sentimental business rather quickly, though, because we've already  had an assignment for Syntax and I have one assignment for each linguistics subject due next week. Damn learning. Oh well, lol, at least these are courses I can do...Nothing at all like last semester's (dis)Functional Grammar which I still don't get.

My Shakespeare course is going reasonably well...Except for the fact that Hamlet was the first play and it made me want to kill myself. Not that it isn't a good play, because it is (probably better on stage, too, rather than being read), but I've read it more than once and I just can't do it anymore, lol. I'm so going to have to get some cliff notes or something for the exam because I'm fucked if I have to read that damn thing AGAIN! The next play is A Midsummer Night's Dream which I've never read but have always wanted to, so hopefully that'll fill me to the brim with enthusiasm...Or at least make me interested enough to actually read through the bloody thing. I have an assignment for that class, too, which is a stupid 500-700 words long about metaphors and how they work. Ridiculous word limit (not that I'm actually going to complain to anyone lest I have to write an essay on it or something).

18th Century Scandal and Sociability is run by a disappointingly forgetful blonde woman whose name I can never remember...I'm reasonably certain her surname begins with a P and her first name might be Nicola, but who cares. She has an awful reading voice which just pisses me off. I can't stand that, lol. And the tutor I have for this class is so irritating...Last week her idea of a good time was for us to get into groups (after having done one of those annoying "getting to know you" chats) and make dot points about something we literally just heard about in the lecture rather than having us expand our knowledge on the topic (the emergence of coffeehouses in the early 18th century, in case you were wondering) or trying to more effectively help us to engage with the material. Wow, that was complainy. Sorry about that, lol. These annoyances aside, the lecture material itself is rather interesting and kind of amusing, which is nice, and the texts are interesting. The one I'm reading now is Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, which might be a mistake because it's not the first one in the syllabus, rather one of the main texts for the course so this could go either way, lol. It's about some poor woman who's mother was supposed to be put to death because she was a thief and a whore. She then went to a poor house and was taken in by some woman who taught her to sew and stuff. From there she went to the house of some rich people to work for them and the eldest son starts paying her for sex and stuff but keeps it a secret...Naturally all hell kind of breaks loose when the younger son falls in love with her and wonders why she won't consent to marrying him. So far the most interesting twist is that she marries the younger son, he dies and then she goes to marry some other dude who takes her to his plantation in Virginia where she meets his mother...The old lady tells the woman (Moll) about how she came to be in Virginia and all her tales of woe, and it turns out that this old lady is Moll's mother and she's just married, and had children with, her own half-brother. I swear, it reads like and 18th century Jerry Springer show.

That was long. Moving on to family stuff. *groans*

My brother and I went to dad's last weekend for my grandmother's 80th birthday. My grandma never used to celebrate birthdays because she is/was a Jehovah's Witness (say what you like, lol, I don't mind), but over the last small handful of years she's developed dementia and no longer really remembers that she doesn't celebrate birthdays. Anyway, my dad brought over an old family friend named Aunty Roma (formerly from Malta) as a surprise for my grandma and she really enjoyed the company, I think. It was hilarious seeing these two old women gabbing away, but also kind of sad because Roma is still so well put together mentally and my grandmother is just falling apart. She never used to be like that, you know? I really don't like to think much about it, but I have to put it out there. What is interesting about dementia, though, is the way she speaks regarding past and present tense...She still speaks of my grandfather (the one my lecturer looks like) and her parents as if they're still alive, so she speaks about them in a way that's new and fresh, and tells stories I've never heard before. It's clear that sometimes she really doesn't remember that they're no longer here, so it doesn't cause her pain to speak about them the way she does. I think, at least in some way, that must bring her great pleasure. Pleasure and relief, too, I think...Her life sure as hell hasn't been easy, so I guess maybe having this forgetting going on isn't always as terrifying as I imagine it to be. She's spent pretty much her entire adult life actively unremembering her past in regards to the events -- both historical and personal -- surrounding WWII, so to have those things suddenly not in her mind must be a positive thing. At least for a little while, anyway. 

Argh. That was difficult. But kind of pleasurable...I like writing about my family, but I don't especially like talking about them (or myself)...It just seems much easier. 

Anyways, I must away. I have yet another ridiculous article to read and a big load of work still to do tonight (which probably won't happen) and tomorrow (which very well may not happen either) and some TV to watch (Space Jam is on later!!), all of which is very important, lol.

Be good to your families, people, especially the difficult family members. One day they won't be there to irritate you and you just won't believe how strange it is once they're not there (physically or mentally) anymore. It really is a trip. Just have some patience. xx

 
I think I broke myself, lol. I should never have allowed the Xena/Gabrielle thing enter my mind and I should never have paid any attention to it once it was there. I shouldn't have written about it and I really, really shouldn't have written one (or two) fics featuring them...

And now it won't leave me alone. Which sucks...Because stupid femslash makes me stupid aware of how stupidly single I am and I hate that. I have spent much of the last...Too long to comfortably mention...squashing any serious feelings and stuff I had and putting them somewhere where I don't have to think about or feel them, but lately, I'm telling you, this stuff is coming up like a badly buried body and I can't make it leave me alone. Whatever. That's too serious for the nature of this post. Move on.

Stupid femslash. 

And I know I'm a stereotype, but it's Xena!

P.S. Like I said in my previous post, I watched a lot of Xena as a kid. She was very important to me (now I know why), but I kind of recall it being all tension and subtext. If this little fanvid is anything to go by, I was mistaken...Not all subtext by any stretch...Great. More fuel for the fire ;)
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Today I came across Xena/Gabrielle fanfic, which is stupid because I've always known it was out there, I've just never read any until today. Not bad ;) But anyway, after reading a few fics I got to thinking about when I was a kid and the kind of TV shows I liked and not at all surprisingly, Xena was way high on the list, lol. Xena and the Nanny (interestingly enough) were the two shows I loved to watch on a Saturday evening when I was a kid of about 8-9 or so and beyond. I mean, I liked Hercules and the Simpsons too, but I'd rush home from the park or wherever I was just to watch these two shows and wild horses couldn't have ever dragged me away...Which says volumes about the kind of person I'd grow up to be, lol.

But really...I know that the Nanny seems like an odd choice (move on from the voice, OK?), but you have to keep in mind that hers were the first mini skirts I had ever set my impressionable eyes on, hers was the tiniest waist I had ever seen and those legs! Well. That prepubescent stage really is an eye opener, innit? I mean, there's not quite that sexual edge to the way you feel yet, but there are definitely things that catch your eye, whether you can articulate why or in what way at that age or not. I recall thinking about the Nanny in those scenes where she'd sit on the edge of Mr. Sheffield's vast desk, cross her long legs and say funny things to him while pestering him, and I used to put myself in his place with her (or someone like her) pestering me and saying funny things to me because even though her being with Mr. Sheffield was the whole premise of the show, I didn't like to see her with guys (there's a red flag for you). I also recall loving the banter between CC (which stands for Chastity Claire, by the way) and Niles, but not more than I absolutely adored the banter between CC and Fran...Even then I lived for subtext, lol, and I think that was because I knew, instinctively, that although I couldn't articulate or name the way I felt or who/what/how I was, I knew that I wouldn't see what I felt I wanted to see on TV (and, until reasonably recently, I was right). As a B-side, this show was where I first hear Yiddish and I think this show is the reason, or at least the gateway to, for my attraction to women who look a particular way (Nigella Lawson, Fran Drescher, Natalie Portman...Seeing a theme?).

But, as much as I loved the Nanny -- and I really did -- she was no match for the Warrior Princess. No one was. There was to be no talking when Xena was on. There were to be no disruptions. Although I got the point of Gabrielle, I kind of thought that she was just an irritating distraction. I don't really recall her registering with me at all, except for stirring green jealous feelings, lol. I remember thinking that Xena could do anything, anytime, because she was such a badass (swords and leather? Badass) and she just kicked so much butt all the time. She was so cocky and kind of angry underneath which I've always responded to (I know, I know), and I knew that somewhere, deep, deep down, there was this softness underneath...If only someone could have a chance to find it!! I loved her broad shoulders (still have a really serious thing for broad shoulders), strong arms and hands, and I was oddly mesmerised by her thighs...Pfft, I don't know *shrugs*. I used to imagine, of all things, Xena crying...Which is really weird, I know, but she so seldom did on the show, you know? She'd need someone to comfort her, lol...Seriously, it was really innocent at those early ages, naturally, but I still think the crying thing is weird. 

Wow. That all went on for a while, lol...Just something that I thought of while reading these fics. I still adore both of those characters, very deeply, because they illuminated some things for me that had not yet been illuminated and I like how they seem to have shaped my attractions in certain ways (I thank Xena for my love of leather, lol).

So tell me, flist, what about you guys? What about your childhood/youthful attractions/crushes? I'm sure I'm not the only one who had them, lol. Never mind your orientation, just give me a run down on who you liked when you were kids.

xx