Went shopping yesterday. Fruits include Twinings Hazelnut Chai, which is fantastic. I was a bit wary when I bought it, but it's really, really good.

( Blather that's kind of boring even to meCollapse )

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My mother suggested I watch Downton Abbey. Flist, you know me; do you think I'd like it? I do love that time period, but BBC costume dramas can be very hit or miss for me. Also, I will cop to being a bit of a snob about Modernism, and I tend to think the people writing during the period did it much better than people today who try to write about the shattering changes of the early twentieth century.

Nashville premieres on Wednesday. I plan to watch, possibly muting the musical numbers, because I want to see how they present the city and where they chose to film. Also, I approve of there being two female leads, and it looks like they'll avoid it being All Catty All The Time, at least.

ETA: Oooh, ABC continued its policy of releasing the pilot free on iTunes the week before the premiere! Downloading now. Will report back.

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I still have to write most of you who gave me comments on my space pilots novella. I swear, if not this weekend, then by Wednesday. Short version: it looks like I'm going to expand it into a real live novel, which will probably address most of y'all's concerns about the pacing.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/875911.html. It has comments over there.

I have a weekly writing center-related meeting I have to go to. It's held in a little independently-owned coffee shop on campus. Today, since I found a nearby parking spot (...it probably shouldn't have made me as happy as it did to find a spot in the second-most convenient of four potential lots, should it?), I had some extra time before it started, and I decided to get tea. First of all, they have a Yunnan blend. I haven't had Chinese black tea in forever--not since Klein's class senior year, I don't think. I was extremely happy. Second, they served it to me not just as a bag in a mug, but in a tiny personal teapot. My classmates and I were all very impressed.*

I also made awesome fettucine alfredo tonight. It had chicken, ham, and mushrooms. Mmmmm.


* This may say something about English grad students. I'll not speculate on what.

Exciting times in Knoxville, folks. Mostly involving novels and Spanish review books and cleaning fluids. Although I made a trip down to the branch library today and got all library carded up, yay. I like that the library is only a five-minute walk from my apartment, and that the circ desk lady is awfully nice. As are the patrons, as far as I could tell (one introduced herself to me and chatted about grad school).

Also, I played with my latest acquisition: ( Picture under cutCollapse )

Hmmm. Now, dinner, I think, and then back to OD'ing on X-Files fanfic and ghosty novels.

I think I hate change most when it comes to food. Twinnings just changed their teabag packaging over here. Not only do you get five fewer teabags for the same price (argh), but the individual bags don't come in a paper wrapper that you can leave attached to the string anymore. Now it's a plasticy tear-off pouch and a little card tag at the end of the string. I liked the paper wrappers because they let me squeeze the teabag at the end without burning my fingers.

(Yes, I know, sacrilege. But since I also steep my tea for twenty minutes and use no less than three sugars in a cup, I figure it's the least of my sins.)

Well, we finally have our dates set up for spring break. I have it all on a big calendar I made with Sharpie in my room. *whew* Looks like spring break will have six components:

1. rowdycamels and I are spending three days in Lucerne, Switzerland (plus two days' travel to and from). Mountains and lakes and quaint little cities, oh, my!

2. I'm spending two days in Salzburg, Austria, with Annie (plus two days of travel, so this probably really works out to 2.5 days). There will be much geeking about Sound of Music and singing in the hills.

3. I'm doing some laundry in Exeter, and then Pez is going to the Lake District for a few days as a group.

4. We're seeing some horse thing (something with those Lipizzaner stallions...Apassionata? Something like that) in Manchester and then heading back to Exeter for a couple days' rest.

5. Paris for varying amounts of days. Looks like softstepshoes and I are staying for six. Maybe there'll be a day trip here and there, especially to Versailles. fiara, prepare for the bombardment of Pezzers.

6. And, finally, we have a week and a half all over Ireland with the Kenyon/Exeter group. After which we will collapse and generally be exhausted before remembering we have these classes we have to go to...

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Lovely day today. Sunny and warm-ish, though a bit windy. *wipes up the dripping sarcasm* I went to Exeter's museum, which is way bigger than it looks on the outside. It's a strange combination of natural history, world cultures, and art gallery. There was everything from Constable sketches to Japanese samurai armor to a room full of dead starfish. Um...I guess a lot of people donate collections of odd things for display? Anyway, they're currently running an exhibit on Norman Thelwell, whom I can only assume is the British version of Norman Rockwell. He did covers of Punch for years and years in the middle of the century, as well as various comics, in which he created such characters as a little girl and her fat, recalcitrant pony. Funny stuff, and a lot of it, too.

And then I went grocery shopping and bought two more boxes of teabags to add to my growing collection. So now I have 80 bags of Tesco tea (regular black stuff), a few of herbal peppermint, a few of herbal peach/passionfruit (that I totally brought back with me from the US...because England isn't associated with tea or anything...), 50 of Ceylon, and 20 of herbal honey/vanilla/chammomile. (I thought that one was real tea, but alas, it is not.)

Everybody needs to start having tea parties in my room right now.

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Um...yeah. That's about it. Whee, travel!

Verdict: This paper? Not worth an all-nighter. Well, two nights of semi-all-nighters (less than 5 hours of sleep), 'cause I'm a wuss, but together, they add up to an all-nighter, and this paper was so not worth that. Although at least sometime around 3 AM this morning it did shape itself into something...well, not to be proud of, but it's certainly come a long way from the rough draft. And it only took about twelve cups of tea over a 36-hour period, too. (You think I'm joking. I assure you I'm not. My brain ought to be fizzing out my ears by now.)

The screenplay didn't turn out as badly as I feared, either...it still ought to be a novella, not a fifteen-minute film, but the addition of a couple scenes gave it a little more life.

Moral: Don't chose stupid paper topics that you can't make a thesis out of, and then when you do come up with one, have it play Where's Waldo in the paper. 'Cause then you stay up all night looking for a thesis in a haystack. And then the next morning, you start making really stupid metaphors on LiveJournal.

I'm going to bed.