Hi guys! Not dead. Just mostly on Tumblr these days. (Though I advise you to steer clear if you're not a fan of Tom Hiddleston, because it's pretty much been 90% him since I went to see The Avengers. I am smitten and I regret NOTHING.)

Things have been fairly quiet this last semester. Ancient Greek kind of kicked my butt (only managed 59/100) - the grammar is simple enough, especially after two years of Latin, but the vocabulary still refuses to stick in my head. I intend to keep trying, though! It might just be that I'm still adjusting to the unfamiliar script - mental transliteration is still very much a part of my reading process in Greek. I'm planning to read aloud more as I study. Perhaps it will help, even if I do feel like my lips and/or tongue are going to turn themselves inside out when I read Greek.

My other two subjects, Underworld & Afterlife and Latin: Epic, went quite well! I managed a 77/100 and a 74/100 respectively, both of which are scores equivalent to a distinction. I need to practice my Latin translation more, but I think that I'll be saying that for a long time yet! In the interests of that, I have purchased a copy of the first Harry Potter book in Latin. (I also have the Ancient Greek edition, but the grammar for that one is still a bit beyond me at this point - I should be able to limp through by the end of the year.) Underworld & Afterlife was very interesting as well, though I was hoping for less of a Greco-Roman bent - we only had one week each on Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia, but this is what you get when the subject co-ordinator is a classicist, I suppose. Not that I didn't learn some interesting things, but it didn't feel...well, it didn't feel like a very balance look at the ancient world.

Next semester I'll be taking Ancient Greek B, Latin: Historiography (Lucan, apparently, though I don't know or can't remember what text - personally, I'm hoping for Book 6 of the Pharsalia, I read some of that for U&A and it was great), Comparative Civilizations (which will be about Ancient Mesopotamia and I'm very excited for) and An Introduction to the Qua'ran. (The last is my 'well, why not?' subject, since none of the available philosophy topics looked particularly interesting and there are worse ways to spend my time than learning the basics of another faith.)

I'm still in Melbourne at the moment for my winter intensive subject, Akkadian - it's an ancient Near-Eastern language, and very interesting! After Latin, Syriac and Ancient Greek, the grammar doesn't present many problems, but the script is kind of a pain. It's a cuneiform script (it looks like this), which is something I've never learned before. In structure it kind of reminds me of Japanese, actually - it isn't an alphabet but a syllabary plus a collection of logograms, so there's a lot to learn! Not to mention that it wasn't designed to be written, per se...

But even so, I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm really excited about it, in fact. Ancient languages are definitely what I want to learn and work with for the rest of my life - there is just so much to learn and do! I'm so lucky that I'm being given an opportunity to do that with Terry and his research team.

Outside of uni, well... My life has just been so much better, this semester. I really feel like I'm starting to get it together - to the point where I've been talking with my counsellor and my doctor about attempting to go off the antidepressants at the end of the year. I'm a lot happier than I used to be - more accepting of myself, more comfortable with who I am. There's still things that I want to change, but change doesn't seem so hard any more. I want to get out and try things more than I want to stay home and be safe. In fact, I'm planning to join some dancing lessons next semester, and a choir if I can find one. I've always wanted to learn to dance properly, and I miss singing badly. If there's a drama production I could get involved with just for fun, I'd jump at that chance, too.

Basically, life is good. Life is very good. :D

I started replayed FFXIII, since I've done all I usefully can with XIII-2.

Excuse me, I'm just going to steal Vanille and cuddle her for the rest of forever.

...and got a Tumblr.

You can find me at distant-glory.tumblr.com

Except for you, Zaz. You're not allowed until you finish XIII-2, because I'm going to reblog all the Caius and Yeul ever and there are going to be spoilers.

I'd forbid Meg, too, but I think she's already seen most of the stuff I'm going to reblog anyway. :P Certainly her own Tumblr suggests that.

Current time: 7:02 AM

Schedule for day:

8:00AM - Ancient Greek
9:00AM - More Ancient Greek
10:00AM - Latin (goes until 11:30AM)
12:00PM - Work (until 3:00PM)
3:15PM - Underworld and Afterlife lecture (goes until 4:45PM)

I am going to be so dead when I get back to my apartment. SO DEAD.

My Tuesday schedule exists to remind me that no, I am not that organised. Or that energetic.

An album I've been meaning to get for ages, and it's full of songs that are wonderful for my new OTP?

Aw yeah.

tortoises, I owe you a major apology. I know we were meant to meet up during O-week, but I um, kinda, got the dates wrong. I thought this week was O-week. (Luckily I discovered my mistake in time not to miss a week of lectures, but I still feel like an idiot.)

Perhaps a weekend, instead?

Forgive me this entry; I know that it won't be relevant to many of you. But I really need to write this out.

( Thoughts on 'Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries'. Warning for ranting.Collapse )

Basically, mood theme is perfect. GEORGIA SMASH!

In other news, I had my Syriac exam today and I think it went quite well. So that's good, at least. :)

Dear Tsviets,

NO. Back in your box. Highlight first, then the next Insektors prompt, THEN you can run riot in my brain again.

Two weeks, guys. I promise. Even if I have to spend all my weekends writing.

Frustrated,
Me

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the library, print this out, and stick it on my board of inspiration. I really need to update that thing.

And now, back to work on that Highlight fic... I need to get up to the end of the second scene...

Today was the first day of my summer subject, Syriac.

AND I HAD A BLAST.

I have to admit, after getting the texts last week, I was a little leery. It was so different to anything I'd encountered before, including Greek and Latin. The fact that there are three scripts, and that each letter can have up to four forms depending on where it's placed in the word, didn't help my confidence. But our lecturer is a darling - he's so passionate - and he's focused on getting us speaking, reading and writing as quickly as possible. So we're sort of doing little bits of pieces of grammar as they show up and as we need them.

Mostly today we learned the alphabet and the vowels. I don't know them perfectly yet - I still need to do a bit of study tonight - but by this point it's a matter of missing individual letters or putting them in the wrong place, rather than forgetting them per se. Some of the letters are a little challenging in that they represent sounds that don't occur in English - there's a guttural 'h' sound that is hard to remember to produce when we're rushing. Our lecturer described is as sounding a bit like you've got a fish bone stuck in your throat, and I'm forced to admit that he's not far wrong. It's a strange sound - sort of begins deep down in your throat and then rolls off the top of your mouth. But most of them are easy enough - I just have to remember to roll my r's and remember that there are two 'k' sounds.

Writing it is going to take practice. There are some letters that look very similar to one another - Syriac really isn't a language where you can be messy with your letters. Like I mentioned above, there are different forms of the letter used depending on where it is in the word. In addition to that, some letters don't join on certain sides, and there are combinations that need to be avoided because they might be mistaken for something else... There's a lot of things to bear in mind. But it looks pretty awesome.

Oh, speaking of spelling and looking awesome - our lecturer handed around name tags at the start of the class with Syriac transliterations of our names. Apparently I was the only one in the class with an 'official' transliteration - that is, my name has actually appeared in texts. I thought that this was pretty cool. :D

It took me nearly a month of solid fiddling, but it's done!!

New Nero one-shot here. Rated T because Deepground is Deepground.

Georgia: 4, Nero...28,365, or thereabouts.

I bought 'The 3rd Birthday' today. It was on sale, it was there, and I kinda wanted the Aya Brea costume for Lightning in Duodecim, so I bought it. I'm somewhere in the first level at the moment, just starting to get the hang of the gameplay (somewhat hampered by the fact that the last thing I was playing was Birth By Sleep - I waste more hand grenades that way...).

But anyway, I'm thoroughly confused by the story. I spoiled the hell of myself for this game and the previous two, and I'm still confused.

So I think I'm going to put the game down again until I can download and play the first two, and then see if it makes any more sense... I'm not so enamoured of shooting games that I'll keep playing when the story is tying my head in knots.

Also, I can't escape the feeling that if you just changed her hair, Aya would be magically transformed into Serah...

I was looking at pictures of moths on Google a little earlier. Once I had satisfied myself that I knew what their wings looked like, I scrolled back up to the top of the page, the 'other search' keywords caught my eye. In particular, 'scary moth'.

"Scary moth? Huh."

Click.

One of the pictures that came up was this.

...Am I the only one who thinks that this is kinda cute, in an Unversed sort of way? I want to give it a cuddle. It looks so fluffy!

...are playing tug-of-war.

ARGH.

We came back a little early, since we'd gotten into the habit of sleeping in and we would have had to get up early to check out in time. It was a lovely quiet holiday, which is definitely the kind I like best. :)

I'm going to be away for the next six days - my family and I are going for a quick holiday and I'm informed that there probably won't be an internet connection.

So I hope that everyone has a lovely week, and I'll be back next Wednesday!

My thoughts can be summed up thus:

( Spoilers below the cutCollapse )

I've been working on a patchwork quilt for the past couple of weeks, so I'm going to try getting that done. It's going to go on my bed at the new unit. :)

Hi, guys. Sorry for dropping off the map for the past two months. I haven't been really busy, but I didn't feel that there was much going on worth talking about/wasn't really in the mood to write things up/just didn't feel like it. There have been a few rough patches, but I got through them with a minimum amount of bumps.

I had a lovely Christmas, and I hope that everyone else had the same - Christmas, or whatever it is that you do around this time of year. :)

In other news, these are some things that I've seen recently that I really wish I understood:

• A drawing of an elephant on a speed bump sign


• A guy in a top hat and tails walking out of a supermarket with a packet of sausages and a clove of garlic

The second one, in particular. Occasionally, life likes to remind us that there are stories going on all around us that we will never get to hear about...

LAST PIECE OF ASSESSMENT FOR THE SEMESTER IS DONE!

At least until exams. But those aren't for nearly two months yet.

Now, back to writing and beta reading...

I HAVE FOUND A NEW FAVOURITE BOOKSTORE!

SO GOING ON A SPREE WHEN I GET MY NEXT PAYCHEQUE!!!

I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that running on 3 hours sleep and having read the wrong chapters for class and grabbed the wrong folder when walking out the door, my Law tute actually mostly made sense.

Most of the ones in this store got a giggle (or guffaw) out of me, but this one was the best. :D



(Latin pronounces 'v' as 'w', in case you don't know.)

Found this after my fifty millionth time watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I bawled.

(But why has no one used Lifehouse's 'Quasimodo' to make a tribute to Quasi? I would think it would be an obvious choice! Or I just have a really bad sense of humour...)

 I wonder if beta reading counts as unpaid work? ;)

Is there any polite way to tell someone they have no business being a beta reader because they clearly haven't got a clue how to write a story?

Seriously, FF.net should make anyone who wishes to be a beta reader pass a basic spelling/grammar/punctuation test.

Dear Brain,

Look, I know it's been a while since I read the Chronicles of Narnia. But I know that I can safely say that in no story does Lucy have a giant purple flying snake called "McDonald McSchnoodle".

Quit it with the weird dreams, alright?

No love,
RC

Also, an out-of-context line courtesy of my mother that I am seriously considering making into an icon: "There will always be dishonorable cows!"

...that I managed to be a reminder that it takes all types to make the world.

I imagine that the average Transformers fan is not expected to knit pink shawls while waiting for the theatre to open.

Translation: went to Imax to see Dark of the Moon yesterday, killed time by working on the shawl I'm making for my Nana. I was wearing my Autobots jumper.

I love the first few days after getting a haircut. Bed hair actually looks like STYLE when it's this short.

Actually I've been home for a few days now but this is not the point.

I can literally feel myself unwinding. It's very nice. Maybe I will even get a good night's sleep one of these days!

In other news:


Lion in my Bathtub by *sebreg on deviantART

I CELEBRATE WITH HAPPY VIDEOS

Dear iTunes,

By this point, I'm used to you not having the earliest works of artists. That's occasionally irritating, but understandable - after all, people usually change labels at least once during their careers.

But not having the most recent album? What's up with that?

Sincerely confused,
RC

going to stab me for making this pun

Checking over your old stories, reading the reviews, and recognizing among the names an author that now writes fic that you admire. O_o

Stress does bizarre things to my dreams, including throwing up things I haven't thought of for years and years. This morning's victim: INSEKTORS.

I LOVED this show when I was a kid. I remember one of our family friends having a video of some of the episodes, and I used to borrow it and watch it obsessively. Since I woke up with the theme (which is awesome) running through my head, I decided to run a quick Google search, see if I could find out whether it had been released on DVD. That search came to nothing, but I wandered into a fansite that linked to a Youtube channel with all the episodes!

Seriously, thinking about it, this show is probably my first fandom. I remember making up stories about these characters, and I very definitely shipped Aelia/Acylius!

Watching these episodes brings such a grin to my face. Oh, for the days when the good guys arranged fireworks and music for their enemies' leader's birthday and colour - I'm sorry, kolor - left the bad guys laughing hysterically and playing chasey around their queen's skirts...

ONE MORE PIECE OF ASSESSMENT DOWN.

Remaining:
- One 1500 word essay for Classical Mythology (due June 6th)
- One listening test for Ragtime to Rap (June 6th)
- One exam for Intermediate Latin (June 10th)
- One 1500 word essay for Latin Oratory (due...sometime in late June >>)

...I can totally do this.

But I'm also totally taking the weekend off.

I am a dork.

I'm a dork, I'm a dork, I'm a dork.

This is niiice by *KiwiesRuleXD on deviantART

The amazing artistic skill and fine wit of quaterzaz will never cease to amaze me. ;)

And now, I'm off to leave another few reviews in the Dissidia section. And finish beta reading another chapter.

If I have time after all that, I might even do a little writing myself!

Unicorns don't believe by *foowahu on deviantART

TAKE THAT YOU EVIL BITCH!!!!

In other words, I managed to take down Zeromus. I had meant to level everyone to 70, but while I was wandering around the Subterrane taking on everything except Deathmasks (which are evil and I hate forever), I thought, 'Well, what the heck? I'll give it another shot, see how badly I get my ass kicked his time.'

So I got to the final area, watched the cutscene, and proceeded to lay into the guy. It went pretty well up until about the third cast of Big Bang, by which point Kain and Edge were knocked out, Rydia and Rosa were barely hanging on and Cecil was still pretty okay. I got an Elixir into Rosa via Rydia, who conked out at the next Big Bang. At this stage, I was like, 'Crap. I'm so dead. I'm gonna get stuck in a revive loop, and then I'm gonna die. Well, fine. But I'm taking as much of you with me as I can, Zeromus!'

So I just kept attacking with Cecil and healing with Rosa. And it dawned on me that it was actually WORKING. I wasn't dying. I wasn't even in DANGER of dying. I could happily lovetap this guy into oblivion, 5000 points of damage and one cast of Curaga at a time. Which is what I did.

THESE GUYS ARE SUCH A DREAM TEAM.

SCREW YOU ZEROMUS!!

/skulks off to level some more

I got the Complete Collection today. :D Eeeee, so excited to finally meet Cecil and Kain on their home ground!!

( Thoughts below the cut, mildly spoileryCollapse )

Dear Dissidia fanfiction authors,

I understand that the great Square-Enix, in their wisdom, has chosen to set a precedent in the use of Latin titles for the different cycles. It's perfectly reasonable for you to want to make use of Latin when you title your stories.

But please - as a Latin student - I beg you, MAKE SURE YOU GET THE NUMBERS RIGHT. It's not that hard. Any Google search will tell you.

With frustration,
RC

PHRYNE FISHER TV SERIES FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!

ANASTASIA HAS EFFING AWESOME SONGS, GUYS. I DON'T KNOW HOW I'D FORGOTTEN THEM, BUT I HAD.

*PUTS 'AT THE BEGINNING' ON REPEAT FOREVER*



Also, seriously, I can't be the only one who finds Richard Marx quite attractive indeed in this video. Just sayin'.

1. Jak vs Ratchet: who would win?

I had to sit down and think about this one for a while. Assuming that Jak had a full charge of eco and Ratchet had an end-of-game set of guns... I think Ratchet would win. Jak's dark eco powers only have so much range, and most weapons of Ratchet's (aside from things like the Walloper) have a greater range than those!

2. What's the most obscure pairing that you like and why do you like it?

Another question I had to sit down and think about. 'Obscure' kind of makes me think 'canon but not often written about', so if I'm going by that definition...that would definitely have to be Raul/Samantha from Ergo Proxy.

It's hard to get much more obscure than this one, actually. It's canon - they're married. But Samantha is a very minor character who gets a handful of lines before being offed in the second episode, and you don't actually learn her name unless you check the credits. We never see them interact directly, although we get several one-sided phone conversations. I got to wondering about what their relationship was like, which meant extrapolating on those phone conversations, and just generally pondering how they might have met and ended up together and...well, I ended up with something that had been built up out of competition and snark but was ultimately loving - a combination that I love. The more I started to think about Samantha, the more she interested me - the impression that she gives isn't a good one in her brief appearances, but when I started to think about what she wanted and so on, she turned out to have some interesting depths.

I could be barking up the wrong tree with her, of course, but...heck, the field is wide open on this one, and I intend to take advantage of that. ;)

3. Do you or have you ever had any pets?

Currently, we have a dog called Clancy. He's a staffy/blue heeler/border collie and he looks mostly like this. He's about ten and a total wuss. He likes to come over and put his head on your lap, or else flop down at your feet and solicit a good tummy scratch.

Over the years, I've also owned three guinea pigs - one was killed by a cat within a few weeks of getting her, one inexplicably just died (we had a 'funeral' for her in the backyard and my brother insisted on humming the Imperial Theme from Star Wars. Needless to say, this did not win any points with me) and the last we gave away so that she wouldn't be lonely.

We also had a tabby cat called Fergus when I was about three. What I mostly remember about him is that he bit me once. Given the habit of my brother and I to carry him around (one of us grabbing him by the neck and the other by his tail), I cannot blame him at all. We gave him away when we moved to Canberra, and I hope his new home was more peaceful than one with two under-five children in it!!

4. Which film/TV episode/book etc always makes you cry?

Uh. Lessee. Films: Avatar and Moulin Rouge can make me cry outright, although I tend to get choked up a lot more than that - happy as well as sad parts, I am such a sap.

TV episodes: there's probably more than one, but the only one I can think of right now is the Teen Titans episode "How Long Is Forever". There is one part that gets me, always and without fail.

Books: there's actually not terribly many of these, or there wasn't until a few weeks ago. I've been reading a lot of Mercedes Lackey recently (almost worked my way through the entire Valdemar series! Anyone got a copy of 'Exile's Honor' I could borrow to complete it?), and there are parts that can just make me bawl. Magic's Pawn - if/when you read it, you will know the part I mean. Storm Warning - ditto. Brightly Burning, although that whole thing is a tear jerker if you've read the whole series.

5. What was the first fandom you were an active part of?

Teen Titans! I was twelve, and I stumbled across the concept of fanfiction quite by accident while I was reading some forum discussions about the end of Season 1. I was outraged by the first fic I read - it was a Robin/Raven. Needless to say, the first few weeks were...educational, for me. (Although I wasn't introduced to the concept of slash until I made my way into the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom a bit later.) I wrote terrible Mary Sue fics and songfics, which have long since been deleted in the hopes that people will take me seriously. ;)

1. Whose your favorite Dissidia character in the new cast (aside from Lightning)?

That would have to be a toss-up between Kain and Prishe. I adore them both.

2. How far are you in Dissidia 012?

I'm working on clearing Scenario 000. I haven't yet beaten 'Dreams of a Flying Castle' or 'The Forsaken Lands', but otherwise the only thing I have left to do is beat the level 130 Feral Chaos waiting in Edge of Discord. Yesterday's attempt didn't go so well... Clearly, more Resins are needed.

3. What anime/manga series do you love the most?

...Toss-up between the first two seasons of Digimon and Ergo Proxy. I'm not actually a big anime/manga person, if only because I just can't seem to find the time to get into them...

4. In light of the evil fan fictions within the Dissidia fandom, will you write one for the sake of sanity?

Working on it! Working on several, actually. Although some of them...well, 'dark' would be an understatement...*kicks 'Discordant Heart' under the bed*

5. Can I throw ten thousand clovers on you?

Uh...sure?

Here's the meme:

- Comment with "Hit me!"
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.