Maledicte

When last we saw our intrepid heroine... on June 18th wtf, self, you were supposed to be getting better at this...

• I changed jobs. The part time gig was good and all, but now I have a full time gig that I like and I like the people I work with and the people seem to like me too. It's better all around, not to mention the fact that I will likely be able to actually pay my bills a little easier and maybe even save some money. And, since I'm now working at a Japanese Spa, I get all kinds of awesome benefits, like discounts and gift cards and such. This job is pretty awesome, guys.

• I also got a new tattoo on Saturday. I got the "Not all those who wander are lost" part of Strider's riddle, translated into Quenya, on my back. I'm happy with it, although it does make putting on jackets, reaching for things up high at work, and sleeping occasionally interesting. I am also considering getting something while I'm in Ireland. We shall see.

• Only about a week til my UK trip! I decided to take a little trip to Glasgow between London and Dublin, and I might use one of the three days I'm there to take a day trip to Edinburgh as well. I'm also considering a day trip up to Belfast from Dublin, as well as trekking out from London for an evening to see my favorite band at a festival they're playing at. I have all these options!

• It's chilly and rainy out, which means I am eating warm things to keep a little on the warmer side. I'd have considered staying late at work for free hot tub soaking, but lightning. And I wanted to come home and read my book.

That's about it, in terms of news.

I'm going to try posting more like once a week for a while, and see how that goes? It's been a week-ish since my last post, so here we go.

• I did the graduation thing, and actually had a pretty good time. I had no idea who was going to be speaking, but they got a local artist to do the commencement speech, and I thought it was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised. There was a student speaker who was a student I'd literally never heard of or met, but that's not surprising. Since I never lived in the dorms, I was never really forced to mingle with students from other programs. I only knew the few who had been in various classes for Core requirements. Anyway, it was a nice ceremony, shorter than I thought it would be which was nice, and it felt like a good conclusion to my time at the university.

• My grandparents (father's side) came, as did my mom and stepdude. There was some shuffling around and seeing one group for lunch and then the other group for dinner, but it worked out well and went much smoother than I thought it would. For four days I ate really well, and much more diversely than I generally feed myself. (I don't eat badly, really, but I will happily eat fruit for breakfast and then salad for dinner four days in a row. So.)

• I got an entirely unexpected, and extremely generous Amazon gift card from a friend of my mother's, and I already went and spent about half of it. With my Prime membership I get free 2-day shipping, so the first installment just got here. I got:

→ Books 5-7 of seanan_mcguire's October Daye series, although book 7 is the one book that will be getting here tomorrow. I have all the books on my Kindle, but I need them in hard copy. (More on that in a moment.) No, I don't already own books 1-4. I got the ones I like best first, and I'll get the rest soon.
→ Books 5-7 of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series. I do actually own books 1 and 2, but again I got the ones I like best first, and I will fill in the series later.
→ Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, because I super loved it. And also because it has art by Noelle Stevenson (gingerhaze) for the cover. And because... I just... it spoke to me, okay?

• I also got my trip to England and Ireland in August as a graduation present from my mom and stepdude. Pardon me if I seem somewhat sedate when I say that, I just don't know how to accurately express the levels of excitement I'm feeling in text. But yeah. I am SO. EXCITED. I'll be going to WorldCon in London and then ShamroKon in Dublin, both of which will be attended by seanan_mcguire, hence the need for books she can actually sign. Patricia Briggs will also be there, so I will get some of those books signed too. (Note to Self: Figure out how many books I can actually take with me.) I've already started looking at some things I can do in London and Dublin while I'm there, and I think it's going to be a good time!

• This one isn't really a graduation present, but it coincided with graduating anyway: I saw Journey in concert last night! It was awesome! (It was actually Tower of Power -> The Steve Miller Band -> Journey, and even Steve Miller was pretty awesome. You know, Fly Like An Eagle and all.) I didn't actually scream myself hoarse, but my throat is a little sore and scratchy today. It was interesting to watch Journey play with their replacement lead singer, who they found on YouTube. Imagine being asked by a band you really like to come sing with them. And not just sing with them once, but come sing with them all the time! There's not a good writerly analogy for that, but I guess it would be kind of like if my favorite author decided they didn't want to keep writing their series and would I please take over. Anyway. It was interesting.

• I'm not currently wearing my Journey t-shirt that I got last night. It's white, and it seems like it might rain. Not that I'm planning on leaving the house. But, you know, better safe than inadvertently winning a wet t-shirt contest that I'm the only contestant of.

• X-Men: Days of Future Past comes out at the end of this week, and I have tentative plans to see it next week, I think. I am really looking forward to more James McAvoy (terrible hair and all) and Michael Fassbender. Oh yes. And all those other people too. And Hugh Jackman. Can't forget about him.

Yeah, I think that's all for today. More next week, I guess.

Whoa, I haven't posted since my birthday.

• I'm leaving for NYC tomorrow, which is a stopover on my way to Israel. I'm going to Israel!! I leave on Sunday, have an overnight flight, and then I get to be trotted around to see various touristy things, and eat good food. The food part is paramount, as the trip I'm going on is a Culinary trip. Among the first things we do is go to brunch at a dairy farm and try "boutique cheeses." Nomnomnom. I'm going to eat all the food and take all the pictures.

• I'm also moving at the end of the month. I get back from Israel on the 20th, then get back home from NYC on the 24th, and then my lease is up on the 28th. Which means I feel like I'm running around a lot like a chicken without a head. Yipes.

• I read 8 books in January! And none yet so far this month. I'm not sure that's likely to change, although I suppose there will be travel time in which to read (first airplanes and then buses and then more airplanes). Still, I think I will be able to meet my original goal of 50 books read for this year, and perhaps surpass it! Go go go me!

• I don't have a travel icon! I'll fix this eventually. In the meantime, have a hungry kitty.

That's really all the news there is of my life. Aaaand crap, I really need to finish packing.

Argh, more than a month has gone by since I last posted. I was going to be better than this! So, lessee, what's new this month?

• School still goes. So that's not exactly new. I was feeling like I was drowning in homework and work in general last week (and possibly the week before), but I seem to have gotten my head above the water again. I am so incredibly thankful that this is my last semester.

• Myth, Archetype, & Fairy Tale is still by far the best and most awesome class. We all have to do a final project, and since the class is mostly filled with Writing Majors most of us are writing. I'm going to be writing a small collection of retold tales. Red Riding Hood the Werewolf Slayer, Maleficent's Curse, the Love Story of Hades & Persephone, Cassandra of Troy: Modern Day Prophetess are all the things that I've sort of got a handle on so far. I want to do something with Captain Hook but I'm not sure what yet. So we'll see. I'm pretty excited.

• J and I moved furniture around the house last week, putting the TV, Wii and cable box in the bedroom and making space for a small desk/work nook in the corner of the living room for me. Both of these changes have made life much easier and more enjoyable in this teensy apartment we call home. Plus, watching movies (like The Lone Ranger, LOL) in our bedroom on the big TV is much nicer.

• I have a doctor's appointment a week from tomorrow! This will be the first time I've seen a doctor (other than the dentist or my optometrist) in much too long. I'm definitely not looking forward to having bloodwork done—tattoos have not exactly made me fond of needles, but I think I might be past the post of spontaneously bursting into tears at even the sight of a syringe—but I am looking forward to having a reliable someone to prescribe birth control (rather than my school nurse) and possible someone to prescribe sleeping pills. This sleeping-poorly bullshit has got to stop.

• Plus, also, I need a doctor's note in order to go to Israel this February. Free trip to Israel because I'm Jewish, woo! I've gotten them everything they need except the doctor's note (because I don't currently have a doctor, whoops) and I really, really hope that the Culinary trip hasn't been filled by the time I get it to them because it seems like that might be one of the only trips I would really enjoy. So, fingers crossed and all that.

• This fall's TV is so far awesome. I'm watching Sleepy Hollow (and hiding from all the scary parts behind my hands), Downton Abbey (how much do I love Mary? a lot!), Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which I am really loving to bits and pieces), Once Upon A Time (which continues to be full of awesomeness and their Peter Pan is my new favorite), Castle (because I can't give up on it now), Masters of Sex (which I am watching entirely because of Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan) and Elementary (because, Sherlock Holmes. duh.)

• On a totally different note: I really dislike how DW's tagging works, in that I really like it when LJ will show you all the tags you have that start with L if you type that in. DW only shows you one option, and since I don't remember all my tags, it's less useful to me. I always have to cross check my tags with LJ when I post here.

ETA: Oh oh oh! One more thing!

• J and I are going to the east coast for the weekend after Thanksgiving! (Which is when my mother's family gets together to celebrate Thanksgiving, since there are six of them, and they all have significant others so they go their separate ways on the actual holiday.) This is exciting because it's going to give us Friday evening and some of Sunday in NYC together. He's going to bring his camera and I'm going to take him to some touristy places and feed him real bagels and real (fake) Chinese food and real pizza. And maybe a falafel sandwich from a cart. And he'll get to meet Aaron on Sunday, and maybe Mira and Em depending on what those two are up to around then. So that's exciting too!

It's a shame y'all over at LJ can't see my awesome Mary/Downton Abbey icon. :p

I'm in Denver! And I found a free wifi thingy! Yay! This is my celebratory icon.

• Except for one script I have to revise and another really short one I have to write all before midnight tonight, school is done for the semester. Whoo!

• Let summer vacation ensue! (Also the warms. I'm done with wintery weather now. Give me some warms.)

• I'm on my way to the east coast for a few days for a family thing. And I will briefly get to see some friends before I fly back. So that is really nice.

Yeah, that's all there is. Back to editing the aforementioned script.

• My time in NYC is drawing to a close. I had a great time here, despite not seeing some people and only seeing others for short periods of time. This time, though, I am really looking forward to going home, as the Boyfriend is still in NM. I have actually had something to miss while I was here. It's an odd thing. But I will be happy to see him again.

• While here I have reread three of Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series (haven't finished Lady Knight again yet) and three new books (two Nora Roberts, and Patricia Brigg's newest Alpha & Omega book, Fair Game). I am feeling pretty good about the rate at which I am reading books this year. Since the beginning of 2012 I have read (including rereads) 21 books. That's a lot!

• I'm currently reading Anne Rice's newest, The Wolf Gift which is good so far. Werewolves rather than vampires, in case you couldn't tell from the title. (Also, I saw somewhere that she imagines Matt Bomer as the main character if they ever made a movie of it, and that got stuck in my head. Good times.) I haven't actually read any of Anne Rice's stuff (except the last of the Beauty Trilogy (the gay one) which is hilarious if you're considering it), not even her vampire things. I have Interview With A Vampire and Queen of the Damned, so maybe I'll give those a try after this. We shall see.

• Kindles are the best.

• Dishes, however, are not the best. And I forgot that I needed to do them before I leave, since I have no idea how the dishwasher here works. Whoops.

• No interviews were had while I was here. I am not deterred in my determination to have an internship for the summer. I don't know if I will be able to get out here again for interviews, though. I really shouldn't miss more of my M/W/F classes. (They are too early in the morning for me. I am too likely to say "Fuck it," while still mostly asleep, and then not go. WHOOPS.) Maybe I can talk the teacher into some extra credit work instead (since the stuff seems to mostly be things that I already know, so far). That would probably help moderate the damage done to my grade by missing classes.

And now it is bedtime, since I have to get up at 4am to get to my 7:30am flight. Gah.

• My time in NYC draws to a close. I leave tomorrow morning (not too terribly early, thank heavens) having spent a fantastic couple of weeks here in the city I still long to call home. It's still my intention to come back here as soon as I can. I miss the bustle and the anonymity, the subways and the streets, my friends, the shopping, the culture. I've always felt like NYC got into my bloodstream quickly when I moved here before high school, and I get myself through my time in Santa Fe by reminding myself that every day there is another day closer to being back here. I miss it I miss it I miss it.

• That being said, I enjoyed my time. While here I:

♥ saw inthebookfort, exrpan, oduinn, lskull86 and his girlfriend, a friend from SJC also on vacation and my ex boyfriend;
♥ went to a burlesque circus show for New Year's Eve Eve;
♥ saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Shame, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and A Dangerous Method;
♥ went to the Metropolitan Museum on an evening when they're open late;
♥ walked more than I have in months in Santa Fe;
♥ did a couple hours of research on summer internships here in the city in my field and noted application deadlines and phone numbers for those I will need to call;
♥ started the research for claiming my Birthright trip to Israel.

• I'm hoping to be back for Spring Break, if only because I might need to be here so that I can do some interviews for internships. I think I have a good chance of getting some of the more minor internships, but of course I want the bigger ones. I want the one at Penguin Group. Or Scholastic. Fingers crossed!

• I really need to write my first story for my Independent Study tomorrow or the next day. Airplane writing!

• Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. Because I decided to be lazy today, I have two papers to write tomorrow. I suspect that one of them will be less than stunning and the other will likely get me at least a B, though it won't be great work. I am ok with this, as my grades are pretty good regardless.

• I was snowed in on Wednesday, and I was snowed in today. My neighbor who usually plows our roads didn't think anyone was actually living in this house, so he didn't plow me out. I was surprised to hear this since I see him walking his dog all the time and always wave to him. But! Now he knows I'm here and that he should rescue me from the snows, so all is well.

• Ironically, I got snowed in and was unable to go have snow tires put on my car. Since I was plowed out a couple hours ago, I am going in tomorrow morning for the tires. Hopefully there will be less slipping when driving up my driveway in the snow. Of all the things that are on my "Do Not Do" list, slipping off the semi cliff that is my driveway is pretty high up there.

• I am knitting a sweater. I think this is the biggest project I've ever taken on. Also, I am entirely improvising this pattern, so hopefully when I'm done I'll actually have something that functions and looks like a sweater. So far it's going well, though. I'm almost through the second skein of yarn, though that really only means that I have about 8 inches of the body from the bottom hem up. Since I want it to be a long-ish sweater and that means I need at least a foot of body before I do any shaping, that means I'm not terribly far along. But it looks like a lot so I am happy.

• This entry is sort of pointless already.

• My birthday is exactly a week from today. I'll be 23. Not a landmark or anything, and I'm not really "excited" or anything, but I might actually get to spend it with friends, so that might be nice. It'll be whoever is still in town, I think. But that will be better than spending it alone. The last two birthdays have been remarkably uninteresting. 21 I spent with my father, watching Studio 60 and not drinking the scotch were were going to drink. 22 I worked the whole day and then went to dinner with my mom, and then... Actually, I can't remember if I did anything after dinner. If I did, apparently it wasn't memorable. I'm thinking dinner with friends would be a nice birthday, so we'll see who's in town.

• I'm also leaving in a little over a week. Vacation for almost three weeks. I am excited for Christmas and New Year's and seeing friends and being in NYC. Even though I generally don't like the cold, I actually think I prefer winter in New York to summer. Summer is too hot and muggy. Winter comes with beautiful holiday windows dressings, lights, and fun. I will have missed the Union Square Holiday Market which is one of my favorite things about NYC in the winter, but at least friends will be there.

I'm mailing out holiday cards in the morning. I'll add any addresses I get between now and then, but after that, no more cards!
Request one here!

• Once again Delicious has fucked up. Idk what's actually going on business-wise (I gather someone bought the site and wanted to put their own stamp on it) but I imported all my Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks and then deleted my Delicious account. Both as a way of saying, "Fuck you, please die in a fire," to the people who fucked up the website, and also to remove the temptation to keep bookmarking there. I'll have to take some time to get to know Google bookmarks (which needs a shorter and catchier name) and to edit all my bookmarks to make them readable again, but then hopefully everything will be fine again. For a while.

• School is still going well. I wrote the worst paper on Machiavelli for my Ethics class... and got 25 out of 25 points on it. The only comments from the teacher were that it was well constructed and well thought out. Which... is sort of hilarious actually. I mean, if I had handed in that paper at SJC, my teachers would likely have given it back and been like, "You're joking, right?" Apparently the bullshitting skills I learned in high school will serve me well here. Anyway, I seem to be getting good grades. Here's hoping that continues.

• I have a meeting with my Academic Advisor and the guy in charge of Study Abroad in 25 minutes. I am looking forward to that, but a little worried that the deadline for applications for next semester (Spring semester, which is sometimes deceptive, as it actually includes a whole lot of winter) are due October 1st. Which is impossible for me to meet. On the other hand, spending a fall semester (which, again, is deceptive as it usually includes a fair chunk of summer) in Barcelona might be awesome. Then I could always take a few weeks before the term begins and do some exploring in Europe. Though, really, I could also just take weekend trips to Paris/Berlin/Nice/Madrid/other places in Europe when I'm there for school. But that's sort of exciting.

• I've also been notified by Hillel and some other Jewish Youth organization that I might be eligible for a Birth Right trip to Israel. While that's not exactly the safest place on the planet right now... not a whole lot of places on the planet right now are totally "safe" anyway. I'm definitely going to sign up to be selected, but I want to wait for a summer trip. I don't want to miss school. I gather that the trips are fairly short (10 days, someone told me) but you can extend your trip once the group breaks up. So I could do some exploring of that region too. (Egypt, Turkey, Greece, &c.) Fingers crossed for that, as it's possible I could age-out (apparently). Hopefully I am still young enough that I have a little time for this.

• My first real workshop is tomorrow. I am somewhat anxious. I submitted a story that I'd already written (at my first Alpha, I think) but that I've been wanting to revise pretty much since the moment I finished writing it but never really knew what to do with it. Actually, about two days before I handed it out to the class I realized what I wanted to do with it, but I am hoping that I will still get some good things from having people look at it. (I don't think this piece ever got workshopped at Alpha, so.) I am excited but also nervous. Eeeeee.

• Rosh Hashana starts tomorrow evening, and I have already informed my teachers that I will be out of class for Thursday day. Yes, I could technically make it to class if I really wanted to, but it's a holiday. And I suspect that I will be exhausted, as I am also taking my mother to the airport at 6:30am. I am very much looking forward to the singing, even though the director (I think) wants me to sit in the most visible place of the entire choir seating. I expect I will be bright pink and shaking for all of our songs.

• Still working on fic things. Not making much progress because it makes me cranky that they aren't doing what I want, but. Technically, still working.

• A friend of mine -- or, rather, someone I thought was a friend -- is being passive aggressive, and lying to me (I think) and talking about my behind my back (or so I've been told). Which is upsetting. I knew she was a compulsive liar and that she had trouble keeping anything confidential (and by trouble I mean that it never happened) but I overlooked that for the majority of our friendship because there are a lot of things I actually like about her. I think I'm going to give up. I've done my part. I've made the effort, and if she's not going to, I don't think it's fair to myself to keep trying. Which... is rather sad.

And now my meeting is in 10 minutes, so I think it's time to wrap up this post.

• I am home from NYC. I had a lovely time! I would talk about it more, but most of the people I'd be talking about it for, I actually saw and talked to in person, and thus they don't really need to have a run down. As for the rest of you... Well, suffice to say I had a lovely time and I do miss my city (just less so in the summer).

• While I was in NYC, I saw Cowboys & Aliens which was sort of awesome. I think my favorite part is that the movie is a serious movie, despite it's comical premise. Everyone took it seriously in the writing, acting, directing, everything. And when I get home, I am actually going to read that article in EW about the movie (because it only came out two and a half weeks ago and I still haven't read it) and probably fangirl Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford quietly in my room for a bit.

• I am currently working on two X-Men: First Class fics. One is for an exchange and is due tomorrow (and is about half done) and the other is for xmenbigbang and thus not due for a while, but I am still sort of behind. It's sort of exciting. I haven't really wrote fic in a while. Once I turn in the one tomorrow, I will substitute the Star Trek fic that I really need to finish into the line up. Good times.

• My dad discovered chocolate ice cream made with coconut milk and with no dairy at Trader Joe's, and it's kind of amazeballs. No seriously. If there's a TJ near you, and they have this stuff, definitely try it even if you don't have to shun dairy because your digestion works just fine. This stuff may be dangerous for my weight-loss plan.

• School starts at the very end of August. I got all the classes I talked about in my last post. Luckily, my two writing classes are only one day a week, so it's not actually as full as it looks. On the other hand, I do start at 8am every day of the week, so that sort of sucks for me.

• I have decided that I want to start horse back riding again, so I've found a place to do it and I am going to give them a call today and start setting that up. I need to get some equipment (I grew out of my boots years ago, and I doubt I'll still fit into my pants) but other than that, I think I actually have everything I need for it already. I'm hoping the quote I got from another woman at the barn is accurate, because it's a super reasonable price for lessons, even if I can only go once a week. Anyway, I am super excited, and my mom said that she can probably chip in a little, so that will help with the costs.

• I have finally gotten my hands on: GRRM's A Dance With Dragons, blackholly's Red Glove, and Melissa Marr's Darkest Mercy, the last of which I've only been waiting for my library to get for, I don't know, at least 6 months. I am going home today with 14 books in two bags. All told, not the biggest library haul I've ever gone home with.

• Last night I had a dream where I met Tom Hardy. I think I said hi to him. I also met, and converse with, another celebrity, but I am totally blanking on who it was now. Which is a shame. It was someone hot, so it would be nice to remember who. (At least for the lulz, and at most so that I could do a bit of daydreaming.)

That's all I can think of for right now. I'm going to try to update this thing a bit more, though.