Lissiel's Journal

I got my hair cut. It has long-ish layers now, that make it curl instead of frizz weirdly. The lady took more off the ends than I wanted though. It's maybe three, four inches from my belt? At least I don't need to worry about tucking it into my pants anymore.

Have read Rabbit, Run, Native Son, Evolution and Why it Matters, The Analects of K'ung Tsu, The Daxue (Higher Education) and Xiao Jing (Classic of Filial Piety), half of Graham's Disputers of the Tao, On the Warrior's Path, and The Art of Peace. Since two weeks ago. And I still have quite a bit more I'm supposed to have done. Why did I think 18 units was a good idea again?

Been playing with the slow cooker I got for Christmas. I love how convenient it is, but somehow everything I cook in it sucks. Tasteless, and unevenly cooked. :/ I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Valentines day is coming up. I guess this year we should really do something for that. Er. That doesn't involve taking the long weekend and just sleeping and catching up on homework. Probably. I don't know.

I don't know if it's the stress, or the graduation anxiety, or the lack of sleep and not remembering to eat, or some hormonal/neurochemical thing, but I've really been having a hard time, lately. I'm tired, and cranky, and I don't want to talk to anyone or do anything but sit around in my pajamas with M and play video games. Also, people have been writing SO MUCH SHINY, and I haven't had the spare time/energy/emotional well-being to read any of it for weeks and eeeeeeeeh. *whine, bitch, moan, complain*

This is why no one has heard from me for weeks. H-hi guys! I still love you! Tell me what you're doing. <3

Argh. Argh.

I am going to graduate in May. Probably. Assuming the school actually lets me take every class I need to next semester, and assuming they haven't lied to me about things filling requirements. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what I'm going to do after that. Work? AHAhahah. Probably not. Graduate school? Maybe, depending on deadlines. But for what? And THEN what do I do with it? I AM NOT ACTUALLY COMPETENT IN ANYTHING YOU GUYS. D:

This winter semester thing is fun. 3 units in 10 days sounds like a great idea, and it does keep me from getting bored and blowing the class off. But it's also a week's worth of work every day. For two weeks. Complete with tests and papers. And it starts at 8am, whether or not I'm able to get to sleep before 3am. So I haven't slept more than five hours in a row since monday last week, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and not talk to anyone ever again.

Despite original disagreements, I think we've gotten people to agree to the guest-list being roughly 40 people? For now? We'll see, I guess. To me, that's like...jeezus, FORTY PEOPLE? Do I know that many people? But we had like 100 to start with. I was foreseeing mad panic attacks or completely drugged-out incoherence in my future. :Db Good times! No seriously, can we just run away? Elvis can marry us, and we'll just hide out until everyone forgets we ever said anything. Okay? Okay? Bueller?

And to top it all off, I'm getting sick, and haven't been able to keep any food down except a few crackers since this morning. ROCK.

I think I might attempt Nanowrimo again this year. There's kind of a lot going on, and although I have a tentative timeline for things, I still don't have my plot actually laid out, and the chances of my actually making 50,000 are slim-to-none, but...

I have some characters I really like, male and female characters I think I can feel good about. I have a setting in the north of France in 1942-3, though I still need to narrow it down to a city. I have some idea of what needs to happen, and how it should end.

I think this year, though, what I'm going to do is set up a filter on this journal and post bits of the story to it as I write--character sketches, scenes, worldbuilding, etc--to see if having it collected will help. And since I'm going to do that, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd like to see it? I can't make any promises on quality, since this'll be pretty hastily written and non-edited, but...If people are curious, feel free to comment here and I'll add you.

/edit: ALSO! If you're also participating this year and want to be writing buddies, I'm Mitsuhachi over there too. :)

My capstone class is doing a student-led writing workshop tomorrow, for which they've asked us to bring a page of fiction that we've written. Ok. So I am going through my documents folder, looking over the stuff I've written. And I've come to something of a conclusion.

I CAN'T BRING THIS SHIT IN. D:

I have:

1. Ridiculously old things that make ME cringe to read, much less allowing anyone else to see.
2. Weird romance-bits--queer things, polyamourous pairings, really broken and unhealthy relationships. Just. No. Not in a class where I have to convince people I'm not a creepy perv for the rest of the semester, thank you.
3. Fanfiction. Right. Because that's a good way to get people to take your writing seriously. But that's the thing! *I* don't take my writing seriously anymore! And I don't even think I have anything where I could file off the serial numbers and have it still make sense/have a point.

*cries* I'm going to die. T^T

Edit: In case anyone wanted to know how my trip down south with the GPS worked out...

Last night I went to bed at two, woke up at five, went to wake Michael up at eight (which put me back to sleep) and then woke up again at 9:30. WTF, self?

I have! Caught up on my mindless, obnoxious, unrelated to anything the hire add said it would be work for the internship, for the moment! Spent a week in Monterey--well, in Tia's house--taking care of her, since the blood clot means she doesn't get around so well atm! Made Jam! Made crazy-delicious apple pie! Cleaned my house which, oh g-d, did it ever need! Called the insurance people! Called the restaurant that overcharged us! Gone down and picked up my medicine! Worried a lot about: school, the fire down in big sur, Tia, my mom, Tiana, Sam, Danny, our lease running out and what to do after, school, whether I suck so bad at writing I should never do it again, whether I should take a concentration in technical writing, and, just for kicks, a lot of school.

I have not! Written the romance challenge piece that I wanted, or even outlined it satisfactorily. Got my shit together to see Greta I'M SORRY! or Zeana or basically anyone. Watched Hellboy 2 Hot royal elf action??. Figured out what I want to do for my birthday. Given Matt his birthday present/dinner. GONE DOWN TO TALK TO THE SCHOOL GUY OMG SELF YOU HAVE TO REGISTER LIKE YESTERDAY D: .

Nightmares: Down to roughly one a week, give or take. Woke up convinced I was lying in bed next to a corpse, this week. Yay. -_-;

Birthday mathoms written/drawn/whatever: 1 1/2

Times I've wished it were september already: 97,923,759,723,857,293,485,723,985

Amounts bid on my LLM post: $50, and $35, respectively.

Apparently, this is what I do when I'm emo and tired. Take lovely things and ruin them. Surprisingly? I feel much better now.

Started with this lovely victorian cottage with it's rosy path:


And then ended up with this ghost-ridden heap.


Awesome.

How you can tell you've spent too much time studying lately: it's almost dawn and you're so used to staying up you're not even tired yet. *headdesk*


Things that are happy-making, in no particular order:

Spring Break! Whoot. Hanging out with people, and seeing family and going to the Egyptian Museum, and maybe a puppy. :D Good times, good times.

Tomorrow Matt is coming over for dinner, and we're gonna have fondue, and maybe play some Smash Brothers or watch a movie or something.

I got back all but one of my midterm papers and tests, and so far the lowest I've gotten has been a 91%. Rock. After the way I screwed around my first year of college, I thought my GPA was pretty well shot, but SJSU doesn't carry over GPA from your previous institutions, so if I can make straight A's this semester, that means I'm rockin a 4.0. Sweet deal.

My Age of Elizabeth teacher is taking suggestions on the historical fiction we're going to read at the end of class, y'know, "look at the cover, read the blurb on the back, check the number of pages, and let me know if you find something that looks good." She specifically told us to go look for one that was "hot". "Think how much faster it'll read if there's a lot of sex!" she tells us. I hunker down over my desk and laugh until I can't breathe. Oh man, such a crush on her. <3

Meine Liebe. Looking at the character design, you'd swear this would devolve quickly into big big yaoi plotlessness, but it actually ends up being gratifyingly political and fun, and the characters are interesting if somewhat juvenile (well, it IS a school-anime, so I shouldn't be suprised, and the adults are REALLY interesting). *shrugs* I enjoyed it, and will definitely watch the first season if I can find it somewhere. Loveless this is not, but still pretty good.

Poked more at the Cyberpunk!Mercenaries story I was working on. Eh. You'd think heist-fic would be exciting to write. I dunno. My characters still want to just sit around and talk instead of actually doing anything, and the pacing=fail. *sigh*

So, I'm getting on a plane tomorrow and coming home!! YAAAAY!!! And those of you who've had the misfortune of trying to travel with me know how utterly neurotic I get right before I have to walk out the door for that kind of thing, because I'm convinced I've forgotten something and OMG YOU CANNOT BUY TOOTHBRUSHES IN CALIFORNIA IT WILL BE THE END OF THE WORLD OMGOMGOMG!!!1.

So, in the spirit of not going through my packing a fourth time and having to re-do it again, I bring you a brief intro to Arashi, with more reasons to love them (for those of you who weren't listening the first couple of times, omgseriously why don't you all love them as much as I do yet??? T^T?)

The thing about Arashi that makes them very very different from anything in the American market, as far as I'm concerned, is that they're happy. American musicians sing about smacking up their hos and shooting police, or their slutty girlfriends cheating on them, or how their women hate them and such? Arashi's song lyrics are all "It's definately going to be all right" or "In the next five years, who will be by my side? It'll be the five of us, again. <3" (Yes, matsujun wrote a song about how much he loves his bandmates. Seriously. They are all so wooby.)

American Stars go on drug binges and star in reality shows where they sleep their way through the household and scream inebriated obscenities at each other on the lawn? Arashi does shows about visiting cranky old people, and taking care of little kids so their parents can go on dates. But they're not all sweetness and light. They ARE twenty-something boys, who've been friends since they left home at about ten. Nothing delights them quite as much as making each other do COMPLETELY ABSURD, BIZARRE THINGS. Like the one time they made ohno go to an okama bar. :Db

The short answer is: THEY ARE HUGE DORKS AND YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM BECAUSE THEY'RE HILARIOUS.

( The long answer is under this cut, with picspam and youtube links. Seriously, you guys. )

*To be continued*