Waah ;____; I am a sucker for the "I-WILL-PROTECT-YOU-AT-WHATEVER-COST!" guys who actually, erm, don't always have the skills to follow up on that (but KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE ANYWAY! HA HA, OH, NO....) And as a result, the people/person whom they're trying to protect... has no faith in them and mostly just views them as an idiot. (Most of the time.)

Miharu takes Thobari for granted; it hurts me, deeeeeeep inside.

So here is fanfic that only serves to hurt me more! Rub salt in that wound! Awesome idea. Obviously I'm a big M.

( 372 words involving Miharu, Thobari (Kumohira-Sensei), and Yoite )

Happy Fourth! Once again, I forgot to request the day off, so I'll been spending a portion of the day selling lottery tickets and refunding moldy bread instead of doing anything remotely special. But after work I'll probably be going to see fireworks (weather permitting) so it's all good.

Right now I am sitting next to the fan while wearing a jacket. How counterproductive.

Maybe at some point I will make a post all about Thobari sensei from Nabari No Ou, as I have decided he is the best character ever to have existed... but right now I am still crushing on him too much to be articulate. He has so many adorably amazing quirks I'd like to expound upon, though. His phobia of moving vehicles is... ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.

Anyone else watch this show, or am I the only one? sajfdsfadfa. It's so good! I'm not just in love with Thobari, either -- I think I love pretty much all the characters. I need to go find myself five billion fan communities before I drive everyone else around me insane.

You guys you guys I am so SICK of all this rain!

I am also sick of where I work, and I am maybe sick of living in this house. Sometimes I wish, now that I have the GPS in my car, I could just pack a bag of essentials and pin a farewell note to the fridge and drive off in my little dented corolla never to return. I could spend the rest of my life traveling/exploring/sneaking my camera into museums. Maybe I could get really good at poker or some other card game and make all my money by gambling most cleverly. Or maybe I could rent a large city apartment and spend all day and most of the night painting genius yet under-appreciated masterpieces in my underwear. Maybe I could go spend a year with my grandparents in New Mexico, or maybe I could go spend a year on whatever island the Maury Povich show would have sent us to for FREE, all those years ago, if we'd only actually accepted the offer and gone on the vacation while we had the chance...

I have known this for a long time, but the thing I want most in life--the thing I have always wanted most in life--is a friendly, sincere traveling companion. My heart kind of aches just thinking about it.

Delaney is getting a fish for her eleventh birthday. A betta fish. They will bring it home soon. It will be sitting on my dresser because she and I share the same room.

She doesn't know what she will name it!

So far I have: Jasper, Phineas, Twist, Perseus, Felix, Mildmay (ha ha yes nerd), Socrates, Nero, Vander

Or (because I admit, this might just be the case) if it is a girl: Nyx

I do not think she will appreciate any of these.

SOOOO... guys, what should she name her fish? Something that appeals to an avid Spongebob-watcher. THINK, brain, think...

Though it took me an inexcusably long time (what is with my lack of attention span and/or motivation to do anything at all these days?) I have finally after a week of daily reading finished the short children's book Howl's Moving Castle. (...One day I will not be this pathetic. I promise!)

Well, as my eyes lingered on the last few lines of the last page, it occurred to me that I haven't read a book with a good, happy ending in a long time. It has since occurred to me that maybe I should read books with happy endings more often.

Any suggestions?

Or we can just gush about the marvellous and dazzling person that is Howl... seriously, even his green slime is attractive to me. I maybe have a problem.

My internet and my phone tragically died yesterday. What happened was: fairpoint truck came and parked outside my neighbor's house, where (I assume?) the fairpoint people commenced to fix or adjust my neighbor's connection. They were loud and I could hear them yelling for several hours. Then they left. I decided I would turn on my computer and check my email. Internet explorer refused to perform the simple task. Then my dad had me check the phone for a ringtone. Alas, the phone had lost its ringtone.

The ever efficient fairpoint people, in fixing or adjusting whatever it was they had come to fix or adjust, had also, at the same time, completely botched our connection.

We were not exactly pleased!

Good news is, we called, they came back today, worked again for several hours, and now everything is back up and running again. (If only I could say as much about the Redbox technicians I called at work, who to my knowledge have not even materialized yet, though I called two days ago and said things like 'broken' and 'frozen' and 'not working at all' and she said 'yes, ma'am' and 'thank you for your patience' and 'within twenty-four hours.' Obviously her perception of an hour is different than mine is. The Redbox stubbornly continues to be out of order.)

Now I can do all those pressing internet things I meant to do yesterday, which, for once, actually were pressing:

1) buy tickets to a tap show at the Palace for Delaney's birthday (which should be loads of fun, she's a little tapper herself so maybe she can explain some of the moves to me!)
2) renew all my library books
3) check school bookstore to see if book list is up yet (admittedly, not as pressing)
4) avidly hunt down a prompt book to rival that of Alex's, so that I am even half as interesting when I get my turn to dictate the prompts over at to_dashreckless

5) maybe watch some anime

On the other hand, I did realize that during the period my phone was down, work couldn't call me in to cover any sick calls... so I guess it wasn't all bad. They've been calling me in like crazy lately. In fact I think I'm getting a little paranoid. Every time the phone rings now I burst out "DON'T ANSWER IT!" and when someone answers it anyway I run into the bathroom and hide behind the door and start pleading with the sink just to let me have this one day uninterrupted, please, this one day to visit that manga shop, to spend at the library, please... because I know if I ever do get that call then I'm going to be spending the rest of the day at work, regardless of any previously made plans. I need the money and I always feel guilty and lazy when I decline call-ins. So to avoid the guilt, recently I've just been accepting them all. BLEH.

breaksinmusic and I have created a prompt-driven writing community, to_dashreckless. Right now I think we're just focused on maintaining it for the summer, but if all goes well, we'd like it to last a lot longer. If you're interested, check out the introduction post. It explains things. If you continue to be interested, join!

We're super excited about it. Well, I know I am.

They're both a hundred words, which is a first for me. (I always overshoot drabbles, ALWAYS.) So this is progress! Except... don't ask me to do it again.

( Rook/Thom )
( Royston/Hal )

I'm not about to become a Trekkie or anything, in the same sense that I'm not about to shave my head or drop out of college to join the Navy (a desire that comes and goes, I'll be honest) -- but I just saw the new Star Trek movie with my dad and my brother (boy's night out, I guess, except I was there) and I maybe have an enormous albeit probably fleeting obsession with... Spock.

That's right.

No one told me this movie had my favorite character dynamic, that is, Reticent Genius With No Apparent Emotion meets Hi, My Name is Fistfight. It doesn't really matter to me that the movie ultimately got devoured by cliches, or that I had to keep asking things like "Who's Scotty? Who's Chekov? Who's Vulcan?" or that JJ Abrams used that stupid floating text again to declare the location/year, like he does in Fringe (primarily the reason I don't watch Fringe); all that matters to me is the relationship between Spock and Kirk. Perhaps I am shallow or too selective. But I think what I love most about Spock is his dedication to being a calm and collected person, to being an oasis of helpful common sense, even if he's hurt or upset inside. I like how when he loses his temper, he doesn't blame anyone but himself. And I like how Kirk eventually comes to respect him, and how Spock eventually actually respects Kirk, even though they are both so different, because each of them begins to see that the qualities they lack or need most are in the other. Kirk needs to be responsible, like the conscientious Spock is, and Spock needs to embrace his human side, and realize there is strength in emotion, as Kirk demonstrates.

I guess my 'favorite character dynamic', then, would be the one in which two characters who are total opposites must learn from each other and in doing so lessen their own flaws. I love relationships that are difficult at first (read: nearly impossible) but are, by the end, redemptive for both sides. I love the union of opposites because it just feels so right. It makes me sooo happy. AAAAH. I don't know, flist. It's super late and I am officially rambling. Maybe I'll have more coherent Star Trek epiphanies for you in the morning... LOL.

My GPA this semester has a rhyme scheme of B+ABA-B!

Take that, you overly gleeful Hannaford customer who told me last summer Saint Anselm was the land of Cs! You were wrong. I cannot wait until you come in again to pay a bill or buy a lottery ticket so I can BRAG ALL OVER YOUR FACE. And. You know. Be a total snot about everything.

To be honest, he's the only one I'm really dying to tell. Compared to my Franciscan grades, a GPA of 3.4 is poop. Ha, ha. Oh well. This school works me hard and when I don't detest it, I actually love it. My reading list for next semester is going to be huge! If only the bookstore would post it already. SIGH. I am a helpless nerd.

But you knew that already.

Finals ended for me at 10:51 this morning. I thought I would be THRILLED, and I am, vaguely; but mostly I'm just lost. I'm not sure what to do yet. Usually at this time, I collect all my papers and handouts and assignments and I decide which ones to keep for my Shiny Red College Folder that Maybe One Day I Will Be Able to Look Back Upon and Realize I Actually Did Learn Things Back Then, Maybe School Was Worth it After All, but I have no motivation whatsoever to commence the ritual. I think I'd rather just sit here on my feet until they fall asleep, which will happen anyway, or wait for that little ant to come back so I can fling him into my pile of library books again. Or maybe I will go scout out all the fabulous sexy Amatsuki icons lying around livejournal and USE THEM ALL. I think I will make all my 45 icons Amatsuki icons. How cool will that be?

Er. So really, I'm not quite sure what to do with my summer yet. ('Not quite' = 'nondum' in Latin, I think it's such a cute little word.) Never mind the next three hours until dinner. In my head I see a summer of furious and energetic writing sessions, wherein I write thousands of words each day and am always inspired, and the sun is always shining and nobody is AHEM JUMPING AROUND LIKE ELEPHANTS DOWNSTAIRS WHAT IS GOING ON? A summer where writing and reading are never interrupted. It's not going to happen. Plus I guess I think I'd get too bored with myself if no one interrupted me. Like now, for instance, in this very paragraph. I am bored. My writing would probably be very dull if I got the writing conditions I wanted, and no extraneous ripples of excitement ever came along to upset my calm.

If in order to start the summer off, I chose to do something brave and stupid like post a snippet from something I'm writing right now, would, er, anyone want to read it? I have this strange itch to post a lot of writing within the next few weeks, that is unless everyone really really hates it--in which case I will only continue to post the offensive material if I really really hate everyone. Which I don't and won't! So there! I'm just saying that maybe this is a more productive alternative to buying more icon space to accommodate my new obsession with Amatsuki. Or waiting until my feet fall asleep.

Not to sound pathetic, but REAL-KILL WASP & HORNET spray just saved my life. Truly, my savior exists in the form of a black 20.5 oz can filled with prailethrin, lambda cyhalothrin, and petroleum distillates/other ingredients I have never heard of before but nonetheless are now my heroes forever. It definitely "kills on contact!" which, thank god. And get this: it has an "up to 25 ft Jet Spray," which I proceeded to use on my window from two feet away. HA HA HA. It was very funny. Also, the wasp is very dead.

Whew.

I was going to take a picture (of the can) but I thought that might be overkill.

In other news, today was my last day of classes. I will probably never have Dr. L as a professor again. The potential of my shitting myself during a class has significantly decreased. That's not to say my experiences dealing with this professor were all bad, because they weren't. They were just all nervous. Walking out of that classroom with my last paper handed back to me relatively unshredded (A-/B!) gave me a wonderful fuzzy feeling. Because I did rather like that paper. And I do, over all--I guess--I like Dr. L. In the end. In retrospect.

I'm in the media room right now working on my last paper. This is good (it's the last paper and also a group paper) but also bad because

1) I am actually freezing because of the roaring air conditioner in here, and
2) I am surrounded by the worst, the most delightful temptations ever, such as Horatio Hornblower, the first season of Deadwood, Amadeus, all of the Sopranos, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Sherlock Holmes, Rome, Indian Jones, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc etc, the list goes on and on. So I'm never actually going to get my part of the paper done.

The fact is, every time I look up I see something new and exciting, or something old and exciting (A Beautiful Mind is also here!) and I want to hate school for the stupid blackhole waste of time (Jeeves and Wooster!) it actually is. I want to say school is unimportant compared to all this. School doesn't matter at all when (aah I, Robot!) (The Matrix!) all these heroes and villians and antiheroes and average joes collected in this little neglected room in the basement of my library are bleeding and crying and screaming and laughing, making others laugh and making me laugh; are fighting for their lives, or fighting for their friends' lives, or fighting for the love of their life. Basically, what the people down here do is the important stuff of life.

Not tests and papers and scaled tests and credits and extra credit. Not doing what a teacher says because they're the teacher. Not cramming for finals, or pulling one-nighters to fill your brain full of pointless facts/trivia you will probably never, after tomorrow, and unless it is a science class, need to remember again. Not accepting 'this is the way things are' because you learned it from the wise words of Professor Someone Else.

Professor Someone Else can never truly tell you 'the way things are.' The real lessons in life--in your life--can't be taught that way. They are only found, on your own time, in little abandoned spaces like this, when, drawn to something (in this context, a story or movie, but in reality, anything at all) you find in its telling a sliver of yourself, a clearer explanation for your own experiences. When a character moves you to tears, you learn something. It's totally different from sitting in a desk copying down notes like a zombie while your teacher commands "learn this! and this! and here's the most important part!"

Education says it can do for you what really you must do for yourself, and then Education gets everything wrong anyway. I hate the whole system so, so much.

My dad is snoring so loudly /:

Anyway... Happy Easter everyone! Eat more chocolate -- I am sure you have not eaten enough yet!

It's been a very, very long time since I've posted any fanfiction. I'm sure there's a reason for this--only now I can't remember what it is. Oh well! Someone will remind me soon enough.

Whenever I want to experiment, I always prepare myself by first climbing into the mind of Remus Lupin, and I don't know why this is, either. (Surely there are other ways to equip oneself, other brains to explore and develop?) I don't know why I wrote this and I don't know why I'm posting it, other than that I was particularly inspired at the time and I think there's something of value in that. Rip it to pieces, honestly, I'm dying for (helpful) criticism. (And if you can guess the book I was reading at the time, I will be most impressed.)

( To Meet the Wolf )

Juuuust finished my last science lab eeeever! I'M SO THRILLED/EXHAUSTED. I like how the ultra-special last-lab-of-my-freaking-life was all about pee. "So, Taylor, what'd you do in lab today?" "Well, first we poured pee into various containers. We mixed in various substances, the names of which I can't remember, and watched the pee change color. Then we compared strips that had been dipped in pee. Then we made things float around in the pee. We recorded our results! We were praised for our diligent methods! We left with our chins held high; it was a good day."

I can no longer remember why I wanted to take this class so badly. I must've been on something.

A: Would you like a milk with your bag?

Today I cried my way out of a speeding ticket!

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh I can't pay $29.95 for an article! For twenty-four hours viewing privilege of an article! Poop what is this >:\