burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

( gym )

E-mail from my brudder (background: he's been applying for co-op internships for next semester):

I recieved my first of hopefully many offer letters today which means that with one company or another, I will not in class for S08!!  The offer was with GE and means that I could stay in my current apt and commute 30mins daily.

I love GoodReads a lot.  I don't always enjoy the interface, but I really enjoy getting to dump To Read lists in there (complete with tagging).

E-mail from FUH today included the line "To whom should I speak?" ♥

I keep remembering at inopportune times that gee I really should call Ava sometime, and this afternoon she texted me -- indicating that she's been really bad at keeping in touch with people herself, which makes me feel less bad.

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I saw Nut/Cracked tonight.  I had fairly minimal expectations, but from early on I was enjoying the dance far more than I recalled enjoying The Urban Nutcracker last year.  Nut/Cracked has almost no connection to The Nutcracker other than use of the music*, but the dancing is FANTASTIC.  (65 minutes was not enough.)  I highly recommend it.  Playing through this Saturday.

*Which is not actually a bad thing in my mind, as I'm not particularly into the Nutcracker story though I really enjoy a lot of the music.

So, it wasn't until i'd taken a nap that it dawned on me that i had handed in my last undergraduate paper ever.  Weirdness.

Of course, now i feel like i'm all done, but i do in fact have one exam left.  I cannot dissolve into fanfic and reading all the non-LRRH stories in the collections i have out from the library just yet.  (I am also definitely behind on reading all the interesting links in recent su_herald and metafandom posts.)

Friday i handed in a bunch of things, had ice cream at Chapin lawn, and then more foodage at the Alumnae House.  Wow the percentage of seniors i didn't recognize at all.  Apparently my graduating class is 734.  *boggles*  Emma and i talked about how while i enjoy the lovely weather, i tend to not be seasonal affective and the weather that really gets me excited is the snow and the bitter cold.  Insert parallel to my enjoyment of rip-your-heart-out-and-step-on-it fic here.  That night, i went to the MFA dance concert, which i left early to attend the one-acts, the last of which was Rocky Horror does Russian lit (based on short story "A Feast at Countess Kotlubay's" by Witold Gombrowicz, adapted by Michael Hackett and Anna Krajewska-Wieczorek) which was so worth going for (though the other two plays were certainly good as well).  Then i came home and went to Emma's room where we watched some Monty Python including the "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay" sketch, followed by Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust.

After that, the seminar paper pretty much owned me all weekend.  And i did fun things like sleep through brunch both days, so i really didn't see people (so not intentional).

I did go to the end-of-year department party on Monday, though.

I bumped into one of the SCMA guards on my way there, and she was advice-ful re: massage therapy programs.  Apparently there are some good local programs.  Much though i would love to return to the Valley, that would require income to pay rent, so i think i'm gonna focus on Boston area (read: commutable to from my parents' house) programs.

(A friend's away message: "I am doing work for finals. Come rescue me. I am willing to trade sexual favors for a really killer back rub. If there is a lack of shirts and lotion involved, I'll consider indentured servitude.")

So many spawnlets.  And they all seem to be friends with each other, which is sweet.  Floyd's daughter Clare is so maternal big sisterly with her little brother.  And mt's eldest looks so grown up, though the twins still bond to his hip.

A trio of spawnlets were on one of the couches behind the band.  mt said they were "the Pips and the Supremes," and Aex said, "they've figured out that all they have to do is sit there and they just radiate."

c.christ was there for at least some of the performance, but this totally didn't mean the performace was any less crazy than usual.  "Wild thing, I think I love you... wild thing, I think you move me, but I want to know for sure; come on and squeeze me... wild thing, I think you move me, but I want to know for sure; come on and, do things I can't say in front of the kids."

And by request they did  "Don't Stop Believing."  I watched the audience more this time than i usually do at their performances -- in part because of my position on the side of the room.  Luc's babe is so in training to be a rockstar.

The musical stylings of their performances can basically be described as "really loud," but i so enjoy watching them.

I wore my new dept. t-shirt over my NaNoWriMo 2002 baseball tee, and at least 2 people wanted a t-shirt (though Auden Thesis told Gorra she wasn't a fan) and when i went to Bobbie's office around 2pm she said she'd already had 4 non-seniors come by wanting one.  (For you non-seniors: stop by her office on Thursday or Friday to get one.)
I don't know what a better slogan would be -- and honestly i don't care.  (Though i was thinking about how an old one was a Wordsworth pun and was reminded of "Get her words out," which of course sounds so dirty to me now thanks to Amy Foxlet.)

Props to Gorra for ordering 2 sets of food so everyone was well-fed.  No props to the clump of 3 girls who had to be told individually that no, we were not opening the food until the band was done playing.

Alex has a pink snakeskin flask.  She said it had vodka, for her and Steve 'cause they don't drink beer.  Gorra brought them 4 times as much beer as they usually get, so they were sharing with assorted adults.  I stayed to help clean up, and there was beer left over, so i snagged a Sam Adams (Seasonal Brew) White Ale.  Craig didn't ask me if i was 21 until he was actually opening it for me.  I felt so frat boy walking around with my beer bottle.

I have officially made it through 4 years (8 semesters) at Smith without ever participating in Primal Scream.  I just never feel that stressed at the time of Primal Scream, plus screaming doesn't feel cathartic to me the way other things do.

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Notes from seminar paper writing:

Jeff VanderMeer is stupid sometimes.  Of The Bloody Chamber, he writes: "The title story is probably among the most textually complex takes on Bluebeard, but to what effect? Nothing comes of it because, unlike the other stories, it adds nothing new to the original except ( spoiler for ending )" and doesn't say anything about "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon," which i think of all the tales in the collection adds the least to the original.

And Chase and Teasley are on shaky ground with their arguments in "Little Red Riding Hood: Werewolf and Prostitute" (Historian, Summer95).

But you can't beat Barbara G. Walker's Feminist Fairy Tales.  It had Emma defending aspects of Christianity.  The Publishers Weekly review made me want to cry (in that i now have difficulty mustering any respect for Publishers Weekly).

Latest IMDb timewaster: You know how the first line under a movie is Genre? (Vampire Hunter D has 9)  Well if you click on "(more)" you get plot keywords, which are not only at times amusing but are all links, so you can learn weep-inducing things like that "based-on-book" gets 2609 matches, and amusing things like that "vampire-slayer" gets 62 and "vampire-human-love" gets 9 (none of which are Whedon, though he tops the -- alphabetical list -- for "vampire-slayer") and that only 54 titles have "poetic-justice" as a keyword...  How do they pick these keywords anyway?  My favorites from Whedon's shows are: BtVS: bleach blond, Firefly: nose bleeding, Angel: homosexual demon.

Clint Mansell's "Requiem for a Dream" ("Power Play" vid)?  Not sure how i feel about that as music-to-write-papers by.  (At least it was a better choice Inara vid to Patty Griffin's "May" which i did last semester and which made me cry.)

The research for my LRRH seminar paper was rather more fun than the writing of it but if you wanna read it, lemme know.  (Obvious warning:  it spoils major plot points for, well, every work cited.)  I'm e-mailing copies to 4 people at last count.

Why doesn't Little Red Riding Hood run away from the wolf right away?  Not only does she stop and talk with him, even giving him information about her destination, but she seems not to recognize him in her grandmother's bed.  Many modern retellings offer sexual motivations as an answer to this question, picking up themes that are latent in the traditional versions-although they are more explicit in some less well-known early versions.  This paper will examine LRRH as a willing participant in an assortment of tellings and retellings of this tale.

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Going through the stuff i have in my room and am not keen to take with me.  I forgot i had chalk.  Anyone want that?  I should also probably give someone my white-board, huh?  I also still have my Pooh poster and my Buffy poster and about a billion novels.

I love the responses people gave to my "So, your date wants to make porn" poll.

"Whee! I'm sinking into the depths of sin. Whee!" -Skarda, on "slippery slope"

She asked if i'd heard from places yet and i said, "I've gotten rejected from everywhere except UPenn, which i haven't heard from yet. Way to go me." Cheery voice and everything. Her response was very matter-of-fact, take it in stride, which was so comforting, because my anxiety has totally been about having to disappoint people.

There are white and purple crocuses on the patch of grass by the JMG crossroads. First time i've seen flowers growing since i was in Virginia. (Though the museum keeps getting lovely floral displays.)

So many sirens today. "The pedestrians are getting frisky," said Megan (who really meant "uppity").

The Commencement schedule came out.

Oh, and the Buddhism thing turns out to be next weeekend rather than this weekend, and bell hooks is giving a lecture ("Buddhism Beyond Gender") in JMG at 8pm Friday April 8 [edited to correct the date]. Just in case anyone cares.

Instead of going to Finding Neverland (which Kate owns on DVD now), i went to the Spring Dance Concert, which was really very good. I think i need more dance in my life. Who wants to come to the Senior Dance Concert with me Thursday April 14?

doyle_sb4 polled her friends about which fandoms they're a part of. I basically consider myself part of a fandom if i know all the source text and care to engage in meta&fic re: said source text. My instinct is to just say Whedonverse when asked which fandoms i'm part of, so it was interesting to really think about what else i would consider myself part of fandom for (and some of it sounds so weird to call fandom).

This tells me i am 48% Femme and 52% Butch. Somehow we are not surprised.

Room Draw is over. The floor dynamics in my house next year are gonna be weird.

Yay for good discussion about politics, books, and (post-)college plans. Also: ♥ Cat.

P.S. 3 years ago today my LJ was born, thanks to athene. This will be entry #1932. Look at me go.

I really don't do the April Fool's thing. However, in honor of the recently deceased Mitch Hedberg, offbalance posted a list (from lizzola) of examples of his humor. I laughed out loud multiple times.