A Place my Fics call Home

( My Fics )

Yup, all my fics. *grins*  

So yesterday, I was convinced by a friend that I really wanted to make jam.

Blueberry jam, she said, was really easy to make. It gels easily too, so all you need is about a pint of blueberries, lemon, and a cup of sugar.

And it sounded so easy. So I decided that I'll go and buy some blueberries today, which I would have done yesterday if she had been psychic and convinced me the day before yesterday.

Well, it rained. (this is a funny story, just to me, of course. Because I have antibiotics for my gum infection, I take them every six hours. I took the first at 7.30, and the next at 1.30am, and the next one was to be at 7.30am. So I was woken up, blearily, by my alarm. I had my pill, turned off my phone alarm, and as SOON as I did, thunder clapped and the sky broke. Trufax.)

So I was almost resigned not to go, but then, it cleared up. So I went in the afternoon. And got some lemonade and a lemon and a pint of blueberries.

( have some pictures. )

So today I went to the dentist. It was scheduled for 11 am and I had had booked a taxi ride at 10.30am, but there was a mix up of ... well, the taxi guy went to the inn, instead of the studios. -_- So I called them in a mild panic and got an immediate ride to the dentist. Relatively good service, helpful, just PANICKY AAAH. ANYWAY.

( So dentist. That wasn't too bad, though now I feel vaguely raw around my teeth because the lady scraped off all the gunk? )

Today was a good day and a bad day.

When I was biking to school today, I was smacked in the throat by an iridescient green beetle, and he hitched a ride in my hair to land on the lab floor. Then come lunch time, I realised that my teeth didn't hurt so much, it was all but gone. (and I hadn't even seen the dentist yet). That's the good - though I'm still going to see the dentist, but there's hope that it wouldn't involve surgery or urgent stuff now it isn't hurting!

This afternoon, I was running an experiment. I was INSIDE THE LAB, all dark because it's ONLY ever dark when the prof goes home (after seven) or when someone is running an experiment. I had just got up to do some experimental manipulation, in the tank - I was only two meters away from the computer and in comes the Labmate to use the computer. Which I AM RUNNING THE EXPERIMENT ON.

Because? He needed access to the shared drive.

I said, "THE OTHER COMPUTER IN THE ROOM YOU JUST CAME IN FROM HAS THE SHARED DRIVE TOO. YOU PUT IT ON THERE YOURSELF."

Then he was like, "Oh, right, okay." So he left.

The prof came in, and told me where I could get good local strawberries, and gave me a handful of blueberries (mmm blueberries).

THEN two hours later, I was running matlab scripts on it - it takes hours to run because it's running video analysis, eight 4 minute videos at 30 frames per second. I had a class from 4-6pm. So I figured, there's no one else in the lab, I'll only be gone for two hours so I just left, I was STILL logged onto the computer.

When I came back, guess what?

I'd been LOGGED OFF.

GUESS WHO DID IT.

That bastard came in, saw I was logged on (it locks itself after 15minutes, which is why I thought my running the matlab was safe for a bit), and since he couldn't figure out if I was running anything or not JUST LOGGED ME OFF.

JUST so he could log on. And attach his sdfkjhsdfjsdhfkjsd Harddrive to the computer, for god knows what reason, to check it works I suppose.

Because there are two other computers in the lab which aren't being used, one of which has the shared drive, are both free and no one's using them, so of COURSE he must log out of the one that is CURRENTLY LOGGED IN.

I want to beat him in the head with the phone reciever but he is stressed from his job loss and all so I didn't yell at him but dear god I wanted to yell. Because dammit it's not like people log onto computers and walk off. Okay, maybe just because HE does it (he leaves himself logged on all the damn time because he's - I don't know, God or something, but he knew I was running an experiment today.

HE KNEW IT. HE TAUGHT ME HOW TO RUN THE EXPERIMENT HIMSELF. He KNOWS that I would be running matlab scripts. ON THAT COMPUTER.

The prof told me I should have put a note on it saying that I was running matlab on it. I feel like I need to post a giant sign saying "Don't Touch or I swear by all gods that were ever THOUGHT of I'll cut your hand off and feed it in through your NOSE."

And considering that during class I was already feeling faint, cold, and cramped, my period was coming. I had planned on after the class just setting the matlab for the second process and going home, letting it run overnight.

But thanks to him? two hours wasted. I had to sit there and stare at the screen for another hour while it restarted the vid that he'd interrupted, feeling murderous and wanting to kill something bright and shiny and cute and smearing it over a three meter radius at millimeter thickness.

And after that I could finally go home. Bike home. Have a shower.

Have a clogged toilet.

...

At least there are brownies baking in the oven now. There will be brownies. Brownies, I say.

Yesterday: Changed my layout back to thefulcrum's Auld Lang Syne layout, after saving the jpegs to my own account so it wouldn't be at the whim of her photobucket closing randomly.

Also went to my professor's house for Fourth of July celebrations - a nice simple picnic out in her yard with her partner and several other people from the school. I got to hold a kitten and watch her dog chase another professor's dog around the yard. And into the pond. And out of the pond. And into the small garden and...

You get the idea. There was also a beautiful sunset.

Also bought a mouthguard to see if it'd work; we'll see how I go with it tonight.
( Pictures! )

( And just because - a couple weeks back my neighbour brought a dog over. )

Because yesterday was Momo's birthday, and she has this uncanny ability to make me write childhood destroying fanfiction, I give you Transformers fanfic. Based mainly on the two movies (with very subtle, witty references omg!). Optimus/Bumblebee sort-of-slash.

If you want a continuation, Momo, YOU WRITE IT YOURSELF. I feel filthy enough already.

Prime Directive

(  There was much that Optimus Prime didn't tell the humans. It wasn't something humans could understand. )

Okay, for a round of nepotism, my brother just put up his webcomic!

Found here. Black and white, about a cat doing... cat things in a large plain. With winged dragons and cows.

And possibly another cat. And a butterfly.

Go over and give him comments! :D



ETA: Got him to do it in a DW instead, without the scrolling! :D

Found here.

Yesterday was day of crap. Well, it wasn't that bad, it just felt vaguely nauseous all day.

First, I didn't get enough sleep. I was zombie waking up at 10am and finally dragged myself to school at about 11am. That wasn't too bad. Running the gentamicin treated blind cavefish wasn't too bad either, though I was a bit annoyed with how it wasn't behaving like it should (why don't the fish ever behave like they ought to?!).

And then my professor told me that I should be spending upwards of 10 hours a day, 6 days a week working. Calculating, generously, based on my payrate and the hours I'm expected to work, I'm expected to work for about $4 an hour. Graduate students are cheap labour.

Then, when I had a spare moment, I read the stories to be workshopped that night.

Dear lord, one of them was a very BAD story. ( warning, mention of rape )

After workshop, I came home, and then the toilet clogs.

After I managed to fix that, I decided to clean the stupid thing, and then I ran out of toilet cleaner. I had a shower, and then got an email from the library, saying that I owe them 25cents, and when I go to renew my books, I'm confronted with a sign that the state governors are going to cut 50% of funding to public libraries.

And then I check my status of my package, which was due to arrive yesterday, and realise that I had forgotten to include my apartment number and therefore my hard-drive didn't get delivered. I called them up and got them to redeliver on Thursday, but just. Just.

Not a good day.

So here's Dear Hai Ling in its entirety. I'm going to revise the ending, and probably a bit more revision elsewhere. We just workshopped it today, and I'm fairly confident that with the changes I'll be making, it won't be quite the same piece I put up here so I don't have to worry about it being plagarized or something.

One thing I noticed is that they DID have an issue with names - never mind that Macer and Marcel are very similar to me, but they get confused by Hai Ting and Hai Ling and Hai Ching. (And their consistent use of damn BORING names like Jack and Billy and Joe and Bob and.) They got a bit upset with the too-conversational tone, but I'll keep it. I insist on keeping it, because who the heck writes letters to someone in perfect English? Unless you really weren't close to them at all. I write like I'm having conversations with my best friend all the time.

They also had issue with the ending. That, I shall think about.

( Dear Hai Ling )

My best friend linked this article to me (with the quotes in it from here), and god I wish she hadn't. It just made me so angry.

( That women are blaming women, that the culture is blaming women for being too materialistic, for being too individualistic, and therefore dooming romance. )

Because I'm just this marvelous, I jammed the lab's printer.

Oh, I was just printing out the story for the next workshop cycle. Set it all nice and easy for manual double-sided print, because this printer doesn't like doing it automatically, unlike the new fancy ones these days.

Aaaaand, after I printed out all twelve copies on one side of Dear Hai Ling, it managed to get ONE copy fully printed on both sides (all eleven pages of it), and then promptly ate the next piece of paper.

It died in a miserable sound of squeaky wheels.

Staring at it didn't help. Neither did smacking it. cursing wasn't an option because there was an impressionable undergraduate staring at me wide-eyed and concerned.

I finally had to enlist the help of my professor to take it apart, and try to get the paper out.

We did get it out, only by yanking the front of it open to expose its shiny, shiny innards.

Then we closed it, fitted it all up again, and then the printer started up...

And promptly choked on another piece of paper.

So now ITS is going to have to come fix it.

On the other hand, it could have been worse. I could have been trying to print Big Yellow. Now that would have set it on fire.

Okay, so my hanging charm for my flashdrive broke - the robot fell off his hoop, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Mr Robot back on. Unless I stabbed his face through with a hot pin.

But Mr Robot doesn't want that.

So when I was passing the dollartree today, I got some cheap necklaces, with glass beads. Lots of glass beads.
( for photos! )
( The Second Dangly! )

Kakashi didn't die. Because Nagato... decided to play Hero, a la 'Painted Skin' (画皮) and revive everyone. And then, Kakashi almost got nominated as Hokage - Fandom, you were so right.

And then Danzo got elected instead.

What. The. Hell!?

(nevermind the UTTER cheese of everyone cheering on Naruto)

(oh, and the Lightning peeps were adorable, if you ignored the utter misogyny of it. And poor Ki-chan, he has no more partner! Woe!)

(... also, what is Shikaku doing there? Huh...

I KNOW. HE'S HEAD OF ANBU. SEKRITLY.)

So to celebrate the fact I defended my thesis topic with Flying Colours (those extra drafts help, because dear lord i'm glad they liked it at least), have a story!

Bear in mind I wrote this in an attempt to combine elements from all the stories in the first workshop cycle of my fiction writing class. So it's a short little ficlet, banged out in about 3 hours.

Further warnings: If you have a particular love for Sesame Street... Well. Too bad. :D

( Big Yellow )

Because Fade protested Sulu's use of the word fencing. I wrote her this.

Fencing

The thing, you see, when you talk about fencing, is that people think you're prancing around in white gear and a tiny whippy sword.

"How's that going to help when you're up against a Klingon with a phaser set on 'shishkebab'?" asks some smart ass, snatching the epee from your hand and waving it around like he thinks he's that twentieth century hero, Zoro. You grit your teeth, and say nothing, just waiting for his arm to swing by again and grabbing your sword back.

At least, you think, he hadn't tried this stupid stunt when you have sabre, because that would have been extremely painful for your hand. And Mr Dorian would have been extremely displeased if you'd shown up with your hand all bandaged up and useless for a week.

Talk about wushu, with the broad swords and sharp sharp edges, the long qiang spearing into the air, its red beard distracting and beautiful and tracing bloody circles too quick to see, talk about the flexible double-edged swords that you take, one in each hand, and whip around in circles that have meaning and philosophy and turn the air into glittering shards of lethality, and people stare at you like you're talking the Equatorial dialect of Vulcan.

Talk about it to the Instructors in the Academy, the sharpshooters, the combat specialists, and they shrug and say, "Fencing."

Ask Fang-Shifu and Watanuki-sensei, and their eyes narrow and say, "Fencing." Because when you talk about wushu, and kendo and qi-gong blue eyes glaze over and go 'what, what what' till you finally give up and say, "It's Japanese fencing," and hope they don't start trying to leap around like a bad parody of a samurai and instead look like loud-mouthed fish.

So when he asks you, "What's your speciality?"

And you could answer, wushu, kendo but the answer trips off so much easier, "Fencing."

Terminator Salvation Fic

This is totally FC's fault, dammit for sullying my mind. Marcus Wright/Kyle Reese. Vague spoilers.

We're both going to hell.

Alive

( He really doesn't mind, actually. )

Sunday

Two movies one after the other! I don't know if I can take the excitment again. Hee.

I cycled to the mall at about 10.10 am today after a brief talk with Gemini. Poor Gemini, guess he's kind of alone at home without the rest of us. (and stuck with Mum's moods too. *wince*)

Anyway, I got to the mall at 10.45am. Amazingly, I only took over half an hour to get there. Of course, that's with the good weather - if it had been much more windy, I'd be a little hard pressed to arrive in such good time. It's pretty warm these days, wearing the light jacket only saves me from suntans, but even so it's still pretty warm. If I sort of squint at my hands, I can see that the back of my hands have gotten slightly tanned, ending just above my wrists, which is where my jacket ends. Ah well. Time to break out the sunblock.

So I watched Night at the Museum 2 and Terminator Salvation. Both of them were good, one a comedy-action, and the other just straight action brain-candy sci-fi. Night of the Museum... well, had a bit of skanky feminism issues, with the portrayal of Amelia Earhart as something of a ditz. The romance was a bit eh, I thought. It made me think - how come Ben Stiller is considered a good comedian, and an interesting actor even though he doesn't have handsome features, is short, and not exactly in the best of shape, while an actress has to be perfect looking? There are so few female actors who are famous for their characteristic LOOKS or their humour or anything, like Jim Carrey or Will Smith or Eddie Murphy - female actresses tend to look the same. At least in Hollywood.

Terminator was a good story, though I had to question the liberal use of explosives, when just playing music apparently attracts machines.

Then the pilot who dropped out and got helped by Marcus the Cyborg? Was a woman. And we know this because... She has a headful of very attractive, silky, wavy hair. Like she'd just stepped out of a hair salon.

The two women we see any substantial amount of time in the film? The doctor girlfriend and the Girl pilot (who, by the way, falls straight for Marcus and seems to get relegated to the role of Love Interest, Will Help You Out Of Jail On The Strength Of Love) both have long, silky good hair.

They're in a warzone, they have crappy looking clothes, they have to scavange (but apparently can still use computers and have electricity from SOMEWHERE and Skynet can't find them. Wow, good going Skynet), and yet the women have long hair. Everyone is a soldier, all the men are either sporting buzz cuts or are bald, and women have long hair. Long, beautiful, carefully tended hair.

It's like the machinese gave them shampoo, clean running water and conditioner, but none for the men. Must have been labelled specifically for the women - if any one with a Y chromosome touches it, nanites will eat their faces off. Machines probably drop off a carepackage at the site every few months or so, with a label, "Here, for the women. None for the men. Because it's ALL JOHN CONNER'S FAULT. CAUSE YOU SUCK. AND YOU'RE MEAN. AND AND YOU NEVER CALL AND NEVER WRITE AND YOU TOTALLY DUMPED ME. Love, Skynet."

Because robots love women with long clean hair.

***

( And then, just to gross you all out, there's this... )

I went to check my grades today. Then just stared, stunned.

My GPA is 4.00. Straight As.

Granted, I only have two classes this semester, but I was sure that I'd get a B for Neuroethology, because I didn't do fantastically for the presentation (okay, a 46/50 is pretty good), and the homework summaries I'd been turning in got an average of 8 and 7 out of 10. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd gotten Bs for both classes, really, especially since I'm not a programming genius, and I'd worried about the utter simplicity of my program project.

But both As! And with my straight As last semester, this makes it a total of 6 As this year.

That sound is my jaw hitting the table. And since next year I am only taking one formal class... I think I'm pretty assured of keeping my minimum 3.00 GPA (minimum of B).

Wow.

And now, for something entirely and utterly frivolous. I went grocery shopping today for the first time in... how long was it? Month? Two? Something like that. And I knew I had lost my watch somewhere and needed one...

( Then I saw these. )

So I'm getting better at dealing with Japanese rice. I've just about gotten it down to, if not an art, at least at some relatively efficient clockwork. Fifteen minutes soaking of rice, put it to a rolling boil, simmer at low for another fifteen minutes, take it off the stove to continue steaming for another fifteen minutes. Then I can do what I like with it. About 2/3 of a cup makes four nicely sized onigiri - I made that all in just about an hour - four onigiri made from the start to finish (Tuna mayo onigiri) and packed to go to school.
( Pictures )

So that was my latest cooking adventures. The rest of school goes... well, like school. It's really tiresome to be working under a perfectionist of a professor - on the other hand, I guess she's still better than the one back there who would talk bad about me behind my back. If all your students don't like you at all, there's usually a problem.

( The proposal is in its seventh draft, still not good enough. )