December 20th, already?!
Dec. 20th, 2007 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smb814So we had our university-wide luncheon today, only they served alcohol and then still expected everyone to go back to work? Granted, I didn't actually drink any alcohol, but still, what gives? Do they really think I -- or anyone else, for that matter -- feel like working after all of that?
Needless to say, no, I don't feel like doing anything work-related, so I'm probably not going to. So there. Hence why I'm filling out Stargate quizzes. :)
Gee, what a shocker. Although if I were the quiz maker, I would have proofread my results a bit better before actually publishing it for everyone.
Anyway, seeing as I don't feel like doing anything else, I guess I'm long overdue for an update, eh? Here goes, in very random fashion.
Life at home has *crosses fingers* been quiet. Some kid(s) in the area were supposedly caught sometime in October and I haven't heard of anything else happening in the neighborhood since then. I'm still incapable of letting my guard down too much, but at least it's relaxed somewhat. It's nice to not have panic attacks when leaving the house on Monday mornings, wondering what the new week will bring.
I received my 5-year pin today during the luncheon. I can't believe I've been working at this university five years already.
We just got flatscreen monitors at work today! 'Bout time! Now I don't know what to do with all this extra space on my desk. What a lovely problem to have. :)
We passed NCATE back in September! With flying colors, no less -- and what amounts to an apology for their failure to pass us the last time! We can breathe easily again for the next 7 years!
I finished "Final Fantasy XII" last weekend -- I'd started it during the summer but then, well, I had the summer from hell so I finally restarted it back in November. The story and characters were eh, but the graphics are gorgeous and I had loads of fun with the game play itself, especially since I severely overlevelled on Dustia/Werewolves right at the start of the game and thus could just plow right through pretty much everything after that. For some reason I always have a blast beating the final boss in all of, oh, less than 1 minute. Definitely not one of my top 10 favorite games, but it's not nearly as bad as I was led to believe (reading some of the reviews on Gamefaqs) it would be, either. Next up: "Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings" and finishing up "Ar Tonelico," which I also started during the summer and then never had a chance to finish because of the stupid kids in my neighborhood.
Disney in October with my family was lovely. There's nothing like going to Disney World for 8 days to feel like you actually had a vacation and entered a completely different "world." Joy and I are heading down there again in, oh, less than a week (we leave Christmas day, yay!), for an even longer 10-day stay. I can't wait to escape this never-ending snow and cold -- I think we've gotten more snow here in the past two-three weeks than we got all of last year, and it's not even the end of December yet!
We're currently dog-sitting my cousin's black lab, Eccles, while they're camping for three weeks down at Disney World (and yes, Joy and I will probably run into them sometime when we're down there, which will be nice, but could also prove to be...interesting...seeing as her two daughters tend to be hyperactive at times). She is the sweetest dog on the planet. Of course, she also literally tackles me excitedly every time she hasn't seen me for, oh, over an hour. It's flattering, but it also gets pretty old pretty quickly when she keeps up the routine for 5+ minutes straight. And having her drop a ball at your feet and looking at you plaintively while you're barely awake and are already running late for work is heartbreaking. Poor thing misses her family. :(
I really, really miss Stargate. *sighs* Stargate Atlantis, while usually rather enjoyable, just doesn't do it for me the way SG-1 did. I think it's because I miss having a Daniel Jackson-type character, someone to infuse history and mythology into the show. Because it takes place in an entirely different galaxy, there's just no root in history/mythology beyond the obvious "Atlantis" one, and I never realized until SG-1 was gone how much I adored that aspect of it.
I'm all caught up with "Supernatural" and "Babylon 5." B5 will probably never be one of my all-time favorite TV shows for the simple fact that as much as I adored watching G'Kar and Londo interact and their fascinating relationship mature and progress, I never really connected with any of the characters. The story itself was...wow. It took me a long time to get into it, but by the time I hit the middle of Season 3, I couldn't put it down until the end of Season 4. Season 5 was very good, too, but not with the same urgency as Season 4. The story is excellent; it's just not a series I'll need to rewatch again anytime soon. Eventually? Definitely, especially now knowing how the story plays out, but not for a few years.
"Supernatural" I love, but not enough to seek out the fandom. The brothers' relationship is definitely the selling point of the entire series. I like both characters individually, but I wouldn't watch a show devoted solely to either one of them. Together, though? Pure gold, and lots of fun.
I'm also currently rewatching "Highlander" on DVD. It's slow (I'll watch 10-15 episodes in a short period of time, then not watch any for the next two months, then I'll go back to it again for awhile, then I'll get distracted by something else again, etc.), but it's fun to rewatch after not having seen any episodes for at least 7 years.
"Chuck" is my favorite new show of the season. I just love it. "NCIS" continues to amuse me. "Pushing Daisies" is good, quirky fun, although I'm not as attached to it as I am to "Chuck." I didn't have any of the problems so many other people seem to have had with this season of "Heroes" because it started out exactly like Volume 1 -- slow, then building to a fast-paced climax. "Brothers and Sisters" is okay and I'm watching every episode, but I feel no need to ever rewatch it again. I tried "Journeyman," but I had way too much TV to watch so I ended up giving it up after the 3rd episode -- even though it sounds like it got considerably better after that. Maybe when/if the DVDs come out I'll give it another try. And that's about it for my TV watching this season.
I'm sad that we won't be getting too many more new episodes of TV shows for awhile because of the strike, but I understand it and I support it. It really doesn't bother me too much because I have so much else to do, and this free time at night lets me get some of those other things done for a change. It's really quite nice. In fact, my mom and I have already decided that if it continues too long, we'll just go back and rewatch all of "Farscape," seeing as we're both itching to watch the series again. There's definitely an appeal about that, too. :)
Alas, they canceled "The 4400." :( I'll miss having that show to look forward to during the summer. And if "Eureka" won't have any episodes written to be filmed because of the strike...well, summer is looking to be very, very quiet, especially since I'm not a reality TV show kind of viewer.
I got a new cheapie Sansa Clip MP3 player yesterday. Creating playlists for it seems to be a pain, but my old one was dying so I just wanted a cheap filler until I figured out which higher-quality, more expensive one to pick up. Anyone else have one who could give me some pointers?
Several weeks ago I was browsing the Disney sites for the other Disney parks across the world -- Disneyland, Disney Paris, Hong Kong Disney, and Tokyo Disneyland. In the process, I realized I really, really want to get to Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland one day, preferably sooner rather than later in the event that I fall in love with them and want to make return trips. And so now I'm pondering starting to do some traveling on my own, seeing as I'm single and I doubt anyone else would be interested in traveling to Japan with me (which isn't a problem since I already have a passport and I've been traveling with my family since I was 5 and, therefore, traveling is nothing new for me). As in, within the next two years, I'm making it a goal to get to at least one of those (probably Disneyland, since it's the easiest), even if I have to go by myself.
So when I clarified to myself that I was really serious about doing all of that one day (and not just viewing it as wishful thinking, ala "Gee, that would be nice one day," and then forget about it a week later), I also realized that, well, if I want to go to Tokyo Disneyland, I'm not going to take a trip there for all of 3 or 4 days. If I'm going to Japan to see it, I want to see Japan while I'm there. And if I really want to see Japan, I have be familiar with the Japanese language.
So I've decided to learn Japanese. Between wanting to go there and the fact that I am constantly being exposed to Japanese culture/language/music because of my obsession with Japanese RPG video games (and have been since I was about 8 years old), it just seems like the logical language for me to learn. It's definitely not easy, but I'm making some progress. I've already learned the kana (hiragana and katakana, which are like expanded versions of the English alphabet), and am just starting to venture into Kanji (which are those thousands of pictures, mostly of Chinese origin, that much of Japanese writing is written in). It'll take a lot of time, but I'm loving being able to learn it on my own time rather than being forced to for a class. And the best part of it is actually using all those brain cells that have been neglected ever since I graduated college. It feels unbelievably good to be thinking and memorizing and learning again, rather than just sitting in front of a TV playing video games or watching TV. I never thought I would miss that aspect of being in school, but I guess I really did. I miss the learning, but not the stress and the deadlines and the inane assignments and writing papers on subjects that really don't interest me. There's so many free web sites devoted to learning Japanese, too, that I'm always able to find new materials to study. It's really quite awesome, in a geekish way. :)
I still want to take a self defense class. Especially if I start traveling by myself anytime soon, I want to know how to take care of myself should I run into a problem anywhere.
Revisions on "Frozen Flame" are still slowly coming along. I've revised through Chapter 46 (out of 56), although I still need to proofread my changes for the last, oh, 5-6 chapters before I actually post my updated word count. All I know for sure is that I still have roughly 10 chapters left to revise and I've already removed 95% of my target word count, so I'll be way over my minimum. Yay!
I got back to writing that Daniel/Vala fic again for awhile during October/November, but then December hit and, well, life/work/getting ready for another trip to Florida just became too busy again. At least I'm finally on the last of the 3 parts. Hopefully I can get back to it while down in Florida.
And speaking of D/V...I know the vast majority of my flist hates the pairing (so feel free to skip this), but I just have to post links to three of my all-time favorite fics, if for no reason other than easy reference for myself. I've printed all of these, reread them all multiple times, and adore them.
Learning to Trust by DarkDreamer56 - Missing Scene from "Unending." I've read a lot of D/V post-"rant" scenes, but this one rings the truest for me. Great characterizations.
Forever by devra - Missing scene from "Unending." devra doesn't write much non-slash fic, but I'm really glad she wrote this one. Lovely look at Daniel's psyche -- and Vala's, too.
Return to Xanadu by Spiletta42 - Some of it I felt was a bit rushed and could have been fleshed out more, but it's pure, fun, hot D/V fluff. I'd never read the first one (I'm just not a S/J shipper) and I still understood this one okay, so it's not a requirement.
There are lots more great D/V fics out there, but those are my three current favorites.
...And I think I've finally exhausted my updates for the past few months. I'm sure I'll think of something else I missed, but for now that's it.
If I don't post before leaving for Florida next week, have a great holiday season, everyone!
Needless to say, no, I don't feel like doing anything work-related, so I'm probably not going to. So there. Hence why I'm filling out Stargate quizzes. :)
| Which Stargate character are you? Your Result: Dr. Daniel Jackson You are Daniel. Though no one bilieved you or in you, you have proven yourself right and worthy. You are facinated by new cultures, the study of ancient texts and have a very complex and dramatic lovelife you are intelligent, not very athletic, feel compassion for all life and are not a fan of the chain of command. | |
| Richard Woolsey | |
| Dr. Samantha Carter | |
| Dr. Rodney McKay | |
| Teyla Emmagan | |
| Teal'c | |
| Jack O'Neill | |
| John Sheppard / Cameron Mitchel | |
| Which Stargate character are you? Make Your Own Quiz | |
Gee, what a shocker. Although if I were the quiz maker, I would have proofread my results a bit better before actually publishing it for everyone.
Anyway, seeing as I don't feel like doing anything else, I guess I'm long overdue for an update, eh? Here goes, in very random fashion.
Life at home has *crosses fingers* been quiet. Some kid(s) in the area were supposedly caught sometime in October and I haven't heard of anything else happening in the neighborhood since then. I'm still incapable of letting my guard down too much, but at least it's relaxed somewhat. It's nice to not have panic attacks when leaving the house on Monday mornings, wondering what the new week will bring.
I received my 5-year pin today during the luncheon. I can't believe I've been working at this university five years already.
We just got flatscreen monitors at work today! 'Bout time! Now I don't know what to do with all this extra space on my desk. What a lovely problem to have. :)
We passed NCATE back in September! With flying colors, no less -- and what amounts to an apology for their failure to pass us the last time! We can breathe easily again for the next 7 years!
I finished "Final Fantasy XII" last weekend -- I'd started it during the summer but then, well, I had the summer from hell so I finally restarted it back in November. The story and characters were eh, but the graphics are gorgeous and I had loads of fun with the game play itself, especially since I severely overlevelled on Dustia/Werewolves right at the start of the game and thus could just plow right through pretty much everything after that. For some reason I always have a blast beating the final boss in all of, oh, less than 1 minute. Definitely not one of my top 10 favorite games, but it's not nearly as bad as I was led to believe (reading some of the reviews on Gamefaqs) it would be, either. Next up: "Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings" and finishing up "Ar Tonelico," which I also started during the summer and then never had a chance to finish because of the stupid kids in my neighborhood.
Disney in October with my family was lovely. There's nothing like going to Disney World for 8 days to feel like you actually had a vacation and entered a completely different "world." Joy and I are heading down there again in, oh, less than a week (we leave Christmas day, yay!), for an even longer 10-day stay. I can't wait to escape this never-ending snow and cold -- I think we've gotten more snow here in the past two-three weeks than we got all of last year, and it's not even the end of December yet!
We're currently dog-sitting my cousin's black lab, Eccles, while they're camping for three weeks down at Disney World (and yes, Joy and I will probably run into them sometime when we're down there, which will be nice, but could also prove to be...interesting...seeing as her two daughters tend to be hyperactive at times). She is the sweetest dog on the planet. Of course, she also literally tackles me excitedly every time she hasn't seen me for, oh, over an hour. It's flattering, but it also gets pretty old pretty quickly when she keeps up the routine for 5+ minutes straight. And having her drop a ball at your feet and looking at you plaintively while you're barely awake and are already running late for work is heartbreaking. Poor thing misses her family. :(
I really, really miss Stargate. *sighs* Stargate Atlantis, while usually rather enjoyable, just doesn't do it for me the way SG-1 did. I think it's because I miss having a Daniel Jackson-type character, someone to infuse history and mythology into the show. Because it takes place in an entirely different galaxy, there's just no root in history/mythology beyond the obvious "Atlantis" one, and I never realized until SG-1 was gone how much I adored that aspect of it.
I'm all caught up with "Supernatural" and "Babylon 5." B5 will probably never be one of my all-time favorite TV shows for the simple fact that as much as I adored watching G'Kar and Londo interact and their fascinating relationship mature and progress, I never really connected with any of the characters. The story itself was...wow. It took me a long time to get into it, but by the time I hit the middle of Season 3, I couldn't put it down until the end of Season 4. Season 5 was very good, too, but not with the same urgency as Season 4. The story is excellent; it's just not a series I'll need to rewatch again anytime soon. Eventually? Definitely, especially now knowing how the story plays out, but not for a few years.
"Supernatural" I love, but not enough to seek out the fandom. The brothers' relationship is definitely the selling point of the entire series. I like both characters individually, but I wouldn't watch a show devoted solely to either one of them. Together, though? Pure gold, and lots of fun.
I'm also currently rewatching "Highlander" on DVD. It's slow (I'll watch 10-15 episodes in a short period of time, then not watch any for the next two months, then I'll go back to it again for awhile, then I'll get distracted by something else again, etc.), but it's fun to rewatch after not having seen any episodes for at least 7 years.
"Chuck" is my favorite new show of the season. I just love it. "NCIS" continues to amuse me. "Pushing Daisies" is good, quirky fun, although I'm not as attached to it as I am to "Chuck." I didn't have any of the problems so many other people seem to have had with this season of "Heroes" because it started out exactly like Volume 1 -- slow, then building to a fast-paced climax. "Brothers and Sisters" is okay and I'm watching every episode, but I feel no need to ever rewatch it again. I tried "Journeyman," but I had way too much TV to watch so I ended up giving it up after the 3rd episode -- even though it sounds like it got considerably better after that. Maybe when/if the DVDs come out I'll give it another try. And that's about it for my TV watching this season.
I'm sad that we won't be getting too many more new episodes of TV shows for awhile because of the strike, but I understand it and I support it. It really doesn't bother me too much because I have so much else to do, and this free time at night lets me get some of those other things done for a change. It's really quite nice. In fact, my mom and I have already decided that if it continues too long, we'll just go back and rewatch all of "Farscape," seeing as we're both itching to watch the series again. There's definitely an appeal about that, too. :)
Alas, they canceled "The 4400." :( I'll miss having that show to look forward to during the summer. And if "Eureka" won't have any episodes written to be filmed because of the strike...well, summer is looking to be very, very quiet, especially since I'm not a reality TV show kind of viewer.
I got a new cheapie Sansa Clip MP3 player yesterday. Creating playlists for it seems to be a pain, but my old one was dying so I just wanted a cheap filler until I figured out which higher-quality, more expensive one to pick up. Anyone else have one who could give me some pointers?
Several weeks ago I was browsing the Disney sites for the other Disney parks across the world -- Disneyland, Disney Paris, Hong Kong Disney, and Tokyo Disneyland. In the process, I realized I really, really want to get to Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland one day, preferably sooner rather than later in the event that I fall in love with them and want to make return trips. And so now I'm pondering starting to do some traveling on my own, seeing as I'm single and I doubt anyone else would be interested in traveling to Japan with me (which isn't a problem since I already have a passport and I've been traveling with my family since I was 5 and, therefore, traveling is nothing new for me). As in, within the next two years, I'm making it a goal to get to at least one of those (probably Disneyland, since it's the easiest), even if I have to go by myself.
So when I clarified to myself that I was really serious about doing all of that one day (and not just viewing it as wishful thinking, ala "Gee, that would be nice one day," and then forget about it a week later), I also realized that, well, if I want to go to Tokyo Disneyland, I'm not going to take a trip there for all of 3 or 4 days. If I'm going to Japan to see it, I want to see Japan while I'm there. And if I really want to see Japan, I have be familiar with the Japanese language.
So I've decided to learn Japanese. Between wanting to go there and the fact that I am constantly being exposed to Japanese culture/language/music because of my obsession with Japanese RPG video games (and have been since I was about 8 years old), it just seems like the logical language for me to learn. It's definitely not easy, but I'm making some progress. I've already learned the kana (hiragana and katakana, which are like expanded versions of the English alphabet), and am just starting to venture into Kanji (which are those thousands of pictures, mostly of Chinese origin, that much of Japanese writing is written in). It'll take a lot of time, but I'm loving being able to learn it on my own time rather than being forced to for a class. And the best part of it is actually using all those brain cells that have been neglected ever since I graduated college. It feels unbelievably good to be thinking and memorizing and learning again, rather than just sitting in front of a TV playing video games or watching TV. I never thought I would miss that aspect of being in school, but I guess I really did. I miss the learning, but not the stress and the deadlines and the inane assignments and writing papers on subjects that really don't interest me. There's so many free web sites devoted to learning Japanese, too, that I'm always able to find new materials to study. It's really quite awesome, in a geekish way. :)
I still want to take a self defense class. Especially if I start traveling by myself anytime soon, I want to know how to take care of myself should I run into a problem anywhere.
Revisions on "Frozen Flame" are still slowly coming along. I've revised through Chapter 46 (out of 56), although I still need to proofread my changes for the last, oh, 5-6 chapters before I actually post my updated word count. All I know for sure is that I still have roughly 10 chapters left to revise and I've already removed 95% of my target word count, so I'll be way over my minimum. Yay!
I got back to writing that Daniel/Vala fic again for awhile during October/November, but then December hit and, well, life/work/getting ready for another trip to Florida just became too busy again. At least I'm finally on the last of the 3 parts. Hopefully I can get back to it while down in Florida.
And speaking of D/V...I know the vast majority of my flist hates the pairing (so feel free to skip this), but I just have to post links to three of my all-time favorite fics, if for no reason other than easy reference for myself. I've printed all of these, reread them all multiple times, and adore them.
Learning to Trust by DarkDreamer56 - Missing Scene from "Unending." I've read a lot of D/V post-"rant" scenes, but this one rings the truest for me. Great characterizations.
Forever by devra - Missing scene from "Unending." devra doesn't write much non-slash fic, but I'm really glad she wrote this one. Lovely look at Daniel's psyche -- and Vala's, too.
Return to Xanadu by Spiletta42 - Some of it I felt was a bit rushed and could have been fleshed out more, but it's pure, fun, hot D/V fluff. I'd never read the first one (I'm just not a S/J shipper) and I still understood this one okay, so it's not a requirement.
There are lots more great D/V fics out there, but those are my three current favorites.
...And I think I've finally exhausted my updates for the past few months. I'm sure I'll think of something else I missed, but for now that's it.
If I don't post before leaving for Florida next week, have a great holiday season, everyone!
