katharos

A good day! Got the trail_hunter fic in and found out I passed the tests I was cramming for *happy* Next fic - Saiunkoku Secret Santa or Yuletide? Hmmm Or my long list of prompts for One True Pair. But they're due for after Christmas as are Twelve Days. Ohh, fic!

H-has there been a day to day? *dazed* Tried to read Hunter x Hunter in between cramming for tomorrows test so I'd be in the head-space for finishing Trail Hunter fic. Got sucked into reading Hetalia instead. Historical crack, why so addictive??!

Another Brother by AvocadoLove
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4414541/1/Another_Brother

Avatar fic. WIP, unfortunatly, but being updated at a steady rate for lots of nice chunky chapters already!

It was a mission of revenge. There weren't supposed to be any survivors, but Chief Hakoda couldn't bring himself to kill the Fire Nation boy. Against his better judgment, he brought him home. A Zuko joins the Water Tribe story.

It's a long, meaty AU story of the type I adore - where one thing is changed and the ripples spread out, eventually affecting everything. The writing is smooth and readable and the characterisation is solid and fascinating. Zuko is, of course, very different - but very much the same, stubborn loyalties and tunnel vision transferred firmly to the Water Tribe and Katara and Sokka. I always loved Zuko-in-the-Gaang and this fic satisfies my AU fiend's craving for more - but different. Lots of consequences to the universe which are just now being to be revealed and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they develop.

Me: Okay, I understand that the new number divided by the original number will give you the percentage because its the reverse of the equation that gives you the original number but I still don't understand why. I mean, why do those numbers produce these numbers? Can you explain it to me?
Sister: Oh my God. It's maths! It gives you the original number because its the reverse of the equation! It's - look, you know like in Avatar? When Toph's teaching Aang to earthbend? And he's all 'but couldn't we look at it from a different angle' and she's NO. This is how it works. That's how it goes. You can't look at it from a differnt angle. It's like that because that's how the universe works. Stop trying to break the universe!
Me: So, um. It just does?
Sister: YES!

I give you: the fundamental clash of world views between the science and the arts student.

Sister has been accepted into the university she wanted! Mucho glee.

Went out to eat to celebrate (HUGE steaks. Brought enough leftovers back for the dog that she didn't need feeding a bowl of dog food) and wathced two episodes of Yes Minister which I'd never seen before although heard much good things about. Awesome. *grin*

*uses Civil Service icon*

Have got my Yuletide my assignment and have belatedly remembered that when I thought 'hey, it'd be really cool to do something with that' what I really meant was 'hey, it'd be really cool to see someone else do something with that.

*Does annual Yuletide spazz*

Dear Santa letter to come shortly! I didn't do one the last two years which made me feel really bad since I practically lived on the same page as my recipient's letters. *tries to pull thoughts together.*

End of second week of work! And we're finally beginning to move out of the induction period and into the work we were hired to do. Which feels really, reall good. *grin*

NaNoWriMo, uh, I'm less than a half where I should be? Going to try and right like a fiend this weekend to make it up. I am determined to at least come close to 50000 words this year! It's also really good for me. I haven't written seriously for months, and when I started trying to write some fanfic... it didn't go well. A lot of what I've written for NaNo sounds really stiff and I'm sure I can't blame it all on speed-creation. So hopefully by the time I get around to writing for Yuletide and Trail Hunter I'll have my writing muscles back in shape!

OBAMA WON!!!

Dad came into wake me up this morning (we'd both overslept) and told me, "Barack Obama won." I, um. Kind of did a whole-body air punch and shouted "Yes!"

So, so much glee! Thank you, thank you all you Americans who voted! I'm really looking forward to the next four years now.

Of interest to fellow UK'ers - Gordon Brown and Cameron are already having a bitchfight over who gets to be Obama's BFF.

*stuffs fingers in mouth and vibrates with glee."

Best. Day. Ever.

And I have survived the first week of work!

Halloween has been wonderful - had loads of kids trick or treating around our street as always and they're so cute! As well as werewolves, witches, vampires and skeletons we had one Father Christmas and a slightly lost milk man choosing an odd night to collect the milk. He got a chocolate bar as well though.

Came home to find Haz and Dad had set up a command centre in the front computer room involving wires, microphones, and the head off an old hobbie horse which plays spooky galloping noises. And speakers buried in the bush outside. Think we managed to make a few kids' Halloween experience a little scarier! *grin*

Managed to grab one of Dragon Cave's special Halloween eggs.

Went to see Noises Off at Malvern on Tuesday night. Drove through the snow (snow. There was a woman in Birmingham selling the Big Issue just outside Waterstones with a swirl of snow falling around her. Like something out of Dickens.)

Noises Off was brilliant. It's about a group of actors putting on a play called Nothing On and the first half is the dress rehearsal and the second half is a later performance but the set is turned around so we are watching back stage where several enormous dramas are taking place in mime and various people are attempting to mortally injure each other. And the set has a window in it which the actors have to duck under when the move from side to side of the stage and there is this one point where one actor is trying to murder another with an axe and they forget to duck and all you can think of is the silhoette the 'audience' on the other side of the set must be seeing!

And there is a bottle of whiskey that the cast is in a desperate conspiracy to keep from the happy alcholic actor who was played by Colin Baker.

We were exhausted with laughing by the end.

First day at work today! Mostly involved reading through contracts, induction packs and various background information...easy once past the first few minutes of absolute terror. *wry*

But everyone seemed really nice - there was another girl starting with me so we got to exchange deer-in-the-headlight looks over the top of our computers.

Met up with a bunch of fellow NaNo people in Birmingham on Saturday and had long, rambly, plain odd conversations which was awesome. Maybe this is the year! The year that I will finish NaNo! For I have no essays due in the middle of it. Just a new job...

Where the Bones Lie Dreaming
or
Where the Bones Are Dreaming

Which title?
*thoughful*

*cough* So, did you know the Dragon Cave had an individual dragon description function? *sheepish*

Still waiting to see if they'll be approved by the moderators to appear on my scroll but here are the descriptions for my four adult dragons. Part orgfic, part roleplay.

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Have made my Yuletide nominations. Three re-nominations from past years - Black Jewels Trilogy, D.Grayman, and Vagrant Story (Am in the city! So pretty!) - and three completly new ones I have bewailed the lack of before. Diana Wynne Jones' Archer's Goon, LJ Smith's The Forbidden Game, and Susan Price's Elfgift Duology. *crosses fingers and hopes*

In other news, I start my job on monday! *puts head down on desk and laughs hysterically*

Honestly, I think that makes it four times now I've had cause to cheer in joy and relief 'I have a job!' For the same job.

At least I have a job title now. And will be going in at some point before the end of this week to sign the contract. So at least things are moving forward now. *bites nails*

My sister did an online supermarket order the other day, asking for two packs of organic chicken breasts with skin. Instead of receiving standard chicken breasts, the geniuses at the store substituted organic chicken drumsticks with skin. Sometimes I think they do it for the lols. So I am making chicken soup. No idea how it will turn out.

And it's back to the waiting game again today, jobwise. *wry* Assuming that means I start on Wednesday.

Been a slow day. Read up on stuff for starting. Played a little Vagrant Story. Plotted a bit for NaNo. Also submitted descriptions for my two adult dragons to DragCave. *sheepish*

Made a Sausage Casserole for tea. It turned out very nice so copying basic recipie
here so I don't forget it.

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Cut for very slight spoiler

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Okay, I've kept mum about this for ages since I didn't quite believe it was going to come through - there has been a loooooooooooooong silence between now and the first offer and the start date has been pushed back once but -

I have a job! A real job! *tries to dance and cower simultanously*

I start on either monday, tuesday, or wednesday - depending on when they can finally get me on the payroll - and then I have a job! Until at least Christmas! And maybe a couple of months beyond!

*terrified*

In other news - playing Vagrant Story. A lot. hikari_datenshi - you were right. It is gorgeous. I love all the sepia tones to bits. And I could watch the opening sequence on repeat for hours - Mullenkamp dancing in dragon flames!

A typical Conversation with Sister:

K: Haz, Haz! Sydney's turned up! He's taunting Ashley! And messing with his head! The first taunt!
H: *long stare* Who are these people?
K: Look he's got swooshy hair! Eeeee, he's telling Ashley 'I am the hart and you the hunter,' just trip him and land underneath him Sydney!
H: *backs away slowly*
K: *mumbling tunefully* "and his hips don't lie..."

In other other news: dragons! I - I have no impulse control where these are concerned. Thanks to everyone who clicked! I've got lots of little baby dragons now.

So much for my personal vow to post more frequently. :p

Okay, most important thing to have happened in our household since I last posted? MY SISTER HAS CHOSEN HER UNIVERSITY AND COURSE!!! WOOT!!!! *THROWS CONFETTI*

You have to understand, for the past eighteen months to two years, in every conversation this family has had amongst itself, with friends, with random, very confused strangers the phrases 'What/where should Haz do/go to university?' have inevitably cropped up. But the choice has been made! She is going to do Natural Sciences (the English Lit graduate stares blankly) at Queen Mary's in London. *fingers crossed* Waiting to hear back from them now.

This miraculous development came about as a result of a trip to London a couple of weekends ago to a visit day. (The campus has an old Jewish graveyard right in the centre. How cool is that? *envious*)( Read more... )

Weekend after that concluded with the four of us pushing a piano down the road.

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I then went to visit lycoris for three days which was awesome - I hadn't seen her in months!

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Then, last friday, after getting back, I went to see Baroness Warsi give a talk at a local college. She's the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, the youngest member of the House of Lords, and the one who went out to bring back the teacher from the teddy bear called Muhammed crisis. And she was awesome and loveley and very, very interesting. Even if she is a Conservative. *grin*

And that would be everything except that this evening as Tess (the dog) and I were coming back from our walk a cat ran out into the road and was hit by a car. I saw the front tires hit it as it screeched to a halt and it kind of spun around and ran back the way it came. I couldn't find it then - it must have hid in the house's garden. A few years ago my Mum hit a cat which was able to run off, but it was later found in a hole where it had crawled to die. (This story is a source of instant guilt even now.) So I dropped Tess off back home (who was not, I felt, conducive to the cat hunt) and went back. I rang the doorbell but no one answered and, since the garden gate was open, went through to have a look around. This resulted in a woman and me giving each other the fright of our lives when we saw each other through the french windows. I explained what had happened and what I was doing and she was very sympathetic and worried - she thought it might be the cat belonging to the woman opposite which often comes and watches them through the window. So then I had to go back across the road to tell this woman that her cat might have been knocked over by a car. And she was so, so lovely - she kept thanking me for coming to tell her, that it was better to know than to wonder. When I left they were calling for the cat - I've no idea if they've found him or not. I want to go back and find out the end of the story - but then again, I don't.

In happier things - this time tomorrow I might have my hands upon Vagrant Story which will be the first game I have bought for myself in years but cutscenes - and ciceqi's fics - have seduced me.

And finally: Dragons. I succumbed.

I've seen this meme floating around everywhere and thought it would be intersting to do. :D

Post the first lines from your last 20 stories and look for patterns

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Okay, my first lines tend to be very long... and almost entirely concerned with setting either physical, temporal, or the weather. And I'm very fond of storms and rain. *rueful* Not exactly good first line practice according to all creative writing advice.

The other thing this has made me realise is that I have written very little lately. So, meme, pinched from lycoris

Give me one or more characters, an alernative universe, and perhaps a prompt and I will write you a drabble set in that universe.

Fandoms... any fandom I have ever written in? Also Kamen Rider Kabuto and D.Grayman, my two latest series. Tsubasa maybe not; I am VOLUMES behind the current storyline and have no great incentive to catch up.

Slept thirteen hours straight last night, almost twice as long as my normal sleep patterns have been for the last month.

Tought I'd up load my dissertation soundtrack while I can still remember it. Not songs I actually, physically listened to but songs or fragments of songs that drifted into my head as a stared blankly down at a piece of paper and tried to remember why I was paying three thousand pounds for the privilege of doing this to myself.

Not so much 'cheer up emo-kid' as 'kid, you have a perfect right to emo, but this dissertation still has to be done so grit your teeth and do it.' Or, as my mum would say, 'hold your nerve.' An expression I love. Makes me feel like I'm in the Royal Navy in the age of tall ships facing cannon fire.



Ordinary Day

And I say way-hey-hey, it's just an ordinary day
and it's all your state of mind
At the end of the day, you've still got to say,
it's all right.

Bon Jovi:
It's My Life


It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive

Carbon Leaf:

This is Your Song

For the stable running brave
From the cradle to the grave
This is my day, this is my song!
I am alive... what can go wrong?
If we're on our way-oh, ok let me know
If we're on our way-oh, ok then, let's go


Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer.
Just discovered I don't actually have this on my computer so linking to lastFm.

Whooah, were half way there
Livin on a prayer

I HAVE FINISHED MY DISSERTAION! *dances**gyrates**falls on the floor in an exhausted heap.*

16497 words on the Representation of Islamic Terrorism in Post-9/11 texts - done done and DONE! And I'm actually quite happy with it (although I'm refusing to go back and look at the files again) After weeks of living, breathing, dreaming the thing it is DONE! *sighs happily at the idea of free time* Sometime in December I should become Katharos BA, MA. Will NOT be adding a Phd to the alphabet soup anytime soon though.

Have spent a fee hours indulging in the ability to do nothing and will now go to bed. For the first time in forty hours.