lily_handmaiden | Entries tagged with work

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I am back from England! Where I had probably the most amazing time of my life, ever!

I have been back for about a week, and I have so many things to cover!
*the trip itself
*the awesomeness of the last three Office episodes (sqeeeee!)
*the awesomeness of PotC: AWE (whooooo!)
*the suckiness of my job hunt, which I suppose you can go ahead and read about over here.

Other than that, I have decided on the order of addressing these things: first the trip, in three entries spaced closely together, then The Office, then Pirates-- or possibly both in one entry.

Normally I don't talk about my real life on my lj, but I have a feeling I'm going to wax a bit long for my blog community, so this is where this is going.

( What I Did on My Holidays )

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Hoist the Colors

( knights in an icon? )

Since it has been so long since I've posted, I have a lot that I want to cover in this entry. Schol continues batshit crazy. Or, rather, it did until recently. This semester totally kicked my butt, but it's now pretty much over. I have one final on Tuesday, and then I'm done. I go home for Christmas on Thursday, and I am super-excited about this. But seriously, this semester... BAAAAD. There was a lot of stress from various quarters, and I'm glad it's almost over. ALMOST OVER! WHOOOO!

I did have a meeting with Dr. Battles, my professor/boss, the man for whom I am a research assistant, and he is still pleased with my work. We're waiting for our grant to get renewed, which hopefully it will be. These meetings always come when I haven't been able to do anything for the project in a couple of weeks or (in this case) a month because of the craziness of school. He did not blame me at all for this. He's really accommodating of my schedule, actually, and is still happy with the work I've been doing. We talked a lot about grad schools, too, which was a little scary, but his apparent confidence in me was very gratifying and flattering.

Over Thanksgiving, I saw three movies. One was bad, one was weird, and one was good. The good one was Stranger Than Fiction, which I recommend to any and everyone. It's really funny and sweet and good and it has Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, and Queen Latifah all together in the same movie. The bad movie was Babel, which I went to see with Michael, Marten, Nathan, and Jonah. I really loved seeing them all again, but here is a piece of advice: Don't see Babel. The weird movie was The Fountain, which was SO WEIRD. The best description I have heard of it was on Not Ebert and Roeper the next day. It went something like this: "In the fifteenth century, Rachel Weisz is Queen Isabella of Spain and Hugh Jackman is Tomasino, a conquistador trying to unlock the secret of eternal life. In the present, Rachel Weisz is Izzi, a woman suffering from cancer, and Hugh Jackman is her husband, a scientist desperately trying to find a cure. In the future, Hugh Jackman is bald and Rachel Weisz is, unless I am mistaken, a tree." And that leaves out the half hour at least spent just watching Hugh Jackman floating through space and glowing like Darth Buddha Jesus.

Here are a couple of Office-related icons I made recently.

Life imitates art. A Christmas icon.

I am now going to give a belated description of my trip to see Spamalot in Cincinnatti. I was so excited to get to go! Especially since the show will be in Indianapolis in May, which is when I will be in England (I just finished paying for the trip yesterday). Our seats were in the last row of the theater, but it was a well-constructed theater, and I could still see everything pretty well. SPOILERS AHEAD!

The show is HYSTERICAL. If any of you ever havea chance to see it, please do. It begins with the historian's prologue-- the historian reminded me of some of my professors-- and then the Finland fish-slapping number. This was exactly as ridiculous as you would expect it to be. All of these people in bright colors and wigs made of yarn come out and sing and dance around, and then they whip out fishes and start slapping each other. "I said ENGLAND!" "Oh..." And the Finland set is quickly wheeled off to leave us with the castle from the beginning of the movie. There was a lot of incidental music in the play I liked which isn't on the soundtrack, and a lot of it involves fun Arthurian reference. The one I can remember right now is Arthur's introduction of himself: "I am Arthur, King of the Britons/ And I am the ruler of all/ Of England and Scotland/ And also little bitty bits of Gaul!" Then they do the whole coconut- swallow conversation, which got a great response and was great to see acted out live, just let me say.

Then they move on to He Is Not Dead Yet. This was also really funny and involved a lot more movie dialogue than is on the soundtrack. There is a whole cart full of "dead" people being rolled around, who jump up and turn into the back up singers/dancers. When the do "kill" Fred, his body just lies there throughout the whole number, and they sort of dance around it, and something about that is hilarious. They do not do the "burn the witch" scene, but that's okay. Arthur picks up Robin and Lance, and then they come across Dennis Galahad and his mum digging around in the mud. Galahad, naturally, refuses to believe in the Lady of the Lake, so Arthur summons the Lady and her Laker girls. Galahad is so blow away that he not only joins the Knights, but undergoes a complete transformation-- his clothes are clean, he stands up straight, he has shiny hair, and he has a posh accent. Arthur comments on this, and Galahad says something about how it's because he is a better person now for having thrown himself wholeheartedly into feudalism. Arthur calls him a prick or something like that, and Galahad proclaims that, yes, he has released his inner asshole. The Song That Goes Like This is really funny, and Galahad and the Lady start yelling into the orchestra pit when the song goes on too long. A chandelier comes down out of nowhere and breaks at the end.

The Camelot sequence is very elaborate. There's a huge round table/ roulette wheel hanging overhead that is in neon colors and lights up. The Laker Girls' outfits are exceedingly skimpy. The Lady played her part as a drunken lounge singer. Then God manifests himself as a pair of cartoon feet and the voice of John Cleese to order everyone to find the Grail. "Are we given to understand that Almighty God has... misplaced... his cup?" And they discuss how it is really a metaphor, and then Find Your Grail is sung and they walk up and down the same mountain several times, in an act of purposeful cheese. The seasons pass out of order as various knights come on with buckets of "snow," "leaves," and "flowers."

They arrive at the French castle. One thing I love is that, just as in the movie, the roles are double-cast, and they don't even try to explain it when Lancelot, for example, is not there for the entire scene. They really launch a cow right onto one of the servants in very admirable and well-choreographed fashion. The rabbit crashes via an animation on a screen which is lowered immediately prior to intermission. And you know those funny faces the French Taunters make? Even funnier in person. And the French people who come out? One of them is dressed like Eponine from Les Mis.

The Dark and Very Expensive Forest looks, indeed, very expensive. When Arthur and Patsy sing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, it is "raining," and the backup knights come on and sing and dance with smiley face umbrellas, which is awesome. Something about seeing fully armored knights dancing with smiley face umbrellas... is the sort of silliness which my icon of today is made of. The Knights Who Until Recently Said Ni now want Arthur to put on a Broadway musical for them. Robin does do the three-headed giant scene, and then he finds Arthur and they sing You Won't Succeed on Broadway, which is exactly how you would imagine it to be. They do, in fact, bring on a piano. Also, I seem to remember a giant light-up Star of David. Arthur and Robin set off on their new quest to find a Jew.

The Diva's Lament takes place, according to the program, in A Hole in the Universe. She just comes out in a robe and sings and roses are thrown and it rocks. I believe this is the part where they are getting rid of the Dark and Very Expesive Forest and replacing it with Swamp Castle. Lancelot's scene with Concorde rocks. As does absolutely anything involving Herbert. His Name is Lancelot... okay. They do infact remove Lancelot's tabard, and... There is a neon sparky unitard time thing. With a really sparkly thong/codpiece dealy over it. And there is a lot of color, and Lancelot no longer has sleeves or a helmet and... he was pretty hot, actually, from what I could tell. And the whole number is simply beyond words, it is that awesome and strange.

I don't remember that much of I'm All Alone. It was pretty much like I imagined it would be, I think. I remember that I laughed straight through it. The Lady of the Lake comes on to tell Arthur that he's not alone, because she has been there to give him the sword... make him king... give him a quest... He wants to know how to succeed in the quest since they don't have any Jews. The Lady explains that they have been doing a Broadway play the whole time. And Patsy chimes up that he is, in fact, Jewish. "Not exactly something you'd want to mention around a medieval king famous for being a Christian..." But how do they end the play? Well, with a wedding! But Arthur wants to know who would marry him. The Lady suggests maybe someone who has been there for him... who gave him a sword... made him king... give him a quest... So now all they have to do is find the Grail!

Tim the enchanter comes on on a spark-spewing broomstick. It is very... "impressive." Caer Bannog is a piece of scenery painted to be a "hill" which is brought on to the middle of the stage, and the bunny is a puppet, which appears looking very sweet, and then... wow, I almost forgot about this part. And the Black Knight part, actually. They do amazing things. In the Black Knight scene, they manage to cut off the fake arms, and then the Knight is stabbed to a wall at which point the actor inside somehow climbs out of the costume so that the legs can be cut off. In the bunny part, I think somebody else loses an arm and blood squirts. Maybe a head is lost, actually. Something. It's very cool. The bunny reappers, this time revealing his sharp, pointy teeth. Still a puppet. With scary teeth. Then they move aside the hill setpiece to reveal the knight-costumed guy with the rabbit puppet on one hand, who looks sheepish and then walks away. I was laughing. So. Hard. The engraving on the cave says that you will find the Grail at "D101." "Doi?" they wonder. "As in, an expression of stupidity?" "Duh?" "No, doi." Then they realize that it is actually Seat D101. The Grail is actually under a seat in the audience. So they all troop down to the seat and get the Grail and the woman who had been sitting over it and bring her onstage and sing her a song about how she will now be famous in Cincinnatti. It was really awesome.

So then they do Hallelujah! A Broadway wedding! Arthur figures that, since he's marrying the Lady, he ought to know her name, sine he can't just call her "Lady." She tells him it is Guinevere. "Doi!" one of the knights exclaims. The wedding sequence takes place, and it's shiny and pretty. Lancelot and Herbert are barely recognizable because Herbert's in a dress. And Robin's in a white tie and tails. And that is their show that ends like this. The words to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life show up on the overhead screen so the audience can sing along. Which we do.

The show went really, really fast because I was enjoying myself so much. YAY FOR SPAMALOT!

I have to go ice skating now!

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: P&P2 ('95) is on behind me

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It is me! I am alive!

Life has been very, very busy. Too busy, sadly, for my darling lj. I am back at school, as one might expect, and classes have started (obviously), and remember all of that happiness about being done with my articles? Yeah, not so much anymore. A whole bunch came for me when I got back here, and there are currently (if I remember correctly) 29 ILL books on the floor under the futon. Also, taking five classes is hard. Just in case you weren't aware. Although I do really enjoy my classes. Fiction and Poetry Workshop is the hardest, just because it makes me edgy. I have read one poem out loud, but being there makes me feel usually like I suck and/or that I'm not doing things right. It's a very unsettling feeling.

Aside from that, there have been personal difficulties-- not necessarily mine, but those of the people around me, and if you don't know what I'm talking about it's probably none of your business. But the general result has been a LOT of busyness and a LOT of stress.

Here are some things, though, which have made me happy so far this year:

1. The Office. This show is just so good. And it makes me laugh and feel good. I really like the characters, the actors, and the writers (and there is overlap between the three categories, which is awesome). This is something, like Pride and Prejudice, that I can watch over and over again and know that I will come out with an improved mood and outlook on things.

2. Story Time with Erin. This is a special time when, sometimes, Bethany and my roommate Erin will sit down and listen to me reading Pride and Prejudice. Which is not only great fun, but also a good stres reliever. After P&P, we're reading Jane Eyre, and Bethany is going to take the part of Adele, because she can translate the French for us. Whitney has asked to be Rochester, so it could turn into a fun roleplaying time.

3. The prospect of costumes for the show we're doing in November, The Government Inspector. I have only five lines (although some of them are pretty good lines), but the costumes are going to be Regency/ Georgian/ Empire style! And mine gets to be fancy because I'm an aristocrat! Squee!

4. Jane Eyre the Musical. This has sort of become comfort music; I don't know why. I also listen to it when I'm happy, but there are times when I'll just think, "I need to hear Marla Schaffel and James Barbour singing to me." A lot of clips have also been showing up on YouTube, here. The group is courtesy of Bronteana. You really ought to watch them; there are deleted songs, and there's a great combination of awesome and cheese. In the realm of cheese, stage exposition is hilarious ("She's gone! All of her things are still here! All of the things I gave her!"), and James Barbour (despite having one of the prettiest voices in the history of ever) gestures HUGELY ("What am I now, Jane?" "Are you being a mime, sir?" "Exactly! Precisely! A mime trapped in a box!"), and in the Farewell, Good Angel clip, Marla has a truly fugly veil. Anthony Crivello, on the other hand, looks a lot like a guy who finally graduated here last year. And in the Opening Song, Jane holds her infant self. But in the realm of awesome, Marla Schaffel rocks my socks off. She has such intensity and focus in her performance, and truth. She's one of those actresses who isn't afraid to look a little ugly. And I have now seen or heard about five different recordings of The Proposal, and she performs it differently every single time. He delivery in the scene is excellent.

There is about to be a new BBC miniseries of Jane Eyre. Well, actually, it's already airing on the BBC, but it's airing over here in January. Although it's available on the internet, I'm holding off until January to watch it so that I can watch it with my girls. And I'll probably recap it, too, because I'm a dork. Anyway, I have made a whole slew of icons with pictures from this new miniseries, courtesy of the BBC website and Bronteana.

( The fairy race gave you that face... )

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Roommate is watching Supernatural (eeeeek!)

( mfing icon )

First of all, I finally finished reading and summarizing all of the articles I had for the SGGK research project! Huzzah! There were over 120 of them, and I did not think there was much of a chance of my getting through them all. But I did! This means I have done my job for the summer, and my conscience is much more clear on this topic than it has been in a long, long time! Also, I am dead from overanalysis.

A short time ago, I went with Whitney to see Snakes on a Plane. I have to say, Whitney was probably the best person hands down to see it with, because she also likes to talk and laugh during movies and we have similar senses of humor.

There was no way we were going to take this movie seriously. There is no way we could have even if we had wanted to. The script was just... so bad. So bad that it circled back around and became wonderful. I keep trying to explain this to people and they don't understand: it's horrible, yes. But it's horrible in a good way.

You've got to love a movie with a premise this ridiculous. Come on, they say "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but..." twice! TWICE IN ONE MOVIE! And that's exactly the kind of humor the movie needs to float.

SPOILERS AHEAD! I'M NOT GOING TO PUT IN A CUT, BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

So, it starts out with Some Guy motorbiking through some jungle. He happens upon Eddie Kim's Asian Assasins assassinating some importnat prosecutor. Some Guy does not wait until the Asian Assassins leave the area, nor does he walk away quietly. He hops back on his little motorbike and careens through the brush while the dangerous men are still standing RIGHT THERE. So now they know they have to go get him.

Later, Some Guy is in his hotel or apartment or whatever, and Eddie Kim's Asian Assassins come to kill him for being stupid. But then Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson jumps in out of nowhere and is all badass and awesome and saves Some Guy, who reveals himself as Some Bad Actor. "Do what I tell you and you live," says Sam Jackson, as we will be reminded fifty billion times throughout the movie. "Don't move, don't even breathe." Then they run away, and Sam Jackson is like, "Why are you such an idiot?" And Some Bad Actor is like, "I don't know?"

So then Sam Jackson interrogates Some Bad Actor, and finally gets him to admit that he saw Eddie Kim's Asian Assassins, even though SBA really doesn't want to testify because Eddie doesn't mess around with dealing out the revenge. He's basically a whiny bitch about it, and Sam Jackson is like, "Fool, you're not even making any sense!" And SBA is like, "I know, we'd better just move on to the snakes on the plane." And Sam Jackson is like, "Damn straight."

Also, Sam Jackson's character's name is Neville Flynn. I mention this because he looks and acts the least like a Neville Flynn out of anybody in the whole entire world.

At the airport, three stewardesses are boarding the Flight of Doom, making all kinds of comments which will become very ironic later. Their names are Grace, Tiffany, and Julianna Margulies. You can tell Julianna Margulies is the serious stewardess because she is wearing pants. It is Julianna's very last flight, and she really hopes it is not going to be the worst flight ever. Unfortunately, it is. Because FBI agent Sam Jackson and his peeps are taking over the entire first class section.

Among the pissed off first-class passengers who now have to sit in coach are Some Rapper and his two bodygaurds, Kenan Thompson and Other Bodyguard, (Seriously, I did not catch half the names in this movie. ) and a Poor Man's Alicia Silverstone with a dog in her purse (the dog's name is Mary-Kate! I knew that one!) who is totally the same person as Tiffany the Stewardess. I swear, that part was double-cast. Other passengers include a Sweet Newlywed Couple, a Kickboxing Asian who we immediately assume to be evil because of Eddie Kim's Asian Assasins, two Cute Little Boys, Bitchy Old Man, Gross Slutty Couple, and Hispanic Woman With Baby. Sam Jackson introduces SBA to his partner and special friend, who he clearly has very strong feelings of some sort for. The pilots' names are Rick, aka That Guy from Anchorman, and First Pilot.

There is a funny scene in which Tiffany comes and flirts with SBA, even though for all she knows he is a dangerous wanted criminal. She seems slightly let down when he tells her he's just going to LA to testify. "Have you ever heard of Eddie Kim?" She's apparently not the brightest bulb, 'cause she's all ,"Yeah, I heard that once he gouged out the eyeballs of a witness who testified against him and fed them to ravens just like that scene at the beginning of the new Pirates of the Caribbean, wasn't that gross, why do you ask?" "...he's the... guy I'm testifying... against..." "Oh... Awkward."

At some point, SBA tells Sam Jackson that he doesn't seem like an FBI agent, and Sam Jackson is like, "Well, I don't seem like a Jedi either, but you know what? I motherf*cking am, bitch!"

Aaaaanyway, Eddie Kim has had the most devious plan. He wants to kill the guy on the plane. What would be the most logical way to do that? If your guess is: Place a crate full of exotic poisonous snakes in the cargo hold and rig the crate so that it opens at a certain time and lace the leis lying nearby with pheremones that will make the snakes really angry and wait for the snakes to bite the guy and kill him and/or bring down the entire plane, YOU ARE APPARENTLY CORRECT!

The snakes start crawling all through the plane and the passengers are all oblivious. The Slutty Gross Couple go into the bathroom to do the sex, which clearly means they are going to die, and the snakes come down and bite them in inappropriate places, and I could really have done without seeing that, but oh well. Some other guy goes to the other bathroom to use the facilities, and a snake bites him in an inappropriate place, which I could also have done without. It's just... unnecessary.
Then the snakes start crawling all through the plane and crawling into more inappropriate places. They also mess up the wiring, causing the plane to almost crash oh noes. So First Pilot goes down to fix the problem, and while he's down there a snake crawls up to Rick and is all "Hey, baby." And Rick freaks out and hits the console with it, and First Pilot is all, "Dude? Not helping!" He gets the problem fixed but then a snake bites him and Julianna Margulies and Rick are all, "He must have had a heart attack, woe!" They have Sam Jackson come in and examine him, because wouldn't you? And Sam Jackson confirms that yes, he is dead, and completely fails to notice the suspcious bite marks. Julianna is like, "Worst. Last. Flight. Ever."

Rick tries to fly the plane some more, but more bad stuff happens, and the oxygen masks come down, and with them, the snakes. EVERYBODY PANIC! About fifty extras die. Sam Jackson takes charge: "We have to put a barrier between us... and the snakes." So they try to build a luggage barrier, which doesn't hold for long. Two Cute Little Boys and Woman With Baby both get trapped behind the barrier, and Kickboxing Asian I think maybe saves the kids... somebody does, anyway. But the Littlest Boy is bitten. And Grace saves Woman with Baby and Baby, but gets bitten by snake. His arm starts to swell up grossly, but it turns out Woman With Baby has mad venom-sucking skillz and saves him. People make really inappropriate jokes about her sucking abilities. Why she does not save everyone else this way I do not know. Anyway, eventually Grace dies, and it is sad, becuase she could have taken early retirement blah blah blah heartstringcakes. And Woman With Baby is like, "It's okay, because you saved my baby, and she is a cute baby." And everyone is all, "Awwwww." Except for Julianna. "Worst. Last. Flight. Ever." She goes and cries and Sam Jackson comforts her and they bond.

In the second onslaught of snakes, Sweet Newlyweds and Sam Jackson's Special Friend die, and it is sad. They block the stairway with a life raft, which magically is just the right size. SBA is all, "I want to help!" and Sam Jackson is like, "This whole thing is to make sure you get to LA safely, so stop being a moron! Remember the first thing I said when I met you?" "Stop breathing?" "Good idea, but no-- besides that." SBA tries to save people anyway,especially Tiffany. Also, Mary-Kate the dog gets fed to this random GIANT SNAKE-CROCODILE HYBRID MUTANT. And then it also eats Bitchy Old Guy. Germophobic Rapper freaks out and takes Sam Jackson's gun and threatens to kill everybody, including his new girlfriend the Poor Man's Alicia Silverstone and the Cute Kids, but then Sam Jackson and Kenan Thompson tell him to calm the hell down.

Sam Jackson contacts his FBI friend, Will's Cop Boyfriend from Will and Grace. They have previously bantered about his wife and kids so we know he is not gay in this role. He is all, "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but... get the best poinsonous snake expert you can find on the phone RIGHT NOW." They do, and he's like, "Well, shit." They send him pictures via cameraphone, and he's like, "That's not even an actual species of snake! That's some giant snake-crocodile mutant hybrid!" They have to go to some venom dealer or something to get the antivenom for the foreign snakes, which should teach us all something about how unprepared U.S. hospitals are for snake attacks on planes.

The air stops circulating in the plane, which is bad because everybody could suffocate. Sam Jackson has to go into the cargo hold and fix it. Julianna Margulies can't go because she is girrrrl. But she does lend Sam Jackson her homemade flamethrower, because fortunately she was a pyro as a child and still carries this thing around everywhere, especially to her place of employment. She talks to him via radio to tell him what to do. He's like, "This is really familiar... I feel like I've done this before... Except it was raptors instead of snakes... and I had hair... and instead of this flashlight in my mouth it was a cigarette... and it ended really, really badly." Fortunately, when he loses Julianna's flamethrower, he discovers that somebody has helpfully packed a harpoon gun in their luggage. Yeah, I totally take mine everywhere, too. He fixes the air.

But then Rick dies from snake. Woe. Julianna: "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but... does anybody know how to fly a plane?" Kenan will do it, because he has mad video game skillz. Sam Jackson has finally had it with these MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES on this MOTHERFUCKING PLANE. "It's time to open some windows." Wait... what? "It worked in Star Wars! It must work here, too!" So they totally break the windows of the plane so that the snakes will be sucked out and they all hold on tight and nobody suffocates or dies although the plane is crashing because it is no longer stable because you punched holes in it and for some reason you all thought this was a good idea.

Sam Jackson finds out that Kenan's only piloting experience is of the Playstation variety, and he gets that "I can't f*cking believe this," *facepalm* look on his face, and looks like he wants to beat Kenan senseless. But Kenan does manage to successfully land the idiot plane, and Sam is impressed and might make him an honorary Jedi.

At the very last minute, SBA The Very Important Witness looks like he gets bitten by snake and shot by Sam Jackson, but he had on a bulletproof vest. I bet it felt good for Sam Jackson to shoot him.

They get the antivenom to the bitten people who are not dead, and Sam Jackson realizes that it is now obligatory that he as Julianna Margulies out, just like at the end of Speed. She says yes. SBA asks Tiffany out and she says yes and gives him her number, and Sam Jackson is like, "OMG number! Dammit! How am I supposed to contact Julianna now? *facepalm*" And then he and SBA shake hands and he gives SBA the name of his acting coach and all is well.

And then SBA and Sam Jackson go surfing. What? No, seriously, they totally do.

Fin.

Current Mood: productive

( past three icons )

This is a quick entry to tell my friends how much I have to celebrate right now.

First of all, I sent links to my JE and WH timelines to the Bronteana blog, a rather significant blog in the world of Bronte studies, and the person in charge of that blog not only put up the links to my timelines, but wrote me an email back saying that they were "really fabulous" and that I might want to consider getting the Jane Eyre timeline published-- that it's hard to do especially if you're an undergrad, but she knows of one journal which she thinks will accept work from an undergrad. And I think I will try to do that once we get back to school and I have professors to help me because-- come on, how awesome would that be? To be published or even considered for publication in an actual scholarly journal as a junior in college? And then real scholars could be all, "This sucks," and I could be all, "Yeah, but I bet you weren't published when you were a junior," and they would be all, "... Yeah, so?" and I would be all, "Mwahahahaha!"

Seriously, it is so wonderful to have somebody look at these things and instead of saying, "What a tremendous waste of time," saying, "Wow, these are really cool." And it gives me this amazing feeling that I really could do anything-- like doors are open to me now and I don't have to limit myself or settle for doing something in my life I don't want to do. That I could actually go places and do things.

To celebrate all of this, I have made an icon. It is inspired by my favorite iharthdarth comic and the overuse of blindness as a metaphor (and the consequences of this) in Jane Eyre the Musical. And the hilarious way in which Jane and Rochester argue.

Aw, Rochester loves Jane like he's blind. In a completely metaphorical way, of course. That is Marla Schaffel and James Barbour, by the way, in the Broadway production.

Also, Saturday was my very last day at the JC Penney. THANK GOD. It was a horrible day, becaues we were having insane sales. Back-to-school sales. And the department was a mess. We closed at 10 and didn't even get out until 11:15 because we were cleaning. And the customers were horrible and rude. Although at least the air conditioning was working, unlike the previous THREE WEEKS. But it felt sort of last-day-of-high-school-ish, and I really think I'm never going back there again. I'm just done. And it feels really good to be free. HUZZAH!

And just let me say, As God is my witness, I will never work clothing retail again! AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I WILL NEVER WORK CLOTHING RETAIL AGAIN!

To celebrate that, here is a Bride and Prejudice icon.

Many more updates to come before the summer is out, now that I finally have time!

( today's icon by cleolinda )

So, tomorrow I have to go back to stupid JC Penney. You can look at my icon to see just exactly how I feel about that.

In my weeks of liberty here at home I have accomplished much. True, the deadline I set for my second Idyll, "Winter Festival," flew right by and now I'm kind of blocked on it, but I have written seven or so Requiems and posted two over at fanfiction.net. Go check them out if you'd like! Do an author search for Eridala and then hit the story "Requiem."

I also finished typing and sent out the first chapter of Pemberley today. Yay! I enjoy it, personally, but I'm kind of looking forward to getting to a point where I can do something very distinct and different with the story.

I have finally set Wuthering Heights in my Great Timeline. I had to arrange the chronology for that myself, and I may post it here at some point just because I feel like an accomplished scholar. The Brontes are giving me grief. I think that Jane Eyre must be set in 1830. There are a variety of reasons for this, mainly centering around the one actual date I could find therein being a Tuesday June 1 and the story being "written by Jane" as a retrospective ten years after the main events. You want to know what Charlotte Bronte did just to be mean to me? She was all set to give an actual, concrete date and here is what she does instead: "On the 20th of October in the year ---- (a date some fifteen years previously)." DAMN YOU, CHARLOTTE BRONTE! You should take a cue from Jane Auten, who very conscientioiusly put the dates of everyone's birth at the very beginning of Persuasion.

Speaking of which, I got to go on a book shopping spree with a gift card I had and a discount my mom had and came away with Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, a volume containing The Watsons, Lady Susan, and what Jane wrote of Sandition, and a tiny volume with some of Jane Austen's juvelilia. Yay! My collection is (somewhat) complete! More on the juvenilia later; I'm really looking forward to reading it today or tomorrow once I finally finish with...

STONE OF TEARS! It now appears that about three quarters of the way through, the author realized that he had wasted a lot of time doing nothing in the beginning, and if he kept up at that pace, he was going to have the longest book in the history of ever and be way past his deadline. So for the last quarter he just skipped a whole lot of important stuff and then had characters recap it briefly, threw away some of his more awesome characters and plotlines with potential, and then had everything happen in about a hundred pages. Out of a NINE HUNDRED SEVENTY-NINE PAGE BOOK! Seriously, if I was this guy's editor, this book would not have gotten published, at least not in its present form. But I only have about thirty pages of it left and should finish it tonight, so... yay!

Also, today I felt like making a couple of Mansfield Park icons. I will be making more, but here are two:

Current Mood: hungry

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Huzzah! Break has arrived! I was really tired when I got home and everything was over, but when it finally sunk in there was a big sigh of relief. I now have my GPA and it's good. I got an A on my final Arthurian paper, which I'm glad, because if I hadn't I think I would have cried.

The JC Penney enslaved me once again, but I only have to work three partial days next week. I really hate it there. But one day there was this cute little boy back in Infants and Toddlers who helped me pick up clothes and hangars and then showed me how he defeats supervillains.

I know I'm not going to get nearly the amount of things I want to get done actually done over this break. But I am working once again on my Padmé death essay, which I want to have posted before we do the saga on, I'm thinking, the thirtieth.

It's almost Christmas, which means Mom has gone absolutely insane once again. It's almost time for the great Chandler Family Christmas Eve Extravaganza. Pretty much every year beginning on the 22nd, she is ultra-stressed, strung tight as as wire, and driving everybody else crazy with her. This year is no exception. Last night I was ordered to WRAP MY PRESENTS RIGHT NOW because she wants to put the wrapping paper away before I get up in the morning. O...kay.

For those of you who missed it, because this story is a favorite of mine to tell, I present the story of The Stupidest Thing Ever.

And also, in celebration of the holidays, A Very Archetypal Christmas Quest.

The ABFG (Aunt Barbara, Fairy Godmother) and I are currently engaged in the Great Darcy Debate, which I will probably make into a post once it's over. I will also post the list of Reasons We Love Mr. Darcy. This is more to remind myself that I intend to post these things than anything else.

I'm really excited about Christmas this year. And then, when that's over, I'm really excited about Evie coming down from Canada and seeing Star Wars for 12 hours and all kinds of yaaaay!

Current Mood: hungry

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I just thought I'd do a post to alert everybody that I have finished my second big fanfic project, Home Again (which can be found here. If that worked.). It ended up being 35 pages long-- six chapters and an epilogue. It's a lot different from Surrender, and I learned a lot from it. For one thing, I am never again writing a continuous chapter story as I post it. That is bad.

But, on the upside, I really ended up liking the story a lot, and apparently other people did, too. My little baby broke 100 reviews! Whoo! It was really incredibly flattering. The story was very mushy and cute, including lines such as "Aunt Padmé? Why are you kissing the Jedi?"

Also, as you may have noticed, I made an icon. I've decided I'm going to make icons for all my fanfics, but this is the only one I have so far. Once I've made more, I'll do an icon post.

Oh! In speaking of flattering, Mr. Dr. Battles has hired me as his research assistant for an edition he's doing of Gawain and the Green Knight. I'm really excited. Apparently it's a lot of tedious work, but I have an unusual attention span. And it'll be great experience. And I'm getting paid. Amazing, huh? I heart the Battleses so much.

Iharthdarth is over, and it's sad. But the last post was very "awwww!"

Also, NaNoWriMo is in just a few short days! I'm going to be restarting the novel I did pathetically on last year. What? That's allowed. Get hyped, everyone!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Josh Groban

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In order to understand the title of this post, follow the link I am about to provide.

Okay, I tried this time. I really did try. "You are not updating your lj until your entry is the entry you said your next entry would be," I told myself. But it's been a while, and the essay is not done yet, although it is now titled: "Om Mane Padme Hum: Musings on the Death of Amidala." And it is started. But not finished. Here is some other stuff instead.

My last day of work was yesterday, and that was good. I really liked the people I worked with, even if I didn't like the job, and I will be back at Christmas. To celebrate my last day at the JC Penney, I bought a chair for school and some books from the bookstore in the mall which was having an awesome sale.

Today I moved boxes in the sweltering heat all day. It was hot and sweaty and gross. But most of our stuff is now moved to the new house, and I am getting a little excited about moving, even though I'm still sad about leaving my current house. I drove a lot, and I didn't do anything horribly wrong except the minor incident of slightly rear-ending my aunt in the driveway.

I think Yané, my school computer, is disabled. She will not save documents onto a disk. Absolutely. Will. Not. I have dedicated approximately eight hours to attempting to convince her to do so. She has refused. This leaves me in the horribly frustrating position of having the last chapter of Home Again stranded on a computer with no printer and no internet access. These are the things I have tried:

*Copying the document to the disk like the instructions say to.

*Sending the document to the disk like the instructions don't say to.

*Saving the document as a disk file.

*Erasing the disk.

*Doing all of these things again.

*Turning my computer off and turning it on again.

*Doing all of these things again, multiple times. For several hours.

*Trying all of these things with other documents.

*Trying all of these things with another disk.

*Trying all of these things with ANOTHER disk.

*Deleting many files.

*Cleaning out the hard drive.

*De-fragging the computer.

*Doing all of these things again.

*Reasoning with the computer.

*Giving the computer pep talks.

*Pleading with the computer.

*Threatening to remove the computer's FTB (Fluffy Teddy Bear. See Discworld books.).

*Removing the computer's FTB.

*Returning the computer's FTB.

*Shouting at the computer.

*Cursing at the computer.

*Making the computer feel guilty.

*Doing all of these things again.

*Around about 2 a.m., crying.

Over the next couple of days I am going to be incommunicado computer-wise because of the move, but after that if it's still not wanting to work I'm going to re-type the chapter. There's no way I'm waiting until school starts in September to get Home Again done. Which it is, except for the editing of the last chapter and the epilogue. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know.

All of that said, I must link you to the Funniest Thing Ever. Well, at least one of the Funniest Things Ever. To see another of these Things, please go to www.iharthdarth.com, where you will find a link to the fake Padmé Naberrie US Weekly cover. Since it's already there, I won't link it here.

So, remember when I said in my ROTS review that people in China were probably watching the movie going "..."? Well, it turns out I was right. At the very least in the case of the English-speaking people in China who got this bootleg copy of Episode III which seems to have been translated by the same people who are responsible for "All your base are belong to us." Or babelfish. Or something. Anyway, the point is that it has been translated into Chinese and then back into English. Badly. Really badly. The title goes from "Revenge of the Sith" to "Backslash of the West." Yeah, "Sith" is translated as "West." We get it, China. You hate us. You don't need to paste it all over our movies.

But seriously, go check this out. It's the best ever. And check the links at the bottom of the thing, too. http://winterson.com/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

And that is all for now.

Current Mood: busy

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I realized the other day that I totally forgot to do a post for this livejournal's birthday. On June 3, Turtle was one whole year old. On that day, it was designated as an outlet for my general geekiness, and I believe it has succeeded in that objective. In the past year, I have posted about the things in my fandoms and such that have made me think in depth about that illusive thing known as real life. Some have called it boring. Others have called it awesome. In any case, I'm going to keep doing it, no matter what you think, so there. Happy birthday, journal. I did well to create you. :)

Yesterday I got an actual, real job at JC Penney, which makes me feel very grown up. Now I just have to endeavor not to get fired.

I've decided to reread all of the Discworld books before Thud comes out in the fall. I also need to take notes so I can try to get the chronology right. Doom.

My next entry, to be posted as soon as tomorrow, will be my official Revenge of the Sith review.

As a birthday celebration, here are...

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