So. After three years, I have decided to return my journal to public, rather than friends only, but in a modified form. Real Life Stuff, such as my job and career path, some of my studies, my health, my family, etc. etc., will remain friends only. That said, things about Project-Cat, crafts (I spin, knit and crochet) and fandom type things (ie: my obsession with Supernatural, and my thinky-thoughts on that) will now be public.

Feel free to friend me. However, I'm super busy, so I probably won't automatically friend you back. But if you think we have stuff in common, then by all means introduce yourself! Say hi! Join the party!

Please note, as far as Supernatural goes: I am not a spoiler-phobe. HOWEVER, I think it's only fair that everyone gets to make their own informed decision as far as spoilers go, so I will always mark entries which include spoilers as such. I request that you label spoilers you might put in comments, for the sake of others. :)

( If you are looking for the Yarn!Chesters )

Yarn!chester FAQ

( If you are looking for Supernatural book/comic reviews )

If you read my review of last night's Supernatural, you'll know that at times things got a bit silly, as they are wont to do. (Relieves stress.) I mentioned that Flurije had wrapped ami!Castiel in Baby Beatrice's Tutu.

Some reference pictures.

Beatrice:


Beatrice in a Tutu:


ami!Castiel:


ami!Castiel in a Tutu:

Fail.

FREAKIN' HEART ATTACK. Got to Flurije's house and she informed me that SPN isn't on, that instead some kind of weird World of Magic Awards Show. I had a heart attack... until I told Flurry to turn the channel down three stations. >.<

So, on VD, the Good Vampire is wandering around shirtless, in a post-coital glow, but Elayna has run off all upset because she found the picture of Katherine, and now she has slammed her car into some stranger on the road (and destroyed her car not the stranger.) While this all sucks for her, I'm sure, all I have to say is at least her boyfriend didn't lose his soul.

Now then. Well, Then Now.

( Abandon All Hope )

Beatrice is trying to climb into my backpack. I'm really not sure why-- I assume she likes the smell of the handspun that's in there (mmm, sheep) but otherwise it's just Shakespeare books and romance novels.

( Talk about stupid ideas )

Beatrice is now half in and half out of my bag. Aaaand now Flurije is chasing Beatrice around with her tutu (Beatrice's, not Flurry's.) And now Beatrice is back to sniffing my bag.

I've decided that my review of the Harlequin Romance Constantine's Defiant Mistress will be in the form of Stick Figure Theatre.

Warning, next bit contains cursing.

( 'Nice and Spooky )

( My Reactions )

If you check out the comments on my review over at Amazon (here), you'll see that the author has responded again, this time (amazingly) succinctly. She has applauded my response as balanced and offered that had my original review been so balanced she'd have given it the thought it deserved. She finishes by patronizingly giving me kudos for my "restraint and explanation."

Um. I'm just as critical in my response as I was in my original review, I simply explained what I was critical about since she clearly hadn't understood my original review...

Oh well.

A couple of you asked me (in comments) why I was responding, and you know, that's a great question. ( My reasons, let me show you them )

I have no intention of beating this event into the ground-- barring unforeseen circumstances, it's all at an end now. I appreciate your comments (very much!!) on the previous posts, your suggestions and helpful points. :)

Given my propensity for being angry about bad books, I doubt that this is the last time I'll become embroiled in something like this... and you all get to be in the front row for all of it! Wheee!

(By the by, I've given up on trying to read, let alone review the last book I was working on here, The Irish Rake. It's just too damn boring. But I bought a fantastic looking piece of pulp while in Staunton last month, AND doctor12am sent me a Nascar romance AND for my birthday moobie sent me Constantine's Defiant Mistress. AND AND AND the newest SPN novelization by that most troubling of authors (Keith R.A. DeCandido) is coming out this Spring.)

(By today I still mean Wednesday, as there are 18 minutes left in Wednesday here in AZ at the time of beginning this entry.)

Apparently there were Creationists on campus today who were handing out free copies of Darwin's The Origin of the Species. If this sounds odd to you, obviously it should. It turns out that this edition has a very long introduction which tries to refute Darwin. Far, far worse, this edition also has made editorial changes which make Darwin into a Satan worshiping nutjob.

Really, Creationists? Really?

( Tweets! )

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First, I've been meaning to make this image for aaaages. Yes, it's sort of a new Yarn!chester picture. It's my response to season 5 thus far:



Behind the cut for more random pictures.... ( click! )

For more new pictures of the Feral Colony, head on over to the Flickr photoset.

If you like petting zoo type aminals, you should totally head over to my AZ State Fair photoset.

I don't know if I can properly convey how incredibly awesome this experience I had this morning was, but I shall try.

Many of you know that I have three cats, and some of you know that the littlest one is Widget and that she's a bit ... odd. She's a tiny black and white tuxie cat with medium length fur and absolutely friggin' adorable. That's her in the user icon. She can also be best described as the cat equivalent of autistic... She likes things the way she likes them (she's the only one of my three who's picky about the litter box, for example). She doesn't like people (despite having been born in my VA apartment-- so she has always been around people, specifically me) but she likes to keep an eye on them.

For her first few years, if I picked her up, she'd not only squirm to get away, but she'd growl. She eventually grew out of that, but she still hates to be held. She never joins me on the couch (unlike my other two kitties) or the bed, or ever ever ever wants to sit in my lap.

In the past year or so she has learned to tolerate my petting her, if I approach her while she's lying down on the couch (when I am not, obviously) or bed, but only if I only touch her head and not her body. She'll come up to me if I'm eating-- and will take cheese from my fingers. Unlike Jack or Callie, however, she will not eat cat treats.

She's easily startled by noises-- if I pour ice into my iced tea maker while she's eating gooshy food, she'll dash away from the kitchen (and steal Callie's food, since she eats under the table.)

She never purrs. Ever. She is five years old as of last month and I have never heard her purr. She used to growl, as I said above. She sometimes squeaks-- walking around the apartment making noises at things, looking as if she were seeking something.

She likes other cats-- she and Callie aren't close (they'll chase each other along the length of the apartment) but they're okay. She and Jack, however, get along fabulously. When Widget was a kitten, she followed Jack around all the time. Nowadays, she'll sit on his head and groom him. (Mind you, Jack is about 17 pounds while Widget is about 6.) Eventually Jack will get annoyed and roll over.

Very recently, Widget has taken to hopping up onto the couch or bed when I am lying down, and nuzzling my hair. If I move, however, she hops away. (I basically assumed she was checking to see if I was dead yet. Heh. Actually, when she was a tiny kitten she would sleep in my hair.)

I mention all of the above so you can know what an amazing thing happened this morning.

One of the cats-- probably Callie-- woke me up earlier than I needed to be awake, in a demand for breakfast, so I got up, fed them, and went back to bed. So what I'm about to describe was not a plea for food.

While I was half awake as my alarm(s) went off, Jack was snuggled in with me. Widget hopped up on the bed and started snuffling my hair. This, while unusual, is not entirely rare these days, and I just hoped she didn't paw around in my hair too much and tangle it.

Instead, she butted my hand with her head and was clearly asking, in the universal language of cats, for pets.

I know, this doesn't sound like much. But she's never done that before! Ever! EVER. And she kept asking for more pets. So I rubbed behind her ears, and I rubbed her ears, and the top of her head, and a little bit under her chin, and down the sides of her head-- you know, all the places kitties like to be petted. And every time I stopped, she asked for more!

AND THEN SHE PURRED. She has never ever purred, at least in the presence of a human.

At first I thought it was Jack (who was also purring) but I was able to hear them both individually. She didn't keep it up for long-- little bursts of purring-- and eventually, after a few minutes, she dashed away.

I feel like a proud mama. :D My baby purred!

Hee.

Now I'm at school (office hours then German class) but I can't wait to go home and see if she'll accept more love from me. (I know I need to be careful not to push it-- I'm a bit too enthusiastic when it comes to cute fuzzies, which is why I'm so lucky to have Jackjack who accepts love and squishes and pats and scritches whenever I want to give them. ) But still!

Cats
I'm still trying to catch the feral kitten. Whee. I really need to get in gear and raise more money (sigh) and call The Volunteer and make appointments to get a bunch of the colony trapped and TNRed. There's a few that I didn't catch before, and therefore a few new ones. And of course there's Tigger-- the friendly cat who might be a stray or might be theoretically owned but is definitely not neutered and is therefore going with the next batch. He'd make a great pet-- he's very friendly and comes right up to me to get love. He had a flea collar on him for a short time last year, but no identification collar. And he's always around my building. And he has ginormous [censored] and so he needs to see a vet to get that taken care of.

BOOKS
LibraryThing
I discovered that you can move your database o' books from LibraryThing to Good Reads. Mind you, I like Library Thing just fine-- but mainly I chose it because at the time it was the only place that let you scan in your books instead of typing them all. I've only moved books over to Good Reads because so many of my LJ and FB friends are there, and because FB has connections. So, 800+ books later, I've got databases at both. Of course, there are at least 50 some books that need to be added since I last updated the list. Not to mention that I didn't include my graphic novels (or romances, for that matter... a dirty little secret, those) the first time around. But I've gotten a lot of research books (for the comps) and a significant number of regular fiction since then, so I ought to, someday, add those.

Also, the best part about taking the bus is that it gives me more time to read. Leaving the house is easier when I know that it means I'll get to read for a bit. :)

In the Brief Eternal SUCKINESS
Amazon suggested a book called In the Brief Eternal Silence for me because I adore the Sebastian St. Cyr books. This book looked vaguely interesting (Victorian England, romance, intrigue, anti-hero, etc.) but what sealed the deal for me to buy it was that it had five five-star reviews.

But this book is AWFUL. It's boring, it's contrived, it's repetitive, and it's predictable. I read the first 300 pages, and then the last 40 ONLY because I wanted to have read enough to write my own review in the desperate hopes that no one else would be taken in by the LIES of the other five reviews. I was willing to overlook the fact that it was from a Christian publisher (even though there was NOTHING to suggest that on the webpage or synopsis)-- in fact, in the 2/3rds of the book I read there really wasn't much to suggest it had a Christian agenda (although I suspect I may have missed the hero's conversion in the pages I didn't read). There's probably a decent-ish book in there, but it DESPERATELY needed a ruthless editor and several more rewrites.

I now strongly believe that the five reviews it has are from friends/family of the writer (although I have no proof of this other than the fact that none of the reviewers have ever reviewed another book on Amazon. Well, that and their excessive praise for a fourth-rate piece of amateur writing. Oh, and the fact that one of the author's is published by this author's company. Nepotism ftw!)

My vitriolic review of the book appeared on Amazon only today and it already has received a "0 out of 1 people find the following review helpful." I kind of think that the author herself might be monitoring the Amazon page. Granted, I could be paranoid here-- but this isn't exactly a book that is flying off the shelves and therefore has a page likely to receive a lot of hits. The biggest clue that gives me this suspicion is the author's acknowledgments in the book itself, some of which I will now share:

I wish I had a long list of people that helped me in my endeavor, but I really don't. ... My greatest acknowledgment goes to Christ. He was there when that long list of people wasn't.

Frankly, this reads as a bitter woman (despite the prayer she then follows that statement with.)

If you'd like to see the book's page (and my review) it's here. Feel free to say that my review was helpful. :D (Mine would be the one that gave it 1 star as opposed to the ones who all gave it 5 stars.)

(I've just discovered-- and man I wish I'd known this before, as I would not have bought the book-- that she was unable to find a publisher for this (or her other manuscripts, gee, I wonder why) so she started her own publishing company. GAH. I have found her blog just now. She seems like a nice enough person. She's just a TERRIBLE writer. It horrifies me that she apparently gives writer's workshops. [Those who can't do, teach?] Oh good grief, her publisher includes a "sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice which is apparently a "religious romance." Really?!)

Apparently I now have a vendetta, and am looking up reviews of her book. One which adores said book declares, "these characters illicit an emotional response from the reader in diverse ways as they play their parts in this grand drama of vengeance" (Long and Short Reviews). "Illicit a... response," huh? Well, good to know that the reviewer is as good a writer as the, well, writer. Also, " He walks with the dead as he mingles with meanest of society while seeking VENGEANCE" (Long and Short Reviews.) Really? First, of all, VENGEANCE? Is that necessary? Secondly, if he really "walked with the dead" that'd be a better book.

Why am I spending so much time sharing all of this? Because I'm irritated at how this book is presented when in actuality it's awful. Grr! I so wish I had not spent money on it! And from now on, when I consider a new author (one not recommended by a friend) I'm going to look into them first.

Why didn't I do a book review of it if it was so bad? Because it wasn't entertainingly bad (unlike The Bounty Hunter's Bride and the romance that was sublimated into attention for the freakin' cow.) Trust me, I spared you by not talking about this terrible book 'til now.

Soulless
On the bright side, I followed eiluned's recommendation for Soulless from over on her website The Discriminating Fangir, and so far it is excellent. I shan't try to describe it, since you can read her review of it here. And also, I haven't finished it yet. :) But it's proving a very nice antidote to the above mentioned SUCKITUDE.

Writing
I'm actually making progress on my Not-a-NaNo. :) That's all I shall say. Well, that and reading the The Brief Tedious Dreck actually pointed out some mistakes for me to avoid. So. Yay.

Other News
I fixed my vacuum cleaner. Woot. :) It wasn't complicated, but neither was it easy to get the stoopid belt in the proper place.

I told my mom I might need an eye appointment because I might be having some trouble reading, and she laughed at me. (She's had bifocals since she was about my age.) Grr.

My parents are coming to visit at Thanksgiving-- yay!

I can't get the Mystery Smell out of my flat-- boo.

I have (relatively minor) crushes on several people, none of whom have shown any interest in me. Boo. But also yay, since I haven't time for that anyway!



I'm going to stop this entry now. But remember to go vote for my review as helpful! >:-D Hehheh.

VD: In which Rob Low-Rent's (which is to say Damon's) plan goes awry thanks to Bonnie's possession by someone named Emily, Stephan walks away (are you going to just walk away? don't walk away!) and then there is epic man pain.

NOW: The fourth wall gets broken, shattered, destroyed, and murdered.
( The Real Ghostbusters )

Callie is cuddling with ami!Sam and I am waiting for Greek food delivery and drinking plum wine. Mmmmmm, plum wine. Flurry is playing WoW. She appears to be trying to beat up a pair of twin robots, but what do I know? Fud fud fud, I want fuds.

( It's only 35 after... )

Where are my fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuds?

Callie is asleep, ami!Sam is beside her. It's very cute.

I've noticed that there is already wank online about this episode and claims of jumping the shark. I'll hold my opinion for another 15 minutes.

My cable is now freezing. Fortunately it's a commercial, but it better fix itself before SPN returns.

Hey Melrose Place, you can't fire Ruby version 1.0!

( 15 more minutes and I am just slightly tipsy )

Smallville Commercia: The blur has an imposter?
Flurry & Eilonwy: THE BLUR?!?!

Fuds have arrived and Jack (my cat) is trying to steal Flurry's.

( So, y'know, thanks. )

So. There you go. I'ma go eat my fries and drink my wine now.

I had a very difficult time getting out of bed today because last night I stayed up waaaay to late rereading a favorite novel. Oops. Upon getting ready I came to the realization that it's been a really long time since I'd bought any clothes, especially "basic" type clothes and that many of the shirts I have are falling apart. I'd already decided to drive to campus today because I want to get groceries on the way home (as there is a very real chance of a grocery strike starting tomorrow) so I decided to stop at Target on the way in the hopes of finding some basic short-sleeve fitted v-necks or scoop-neck shirts. I was quite surprised to not, in fact, find any-- you'd think that since this is AZ they wouldn't be trotting out mostly long-sleeved stuff even though much of the rest of the country is chilly. But I did find a three-quarter length v-neck that I liked (in green) and a white tank top to wear under it. After purchasing these two items (and some lip-stain and a few other oddments) I changed into the new clothes (annoyed by the shirt I'd been wearing which had started off this entire enterprise by having a small hole in, potentially acquired via cat claw.)

Sadly, the cheap parking lot near my office seemed full, so I parked in the nearby (more expensive) garage. Two douches in suits were walking in the middle of the driving area, which was irritating, but fortunately I wasn't running late for anything. Then an undergrad in a sports car nearly crashed into me because she took the corner too fast and too tight, but we avoided a collision and I finally parked up on the fourth floor. I decided to stop in the coffee shop as I'd not had breakfast (being out of food at my house) and ordered a breakfast sandwich and a hot tea.

I don't know if you drink tea, but when you order it in a typical coffee shop, it is really freakin' hot. I'm used to this, and tend to put a few extra napkins around the cup, on top of the piece of cardboard that is supposed to keep your hands from burns. So, no trouble there. Unfortunately, Mr Coffee Shop Owner didn't put the lid on the cup right, and there I am, going for the door, and the lid pops off and hot tea/water pours all over my right hand/arm. I probably should have shrieked or something so that someone would have noticed and I'd have at least gotten a free drink out of the deal. But no, my usual modus operandi is to avoid conflict or notice of any kind, so I mopped up the spill (on myself, not the floor) and went about my business with my new first-degree burns and tea stains on my brand-new less-than-hour old shirt Grr. Okay, so it's less than an hour later and you already can't see the bright red skin that had originally shown up. It now feels a bit like a light sunburn, so all in all, not a big deal. But still, it made me cranky. And my shirt has drops on it. And I have a bit of a crush on someone that I see on Thursdays and I'd wanted to look like, I dunno, not-a-slob. :P

I'm especially cranky since the last time I was heading for my office (Tuesday, since campus was closed yesterday) I got run into by a skateboard. (I'm crossing the street and this guy quite clearly can't control his skateboard and steps off it-- leaving the freakin' heavy board to slam into the top of my foot/ankle. I shrieked "Fuck!" he apologized vaguely and skated off, I limped out of the crosswalk and assessed the damage. A kind woman who'd been in front of me at Subway just moments before, randomly enough, asked if I was okay. I blinked back tears and said yes. And I was. Until a few hours later, after I'd been sitting to grade for a long while, when I tried to walk to Flurije's car (as she was being kind enough to give me a ride) when I realized I was in achey agony. Grrr. I went to a friend to complain about the situation, but it had turned out that just hours before, in front of the same building, he'd seen a skateboarder slam into a blind man's cane and keep going. The poor man, clearly not knowing what had happened, was left to fluster his apologies. Freakin' skateboarders, man. Ouch.

ANYWAY, I and my new burns headed on into the office. I stopped at the Writing Programs Office to check my mail, however, because I've been waiting for a week now to hear if I'd passed my portfolio.

The portfolio, for those who aren't slaving away in academia, or who might have a different set of rules compared to ASU, is essentially the first part of the PhD examination process. It's kind of both the capstone to your coursework and the doorway into the dissertation work. You have to turn in two polished essays-- ones which have received more work than simply for a course, as if you were thinking about publishing them-- and your preliminary bibliography, which is to say 50+ works on which you "want" to be tested on. I'd been told that this whole process was just a hoop to jump through, and not to worry about it, just get it done. I had assumed it was pass/fail, and fail just meant that you had to fix some things. I turned in the article that was published in Shakespeare Bulletin and the paper on The Fatal Dowry that I'd originally written for a class, then revised for Renaissance Colloquium. I did not revise it again, however. (This is the same subject as the paper I gave at the Blackfriars, but a longer version.)

I had run into my adviser twice between handing in the portfolio and receiving the letter about it today. She had given me comments about how she thought I'd be pleased. I assumed this meant I passed. I honestly never thought about the potential for not passing-- remember everyone had told me that this was just a hoop needing jumping through.

So it turns out, I learned today, that there are, apparently, levels of passing one's portfolio. Had I known this, I undoubtedly would have given that second paper at least one more going over, probably many. And indeed, upon receiving my letter from both my committee and the department chair and the supervisor of graduate studies, there was a lot of commentary on how I should try to publish this second paper, but that it would need significant work before that could happen. Regardless, that paper did what it needed to do in a portfolio, which is to say it showed that I could research, write in an academic style, etc.

But it seems that I continue to owe my success to the paper for Shakespeare Bulletin. On the strength of that paper, my committee suggested (and the department awarded) a "pass with distinction."

Woo?

I should be quite happy, I know. And I am! But it's weird because ... I didn't know that existed! I didn't know there were levels. Are there other levels, higher ones, that I just missed? Are there lower levels (besides pass and fail) that I leapt over? I know I should just be happy, but it's a really weird feeling to not really understand the good thing that I have apparently achieved! I can't find any information on this question on the ASU site, so... Y'know what? I choose to believe Heather when she guessed that Pass with Distinction is the highest. I feel like I and my first-degree burn might deserve the celebration. :)

Besides, the award for passing your portfolio is to study for the comprehensive exams, so... :)

And I'm off. Much to do. Gotta get a chapter of German done for class at 3 (the subjunctive-- bloody hell, more freakin' verb forms). I also have 30-some papers to grade for 221 (would have liked to have turned them back tomorrow, but so not going to happen it seems), classes to plan (tomorrow's 101 and 221), and a play to read (Massacre at Paris by Marlowe for tomorrow's Renaissance Colloquium.) Whee.

Tonight is Supernatural. And Project Runway, even if the latter is on ridiculously late at night now.

Wow. I thought I posted this on, y'know, Thursday when it was relevant. But I opened up Semagic to post an update about my weekend and found it. So, um, here?

( Make it work )

Man, VD is interminable. Is it 8pm yet? Blah blah blah. I have to kill him. He follows me. You were right to leave me. Blah blah.

wait, I have to kill him, now I'll spare him? Bah.



( Changing Channels )

Blah blah blah Ninja. Blah blah blah Olive Garden. 7-Up. Blah. Target. Gossip Girl, blah blah, 2.5Men. Ariba Mexican Grill. Blah. blah. have I mentioned blah? Toyota. Cox. Gods, are these commercials ever going to end? That 70s Show.

Ooo! Baby Beatrice is a Castiel!Girl! (She was sniffing ami!Castiel) First kitty who didn't go for ami!Sam.

( Change the Channel )

Avatar: Furries meet mechs? And gunships. A sci-fi movie for every hardcover nerd?

(As opposed to the other Avatar movie that is total Race Fail?)

( Change again )

Aaaand, that's the end of this recap. I'm going to watch the "stay tuned," but I shall not share them. Spoiler Phobes may thank me. :)

I'll actually comment on this episode at ... some other time.

The TA office (well, my TA office-- there are *lots* of TA offices in this building alone) smells awful. We're pretty sure the smell is emanating from the fridge, but one of the other TAs and I looked through it and found nothing that might be the cause. And of course, now that I've been in the office for a while, the smell, while still noticeable, has made my nose confused, so I'm unable to tell where the smell is worst.

(This is probably universal payback for my explorations into smell as a stage effect, isn't it?)

I bought lunch on the way into the building, but now I've lost my appetite. UGH.

(Also? I really enjoy that I have an appropriate icon for this post!)

Not much has developed in their relationship over the past few chapters. The only big new I haven't shared is that his father doesn't approve of her. And that they canceled a date (although I use the term loosely) to the zoo because of a difference in world views. I'm unclear on this last bit.

Chapter 27, however, has a few tidbits you might like to know (as I struggle with translating the "overloaded adjective construction.")

The book asks, Is the mailman a man persecuted by fate?

A cockroach jumping high in the air frightened Miss Meier, while she sat with the mailman.

The mailman saw in the plucky hippo newly escaped from the zoo a symbol of the craving for freedom of people and animals. (The book also informs us, in English, for no apparent reason, that the hippo's name was Bubbles.)



So there you go. (I have more homework for the week, but I need to do other work for now.) I'll share more about the adventures of Miss Meier and her mailman as I learn them.



(In unrelated news, my tummy really hurts. Hence the icon. I thought I was just dehydrated, but water hasn't helped. I've not eaten anything unusual-- my usual cream cheese and English muffin for breakfast, and now a large salad for lunch. No change. My abdomen feels sort of achey all over, but with some more acute (but not steady) pain right in the middle. Is not fun.)

It's already after noon and I've accomplished nothing. :(

(Well, I've had breakfast, I've fed the cats, I've figured out some more of the plot of the romance novel that I'm not writing, got some ideas as to home remedies for laundry, read a few more chapters of What Angels Fear and obsessively checked tracking sites to see where my book is (Birmingham AL) and where my new harddrive is (Louisville, KY). So while I suppose I can't truthfully say I've done nothing, I also haven't done any of the many things I need to do.)

Fail!

Since you guys rocked at the whole Finding Eilonwy an External Hard Drive thing, wanna help with more stuff?

Here's the thing: I suck at projecting. My voice doesn't carry very well, and I'm not very good at being loud. When I need to be loud, or when I just plain need to talk a lot, I end up with a sore throat. Every time. If I go to an amusement park, I know that the next time my throat will hurt 'cause I'll shriek once or twice on a roller coaster and my throat is done for. If I go to a club, I know that the next day I'll have a sore throat and less voice because I'll be trying to be heard over/under the music.

Saturday, while still in VA, I went to the Blackfriars Conference Banquet and talked a lot in a room full of people. Then, I went to a very very very crowded bar and talked a lot. The next day? Sore throat. It was almost gone by Wednesday, but that morning I gave a lecture. I used a microphone, but I was still talking for 50 minutes straight, and afterward, had a sore throat. It was almost better by today, but I taught and then had rehearsal, and now? Sore throat. I can rest my voice all day tomorrow, 'til evening, but I have a play rehearsal on Sunday, too.

And the play I'm rehearsing for is going to be performed on an outdoor stage with no help for directing acoustics.

So, I put to you two things:

1. What can I do to make my throat feel better now that it already hurts. (I have been drinking lots of hot tea, but other than that?)

2. How do I learn to project without hurting myself??

In other news... I spent a lot of money today. Bad Eilonwy. I ordered my external harddrive. But then Wyrding Studios is having a sale... bad, bad. And I went grocery shopping. (That part's not so bad 'cause I had to get cat food or risk the wrath of Widget. Though she be little, she is fierce.)

Renaissance Colloquium went well, even though I wasn't really anticipating having to open it. Oops. And my chairperson volunteered me to help today's presenter dig up more information because I'm the only person who has theatre experience and can guide the presenter in what questions to ask various places as he seeks information on The Othello Project (an adaptation of Othello set in Mississipi in 1964, and perfumed in 1995 in Toronto and 1998 in FL and nothing since...) Fun! (Actually it will hopefully be fun, but I don't really need/want more to do!)

Rehearsal for Pyramus & Thisbe also went well. It helps that I have such enthusiastic students playing Thisbe and Pyramus and to a slightly lesser extent Wall and Lion. Their enthusiasm is infectious, too, so everyone gets into it.

221 was fine-- but we didn't really get to look very closely at Midsummer 'cause I took questions, and they asked questions, and I answered, and it was all about early modern English history and staging, and I can talk about those for hours and hours and hours, which is partly why I now have trouble with my voice, and definitely why we didn't get to the play very much.

I finished rereading Where Serpents Sleep last night, and since I have at least 3 days before the newest Sebastian St. Cyr arrives (thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to pyrite who mailed it today-- priority no less!!) I started rereading the first book-- What Angels Fear. This is interesting (to me) on two levels. One, going backwards from the most recent ('til next week) book to the first really highlights what has changed, both in terms of the narrative and also in terms of what the author chooses/chose to highlight. I really don't remember anything in Serpents that particularly referenced Sebastian's more unusual abilities, whereas it's emphasized (not overly, but clearly) several times in the first few chapters that his eyesight and hearing are unusually adept. Also, the reread has given me a new perspective on Kat. I've always liked her as a character, but have never liked her as a romantic interest for Sebastian. I'm finding that I'm more forgiving of that relationship this time around.

At the bus stop this morning there was a random (older, married, English-as-a-second-language) guy who kept trying to get me to talk with him. He could not take a hint even though I had a book open. >.< I was polite, mostly. But I wanted to read!! I mean, I walked up to the bus stop with an open book! (when I'm not in a hurry I'll read while walking). I sat down with an open book! I kept turning to my open book! Dood, I don't want to hear about your friend who teaches English in Japan.

On campus today, I went to the MU for lunch. Alas, when I went to purchase sushi and asked for more soy sauce, they told me no. So I left that shop without buying anything and went and bought an egg salad sandwich. So there. But anyway, on the way out of the MU to join flurije and to read the paper I needed to comment on in time for Renaissance Colloquium, there were a bunch of religious prosleytizers with signs. One of them said something along the lines of REPENT YOUR SINS JESUS. Admittedly, "JESUS" was in a different color, but still, I felt that a judicious application of punctuation might really have helped this man's point. Then again, no one seems to have a clue as to how to write anymore. And I don't just mean my students. I received a sign on my door a few days ago that read as follows:

Dear Resident' (s)

On Thursday October 29, 2009 between
the hours of 9am and 12pm the water
Will be turned off for repairs. We
apologize for any inconvenience and if
you
Have any questions feel free to call the
office staff.

Would it really have taken them more than 30 seconds to fix the formatting and extraneous capital letters? And what in the freakin' world is with the random apostrophe in the greeting?

OH! I forgot to mention that I almost caught the feral kitten today. He* was eating with some of the adults when I came downstairs (I'd been on my deck taking pictures of Walsingham who was up a tree when I heard Mad Mabel pour out their dinner. When she does that, all the cats come running, so I went inside and put on clothes-that-weren't-pajamas (I'd planned on a nap) and went out to take pictures and go to the store.) All the cats dashed away from me, but the kitten was uncertain, somewhat trapped between me and the stairs on one side, Mad Mabel and some guy on the other side (and the other side far from his comfort zone of the drainage tunnels and where the other cats were.) I blocked his path with my sweater as best as I could and scooted down under the stairs, but at the last moment he escaped around my sweater. Next time I'll just throw the sweater at him. I'll try to get a chance to post pictures (and a blog post at Project-Cat) tomorrow.

I got an email from the head of PFF who was all clueless as to why I would want to leave and telling me how the next two seminars will have English faculty on them and therefore are useful. I didn't bother responding, and I gave the homework I'd done for today to another PFF person so that he could have it-- I'd spent hours on it and wanted someone to use it, and he'd forgotten to do his.

I took a long nap post-grocery store, but am still quite tired. I played Puzzle Pirates for a while with flurije, but now 'tis bedtime. Zzzzz....


---
*I have no idea as to the kitty's gender, but until I do, he's a "he" and his name is Sebastian. Heh. If he's a girl, I'll perhaps name her Bast instead.

VD--
Little Brother Character: Everybody dies!
Flurije: That's what happens when you fall in love with a skank!
Eilonwy: They turn into vampires and die?
Flurije: Yes.
Eilonwy: Harsh.


SPN--
Bobby: Yeah, I'm weeping in my Haagen Dasz.
Flurije: No dolls?
Eilonwy: ... no. I forgot. :( Oh gods, you're holding a knife.
Flurije: I'm weeping in my pumpkin.

( SPN )

Commercial for New Moon.
Flurije: I'm gonna see that. :: Looks at Eilonwy, big grin on her face::
Eilonwy: Not a chance. Not. A. Chance.
Flurije: ::keeps grinning hopefully::
Eilonwy: You'd have to pay for my ticket and my popcorn.
Flurije: Ok!
Eilonwy: Fuuuuuck.

( More SPN )

Flurije: DIE PUMPKIN!!

( Yet More SPN )