while they did live happily ever after

(also WP is on his way to his post office RIGHT NOW to pick up the ring. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.)

The Tamaki to my Kyouya, the Thelma to my Louise (actually I am not sure if that is 100% accurate) (wait how do you feel about banging Brad Pitt), the cheese to my macaroni (I blame the puns), the peanut butter to my jelly, the tic to my tac, the Tiana to my Lottie, this post should be full of gifs celebrating your wonderfulness, but unfortunately it is midnight and all the caffeine in the world is probably not going to see me arrive at my last class of tomorrow safe, sound, or sane.

I just wanted to remind the internet that

So apparently I haven't done a list for two years (two years!), but as part of my attempt to continue expanding my own mind as well as those of my students, I'm doing one for this year, just to make sure I actually read things and watch movies and remember what I've done. And hopefully it will remind me to review things (woo critical apparatus!).

Books or movies that are new to me are marked with an astrisk (*).

Books I've Read:
January:
*Bossypants by Tina Fey

February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

Movies/TV Shows I've Seen:
January:
*The Muppets
*Love and Death

February:
*Pretty Woman
*The Artist
[various Disney films]

March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

Theatre/Concerts/Random Events that are Worth Remembering:
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

/shamelessly steals bluestalking's subject line

I'm doing Audrey's and Beth's, so I'll post my questions at the end of the Beth post, which won't be until next time. But man I haven't done something non-work-or-relationship related in FOREVER, so, here you go!

(I miss reading and fandom and writing and my boyfriend and ONE MORE WEEK oh God I have to finish writing the midterm.)

( MEME MEME MEME MEME )

OKAY OKAY behind this cut (for those with slow internets) is the song "The Ballad of Love and Hate" by The Avett Brothers, whose voices are so so soothing and who do lovely things with guitars. Only one of them sings this song, but I just...love it.
( Love writes a letter and sends it to Hate. )

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday.

So Facebook clued me in, although I had to scroll a ways to get to it, and I am just, like, in shock. I don't even use Apple products. Macs annoy me, and I've never even used iTunes, much less an iPod. But still. What.

My dad said, when he stepped down as CEO in August, that he had basically worked until he had created the computer he'd always wanted to create. Once upon a time when Dad and I were making an eight-hour road trip to visit a college, he gave me a long and detailed lecture about the history of the computer industry, which included things like "crazy Steve Jobs wanted to make a computer with no mouse or keyboard! yeah that was nuts." ("Also people were just taking the code for Windows and running it backwards and marketing it as a completely different product, 'cause there weren't any copyright laws in effect yet.")

but hey! look at the iPad.

Wild.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs.

so when he was here last I gave WP my copy of The King of Attolia, as he had already finished TT and QoA. Last night he texted me saying, "I was going to wait until you started reading the [hopefully better than that abysmally awful other] book I gave you, but I couldn't resist."

so by this afternoon he had gotten to "ten gold cups" (and was like, I can see bits of myself in Eugenides and in Costis, and I was like well, I do have a type*), and then tonight I got a text telling me that the queen of Attolia was acting like me, which I correctly interpreted as the moment in my icon, which I proceeded to quote from memory.

"The plot? The plot so far is that Eugenides is king and is trying to be accepted by Attolia...or...well, I am guessing by her past writing that he does know what he's doing, she's just not telling us? So I don't think he's just trying to get accepted by Attolia. So it seems like he just wanted to marry her and now he's king and he's like oh crap. And Costis is having Severe Issues. [...] He's not going through an identity crisis so much as he's just going through a crisis. And he doesn't realize he can be loyal to both of them, or one, i.e. one them together. That's not an option."

♥_♥



*See: Ruven. Ruuuuuuuuuunvennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

New layout! It will do until the weather turns cold.

So I owe y'all a post about this past weekend, which could be subtitled In Which Jade Engages In Exhaustive Waterworks or Future In-Laws Are Intimidating or God I Love This Man So Much, but that is not what this post is about! This post is about an idea I have been tossing around for a couple months and am finally tossing out to all y'all, for the purpose of testing its attractiveness and possibly for spreading it around to other people.

Basically, at the end of AmeriCorps, we did a lot of trainings about how to find what it is you're supposed to do with your life and about the power of positive thinking, and how it's possible to change your way of thinking and stuff. And one of the things that was suggested was thinking every day of three things you're grateful for, or thinking of seven good things that happened over the course of the day, or taking five minutes at the end of the day to go over your day and think about how it went and how you behaved and where you need to improve, etc.

So I was thinking, sometimes it is really hard to do these sort of things by yourself, so maybe if we had a community of people posting every day about at least three things they are grateful for and up to seven things good about the day, and everyone was encouraging each other to post and keep thinking happy even on the crappy days (and were there for the "okay I did my happy post now let me tell you about the crumminess of today" posts too. Because LJ is also a safe dumping ground for a lot of people, and I totally get that).

I was thinking about making it a month-long "challenge" kind of like those "30 Days of TV" challenges, only with fewer questions about your shipping preferences. I was also thinking of setting up a comm for it--so like, people would sign up saying OKAY I WILL TRY TO BE CHEERFUL MORE OFTEN, and then every day you make the happy post in your own personal LJ and then post a link to it on a daily post in the comm--partly for accountability, and partly because then anyone who wanted to read about something happy would have a place to go where they would be guaranteed to find someone having something good going on in their lives. Obviously you can f-lock your personal posts and link to them and be like "flocked"--it's more the act of having to link to the post in the first place that will hopefully keep you going.

I know willow_41z and emmaco (anyone heard from her lately?) have been doing seven happy things from their week for a while now; this is kind of an expansion on that.

So! F-list! Your thoughts on this idea! Would be welcome! I know lots of people are really busy (I am not! I will happily be in charge of posts!), but if you would be interested in doing this sort of thing--even if you only feel like you could do weekly posts, like Willow--let me know! It's 10 positive things a day. My goal would be also for people to spread this around their flists too, since mine is a bit closed-circle-y (Sounisians ILU), so we could get a tiny chunk of LJ giving a slightly larger chunk of LJ something happy to read every day.

crisium_rising gave me a meme! So, since Quark is sleeping in her room and thus cutting me off from my DA2 fix (and my screenshots, thus making it difficult for me to show you the hot mess that is Thistle Hawke), I am going to do it!

(Also I should talk about DA2. I kind of love it. On the other hand, I have two full pages of notes about Thistle, because I cannot nail down her character. Sarcastic with the people she likes! Aggressive with everyone else! Supremely confident in her magic! Cocky! Rich! Beautiful! Might be falling in love with Anders, definitely wants to rip Isabela's pants off*! But what is the underlying motivation? *weeps*)

(*Note: Isabela does not actually wear pants.)

Anyway, the meme.


1. Reply to this post with "UNICORNS", and I will pick five of your icons.

2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.

3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.

4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee



This is an updated version of one of the first icons loquaciousquark ever made! From the School Time Shipping (STS)(so close to STDS) (thanks Mike and Bryan) episode, where Katara says smell ya later to Jet and Haru and Zuko and goes off with...the Blue Spirit. Who is actually Zuko. But Zuko's busy going AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH and I just love his expression and the way his jaw is just hitting the ground with sheer DO NOT WANT.



Spoilers follow, but nothing that would ruin the books. Mostly it is cut because MY SHIPS, I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THEM. FEELINGS.
( ARTEMIS/HOLLY OTP )

er, anyway, that's my Artemis Fowl icon. /cough



I have a lot of Issues with Enchanted, but omg Amy Adams is adorable, and also this icon basically encapsulates my reaction to a lot of things. In a step-by-step sort of way. SQUEE.



EVERYONE ALWAYS ASKS ABOUT THIS ICON oh man I haven't used it in ages but okay okay so anything aspectabund does involving the Queen's Thief books is just about guaranteed to make me a) laugh b) cry c) explode and this post is no different. I...can't really explain if you haven't read the books. But. There you go. Gen's having a bad day.



THIS IS THE ONLY ICON I HAVE EVER MADE and I made it because I desperately needed a Dragon Age icon. This is the expression Morrigan makes when you tell her that she is going to get to fight Loghain at the Landsmeet. She does a dance. It is so sarcastic and oh joy and I laughed so hard the first time I did it. And Morrigan is, I believe, my absolute favorite character from DAO. I could write about her ALL THE TIME. She's just so complex and vulnerable and tough and her friendship storyline with f!Warden is so AWESOME and EPIC and satisfying that when she leaves at the end you're actually sad...

...unless you're my boyfriend, who was all "I hate Morrigan" and "Alistair sucks."* On the other hand, he apparently just took his character into the Deep Roads by himself. Just for the sake of being a dwarf, walking around the Deep Roads. I. Don't always understand him.

*well if you would not leave him in the armor he was wearing at the start of the game...



anyway as far as RL goes WP and I are still the best thing since indoor plumbing (what? I rank that above sliced bread any day) and Quark and I have seen each others' optic nerves so we are ~*~closer than ever~*~ and she really needs to get her butt out of bed so I can PLAY THE GAME ALREADY. UGH.

<3

PARTY TIEMZ?

/more posts later

I would share.











best video ever or best video ever