Gonna punch an old Doctor Who and shout FUCK YOU SPOCK
So after a brief hiatus, I am happy to report that my F-1 visa was accepted, and I should be getting it this week!
I went to my father's apartment in the morning to pick up some of my certificates, my baccalaureate diploma, my GCSE grades and my violin grade 8. I hoped he'd be gone, but he wasn't, and I had to quickly invent a story about meeting my friends for lunch and being in a big hurry. He ended up driving me halfway to the embassy, to Covent Garden station where I took the train to Bond Street, which was in itself hugely ironic. I kept being sure he'd figure out what I was doing, or he'd see the papers in my bag, or something - but he didn't. I guess he was worried about going into work too. It was a bad experience all round, with him constantly trying to talk me around and make me feel guilty, demanding to know what I was doing and what I was intending to do and so on. He also said the sentence "I don't want a friend, you're too young and frankly not interesting enough, what I want is a daughter", which is kind of what I'm holding on to to make me not feel guilty about leaving without telling anybody.
After that there was the Embassy, which wasn't so difficult. I walked into Grosvenor square all "so which building is the Embassy?", looked around and concluded AH-HA, IT MUST BE THAT ONE THERE WITH THE ENORMOUS EAGLE ON TOP OF IT, AND THE FLAG ON TOP OF THE EAGLE. Then I had to sit in a big, cold room for three hours waiting for my ticket to be called, and I got sick. At least I read all of Sandman volume 1 in there. The interview was a breeze, though - my interviewer looked like Steve from before Operation Rebirth, and he was adorable and really nice. He only asked me five easy questions and then accepted my application and said I was free to go. Then I waited in the rain for ten minutes for the bus back to Oxford, and then I spent something like two hours on the bus. I woke up after a little while, though, and the pain in my throat was so bad by that time that I could not get back to sleep. I got off at DD's for some medication which only helped a little, told him what had happened, and then went back to Richard's. I spent that night in various stages of fever, only sleeping for an hour or two at a time, and in pain the whole night. It's only just now that I'm starting to recover a little. My friend came over to take care of me, and I've been alternating sleeping with absolutely pounding medication and eating way too many pink cough sweets.
So hopefully I will get into America next weekend. c:
The longer I spend in Marvel fandom, the more picky and annoyed I get. I think maybe this is one of those fandoms where it's best to stick to the sidelines and build on your own. I tend to try and be very tolerant of what other people are into, without criticizing too harshly and trying to see the upsides even if I don't like it. But I was browsing a discussion board the other day and managed to hit on a post written about the way Bob was characterized in Dark Reign by one of those people with little to no sense of grammar or spelling, and while I get that it's a big case of "someone is wrong on the internet", I more or less couldn't keep my irritation in check on reading
"i would rather him fighting, having unstable manly breakdowns of schizophrenia, rather than acting wimpy like a child."
I just-- what. Bob Reynolds' mental instability isn't manly enough for this guy? What the shit is that supposed to mean? Manliness is an attribute with connotations of confidence, self-possession, comfort in risky situations, initiative and so on. This guy is seriously saying that a character can be schizophrenic, so long as he's not vulnerable? Just, what the shit. OP also says he's one of the Sentry's biggest fans, which is obviously BS.
But honestly, if we were talking about an ethnic minority here, or a homosexual character, those kinds of comments so completely would not fly. 'I'd rather have him be gay in a manly way, rather than acting wimpy like a faggot'. I mean, that just wouldn't happen. XD; It's been bothering the shit out of me that the Sentry gets such a bad rap in fandom for this or various other reasons. There's so much preaching about sexual and racial freedom, but the minute you get to the crazy characters nobody gets them and nobody wants to. Total lack of caring. I'm not about to stand up and start preaching but I think it's reasonable for it to seriously bother me, maybe more than most people, but there you have it.
Oh, well, that's my rant for the day. xoxo~
I went to my father's apartment in the morning to pick up some of my certificates, my baccalaureate diploma, my GCSE grades and my violin grade 8. I hoped he'd be gone, but he wasn't, and I had to quickly invent a story about meeting my friends for lunch and being in a big hurry. He ended up driving me halfway to the embassy, to Covent Garden station where I took the train to Bond Street, which was in itself hugely ironic. I kept being sure he'd figure out what I was doing, or he'd see the papers in my bag, or something - but he didn't. I guess he was worried about going into work too. It was a bad experience all round, with him constantly trying to talk me around and make me feel guilty, demanding to know what I was doing and what I was intending to do and so on. He also said the sentence "I don't want a friend, you're too young and frankly not interesting enough, what I want is a daughter", which is kind of what I'm holding on to to make me not feel guilty about leaving without telling anybody.
After that there was the Embassy, which wasn't so difficult. I walked into Grosvenor square all "so which building is the Embassy?", looked around and concluded AH-HA, IT MUST BE THAT ONE THERE WITH THE ENORMOUS EAGLE ON TOP OF IT, AND THE FLAG ON TOP OF THE EAGLE. Then I had to sit in a big, cold room for three hours waiting for my ticket to be called, and I got sick. At least I read all of Sandman volume 1 in there. The interview was a breeze, though - my interviewer looked like Steve from before Operation Rebirth, and he was adorable and really nice. He only asked me five easy questions and then accepted my application and said I was free to go. Then I waited in the rain for ten minutes for the bus back to Oxford, and then I spent something like two hours on the bus. I woke up after a little while, though, and the pain in my throat was so bad by that time that I could not get back to sleep. I got off at DD's for some medication which only helped a little, told him what had happened, and then went back to Richard's. I spent that night in various stages of fever, only sleeping for an hour or two at a time, and in pain the whole night. It's only just now that I'm starting to recover a little. My friend came over to take care of me, and I've been alternating sleeping with absolutely pounding medication and eating way too many pink cough sweets.
So hopefully I will get into America next weekend. c:
The longer I spend in Marvel fandom, the more picky and annoyed I get. I think maybe this is one of those fandoms where it's best to stick to the sidelines and build on your own. I tend to try and be very tolerant of what other people are into, without criticizing too harshly and trying to see the upsides even if I don't like it. But I was browsing a discussion board the other day and managed to hit on a post written about the way Bob was characterized in Dark Reign by one of those people with little to no sense of grammar or spelling, and while I get that it's a big case of "someone is wrong on the internet", I more or less couldn't keep my irritation in check on reading
"i would rather him fighting, having unstable manly breakdowns of schizophrenia, rather than acting wimpy like a child."
I just-- what. Bob Reynolds' mental instability isn't manly enough for this guy? What the shit is that supposed to mean? Manliness is an attribute with connotations of confidence, self-possession, comfort in risky situations, initiative and so on. This guy is seriously saying that a character can be schizophrenic, so long as he's not vulnerable? Just, what the shit. OP also says he's one of the Sentry's biggest fans, which is obviously BS.
But honestly, if we were talking about an ethnic minority here, or a homosexual character, those kinds of comments so completely would not fly. 'I'd rather have him be gay in a manly way, rather than acting wimpy like a faggot'. I mean, that just wouldn't happen. XD; It's been bothering the shit out of me that the Sentry gets such a bad rap in fandom for this or various other reasons. There's so much preaching about sexual and racial freedom, but the minute you get to the crazy characters nobody gets them and nobody wants to. Total lack of caring. I'm not about to stand up and start preaching but I think it's reasonable for it to seriously bother me, maybe more than most people, but there you have it.
Oh, well, that's my rant for the day. xoxo~