(no subject)
I've been reading over old journal entries (and sorting out tags because I am anal like that). I feel like I need to apologise to everyone for being such a boring old fart. I mean... wow. If anyone is nodding, please feel free to defriend me - I promise I won't take offence! But I will try to be less whiny and only talk about my boring jobs from now on. I've had a real desire to delete a lot of past entries, but I've decided not to, because as embarrassing as I find my past self, I did really think and feel and write all those things and it sort of feels like a betrayal to expunge them from the record.
I should just keep a paper journal to be embarrassing in.. but then I always worry that when I die people will read the journals and... well, can you be embarrassed from beyond the grave? I guess I'm worried that people would start thinking I'm an idiot and I don't want to be remembered as an idiot. But has anyone ever read a diary of a departed loved one and then thought worse of them? I mean, just for being an awkward teenager, obviously if you read someone's diary and they had been writing about how they murdered lots of people or something, then you would have an issue, but otherwise... everyone has embarrassing and stupid thoughts and feelings and moments, so... I don't know. I should stop thinking about this so much.
So, to stop me thinking... This is the one where you can all ask me to list five things that remind me of you, and then you write about those in your LJ. These are from oh__tsarevich
Harry Potter
It's so funny that this was the first one given because I've kind of got back into Harry Potter recently. Not that I was ever out of it but I hadn't read it for a while and was starting to forget about it... But then I started reading this blog where this guy is reading all the books and writing his reaction to each chapter and it just reminded me so strongly of how I reacted when I read the book. Especially his reaction to the end of the third one, where I think pretty much everyone was like FNDJKFBSACHURWEDJAQ2RDKSJD at the last few chapters. I totally forgotten how the early books are like mysteries solved by Harry & Co and how awesome the plot twists were, and how my reaction to every book was FUHFJHFHFAJUW! I can't remember when I first read them - I think I was still in secondary school? In my head it's associated with a summer where I literally spent all my time with two of my friends eating chinese takeaway and watching the Charlie's Angels film obsessively (I don't even know why - I was never that big a fan of it, but my friends were obsessed with learning the dance routine Cameron Diaz does in her dream at the beginning) and reading Harry Potter. So lame.
I don't even know what my point is now, but basically Harry Potter is just awesome. (And weirdly, reading the books again now, I totally love Harry himself more - I liked him, but I always loved Ron and Lupin and others more. I think re-reading it knowing the whole journey he goes on just makes me realise how awesome he really is. Also, Lupin kind of got lame in the last two books. :((( )
Roman art (omg is that even what you call it when it's from Roman antiquity? Cause in Dutch we have 'Romeins' which is 'from Roman antiquity' and 'Romaans' which is from like 1000-1200 AD, so I never know what the correct English word would be for either one of them!
I think Roman art is the right term? I think Romaans might refer to what people call Byzantine in English, but I really don't know. OMG I fail at my own language and degree subject. :( But, actually, maybe both are relevant terms because I completely love Byzantine art too! My main project at the British Museum was to redo the storage for these pieces of Byzantium gold glass and I really loved being able to handle and look at these beautiful pieces... Argh, I don't even know why I like it so much! My main love for Roman stuff is because it's like some kind of historical soap opera (see I, Claudius, which is an amazing BBC adaptation of a book about the Claudian emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero - basically the most famous ones, haha - and I cannot recommend it enough. It is insanely good, in terms of acting, but also sheer crackiness:
OMG, John Hurt in a gold bikini <3) Anyway, I got totally sidetracked. Roman art. Yes. Argh, I don't know what to say! I think part of why I love it is because of the way I was taught it at university. A lot of Roman imperial art is to do with status and propaganda, so my lecturer decided to teach it to us in chronological order so we also learnt a lot about the history of the whole span of Rome, from the Republic to Byzantine. I keep thinking of images I want to post about this, so I might do a separate post all about how AWESOME Roman art is, haha.
London
I was walking through Bloomsbury the other day on my way to the British Museum and I was thinking to myself how nice it was to be walking through London on a beautiful sunny day, surrounded by all these beautiful tall cream Georgian building and how I am lucky to be living so close to the capital... but at the same time, the streets I was walking down stank. Of raw sewage. And in a funny way, that kind of sums up how I feel about London. On the one hand, I love it but one the other it stinks. I love parts of it because they're beautiful or historical or interesting, or just because they're attractions/shops that I don't have anywhere else near me. I hate it because it's dirty, crowded, and parts of it are really dangerous. Those are all the usual problems you get with big cities, I know, so I'm not sure how much can be done to change it... London is an interesting place to explore though because it's not really a unified city, it's lots of small villages that just sort of bled into each other over time. So there's a real sense of character and difference throughout the city but then that leads to some tensions between different groups/cultures.
So, in conclusion: I like London, but I don't know if I'd like to live there.
Neil Gaiman
You know, I don't actually know that much about Neil Gaiman, other than his books. He's engaged or going out with Amanda Palmer, and is friends with Terry Pratchett, annnnd... that's all I know. But I don't need to know more because I love his books, and so long as he's not a complete dick (racist or sexist or something), I don't really care. His books! I love them. I am amazed at how many different foms of writing he practices. I've read Gaiman novels, poems, short stories, screenplays - even watched them on the big screen. His adaptation of Princess Mononoke was great; Beowulf was not. That was a real misstep, for me anyway. But I forgive him because even though Beowulf was one of the worst films I've ever seen, American Gods is my favourite book so I think it evens out.
QI
Oh god, I am ashamed to admit how much of my general knowledge comes from this programme. :S I do find it funny how whenever I'm with someone who suddenly comes out with some amazing piece of trivia you can say to them "Did you hear that on QI?" and five times out of ten they'll say yes. Hooray, it's educating people! And leading to vicious arguments in pub quizes because the point of QI of course is to debunk popular misunderstood/misinterpreted/little known facts, so whilst you think you know one thing to be true, it actually isn't. THIS BLOWS PEOPLE'S MINDS.
I should just keep a paper journal to be embarrassing in.. but then I always worry that when I die people will read the journals and... well, can you be embarrassed from beyond the grave? I guess I'm worried that people would start thinking I'm an idiot and I don't want to be remembered as an idiot. But has anyone ever read a diary of a departed loved one and then thought worse of them? I mean, just for being an awkward teenager, obviously if you read someone's diary and they had been writing about how they murdered lots of people or something, then you would have an issue, but otherwise... everyone has embarrassing and stupid thoughts and feelings and moments, so... I don't know. I should stop thinking about this so much.
So, to stop me thinking... This is the one where you can all ask me to list five things that remind me of you, and then you write about those in your LJ. These are from oh__tsarevich
Harry Potter
It's so funny that this was the first one given because I've kind of got back into Harry Potter recently. Not that I was ever out of it but I hadn't read it for a while and was starting to forget about it... But then I started reading this blog where this guy is reading all the books and writing his reaction to each chapter and it just reminded me so strongly of how I reacted when I read the book. Especially his reaction to the end of the third one, where I think pretty much everyone was like FNDJKFBSACHURWEDJAQ2RDKSJD at the last few chapters. I totally forgotten how the early books are like mysteries solved by Harry & Co and how awesome the plot twists were, and how my reaction to every book was FUHFJHFHFAJUW! I can't remember when I first read them - I think I was still in secondary school? In my head it's associated with a summer where I literally spent all my time with two of my friends eating chinese takeaway and watching the Charlie's Angels film obsessively (I don't even know why - I was never that big a fan of it, but my friends were obsessed with learning the dance routine Cameron Diaz does in her dream at the beginning) and reading Harry Potter. So lame.
I don't even know what my point is now, but basically Harry Potter is just awesome. (And weirdly, reading the books again now, I totally love Harry himself more - I liked him, but I always loved Ron and Lupin and others more. I think re-reading it knowing the whole journey he goes on just makes me realise how awesome he really is. Also, Lupin kind of got lame in the last two books. :((( )
Roman art (omg is that even what you call it when it's from Roman antiquity? Cause in Dutch we have 'Romeins' which is 'from Roman antiquity' and 'Romaans' which is from like 1000-1200 AD, so I never know what the correct English word would be for either one of them!
I think Roman art is the right term? I think Romaans might refer to what people call Byzantine in English, but I really don't know. OMG I fail at my own language and degree subject. :( But, actually, maybe both are relevant terms because I completely love Byzantine art too! My main project at the British Museum was to redo the storage for these pieces of Byzantium gold glass and I really loved being able to handle and look at these beautiful pieces... Argh, I don't even know why I like it so much! My main love for Roman stuff is because it's like some kind of historical soap opera (see I, Claudius, which is an amazing BBC adaptation of a book about the Claudian emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero - basically the most famous ones, haha - and I cannot recommend it enough. It is insanely good, in terms of acting, but also sheer crackiness:
Click to viewOMG, John Hurt in a gold bikini <3) Anyway, I got totally sidetracked. Roman art. Yes. Argh, I don't know what to say! I think part of why I love it is because of the way I was taught it at university. A lot of Roman imperial art is to do with status and propaganda, so my lecturer decided to teach it to us in chronological order so we also learnt a lot about the history of the whole span of Rome, from the Republic to Byzantine. I keep thinking of images I want to post about this, so I might do a separate post all about how AWESOME Roman art is, haha.
London
I was walking through Bloomsbury the other day on my way to the British Museum and I was thinking to myself how nice it was to be walking through London on a beautiful sunny day, surrounded by all these beautiful tall cream Georgian building and how I am lucky to be living so close to the capital... but at the same time, the streets I was walking down stank. Of raw sewage. And in a funny way, that kind of sums up how I feel about London. On the one hand, I love it but one the other it stinks. I love parts of it because they're beautiful or historical or interesting, or just because they're attractions/shops that I don't have anywhere else near me. I hate it because it's dirty, crowded, and parts of it are really dangerous. Those are all the usual problems you get with big cities, I know, so I'm not sure how much can be done to change it... London is an interesting place to explore though because it's not really a unified city, it's lots of small villages that just sort of bled into each other over time. So there's a real sense of character and difference throughout the city but then that leads to some tensions between different groups/cultures.
So, in conclusion: I like London, but I don't know if I'd like to live there.
Neil Gaiman
You know, I don't actually know that much about Neil Gaiman, other than his books. He's engaged or going out with Amanda Palmer, and is friends with Terry Pratchett, annnnd... that's all I know. But I don't need to know more because I love his books, and so long as he's not a complete dick (racist or sexist or something), I don't really care. His books! I love them. I am amazed at how many different foms of writing he practices. I've read Gaiman novels, poems, short stories, screenplays - even watched them on the big screen. His adaptation of Princess Mononoke was great; Beowulf was not. That was a real misstep, for me anyway. But I forgive him because even though Beowulf was one of the worst films I've ever seen, American Gods is my favourite book so I think it evens out.
QI
Oh god, I am ashamed to admit how much of my general knowledge comes from this programme. :S I do find it funny how whenever I'm with someone who suddenly comes out with some amazing piece of trivia you can say to them "Did you hear that on QI?" and five times out of ten they'll say yes. Hooray, it's educating people! And leading to vicious arguments in pub quizes because the point of QI of course is to debunk popular misunderstood/misinterpreted/little known facts, so whilst you think you know one thing to be true, it actually isn't. THIS BLOWS PEOPLE'S MINDS.