Can't Study
Somehow, this Friday, I was convinced by Kerry to purchase a cheap-o (and I mean super cheap-o quality) red velvet corset with black lace and ribbing. Going up to the cashiers with it, I felt like a harlot ;_; I think some people were looking at me funny -_-
The lace-up back is seriously laced up with shoelace (fraying, at that), but it was $5 and I had nonchalantly commented that one could make a good vampire or pirate costume with it (which is why Kerry wanted me to get it). It has those dinky little straps attached to the bottom for holding stockings up o_0 Gonna have to snip those off--I can't imagine anyone actually wearing this thing as lingerie, but I think I could make a decent pirate serving wench with it (I already have some raggedy/aging witch-looking boots that could also suffice and that I think still fit me, and possibly a white top that could be adjusted to do the off-shoulder thing). I just have to get a decent black sash, probably with a fringe and maybe a touch of red somewhere, and then a grey or white skirt. Maybe a head sash/bandanna, too, in red. I have something in mind I could make for the skirt in two or three layers that would add a touch of fanciness to the costume, but I don't know when I'll have time, especially if we're looking to find/make an admiral-like coat for Kerry to be a pirate captain-y-type. I think I still have my heart set on a pirate party, with chocolate gold coins and fake skull candle-holders. And root beer to go along with the beer (maybe rum) so I have something to drink (although technically I'd probably be pretty busy as the serving wench getting everyone beers from the cooler, which I'd have to set up like a treasure chest with maybe some Mardi Gras-ish beads in amongst the bottles and hanging over the sides).
On the other side of the coin, if I could figure out what to do about my hips being wider than my shoulders, all I'd need to make a good vampire costume out of this is probably a slit long black skirt and maybe long black evening gloves. I already have the fangs >:3 (Oh right, I'd probably need blood red lipstick, too, but that should be easy to get cheap.)
So that's got some potential there, if I want to do Halloween as something other than a Jedi (which, after two years, might be getting a bit old, even if I have been working in a different building every year).
For no particular reason, this weekend Kerry has been turning to Logo, which appears to be an LBG channel, probably because she saw that there was a movie called The Hunger which had David Bowie in it as a vampire (Susan Sarandon too, as it so happens). It was silly, and apparently only on the channel because there were two women exchanging blood in whatever vampire rite they were assuming (plus they were walking around in daylight, which went unexplained). I think after that, we just sorta stayed on the channel, and at some point M. Butterfly came on.
I was really confused at first, because even though I have never seen Madame Butterfly, I thought I knew the story--Japanese woman falls for American soldier and has his kid, only to kill herself after she finds out that he's gotten married in America or whatever. I have the idea he comes back for the kid and leaves her, but that might not be right. The movie description said it told the story of a French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer. Buh wha? o_0 The movie did the play within a play thing, and was apparently based on a true story.
Well, I should have been quicker to make the connection that indeed, this was a Chinese opera singer of the traditional sense given the channel--traditional Chinese opera singers were all male, as far as I know. They might not still be. I was fooled and thought the dude was in fact female at first, because... well... he didn't have the manliest face ever. The opera singer was apparently acting as a spy for the Chinese government, using the diplomat and feeding him bad information. The diplomat was apparently head over heels for the opera singer, who insisted that he keep his clothes on, thus hiding the fact that he was a man. "Ancient Oriental Ways of Love-Making" my left foot--how did Mr. Diplomat believe that the opera singer was having his child?! Kerry really couldn't get over that one, and even though I brushed it off as simply being beyond my realm of knowledge and that perhaps sex education is better than it used to be, it really is ridiculous.
What I really can't get over, however, is that this was being played on an LBG channel. It's not same-sex love, it's a guy making a mistake and then killing himself because the "butterfly" he thought he loved wasn't a real woman/person and was actually this guy spy who was betraying him. Painfully. And they were together for years, where the diplomat even left his wife for the opera singer, and all this time he somehow never figured out that he was a man! If the opera singer spy had any real feelings for him, they didn't really explore it much--they just hinted that maybe he had feelings for him. A really weak maybe. I'm almost outraged, actually, except that Jeremy Irons put on a damned good show at the end of being truly crushed and still in love with a person he knew didn't really exist when he, as Mr. Diplomat, killed himself (even if he was wearing a kimono along with Chinese opera make-up, which seems quite incompatible to me). Seriously, that's the only redeeming factor for picking this movie, which otherwise seems almost derogatory, for such a channel.
The real reason I'm posting this is that I can't concentrate to study for my midterm on Tuesday. I have trouble remembering how to take a derivative. I'm not in good shape :( If it were truly just networking questions, I might have a chance, but once there's probability and actual numbers involved, I'm toast. The midterm is 40% of my grade, and the final is 60%... that, and I don't test well. People are trying to assign me pet projects without paying me for them at work, but with the loss of power in the reorganization, it behooves me to try and get these people to like me, but I don't have time for it. I don't know what to do, I'm just stressing out too much and it keeps coming back to me that it's always going to be like this. I'm always going to be stressed over more than I can really handle, and I'm always going to be struggling through it essentially alone. I mean, even my computer tried to abandon me.
I guess I take that sort of thing pretty hard. It felt like rejection (not to trivialize human rejection, which is widely held to be more... I dunno, real?). There was always something that bothered me about having pets, because we chose them and they pretty much had to love us. It's like arranged marriage, but somehow, as if animals are somehow more enlightened, they generally do end up loving us as we are, even when we don't deserve it. Yggdrasil isn't different. It had no choice in being sent to me, and I choose how it is rebuilt (even if I don't do it at all well). The same goes for Sleipnir and Hermes (who is surely sad that I haven't gone out for a ride in about a month). I've always wondered if pets and the inanimate objects that I personify despise their respective people for it, but it's less complicated when less things have a say in the matter... it just gets more bungled depending on the incompetence of the one or few making the decisions.
The lace-up back is seriously laced up with shoelace (fraying, at that), but it was $5 and I had nonchalantly commented that one could make a good vampire or pirate costume with it (which is why Kerry wanted me to get it). It has those dinky little straps attached to the bottom for holding stockings up o_0 Gonna have to snip those off--I can't imagine anyone actually wearing this thing as lingerie, but I think I could make a decent pirate serving wench with it (I already have some raggedy/aging witch-looking boots that could also suffice and that I think still fit me, and possibly a white top that could be adjusted to do the off-shoulder thing). I just have to get a decent black sash, probably with a fringe and maybe a touch of red somewhere, and then a grey or white skirt. Maybe a head sash/bandanna, too, in red. I have something in mind I could make for the skirt in two or three layers that would add a touch of fanciness to the costume, but I don't know when I'll have time, especially if we're looking to find/make an admiral-like coat for Kerry to be a pirate captain-y-type. I think I still have my heart set on a pirate party, with chocolate gold coins and fake skull candle-holders. And root beer to go along with the beer (maybe rum) so I have something to drink (although technically I'd probably be pretty busy as the serving wench getting everyone beers from the cooler, which I'd have to set up like a treasure chest with maybe some Mardi Gras-ish beads in amongst the bottles and hanging over the sides).
On the other side of the coin, if I could figure out what to do about my hips being wider than my shoulders, all I'd need to make a good vampire costume out of this is probably a slit long black skirt and maybe long black evening gloves. I already have the fangs >:3 (Oh right, I'd probably need blood red lipstick, too, but that should be easy to get cheap.)
So that's got some potential there, if I want to do Halloween as something other than a Jedi (which, after two years, might be getting a bit old, even if I have been working in a different building every year).
For no particular reason, this weekend Kerry has been turning to Logo, which appears to be an LBG channel, probably because she saw that there was a movie called The Hunger which had David Bowie in it as a vampire (Susan Sarandon too, as it so happens). It was silly, and apparently only on the channel because there were two women exchanging blood in whatever vampire rite they were assuming (plus they were walking around in daylight, which went unexplained). I think after that, we just sorta stayed on the channel, and at some point M. Butterfly came on.
I was really confused at first, because even though I have never seen Madame Butterfly, I thought I knew the story--Japanese woman falls for American soldier and has his kid, only to kill herself after she finds out that he's gotten married in America or whatever. I have the idea he comes back for the kid and leaves her, but that might not be right. The movie description said it told the story of a French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer. Buh wha? o_0 The movie did the play within a play thing, and was apparently based on a true story.
Well, I should have been quicker to make the connection that indeed, this was a Chinese opera singer of the traditional sense given the channel--traditional Chinese opera singers were all male, as far as I know. They might not still be. I was fooled and thought the dude was in fact female at first, because... well... he didn't have the manliest face ever. The opera singer was apparently acting as a spy for the Chinese government, using the diplomat and feeding him bad information. The diplomat was apparently head over heels for the opera singer, who insisted that he keep his clothes on, thus hiding the fact that he was a man. "Ancient Oriental Ways of Love-Making" my left foot--how did Mr. Diplomat believe that the opera singer was having his child?! Kerry really couldn't get over that one, and even though I brushed it off as simply being beyond my realm of knowledge and that perhaps sex education is better than it used to be, it really is ridiculous.
What I really can't get over, however, is that this was being played on an LBG channel. It's not same-sex love, it's a guy making a mistake and then killing himself because the "butterfly" he thought he loved wasn't a real woman/person and was actually this guy spy who was betraying him. Painfully. And they were together for years, where the diplomat even left his wife for the opera singer, and all this time he somehow never figured out that he was a man! If the opera singer spy had any real feelings for him, they didn't really explore it much--they just hinted that maybe he had feelings for him. A really weak maybe. I'm almost outraged, actually, except that Jeremy Irons put on a damned good show at the end of being truly crushed and still in love with a person he knew didn't really exist when he, as Mr. Diplomat, killed himself (even if he was wearing a kimono along with Chinese opera make-up, which seems quite incompatible to me). Seriously, that's the only redeeming factor for picking this movie, which otherwise seems almost derogatory, for such a channel.
The real reason I'm posting this is that I can't concentrate to study for my midterm on Tuesday. I have trouble remembering how to take a derivative. I'm not in good shape :( If it were truly just networking questions, I might have a chance, but once there's probability and actual numbers involved, I'm toast. The midterm is 40% of my grade, and the final is 60%... that, and I don't test well. People are trying to assign me pet projects without paying me for them at work, but with the loss of power in the reorganization, it behooves me to try and get these people to like me, but I don't have time for it. I don't know what to do, I'm just stressing out too much and it keeps coming back to me that it's always going to be like this. I'm always going to be stressed over more than I can really handle, and I'm always going to be struggling through it essentially alone. I mean, even my computer tried to abandon me.
I guess I take that sort of thing pretty hard. It felt like rejection (not to trivialize human rejection, which is widely held to be more... I dunno, real?). There was always something that bothered me about having pets, because we chose them and they pretty much had to love us. It's like arranged marriage, but somehow, as if animals are somehow more enlightened, they generally do end up loving us as we are, even when we don't deserve it. Yggdrasil isn't different. It had no choice in being sent to me, and I choose how it is rebuilt (even if I don't do it at all well). The same goes for Sleipnir and Hermes (who is surely sad that I haven't gone out for a ride in about a month). I've always wondered if pets and the inanimate objects that I personify despise their respective people for it, but it's less complicated when less things have a say in the matter... it just gets more bungled depending on the incompetence of the one or few making the decisions.