Thursday sundry
1. Grading is of the devil. This is, I believe, one of those universal truths. It also Never Ends. It's also the primary reason that I'm not very seriously considering high school teaching as a post-academic career. The day I have graded my last awful paper will be marked down in history as a day of Feasting, Joy, and Confetti.
2. I'm not much for body envy, ordinarily. I'm fit, I'm healthy, I could maybe stand to be fitter, healthier (I could certainly eat better), maybe lose a few pounds, or not. Whatever. I'm comfortable. But there is one woman who climbs at my gym who inspires such body envy in me! I think in a positive way. Very much a climber's body (and she's a fantastic climber), with to-die-for arm muscles and lots of flexibility. She doesn't usually climb when I do, but whenever I do see her, I can't help but think, "if I applied myself to it, I could look like that (and climb like that)." Because she's about my height, about my bone structure and general build, and she looks like she's at least early if not mid-30s. She's an extraordinarily fit but otherwise very normal-looking woman. Perhaps I shall think of her as an exercise muse.
3. Lots of buzz about Dreamwidth! These links have been making the rounds, but in case there are people who remain confused about the ins and outs of getting your very own Dreamwidth account come April 30, check out these posts: How do *you* get a Dreamwidth? by zvi_likes_tv, and a fact sheet from Queen Dreamwidth herself, synecdochic.
I am absolutely planning to fork over at least $3 for a Dreamwidth account at the end of the month, though what exactly I plan to do with it remains tbd. I have no need of a different kind of journal, so I suspect I'll start off just mirroring from LJ, or mirroring LJ from DW, or something like that. Thanks to a lovely anonymouse, I've got over a year's worth of paid LJ time left, and I don't want to lose my LJ community at all. But I also suspect that a lot of said community will eventually end up making the switch, as well. In terms of a company I would like to support financially and make my eventual home base, I suspect DW will be it, but for the time being I expect I (and probably many other people) will be playing it by ear as we figure out the transition.
4. Discussions of the failtasticness of what BSG did to the women continue, and I wanted to point out two that address aspects of how we respond to authorial/creatorial(?) intent. chaila43, who has yet to write anything about any of this that I don't agree with, on why it's still sexist, whether RDM meant it that way or not, and prozacpark on ways that readers/viewers/fans reclaim female characters. The former post is pretty BSG-specific, but the latter one is broader. It includes mostly BSG examples, and examples/spoilers through the finale, but it also includes other sorts of examples and talks about issues that crop up in, oh, just about any text I've ever read or viewed. Some of you Sam Carter fans may find it particularly interesting.
5. This mostly for liminalliz: I have fallen quite behind on my DS9 viewing, but last night I was folding laundry and stuck in "Children of Time." I knew about this episode, because I'm spoiled as hell, and as a big Odo/Kira fan I was looking forward to it. And it didn't disappoint, though not nearly in the way I was expecting. There was no squee. (Or, well, maybe a little when she kissed him...) Because this wasn't squeeful: it was awkward and creepy and more than a little scary. Ensuring that 8000 people will cease to exist so that the woman you love won't die? Not actually romantic.
I love these little glimpses of Odo's...Changeling-ness, I guess. The Founders? Also more than a little scary. The obsessive need for order and conformity, for carrying through an idea to its conclusion, regardless of the consequences, heedless of the rights of "solids" (if, indeed, they have any rights at all). Odo is different from the Founders in many important ways, yet he's also far more similar to them than his solid friends like to think. His loyalties are not to Bajor, or to the Federation, or even to Sisko, particularly. I think he is loyal to all of the above, but his loyalty falls along a sliding scale, and none of those outranks his true loyalites: to justice and order as ideals, and to Kira. Most of the time there's no need for him to choose between, say, justice and Bajor, Kira and Sisko. And so we (and the other characters) are able to believe that Odo would do the "right" thing or the "heroic" thing--right up until he chooses Kira over 8000 innocent people.
I love, too, how understandably freaked out she is about this, as well. Disconcerted to learn that Odo has loved her all along (thought seriously, Kira? how blind can you be, hon!) and that he now knows she knows, upset to find out what the other Odo did, uncertain, no doubt, whether the Odo of her own timeline would have done the same thing.
I really do love these two! And I look forward to getting back to DS9, as well, because I have missed it! Though I suspect the viewing will continue to be erratic, at least until the actively airing shows I'm watching right now have finished.
2. I'm not much for body envy, ordinarily. I'm fit, I'm healthy, I could maybe stand to be fitter, healthier (I could certainly eat better), maybe lose a few pounds, or not. Whatever. I'm comfortable. But there is one woman who climbs at my gym who inspires such body envy in me! I think in a positive way. Very much a climber's body (and she's a fantastic climber), with to-die-for arm muscles and lots of flexibility. She doesn't usually climb when I do, but whenever I do see her, I can't help but think, "if I applied myself to it, I could look like that (and climb like that)." Because she's about my height, about my bone structure and general build, and she looks like she's at least early if not mid-30s. She's an extraordinarily fit but otherwise very normal-looking woman. Perhaps I shall think of her as an exercise muse.
3. Lots of buzz about Dreamwidth! These links have been making the rounds, but in case there are people who remain confused about the ins and outs of getting your very own Dreamwidth account come April 30, check out these posts: How do *you* get a Dreamwidth? by zvi_likes_tv, and a fact sheet from Queen Dreamwidth herself, synecdochic.
I am absolutely planning to fork over at least $3 for a Dreamwidth account at the end of the month, though what exactly I plan to do with it remains tbd. I have no need of a different kind of journal, so I suspect I'll start off just mirroring from LJ, or mirroring LJ from DW, or something like that. Thanks to a lovely anonymouse, I've got over a year's worth of paid LJ time left, and I don't want to lose my LJ community at all. But I also suspect that a lot of said community will eventually end up making the switch, as well. In terms of a company I would like to support financially and make my eventual home base, I suspect DW will be it, but for the time being I expect I (and probably many other people) will be playing it by ear as we figure out the transition.
4. Discussions of the failtasticness of what BSG did to the women continue, and I wanted to point out two that address aspects of how we respond to authorial/creatorial(?) intent. chaila43, who has yet to write anything about any of this that I don't agree with, on why it's still sexist, whether RDM meant it that way or not, and prozacpark on ways that readers/viewers/fans reclaim female characters. The former post is pretty BSG-specific, but the latter one is broader. It includes mostly BSG examples, and examples/spoilers through the finale, but it also includes other sorts of examples and talks about issues that crop up in, oh, just about any text I've ever read or viewed. Some of you Sam Carter fans may find it particularly interesting.
5. This mostly for liminalliz: I have fallen quite behind on my DS9 viewing, but last night I was folding laundry and stuck in "Children of Time." I knew about this episode, because I'm spoiled as hell, and as a big Odo/Kira fan I was looking forward to it. And it didn't disappoint, though not nearly in the way I was expecting. There was no squee. (Or, well, maybe a little when she kissed him...) Because this wasn't squeeful: it was awkward and creepy and more than a little scary. Ensuring that 8000 people will cease to exist so that the woman you love won't die? Not actually romantic.
I love these little glimpses of Odo's...Changeling-ness, I guess. The Founders? Also more than a little scary. The obsessive need for order and conformity, for carrying through an idea to its conclusion, regardless of the consequences, heedless of the rights of "solids" (if, indeed, they have any rights at all). Odo is different from the Founders in many important ways, yet he's also far more similar to them than his solid friends like to think. His loyalties are not to Bajor, or to the Federation, or even to Sisko, particularly. I think he is loyal to all of the above, but his loyalty falls along a sliding scale, and none of those outranks his true loyalites: to justice and order as ideals, and to Kira. Most of the time there's no need for him to choose between, say, justice and Bajor, Kira and Sisko. And so we (and the other characters) are able to believe that Odo would do the "right" thing or the "heroic" thing--right up until he chooses Kira over 8000 innocent people.
I love, too, how understandably freaked out she is about this, as well. Disconcerted to learn that Odo has loved her all along (thought seriously, Kira? how blind can you be, hon!) and that he now knows she knows, upset to find out what the other Odo did, uncertain, no doubt, whether the Odo of her own timeline would have done the same thing.
I really do love these two! And I look forward to getting back to DS9, as well, because I have missed it! Though I suspect the viewing will continue to be erratic, at least until the actively airing shows I'm watching right now have finished.