They have become part of the soundtrack to this stage of my life. Unfortunately, I found most of them on YouTube, so only one is on my computer.

"Fear" - Sarah McLachlan
"Over My Head" - The Fray
"So Cold" - Breaking Benjamin (which I associate with RPing Sylvanas)
"Illusion" - VNV Nation (used in a beautiful, heartbreaking Kenshin Rorouni AMV ( Read more... )

I am currently taking the introduction to women's studies class at UW. It is taught by a graduate student who is not yet a full-fledged professor. (sweetest_april, I will email you her name.) I only mention this because she seems to be struggling to present the material to us in a way that makes sense to people who haven't thought much about feminism before. ( Read more... )

Few things in this world can be more frustrating than working out your college schedule -- more precisely, fitting just one class between two others, which are required. Some classes that are available appear torturous and/or are irrelevant to my degree. Right now, I'm seeking non-torturous and (hopefully) vaguely relevant ones. Finding none that ( Read more... )

Is it bad that, even though I became saturated with Middle-Earth a long time ago, I still can get lost in this picture? It's a drawing by Tolkien himself, of the Halls of King Thranduil, in Mirkwood. I rediscovered it today while looking for wallpapers at work. So much of my high school self was tied to this place. No surprise, then, that the ( Read more... )

Do you ever feel as though you can never work fast enough? That your brain thinks up good ideas all at once, and in slowing down to organize them and set them on paper, lose pieces of them? It's a lack of focus, I think, or a symptom of focusing too hard, for me ( Read more... )

I got into the industrial design program essentially because my grades were not good enough for my first focus of choice, graphic design, and priority was given to those with a higher GPA. Too many people had applied. So, I had a nerve-wracking meeting with most of the faculty, during which I was told what I really was good at, and offered -- ( Read more... )

A long time ago I amused myself by classifying people by their elemental associations. The four categories, based on what I had gleaned from Wiccan and/or Pagan resources, the Tarot, and my own musings, run thusly:

Air: Center of operations is the mind. Logical, sensible. May be emotionally distant or cold. Perhaps wayward or changeable (think ( Read more... )

So my dad thinks Jade is a sly, seductive woman. He actually said the Colonel looked "seductive" standing there in a bathrobe with his hands in his pockets, smirking -- at which point marysia went ahead and made the necessary conclusion: "Even your Dad thinks Jade is sexy." Thank you for no longer beating around the bush.

marysia's and my theory that most men ( Read more... )

Thankfully, the complicated sinosoidal functions of marysia's and my stress levels run more or less opposite each other, so when one of us is upset, the other is in a position to calm them down. But what would happen if we both were agitated at the same time? She thinks the universe would explode...or just our shoebox of a room. I think it would effect ( Read more... )

I like noticing things that other people seem not to: remote gargoyles on buildings, budding plants, a bird chirping inside a bush, the intriguing way light catches the dew-wet grass or highlights a carving in Suzzalo's high windows. I am still in awe of these trivial events. I can find impressions that strike me with wonder...or grave insight. The ( Read more... )