Hello, still alive!
Quite alive, actually. I've gotten into the bad habit of tag-blogging over on Tumblr and remembered that there are slightly better venues for rambling personal thoughts over on this part of the internet.
Anyway, a few things I've been up to lately, if you were wondering where I'd gone.
The internship is either ramping up or winding down, depending on how you look at it. I've got another week and then I'm driving back to Ohio with a friend of mine on what we have dubbed the Great Trans*American Adventure. More on that in the near future, but it means I've only got a couple more days to knock around the beach and historical sites, which is...kinda sad. I've really enjoyed the independence of this summer, and I've really enjoyed being here. I'm not sure I could ever live in the Hampton Roads area long-term -- the population's really transient due to the military, the traffic's a nightmare, and the ocean will eventually wipe large chunks of it right off the map (trust me, I've spent all my time going to conferences on emergency planning about sea level rise, and let me tell you, waterfront property is not a wise investment 'round these here parts) -- but for the summer? Yes, definitely a good place to be.
Anyway, that means I've got a bunch of big pieces to finish, mostly on the aforementioned conferences on sea level rise. This has been a strange sort of job -- I'm about two steps further removed from the science than I'd like to be in a science writing job, but hey, I'm an intern, that's sort of to be expected. What I didn't expect was the amount of actual journalism I'd gotten myself into -- interviewing professionals and transcribing recordings and coming up with clever leads are not things I was actually very familiar with at all. It was weird having to learn to write in an entirely new format, but I think I picked it up fairly quick and now I've got an even broader set of skills to work with. The good thing is that people seem to have liked my work -- my boss passed along a really nice little note from a conference director who said she'd liked one of my pieces so much they were gonna run it in their own newsletter. So that's an encouraging sign!
Let's see, what else. I've been fairly active on the fandom front, actually, though the vast majority of it is over on Tumblr. There is a bizarre and excellent podcast called Welcome To Night Vale that you should really check out if you like any of the following: community radio, conspiracy theories, weird science, or small desert towns that shouldn't exist and contain all sorts of reality-warping extradimensional abominations that everybody just kind of accepts as part of life. It's sort of, er, HP Lovecraft's Prairie Home Companion? Spooky, funny, and really well done. For a story with no visual components the fanart is all spectacular.
I have also sort of fallen head over heels in love with Pacific Rim, which I was not actually expecting but at the same time totally was. There is nothing apologetic about that movie: it knows it's working with a nutty concept (oh no, attack of the giant deadly extradimensional aliens -- let's build huge-ass robots to punch them in the face!!) but just barrels ahead, laughing all the way. It's fun, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of action movies that have come out recently. I am so tired of everything being grimdark all the time. If you're gonna give me an apocalypse, at least make it colorful! And Pacific Rim is certainly good for that. It's also a giant pile of all my favorite tropes and visuals -- technology porn, neon and rain, squabbling scientist bros (one of whom is covered in glorious tattoos), massive nuclear-powered machines, mind melds, Idris Elba being majestic, lack of romantic subplot(!), bromance literally saving the day, and Ron Perlman in gold-plated shoes. It's self-aware and joyful and I love it for that.
It's also turned out to be a hotbed of really good meta over on Tumblr about non-romantic primary relationships and more weird science and the consequences of getting inside someone else's head. I keep wanting to write crossover fic with literally every fandom because I hadn't realized up until this point that mind-melds or neural handshakes or whatever you wanna call them are probably my favorite trope. You literally control these massive machines through the power of trust and shared experiences and willingness to let somebody else into your head, which is...not the sort of message you usually get in an action movie? Aside from the part where you've gotta go kill stuff and the fate of the world is at stake, I think I'd actually make a pretty good Jaeger pilot.
(For the record my Jaeger would be called Trinity Vortex and be red and turquoise and my co-pilot would either be my sister or Roommate -- both of whom are appalled that I'm in love with such a ridiculous movie. Feh, I say. I'll get both of them to watch it yet and then we'll go save the world with kickass robots powered by feelings. Not that, uh, I've put much thought into this or anything.)
Giddy rambling aside, go see it, it's a blast. Friendship robots, man. It just doesn't get old.
I have a bunch more I wish to write about but I need to go draft a piece on sea turtles and go to bed. We'll save the rest for the weekend.
Anyway, a few things I've been up to lately, if you were wondering where I'd gone.
The internship is either ramping up or winding down, depending on how you look at it. I've got another week and then I'm driving back to Ohio with a friend of mine on what we have dubbed the Great Trans*American Adventure. More on that in the near future, but it means I've only got a couple more days to knock around the beach and historical sites, which is...kinda sad. I've really enjoyed the independence of this summer, and I've really enjoyed being here. I'm not sure I could ever live in the Hampton Roads area long-term -- the population's really transient due to the military, the traffic's a nightmare, and the ocean will eventually wipe large chunks of it right off the map (trust me, I've spent all my time going to conferences on emergency planning about sea level rise, and let me tell you, waterfront property is not a wise investment 'round these here parts) -- but for the summer? Yes, definitely a good place to be.
Anyway, that means I've got a bunch of big pieces to finish, mostly on the aforementioned conferences on sea level rise. This has been a strange sort of job -- I'm about two steps further removed from the science than I'd like to be in a science writing job, but hey, I'm an intern, that's sort of to be expected. What I didn't expect was the amount of actual journalism I'd gotten myself into -- interviewing professionals and transcribing recordings and coming up with clever leads are not things I was actually very familiar with at all. It was weird having to learn to write in an entirely new format, but I think I picked it up fairly quick and now I've got an even broader set of skills to work with. The good thing is that people seem to have liked my work -- my boss passed along a really nice little note from a conference director who said she'd liked one of my pieces so much they were gonna run it in their own newsletter. So that's an encouraging sign!
Let's see, what else. I've been fairly active on the fandom front, actually, though the vast majority of it is over on Tumblr. There is a bizarre and excellent podcast called Welcome To Night Vale that you should really check out if you like any of the following: community radio, conspiracy theories, weird science, or small desert towns that shouldn't exist and contain all sorts of reality-warping extradimensional abominations that everybody just kind of accepts as part of life. It's sort of, er, HP Lovecraft's Prairie Home Companion? Spooky, funny, and really well done. For a story with no visual components the fanart is all spectacular.
I have also sort of fallen head over heels in love with Pacific Rim, which I was not actually expecting but at the same time totally was. There is nothing apologetic about that movie: it knows it's working with a nutty concept (oh no, attack of the giant deadly extradimensional aliens -- let's build huge-ass robots to punch them in the face!!) but just barrels ahead, laughing all the way. It's fun, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of action movies that have come out recently. I am so tired of everything being grimdark all the time. If you're gonna give me an apocalypse, at least make it colorful! And Pacific Rim is certainly good for that. It's also a giant pile of all my favorite tropes and visuals -- technology porn, neon and rain, squabbling scientist bros (one of whom is covered in glorious tattoos), massive nuclear-powered machines, mind melds, Idris Elba being majestic, lack of romantic subplot(!), bromance literally saving the day, and Ron Perlman in gold-plated shoes. It's self-aware and joyful and I love it for that.
It's also turned out to be a hotbed of really good meta over on Tumblr about non-romantic primary relationships and more weird science and the consequences of getting inside someone else's head. I keep wanting to write crossover fic with literally every fandom because I hadn't realized up until this point that mind-melds or neural handshakes or whatever you wanna call them are probably my favorite trope. You literally control these massive machines through the power of trust and shared experiences and willingness to let somebody else into your head, which is...not the sort of message you usually get in an action movie? Aside from the part where you've gotta go kill stuff and the fate of the world is at stake, I think I'd actually make a pretty good Jaeger pilot.
(For the record my Jaeger would be called Trinity Vortex and be red and turquoise and my co-pilot would either be my sister or Roommate -- both of whom are appalled that I'm in love with such a ridiculous movie. Feh, I say. I'll get both of them to watch it yet and then we'll go save the world with kickass robots powered by feelings. Not that, uh, I've put much thought into this or anything.)
Giddy rambling aside, go see it, it's a blast. Friendship robots, man. It just doesn't get old.
I have a bunch more I wish to write about but I need to go draft a piece on sea turtles and go to bed. We'll save the rest for the weekend.