bloodygranuaile

This is a tripartite post!

Part the First: Stuff that is not actually happening in my life

This means this part of the post is about television.

Season 3 of Dexter was exponentially better than season 2, because Lila wasn't in it, also because Deb's taste in men gets somewhat better with each season (season 3 dude is a drug dealer, but is not a serial killer, or older than her dad, and she doesn't throw over anyone who is actually awesome to be with him). Despite the OMG Pregnancy And Marriage subplot, this season is not about le awesome power of romantic love, and is only about as much about le fucking-you-up power of family, but is very much a Power of Friendship season, which is a type of relationship that has really not had much show time in Dexter so far. Of course, Dexter's BFF winds up being just as frakked up as he is, but cuddly new cupcake-wielding LaGuerta definitely showcases the positive transformative power of having cuddly cupcake-wielding bestest friendses. Rita still awesome, in her soft-spoken cute-little-mommy way, and handles falling headfirst into A Pregnancy Plotline with maturity and grace. I give this season an A for massive personal growth on the part of everyone who doesn't die.

Dollhouse: I don't wanna spoil things for people who haven't seen this week's yet, or who did not know season 2 had started because Fox sucks and seems to be allergic to actually advertising the damn show, but: I think Joss Whedon is a Man on a Mission to get every single cast member of Battlestar Galactica on the show. Tahmoh Penikett's been on it since the beginning, obvs, and the weird cockney lawyer dude was on it sometime in season 1, and then Jamie Bamber was on last week, and this week has another Special BSG Guest. Here's to hoping Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff show up soon!

Also: last week's Dollhouse and this week's Castle totally both used the word "frenemies." Which I had previously heard, like, once, several years ago.

Castle: Last week's fantastic. Really exciting for the upcoming week's. This week was about models, but it was an episode of Castle, which means it'd be fabulous if it were any other cop show and I was thoroughly entertained by watching it, but the moment the mystery was solved I stopped caring about the main plot. Hopefully they won't subject us to multiple "because so-and-so was/I thought (s)he was cheating on me"-motivated murders in a row again, like the beginning of season 1, because even as non-predictable as those plots manage to be when they're still unfolding (this is Castle, after all) they always leave me feeling like That Was Totally Unoriginal, Sheesh.

On the movie front: Today I watched Soylent Green. Some bits of it were surprisingly good, especially compared with how bad some other bits of it were. Overall it was better than I expected.

Unfortunately I am not having much time for reading outside of school. Northanger Abbey awesome, as Austen usually is. Am about halfway through A Long Fatal Love Chase (the NEW Louisa May Alcott book!) and so far it is a hell of a lot better than the front or back covers would have you believe.

Part the Second: In Which I Annoy Everyone I've Ever Met By Being Really Cranky

Mega uber super crackdown on club sports procedure and paperwork this year. Like, they used to be like "handing in your med forms is nice, and here's the deadline for financial stuff" but now they have gotten utterly fascist about it. All forms must be in by Tuesday or they freeze the club! They are sending people to observe us, so that if anything is being done not by the book they will freeze the club! Tuesday we are still on motherfucking break, but the forms still need to be in by five o'clock or they will freeze the club! Grad students cannot practice with us, or they will freeze the club! I asked, what about the loopholes to the grad students policy me and Shay and Shihan discussed with Mike McKenna last year? If we jump through those hoops, can they stay? No answer. I asked, if people want to join and get me their health forms after Tuesday, can they still do that, since karate club often has people join at weird times in the semester? I was told... get all your forms in by Tuesday or we freeze the club! So I'm not sure if that's a yes or a no, but apparently it is very threatening to ask them complicated questions so they needed to threaten me back. Aaargh.

Part the Third: Why I Should Totes Not Be Writing This Entry

It is the holiday weekend and I have a ten-page novel synopsis due next Friday and I had very little plot development in my head, just the premise and ending. So now I am home, in a nice empty house (mom is out of town til tomorrow evening), so that I can actually figure out what the frak happens in my story.

I spent all of today worldbuilding, and outlining my plot mountain (yes, I plan stuff in on a visual of that 'plot mountain' shape they teach you about in sixth grade), and wrote the first page or so of the actual synopsis, in addition to going to the gym and drinking wine (Gnarly Head is on sale at Gary's, whee) and hunting centipedes (ew) and a few other things that were not actually writing. Oops. But I did get some stuff done.

Tomorrow needs to be more productive, though, so I's going to bed now.

Goodnight!

I have a blue belt! I probably should be happier about this than I am, but frankly, I don't feel like it's a huge accomplishment... especially since last year they bumped us up two kyu per test, and this year only one. If I'd been good enough to get blue with stripe this test, I'd be pleased with myself (one girl did, from WPI). I'd have to be pretty goddamn lame not to go up one kyu in four months when I had the best attendance record in the class, especially since according to the useless handouts Shihan hands out to intimidate you, blue belt is still on the "one kyu per two months" track. And the thing I am really still abysmally bad at is kumite. And since kumite is pretty much the measure of how good you actually are in karate (as Shihan likes to remind us constantly), it's not much consolation to be able to do everything else. Like... if I had issues memorizing kata, but could actually fight, I think I'd feel somewhat better about my overall abilities than I do having it be the other way around. And between WPI chick going up two levels today, and the fact that Tony got green at the end of last year, I really, really want to improve enough to go for green at the end of spring semester. But since I have absolutely *no* natural ability for fighting (being by nature both slow and highly timid), and not being able to wear my glasses makes everything out of focus and messes with my depth perception, as well as just psychologically slowing me down further (not being able to see makes me REALLY, really disoriented. I am an extremely visual person; I can't even "close your eyes and take a deep breath" to calm down when I'm nervous. Deep breaths help but the moment I close my eyes I feel unmoored and start getting really uncomfortable... it's weird). But frankly I'm not sure it'd be worth it to invest in contacts unless I had some other sort of indication that if I could see, I wouldn't still just be hopelessly bad. So yeah... I'm feeling like I made the minimum requirements today, big freakin' deal, and I have a SHIT TON of work to do if I even have a hope of progressing beyond the minimal level. And even then, I don't really know if I'll be able to pull it off.

For the moment, though, I need to stop feeling inadequate and do homework. I have two papers to write in exactly one week. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH. This probably means I also need to stop spending so much time poking around the AVEN boards, even though they are lovely and interesting and I feel like so much less of a freak there and they just make the world make SENSE. (AVEN is the Asexual Visibility and Awareness Network, btw. This be my official coming out of the closet statement, for any of you that were unaware of my asexyness (or have been misled by any of my lovesick ramblings, but you know what they say about exceptions and rules).)

I also got accepted to Heartless Bitches International but those forums (fora?) tend to have fewer discussions that are long long long and therefore any attempt to hang out there as a newbie is backreading like whoa forever. So no real time for that yet.

...I think I need a drink.

I wonder if it is supposedly some form of illegal for me to have actually been in my voting precinct this morning after voting by absentee ballot? Everything else related to voting seems to be illegal. Tee hee.

After John McCain's concession speech, the group of people I was watching the election with made a toast "to John McCain, for being a better man than Hillary Clinton." I didn't actually hear Clinton's speech when she lost the nomination, but from what I've heard about it, and what other "Congratulations to the person I've spent the last x amount of time trying to convince everyone I'm better than" speeches, it was very classy. Much classier than he's been for, like, the entire campaign. Maybe this is a sign that now that he is not running for President anymore, he will go back to being actually kind of cool like he used to be.

Obama's speech is going to end up in textbooks in twenty years or so. Or at least I hope it does. He seems to be channeling the MLK Jr thing and the JFK thing, and I am praying that those two assassinations cancel each other out and Obama lives to be really wicked old.

We tried to march on the President's house and get him to cancel classes the next day, but apparently they were anticipating this and there were cops there telling everyone to just go home. But it was worth a shot, since apparently it worked when the Red Sox won the World Series a couple years ago. (Presidency vastly more important than Red Sox, in my opinion, but don't tell the Massholes I said that.)

Totally unrelated to the election: since I cannot do judo due to my sinus infection (apparently contact sports will make my spleen explode or something), and since Shaylyn and I were the only dorks to show up to karate tonight, we spent it practicing difficult things and having proper attention paid to the details, which is a nice change considering how often people show up after not having been there for three weeks and making us just go over the same easy shit week after week. We are also consolidating the roster so that people that don't show up consistently are no longer allowed to show up at all. Yay for learning things!

Whee, it's a good day to be an American. :) And I don't say that very often. I am especially pleased at the number of non-Americans I know through teh magickal Intarwebs that seem so happy about this too. So I guess it's just a good day.