ink_splotch

Dear Self,
One end does not necessarily indicated another. Please stop panicking about your relationship, as it could hardly *be* better under current circumstances.
Thank you kindly,
Your Self.

In other news, house! Very exciting, particularly now I've got my furniture sorted - a chest of drawers, a bookcase and a bedside table will be delivered to my house on Thursday. Granted, between 7.00 am and 1.00pm (WTF? I will not be up at 7.00, but they have my number and can call me, I guess), and flat-packed, so some assembley required, but still! Very exciting! Slightly less exciting is the fact that I won't have internet until the 18th. How am I to survive, I ask you? Particularly since university computers are ridiculously slow.

However, the woe that that might cause is negated by the fact that a) I might have a job at either Waterstones or the Disney Store and b) the two main roads near me have, at last count, seven used bookstores between them. And a library. Ahahahahaha, oh god, I am going to be so poor. I did managed to get all my Renaissance lit books for under 10 pounds, though, rather than spending 35 pounds on them, so in the end? I kind of win. A lot.

Also, dinner at Ros's tonight and then Gemma comes up for three days tomorrow. ♥! I am happy with life, I tell you.

(Other things I'm happy about, by the way: Radio Nowhere. Bruce Springsteen + The E-Street Band > everything)

So, screw this, I am going back to Stargate: Atlantis and due South, I need fandoms which can grant me happy endings, dammit, because while As You Walk Away may be the best stories I've read in a while, the ending leaves me all achey and emo. I believe I have spoken - and probably at length - about my issues with things ending. Band of Brothers itself does this to me; I'm happy the war ended, but then they all split up! And go home alone! And it makes me sad! And When You Walk Away does much the same, even as it is gorgeous and hot and very, very Nix and Dick (Nix is so *broken*) as they try to figure out what there is between them.

And it's long, hurra!

(and now, seriously - due South)

In other news, my period came today, and for once there was much rejoicing, as this means I will not be on my period on the 16th. The world clearly loves me, also evidenced by the awesome evening I had last night hanging out with friends from the ex-pat community my family were a part of in England. Including Lisa, who I hadn't spoken to in, oh, seven years, maybe? It's weird, but we still had lots to talk about - even beyond the obvious reminicises. I approve highly! (Even though I had to drive my family home and I really don't like driving with others in the car that much. Or driving when there's next to no traffic - I like having people to follow!)

Apart from that, four days until I see Gemma and I'm getting nervous. Excited, of course, I can't wait, it feels like I've forgotten everything, the way she sounds, the way she looks, the way she tastes and all I'm left with is this ache of missing her and missing the knowledge of her - but also nervous. I can't explain it, it just is.

Still. Four days - and I'm back in England, too, I've missed just *being* in Leicester.

It's been raining and raining and raining; despite a thunderstorm earlier today, the rain has not abated. It's making me feel funny; on one hand, it makes me feel cosy and cuddly, on the other, it makes me miss Gemma. I'm currently cuddled up in Gemma's romm watching television, wearing Gemma's teeshirt and my brand new Converse - shoes I've been wanting for about a month or so now, brown patent leather with green stitching, just purchased yesterday - all of which is embuing me with a peaceful feeling. Of course, that may be the chocolate talking, and possibly the fact that I've just re-watched Kiki's Delivery Service. It's a very sweet film about a 13 year-old witch during her apprentice year away from her family, and it's just so very *sweet* and childlike and makes me feel all warm inside. Even as it makes me miss Gemma. Then again everything does.

I think it's at least partially because I am arriving at yet another big End; the end of my first year, the end of life in university accomodation, the end of Gemma and I's little cocoon, the end of seeing Ros and Mike every night, the end of living near everyone I want to see. It's weird and not at all pleasant really - I have a horrid feeling that it's going to be my highschool graduation all over again, except without my dad to take care of me. I don't know. I just can't stop thinking about it, and it's colouring everything, and it makes me want to grab on to every little moment. I've loved this year, loved everything, the ups and downs and even my stupid mini-depression in later Novemember/early Decemember. This has been basically what I wanted from this year, and I'm all kinds of sad about giving it up.

But enough emo - tomorrow, Jack returns on Who! I really liked Blink though it terrified me stupid; it was a beautiful episode, and Steven Moffat can have my soul, if I ever get it back from Human Nature/The Family of Blood. Oh, Who, how I love you! I am currently discovering the joy of the Eighth Doctor (his companion is a man! they're clearly in love! yay!), so Doctor Who and I? Still going strong. And Jack's tomorrow, which'll be awesome. Hopefully. It is Russel T Davies, and I'm not sure how much faith I have in him. Still.

Other gleeful things: since the end of exams, I've read four books: A Room of One's Own (Virginia, oh Virginia!); The Boleyn Inheritance (Very good; I get really annoyed when people call the series romance novels, when they are in fact political-historical dramas from a female perspective. I spy a paper in this rant.); The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Still not sure I like this. It's a very simple book and it felt too simple for me - too simple to deal with the complexity of the Holocaust); The Dream Life of Sukanov (an absolutely amazing book about art and creating art; but also about the choices we make and what makes life worth living; about compromise; about what we give up and what we keep; about what is important. Which incidentally ties it into my current book The Time Traveller's Wife, which is beautiful and sad and makes you want to believe.) All but The Boy... come heartily recommended and, interestingly, all but one of them are recognizably post-modern, something which leads me to think this may be the area of my focus when the master's degree rolls around.

Final thing of glee (best for last): went to London yesterday. It was awesome! Gem and I watched The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) which was hilarious; we saw people perform opera live in Convent Garden; a finger puppet frog prince fell tragically in love with Gemma after she transformed him from frog to prince (okay, maybe I was the one controlling the puppets - still!); we had coffee and we got 20% off books at Waterstones. Oh, London!

Tomorrow: Star Trek marathon with Cathrine and Dr. Who! Yay!

I AM FREE! Granted, my history examination sucked so much I could've hired it out as a hooker and made good money, but it doesn't matter because I AM DONE. And, with any luck, I've scored the 40% which will insure that I never take another history class in my life ever.

This deserves a dance or eight.

Also, my birthday was awesome, which I'm very squeeful about, and I am currently experiencing amounts of GLEE that cannot be contained about next year. Because I am a loon, I spent ten minutes reading the newly published dissertation titles while waiting for the English office to sign my slip, and I CAN'T WAIT! Can I do it next term? Can I? Can I? But even without the disseration, next year will still be awesome. Chaucer! Sense & Satire! Critical Theory, love of my academic life!

Also glee-inducing? Human Nature. Oh, Martha! I'll have more comments after this weekend, but seriously. Glee! Who just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

I have no wise comments on FanLib and Warriors of Innocence, because I'm not up to speed on them; please to be providing links to get me so?

Finally, I have a million books I want to read. And time to do so now! (Oh - and the entire first season of DuckTales. Because Gemma = awesome!)

Last night I dreamt that Take That were space travellers; Robbie was something to do with computers and brilliant, so everyone put up with him being a twat; Gary was the Captain; Howard seemed to be both navigator and body gaurd; Jason was the engineer and Mark did something which seemed to entail sitting and asking Jason lots of questions/flirting with him. I think they made out at some point - sadly, it has faded a bit.

I'm blaming Doctor Who. No, really. Riley looked and sounded like Jason, hee! Very sweet. And the entire episode was glee-making - watched it with a whole big group, which was quite an awesome experience; everyone was whispering their theories at each other, and giggling inappropriately, and for the last ten minutes there was a constant stream of "but, but, surely...where's Jack?". But even though there was no Jack, I really, really liked 42 ( Even though Ros pointed out the physics problems )

Finally, I need to revise; however, instead, I am watching The Shakespeare Code. I have done about an hours notating so far, and plan to do an essay after tea, then two or three essay plans, though I still need to do summaries for the Marlowe plays. I don't feel *ready* for this exam, but at the same time, I don't feel like there's all that much more I can do; I know the plays, I know the themes, I know how the plays work together; I need to get a somewhat better idea of what happens in which act. And then re-read SparkNotes. Apart from that, it's just essay plans. The thing is, I can write four or five pretty good essays, except it requires that the questions are *just* right. And I'm not sure they will be - I'd like an essay on women, on the power of love, on gender roles in general, on outsiders, on religion, on power and authority. The problem is, the question won't be that vague and the tighter they get, the less likely it is that I can combine the plays the way I *want* to.

I hate exams.

I'm also not a big fan of the fact that I still don't have all the data necessary to complete my stupid language project, because some people think Wednesday is equalivalent to some time during the weekend.

And Gemma's gone back to Bedford.

HOWEVER! I will persevere and get my work done and hopefully my project will be completable tomorrow, at which point Gemma will also be back!

Oh, university life!

Clearly I was accidentally POSESSED BY SOMETHING, or my mind seems to believe I'll be more inclined to revise with shiny new music to listen to. Or I just can't deal with the instant gratification of buying stuff on iTunes. No matter what, I just bought five cds.

I feel so ashamed. But, on the bright side, Mark Owen is a surprisingly good musician. Or maybe it's just that his voice is so lovely I don't actually care what he's singing.

Uhm. That might not be a good thing.

ANYWAY. Also, I feel the need to point out that Alphabeat are awesome and lovely and summery, and thus buying that CD is totally justifiable. And iTunes is like, crazy cheap. Which is why I keep going back to Apple, like the glutton for punishment I am.

I am blaming all this on hormones. And Gemma leaving. Thank god for seeing Sofie tomorrow, or I'd probably go a little around the bend.

Though I totally need to do a SummerMix or something. There's just so much happy-making summer music out right now, like Mika's Grace Kelly, or the afformentioned Alphabeats. Ee! Uhm, though, of course, I'll be doing revision mostly. No, really. I still need to read about 80 pages og history and re-read The Tempest, Titus Andronicus and Antony and Cleopatra. Which reminds me: poisoninjest has a celebratory Shakespeare post up with assorted quotes. You should go read!

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In slightly saner news: Fanmark: The Hallmark of Fandom. Literally *made* from awesome. I'm particularly fond of So Long, and Thanks for all the Fic and A Bundle Of Joy: So You've Got A New Fandom. Oh fandom. Don't ever change. *hugs like mad*

So. Transcendental is possibly the most brilliant fic I've read in a while. Elizabeth is taken out due to an attempted gas poison assisination, and as a result Rodney has to take charge of Atlantis. And this, this fic is just. Excellent. It's long, and plotty and hot and sweet in a really warped way, and go read it now.

In other news, this mouth-breathing thing? Is getting really old fast. As is this history essay. I wonder if they could, if they tried hard enough, come up with some more asisine essay topics. I can't believe they want me to find eight sources on "What were the main characteristics of Early Modern society?" - seriously? I could do it with one source. I could probably do it without sources. And I don't care. It's just a hassle I could do without, really. But it's the last proper essay of the year, so I'll muddle through, I guess.

And I'm whining, but really, I'm just kind of pleasantly buzzed right now. Must be the fic; I don't even care that it's snowing outside.

ETA: Wrapped Up, Sheppard/McKay NC-17, because, okay, maybe I have a slight backrub kink. I own my shame and all that, and this is just hot, all slow build and emotion and hotness. Also? Backrubs. Mmm.

I have been appalling lacking in work ethic this week. Part of this is because I've spent in all about 24 hours at home during the entirety of the week, most of which was spent asleep or keeping up with emails (still behind, but it'll have to wait until Sunday, because plans for today and tomorrow go along the lines of:

Girlfriend's at home.
Have junk food.
Will write history essay.

Since the essay is due in Monday (though it's 2000 words on the Reformation, no problem really, since I plan to go something like this: Luther, Zwingli and Calvin were all motivated by religious theories and wanted the reformation to be about religion; however, the reformation couldn't succeed without the temporal power endorsing - by which I clearly mean forcing, oppressing Catholics, killing people etc. - the Protestant beliefs, and as such the Reformation also became political. An obvious example of this is England *goes of on eight different tangents about Tudor England.* In conclusion: Anne Boleyn, Catholics are evil, Luther sucked, WOO TUDORS!) this seems like a good plan.

But for tonight, I catch up on sleep! Love you all - and if I haven't been commenting lately, it's because I haven't been home. I love you really!

Okay, so because I am spectacularly silly and *want* to be poor, I'm buying The Book Thief off Amazon, and since I have a discount due to owning an NUS card, I figured I'd pick up another book while there, and that book was going to be Danny, The Champion of the World (look, I'm fine with my desire to relive my childhood and the fact the my biggest literary "kink" is child/father relationships (we do not speak of my Lion King thing)), Which is fine, except I really, really want this cover. Which comes with the hardback. *grumbles*

In other news, I've had one of those weird days where on one hand, my social life has been kind of awesome - I even have an arrangement on Tuesday which might be a date with a very cute PTerry fangirl who I met this Wednesday (and how awesome are our LGBTA nights? Very much so, yes.), so, you know, wild amounts of GLEE on that count. However, school continues to suck a bit - seriously, my seminar tutor was impressed I knew when the Renaissance started and what the Reformation was. C'mon!

Also, the next person who explains to me that "people didn't go to bed medieval and wake up Early Modern" is going to get slapped so hard. Who above the age of 13 doesn't realize this? Seriously. I get it. Period dating is slightly arbitrary, yeah, thanks.

However! Instead of focusing on this, I shall focus on the possible-date-thing, and also masses of awesome fic. Which I shall also rec!

( Torchwood )

And also, because apparently, I have a huge love story kink, I've been reading the Harlequin challenge on sga_flashfic and I stumbled over The Hostage Major which is all kinds of awesome. AU, Rodney kidnaps John. I tried to type up a short summary, but seriously, it got way, way too complicated, so here's what you need to know: it has angst, snark and some really, really good sex. Also it builds up a compatability between the two of them that just *works* so well. And I love the way John's mind works.

Same theme, A Royal Deception is, in-so-far as I can tell, having no knowledge of canon, not AU. However, it is lovely - Rodney becomes Prince of...something, and the Atlantis team want him back. Again. Hot. It also makes me want to pet Ronon for some reason.

And now, I return to panicking about the maybe-date. Or possibly I go late night shopping. Hm.

so, last night I dreamt that before Josh had a crush on Donna, he had a crush on Charlie. In my dream I'd written up an entire analysis of why this clearly meant that Josh was bisexual (why I didn't think that was obvious, I do not know) and then I woke up desperately wanting to see the episodes where Josh had said crush. Except they do not exist. And this made me very sad. However, I am now watching A Proportional Response, which is sort of like Josh having a crush Charlie. Which I'm settling for, since there is not Josh/Charlie fic in existence. Very sad. Still, you know. It never stops feeling like this.

Also, you know. The Jed/Leo in this episode is amazing as well. The argument! I could pummel your ass with a baseball bat. I love my show! In case, you know, you were wondering. The first season is just *art*. Also, I need a Charlie icon.

In other news, I now have a friend named Vlad. Which I'm pretty sure is made from awesome.

Now, if only Ros'd cheer up and Mike would get over whatever's making him pissed off at me, and my ear would cease to act up, we'd be golden. But until that happens I have The West Wing.