Below are the most recent 20 friends' journal entries.

Saturday, November 28th, 2009
icarusancalion	12:00a	... with cheesecake. I love sga_storyfinders. And cheesecake. And look, I have both. In fact, every sentence ends better if you add "... with cheesecake." Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
icarusancalion	9:39a	Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. I was just informed that mom and her roommate were expecting me to do the Thanksgiving turkey. Along with pumpkin pie (crust from scratch) and my cheesecake. Whut-? This is going to be one of those weeks, isn't it? Good thing it's 9am. (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	9:26a	And the computer goes *boom* ... the fic vanishes Here's a fanfiction heart attack. Midway through my sga_santa fic, the borrowed laptop suddenly freezes. Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
qaf_retread [ happier_bunny ]	6:43p	Feast of Thanksgiving Fic I bring you some Thanksgiving fare - Brian and Justin style. To everyone celebrating, have a great holiday and to all others enjoy your Thursday! Thanksgiving by Myrna - when Myrna gets it right, she gets it so very right and the end of this story makes me melt...just melt. DAPHNE GETS A DOG by xie_xie_xie TRYPTOPHAN by msjudi Current Mood: good (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
icarusancalion	2:58a	500,000 animals being slaughtered right now. My mom has been talking about this for weeks: 500,000 animals to be ritually slaughtered? On Tuesday, November 24th the Gadimai animal sacrifice festival will take place in southern Nepal. It is said that 500,000 animals including buffaloes, chickens, goats, pigs, rats, and birds will be tortured and slaughtered during this Hindu festival. Write to the Nepalese Embassy: info@nepalembassyusa.org In India, the ritual slaughter of animals in such rites as the Agnicayana has long been replaced with effigies. There is no religious reason for this throwback. Despite the detailed instructions in Leviticus, Judaism no longer sacrifices the fatted calf. Like that. Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	12:42a	What no one will tell you about college. I'm tutoring high school students, prepping them for the SAT. I think what they need as much as good SAT scores are some good college strategies. Share yours here. So here it is: What no one will tell you about college (until you get there). 1 - Want to increase your scores 5% without doing anything? ( Sit in the same seat every day ) 2 - Talk to your professor outside of class. ( Disagree with your prof? Good! Take it to her/him at the end of class. ) 3 - Bored? Ask a question. ( Every time I found myself zoning out during a class I would raise my hand ) 4 - Avoid clock-watching. ( Avoid the clock-watching tick by sitting where you can't see the clock. ) 5 - High school is for taking the classes you hate. College is for taking the classes you love. ( Don't be a masochist -- if you can avoid that hated math class by taking a much more interesting astronomy class, do it.  ) 6 - Know thyself. Work with your habits rather than against them. ( If you suck at mornings, don't take that 8:30am Japanese class. ) 7 - Avoid schizophrenia and be efficient: Take related classes at the same time. ( You can use your readings from Indian history as sources for your Indian lit class and vice versa. ) 8 - If the class you want is booked, show up anyway, books in hand, and participate vigorously. ( The professor would rather have you as an extra student than the disinterested slackers in the back. ) 9 - Give yourself flexibility: Plan, plan, plan. ( When you're not sure of your major, take classes that apply to all three of your most likely majors first. ) 10 - The one I learned too late: Build a relationship with professors who are top in their field by taking more than one class with them. ( If they're a bit of a name, their opinion carries weight. ) Current Mood: happy Current Music: Skid Row (1 Comment |Comment on this)
icarusancalion	12:17a	Reason number 211 why I love these high school students. Reason number 211 why I love my high school tutoring students: A student wrote his SAT essay. He detailed how, scientifically speaking, the planet doesn't need humans. <3 (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
icarusancalion	8:22p	Women ninjas. The music awards: Shakira has women ninjas! (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	4:47p	Quantifying a life. Good news on the work front: My tutoring job is going to give me 16 hours a week as of Dec. 1, which is great. It's an improvement. The pay rate is good, and it gives me the required experience I need for teaching. (90 hours is the magic number. I'll have it by the end of December. Then I need a year of school for the teaching certificate.) Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to live off of. I don't have a car in car-dependent Maryland, so I'm having to ask "mommy" for rides to work, to interviews. I have all the time in the world to write -- yet can't find the space because I have to write around other people's schedules. It's been four months and I'm getting the feeling she's burned out. As am I. I want my life back. Quantifying a life. ( When I drove across country to Seattle in 1996, I had a car. ) Aside from the degrees, how did I end up with less than when I started? (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:35p	Mousie report. Mousie report. Some of you may recall this post wherein a family of mouse babies took up residence in one of my fleece jackets (in a box that happens to be outdoors). I discovered this when I pulled my jacket out of the box, scattering mouse infants everywhere. I removed my other jackets, packed the box with newspaper, and used newsprint to scoop the littles back in the box. A week later I discovered I'd missed four mouse babies, who'd fallen into a box I took inside. Noooo.... Then the temperature dropped and I thought the outdoor mousies were history. Three weeks later ... I'm happy to report that the mouse babies survived, and have moved on. But the nest is clearly there, and there are no apparent corpses. Proof of life: the fleece jacket was not so lucky, sacrificed to the cause. The Mousies chewed a few holes. Unless Rainy Pass can fix it. (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:11p	Buddhism questions: passing the buck. People always ask me about Buddhism ... and I'm caught flat-footed. You should ask a good Buddhist! Well we're in luck. And online, too. Tulku Orgyen has offered to help anyone with any questions about Buddhism: http://twitter.com/TulkuOgyen Retweet, tweeters. And thank you, Tulku Orgyen, for letting me pass the buck. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:02p	The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! If you're like me (in years past) you probably tune in to these winter sports, oh, once every four years. You get a general sense of who the favorites are from the announcers and interviews, roll your eyes at the inspirational life story clips, and root for the home team. Now you don't have to be in the dark. You can be knowledgeable long before the Olympics hit. At least about figure skating. (Everyone, feel free to correct me. I'm not an expert, I've just been following skating to the best of my ability for a couple years.) Right now the horse race is on. It's the Grand Prix. As we speak, world class skaters are competing in a series of competitions Russia, France, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and er, I think elsewhere. Right now they're trying to earn points to get to the Grand Prix final -- and prove themselves worthy of the Olympic teams. You see, last March at the World Championships each country won the number of slots they'd have at the Olympics based on how their skaters did. (The max is three.) China was very disappointed to not win any for men's figure skating. In a real shocker, the U.S. women's figure skating only scored two slots as our current National champ fell apart. But our men are doing fab. Evan Lysacek won the gold at Worlds and we have a "deep field," namely, many guys running neck and neck for the same titles. Let's have a look at our boys. The Americans. The ever-hot gentleman, Evan Lysacek. (The belt buckle is Batman, with cable and bat-grappling hook.) ( Evan has the quad. He has the fire. He's a skater who starts pouring it out in the last 30 seconds of his performance.... ) Finally, there's Mabanoozerabadahblbrghf. Graceful, fluid, fun to watch. I don't know if he'll keep moving up, he's still inconsistent. But he has a musical sense that makes him figure skating eye candy. Only three will make it to the Olympics. Which three? We'll know at Nationals in Spokane, January 2010. Tomorrow: those other guys, yeah, them foreigners. Current Mood: bleary (Comment on this)
Friday, November 20th, 2009
icarusancalion	12:03p	About SPN.... ( SPN: About last night.... (of course there're spoilers) ) The real "oh no"? SPN's not coming back until the end of January? Oh no! Wait, wait. Don't panic. There's still Merlin. Current Mood: entertained (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
qaf_retread [ happier_bunny ]	8:55p	Themed Retread: Bound Brian Anyone in the mood for some steamy porn from some of our finest porny writers? If so, have at it and remember, I'm not responsible for your reactions. :D LIKE THIS by vamphile UNMANNED by rhiannonhero TLC by xie_xie_xie LEARNING CURVE by luceononuro Don't forget to drool all over the authors! Current Mood: curious (12 Comments |Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:52p	SGA Santa Dragging this SGA Santa story out of me, one sentence at a time. I whimper at every NaNo post I stumble across. I stalled out early. Too much going on in RL, from temple, to work, to the job search, to WG not sending me my things, to the difficulty in finding time to write, to being several months out of the writing vein from having my life turned completely turned upside down. This doesn't stop me from hoping that I can write something on this story once I get my mental pen to work. Working tonight (yay!). I've also received my first paycheck. Current Mood: frustrated (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
icarusancalion	2:56p	Merlin/Narnia fanart Merlin fanart must-see. Morgana + Edmund from Narnia. Startling how perfect they are together. I see trouble brewing right on the page. *sings* They say it's my birthday! Since it's my birthday, could someone tell me what the really good fics are from the SGA Big Bang? A few Merlin recs wouldn't go amiss either. ;) Current Mood: groggy Current Music: Muse, Muse, and more Muse (Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
dementordelta	9:17p	Clank Vs Chains Sorry for the dearth of updates. See previous posts about the state of ass-kicking my job has given me lately. Luckily for me, the lovely cruisedirector doesn't mind sharing moose pops and Paul Gross with me when I get a day off! Theater:I'm heading north this weekend for a flying visit to a friend in Chicago, and have three shows lined up! \o/ I'll be seeing Beethoven As I Knew Him, Don't Give Up On Me with Peter Gallagher and The Addams Family! which I've been dying to see but didn't think I'd have time for since I'll only be in town two days! Birthdays: Happy Birthday ariadneelda! Holiday Cards! Don't forget if you want a holiday card, go here if you'd like a bit of Snape and Harry in the mail! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
icarusancalion	7:09a	Joining the posting frenzy at AOOO: Two more HP fics. I'm joining the posting frenzy at http://archiveofourown.org/, starting to upload my HP fics. Now available: Primer to the Dark Arts. Harry learns he is to be given private (and secret) tutoring in the Dark Arts. His teacher? Professor Snape. Features ghost cats and cursed harps, spells that are supposed to go wrong and don't, a friendly sociopathic Death Eater. and Snape's naughty, naughty library. (Written 2002, post GoF.) Cursed Artefacts For Sale. Severus drags Harry to a Wizarding auction. "Collecting Cursed Artefacts is a registered form of madness in the Compendium of Wizarding Mental Disorders and Other Things That Make You Twitch," Severus said, "like most compulsions to collect. But it's very a popular one and I plan to beat everyone else to it." Current Mood: languid (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	5:26a	Merlin: the one where Arthur swordfights. Not that one, the other one. ( Merlin: spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, herein comes some spoilers. ) I love this show. And to think that if mom hadn't kept me up late I would have ... okay, I probably would've watched it Monday. This week: the GRE. I'm not ready for the math section. I haven't taken math -- I haven't so much as poked a stick at math -- in 20 years. But... I'll never be ready for it. So let's just do it. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
femmequixotic	6:31p	This and that, and recs of fic. I am evidently ridonkulously homesick because I have the University of Florida/University of South Carolina football game on the TV and I hate football, whether college or NFL. But it's a South Carolina home game and (despite the fact that I am highly ambivalent about USC and its athletics program) I'm all HOME! WOOBIES! *sniffles* Anyway. I caught up on two Spooks episodes today while procrastinating from writing and was going to rant about a certain plot development that occurred at the end of 8x03, but then reserve distracted me this awesome photo and I really think someone should write Harry/Draco fic based on it. *eyes certain segments of my flist speculatively* I am willing to beg, trust me. Two fic recs! One's Snape/Draco, one's Harry/Draco. The first is Clean and Filthy by entrenous88. It's a 5,000 word post-HBP Snaco written for the daily_deviant kink costumes. It's got Spinner's End, power plays and Draco dressed as a French maid. Oh, and there may be a scorching hot boot. It's gorgeous and oh, it makes me miss Snape/Draco so much. I think once I finish some of these fics I'm working on at the moment, I might reward myself with a wee bit of Snaco writing. The second is Cornbread and Sweet Tea by sor_bet and it's the prompt I chose to have written for me for the ownficfest. It's a Harry/Draco AU that takes place in the American South, and I adore how sor_bet weaves actual canon into the story while picking the characters up and making them truly Southern--and yet keeping them totally in character. It's a wonderful read and take it from this Southerner, it's spot-on. \0/ Have realized that it's six-thirty and I haven't eaten yet today. Hm. Probably should remedy that... ------------------ This entry was originally posted at http://femmequixotic.dreamwidth.org/436164.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID. Current Mood: calm Current Music: Gamecocks vs Gators (Comment on this)