random things make up an entry
Oct. 1st, 2007 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksWhoof. I think I am finally starting to destress a little and just be in Boston, which is a good thing; the schedule for the last while has been Farthing Party (wonderful/exhausting) followed immediately by moving (neutral/exhausting) followed immediately by visit from my parents (problematic/exhausting) followed immediately by visit from Ruth's parents (wonderful/exhausting, but I missed a lot of it due to my immune system having politely and thoroughly given up the ghost over the weekend). So I've got a nasty sinus thing, but have a fair bit of time coming up which isn't booked to death, and have come through the really stressful bits unscathed.
It helps that Boston in the not-quite-fall is wonderful in and of itself. It's the end of Runaway Season, so I can wander through Harvard Square without having the nice social worker types ask me if my parents know where I am. I think it's the dyed hair and facial piercing-- I don't actually look like I'm fifteen as far as I know, but all summer every summer the nice people ask, and I don't want to be rude but it gets old in a hurry. It's cold enough for me to wear jeans without dying of heat exhaustion, but warm enough for me to stay in sandals. It's sunny. It's walkable. I know where everything is, and it makes me happy to know where everything is.
I've been watching Turn A Gundam, which is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Gundam franchise is a great multitude of series of Japanese anime, manga, and novels set in various alternate universes and forms of the same universe, and I'm working on a write-up as to why science fiction fans who don't watch anime should care about the Gundam franchise anyway, because it gets very little attention in the English-speaking world. I think it entirely possible that it is the most widespread and rigorous set of sf-nal alternate variations on the same theme by the same people ever, besides without question being the longest-running and most multi-faceted hard sf television show of all time. Sadly, it's known in the U.S. mostly through its latest couple of incarnations, Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed; Gundam Wing suffers from the worst commercial translation I have ever seen, and Gundam Seed is an infinitely better show if one knows about the history of Gundam and the things it's riffing on-- otherwise, it's still pretty good, but not great.
Turn A is not actually titled Turn A; that's the call-name for a symbol from vector calculus that looks like a capital letter A turned upside down. I don't remember what the symbol means, but that's the show's real title. Also it is steampunk and feels vaguely as though it were directed by Miyazaki. My general reaction to this can be summed up as 'Wheeee!'.
Other stuff going on: I am looking for a job. I have applied for a job at the local frame store, a job as a cake decorator, and a job as an IMAX projectionist. We will see what comes of this.
I am in the position of having way too much to write and not quite enough brain to do it, which is frustrating yet nifty. For some reason creative nonfiction opportunities have been falling out of the woodwork lately, meaning that I have two academic papers and a Sekrit Project going, and also there is the Altarwise novella, and also last night I found an unfinished story of mine in a random folder and looked it over and went, huh, I know precisely what happens in that now and I should do that, only did I mention that I am sick? (Not *very* sick. Just headachey and at the energy level where I mostly want to sleep and watch movies. But I want my brain back anytime now...)
Still, having more things that want written than time and brain to write them is infinitely better than the other way around, and this could be a really major spate of productivity, which is rarer for me than I'd like.
In other news, Laura Ingalls Wilder is much more depressing, exhilarating, frightening, anthropologically fascinating, and overall better when read as an adult than when read as an eight-year-old, which shouldn't have surprised me because most things are, but damn those hold up well in some very frightening ways. I may write more on this later when I have finished rereading them.
It helps that Boston in the not-quite-fall is wonderful in and of itself. It's the end of Runaway Season, so I can wander through Harvard Square without having the nice social worker types ask me if my parents know where I am. I think it's the dyed hair and facial piercing-- I don't actually look like I'm fifteen as far as I know, but all summer every summer the nice people ask, and I don't want to be rude but it gets old in a hurry. It's cold enough for me to wear jeans without dying of heat exhaustion, but warm enough for me to stay in sandals. It's sunny. It's walkable. I know where everything is, and it makes me happy to know where everything is.
I've been watching Turn A Gundam, which is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Gundam franchise is a great multitude of series of Japanese anime, manga, and novels set in various alternate universes and forms of the same universe, and I'm working on a write-up as to why science fiction fans who don't watch anime should care about the Gundam franchise anyway, because it gets very little attention in the English-speaking world. I think it entirely possible that it is the most widespread and rigorous set of sf-nal alternate variations on the same theme by the same people ever, besides without question being the longest-running and most multi-faceted hard sf television show of all time. Sadly, it's known in the U.S. mostly through its latest couple of incarnations, Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed; Gundam Wing suffers from the worst commercial translation I have ever seen, and Gundam Seed is an infinitely better show if one knows about the history of Gundam and the things it's riffing on-- otherwise, it's still pretty good, but not great.
Turn A is not actually titled Turn A; that's the call-name for a symbol from vector calculus that looks like a capital letter A turned upside down. I don't remember what the symbol means, but that's the show's real title. Also it is steampunk and feels vaguely as though it were directed by Miyazaki. My general reaction to this can be summed up as 'Wheeee!'.
Other stuff going on: I am looking for a job. I have applied for a job at the local frame store, a job as a cake decorator, and a job as an IMAX projectionist. We will see what comes of this.
I am in the position of having way too much to write and not quite enough brain to do it, which is frustrating yet nifty. For some reason creative nonfiction opportunities have been falling out of the woodwork lately, meaning that I have two academic papers and a Sekrit Project going, and also there is the Altarwise novella, and also last night I found an unfinished story of mine in a random folder and looked it over and went, huh, I know precisely what happens in that now and I should do that, only did I mention that I am sick? (Not *very* sick. Just headachey and at the energy level where I mostly want to sleep and watch movies. But I want my brain back anytime now...)
Still, having more things that want written than time and brain to write them is infinitely better than the other way around, and this could be a really major spate of productivity, which is rarer for me than I'd like.
In other news, Laura Ingalls Wilder is much more depressing, exhilarating, frightening, anthropologically fascinating, and overall better when read as an adult than when read as an eight-year-old, which shouldn't have surprised me because most things are, but damn those hold up well in some very frightening ways. I may write more on this later when I have finished rereading them.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 11:58 pm (UTC)Feel better!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:18 am (UTC)The HTML code for the former is ∀.
---L.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 07:21 am (UTC)Backwards E, "there exists", is an existential quantifer: ∃ (∃)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:30 am (UTC)Please do. I have not read any of her books since elementary school and my primary memories are of The Long Winter and Laura's perception of fever and ague in Little House on the Prairie: no words, only voices. I think we still have copies somewhwere in the house.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:06 pm (UTC)They were among the things the woman I eventually married discovered we both loved-- and even more, it turned out her favorite one and mine were the same. (The Long Winter.)
Soon, our sons will be old enough.