A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight

Maybe it sounds ungracious but I can't wait to move out.

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Citizen

57% Elegant, 45% Technological, 60% Historical, 36% Adventurous and 14% Playful!

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Waiting to hear back from UMD about taking courses as a non-degree student. I don't want to get out of academic practice, so I figured being a part-time kind-of grad student wouldn't be a bad way to go. I can take a class this semester and take one next semester... and hopefully by next fall I will be a full-time student somewhere. I'm sending out applications again this fall, and hopefully working with my undergraduate advisor on getting my paper published. That would be some serious awesomeness... and further my dreams of meeting Neil Gaiman and squeeing a little.

Just a little.

Otherwise, life has been going on as usual. I've been working at CVS (woo) and hoping that I can find a better job that doesn't limit me to 20-30 hours a week and pays a little better than $8.50 an hour. I am not saying that's a bad pay... but I want more than this. I don't want to be stuck with this company. I have a friggen BA! I was hoping that would count for more than it seems to these days.

Ah well. I'll keep hoping for graduate school.

I'm back from an unexpectedly lengthy hiatus.

I have successfully complete a BA in English Literature with a minor in Writing, graduated as a College Scholar with departmental honors (though I just missed Cum Laude... 3.488 GPA). So where am I now? Back home with no job. Well, that's not completely fair. I do have a job at CVS and I'm going to keep it for now... looking for a job is easier when you have one. I don't feel as desperate for a paycheck.

Right now I'm looking for graduate schools all over the nation and a few international ones (University of Bristol, University of Edinburgh primarily). I think it might be cool to do an MA in the UK, especially since most of their programs are only a year long.

On the home-front, the house has been invaded by my sister's cohorts. Two of her friends are living here, both of them temporary but they are already driving me insane. Friend #1 is here for 3 months, friend #2 is here for (hopefully) just 1 month... but I have a feeling she'll be here for two. They are eating us out of house and home, seriously. My mom is content to go shopping to feed us (us usually being myself and my two siblings), and usually that happens once a week, maybe once every week and a half. Lately? She's been going twice a week. If she shops on Thursday, the locusts have eaten everything by Monday.

It's driving me insane. I grocery shop for myself if there's something I really want, but these two girls (one of which has a job) don't contribute anything. My mother hasn't asked them for rent or anything, and I'm really wishing she would. But it's not my house, and it's not my call.

Sigh.

I need to move out. But I'm reluctant to do so until I know what's happening with graduate school.

Well, my hard drive died.... again. My laptop is just a year old!!! I have no idea what happened, it was a registry failure or whatever, but it gave me the blue screen of doom. So I replaced the hard drive and now I have to figure out how to get all my pictures of Italy off the old hard drive.. since I was a genius and did not back it up AS SOON as I got home.

By the way, I was in Italy.

It was fantastic, and I would share pictures except that I don't have any... hopefully this will soon be fixed. I've been told that since the hard drive didn't fail completely I should be able to plug it in to a computer (possibly my laptop) with a USB adapter... has anyone ever tried this?? I really want those files x_x

Also, stewardess has reminded me how much I miss my cats =/ Maybe I should just sneak one on campus. Our RA would never notice.. it's not like they're noisy and they're well adapted to being indoor kitties. Shaggy and Boo would amuse themselves and Fluffy would just sleep on my bed all day like she usually does.

Man... life between the election and now has been... fast.

I finished my senior thesis, got an A on it.. my professor recommended that I try to get a 10-20 page version of it published in a journal, and that I present a version of the same length at an MLA conference or something. Suffice to say, I was floored, and all kinds of giddy. She mentioned things like this in the recommendation letter she wrote for me to various graduate schools. I've sent all my applications in and now we play the waiting game.

I spent the last ten days in Italy, of which I will post pictures soon. I'm still going through and editing them - I was there for a photography class and I ended up taking 2500 pictures. Certainly not the highest number in the group by far, but I think I did pretty good. We did 9 cities in 10 days, which let me tell you.. is not easy. Florence (2 days), San Gimignano (3 hours), Sienna (4 hours), Rome (3 days), Assisi (1 day), Venice (2 days), Padoua (3 hours), Verona (5 hours), and Milan (2 days). Obviously some of the smaller cities were done on the way to larger ones - we drove south through Tuscany to Rome, then north through Umbria to Venice. It was beautiful. Seeing so many things I had studied in history and art history classes was amazing. I'm still getting over the time difference, it's always harder coming home and on top of it I caught a cold right at the end of the trip and have it full blown now. Huzzah.

Hope everyone out there is doing well. This transition from LJ is going terribly slowly. Someday I'll get all my fics up, and the rest of my icons. I have my Photoshop up and running again, so I can once more take requests for graphics and icons. I'll post that around somewhere.

Also: best condom commercial ever:

Or I will not listen to you bitch about politics for the next four years!

Seriously, senior year kicks some ass, and not in a good way.

I'm working on applying to graduate schools and the paranoia of "oh fuck I'm never going to get in ANYWHERE" is starting to kick in. I feel like time is flying by - when the fuck did it become the end of October? Seriously? I take round two of the GREs in just a couple weeks. My first application is due, completed, December 1st. These people don't fuck around, clearly.

On the upside....

I HAVE A PUPPY!

*clears throat* Eh hem.. pardon that. As some out there may know, our English Mastiff, Thumper, died about a year ago in December 2007. So now we've decided, it's time for another one.

Meet Bear:



He is a 10 week old mastiff puppy, currently weighing 25 lbs. We're hoping he gets up to at least 240 >.> we like 'em big. Seen here with our golden retriever Pippin, they have quickly made friends. What Pippin doesn't realize is that in a few months, Bear will be as big as him, if not bigger.




Also, notes to self for kinkfest:
Due:
November 9th
Samurai Champloo - Mugen --> Jin - cross-dressing – Jin is almost a woman, so there is no shame in it

November 13th
Crossover, Hellblazer/Sandman, John Constantine/Morpheus, dream interpretation - in dreams, anything is possible

November 14th
Lord of the Rings – Legolas/Aragorn – physical exertion – “I never understood why he tired before I did.”

The Silmarillion – Finrod/Bëor – language barrier – in the dark, they taught each other to speak with broken words

November 16th
Loveless - Soubi/Ritsuka - body paint - making something new

November 25th
Death Note - L/Light - handcuffs - rattling, pulling, scraping

November 26th
Death Note - L/Light - fightsex - anything but apathy

November 27th
Sandman - Death/any - leather - I want a lover I don't have to love

November 29th
Sandman - Desire - careless - "Got time to wander, to waste, and to whine/But when it comes to you it seems like I just can't find the time."

November 30th
Lucifer - Lucifer/Michael - longing - won't you come run east of Eden with me

Varying degrees of naughty, not suitable for minors.

Preview:


( naughty )

Various anime including and not limited to: Loveless, Fruits Basket, FFVII, Hellsing


Preview:



( Japanime me )

Another icon set movin' on over.

Preview:



( fantasy )

I've decided to slowly but surely start moving my graphics from LJ to here. Here's the first set, my geisha icons. I had a small obsession.

Preview:



( geisha icons )

I really do mean to post more but life was NUTS this summer. I worked all the time, up to 12 hours days, and let me tell you by the end of that.. well.. you just don't have a lot of motivation to flop down and write in a blog. I could barely form a verbal sentence, never mind actually managing to type one. Anyway, I'm back in school now and am feeling a bit more rejuvenated now that I have a somewhat more sane routine.

Perks? I went to Scotland for 3 weeks this summer as part of the SUISS program in Edinburgh, for creative writers. It was FANTASTIC, and the only thing remotely resembling a vacation I had. Suffice to say, I was broke upon returning.

It's getting to be another crazy time of year though: time to apply for graduate schools. Woo. I have the GRE general test in 8 days, then the subject test in November. I'm starting to think I should push back the date of my general test because it's coming up fast and I don't feel ready. It'll cost me $50 to change the date, but if my scores aren't great, it'll cost me $130 to take it again... so yeah. I'm not sure yet. I'm not even sure where I'm going to apply. UMD seems like a strong possibility, so does Boston College. Maybe the University of Bristol, where I spent a semester abroad last fall.

Is Stewardess out there somewhere? I know I'm just a spot on your friends list but I was wondering what ever happened to the book you were working on. I've been hanging on for news ever since you took the fic down (for very good reasons). I'll gladly pay whatever the asking price is if it's been published!

I've been back on campus for about four days, and there has been nonstop drama for about three of those days. Between roommate juggling, relationships falling apart, and psychos going off on me, I'm already tired of being here. As I'm typing there is more or less an Inquisition going on in my room, this poor guy (and I am starting to feel sorry for him) is getting grilled by his (I'm assuming ex) girlfriend and my roommate for something he did while he was abroad. They're asking the same questions and demanding the same kinds of information over and over again and there's nothing more he can say about it. This is getting painful for me and I am in no way involved other than the space that it's happening in.

Nevermind about the psychotic ex-roommate situation that Alex, and consequently I, am dealing with.

Oh, and the block of classes tomorrow that is more or less four and a half hours straight. Honestly, that's getting to be a little much, but there's no way to reschedule them. Granted, I like 2/3 class so it's not terrible, but it's still overwhelming when you're reading for Astronomy, Women Writers, and Ancient Egypt in one night it makes your head spin a little.

Other than the drama.. so far so good, I'm glad to be back and I keep trying to remind myself to keep up with this thing - so much going on that it constantly slips my mind.

Cheers to everyone out there, here's hoping everything settles down before all this tension makes me sick.

Hoping to help me to recover from my pet-mourning, some friends took me to a movie. Of course it was P.S. I Love You - damn sadness! However, the fantastic part (and I'll admit I squee'd) was seeing a trailer for The Other Boleyn Girl.

God. Teh Bana. In tights! I can't bloody wait. AND it comes out just in time for my birthday. :D Clearly the producers were thinking of me.

A week ago, we had to put down our English mastiff, Thumper. He had a spinal stroke and was paralyzed in his back end, he couldn't walk and in order to treat it we would have had to give him a dose of steroids. That would have made his staph infection worse, possibly would have made it systemic. Either way, the dog wasn't going to make it... that doesn't make it any easier. At least he wasn't in pain when we put him down, especially since it was so sudden.

Today I found our cat Kua under the willow trees near the barn. She's been missing for about a week, we put out flyers but no one had seen her. Maybe she got hit by a car, or someone's ATV, and was trying to make it home. She was only 6. She used to come down to the barn with me all the time and keep me company while I did chores, I'm really going to miss her. Thumper too.

I know there's nothing I can do about either of them.. but it still hurts.


Rest easy Thumper bear





I'll miss your pitter patter Kua

Due to an annoyance with LJ, I am moving to InsaneJournal. Slowly. Fics will come first, then "real" updates eventually after that. Don't expect anything solid until after the new year, when I will be settled back in the USA for good for a while.

Cheers everyone!