Thoughts on the Journey

I made it through all the welcome back and orientation stuff, which means I have a long weekend to get in touch with a realtor, make some changes to my library and rest a lot. Last night there was an all faculty party and it was wonderful. There were so many conversations that I got into that I could have stayed in all night, and whenever I talked about all the various sides of myself, people just went oh that's fascinating. It feels amazing to be a place where I can go from talking about research to Milliways to acting to reading and its all accepted. This coming year is going to be full of having to wake up quite early but for this school, it will be worth it.

I've seen a few memes floating around my flist and feel like playing with them. Today is going to be lazy as I'm happy but a bit sore, so doing the least possible feels like the right choice. There's a little festival going on in Royal Oak that I may go over to at some point but for now, delicious iced tea in a cafe.

From ashen_key

Ask me a writing-related question in the comments. It can be about my writing or writing in general, whatever you want. Questions can be as wacky as you want. Ask me about characters, quirks, habits, opinions, favorites, difficulties, fandoms, inspirations, ficathons, challenges, specific stories. Ask whatever! I'll answer and, in return if you want, I will ask you a question at least loosely connected to yours.

From camwyn

Name a fictional character and I'll tell you three reasons I wouldn't want to date them.

And I'm going also open to answering on the fandom number meme over here.

This EP and it's Mixed Muses' mirror were the best ideas ever. Quatre and Charles are talking about dreams, I will somehow finish the dream!fic. I also should have been in bed a few hours ago and will be bleary tomorrow but I'll deal.

I'm posting a quick meme as it's one I love and I'm still thinking about an AU that I need to write.

Give me an AU prompt in the comments and I will plot out for you the fic it evokes in my mind.

And both memes over on this post are still open. For reference those are the tell me about a story I haven't written and drop an image plus characters as a prompt.

Now I'm going to sleep as I love when my creativity gets flowing and I'm such a night owl.

I've been posting a lot this week and I'm just fine with that. It's nice to have a lot of interesting memes floating around and the fic I thought was done is getting added to. So that will be posted another time.

The ship meme is still open here.

Now I'm going to answer three rounds of this five words meme.
Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you, They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). Other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

From yakalskovich( baking, children, Discworld, car, photography )

Round two from in_the_blue( Charles Xavier, New Zealand, University of Michigan, social media, and wearing face paint )

Round three from skidmo( Tea, New Zealand, libraries, writing, Moist )

The past few days have been busy and rather wonderful. My brother and his wife had a Love Celebration and I've met and reconnected with friends and family from all the world, eaten beautiful food, drank great wine and felt quite lucky. Today feels like the first day of my true vacation as there aren't any parties planned. With my parents, I went hiking around Sugarloaf mountain and we've been doing a lot of reading and little else, which is such a treat.

I'm deep in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms,which is a complicated and good read. Normally political books aren't my favorite but the focus is on ideas and belief and relationships more than politics and the writing is brilliant.

I'm going to do two rounds of the icon meme and then head back to my book before having dinner with my brother and his wife again, we're helping to eat leftovers from the three parties and drink wine.

Comment on this post and let me know you want to participate. I will choose six userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

The first round of icons are from one_more_cherry
( Round one )

Next round of icons from minkhollow
( Round two )

It feels like Fall is on the way today as its rainy and getting colder. Today has been up and down. I've been enjoying watching Leonardo! that innerbrat introduced me to, but I'm also feeling slightly off. I have various errands I need to get done like grocery shopping and home stuff that I just don't seem to have the energy for at the moment. Tonight to try and cheer myself up, I took myself out to dinner and a nice local place had a soft shell crab sandwich. That sandwich made me terribly homesick for the East Coast as it was too small, too battered and a cruel thing to do to a soft shell crab. I'm having a small slump as my ideas are being slow in coming except for one, which is mean to one of my characters. Either tomorrow or Monday, I'm going to do errands and put my music on loud as I accomplish things.

I saw Captain America last night and really enjoyed it. They captured wonderfully how honest and earnest Steve is and it was overall a fun ride. I'm excited to see what the Avengers will be like together since the teaser at the end made me hopeful.

Now for another round of the icon meme with an extra. The first time I did it, it was actually meant to be seven icons but I completely forgot to do one for in_the_blue so this time, there will be that icon and then another six for skidmo

Comment if you'd like some icons and I'll give you six.

( I love my 100x100 squares )

That was good and distracting, now I think I'm going to try and write things.

I really did mean to sleep tonight but it didn't seem fated to happen. Perhaps I can reset myself by staying up today and then sleeping when I get home from work tonight. I do plan on treating myself to a proper breakfast of pancakes or French toast or waffles at I think the Broken Egg.

In the meantime, I've finally started setting up my playlists on my new computer and I'd forgotten how for some reason iTunes will reorder and separate things by various artists. Its a pain as I like having my soundtracks in order. Also I have lots of random songs that people have given me and I don't recall them all, which makes things interesting.

I'm also rereading Tam Lin as between the various moves, my lovely paperback copy went missing and I bought a new one from Amazon. The cover image isn't as beautiful as the painting but its nice. Rereading is a joy as this is one of those books that truly imprinted on me. I first read it my junior year of high school when I had a horrible English teacher who did horrible things to my creative writing. We had block classes and I had her twice that year for creative writing and English, in both of them we spent most of our time writing essays for contests as they made her look good. It took me far too long after those classes before I actually started writing fiction again as she made me not look forward to writing. The two upsides were one of my oldest friends, the guy who introduced me to LARPing and was my first boyfriend was in the class, he was willing to argue with her and cause trouble, and she had a eclectic paperback collection. I picked up Tam Lin and it clicked for me, I think its partly to blame for my love of Classics and urban fantasy. One reason it worked for me was that I grew up on a small college campus so the setting felt quite familiar to me.

Now in_the_blue started a round of the icon meme and so my answers to that will go under the cut. I love any excuse to look at everyone's beautiful icons so please comment.

Comment on this post and let me know you want to participate. I will choose six userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

( Some little images that are sometimes me )

I do post things other than memes on my journal but this week has been feeling like a weird sort of vacation so I'm just going with it. All previous memes and prompt things are very much open.

Oh and I have no idea about Google+ or how to get on it.

This one was last seen on dynastessa's journal.

Give me a character's name and I will tell you three reasons why it would be terrible to try to date them, have sex with them, or be in a long-term relationship with them.

For an extra challenge, pick characters you know I'm really fond of. Anyone can tell you reasons not to date Cthulhu, after all.

Its almost 5 o'clock and I really don't feel awake. I hate this feeling as I have a long list of things I'd like to get done. My main goal for today will be to do laundry as that doesn't require a huge amount of moving and I'm in need of it. I'm enjoying my new laptop quite a lot since its so easy compared to my other one and just works.

My coming week doesn't have a lot in terms of going to work or class in it but I have various stuff on my list.

Oh and in odd things that make me grumpy, my hall light has gone out once again. I think there must be something up with it as the lights in my kitchen and bedroom haven't but it feels like I replace this one every few months. I know I use it more but it feels far too often. Also I hate changing it since I have to stand on a step stool and deal with the weird light cover. If I could find a wording I liked, I'd mentioned it to my landlord as I like having a hall light.

Today though I'm not going to worry about any of that and instead post a meme that I'm pretty sure austen started this round. She has the best memes.

‡ Pick one of my icons.

‡ I will (try my best to) write you at least one sentence of something vaguely resembling fiction based on said icon (but I'm not very loquacious so it'll probably be much longer).

Oh and I haven't forgotten about that other prompt meme but my writing has been odd lately. I did a huge amount on the Jane fic and now its slowed, but my plan is to balance class/work writing with fun writing.

Last night I went to an SI pre-graduation party at a local brewpub and had a wonderful time. I had free beer and food and was reminded of just how nice my fellows SIers are. We're all so busy that even though we see each other a lot, we're usually buried in school work. This was a nice chance to just hang out and talk and realize that we're near the end.

After that, I ended up walking over to a fun Ann Arbor festival called Fool's Moon. I took some pictures and saw lovely lanterns, adorable little kids dancing to music. It just made me so happy. Today I slept in wonderfully late before doing a fair bit of RP. I also discovered that my tax refund came in so I can go grocery shopping and not worry about straining my budget.

Also I had a great time today when I went to one of my favorite little cafes and just read Rosemary and Rue for a while. After how Late Eclipses tied up a lot of things, I decided to do a reread to see the plots come together.

At the moment, I'm feeling immensely relaxed as it becomes obvious that while I have tons of stuff to do, my actual classwork is starting to let up. My two Monday classes after this week are either not going to meet or not have any readings. Which is nice as my group projects are coming to a head in my other two classes.

I think I'm going to make it through this semester and do all I can to keep myself open to the good and not let the bad drag me down.

The two memes I have on this post for pictures and prompts are still open.

Since its poetry month, I'm adding the lyrics to Simple Gifts here as its one of my favorite sentiments.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

Today has been quiet for me. I bought lovely new notebooks, put all my new classes and work stuff onto my Google Calendar and tomorrow things start.

Last night I talked on the phone with one of my best friends in the world and ended up smiling. We've known each other since we were tiny and just click no matter the time or distance. During the break we played a lot of phone tag so it was nice to finally just talk.

Now I'm going to post two rather different memes, a prompt one and the wonderful five question one.

From austen

Give me a pairing and a prompt, and I will write you no less than 100 words of dirty dirty porn. Or, you know, as dirty as I can make it, because this is me we're talking about, and I can't really write anything super filthy. And if, by chance, you happen to see a prompt you want to fill - by all means, fill! (There's a dirty joke in there somewhere, I just know it.)

Then five questions from athousanderrors

→ Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
→ I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
→ You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
→ You'll include this explanation.
→ You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

1) Favourite thing about NZ?
This is an incredibly hard question because I loved so much about New Zealand. I think the closeness of everything. In Wellington anytime I wanted, I could just watch to the most beautiful waterfront or Te Papa or hang out in the public library and everywhere people were kind. I think the size of the country does help with this since no matter where you go, there are connections.

2) Favourite character to play?
Another really tricky question, because I enjoy playing them all for different reasons. Currently I love playing Moist because he doesn't have to be good and make sure things get done. He can indulge himself and just enjoy things, which is a relief to play in the midst of graduate school. I could give a reason for all of them, but at the moment he's my escape valve pup.

3) Your best trait?
I think my optimism. It takes a lot to get me really down. I'll have low points but I can usually bounce back from them.

4) If you could RP any character in Milli, who would it be?
I have no idea since really I am playing the ones I love. I have a list of characters I'm not sure I could pull off like Captain Aubrey, but there's no drive. Honestly knowing I can play Will still makes me happy, because he's the character who awakened my creativity.

5) Your dream job?
A small public library outside a beautiful city where in the morning I run storytime and in the afternoon help young people find their voices. I know there's a good chance, the job that brings me joy might look like something completely different. For now though, this is my dream.