Chaucerettescs

So, for my French oral exam, my prof sent everyone a list of 600 questions. We have to pick 60 for him to ask us and be able to respond correctly during our one on one oral review. As my prof is marvellously batshit, several of the questions are awesome/weird/hilariously LOLWAT?:

132. Avez-vous admis la legitimité de Bush? (Did you admit to the legitimacy of Bush?)

136. Avez-vous interdit aux bébés de fumer dans la crèche? (Did you forbid the babies to smoke in the nursery school?) (I am so learning how to say "Yes. I make them go outside to smoke.")

223. Avez-vous promis la vie eternelle aux paiens? (Did you promise eternal life to pagans?) (For a moment, I read that as did you grant them eternal life and was tempted to say "...Holy shit, I can do that? I will gladly suffer through an oral exam for knowledge of my powers.")

294. Kevin, s’est-il rasé la tête à Katmandou? (Did Kevin shave his head in Katmandou?)

324. Allez-vous dire des conneries aux barjos? (Are you going to speak bullshit to the nutters?) (lolol I love this one.)

378. Vous êtes-vous adonné au vice? (Are you addicted to vice?)

392. Allez-vous me chanter des chansons japonaises ce soir? (Are you going to sing me Japanese songs tonight?)

485. Sarkozy, va-t-il préparer sa campagne à la plage? (Is Sarkozy going to prepare his campaign on the beach?) (lol)

548. Avez-vous peint la croix gammée sur les murs de ma maison? (Did you paint the swastika on the walls of my house?) (WAT)

558. Avez-vous réintroduit la nécessité essentielle de la trace écrite dans un discours philosophique? (Did you reintroduce the necessity of a written record in philosophical discourse?)

So, I have my schedule for next semester. It is 22 credits, which will enable me to get my Liberal Arts Transfer Associate's, so I can, well, transfer somewhere. And, before you ask, yes, I am required to take a MACRAO-approved, lab-based natural science course.

Mondays:
9 - 11:55 Fundamentals of Speaking (required)
12:30-2:55 First Year French II

Tuesdays & Thursdays:
9-10:25 Intro. to Human Sexuality (yay, psychology!)
11-12:25 20th Century History
1-2:55 Human Development and Learning (whoo, more psych!)

Wednesdays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
12:30-2:55 First Year French II

Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab


Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab
Fridays:
9-10:25 Essen. Human Anatomy
11-1:55 Anatomy Lab

Murder me right now

Jessica Gets a Double Birthday This Year! Sorry this took so long to get up, but the internet went out this morning. >:(

( Alright, this merits some backstory. )

Anyway, fic-time

Title: Spaghetti, Showers, and Soho (Rubbish title, I'll fix it later)
Pairings: Rufus/Nikolaj
Word Count: 6,983
Rating: NC-17
Timeline: Summer, 2002; After Graduating King' College, Ru and Nik are moving into their first real flat together
Disclaimer: Well... they actually are my intellectual property, so I can do with them as I damn well please (though perhaps shouldn't be allowed to). This one is canon as far as I'm concerned.
Author's Note: Done for Jess' 22nd birthday. And it's taken me until just now to realize that Rufus and Nik would be 22 when this story takes place. It was only meant to be fluff, but it's...this. It is something you will either enjoy or something you and I will make sure to never mention again. Um... Happy Birthday? There is another, decidedly less porny, gift for you in the works.
Warning: Boysex (hooray!), swearing (though if you're reading this, it's nothing you haven't heard me say a million times), references to godawful pasta and doing debauched things in the shower. Again, I've never written explicit sex before, so don't expect it to be terribly good. Features a few words I dislike writing, but which have no synonyms that aren't either clinical or silly-sounding. Gah, I can't believe I'm posting this. For those of you strictly interested in porn, just know this contains long bits of exposition and fluff that only I and a few other people care about.This is apparently my new method of building character histories -- writing smut. I'm sort of at peace with that.

( Nik mmm's with satisfaction, lifting him off the floor a bit, and then peeks over Rufus' shoulder. 'You lost a shoe.' )

So, to tally:
Pasta Dishes Ruined: 1
Sexy Danes: 1
Accurate Impressions of Ben Being a Pompous Ass: 1
Items of Furniture/Showers Christened: 5+
Sexual Acts Within a Period of 12 Hours: 6
Sexual Acts Actually Shown "Onscreen": 2 (sorry)

It needs to be said that I find the notion of Rufus, Nik, Geoff and Alan living together at university ridiculously hot. I'm a bad person. I'm a little afraid that now that my smut-writing-virginity has been broken, none of my characters are safe.


Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have to go find somewhere to die.

Our conversation on Fahrenheit 451 in class today ended with discussing vibrators.

And it was Mr. Avinger who brought them up.

This class is amazing.

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

For Sean. I was bored:



I adore Halloween and am so.pumped.for.the.party. As I mentioned to Leah, Nick and I might be up to a half an hour late. Neither he nor I have the gas money this week for me to go get him, so his parents need to do it. Problem is, his mum can't get there until 6-6:30, putting him in Brighton around 7:45. Wonderful. And I can't go on ahead because he needs to come to my place for part of his costume. Being dressed like Marie Antoinete will probably make waiting around even more depressing.

In other news, I changed my own earrings without assitance and/or flailing, which is good. The one ear is still very difficult to work with since it has a big bump at the site of the piercing, making it hard to find the exit hole.

Finally, I need to go in and talk to my counselors this week as I would like to finish my Associate's this upcoming semester. However, that means taking 22 credits when the maximum is 17. But it's only six classes (only one more than what I'm taking this semester) and only 4 more hours of class a week than what I'm taking his semester. Which I'm more than capable of handling, but I know they're going to dick with me. That's the only thing I dislike about Community College, the counselors can be very condescending. They don't mean to be; they just are. Take the average bumbling counselor and multiply it by 3. It's like they assume that because you're at Community, you must be stupid, which is an implication I resent as stupid people are the exception there, not the rule. Our teachers don't treat us like morons, so why should the administration? Whatever.

So, today a Muslim family in their traditional headgear came into my dad's work to buy a car. And no one besides my dad would help them. All the other salesmen went and hid or passed them along to someone else. One of the salesmen got pretty mad when my dad kicked him out of his east-facing office (interrupting a very involved game of Farmville), so that they could have a place to pray. Even the clerk refused to fill out their paperwork and made my dad do it.

So, in other words, these salesmen just refused service to a couple of doctors with sparkling credit in the midst of an economic disaster just because they're too busy being cowardly little prejudiced fuckrags?

I really fucking hate it here sometimes.

People like this make moving seem all the more desireable. That claustrophobic feeling is creeping back in, btw. The land-locked feeling. Granted, that may have something to do with the fact I spent most of the day browsing Florida real estate, but seriously... when a glimpse of the ocean out the window in a photo of someone's kitchen makes you want to start crying, I think it's time to go back to the damn beach (I haven't seen the ocean in four. fucking. years.) I seriously want to cry just thinking about it right now. And it is the stupidest thing to be upset about ever, but I just can't explain it. You know what? It's actually quite similar to how I feel when I have caffeine withdrawal. Seriously.

In other news, today I perfected my Marie Antoinette costume. It looks pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

P.S. My dad did manage to find them a nice car, btw. (It's for their son).

Oh my God, guys, I am on Cloud 9. I just went and saw David Sedaris for the first time ever and briefly got to meet him when he signed my books!

I am so happy right now, you don't even know.

Me and Katelyn got tickets last minute for The Wharton Theater in Lansing (I absolutely had to go. I've missed it everytime he's come to Ann Arbor and he won't be back in Michigan for two years). So we went to Noodles & Co. and Katelyn patiently put up with my childlike squee the entire night. Including standing in line with me for an hour and 40 minutes to get my books signed. Because she loves me. And I love her. And I owe her so bad now since she still had homework to finish and what no.

I have to say seeing David isn't the weird part... hearing him is. It's surreal to hear that voice come out of someone in front of you instead of, you know, an iPod. Anyway, he read a lot of new material (including a fiction piece skewering ultra-right-wing house wives) and told us about the book he has coming out next year (a collection of morality tales "Though since I don't have very straight morals, they're more like... stories with animals.") He also recommended "Our Dumb World", a parody atlas put out by The Onion which David describes as "very naughty". It's fucking amazing (Katelyn spotted me some extra cash... because she loves me. And I love her.)

BUT THEN BUT THEN I GOT TO MEET HIM. (I am still on such a buzz). He really is so sweet with his fans. He took time to talk to everybody and sign everything that they want signed (hence why the line moved at a crawl). I had him sign my copy of When You are Engulfed in Flames and my sad, beat to shit copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day. This second one I brought alone hesitantly, but mom insisted I bring it for sentimental value.

Mom: You could tell him you've had it since you were 12!
Me: ........I don't want to make him feel old.

( Well......... )
Though I have to say... I knew he'd be nice, but he's so much nicer than I could've imagined. I don't think I could stand meeting someone whose work I loved and have them turn out to be a dick (like Philip Pullman is rumored to be). But David is really wonderful. He really seems to love what he's doing (not that I blame him) and to love talking to people.

And the Venture Bros. premiere is on!

Best.Sunday.Ever.

I read Stephen King's treatise on the horror genre Danse Macabre this month. It's a very cool book and dead useful when writing papers on horror. The whole book is more or less a stream of awesome quotes and anecdotes, but I really love this notion:
I remarked to an interviewer once that most great writers have a curious childish look to their faces, and that this seems even more pronounced in the faces of those who write fantasy.

He goes on to describe what he means, citing a few specific examples, and expalins that it's really in the eyes. How, even when they're old, so many writers still have very child-like eyes. And, of course, being the dork I am, I did some research!

( And he's totally right. Warning:Image-heavy )

They're all adorable.

So, I just got back from seeing Zombieland with Nick (yes, I know, another zombie date). I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Not Shaun of the Dead good, but good.

On our way out, Nick (bless 'im) pointed out a certain poster featuring a certain lanky, blond Brit.

Ok, so.......... Paul Bettany as the angel Michael?

Why do you keep doing this to me, Hollywood?

The movie (Legion) doesn't look terribly good, though I suppose having an apocolypse brought on by God rather than Satan is an interesting film concept for a change.



The effects are just a tad too lulzy. Like that crap Constantine film, which really isn't the sort of thing I'd go to see. But with this poster:



...what option do I have?

I expect to make many HolyBibble jokes.

EDIT: It might be a tad premature, but... Michael/Gabriel OTP.

I think I've found one indicative of what goes on in my head all the time.



I cannot watch this without losing my shit laughing. Gael's little dance! The tattoos! Their big bobble heads! Their apathetic expressions! The way the mouth lines keep showing up so that they look like marionettes!

I need to spend less time on the internet.

(I swear this will be the last of these I post.... for now)

Oh my God, the mood I'm in today. Lol, you have no idea. You know those moments when writing gets a little too dark? This is one of those moments. And here's the remedy:

I wrote my first completely-in-French e-mail yesterday. My professor wrote back in French and I actually understood everything he said. He said I express myself very well and it's hard to find mistakes with my grammar. *is terribly chuffed*

Of course, now if I could just speak it as well as I can read/write it.


I have such a perverse fondness for things that desecrate my childhood.



Frollo: ......excuse me?

Hee!

I've been watching Disney movies in French. That is a thorough mindfuck. I think it's the voices being different, it doesn't quite jibe with my 21 year experience with these characters. Especially the villains. No one can be as chilling a Frollo as Tony Jay. And it's no good knowing the dialogue verbatim because it's changed so drastically in another language (song lyrics are often not even remotely the same). And since the subtitles are for the English language track, they're no use either. That's good though, I guess, since my sound recognition needs work.

And I know it's an unfair comparison, since foreign lyrics have to be molded to fit the melody of the song, but:
Have pity, Maria / Protect me from this bad fate / from this evil flower and her body / Destroy Esmeralda!/ Let a curtain of fire be her only shroud! / Or else make her mine and mine alone!

Just isn't as effective as

Protect me, Maria / Don't let this siren cast her spell / Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone / Destroy Esmeralda! / And let her taste the fires of hell! / Or else let her be mine and mine alone.

For the future: just watch French films instead.

Reading The Sorceror's Stone in French is easier (again, I know the source material inside and out and so can use context clues to figure out the meaning of new words). However, that is very slow going. Having to read so slowly is disorienting and gives me quite a headache.

Today, Chase saw a man in an all white suit sitting in a van outside. He was taking photos of our house and when Chase drove past him, the man startled and a colorful parrot tried to fly out of his window.

Are pirates scoping my house?

I'm in the middle of writing an essay on Ira Levin, and am right in the middle of a paragraph discussing that the occult/possession horror genre is considered to be the most feminine of the subgenres due to the obvious metaphor of women being more "enterable" and the fact that the female sexual anatomy does more closely resemble the notion of strange, powerful, but unseen forces going on than the male's does... when I get my period.

Sorry that the first time I've posted in weeks had to be such an over-share, but I do love it when life has a sense of humor.

You know my writer's block is bad when I don't even feel like writing a brief paper on feminism in Ira Levin novels. Well, actually, it's not so much about feminism as it an argument against the argument that Levin's work is becoming obsolete because feminism has come so much farther since 1972. And, ok, #1 the idea that sexism no longer exists is a tad naive, I think; and, #2 the fears in Levin's works which are so often identified as female, aren't just female fears. I don't think anyone likes the thought of body invasion. Or having your fear brushed off as hysteria. Or being heinously betrayed by the person you love. Or losing your individuality. I mean, yeah, The Stepford Wives film is a bit camp. It's a satire (William Goldman wrote the screenplay, for God's sake). But, one with an ending that scared the hell out of me. And everything about Rosemary's Baby as a horror novel is perfect to me and nothing will ever convince me otherwise (I think I chose to write on this topic just so I could discuss what a fucking scumbag Guy Woodhouse is. If I can ever write a character who is as unspokenly and complacently vile as Guy Woodhouse, I will die a happy girl. I mean, how reprehensible does a character have to be to beat out Satan for the title of The Book's Most Despicable Villain?). And I don't know why I'm rambling about this other than I'm procrastinating and don't actually want to work on the essay itself anymore tonight. Which is odd, since under normal circumstances I could write a thesis on this subject. And with the argument of whether or not sexism still exists, a thesis would be what it took to get all my thoughts out. Which is why I'm focusing more on the female fears vs human fears thing since, unfortunately, I really need to stay under 6 pages. Blah.

And now for something completely different!

Yesterday in the car, my mum was talking about some crap, suspicious situation a childhood friend of her and Aunt Candyce's has gotten into, and said... and I quote, "Something stinks in Denver."

I laughed far harder than I can properly express to you. Hamlet, you may not know, took place slap bang in Colorado. Hee, mum and I have been cracking up over her slip for days now. Thankfully, she has a good sense of humor about such things. Seriously, you guys... LOL.

I think I only forgave her because she immediately thereafter told me a story about Aunt Candyce on the phone with her friend Jami (the same childhood friend), who was describing her boyfriend(who proves that sexism still exists by being a misogynistic, emotionally abusive asshole)'s cheating as being like Ulysses and the sirens (...yeah, ok), to which my aunt replied, "Ulysses S. Grant?"

Oh, Aunt Can.

P.S. Gah, I still have to write this fucking essay. And I have an argumentative paper due on Thursday and I haven't even picked a topic. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

You know, this birthday has put something in perspective. That despite being now 21 years old, there are still some things in life that reduce me to girlish, incoherent squealing:

1) A really awesome antique book (I'll make another post about this later)
2) Sesame Street characters, whose names I'm incapable of saying without adopting a loving, high pitched edge to my voice
3) Walt Disney World

Despite my many, many, many qualms with the Disney Corporation (mostly brought on by reading Disney: The Mouse Betrayed when I was only 10), the fact remains that I adore Disney World. I adore the escapism. I adore the art direction of the attractions and hotels. I adore the films and their characters. I adore that gay Disney employees receive health benefits for their live-in partners, thus thoroughly pissing off the religious right. Living in Florida, my family and I went to Disney 5-9 times a year and I had fun every.single.time I went. Going there immediately puts me back to a time in my life when I was perfectly happy. When Gaga was still alive, the family were all still in one place, and there was never any financial stress.

Now I was recently pretty pissed off when it was announced that Disney has acquired Marvel comics, meaning that Universal Studios Islands of Adventure will have to start cutting Disney part of their merchandising proceeds, because I despise when Disney tries to completely monopolize on anything (including Orlando). But no sooner am I glaring their way, than they give me an awesome birthday present (which does say something, I imagine, about the masochistic nature of my and Disney's relationship).

This morning, Disney announced it's plans to renovate the thoroughly blah Magic Kingdom. Girlish incoherence ahead:

( New desktop omg :') )

Ok, now that I have that out of my system... um, it's not slated to be completed until 2013 (meaning that I'll be 25 and my delirious excitement will be all the sadder). Seriously, between this and the Harry Potter theme park, I'm more than ready to move to Orlando forever.

I just hope the Beast's Castle doesn't include his library, because if it does...


........just expect to never see me again. I will have poofed into the gleeful ether.

It's fanmix time again (I haven't posted one in yonks). Anyway, one of our projects in Horror/Scifi is a creative, alternative media project, so naturally... I did a fanmix. Because I'm a fandom geek. And, of course, I picked Carrie to do it on because it's one of my favorite horror novels/films ever. I saw the film/read the book the first time when I was just starting middle school, a time in my life that had me relating to Carrie more than I'd care to say.



( Who's getting scared now? Tell me, how does it feel? It feels so good from where I'm standing... )

ZIP
(Zip titled: Gettingscared.zip)

Whee! I went to the Ren Faire with Katelyn and Steph (whom I hadn't seen in 2 and a half years) today, which was brilliant and dorky as usual:

( Points of Interest )

So today I finally had to take out my starter studs because they were way too tight and weren't giving my ears enough room to swell/breathe. Not to mention the fact that butterfly clasps are very hard to keep clean, which is probably why my ears keep getting all swollen and weepy in the first place.

So... when my piercer said you have to give the backs of the starter a good tug to get them off... what she meant... was that you have to yank them so fucking hard that you practically rip the earring from your head. My ears are not too happy (of course, neither is mom who's taken to muttering darkly whenever she glances at the studs where they now reside in a cup, bubbling merrily away as the peroxide eats the flakes of flesh trapped on them). I'm never getting pierced with a gun again. At least, not a stud gun.

I'm switching over to hoops (much easier to clean). The problem is getting the new earrings in. As you'd imagine, my ears are puffy and irritated from the abuse (read: blunt force trauma) they've endured and the first two times I tried... seriously, being pierced in the first place didn't hurt as much. So, I'm letting them rest for a bit (as long as I get the earrings in by tonight, the holes will be fine) and giving them salt water soaks and what not.

To make a long story short (too late), GAH FUCK YOU, PIERCINGS, FUCK YOU

EDIT: Ok! Finally got the new earrings in.... That sucked! lol. I didn't switch to hoops since the only hoops in the house are either sterling silver... which oxidizes when coming in contact with bodily fluids and I don't feel like having grey ears... or a $1600 anniversary gift, which... no, that's ok, I don't need that kind of pressure in my life. I just switched to a pair of my mom's studs, ones with backings far easier to get off and clean (they are diamond studs. I prefer not to ask how much they were because, again, I don't need anymore anxiety in my life). The one ear is still very swollen. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on it since it had a bit of pus in it this morning (hence why I was nervous about not being able to get an earring back in it. All I need is an abscess.)

Moving on, I have a bad/good feeling I'll be making a lot more of these:


Edit: also, you know what's cool? Watching Nosferatu while listening to the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. It honestly does sync up pretty well.

Edit: Is it just me or does this seem a little... Famine ala Good Omens?